Cricket-related comments...

Since February 2007, I have moved all my cricket-related ramblings to a multi-contributor blog named i3j3. Please visit http://i3j3cricket.wordpress.com for my cricket-related views.

Full calendar for Team India in 2007

The cricket calendar for 2007 is going to be quite crowded team India.

After the current 4 ODIs against Sri Lanka, India prepare to go to the World Cup.

The World Cup will see out March and April 2007.

In May, India play Bangladesh in 2 Tests and 3 ODIs. Clearly, this is nothing but an opportunity for the India players to shore up their averages before the year becomes gruelling again!

June appears to be an “off” month.

India will tour England from July to September to play 3 Tests and 7 ODIs. Playing 7 ODIs in England in a World Cup year — and that too, after the World Cup — seems a bit bizzarre to me! Nevertheless, that’s the plan.

In October, Australia visits India to play 7 ODIs.

India then hosts Pakistan for 3 Tests and 5 ODIs.

As a result of the Pakistan tour of India in November, the Indian tour to Australia from December through to March 2008 has been postponed by 3 weeks or so. In fact, while most previous tours of Australia have traditionally commenced in late-November, India’s tour of Australia in 2007-08 will probably only commence in the second week of December!

As a result, the 1st Test of the series will be the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne, with the 2nd Test starting immediately after the conclusion of the 1st Test (on 2 Jan 2008). Two other Tests follow in January. The ODI tournament — which also involves Sri Lanka — would commence only in February!

An article on this re-scheduling appears in the Sydney Morning Herald today.

A busy cricket calendar for Team India!

– Mohan

Indian Team for the first two Sri Lanka matches...

The Indian team for the first two ODI matches against Sri Lanka has been announced. The team is along expected lines and reads:

Rahul Dravid (capt), Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Yuvraj Singh, MS Dhoni, R Uthappa, Ajit Agarkar, Zaheer Khan, Harbhajan Singh, Anil Kumble, Dinesh Karthik, Irfan Pathan, Munaf Patel, Virender Sehwag, S. Sreesanth.

Unless Virender Sehwag or Irfan Pathan or Munaf Patel blow it big time with either form or injury, it is very likely that this XV will be the team that goes to the World Cup in four weeks' time.

This team is not too different to the team that I had suggested in my blog entry a few weeks back. I had suggsted a World Cup XV of:

Rahul Dravid (capt), Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Yuvraj Singh, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Robin Uthappa, Ajit Agarkar, Zaheer Khan, Harbhajan Singh, Irfan Pathan, Virender Sehwag, S. Sreesanth, Rudra Pratap Singh, Suresh Raina, Joginder Sharma.

The differences are Anil Kumble, Dinesh Karthik and Munaf Patel (in the team that the selectors chose) instead of Suresh Raina, R. P. Singh and Joginder Sharma that I had suggested in my team.

The selectors have probably got it right with their choices of Kumble, Karthik and Patel. I am just not sure about the durability of Munaf Patel.

The next four games are going to be quite vital for India's preparations. Sri Lanka are a good opposition although they will sorely miss Chaminda Vaas and Muthiag Muralitharan. But as coach Tom Moody said in a recent interview, it is also perhaps an opportunity for others to step up to the plate.

Runs galore...

With the cricket World Cup 'round the corner, I decided to take a peek at stats. If we take a look at the maximum number of career runs scored in ODIs the top-25 looks like this.

The columns read Matches, Innings, Not Outs, Runs, Highest Score, Avg, Strike Rate, Centuries, Fifties and Catches respectively [Source: Cricinfo].

01. SR Tendulkar        378  369  36 14728  186*  44.22  85.67  41 75  113
02. Inzamam-ul-Haq      370  342  52 11591  137*  39.96  74.48  10 83  108
03. ST Jayasuriya       375  364  16 11442  189   32.87  90.40  23 61  110
04. SC Ganguly          282  273  21 10302  183   40.88  73.92  22 62   96
05. BC Lara             290  281  31 10136  169   40.54  79.46  19 62  115
06. R Dravid            306  285  36  9973  153   40.05  70.71  12 76  182
07. RT Ponting          266  260  31  9670  164   42.22  79.32  21 57  117
08. M Azharuddin        334  308  54  9378  153*  36.92  73.99   7 58  156
09. PA de Silva         308  296  30  9284  145   34.90  81.13  11 64   95
10. Saeed Anwar         247  244  19  8823  194   39.21  80.66  20 43   42
11. DL Haynes           238  237  28  8648  152*  41.37  63.09  17 57   59
12. AC Gilchrist        253  246   9  8531  172   35.99  96.29  14 48  372
13. ME Waugh            244  236  20  8500  173   39.35  76.83  18 50  108
14. MS Atapattu         264  255  31  8448  132*  37.71  67.77  11 59   70
15. JH Kallis           242  231  40  8327  139   43.59  70.37  14 57   93
16. Mohammad Yousuf     228  215  31  7608  141*  41.34  74.07  11 51   50
17. SR Waugh            325  288  58  7569  120*  32.90  75.91   3 45  111
18. SP Fleming          265  254  19  7484  134*  31.84  70.74   6 45  128
19. A Ranatunga         269  255  47  7456  131*  35.84  77.91   4 49   63
20. Javed Miandad       233  218  41  7381  119*  41.70  66.99   8 50   71
21. Saleem Malik        283  256  38  7170  102   32.88  76.41   5 47   81
22. NJ Astle            223  217  14  7090  145*  34.92  72.64  16 41   83
23. MG Bevan            232  196  67  6912  108*  53.58  74.16   6 46   69
24. G Kirsten           185  185  19  6798  188*  40.95  72.04  13 45   61
25. A Flower            213  208  16  6786  145   35.34  74.60   4 55  141

If we now prune this to only include players playing currently, we get the following list:

01. SR Tendulkar        378  369  36 14728  186*  44.22  85.67  41 75  113
02. Inzamam-ul-Haq      370  342  52 11591  137*  39.96  74.48  10 83  108
03. ST Jayasuriya       375  364  16 11442  189   32.87  90.40  23 61  110
04. SC Ganguly          282  273  21 10302  183   40.88  73.92  22 62   96
05. BC Lara             290  281  31 10136  169   40.54  79.46  19 62  115
06. R Dravid            306  285  36  9973  153   40.05  70.71  12 76  182
07. RT Ponting          266  260  31  9670  164   42.22  79.32  21 57  117
12. AC Gilchrist        253  246   9  8531  172   35.99  96.29  14 48  372
14. MS Atapattu         264  255  31  8448  132*  37.71  67.77  11 59   70
15. JH Kallis           242  231  40  8327  139   43.59  70.37  14 57   93
16. Mohammad Yousuf     228  215  31  7608  141*  41.34  74.07  11 51   50
18. SP Fleming          265  254  19  7484  134*  31.84  70.74   6 45  128


In other words, only 12 of the top-25 ODI career-run-getters
are still playing. Of these, 3 are from India!

Indeed, if we assume that Tendulkar, Dravid and Ganguly will
score an additional 500 runs in the remaining 4 games before
the World Cup, in these three players, India would account for
a total of 36,000 runs -- that is a lot of experience!

Let us assume that Dravid gets another 27 runs in the remaining
4 ODIs prior to the World Cup. Seems reasonable to me! In that
event it is likely that only 6 batsmen will go into the World Cup
with 10,000+ runs to their credit. Of these, 3 will be from India!

Yes, India does play a lot of ODIs. So, just looking at aggregates
is probably unwise.

So, let us look at number of runs and averages together. Only 14 of
the top-50 ODI run getters of all time have an average of over 40.
Only 7 of these are still playing (8 if we include Inzamam, who
is so close ot an average of 40 that it is not funny!). Of these 8,
three are from India. This is, of course, assuming that Dravid's
average does not drop below 40 prior to the World Cup.

What is this saying? Nothing much really apart from the fact that
the Indian top order batting has a heck of a lot of experience and
capability. All they need is the right mental make up and the
application to pile on the runs.

On why Sachin and Sehwag should not be dropped...

I have seen some interesting posts in the last few days/weeks relating to Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag. Some of these have been laughable and some of these have been plain annoying (to me!).

Several experts and non-experts (including close friends) have suggested that Sachin should be dropped from the team.

I have always been amused by these suggestions and looked at the (non-)experts dangle perilously as the pendulum -- their pendulum -- swung wildly from one end ("wow he is a legend") to the other ("ohhhh! kick him out..." or "he should retire") without as much as pausing for breath at a stable, central, core (read: rational) resting point. And would these (non-)experts ever think of either humble pie or (God forbid!) egg-on-faces in the light of his majestic match-winning innings in the 4th ODI against West Indies in Vadodhra yesterday (31 January 2007)? I do not think so. The manner in which he played was incredible [Photo below from Times of India]. Sachin Tendulkar first steadied the innings with Rahul Dravid and then slowly accelerated to a fine (match winning) century.

The (non-)experts would quietly move on to pick on the next random player to be either "sacked" or "incarcerated" or "chopped at the limbs" or some other form of extreme punishment, until it is time to pick on Sachin Tendulkar again. If these experts thought about eggs on faces, there would be a dearth of eggs in the land!

Captain Rahul Dravid himself captured this mood quite adequately in a series of comments laced with sarcasm which was so subtle and delicate that it probably didn't quite measure on their egg-on-faces-laden-Richter-scale! Dravid said, for example, "We were not unduly worried about Sachin. Maybe everyone else can stop worrying now so we can have a bit of peace around. But what will we discuss then?"

A look at Sachin Tendulkar's comparative stats in ODIs indicate the sheer fallacy of these chest thumping opinions. An interesting article today compares the batting stats forSachin vis-a-vis other international cricketers. Other than Mike Hussey -- and that lad is clearly in the zone -- Sachin has fared as well as the others in recent times! And no, lest the typical Indian cricket fan jumps up and down in non-factual hand-waving, in this comparative period that the author has chosen, India has not played either Bangladesh or Kenya!

Sachin Tendulkar is a proven match winner. Yes, he probably let himself and his team down in the manner in which he played in the 3rd Test in South Africa. But, let us not forget that he is a proven match winner. And he still knows how to hold a bat. And he still knows how to score runs.

The mere presence of Sachin Tendulkar in the team makes the opposition bowl negatively. They do not know what he will do on any given day. Similarly Sehwag. These are players that can (and have) taken games away from oppositions. This is why it is absolutely important that Sehwag goes to the World Cup. This is a view shared by John Wright (quite emphatically) and Arun Lal, in a roundtable discussion with Sanjay Manjrekar.

This is one of the reasons I feel Sehwag should go. And I agree wholeheartedly with Prem Sanjay Vuthandam when he pleads, "Leave Sachin alone". The presence of these two is, I believe, worth 40 runs on the field. Opposition teams would often take risks to set of target of 280 when 240 may have sufficed, because they know that, with Sachin and Sehwag in the team, India can take the game away from them. They might bowl a negative/defensive line because they may not know what the realms of possibilities are when these two guys are on song.

We have a habit, in India, of putting people on terribly high pedestals. I feel we do that so that we retain the right to be able to drag them off it whenever we chose to do so. This is surely a sad state of affairs! This has been commented on recently in a lucid and frank interview by Greg Chappell. Sachin Tendulkar himself responded rather tersely (and I think, uncharacteristically) to this issue when asked about the pressures on him at the conclusion of the 4th ODI against the West Indies yesterday.

There must be stable ground somewhere between those two extremes.