Not the one *you* would pick, but the one you think the selectors will.
IMO, Kohli has played himself into a spot, so India's top 7 are:
Tendulkar, Sehwag, Gambhir, Yuvraj, Raina, Kohli, Dhoni
On the bowling side, Munaf is surely in (talk about "Carpe Diem)
Zaheer, Harbhajan, Munaf are locks so that makes 10, and surely Yusuf Pathan is the allrounder.
I believe Praveen Kumar is almost surely in, as he was held back to prevent further injury.
That leaves 4 people -- one more pacer, one more spinner, one reserve batsman and one reserve keeper --to fit into 3 slots. What is your guess for the chosen XV??
Mine is
Dhoni, Tendulkar, Sehwag, Gambhir, Yuvraj, Raina, Kohli, Pathan, Zaheer, Harbhajan, Munaf,
PLUS
Nehra, Ashwin, Rohit Sharma
(Yes Nehra makes it based on his excellent performance in India. Too bad Karthik is out of the picture here).
Bharat
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Cricket books: "Wickets in the East" and "Spin and other Turns" Guha
As India wins a tight ODI against RSA, that one run victory turning abject despair in the pundits to rampant optimism, here are some of the cricket books I treasure. All have pride of place in my library, and are read and re-read several times over the last few years. I will start with the category, I will call "
Just plain fun
"Wickets in the East" and "Spin and other Turns" Guha
These two have been combined and re-released as "The States of Indian Cricket"
Guha is an avowed Marxist, and in many of his later cricket books that agenda comes through. Being Guha, the writing is superb, and the cricket descriptions wonderful, but these two -- his first two books -- were written by Guha the cricket fan. He learned cricket on the knee of his uncle Durai, an LAS who would have played for India (as per Guha), had he not lost his right arm in a childhood accident. The books are replete with these tales and beautifully written. They bring to life long-lost heroes -- where else would we learn so much about CK Naidu, Lala Amarnath (my father's favorite cricketer), Mushtaq Ali (my mother's) and so much about the history of Ranji cricket and the rivalries. The book brings Indian cricket alive as no other book(s) I have read have done before.
As an aside, it has been my distinct privilege to watch two full Tests in Bangalore in Durai's company, and I can testify that he has yarns that didn't make it into the book, and is one of the most entertaining people to watch a game with.
Just to add to the pot:
"Cardus on Cricket" Cardus
Cardus is simply the best cricket writer that ever has lived. His turn of phrase is almost lyrical -- this compendium, has many of his best articles, press reports and essays. A must have for any serious cricket fan.
Most Psmith Wodehouse's have cricket, and only hardly needs an excuse to read Wodehouse anyway.
Bharat
Just plain fun
"Wickets in the East" and "Spin and other Turns" Guha
These two have been combined and re-released as "The States of Indian Cricket"
Guha is an avowed Marxist, and in many of his later cricket books that agenda comes through. Being Guha, the writing is superb, and the cricket descriptions wonderful, but these two -- his first two books -- were written by Guha the cricket fan. He learned cricket on the knee of his uncle Durai, an LAS who would have played for India (as per Guha), had he not lost his right arm in a childhood accident. The books are replete with these tales and beautifully written. They bring to life long-lost heroes -- where else would we learn so much about CK Naidu, Lala Amarnath (my father's favorite cricketer), Mushtaq Ali (my mother's) and so much about the history of Ranji cricket and the rivalries. The book brings Indian cricket alive as no other book(s) I have read have done before.
As an aside, it has been my distinct privilege to watch two full Tests in Bangalore in Durai's company, and I can testify that he has yarns that didn't make it into the book, and is one of the most entertaining people to watch a game with.
Just to add to the pot:
"Cardus on Cricket" Cardus
Cardus is simply the best cricket writer that ever has lived. His turn of phrase is almost lyrical -- this compendium, has many of his best articles, press reports and essays. A must have for any serious cricket fan.
Most Psmith Wodehouse's have cricket, and only hardly needs an excuse to read Wodehouse anyway.
Bharat
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Important ODI's for both teams
India's World Cup squad has quite a few fixed positions -- when you get down to it, 15 men is a very small number for such a squad -- you basically get only 4 reserves, and one of those is a reserve keeper. Given the absence of Sehwag and Gambhir, many folks get to try to make their case in the coming weeks.
A number of those probables are staking their claim here -- Vijay, Kohli (though he has probably done enough to be in), Rohit Sharma and on the bowling front, Munaf Patel. Ashwin, Chawla, Sreesanth and Ishant Sharma, will also press their claims, as the absence of Praveen Kuman opens up the possibility of one of the other players making a big push for themselves.
On the South African front, no van Wyk, though I imagine he must get a go sometime. Tahir is in the squad but hasn't been capped, as both team go with their strongest XIs to begin with -- Yusuf Pathan will probably not play as much in South Africa, but will be quite useful in India.
Bharat
A number of those probables are staking their claim here -- Vijay, Kohli (though he has probably done enough to be in), Rohit Sharma and on the bowling front, Munaf Patel. Ashwin, Chawla, Sreesanth and Ishant Sharma, will also press their claims, as the absence of Praveen Kuman opens up the possibility of one of the other players making a big push for themselves.
On the South African front, no van Wyk, though I imagine he must get a go sometime. Tahir is in the squad but hasn't been capped, as both team go with their strongest XIs to begin with -- Yusuf Pathan will probably not play as much in South Africa, but will be quite useful in India.
Bharat
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Thanks to those of you who visited
A bunch of you folks showed up on this blog, some from rsc and some from Cricklinx, and I wanted to express my thanks. Amazingly, there have been over 350 vistors and 1000 page views in the last 2 weeks it has been up (after filtering out my own visits -- irritatingly Google doesn't let you do that automatically). Yes, yes, I know there are blogs with 1000 visits every hour, let alone over 2 weeks, but this far exceeds anything I had imagined by at least a factor of 10. Even ignoring my own visits (about 30 -- irritatingly Google has no way to ignore out my own visits), the results were interesting, so just to share some of the things that surprised me.
Traffic was fairly varied, averaging 15 visitors / day during Durban (when I just started) and 40 visitors / day during CapeTown (60 & 55 on Jan 6 & 7, when Cricklinx linked to my blog).
The bulk of the visits came from the US (250) and India (not much surprise, given the topic and focus of this blog). The #1 city was Bangalore (27 visits) and #2 were US cities (NYC, Edison, San Jose) all above 15 visits. Some of the places that surprised me were Cancun (3 visits), Stockholm (2), and a couple of visits from Brazil & Argentina! The world is truly becoming global.
Bharat
Traffic was fairly varied, averaging 15 visitors / day during Durban (when I just started) and 40 visitors / day during CapeTown (60 & 55 on Jan 6 & 7, when Cricklinx linked to my blog).
The bulk of the visits came from the US (250) and India (not much surprise, given the topic and focus of this blog). The #1 city was Bangalore (27 visits) and #2 were US cities (NYC, Edison, San Jose) all above 15 visits. Some of the places that surprised me were Cancun (3 visits), Stockholm (2), and a couple of visits from Brazil & Argentina! The world is truly becoming global.
Bharat
Very important events in Dubai not generating much interest.
The ICC Tribunal nears its end. The results may well be far reaching.
A "guilty" verdict, could be seen as a big boost to anti-corruption efforts, whereas a mere slap on the wrist will be viewed as "no one cares -- it keeps happening." With big money entering the game in shovelfuls, it is important that not only that the game be clean, that it appear to be clean.
At the other end of the scale is the human element. Three young men stand to lose their entire livelihood, for a crime that (if guilty) they may well have viewed as a no big deal ("I bowl deliberate no balls to intimidate batsmen all the time, so whats the big deal?"), and face public disgrace, financial ruin, or even jail time. Of particular poignancy, is that one is a potentially transcendent talent who is not even old enough to
drive, vote or order a drink in many countries.
The last event of similar magnitude I recall were the hearings where Cronje broke down. Yes these hearing pass with barely a ripple of interest, while the ongoing Tests, T20, and IPL auctions crowd the headlines.
Bharat
A "guilty" verdict, could be seen as a big boost to anti-corruption efforts, whereas a mere slap on the wrist will be viewed as "no one cares -- it keeps happening." With big money entering the game in shovelfuls, it is important that not only that the game be clean, that it appear to be clean.
At the other end of the scale is the human element. Three young men stand to lose their entire livelihood, for a crime that (if guilty) they may well have viewed as a no big deal ("I bowl deliberate no balls to intimidate batsmen all the time, so whats the big deal?"), and face public disgrace, financial ruin, or even jail time. Of particular poignancy, is that one is a potentially transcendent talent who is not even old enough to
drive, vote or order a drink in many countries.
The last event of similar magnitude I recall were the hearings where Cronje broke down. Yes these hearing pass with barely a ripple of interest, while the ongoing Tests, T20, and IPL auctions crowd the headlines.
Bharat
Morne van Wyk makes himself a shedload of money
In the IPL that is. Undrafted in the IPL, after his blitzkreig today (67 off 39) in the one-off T20, he will be in demand for sure. Talking about seizing the moment -- he is only in the squad because Graham Smith dropped out.
So who has cap room left? All the teams, but only significant amounts are Kings & Deccan with $2M each, and Pune with $1M. Kings will probably be cautious given their financial situation. Delhi has $750K and Mumbai $500K. I'm guessing at least $500K for Morne -- timing is everything. Had this game been held a few days ago, he may have been a lot richer.
The World Cup will surely throw up some stars (who will probably get popular in India). The wiser teams have retained some cap room to sign undrafted free agents at that time before IPL4 begins.
Bharat
So who has cap room left? All the teams, but only significant amounts are Kings & Deccan with $2M each, and Pune with $1M. Kings will probably be cautious given their financial situation. Delhi has $750K and Mumbai $500K. I'm guessing at least $500K for Morne -- timing is everything. Had this game been held a few days ago, he may have been a lot richer.
The World Cup will surely throw up some stars (who will probably get popular in India). The wiser teams have retained some cap room to sign undrafted free agents at that time before IPL4 begins.
Bharat
Saturday, January 8, 2011
The Ws
I've been invited by Bharat to make some contributions to this blog, which is very flattering. In the mid 1990s I made a series of posts to the newsgroup rec.sport.cricket containing my idea of the best XIs where the members' surnames began with the same letter of the alphabet. I don't have copies of all those posts now, but here's one that I do still have: the Ws. I haven't updated it in any way. Nowadays Steve Waugh would have to be put in the first XI, of course. (Note that when it was written Courtney Walsh still had fewer than 300 Test wickets.) Off-hand I can't think of any more recent players who would demand inclusion, though I'm probably overlooking someone obvious, as increasingly seems to happen as I get older. Unfortunately W is not a letter that shows Indian players to great advantage.
We finish on a high note with a very strong eleven. (X, Y and Z havealready been taken care of, in a QUXYZ eleven.) In fact there were somany strong candidates, I've drawn up both a first and a second eleven (and still had to omit some fine players).
First Eleven:
Bill Woodfull (A)
Frank Woolley (E)
Doug Walters (A)
Everton Weekes (WI)
Clyde Walcott (WI)
Frank Worrell (WI) (capt)
Wasim Akram (P)
Wasim Bari (P) (wk)
Shane Warne (A)
Waqar Younis (P)
Bob Willis (E)
Most of this eleven more or less selected itself. Frank Woolley's Test batting statistics were comparatively modest, but at his best he was one of the all-time greats, and his slow left-arm bowling and slipfielding will also come in useful. It was close for the number 11 spot between Bob Willis and Courtney Walsh, but you can't really argue with 300 Test wickets.
Second eleven:
Cyril Washbrook (E)
John Wright (NZ)
Kepler Wessels (A/SA)
Mark Waugh (A)
Bob Wyatt (E) (capt)
Steve Waugh (A)
John Waite (SA) (wk)
Max Walker (A)
Johnny Wardle (E)
J.C. "Farmer" White (E)
Courtney Walsh (WI)
This eleven could give a lot of the alphabetic first elevens a run for their money.
Other players who deserve a mention are:
Batsmen:
Cyril Walters, Pelham Warner, Barry Wood, Willie Watson, Peter Willey,T.S.Worthington, Bob Woolmer, Alan Wells, A.J.Watkins, Wilf Wooller (E); Graeme Wood (A); Ajit Wadekar (I); Wasim Raja,Wazir Mohammed (P); Syed Wettimuny (SL).
All-rounders: Rockley Wilson (E); Sammy Woods (E/A).
Spinners: Doug Wright, Don Wilson (E).
Fast bowlers: John Warr (E); Tom Wall (unlucky not to make the secondeleven) and Mark Whitney (A).
Wicketkeepers: Ken Wadsworth (NZ), Arthur Wood (E).
We finish on a high note with a very strong eleven. (X, Y and Z havealready been taken care of, in a QUXYZ eleven.) In fact there were somany strong candidates, I've drawn up both a first and a second eleven (and still had to omit some fine players).
First Eleven:
Bill Woodfull (A)
Frank Woolley (E)
Doug Walters (A)
Everton Weekes (WI)
Clyde Walcott (WI)
Frank Worrell (WI) (capt)
Wasim Akram (P)
Wasim Bari (P) (wk)
Shane Warne (A)
Waqar Younis (P)
Bob Willis (E)
Most of this eleven more or less selected itself. Frank Woolley's Test batting statistics were comparatively modest, but at his best he was one of the all-time greats, and his slow left-arm bowling and slipfielding will also come in useful. It was close for the number 11 spot between Bob Willis and Courtney Walsh, but you can't really argue with 300 Test wickets.
Second eleven:
Cyril Washbrook (E)
John Wright (NZ)
Kepler Wessels (A/SA)
Mark Waugh (A)
Bob Wyatt (E) (capt)
Steve Waugh (A)
John Waite (SA) (wk)
Max Walker (A)
Johnny Wardle (E)
J.C. "Farmer" White (E)
Courtney Walsh (WI)
This eleven could give a lot of the alphabetic first elevens a run for their money.
Other players who deserve a mention are:
Batsmen:
Cyril Walters, Pelham Warner, Barry Wood, Willie Watson, Peter Willey,T.S.Worthington, Bob Woolmer, Alan Wells, A.J.Watkins, Wilf Wooller (E); Graeme Wood (A); Ajit Wadekar (I); Wasim Raja,Wazir Mohammed (P); Syed Wettimuny (SL).
All-rounders: Rockley Wilson (E); Sammy Woods (E/A).
Spinners: Doug Wright, Don Wilson (E).
Fast bowlers: John Warr (E); Tom Wall (unlucky not to make the secondeleven) and Mark Whitney (A).
Wicketkeepers: Ken Wadsworth (NZ), Arthur Wood (E).
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