"Test"ing Time for ICC

When Asia Cup was staged in the year 2004 , it was seen as the introduction of associate teams to the real cricket world. It was thought UAE and HongKong would be given more opportunities to improve.But still they remain the same team 4 years back , only difference being new faces.

Cricket has been a game played by very few countries. Since the last decade or so it has been spreading to other countries as well. ICC has been doing commendable work in this regard. They have formed the associate group of nations and have their tournaments and tours. But time has come to move a step further.

Holding a tournament like Asia Cup once in a while will do no good for these teams. It would merely help the players of the Regular cricket playing nations boost their stats , as we have seen in this tournament so far. They may have dominated sessions of play, but they are still very far from even batting 50 overs. In this regard , even Bangladesh though a test playing nation has not show cased consistent performance. Probably , they are still a "one-day wonder".

Playing more cricket is the only way to make it big at International stage. At present its more of a part time affair for these players.Here comes the importance of a good first class system and this is what these countries lack. Playing more cricket is what makes a talented player a good player. There is no dearth of talent in these countries , the problem is in the system. What ICC could do in this regard would be to include these teams in tournaments like Duleep Trophy or some part of County Cricket. This would give them the much needed exposure to what is played at International Level. Also including them in T20s would be more meaningful.Here they will have a better chance of winning a game since its only a matter of getting the momentum for 40 overs.

Zimbabwe,Kenya and Bangladesh are 3 teams which have been around for a while yet they still arent a team to be reckoned. The reasons are the same , except in Zimbabwe where the political system is in such shambles that there is no time to look at cricket. Kenya and Bangladesh, though they have a first class cricke system , its not competitive enough nor does it provide a decent income.

Its tough days ahead for ICC with the take over by T20s and decline of some cricketing nations.It would be interesing to see how ICC is going to tackle these problems.

A look at X Marshall

Xavier Marshall is in news now for his whirlwind knock against Aussies which won West Indies the game. This Jamaican burst in to the seen back in 2004 creating waves with tags like next Vivian Richards due to his aggressive style of batting. But his form after his initial success has been very poor. He scored a century in his first season but failed to score any more.
He was first spotted as a youth player, and he lead West Indies to many victories in U-19 Tournaments. His century against South Africa stands out.But he got in to problems due to his fiery temper and has been reprimanded more than once. Thanks to immense belief of West Indies board in his potential, he is come out pretty safely.This series against Australia could define his career. He has done pretty well in Test Matches scoring 2 half centuries and has started off well before the one-day series.
Will this be the making of another great West Indian batsman???He is got age on his side, but he will need to be more consistent and play more of first class cricket. West Indies would be hoping this generation of players would bring back their old glory and surely X Marshall will be in their plans.

The Case of Switch Hit!!!

The MCC has ruled Kevin Pietersen's switch hit as allowable. This is seen as a success for batsman as this allows them to whack the ball changing their stance without prior notice. But reverse hits have been a part of the game ever since, then why was this raised before MCC??
The original Reverse hit was the reverse sweep. When this shot was played only the bat's position was reverse , both the body and stance remained same. This new concept of switch hit has the player suddenly changing his stance and his grip and then executing the shot. It can be seen as a bowler changing from over the wicket to around the wicket without telling before hand. So if a right hand batsman plays this shot , its like a whack over mid wicket played by a left hand batsman. The first instance of this was KP's shot against Muralitharan back in 2006. He recently scored 2 sixes against Newzealand employing this shot. This was the reason for this to be referred to MCC.
Now since they have ruled for it citing it provides a chance for the bowler also to strike. Will we see more of this innovative shot or will this be confined to batsman like KP??

Form Trouble for Aussies

With Simon Katich scoring back to back centuries and Phil Jacques also in form the Australian management are faced with a dilemma , regarding their star batsman Mathew Hayden. How will they accommodate him???One possibility could be to use Katich as a middle order batsmen but then who is to be replaced??Ponting , Hussey , Clarke , Symonds and Haddin are playing well. And then maybe , only Hussey and Haddin seems to be a bit out of touch.When teams are looking forward to players scoring a century here we got them scoring in almost all the chances they get.This could be interesting as we might witness a consecutive centurion being replaced.Hard Luck Katich!!!

Pakistan : Played to the occasion

How many times have India been through this??Playing well all through out and finally faltering when it matters the most. The 2 matches prior to this had been fully dominated by India , yet we saw a very familiar sight in the final. Well we can say our middle order did not have match practice since openers dominated the other 2 matches , but in the end we lost the Cup. Its a fact a our bowling was relatively inexperienced , but this was the same attack which won us the first game. But this team has made a pretty strong statement that they have come to stay. This was a first experience for many playing a final. Anyway we can take lot of positives from this so called Tri-Series.Fielding standards has been great barring a few occasional miss fields and Gambhir has made it a point that he is not only good in 20/20 format. But if you notice the last time India won in Australia there was this factor Sachin Tendulkar , which shows that experience counts. Hope India learns from this loss and wait and watch what happens in the Asia Cup.

Allen Stanford strikes!!!

The deal has been signed.The next 5 years will see England and West Indian players play 20/20 matches. The format is very interesting.The winners take all the cash i.e US$20 million. So if England wins the match each of the XI players earn US$1 million , the rest of team share another 1 million , the management gets 1 million and the rest is shared by their respective cricket boards. This will see players earning much more than the IPL players except a few top players.The deal for 5 years is worth US$100 million making it one of the biggest, the cricketing world has ever witnessed.

The Story behind Allen Stanford

Allen Stanford is a Texas based billionaire financier and he has been into sports from early days.He has been sponsoring lot of tournaments in golf , sailing,cricket,tennis. His involvement in cricket has been Stanford 20/20cricket tournament. He built a stadium for that in Antigua and the tournament was first held in 2006 July. This tournament has the Caribbean nations fighting out for the trophy.
After the 20/20 World Cup there were offers up to US$20 million to from him to team India to play a 20/20 match(Initially he said 5 million and finally he was ready to shell out a whooping 20 million). This was not considered by India. Recently he has offered US$100 million to England Players to play 5 games. If this takes place this will go down as the maximum money earned by players bettering IPL. This would be a great chance for the West Indian players also. Time will tell us if this man is going to make history!!!!

The IPL Saga

The story of IPL has so far been a movie.....little bit of everything....action comedy drama and what not......we have had heated dialogues and as in movies the hero gets beaten first, but finally as always the villain got punished!!!The umpiring has been to say the least very poor.....we had over being called after only 5 balls were bowled...the richest have had a bitter time and now only are they finding their feet.....
Though initially IPL had brought about a few hiccups for people like Ekta kapoor now things are back to old times and the soaps have gained back their trps......On the brighter side we have had some brilliant cricket from both the legends as well as the rookies.....The purist have found this cup of tea a little too hot for their comfort, they are slowly coming into the party......
to mention a few names....we had a glamorous beginning with a whirlwind knock from Brendon Mccullum....Hussey, Symonds and Gilly soon joined the Australian bandwagon as the next centurions.....With the aussies making their way, some of the teams have stuttered....youngsters like Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan have been sensational....Sehwag has been murdering bowling attacks - the job he does the best!!!!
we also had great bowling from the Masters McGrath and Pollock and also others like Sohail Tanvir and Irfan Pathan....not to forget the ever shining Shane Warne...he has led his relatively unknown side with great success...not to forget his bowling, the old charm and guile was visible all through out....
Finally the fans....there has been "Preity" good support for all the teams... Let us believe we get to some more quality cricket and hope for new heroes to rise....