Off Stump

The last time Australia lost six Test matches in a row , I was still a little six year old boy who had just moved back from Venezuela to India and hadn't the slightest clue as to what cricket was all about. My first proper exposure to the game (and to the Australian team) came during the World Cup in India in 1987 when television coverage was still fairly primitive and the teams still played one-day cricket in whites. Nevertheless, I do remember the excitement around the fact that India were defending champions at home was quite palpable and their first group match against the Aussies was quite the cliffhanger. And from that day on, my image of the men from down under was always one of fighters, who wouldn't concede defeat until the scoreboard confirmed it. And over the next 25 years, there was rarely an occasion when they belied that image. The last six months (and six Test matches) though has changed all that. Ever since the third day of the Chennai Test when Dhoni batter...

There's been much (and deserved) kudos for MS Dhoni and his band of (mostly young and merry) men in the wake of India's recent run of good results starting with the Test series against Australia at home. Forgotten amidst the hoopla though has been the instrumental role that Sandeep Patil, Vikram Rathour, Roger Binny, Saba Karim, and Rajinder Hans have played in enabling this. Much like the best wicketkeepers, selectors usually get noticed only when teams do badly and they are usually deemed a bunch of idiots for selecting players who are either out of form or not good enough. Rarely does the pendulum swing enough the other way when the same teams perform above expectations and win accolades. Sample the many key decisions that Patil and Co. have made since coming together at a time when India were at a real low following the much talked about 0-8 and an early exit from the World T20 soon after the new selection committee came on board. First, the dropping of Zaheer, Harbhajan,...

There are few things in this world that seem to polarise people more than statistics. Mark Twain's famous quote (from which this series takes its name as well) is probably the best example of the school of thought that derides the field and its use to explain things whereas most people of a scientific mind or training will almost always look at the statistics first. The truth as always probably lies somewhere in between. My own more simplistic view on statistics is closer to what a character in one of Rex Stout's innumerable Nero Wolfe books says, "There are two kinds of statistics, the kind you look up and the kind you make up". I was never particularly strong on the higher mathematics side (= the kind you make up) of the statistics coin but when it came to numbers in sports (especially cricket), my thirst for looking up has been like a glass with no bottom. Poring over lists and numbers and comparing players across eras (often on meaningless parameters) has cumu...

Jonathan Trott must sometimes wonder what else he needs to do in order to gain universal approval in the country he plays in. As Barney Ronay rightly points out (though in a slightly different context to what I'm writing here), Trott has more often than not been the most reliable player England have had in years, even more so than Anderson or Cook and is the fulcrum of the current batting line-up. Sample his stats alone. He is the first England batsmen to average over 50 in Test matches (min of 25 matches played) since 1968 (the fact that he is 7th on the overall list closely followed by Cook and Pietersen is one of the main reasons for England's success in the last few years). An Ashes century on debut, an overall average of 80+ against Australia, and an average of 60+ in matches won underline his value to the team tellingly. Add to that the fact that he also averages over 50 in ODIs and is the only English batsmen to ever do so (Pietersen who's next on the list is mo...

The biggest attraction of the Ashes for me is the fact that it is a five match series. Its only over that duration that the true grit and ability of sides emerges and it is a pity that the biggest casualty of the overloaded international cricket calendar has been the five match Test series. The Ashes is about the only remaining one and the number of non-Ashes series played over five matches in the recent past is less than the number of fingers on one hand. And to find a five match series that does not involve England, one has to go back more than ten years ! So while having two Ashes series in successive seasons is probably a bit much, I for one will not be complaining at all even if as George Dobell points out , these two teams are nowhere near the best in the world at the moment. I will not be making any predictions either though I will be really surprised if England don't win, though it probably won't be as much of a walkover as many in the media would make it seem. Instea...

The announcement (finally) of the Test Championship gladdened my heart as I'm sure it did for all other cricket lovers who still favour the format over the limited overs ones. And while the minimum requirement of 16 Tests in each four year cycle feels really low, at least its good news for the likes of Sri Lanka, West Indies, Bangladesh, and Zimbabwe who struggle to get enough Tests scheduled otherwise. The increased gap between world T20 tournaments will also ensure the right level of desire in the teams for that title. What is not so good news is the selection of the venues for the different world tourneys. The list puts down on paper for the first time a fact that cricket fans world over have known for some time, which is that all the power and control at the ICC sits in the hands of the Indian, English, and Australian cricket boards. Bangladesh are the hosts of the next World T20, and New Zealand get a share of the next ODI World Cup in 2015 but after that the hegemony sets ...