Where Have The other Teams Gone?

Hmm..at times,its too much cricket and during other periods,it absolutely no cricket at all.Reason?Well..right now,there are only two test series' in progress,namely,the Australian tour of India and the other being the New Zealand's tour of Bangladesh. The latter tour is almost over,with the second test's play in doubt after the first three days of play were taken care of by rain.Even the Border Gavaskar trophy is nearing its climax, with the third test match in progress and the fourth to be concluded somewhere next week or so.And upon searching through some cricket websites,no clue upon the current or the forth coming cricket series are available.

So,the scenario right here is that only two teams out of nine are holding their cricket kits and the rest of them have hung them up for a certain period of time.October is over,and in November,we have Sri Lankan tour of Zimbabwe,which is packed with only 5 ODIs and England's tour of India in late November and to be concluded in early December.The other series off late is New Zealand's tour to Australia-where they will face each other in two tests and five ODIs.The next time when one can see a match involving South Africa,Sri lanka and the West Indies is somewhere in January nest year.And regarding Pakistan,its a gone case.

The busiest team at the moment would be Australia,who will be hosting New Zealand next month,followed South Africa,and the hosting the same in February next year. And Sri Lanka would be playing a full fledged cricket tournment would be in April next year,when they tour England.Even that tour stands in a balance,with the SLC permitting its players to feature in the IPL second edition,by signing a contract worth $40 million with the BCCI,with money gaining precedence over country contracts. Pakistan's next international series would be involving India in February 2009,with more than a year gone without playing a test match.I wish atleast this series takes off without any problems whatsoever.Sri Lanka would be playing a test series after a long gap of 8 months,South Africa after 4 months and the great West Indies will be paying New Zealand in December,5 months after concluding a test tour against Australia.

With keeping in mind the ICC tables and the ongoing cancellations of cricket tours,be it either for security concerns or the greed for money owing to which some cricket boards prefer to cancel their internatioal tours,the future tours are always in a toss.

A Defeat Before Losing

Well..at last, the inevitable happens.India beats Australia an the second test at Mohali by 320 runs. Thanks to some awesome batting display from the blades of Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Sourav Ganguly and others. Also some splendid bowling from the likes of Ishanth Sharma who has been the favorite of Ricky Ponting and Zaheer Khan.Not to forget spin duo of Amit Mishra and Harbhajan Singh.At the end of the day,thank you team India for putting up a splendid all round performance.Each and every part of the game had dominance over the Australian counterparts.This was however expected.But, was the match against Australia or Zimbabwe?

I had to think twice before looking at the scorecard of the Australian second innings, when the scoreboard read 58/5 in the second innings of the Australian batting and towards the end of the fourth day.All the most fascinating was the way the Australian openers started their batting in the second innings.I wish someone like Glenn McGrath would have put up a better and more responsible show,no matter what the asking rate was.I wish one has to take a look at the way the Australian openers started their second innings.The slog shot of Matthew Hayden for Zaheer Khan in the first ball of the innings was just stupid.

A run rate of above 9.0 until the first wicket fell at a score of 50?Were they playing test cricket or a T20 match or were they batting at the fag end of the 50 over match? Well.. this was not something that has been expected for the Australian team given their dominance in all forms of the game.With a win out of question,atleast they could have put up a tough fight making India earn each and every wicket for their victory.I feel one has to remind Australia about the way test cricket has to be played. Though the Australian team lost the Ashes in 2005, the performance they put up was far above par compared to the English.It was only destiny that had different plans which favoured the England team.

It was just frustrating to see the Australian team succumb so easily to the pressure created by team India.None of us thought that this bad would be the game plan of the Aussies whatsoever.There was absolutely no attempt to save their face on the Australian side.True that they were underdogs,but,atleast had they made use of their talent to some extent,the match would have been worth the wait.But,not anymore. Even in the first test,the Australian side never aimed to pull out a victory from the Indians,for they batted for almost two days before putting up a total of 490, and then allowing Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan to take the control.

If at all the spirit of an India-Australia test has to be saved,its inevitable for both the teams to put up a stiff fight.Else,the test would be no different from a Bangladesh -India test.

Attention grabbers Everywhere..

The trend in today's world saying hats off to who ever makes a history or decides to call it a day, is something funny I feel. Well..first it was Saurav Ganguly who attracted all but most of the attention when he decided to bid aideu to all forms of international cricket. Then came the most in news Sachin Tendulkar-who surpassed Brian Lara's world record of the highesh runs in test cricket. No doubt,this is of course a great feat,that would not be possible for anyone to overtake atleast in the near future.This really needs a pat on the back.And now,after much fuss,the table has now turned towards Amit Mishra who took a maiden five wicket haul and that too in his debut match against the world's best side in Australia.

All these achievements are no mean.But,the issue should not be blown out of proportion I believe.When there are wonders happening every now and then,I feel the media should stop its attention being concentrated only on a few issues that are not worth the praise.If not for Sachin Tendulkar's feat,the remaining two were just a formality.How come the maiden T20 hundred by Alok Kapali in the Indian Cricket League match against DASH didn't make it to the headlines?Was it just because it was from the blades of a Bangladeshi,whom are known to be underdogs most of the time and wwhat ever they achieve is a fluke?

Sourav Ganguly,who made news for retiring from international cricket,took as many as four years to make a comeback into international cricket after he was chosen for the series against Australia way back in 1992 (where he was not chosen in the playing eleven).If much fuss was being made for dropping this Kolkata Prince,none of them felt the same when Anil Kumble was given the same treatment despite being the highest wicket taker for India in both forms of the game.And what should someone like Lance Klusner or Heath Streak would have been going through when they were chuked out without giving them another chance?With his age crossing 36,how long further would have he played if it ws not this time his last?

And when it came to Tendulkar,rather than calling him "the best batsman in world cricket",one of the best would make sense.Sachin took 152 tests compared to Brian Lara's 131.One should not forget the respect what Lara took home when he announced his retirement.He was given the charge of such a West Indies team that had nothing in it.Something like Bangladesh or Zimbabwe.Sachin had no such tasks in his career.And so far,Sachin has not been able to make a triple hundred in tests. And why is Amit Mishra made a king when he could not make it to the international arena for five years after a guest appearence in the tri series in Bangladesh in 2003?