Category: Cricket

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When the Ashes come around, everything else loses its importance

WHEN sport comes along, major sport that is, international contests, everything else is pushed to the background in Australia.

And you can’t get bigger than the Ashes, the contest for cricket supremacy between Australia and England. There is a lot of history which gives the contest its importance: for example, Australia is a former convict colony of Britain and that rankles a lot, even to this day.

This time around, it may not be the most even of contests, given that Australia is comparatively weak on paper and based on its most recent outings against other countries.
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Good riddance: Shane Watson quits

The vice-captain of Australia’s cricket team, Shane Watson, has stepped down from his post. Not from the team, just the post.

It’s good he did it, because that saves the selectors one job, of sacking him as vice-captain. Watson saw it coming and didn’t want to be humiliated.

But he may earn the ultimate humiliation anyway – he may not be in the team at all, the team that goes to England in June to defend the Ashes.
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Phillip Hughes rides again

At times, the manner in which a batsman makes runs provides evidence of his ability. But the reverse is also true: at times, the way a batsman scores is indicative of reasons why he should not be picked.

Phillip Hughes of New South Wales has again been awarded a contract by Cricket Australia. On the tour of India in February and March, Hughes failed repeatedly. He showed an inability to tackle spin – and that was about all that was doled out by the Indian team.

Hughes’ scores in the series were 6, 0, 19, 0, 2, 69, 45 and 6 as Australia was hammered 4-0 in the four-Test series. During the knock of 69, he was like a cat on hot bricks. He survived 166 balls through sheer luck, and zero ability. He was as jumpy as he had been during his previous five innings.
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Black money drives the IPL

Back in 1967, the then Indian finance minister Morarji Desai had the brilliant idea of raising taxes well beyond their existing level; the maximum marginal tax rate was raised as high as 97.75 percent.

Desai, who was better known for drinking his own urine, reasoned that people would pay up and that India’s budgetary problems would be more manageable.

Instead, the reverse happened. India has always had a problem with undeclared wealth, a kind of parallel economy which is called black money. The amount of black money increased by leaps and bounds after Desai’s ridiculous laws were promulgated.
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Brownwash leaves Australia shattered

Last month, Australia completed a miserable cricket tour of India during which it lost all four Tests, the first time this has happened since 1970.

On that occasion, a strong Australian team went to South Africa and was creamed 4-0; the South Africans were captained by Ali Bacher and included legends of the game like Graeme Pollock, Mike Proctor, Peter Pollock, Barry Richards and Eddie Barlow.

But in India, a weak Australian team came up against opponents who were not that formidable. The one thing that was clearly observable was the fact that the shorter forms of the game have had a bad effect on the Australians’ ability to stay at the crease and grind out the runs.
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In Test cricket, patience is a virtue

PATIENCE is a virtue that Australia’s national cricket team seems to lack. And impatience does not serve one well in Test cricket as the results from the first two matches against India indicate.

Australia has not merely lost, it has been humiliated. When the first Test ended early, with India registering an eight-wicket win, it looked bad. But given the nature of the wicket, some blame could be placed on it

But worse was to come when India thrashed the Australians by an innings in Hyderabad, on a wicket which was much better than the one in Chennai. It was all over and done with after one session on day four.
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Xenophobes in Australia about to choke on their cornflakes

THE xenophobes in Australia — and that’s a goodly proportion of the population — will find themselves in a difficult position if Fawad Ahmed is granted citizenship and selected to play for Australia in the Ashes cricket series against England later this year.

You see, Ahmed is an asylum-seeker from Pakistan. Asylum-seekers are a class of human beings whom the average Australian, with his/her devotion to a fair go, deems to be sub-human and only deserving of being sent back to their country of origin. Or drowned at sea.

Ahmed applied for permanent residence last year and while he was awaiting a decision, it emerged that he was a more than capable leg-spinner. Australia was a few weeks from taking on South Africa in a Test series and so he was asked to go over and help the Australians in their net practice. South Africa has a spinner of Pakistani origin, Imran Tahir, in its ranks and the Australians needed to play a good spinner to prepare to face Tahir.
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One-day cricket has become just another tamasha

AFTER more than 20 years, I finally went to the stadium to watch a one-day international, between India and Australia. I will never do so again.

In 1989, I watched Pakistan defeat India at Sharjah in a one-day tie; apart from the headache of sitting at ground-level and swallowing copious amounts of dust, the cricket was watchable. There were no distractions in the area I sat.

But the entire thing has now degenerated into farce. Louts of both sexes who seem intent on cramming themselves full of lager constitute a sizeable part of the crowd. There were Indians in large numbers, all equally loutish, and outdoing even the Nazis in jingoism.
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Not embarrassed? India’s excuses don’t really convince anyone

PREDICTABLY, India has been whitewashed by Australia in the four-Test series. This is the second such loss abroad in the space of six months; in between, India managed to beat the West Indies at home 1-0, with two Tests drawn. In that three-Test series, India was twice outscored in the first innings by what cannot be regarded as anything other than a weak Windies outfit.

After the loss, the Indian team has been at pains to emphasise that it is not “embarrassed” by being hammered in this manner. It boasts two of the three highest run-scorers in Test cricket in its ranks, but, no, it is not embarrassed. It was the top Test nation as recently as May last year, but falling to a rebuilding Australian team — which lost a Test to New Zealand before India arrived — is not embarrassing.
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India gets a thrashing in Australia

THE Indian cricket team is licking its wounds after having suffered a third straight loss in the Test series against Australia, the latest inside three days. On the surface, there appears to be more to the plight of the Indian team than just its lack of ability.

The players do not appear to be united and one wonders if a change of captain will make a difference. That fact can be tested in Adelaide as the captain, M.S. Dhoni, has been suspended for slow over-rates and Virender Sehwag, who is said to be at loggerheads with Dhoni, will be taking over.
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