Off Stump

July 21st feels like a different age now but in actual fact it was less than half a year back. For Cook and Clarke it must seem like an eon and more given how their respective positions as captains has reversed. One thing that has not changed though is their batting form. Clarke had a blip in those first two games in England but came roaring back to form in the third Test of the summer and has continued the good work with two more hundreds since. Cook's scores on the other hand (since the third Test of the summer) read 62, 0, 51, 22, 25, 34, 13, 65, 3, and 1. Hardly what you'd expect from a man who averages 47.2 and scores a hundred every seven innings. Its hard enough to be out of form as captain (and the team's main batsman) when your team is winning. But when you're down 0-2 and on the brink of losing the Ashes, and your senior players are not performing, the weight of personal failure must seem crushing. Cook though has always come across as someone who could bear ...

What a difference five days makes. Less than a week back, Michael Clarke was the one  who appeared somewhat unsure , betraying the fact that he didn't know quite what to expect. After a four day manhandling (and there's no other word really), dished out in large part by two of Australia's most volatile players in Mitchell Johnson and David Warner, the uncertainties all belong to Alistair Cook. It also puts my  pre-series prediction  in some jeopardy though clearly the two teams won't care about that ;-) The key reason behind England's dismal start to the series is (as Jarrod Kimber  astutely points out ) a lack of big runs which has been coming for a while. Against a sub-standard West Indies side (and in English conditions to boot), they managed to  cross 400 just once (and made 398 once) , that too only driven by twin centuries from Andrew Strauss who retired  one series later , where Cook, Trott, and Bell were all significantly below par. A brief recove...

While I admire the honest, outspoken style that Ian Chappell has in his commentary and writing I don't find myself agreeing with his views very often. This latest piece on ESPNcricinfo is an exception though. In what is a faintly ridiculous set of back to back Ashes series (to accommodate an ODI World Cup of all things), the build-up to the second round has been laughable almost. Anyone who hasn't followed the game for a few years might be forgiven if they thought that the Australian domination from the 1990s and early 2000s has continued and that they will win in a canter again. For a team that's lost seven of their last nine matches (and it should have been eight really), that's quite a good turnaround on paper (and digitally). The reality though is that unless they show a drastic improvement (especially in terms of scoring runs) and England have a bit of a shocker, its going to be well nigh impossible for Australia to win back the urn. Despite putting Buffoon Bo...

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...

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...