"Destiny had me and Sreesanth visiting and paying homage to Lord Rameshwara. I feel after what had happened at the IPL last year, this has been redemption in front of God for both of us. We all commit mistakes, we are his children and we are all in universal brotherhood.
The bond is indeed unique which Shenta (Sreesanth) and I share. And let me clear it once again, he has always been close to me. There are some happy memories spend together in the dressing room and it was good to have him around and together visiting the holy temple. I await his return to the Indian team sometime soon. Like I told him, he has to play well in the domestic games and he can be playing for India again."
KhufiaBaaz: Bhajji on Sreesanth.
KhufiaBaaz:Bhajji on bad language
"I thank you all for your feedback on the book of the great coach. I have gone through each of them, and apologise for not having been able to respond to each on your post. I had expressed my views, and appreciate the same expressed by most of you. However, would request you to not abuse anyone. One has all rights to criticize someone’s thought but its unfair to use abusive language.
As children read this blog, request you to refrain from using unparliamentarily language."
The Ashes, Lord's, Day 2 (Behind the scenes coverage)
The Aussie stayed in their rooms last night.
But for Siddle, who was in his cage.
Siddle's Cage is marked - Cagey B.
Siddle finding it tough - needs to be on all fours.
Also, Ponting isn't very good with animals - he just throws the ball to Siddle, should be Fetch! Good Boy! Fetch!
They got the Ashes, WTF have we got: Border Gavaskar Trophy?
The Ashes. Soaked in tradition, baked and fried in tradition, and then, a toast to tradition. If you were a doubting Thomas, you’d be canonised by the Ashes. Just because they’re called the Ashes.
You know the two teams. England and Australia. If anything, today, when they play each other, it doesn’t seem right to say they’re playing for the Ashes. Better if you said, they’re playing for crumbs.
Look at England. They have fight in them, when it comes to No. 10 and 11. Look at Australia, they whine. And can’t get No. 10 and 11 out for 11 overs. And then they whine some more.
Then you have India and Australia. It’s a dog fight. That too between two rabid dogs. And what are they playing for: The Border Gavaskar trophy.
That’s right: you ever heard a soldier saying to his Ma, “I’m going to battle, to fight for my country, to win the Border Gavaskar Trophy.”
No way. And now we’re talking about the death of test cricket.
We need a war cry, war paint, war!
A war waged to save test cricket and tell the world what matters – it’s not the Ashes. It’s not Australia South Africa. It’s not India Pakistan either, anyway, that’s not happening.
It’s India Australia, damn it.
It’s in you, it’s in me, and it’s in them.
Feel it. Feel it bad enough that you want to pull their eye balls out.
Feel it so f**king deep that you’ll lose it all to win the series.
What series? What will you call it?
Not the Border Gavaskar Trophy. That’s just etched on the silverware.
What’s tattooed on your heart, brother?
Far more advanced than the Rapidex English speaking course -
-The English cricket speaking course by Stephen Fry: Excerpts from his speech at Lord's.
A new kind of bitterness has entered some quarters of the game as ex-players become commentators, columnists and journalists and begin to turn on their erstwhile teammates, dispraising the current players, pouring scorn on their technique and deprecating their tactical nous. We have video of course and can see that these pundits know what they were talking about: historical archive reveals that Boycott, Botham, Gower, Atherton, Willis, and Hussein were never out playing a false shot, never shuffled across, never missed a captaincy trick, never dropped a catch, never posted a fielder in the wrong place and never bowled off line or off length in the entire course of their careers.
The benefits and the drawbacks of broadcast technology bewilder us. Hotspots and Hawkeye, referrals and replays, umpires have never been more pressured and exposed and greater more seismically structural questions have never been asked about the meaning and spirit of the game. The rewards are greater, the stakes are higher, the price of failure more public and humiliating.
Stephen Fry was at Lord's today, so was Mick Jagger, the latter did not sing at the Long room though.
The second Ashes test starts at Lord's. (behind the scenes coverage)
England win the toss, elect to bat. No respite for the tailenders. Both James Anderson and Monty Panesar are padded up. And Monty isn't even playing.
Lunch, Eng 125/0. Anderson is a much relieved man as he removes his pads.
England's collapse can wait for a later session. After the disappointments of Cardiff, surely Lord's will be England's Adelaide.
Just shows there's a bit of Pakistan in England. In the recent past, after numerous 100+ partnerships, England has flattered to, you guessed right, decieve, and lose the plot. This is not a work of fiction.
Ok, that's 3 for 71, not quite up to Pak's high standards, but give them time - this is England. KP, what can you say about him, looked like some DC comic character out of place in the real world. His bat sounded like it was made of cheap alloy. I think he had Freddie on his mind.
Reckon Collingwood is due. To fail. Over and out.
Ok, he did fail, what more do you want me to say, I called it? After his previous innings, he needed some time out.
(222/2) After double nelsen, now triple nelsen strikes (333/6)- at this rate, dead Nelsen could strike too
IPL format needs a change
As the concept of the World Test Championship came up for discussion on BCC!, I thought it was the appropriate time for me to mention my dissatisfaction with the IPL format.
The IPL was orginally conceptualized on the basis of a league... something similar to the football leagues of Europe, where each team plays against the other on a home and away basis and at the end of the season, the most consistent team is rewarded with the trophy.
However, what we see in the IPL is a preliminary stage (league) followed by a knock-out stage (semis, final). This knock-out stage should not be part of the format. According to me if the IPL wants to reward the most consistent team, the competition should end once the league matches are over with the top ranked team winning the trophy.
If the IPL still wants the hype and hoopla of the semis and final, each semi and the final must be best-of-three.
The current system does not do justice to teams like the Delhi Daredevils. Our Daredevils did all the hardwork for 14 matches and topped the table. But they were knocked-out in the semis as they had one bad day.
World Test Championship
The ICC is proposing to hold a World Test Championship, day/night matches and pink balls to make Test cricket more exciting. I feel that there are many problems with the whole concept.
The first thing is that for most people, matches are only interesting when it is closely fought and their team has a chance of winning. This applies to series and championships too. Any Test Cup would be interesting only if the outcomes are not very predictable.
Unfortunately, that is not the case now. In Test cricket, the gaps between some teams is too wide, even between teams that are closely placed in the rankings. For example, New Zealand would easily thrash Bangladesh, even though they are just one step above them. Australia easily whips most teams, except India and South Africa in recent times.
Test cricket is designed to minimize the element of luck. That is why there are two innings so that one bad effort by the team doesn't get punished - it has to fail twice. The artificial pressure of time is much less than in limited overs cricket. So by design, Test cricket ensures that there are more crushing victories than close matches or upsets.
In a Twenty20 match, the underdog always have a chance by taking risks or by fluke wickets. That is seldom going to happen in Test cricket. Unless, of course, you are going to tamper with things, such as the rules or pitch conditions and so forth.
Test cricket will be better served by reducing Test matches between mismatched teams. Also, there should be Best-of-3 and Best-of-5 contests so that there are no more dead rubber matches and whitewashes. That would improve the quality of cricket being played.
Bored Reaction: Andrew Flintoff Retirement Booze up .
Two consecutive smses from Bored Members informed me about Freddie's retirement. It was as if he had retired twice in two seconds. If world reaction is to believed, you’d think Ian Botham just retired mid-way through Beefy’s Ashes.
When I read the first sms, I laughed. Not a loud, hysterical laugh, but the sort of snigger meant for Shoaib Akhtar’s comebacks. In a way I was glad, somebody else will get a break now.
Btw what was your reaction, did you react at all? Freddies reaction, "I can't believe me ears - Cheers all, drinks on the house!"
Bored Reaction: Have you lost it?
First your team loses it. Then you lose it. Not your virginity but your sanity. Right, that's you in the corner...losing your religion. Over at Well Pitched, a few comments led to this post and series -
Husha - BTW, "it makes us break the TV screen" resonates with me especially...in 2003 when Pakistan lost against some team in the World Cup, I don't remember (probably India), my dad broke a couple of vases in his anger!
Q - I know people who have actually thrown a glass, an ashtray, and an apple at the TV screen!
What kind of people do you know? What have you done? When you really lost it? Tell me son, this is confession time. I won't tell anyone. Only you're gonna tell the whole world.
Kambli presses the self-destruct button once again
Vinod Kambli, known for his knack to press the self-destruct button, damaged his image (among cricket fans) beyond repair when he recently announced on a television gameshow that his childhood chum Sachin Tendulkar could have done a lot more to help him when the former was going through a rough patch in his career.
This is not all, Kambli also accused the BCCI of discriminating against him on the basis of his CASTE and COLOUR.
After all this, the Mumbai southpaw stated that he never said anything against Tendulkar and even apologised to him.
Only Vinod Kambli could have managed this bizarre sequence of events. These are the most ridiculous comments I have ever heard from an Indian cricketer.
Had the BCCI discriminated against Kambli, he would never have made it to the Indian team in the first place. Further, had the BCCI discriminated against him, he would never have got as many as seven opportunities to stage a comeback. For all you know, it was Tendulkar who put in a word for him everytime he made his way back into the team.
Kambli's inconsistency, poor technique and temperament were perhaps the biggest reasons for his downfall. Sachin could do very little to address these problems for Kambli as Sachin himself had to shoulder the burden of the entire Indian batting line-up at that stage.
KhufiaBaaz: IPL responsible for Andrew Flintoff’s test retirement.
Not the BBC or the Times will tell you the real reason why Freddie Flintoff retired – it was to concentrate on his IPL career with the Chennai Super Kings. After a ‘rubbish’ performance with CSK this season, where Freddie bowled the most expensive spell, he was rightly devastated – it was either tests or IPL. Finally, IPL won! A huge relief for his millions of fans in the subcontinent. A small group of cricket fans in the UK mourned test cricket’s loss, but in the long run, Freddie knows, the IPL will take care of him, much better than anyone else.
Flintoff goes the Afridi way: retires from test cricket.
"My body has told me it's time to stop. Since 2005 I've had two years when I've done nothing but rehab from one injury or another."
Last week at Bored: “Andrew Flintoff: The Shahid Afridi of England”. Now see what he’s gone and done today - Retired from test cricket. He could have retired from many other pursuits, such as drinking, IPL, one-dayers, but the whites got shabbier.
Had he retired a few years back, Flintoff could have made something of his other careers – now, as was evident in the IPL, he’s a big lad with even bigger doubts.
But did he bowl a heavy, almost Stonehenge sized ball – though it seemed obvious in Cardiff, he was doing so under huge duress. He was a slave bowler, being whipped to bowl harder and faster, no longer master of his own limbs.
I expected him to break down on the field while England bowled him into the ground. Instead, he will walk away after an Ashes' summer. Or will he be on the stretcher to surgery once more?
Either way, the comparisons between him and Afridi are obvious. Both got away with murder. Both players have unfilled test careers. Both were unreasonably loved by their nations, because of which their selections depended more on their whims than their performance, fitness or criteria that worked for other players.
They were the star players. But when you look back, so fleeting were their test careers, they were more like the shooting stars.
what about the ipl worth of pakistani players now...
not so long ago...in fact just two matches before...when pakistan was on a high after winning t20 world championship there were reports that pakistani players were demanding more money to be featured in the next ipl...as they were not happy with their existing contract after their new champions status...
as usual plenty of debate in media and the blogs...
many said it was sheer opportunism...while others said they were worth it...
after two matches and three consecutive collapses...it will be interesting to see what sort of price they will demand with ipl franchisees...will the ‘worth’ be reviewed...?
before you make comments like that that was t20 and this is tests...
i would like you to see the nucleus of the team...or the final xi that played in these two tests...how many players were missing from the ‘t20’ lineup...?
so if they keep on collapsing even in other formats...do you really think that ‘market’ will evaluate their ‘worth’ the same way had pakistan won this series...?
In conclusion
The debate ended like the movie: with a Mexican standoff directed by the Straight Point. That was after Umar Gul filled in appropriately as Malaika Arora. So far back that Fawad Alam could well have been the difference. Well before that, while the Pakistani batsmen were demonstrating a jelly spine, the same could not have been said of the team's finest online cheerleader. Forget the Sri Lankan team, Q had no problem in getting personal with Damith. Much like an Aussie captain on another small island nation, Q called attention to Damith's tactics, and scored a few points with his rapier thrust. Damith's defence, was to question Q's questions about his tactics.
But that wasn't really required. Q admitted defeat shortly thereafter. Apart from spine, apparently the Pakistani team didn't have bats either. This was discovered well after Q had exhausted his quota of small joys for the rest of the year. Some time before his team failed him, his man stood up and threatened to make the difference. Q was in the seventh for a bit there. But Damith won, dude, though Mendis was quite a bit less than splendid.
From Jayasuriya to Warnapura
Warnapura scored 243 runs, (one century, two fifties) vs. India in five innings last July. From what I recall, he had a bit of Jayasuriya in him. He batted left-handed, opened the innings, and went for everything, and your mother too!
Then the Lankans didn’t pick him for the first three ODIs when he was on song. Instead they had Sanath and Sanga open, Warnapura came in for the 4th and 5th ODIs. Back then I thought it was stupid not to pick a form opener. Little exclusions like that can break a player - if I'm not picked now, when will they, when I'm 60 years' old?, to warp a Sachinism.
Here at Bored, Damith (our Lankan Bored Member) along with the rest of them, love taking the Mickey outta Malinda (Warnapura). Today, he came in all AK47s blazing, shooting at will, like the madcap I remember from that forgettable series.
Anyway, whether Sanath can play ODIs well into his 40s is not the question – is it time for Lanka to break the umbilical cord with their favourite son?
Could mean more faith in guys like Warnapura, who aren’t exactly in their teens. FYI he’s 30 plus. That should mean another ten years in Lankan cricket, right?
fawad alam could be the difference...
so pakistan just about managed the same lead as the debutant scored in this innings...
will he be the difference between the two sides determined to commit harakiri...?
will he be the lucky charm pakistan needs so desperately to come out of the hole...?
can't wait to get the answer...
WHO'S YOUR MAN?
Q has come out of the closet with his man love for Fawad Alam a few blogs ago( a blog is the only quantity in which bored members measure time),
and asked Damith to come out too.
Damith doesn't seem to love Splendid Mendis that much to come out in the open about it. or does he love King Kumar more?
However, what's stopping the rest of us from declaring our love out in the open.
Let me begin then,
Fidel Edwards is my man,
What's cooler than a West Indian quick? He gets a li'l cranky at times, doesn't mind giving the batsmen an earful and wants to behead jimmy anderson every time he bowls to him.
that's all i could ever ask for.
so c'mon bored fellas,
WHO'S YOUR MAN AND WHY???
by Prafs
6 LBWs
Looks like the Pakistanis forgot that they had bats in their hands.
I hope now they remember that they have some balls in their hands.
Lets get the facts in the way of a good story
Q, Why the personal attacks ?
I guess I would also fall to such lows after 9 for 35 collapse.
We are battle weary though and know that we must offer Waranapura and Mahela as a sacrifice to the cricketing gods to pull off this win.
Look I am not trying to rub it in but you did loose 9-35. I mean 9-35 that is pretty shithouse if you ask me.
9-35 in 15 overs or so. That is bad my friend. I mean 9-35, woowee.
Is Monty of Pakistani descent ? Might wanna reclaim him if he is.
Talk About Convenience
Why does Damith only wake up when Sri Lanka is on top or doing well in a game?
Where does he disappear to when Sri Lanka are looking down the barrel?
Does Damith have a black hole, in which he resides during the bad times?
Or does he have a secret hide out like the Kalu's Getaway?
More importantly, how does Damith hear about Sri Lanka's comebacks in his recluse?
Does he have pigeons that fly in with notes?
Does he have a cellular device that works insude black holes where he communicates with only those who will give him only good news?
I also wonder whether he has a black eye-band and white cotton wool, which he uses for his eyes and ears to ignore all the times that Sri Lanka are down.
So Damith, what is it buddy?
Oh snap, Pakistan doing the Pakistan AGAIN !
1-85 (Khurram Manzoor, 24.4 ov),
2-285 (Younis Khan, 78.1 ov),
3-294 (Mohammad Yousuf, 81.2 ov),
4-303 (Misbah-ul-Haq, 86.5 ov),
5-303 (Fawad Alam, 87.2 ov),
6-306 (Kamran Akmal, 88.3 ov),
7-312 (Shoaib Malik, 89.2 ov)
8-316 (Abdur Rauf, 90.2 ov)
9-319 (Umer Gul, 95.4 ov)
10-320 (Saeed Ajmal, 96.4 ov)
on why ponting is the ultimate saviour of rules and spirit of the game.
"They can play whatever way they want to play. We came to play by the rules and the spirit of the game. It’s up to them to do what they want to do."ponting meant every word of it...for the first time i truly believed what he said...
for the simple reason that he once even sacrificed australia's possible win against india to complete 90 overs assigned for the day...he did it just to play the game by the rules and the spirit...
tho it's another matter that some neckheads still beleive that he did so to protect his head being chopped off for couple of games...the 'truth' can't be further than this...
Bangladesh beat some sort of West Indies team.
Remember Tamim Iqbal and Shakib Al Hasan - over two years back they helped knock India out of the Carib World Cup, both scored 50s.While Tamim knocked Zaks around like some schoolboy, Shakib helped see Bangla through.
Today, Tamim was Man of the Match, where as Shakib scored runs, five wickets, and sealed the deal with the final wicket. In many ways it was the Best wicket.
They might only have beaten a half assed Windies team, but face it, they could have done the done thing and lost. And yeah, it was Tamim, Shakib and Mahmudullah who won it for them. Not Ashraful, not Mortaza.
While Ashraful scored 9 runs (6+3), Mortaza bowled 6.3 overs.
It's tough to say how good Bangla was, because who saw that match? OK, Tony Cozier was forced too. As were the umpires.
But this does open a new debate, should weaker teams play second string sides from stronger cricketing nations?
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