Off Stump

The only minor surprise for me in the 2013 Australian Ashes squad announced last week was the selection of James Faulkner ahead of Moises Henriques as the second all-rounder. Minor because given  the Shane Watson shenanigans of recent times, I would have thought that Inverarity and co would have opted for a second batting all-rounder (which is what Henriques clearly is). Instead they've gone with a bowling all-rounder in Faulkner and it'll be interesting to see what happens if Watson's batting woes in Test match cricket continue in the first two Tests. As for the rest of the squad, given the way the inexperienced batting performed in India, Rogers and Haddin were always going to make it in to the team and the choice of Khawaja over Smith appears sound too given that the latter's strength is in playing spin bowling. The batting still looks as unsettled and shaky as the Indian fast bowling line-up and its here that the series will be won or lost for the Aussies. The retu...

Virender Sehwag and Dharmendra have more than just an iconic name in common. Their careers started off with great dash and promise and for a while they delivered a wide variety of gems (amidst some minor blips). And as they grew older but refused to acknowledge that fact in their performances, watching them was like watching an extended blooper reel. And just like Garam Dharam did in the late 1990s, a couple of decades later, the butcher of Najafgarh looks destined to fade away similarly (much as I had feared in a post from a little over six months back). I've had the good fortune to have followed more or less his entire career and have watched him play some fabulous knocks and deliver some spectacular results for India (particularly in the subcontinent). My favourite two innings of his both came in 2008. The first was his comeback hundred in Adelaide to help save the game and where he showed the potential to grind his way and mould his innings to the situation for the first t...

Not only was my recent holiday in Japan a good break from work and everything it also came right around the time there's a break in the international cricketing calendar. And while I really enjoy following the game and am relishing the recent mini-revival in Test cricket, it is good to get some time to take stock and do the other things like stats analysis that I enjoy. The IPL (beyond the curiosity value of the first two seasons) is something I've never really cottoned onto and the county game (which I used to follow as a teenager) has become increasingly poor quality and dominated by international have-beens who are past 35. I suppose that I'm not a cricket obsessive after all :-) One piece on the IPL that I did find to be interested reading though was David Hopps' piece on ESPNcricinfo. The whole piece is worth reading but this bit particularly caught my attention - " It has a wonderfully rich history - many historians would claim that the Championship is ...