Ajantha Mendis has suddenly burst into the world cricket scene through his mesmerizing display of spin bowlers against the Indian cricket team. Ajantha Mendis is however more similar to Anil Kumble than his idol, Muthiah Muralitharan
Ajantha Mendis is not a typical spinner like Muralitharan or Shane Warne but relies on his incredible accuracy to always be a threat to a batsman, irrespective of whether the batsman is batting on 0 or on 176.
Like Anil Kumble, Ajantha Mendis relies on his subtle changes of pace, direction and length to fox the batsmen
There are huge expectations from Ajantha Mendis among Sri Lankan cricket fans and cricket enthusiasts such as myself. Its only once in a generation that a classy spinner emerges
Recently, there have been fears that there wouldnt be any near term replacements to Muralitharan, Shane Warne and Anil Kumble
If Ajantha Mendis does well in this test cricket series against the touring Indian cricketers, his future is almost assured, since the Indian cricketers are reputed to be such great players of spin bowling
Labels: ajantha mendis, anilkumble, cricket, india, kumble, muralitharan, shane, shane-warne, srilanka, srilankan-cricket, warneVirender Sehwag ,the best captain that the Indian cricket captain neverhad
Virender or Virendra Sehwag is the inspirational captain of the Delhi Daredevils Twenty20 cricket team in the IPL.
Sehwag probably realizes that having an incredible cricket talent is often a liability as people start questioning his attitude and his style of batting as soon as he fails in a couple of innings
As a result, Sehwag , who has a sharp cricketing brain , a never-say-die attitude and an ability to get along with his teammate is never considered for the captaincy role
Sehwag is easily the best Indian test opening batsman after Sunil Gavaskar, and given his cool demeanour will not mind never being the captain of the Indian cricket team. But the Indian cricket team would have missed having this cool technician as the Indian cricket team 's captain
Sehwag ,with his earthy commonsense and great team building skills, would have been a great Indian cricket captain
What do you need from a cricket captain? Someone you could trust, someone who could motivate you when you are down and someone who truly cares about the Indian cricket team and wants it to succeed
Sehwag, as his stint with the Delhi Daredevils cricket team shows, satisfies all the above criteria, and should be given the mantle of captaincy of the Indian cricket team before his retirement
Labels: cricket, delhi daredevils, gavaskar, india, india-cricket, sehwag, sunil, virender, virendraRicky Ponting| A disaster for Australian cricket
Ricky Ponting is recently back to Harbhajan bashing,but that doesnt exonerate his disastrous influence on Australian cricket
Apart from violating the spirit of the game, creating a new era of verbal abuse,encouraging his fellow cricketers to act like a pack of wild dogs and generally denigrating Australian cricket, Ricky Ponting hasnt done anything wrong.
One wonders what damage Ricky Ponting would do to world cricket when he is guilty of "major errors"
Labels: australian-cricket, cricket, don, harbhajan, hayden, india-cricket, india-vs-australia, ponting, ricky, singh, sydney, symondsMalcolm Speed,ICC cricket CEO,Good Riddance
Andrew Miller,writes in Cricinfo magazine that the ousting of Malcolm Speed as ICC CEO is an admission of the factionalism in the ICC
Malcolm Speed has often be seen to be partisan and has made almost as many gaffes as Ray Mali.
Malcolm Speed may have had issues with the BCCI, but that didnt mean that he could make nasty , gloating comments about India and the inability for a country with a population of 1 billion to win the cricket World cup..
I may not be a great fan of the BCCI, but Malcolm Speed, as ICC CEO, was far worse- Malcolm Speed 's nasty comments don't exactly inspire any confidence about his leadership skills and people from the subcontinent are bound to view Malcolm Speed , as more of a representative of England & Australia cricket boards
Goodbye and good riddance to Malcolm Speed, his seven years as ICC CEO, have resulted in the ICC organization being reduced to a toothless organization, viewed with suspicion by every cricket playing country of the cricket world
Labels: andrew, australia, bcci, ceo, cricket, england, icc, india, malcolm, miller, ray mali, speedSachin Tendulkar is 35 today-What the world thinks of Sachin Tendulkar
Sachin Tendulkar turns 35 today and a good way to appreciate what Sachin has achieved for Indian cricket is to read what other cricketers,mostly his opponents have said about him
.
Labels: chappell, cknayadu, cricket, greg, india, india-cricket, richards, sachin, sachin is god, sachin-tendulkar, tendulkar, vivianMalcolm Speed,ICC cricket,Mickey Arthur so hypocritical!
Malcolm Speed , the ICC and the South Africa cricket coach Mickey Arthur are incredibly hypocritical.
Reports suggest that on the basis of Mickey Arthur's protest, the ICC, led by Malcolm Speed, has asked the BCCI for an explanation for the spinning track prepared for the Kanpur cricket test match , which ended in three days
Why is Mickey Arthur, the South African cricket coach and the ICC not asking for an explanation for the pitch for the Ahmedabad test match which also ended in three days
The fast and green Ahmedabad cricket match was simply a gift given by the pitch curators to the South African cricket team, but Mickey Arthur is simple not grateful
No country will be as stupid as to provide a cricket pitch that is favorable to the opposing cricket team, but the pitch curators at Ahmedabad managed to do just that
The Ahmedabad cricket pitch was tailor made for the South African cricket team's fast bowlers and not surprisingly, the South African cricket easily won the Ahmedabad cricket test
The ICC's comments on the pitch for the Kanpur cricket test sparks of such hypocricy- has Malcolm Speed's ICC or Mickey Arthur ever asked the Australian cricket board for an explanation for the fast cricket pitch at Perth or Centurion Park?
The ICC should be dismantled as soon as possible- the ICC 's decisions are really biased against the subcontinent
The Oval fiasco and the reinstatement of Darrell Hair is another slap in the face for the subcontinent, and it is high time the Asian cricket boards support each other in the face of such blatant bias against them
Labels: ahmedabad, arthur, bcci, centurion, cricket, icc, india-cricket, india-vs-southafrica, kanpur, malcolm, mickey, park, perth, south-africa, speedRobin Uthappa: Australians are sore losers"
In yet another interesting interview, Robin Uthappa has given interesting insights on the Australian cricketers and the Australian cricket media.
In a move that is assured to ruffle the Australian media 's "thin", he has called the Australians "sore losers"
Robin Uthappa uses the Australian cricket media's coverage of the CB cricket series finals to make his point- The Australian cricketers were beaten squarely by the Indian cricket team but the Australian cricket media only covered the cricket series results sparsely in a couple of short notes
The Australian cricket media instead focused on Harbhajan Singh again and his alleged bad behavior
Robin Uthappa suggests that the Australian cricket media was only interested in raking up unnecessary controversies and was not even sporting enough to acknowledge the fair defeat of the Australian cricket team
Any international cricketer would acnowledged the tremendous abusive behavior of the Australian cricket team, dirty comments about the players' immediate family are always on the cards when the Australian cricketers are around
Robin Uthappa suggests that he and his younger colleagues are not prepared to take the nonsense talked by the Australian players without hitting back and letting the Australian cricketers get a taste of their own medicine
Mahendra Singh Dhoni even recently underscored this when he said that his cricket team "learnt" a lot about sledging without being punished from the Australian cricket team
Labels: australian-cricket, australian-media, harbhajan, india, india-cricket, india-vs-australia, robin, singh, sydney morning herald, uthappaSourav Ganguly was missed in CB one day series in Australia
Sourav Ganguly was really missed by the Indian cricket team in the CB cricket series. Surprised?
There is so much said about the youngsters in the Indian cricket team being responsible for the Indian cricket team's win- but did the young Indian cricket batsmen do better than Sourav 'Dada' Ganguly?
The answer is a resounding "No"- Sourav Ganguly had a batting average of over 60 in one day international cricket matches over the last year of so- but all the Indian cricket batsmen in the CB series barring Mahendra Singh Dhoni had averages of less than 50.
The only batsman who came good in the CB finals was Sourav Ganguly's erstwhile senior partner, Sachin Tendulkar
In the absence of Sourav Ganguly, there were only two opening partnerships greater than 50- both of the partnerships had the greatest one day international "senior" batsman in the world- "Senior" Sachin Tendulkar play a major role
Sourav Ganguly was treated badly by the Indian cricket selectors and Mahendra Singh Dhoni- We seem to be getting back to the bad old days, when the whims and fancies of selectors and Indian cricket captains decided the composition of the Indian cricket team
Sachin Tendulkar said it best when he said that the seniors still have a role to play and the Indian cricket team should be selected based on performance rather than whims, fancies and age
Sourav Ganguly is a better fielder than at least Suresh Raina and Munaf Patel,who let a lot of balls slip under their feet-
Sourav Ganguly is supposedly a bad fielder and thats the reason he was dropped- but compared to the leaden footed "young" fielders in the CB cricket series such as Munaf Patel and Suresh Raina, Sourav Ganguly is definitely better
Sourav Ganguly is definitely an asset to any Indian cricket team - he would have been a valuable all-rounder in the Indian cricket team, and allowed the Indian skipper to even play an additional batsman
Labels: cb-series, dhoni, ganguly, india-cricket, india-vs-australia, mahendra, munaf, patel, raina, sachin, sachin-tendulkar, saurav, saurav-ganguly, singh, sourav, sureshAllan Border praises Harbhajan Singh for restraint
Allan Border, the former Australian cricket giant, has praised Harbhajan Singh for his incredible restraint
Contrary to the reports in the Sydney Morning Herald and other sections of the Australian media, Allan Border said that he appreciated Harbhajan Singh 's restraint in the face of some really abusive behavior from the Sydney cricket spectators
Apparently, Allan Border was close to the crowd that was resorting to racist comments about Harbhajan Singh - comments about his religion and his "patka" were apparently freely being bandied out by the Sydney spectators. Allan Border mentioned that Harbhajan Singh handled himself well, in response to some really persistent abuse
Labels: allan, allan-border, border, cb series, cricket, harbhajan, herald, india vs australia, india-vs-australia, smh, sydney, sydney morning herald, sydney-morning-heraldSydney Morning Herald media coverage of India Vs Australia cricketseries:One sided and sickening
The Australian media especially, the Sydney Morning Herald,has been incredibly disappointing.
Its one thing to support the Australian home team,but to run fake campaigns,denigrate the opposition players and cast a blind eye to the doings of the Australian cricket payers is simply not done, at least by a leading national newspaper
By its one-sided reporting,the Sydney Morning Herald has been abusing its power. In this one-sided article about the first final of the India Vs Australia CommonWealth Bank cricket series, the hopelessly biased article talks about Harbhajan Singh 's alleged behavior, but fails to mention the abusive and racist remarks by the Sydney cricket crowd
The Sydney spectators abused Harbhajan Singh by making racist comments about Harbhajan Singh 's Sikh religion and this was not even mentioned in the article
In the cricket article, there is some mention about Pathan and Harbhajan walking down to Hayden and making some comments, but the dirty, abusive comments used by Hayden,Symonda and the rest of the Australian cricket team are not even mentioned
There is no barrier to entry for nastiness in media- what if the rest of the world cricket media behaved in the same despicable manner as the Sydney Morning Herald?
The good old days of the cricket columnist is now being abused by these so-called cricket writers who are bringing decency in the cricket game to its knees
Labels: cb series, cricket, harbhajan, hayden, india, india-cricket, india-vs-australia, pakistan, ponting, racist, sikh, smh, sydney morning herald, symonds, westindiesMathew Hayden,an obnoxious big weed?
In an interesting interview, Mathew Hayden has justified his calling Harbhajan "an obnoxious little weed" by producing his own latest photograph and his new pineapple weed look
Mathew Hayden points at his own photograph and indicates that the "pineapple weed" is quite cool and has a lot of perfume to go with it. When Hayden called Harbhajan Singh a "weed", he actually wanted to say good things about him by comparing him to a perfumed "pineapple weed"
Mathew Hayden has mentioned in his recent interview that there is nothing wrong about being obnoxious, and that he is proud of being obnoxious and nasty and is probably the most obnoxious person around
Labels: harbhajan, hayden, india vs australia, india-vs-australia, little, mathew, obnoxious, weedIshant Sharma giving Ricky Ponting a hard time
Ishant Sharma, India's latest cricket sensation has been troubling Ricky Ponting in the India Vs Australia test and one day international cricket series
Ishant Sharma has the ability to bounce the ball off almost good length- and that has ensured that Ishant Sharma has troubled all the Australian cricket batsmen including Ricky Ponting in this India Vs Australia test and one day cricket series
In this cricket video excerpt from the India Vs Australia cricket test match at Sydney,Ishant Sharma gives Ricky Ponting a torrid time and ultimately even grabs Ricky Ponting's wicket
Labels: cricket, india vs australia, ishant, ponting, ricky, sharma, videoSachin Tendulkar Vs Brett Lee video- See God in action
If you ever doubted that God existed, you should see this Sachin Tendulkar Vs Brett Lee cricket video. Sachin Tendulkar hit three amazing boundaries off Brett Lee including two breathtaking straight drives that scorched the MCG
Sachin Tendulkar's straight drives off Brett Lee were nothing short of cricketing perfection, as the MCG spectators were treated to almost a religious miracle- the most mesmerizing straight drives almost in the history of cricket
As you can see in the Sachin Tendulkar Vs Brett Lee video below, Sachin Tendulkar slams the ball back to the boundary with majestic power that seemed to signal that he is almost back to being the best bastman in the cricket world today
Labels: brett, brett-lee, cricket, mcg, sachin, sachin is god, sachin-tendulkar, videoHarbhajan Singh appeal to be tried by controversial judge of New Zealand, John Hansen- a ploy by the ICC
Harbhajan Singh's appeal will be judged by John Hansen, a really controversial judge who is known to give rather "blinkered" decisions.
According to Kiwifirst, John Hansen, the New Zealand high court judge is known to make rather controversial judgements.
John Hanson has been described by this Kiwifirst website as someone who is "unable to apparently separate his personal bias and interests from his arbiter's job" and someone who is "Prone to take a blinkered approach in proceedings and in his written accounts of proceedings and rulings, providing inordinate focus on the arguments of the litigant (or counsel) he personally fancies"
Labels: andrew, bcci, cricket, hansen, harbhajan, icc, john, john-hansen, rp singh, symondsRicky Ponting lacks integrity in Sydney test match
Ricky Ponting surely lacks any semblance of integrity. The two appeals , one off Dhoni, where he claimed to have perfectly (!) taken the catch (see attached photo) and the catch by Clarke perfectly sum up his integrity or lack of it
As Prem Panicker writes in Rediff.com, Ricky Ponting should be banned until Ricky Ponting improves his behavior
Ricky Ponting said "There is no way I grounded the ball". What do you think, is Ricky Ponting grounding the ball or is the ground rising up to meet the ball ?
Labels: clarke, cricket, panicker, ponting, prem, ricky, sydney, test
View the original article here
