Fitting end to agonizingly long and boring world cup, only 3 matches out of 51, were competitive (though two of them hardly had any effect on table standings), and rest were hugely disappointing one-sided affairs.
********Saturday night on a major freeway interchange a truck carrying 8300 gallons of petrol overturned and caught fire, resulting heat weakened the part of one overpass, crumpling it onto another. These huge trucks always scare me, yes they do, and I’ve seen many mindless truck drivers tailgating, speeding, and zigzagging on freeways as if they are driving a sports car.
Damn, now it'll take at least 2 months and 20 millions dollars to repair the damaged freeway, caused by truck carrying $30,000 worth of petrol. Now, probably Arnie will have to re-adjust his budget allocations, or will introduce a hidden tax, and living in a county with highest sales tax in US doesn't help either :-(
*********
Try this prank with your co-workers, press left alt + left ctrl + print screen on their computer while they aren't watching, press enter and see how long it takes them to work out how to reset it.
There is always a distinct charm in an inning when a captain leads from front, takes all load on his shoulders and wins the game for his mates.
Stephen Flemming has done this many times, in fact he scored all his 8 hundreds while chasing.
Ponting/Waugh, Smith, Jayasuriya/Jayawardhane, Lara, Inzy have done this at some amazing consistency.
But in comparison, India never had one such leader, to some extent Kapil was only one in Indian History. (At least at some stage of his career, he led either by bowl or bat)
-- Under Kapil, either Vengsarkar/Azhar were mainstay of batting line-up,
-- Under Azhar, mostly Manjrekar was the main guy, later on Sachin took over forever.
-- Under Ganguly,Sehwag florished and Dravid established himself as THE WALL.
-- And now under Dravid, Yuvraj shows some glimpses of his potential.
Captains performance/form plays a huge role on the morale of a team, only a successful captain(with bat or ball) can infuse positive energy in his team, think of positive impact Ponting have on his team, likes of Clark/Symonds/Hodge/Hogg/Watson have now clearly become a better player rather than bright prospect.
On the other hand, imagine the plight of a dressing room where captain himself is struggling with his form/technique, in that frame of mind he cannot trust himself or fully trust some other guy to deliver, all that shows up in tactics in field, his bowling changes or field placements. A reluctance in approach of affairs becomes quite evident and has adverse affect on fortunes of the team.
Being captain of Indian side is not easiest of jobs, agreed, there is a hell lot of factors involved, maintaining good relations with BCCI bosses and with media are the foremost.
After all it’s the media hype which leads to public frenzy.
I feel it’s high time, BCCI decides for separate teams for ODIs and Test matches and of course with separate captains.
Tera saaya kabhi to bolega....main suntaa raha parchaaiyaa!
Lara commited the biggent crime and took the final powerplay from 44 to 49 over, plus when Gibbs and de Villiars were well set, and later Boucher joined-in and they scored 77 in 5 overs.
Seems that WI and England are hell-bent to help SA qualify for semis despite their zero-carryover points and loss to B'desh.
Seriously, w/o India-Pak, this WC which was tipped to be most exciting or balanced, has turned out to be most boring in the history.
Except for 2 SL games, all matches are either 7 wickets or like 100 victories!
I don't know why English management is continuing with Vaughan, he is soo boring, he is not even 1% of what he was before his knee injury. Whatever, he never fitted for ODI formats, he is made for Test-matches only he should realize that and step-down, or take retirment from ODIs.
To me they look the most dis-jointed squad in this world cup,
it is hard to believe that it is the same squad which regained ashes in style, and later surrendered it in most embarrassing way.
In this WC, their problem starts from the top, both openers(Vaughan and Joyce) are worst than local club players, and that puts huge pressure on Bell/Pieterson/Collingwood.
Only its matter of time, overburden will start showing, which already has started to show its sign on Collingwood.
And another major factor in deterioration is their policy if selecting captains post-ashes, after Vaughan's injury they ignored ‘forever-vice captain’ Treschothik and appointed Strauss as captain, result - Treschothick lost interest in game, and withdrew himself.
Then they made Flintoff as captain, result Strauss's confidence and batting form bore the brunt.
And then again, re-appointment of cleary visible injured Vaughan resulted in loss of form of Flintoff.
First injuries to Simon Jones, Hoggard, Harmison and then their stupid policies in appointing captains has destroyed a well-balanced team.
When I wrote this in May 2005, I hoped for 'beginning of golden period' of Indian Cricket, thing looked bright to begin with, but somehow script changed dramatically right after WI tour, DLF cup and Champions Trophy, and WC 07 turned out to be last nail in the coffin.
Though, it was on cards even before start of WC, and now with Tendulkar's outburst has delivered a final verdict.
Everything is in big mess; our board seems to be seriously competing with PCB in terms of generating controversies and creating uglier mess.
Every other day, one member or another is passing stupid comments and directly or indirectly blaming Chappell for WC debacle.
It all started with Ganguly's outburst against Chappell right in middle of a test-match, and Ganguly played his cards right after scoring a ton against Zimbabwe, taking cue from him Laxman also said few things, and in the end both were dropped. (But in current scene, Tendulkar's reaction to Chappell's 'alleged' resulted in opposite outcome, which clearly shows how big he is.)
Ganguly made a comeback without doing anything worth-deserving a place, he was recalled only coz Rainas/Kaifs/Raos/Mongias failed, and Yuvi got injured. Once back in team, he clearly played for himself, not for team.
If you ask me, we lost the World Cup during the phase when 'Ganguly-Tendulkar' played too defensively against Bangladesh, and set the pace and momentum of whole inning. In case of Ganguly, he played worst even against Bermuda, his inning included 70 dot balls, yes 70 i.e. almost 12 overs.
Sometimes, seems that media is driving India Cricket,
- first they published excerpts from Chappell's WC report which he'll present to BCCI in next meeting,
- and in 'leaked' report he blamed senior players for showing bad-attitude etc etc,
- in response to that Sachin made some emotional statements,
- then Chappell called all that media's imagination, and vehemently denied having written anything against anybody.
- then Chappell decides enough is enough and resign,
- now media is blaming BCCI for WC debacle.
All they care for is breaking-news or new controversy, though they are right this time but their 'timing' is as always ‘bad’.
Now question is, who is next?
No sensible foreigner will come forward, and even if one comes forward in lure of big money, let’s say King Richards, will never ever open his mouth and will end-up like a puppet in hands of BCCI.
Though dice is heavily loaded in favor of Sandip Patil as interim coach for next month's B'desh tour, anyways he is much better than Joker Amarnath the other contender.
I don't even want to talk about Rice-dealer's proposed league; he is a businessman to the core and just wants to exploit the current cricketing situation.
Bad timing everyone ‘Media/Chappell/Sachin/BCCI/Subhash Chandra’!!
After all cricket and life are all about timing.
