Off Stump

I can't recall a time ever when I've been this excited about a series which I was certain would end in an Indian defeat. India have won just two of the 15 matches they've played on South African soil and there's no reason to believe that they will add to that meagre tally this time. If an inexperienced batting line-up (the likely top 6 have a combined experience of 59 matches) made things difficult, a thrashing in the ODI series followed by a washed out practice game almost seals the series before it begins. That's where India's best chance might lie though. No one expects them to do well including the opposition and that can sometimes be a tricky mindset for host nations. Smith and his men are experienced enough to pull up their socks if things slip (like they did in the UAE recently) but to a degree they will be going in assuming an easy win and if India's batting can withstand some of the pressure they might at least go into day five. For once though i...

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 ...

If I had to sum Mahendra Singh Dhoni up in one word it would be equanimous . When you listen to him after a press conference its sometimes hard to tell what the result of the game was, let alone his own individual performance. Its this equanimity too that helps him play the most incredible nerveless innings (like the one described here by Siddhartha Vaidyanathan) and handle the various off-field shenanigans that the world of Indian cricket keeps throwing up. So it wasn't a real surprise to hear him be pretty sang-froid about India's relatively inexperienced squad for the tour of South Africa. Behind the calm though is a man keenly aware (though probably not too concerned) that until he reaps overseas Test success, his detractors will not acknowledge his abilities as captain despite his record being the best by far of any Indian captain. India's next year and a bit which has them playing 13 Tests across South Africa, New Zealand, England, and Australia gives him that opp...

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...

One of the memories of watching Tendulkar over the years is how often he falls over when beaten and hit on the pads and I've always felt that this results in him getting more dodgy leg before decisions than he otherwise would. When you're a short player and you fall over the way he does, umpires can't be judged too harshly for thinking that the trajectory is lower than it actually is. So despite all the protests from the likes of Gavaskar and Shastri on air, I don't think India can complain too much about things given how unsurely they've played the spinners. Be interesting to see how Tendulkar (and the rest of the batters) approach things in the rest of the series and whether they get on the front foot a bit more. It will be good to watch no matter how many runs the master makes.

Given all of the fanfare around Tendulkar's farewell, you'd almost be excused if you didn't realise that there was an actual Test series (or lets just say Test couplet given two Tests is not a series) to be played in a few days. In some senses both teams (and their captains) will be a bit relieved as it allows them to go under the radar mostly and focus on getting ready while the spotlight is squarely on the man its been on for the last two decades and more. The visitors have insisted they will not be distracted and the young Indian squad (the average age without Tendulkar is less than 27) will know that solid performances here will give them a long run in the potentially tougher away series against South Africa, New Zealand, and England coming up over the next nine or ten months. So though the matches are rather rushed, there's plenty to look forward to even apart from the master bidding adieu. On paper, ie if you look at their respective ICC rankings , India shoul...

The BCCI has made many snafus and screw-ups in recent times but one superlative decision they have made in the last year is the appointment of Sandeep Patil (and his four co-selectors). I've  written before  about how they don't get enough credit for the moves they have made in making what is a transitional period for Indian cricket turn into a surprisingly successful one after the post World Cup horrors. And they continue to impress. Maybe its the fact that four of them are domestic stalwarts who never quite made it on the international stage (though Binny had a fair run) and Patil himself didn't fulfil his potential that makes them ideal men to draw out the young talents who will form India's next generation. Or maybe they've just been lucky with their picks. Either way, they've done some really solid work mixing tough decisions with bold ones and most importantly they haven't mixed up formats and let themselves be swayed by the media or former players. ...

The first innings of Tendulkar's that I can recall watching fully is his match-winning knock of 62 in the game that marked South Africa's return to the international cricketing arena. I had followed his career pretty closely till then but hadn't had the chance to watch an innings played by him fully on TV. The timezone in Pakistan was too close to India meaning that his debut series clashed with school (one more reason to hate school ;-)). New Zealand and England timezone differences made it difficult, more so because at the age of 12 it was hard to have your way with parents when it came to sleeping/waking times. And for some reason (I can't recall why now, so I'll put it down to an early disdain for meaningless one-day cricket), I hadn't watched any of the ODIs India played in 1990. So it came about that this historic, much hyped match against Clive Rice and team was the first time I properly saw the little man bat. It was a difficult Eden Gardens pitch where...

The day finally had to arrive and after November 18, Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar will not step onto the field as a player again. I still don't know what I truly feel about that given that he has been a fixture in the Indian team for almost the entire 25 year span that I have followed the game for. At least the fact that he has chosen to retire in phases (one format at a time) has meant that I (and I'm sure many other cricket fans) have had the chance to wean ourselves off the "SRT habit" slowly. There's so much to write about this little man and so many ways in which he shone but for me three things stand out. First, there's the impact he had on Indian society at large (cricket fans or otherwise). In a country that's often needed reasons to hope and celebrate given the bleak episodes that otherwise abound, Tendulkar has been a source of unadulterated joy and strong inspiration for more than two decades. For a people that are easily disillusioned and prone t...