Skip to main content

The big day dawns

Its a nice coincidence that Dhoni and Sangakkara are both wicket-keeper batsmen who captain their teams. The former's probably the better captain but the latter is clearly the better batsman and their keeping is roughly equally good. Which is what the two teams are as well. Just look at the line-ups - one legend on each side, two all time national greats (Sehwag, Zaheer for India and Sangakkara, Jayawardene for SL) plus a clutch who would like to be remembered as all time national greats (Dhoni, Yuvraj, Harbhajan and Gambhir for Ind, Dilshan, Malinga, Mendis and Matthews for SL). Predicting a winner is almost impossible. All I'm hoping for really is a close, evenly fought battle unlike the last 4 World Cup finals. Trouble is if you look at the matches these two teams have played over the last two years (and they've played a lot as Sidharth Monga points out flippantly :-)) there have been just 5 games (out of 34) that could be deemed close. So that plus the WC finals recent history does not augur well.

No reason not to hope though ......post tomorrow's game, I'll publish my"review" and World Cup XI, that should be some exciting time-wasting :-)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Et tu?

As a single sport website, I think Cricinfo has brought about a revolution and the fact that they were bought by ESPN is testament to how highly valued they've become. Their editing and approach to articles/opinion has been refreshing to say the least and even though they seem to have had a lot of editorial staff movement they've usually maintained very high standards. Off late though, both in their headline styles as well as in actual content, there seems to be an occasional slippage of standards and an inching towards the modern media sensationalism which is a bit of a pity. This piece  by Siddharth Monga is a classic example. Granted that the last two press conferences by Dhoni and Sehwag  indicated clearly that the captain and his deputy did not agree on this aspect of selection but "discord", "dissent", "public sniping" feels rather presumptuous and heavy handed. Yes, it is a team sport but there is no reason why everyone on the team needs ...

Quick singles: Why the double standards?

I'm no fan of David Warner's but for once, I'm firmly and squarely on his side . Sportspersons are probably treated the most unfairly by public opinion (and often the media) whenever they are involved in pay disputes. "Oh, look these millionaires are complaining about not getting paid enough" seems to be the gist of the general reactions. I find this attitude inexplicable at best and grossly hypocritical if I'm feeling less charitable. Like the rest of us, all athletes have the right to fight for what they think they should be paid. That is the fundamental part. In addition (and unlike many of the rest of us), most sportspersons operate in the knowledge that they only have a short period available as a performer, and therefore only a short period to maximise earnings. Most people that I know would behave exactly the same as Warner and his colleagues are doing. So why all the hue and cry?

Much ado about a run-out

Judging by the amount that's been said and written about Ian Bell's run-out-that-wasn't at Trent Bridge, you would think that it has been the most significant occurrence of the series so far when nothing could be further from the truth. Andrew Miller  and Samir Chopra seem to be of the opinion that it was the crucial turning point in the match, which I completely disagree with (the post-tea sessions on days one and two were far more critical and momentum shifting). Andy Flower says that if Tendulkar had been run-out similarly in Bombay, it would have caused an international incident. He's clearly feeling the effects of having been in the England cricket set-up for too long given that a) its very improbable that Tendulkar would do something as daft as Bell did, and b) when a controversial run-out (but within the laws) did happen to him (against Pakistan at Eden Gardens no less), Tendulkar went out to the crowd and appealed to them to calm down and let the game proceed...