Off Stump

Mahendra Singh Dhoni does not come across as a man who lays too much store by Fate but if he did, he could be forgiven for thinking that he's just not destined to captain India to a series win outside the subcontinent any more. His fledgling team came close in both South Africa and New Zealand but could not land the final blows. In England this summer, he's gone against habit and picked five bowlers (though not always the right ones) in three of the four games so far, coaxed a matchwinning performance out of a perennially underperforming pacer, scored the most runs he's ever done in an overseas series , and taken the lead. And yet he now founds his side down 1-2 after successive thrashings and the wheels are starting to fall off everywhere. His record as captain outside the subcontinent is still comparable to most Indian captains of the past (with the exception of Dravid whose W/L ratio is way ahead of everyone else). Dhoni is a proud man though and he will want to impro...

In this day and age where commerce rules most of the time even in sport, its very strange that a Test match should start on a Sunday. Not only does that guarantee fewer people at the ground over the five days, the TV audience also gets affected by the weekend only half utilised. The funny scheduling is only apt though in what has been a strange ol' series in a strange ol' year. In 2013, it seemed like teams had no idea how to win away Test matches any more. Just 3 out of 44 Test matches in the calendar year ended in a visiting team winning and two of those were in Zimbabwe. South Africa were the only team that could claim a creditable away win ( over Pakistan in Dubai ). A lot of teams must therefore have had some serious amounts of "overseas-winnability" magic potion mixed into their New Year's Eve drinks. Or so you would think looking at the results in 2014 so far. Of the 14 matches that have had a result, nine have been won by the visiting team with Sri Lan...

My predictions mostly don't come true so when I wrote that the England-India series was going to be two flawed teams competing for who can play worse, I was not expecting the teams to oblige me straightaway! And while both teams did their best to try and lose the first Test match at different points, the pitch (and astonishing lower order batting) ultimately foiled their suicide attempts. India contrived to lose 4 wickets for 2 runs in their first dig and 5 for 44 in their second turn at different points. South Africa and Australia (or even Sri Lanka in current form) would have stamped them out by an innings. England tried their best to match them by losing 6 for 68 in their first innings but then Root accompanied by the bowlers outdid the Indian tail. If they had batted a second time you can be sure that they would have lost 5 for 30 before being rescued by Ben Stokes and Liam Plunkett. Across the three (nearly completed) innings in the match, wickets 7-10 managed an aggregat...

India have not played a five match Test series  since 2002  (which they lost 1-2). They have not played a  five match series against England  since 1985 (which they lost 1-2 as well). The last time they played a five match series in England (in 1959) they were wiped out 0-5. This team has no one who has played a five match series and they have managed to win only one of their last 15 overseas Tests. On the face of it, this series should be a no contest. England have lost six of their last seven Test matches . They have just been beaten in a home series by Sri Lanka for the first time in their history. Their captain can't buy a run and has started to hit back at his critics in the media. Their vice-captain and wicketkeeper has just made a shaky comeback. In the last six months their best bowler (and the best spinner in the world) has retired and they have voluntarily kicked out their best batsman of the last decade. On the face of it, this series should be a no c...

Disclaimer: I'm an unabashed fan of Mahendra Singh Dhoni as a player and captain (see here ,  here and here ) and believe he's still the best choice as leader for the Indian team everywhere. New Zealand's astonishing turnaround in the Wellington Test match has (not unsurprisingly) led to a renewed call from Sidharth Monga on ESPNcricinfo for a change in the leadership of the Indian team, ie Dhoni's removal as Test skipper. While I have to admit that Monga has been consistent in his views on this for sometime now and the fact that Dhoni's defensive attitude is what costs India opportunities, it would be better if he strove a little harder to present facts fully and not selectively. I don't usually see the point in picking apart opinion pieces but given his latest tirade had so many factual holes and selective interpretations, I feel compelled to do so. " India will have gone 14 Tests and three years without an overseas Test win. Only Zimbabwe have...

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...

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 ...