Asian Test Championship

RanaRansher:

Acknowledged. We are on the same page but on different sides of the border. Sorry if I momentarily misunderstood. It is amazing how we live by the seat of our pants.

On Dravid. I stand by my opinion. Ganguly the captain, SRT the star and Dravid the backbone - call it creator, destroyer and sustainer :=). hmm, trimurti of some sort. Still, not enough to win tests but enough to start drawing matches in Australia and West Indies. Adding bowlers in this mix will only lead to good things for India.

Dravid as captain is not too different from Vegsarkar as captain. SRT should be left alone. He will be the central figure regardless of who wears the official mantle.

Lets see what the jokers do.

re: SS reply #108

You are completely missing my point. I spared the details thinking you would understand what I am implying. But let me elaborate.
Currently, the Indian selection has a quota system which is based on region NOT religion. THis does not affect already established players but definitely makes it very hard for some up and coming players who are not picked because the quota from their zone is complete. This gets ugly as regional politics take over the selection committee. In India, the team slection so far has NOT been affected by religion.

Pakistan has its own share of problems. With Punjab vs the rest. And within Punjab, having the Majid camps and other camps.

WHat I am saying is: to add to all this. We would have an additional Hindu/Muslim quota. What an ugly proposition ?

re: Azhar
For your information, Azhar is NOT the team captain because of any Muslim quota. That doesn`t exist. WHen he debuted in `83 he had made it in on the South Zone quota, but he quickly made his mark.
Azhar is India`s winningest captain, regardless of what his critics say. As a captain, he has only turned aggressive in the last 2 years, pretty much after his second coming as skipper. Even now he is the best man for the job. He has brought about a lot of team unity and involves a lot of the players in making `team decisions`, something his critics call him a NON-leader for.
His batting skills are impeccable, although he has ALWAYS been suspect against quality pace bowling. He is, however, getting old. At 36 he is the oldest member of the team by a big margin. Till now it did not really matter because he was still the fittest. But he has been slipping in that department also. In this contest, for once, I did not see the Azhar of yore at the crease. THe pressure was getting to him.. 3 times (out of 6) he got out to very bad balls and played rather casual shots to them.
I really believe he will voluntarily retire after WC99

re: batting giants
After SRT, the other great is Dravid. he has a tremendous record outside India and against quality pace bowling. Even in this contest, it was a delight to watch him battle Wasim.
Ganguly, contrary to what you believe, has ways to go. He has temperament and talent. But he does not seem captain material. First off, I think he plays like an individual and is a little too concerned with his average. He was not seen taking singles to shield the tali enders. He would get into arguments with them over these.
A case could be made that he is too good to waste him at number 6. But then he should either swith with Azhar or come out to open. In this series he only played 2 innings worth mentioning. I would not say that about Dravid.

re: SS and the myths
I wouldn`t jump to any such conclusions.
Pakistans bowling line-up has always been the best ever for Pakistan. THe reason most Pakistanis don`t realize this is because in Pakistan cricketing heroes are made when they perform against India. With no Indo-Pak cricket for the last 12 years the current crop hasn`t proved themselves against India. Akram has a better record than any other pak bowler, despite not being played for a good two years, in which he wreaked havoc in COunty games in England. Between W & W they have 700 plus wickets. No bolwing pair in the world can boast of this. Saqlain at 23, is picking up wickets at an alarming rate.
Even otherwise when they have not been performing as a team, it is mainly because of the all the problems within. Team spirit can be seen when you see the fielding lift itself up to aid the bowlers. This is an important aspect which is not captured by any statistics.
Indian middle order, in my opinion, is still one of the best in the world along with Australia. Very technically correct. The contest was always between the Indian middle order and pakistani bowling. THe pakistani bowling came up on top on more occasions.
One the other hand a fairly mediocre Indian bowling line-up wreaked havoc, at times, with the pak batsman. Face it. THe Indian bowling consists of two bowlers and their forte is accuracy !!!!
Can you imagine the pakistani bowling their own batsman out ?

re: shafqat Indo-Pak 11

BTW all throughout my childhood I always made similar Indo-Pak XIs, for no apparent reason. Now being older and understanding the legacy of dirty politics a little more I would refrain from doing any such thing. Can you imagine the already dodgy management dealing with keeping the quota of Hindu and Muslim cricketers the same ?
Also how would the Pak team justify their sajdas of the pitch after the game, and the not-so-secular team slogans ;-)

On a different note, I would drop Azharuddin. He definitely is getting old. His reflexes are not the same. He will probably retire voluntarily after the WC99. India has a lot of good middle order batsman waiting in the wings. THey ought to get a chance. Batsman like Amol Majummdar, Waseem Jaffer, Amol Khurasiya, Devang Gandhi are hungry and raring to go.

re: sunask
THe more I read your reply the more it perturbs me. You are no different than the Calcutta crowd. And you obvioulsy have not followed a whole lot of this series. The umpiring decision noise started after the second Test match by you know who to save his you know what from angry fans. It is the oldest trick in the book.
WHen, in fact, in Chennai there were decisions that completely changed the game. Ganguly`s 2 (or even 3 !) bounce catch by Moin reducing India to 82/5. Now you see Akram complaining about an appeal (that wasn`t even given) against Malik.

This is all balderdash !! THese players need to accept the rules of the game as is. There are procedures to address shortcomings in the rules and those should be respected.

THe game has changed a lot since the `80s when you would see captains recalling players. It is more compettive and no one should be expected to call back players. The decision, afterall, good or bad, belongs to the umpire.
However, it should be noted, that Akram would have become a legend had he done that.

If there was an Indo-Pak XI to be chosen on the basis of the last 3 tests, who would make it ? Let`s assume nothing is known about ground conditions and the opposition - we need to choose the side that maximizes the chances of winning. My selection:

Saeed Anwar
Sadagoppan Ramesh
Mohammad Azharuddin
Sachin Tendulkar
Rahul Dravid
Yousuf Youhana
Moin Khan
Wasim Akram (captain)
Shoaib Akhtar
Saqlian Mushtaq
Javagal Srinath

Saad

re: All
Great game. Congratulations to the Pakistani team.
The game marred once again by the filthy politics. Calcutta should never get a game of any sort anymore. Disgusting behaviour. Unfortunately, I even expected it.

What surprises me is the same politics seen even here on chowk discussions. Pick some other game to politicize. There is hockey. Womens cricket which was cancelled (I bet not too many people even know about this). Leave this one alone. pleaaseeeeee. You are all proving Bal Thakrey right !!!!!

re: Umpiring decisions.
THis entire series has been affected by incompetent umpriring. No doubt, the umpiring could have arguably made or broken careers. It is unfortunate that the Indian and Pakistani press (including Pakistani players !) highlighted this in a very bad light. It is not about Neutral umpires, but competent umpires. Umpiring decisions have to be taken as is. Those are the laws of the game. It is a tough job, evidently in need of some assistance, what with TV replays providing such conclusive detail after the fact. It won`t be long before the `aerial umpire` (check out article on CrickInfo) is used. Blaming the umpire is the easiest thing to do. However, luck, when it comes to favourable umpiring decisions is very much PART of the game.

re: sunask
The referrees need to get more strict with dissention. However, SRT`s behaviour was thouroughly professional and in fact, the Calcutta crowd ought to take a lesson from it. He knew he had grounded his bat and was telling Dravid this mid-pitch while the 3rd umpire was busy deciding. When he was given out. He showed no dissent and just walked off. He then went and appealed to the match referee and showed him the clause in the ICC rule book and how the 3rd umpire had obviously gotten it wrong. That is the right procedure to follow per ICC rules.
In contrast to this a lot of other players showed dissent on the pitch, often by paying tribute to mothers and sisters of the world, cursing the umpire right on his face. The referees let this go.

RanaRansher[106]:

You say - [``Can you imagine the already dodgy management dealing with keeping the quota of Hindu and Muslim cricketers the same ?``]

I know this is sensitive territory BUT - Azhar there because of quota is not what you want to say, RIGHT? How about exploring the North-South problem, the Mumbai-Non-Mumbai problem - the Hindu, Muslim issue in cricket is way down in the proverbial heap.

Come`on RanaRansher, et tu...

RanaRansher [106]:

You reflected on the bowling attack of Pakistan. There was no myth there - they are good, home and abroad, individually, collectively, record wise, hype wise. I was simply trying to explore the ``greatest batting line-up,`` many players with batting averages above 50, etc. etc. In my considered opinion there needs to be a candid re-examination of the these batting giants (SRT excluded, INMHO]. I would also go on the limb and say that if these batsmen were really that much better than the Kirsten`s, Waugh`s, and so on, of the world then India would be drawing test matches abroad and winning more often at home. I say, give Ganguly the team and let it be run with instinctive fighting spirit that he brings, let SRT be the ring-master (akin to Miandad] and see what comes out of it.

Saad:

I would not play Azhar. In my opinion Ganguly is the player to have in a team.

Saeed Anwar (1)

Sadagoppan Ramesh (2)

Mohammad Azharuddin ----)) Ganguly (5)

Sachin Tendulkar (4)

Rahul Dravid (3)

Yousuf Youhana (6)

Moin Khan (7)

Wasim Akram (captain)

Shoaib Akhtar (9)

Saqlain Mushtaq (10)

Javagal Srinath (11)

Afridi (12)

RanaRansher:

Thanks. When indulging in ``cricketspeak`` it is hard to keep rationality. But we must. Check out the new survey, I think it goes to the heart of the matter ...

Any one out there with a post-mortem report?

Specifically, any myths that were shattered?

1. India has the greatest batting line-up in the world

2. Azhar is a good captain

3. Pakistan team is in a slump

4. ...

(1) In my opinion, Indian batting has been suspect against quality bowling forever. Not to mention they cannot perform outside India. Period.

(2) Ganguly is the rightful heir NOT Tendulkar. I have seen Gangu talk and play, he is the man.

(3) Pakistan team is back. This is only the beginning. Hopefully, Majid will not get his contract renewed on March 31. The betting enquiry will die a natural death and the ``boys`` will become heroes - the betting issue will die a natural death unless new evidence/witness comes in.

Suresh Reply #99,

I hope you are joking.

What do you have to say about the bad performance from Tendu throughout the series except for that one inning in Chenai.

Suresh,

India lost as a team. Azhar or Tendu or any other one person is not responsible for this. A team of 11 play in cricket except ofcoarse if Miandad is playing then its a different story;-)

I would like to comment/complement some points as I saw the 4th day of the match live in Troy,NY.

First of all, after having seen a cricket game live after 3 years it was a shock to see the rules of the no ball changed. Can anyone comment as to when the rules have changed: any run taken on a noball by a batman PLUS one is added to the scorecard? hence if a batsman hits a 4 , 5 runs are added to the score card!!

Few comments on some of the pakistani perfomances:

the commentators were repeatedly commenting on how hard working shoaib akhtar was during the day. indeed it was amazing. this guy has a run up longer than that of waqar. he is totally drained after the over and yet inthe field he was seen as diving and jumping at the ball showing no affects of him being tired. that is impressive. he is a very intense cricketer

although I am stating the obvious but it was remarkable in seeing akram and saqlain keep their nerves when they constantly dodging the bat. akram in paticular was making azhar look silly and towards the end of the day saqi did not exhaust the gems he threw at ganguly.

next is that run out fiasco. I was reading a report by prem paniker (www.rediffindia.com) about how when SRT found that he was out, he ran to the third umpires room and pleaded his side of the story. thats the reason why when azhar was batting , the replay of the runout was shown on tv so many times since SRT wanted to make a point. Now, is it just me or is this the worst case of dissention that you would ever encounter. ramesh got a suspended match sentence in this match just because he told the umpire that he had played the ball for the lbw decision--tv replays however showed otherwise. srt goes to the box and argues with the umpire and then the indian referee says that since azhar is already batting nothing could be done (Daily hindu report)--is this the right thing to say rather than ``Icannot discuss the decision with u, what we have decided remains`` Just like the MoM awards for 1st and 3rd test I think indian ``feelings`` were taken a lot into consideration througout the series.

akram himself was pissed when he commented that noone has the right to expect him to call SRT back. he got out fairly and if the indian newspapers wanted to right about dishonorable acts then they should have written about Ganguly who took the catch of Salim malik on a bounce and appealed for it. even mongia got repremanted officially for excessive appealing.

apart for the reception at chennai, it seems very little has changed in terms of spectator attitude for ind-pak matches. i agree with mofeez that the establishment must be responsible. in this case they opted for the worst case scenario during the 5th day riots to drive every one out. although pakistani fans have been guilty at times for similar offenses a decade ago, i hope we set an example for every one to follow. at least we never

threw bottles when we lost the wc semis in lahore.

i feel bad for the cricketing fans of calcutta, even on the 4th day some fans had placards that said ``we are sorry --calcutta`` after and during the riots. riots at two high profile matches (wc semis and asian test championship) has put this stadium into disrepute.

This is because Azhar deliberately dropped important catches throughout the tests.

Suresh:

long live Muslim unity.

Ok, now tell me, how is this related to cricket.

Suresh:

Hmm. Poor Indian cricket team. No wonder the team cannot win. With fans who think like this the match is lost before it begins.

Take a deep breath and think before expressing such drivel.

In fact without contribution from mian-bhai Azhar who dropped afridi and then Anwar, no century would have come from Pak. In fact I doubt if Afridi will ever score a test century again. long live Muslim unity.

I think Calcutta crowd had a reason to get angry. Laxman give caught when bat did not touch (well, pakis talk of saqlain mistake, but no. 1 is not the same as no.8, and in this case night watchman), ramesh LBW to a ball going down leg and the controvercial Sachin. Sachin has been unlucky before given LBW by Jayaprakash when he was not. Read description of it by Mofeez. How he handles Jayaprakash with kid gloves and how he handles when Jayaprakash gives decision on Afridi. Talk of neutral reports.