Kudos to Arjun for this sane and measured article every point stressed here is very accurate, I hope the BCCI doesn't take foolish steps as they have taken in the past just by shuffling up the team, unfortunately when Rajiv Shukla makes statements such as "Drastic measures will be taken" I can only imagine that they will take some knee jerk reaction like axing the captain and coach, and bring in Sachin to the captaincy, that would surely be a step in the wrong direction.
RE:Sensible Reaction
by heaven on Mar 26, 2007 03:52 PM Permalink
Lets try the tried and tested routine....organise a series or several domestic series, invite foreign participation, prepare sporting tracks.........get the boys to play.
At the end of it, select only the best performers. Have a minimum yardstick for perforance and guage this at the end of the season. Players make the grade purely on performance.
Put the selected guys on public forums where they field questions thrown at them, which toughens them up mentally.
Draw up a mini series with them predominantly and few others to create teams, and make them play. Intense domestic activity will prime them for an international career; then the chances of 'super achiever' one day and 'super flop' on another will not arise.
We, the blue billion (courtesy - Pepsi Adv) have been taken for a ride by bunch of 15 crooks. They have not only let us down but made us feel miserable. I never believed that India is fit to get the most coveted cup in World Cricket. But, this stupid media made me feel "Guys it is possible". I think Chappell is still the right choice as Coach and rest 15 have to be shown the door. Obviously, Chappell does not play in the middle nor did he instructed team to loose matches. Playing 11 should be responsible enough to produce the results when it matters most. Team India failed to do it. Following should be remedial measures: 1. No advertisement of players in National Squad. If someone wants to still do it, he should decide between career in Cricket or Modelling. 2. Overhaul of domestic cricket. Follow the Australian Model. Try to get foreign players and start with 6 Super League teams. Make pitches which should produce competitive cricket & not typcially be batting paradise. 3. Any player above 30 years should not be part of team. They can seek alternative careers if not physically fit. 4. Continue with Greg Chappell. Give him time and complete authority. He will certainly be able to find 15 match winners from billion people. 5. All Politicians be excluded from BCCI. Only retired cricketers of International Experience of more than 5 years to be on board. 6. Try to create two parallel teams one for test cricket & other for ODIs. 7. India team captain should be trained on Leadership skills so that he can be 25% of what Steve Waugh or Ricky Ponting are.
In the end, this discussion will go on and we would end up wasting lot of time.
if one analyses the past victories of india in a swashbuckling way....2 names come to the mind. 1.mahendra singh dhoni n 2.yuvraj singh as the people who could change the course of match single handedly. so here are some tactical failures. 1.not utilising the powerplays:why other teams have fared well while india not so(the reason for this is 2006 west indies tour) where we realised that keeping wickets is more important then milking powerplays(but we did not have sachin or ganguly in that tour). so our opening pairs should have been good players of fast bowling like sachin,sehwag n dhoni. 2.Where to play dhoni???? Gavaskar made the remark that karrthick is a better wicketkeeper then dhoni but what everyone failed to see was that dhoni is a batsman more then a wicketkeeper.while chasing against srilanka,dhoni should have played against vaas n malinga not murlidharan n jayasuyra(he has failed against willy n straight fast spinners like gayle n samuels too).but indian cricket team wanted him to play husseys role when he should have play gilchrist role of opening the batting and hitting fast bowlers.(even adam gilchrist loses his wicket against spinners more). 3.Future: now there are talks of removing dhoni. certainly he should be removed as a wicketkeeper ,with dinesh karthick filling in his shoes,while he should be indias opening batsman along with sehwag,sachin,uttapa, middle order should be ganguly,raina,yuvraj n lower middle order should be rahul dravid n dinesh karthick followed by pathan, zaheer,sreesanth,munaf,and some new young spinner like piyush chawla. 4.The pitch: this world cup is extremely biased if one considers the pitches that Australia n S.A got to the ones compared with india,srilanka,bangladesh. No wonder gangulys ever attempt to hit a six always failed with the ball swinging.i still believe India is difficult to beat in flat pithces,but we are poor in swinging pitches of west indies,south africa n new zealand.
RE:dhoni-the biggest tactical mistake.
by on Mar 26, 2007 02:45 PM Permalink
India, Pak, Bangla, & SL... but India has 70% of games including Final in Mumbai...
RE:dhoni-the biggest tactical mistake.
by heaven on Mar 26, 2007 03:43 PM Permalink
past victories or otherwise, lets look into the future.
LIke the article, we still have talent in plenty. Lets now nuture this talent.
Like I have been saying, why not create a match format which would generally cover the shorter and longer versions of the game. Get some foreign participation to make it more competitive and then after the season, get the best 20, WHO HAVE PERFORMED, which would form and constitute the nucleus of the team. In the later matches if more talent surfaces, keep building the team. Then based on the type of series, we will zero in on the final 11 or 15......!!!
As india is one of the greatest cricket teams in the world, they can only play against the greats mentioned above. Can we request BCCI to organise more and more matches against the teams mentioned above. (Not Bangladesh, as they can defeat us) As we are more into playing Super Stars like Tendulkar, Ganguly and Sehwag who can play against these teams only, it will be very good for our egos. I would like you guys to support this cause of ours and send this great request to the BCCI.
RE:Can we have more matches against Bermuda, Netherlands, Zimbabwe and Canada
by heaven on Mar 26, 2007 03:38 PM Permalink
But seriously, why not have series of local matches; a combination of oneday formats/20-20s'/3 day matches. Get some foreign player participation in lines with PHL (thats where our corporates should chip in and sponsor, and special sponsorships to deserving players).
From that background, select the best 20 purely based on performance.
The very next Indian taem should be: Gautham Gambhir Robin Uthappa Dinesh Karthik / Md. Kaif Yuvaraj Singh ( Captain ) Virendar Sehwag Mahendra Dhoni Irfan Pathan ( Vice Captain ) Zaheer Kahn Sreesanth / Munaf Patel Romesh Pawar Piyush Chawla
This team selection will be hard to digested by the public and infact this team may take some more time to start perform, but I sincerely hope this team will definitely make us proud. Ofcourse the coach should be the same Chappel, but the only thing is that he shouldnot go for any experiment. Instead he should persist with this same batting order and the role of all players must be defined and the players also should aware of the roles. U people have any comment ...?
RE:This will be better for Indian Cricket....
by heaven on Mar 26, 2007 03:21 PM Permalink
Guess you have not understood the 'knee jerk' reaction concept. I liked your team with Yuvi as captain, and the new faces.
Would like to know why did you drop Dravid? OK given, Dravid is a poor captain and cannot make a strong point in inspiring his team, but he is a world class batsman still. Also understand that in the final analysis, he was the only man standing and scoring a classy 60 against the maurauding Lankans! He could have continued, but perished trying to force the pace.
I would go more with dropping Sachin (let him go back to the basics), Dada can still be looked at, to give solidity to the top/middle order. Sehwag should NOW play, specially since he seems to have discovered his touch.
Or even better, forget about reputations; lets just have a couple domestic seasons of the shorter version/longer version of the game and test everyone (EVERYONE) without any bias.....and purely based on performance let us select the final 20 players. Most imp lets do it right now, not 3 weeks before an important series.....
RE:This will be better for Indian Cricket....
by saurabh sheth on Mar 26, 2007 02:27 PM Permalink
Ha ha ha, so u still want pathetic Sehwag in the team ? He holds a world record of being out of form for the longest period of time-2 years
RE:This will be better for Indian Cricket....
by saurabh sheth on Mar 26, 2007 02:32 PM Permalink
and Dhoni??? what for??? most overrated player. he should be sacked first
RE:This will be better for Indian Cricket....
by Ismail on Mar 26, 2007 02:40 PM Permalink
remove sehwag...bring raina ...rest is fine...we can win tournaments with this team
RE:This will be better for Indian Cricket....
by patriot on Mar 26, 2007 02:28 PM Permalink
Just replace all the men in blue with our women cricketers. They will do a better job
I believe the vision and plans of Greg Chappell were correct. He seems more interested in the long term growth of Team India than any of the Indian cricket fraternity.
The Aussies started with their development programmes in 80s (late 80s), the results of which started coming in late 90s. Their selection system is extremely harsh by Indian Standards (Bevan at this age will definitely make into the Indian Team), but it is fair. Their vision is clear. They have invested heavily into domestic cricket, talent development etc. Does the BCCI even know what these words mean ...
Blaming Greg Chappell for failure is extremely short sighted .. An Aussie coach cannot gaurantee you aussie success
In the time that he came, the big three of Indian cricket have got older and infirm
Was it wrong to throw out Ganguly at the time? Everybody knwos that the coach was fair and straightforward in his remarks and views, and Ganguly played all sorts of politics to come out of it. I am sorry to see how most bengalis dont understand this. Ganguly's record from almost 1 - 1.5 years before shows his failure.
Anyways, but after that exclusion the coach unfortunately got stuck up in the mud. 'You can't stay clean while working in a coalmine.' By this, I dont mean that he started playing politics. I mean that the pressures from various sides that came in were outside of his control, and he kind of became helpless to counter those.A few failures and the pressure was immense, and all the plans/strategies had to be abandoned.
Greg's only failure was that he could not come out of the Indian politics. Yes, Indian cricket is down at the moment. But the best thing that can be done now is to give him a free hand. Maybe, give him a role more than just a coach, involve him in other aspects as well (selecting, planning).
It cannot be denied that Greg is more honest and will be more sincere towards building Indian cricket, than most Indian cricket fraternity.
i think the right person to lead team india will be kaif.. lets see why he is the one??
Positives: ========= Led indian U-19 team to victory proven captain good attitude Leds by example in field.which will inspire the other team members. He is a fighter. He can motivate young players. He has always been a team man and no doubt about his commitment Negatives ======== Out of form.
BUT WE CAN LEARNT FROM THE PAST THAT CAPTAINCY TAKES A LOT OF TOLL ON PERFORMANCE so why cant we try the captaincy for kaif and see whether captaincy makes him score more runs.
RE:Kaif give him the captaincy and lets see
by saurabh sheth on Mar 26, 2007 02:23 PM Permalink
But Kaif is not a cricketer...he is only a Fielder. He is the most Hopeless player
RE:Kaif give him the captaincy and lets see
by patriot on Mar 26, 2007 02:22 PM Permalink
But the problem is Kaif is not a cricketer. He is only a fielder. And the one negative that you have quoted will perennially stick with him no matter what.
RE:Kaif give him the captaincy and lets see
by Ankur Khanna on Mar 26, 2007 02:33 PM Permalink
we must realise that the game is becoming more of a power game (i mean physical power and not political power)
Kaif, unfortunately, needs to build himself up physically
though it cannot be denied that he has been the most unlucky cricketer, and has acheived good success in position 3/4, which is usually taken by Dracid ,and now by Sehwag/Tendulakr
dravid's big fault is he is not authorative shared the victory with his teammates, and not godfather to support him in bcci A captain is as good as his teammates IF some players are not readyt o commit to team but not support captain and team why don%u2019t blame the individual players?? If the other players are not ready to listen to the capt or the coach, what will the captain/coach do about it?
In last WC sachin was contributed to team scored 33% of total runs won mos and bast batsman. HE WON MATCH AGAINST PAKISTAN this time being VC he failed with bat Some player played negative cricket, deliberately had big role in defeat and not supported the team or captain and it was visible in all 3 matches. and teammates did not ditched team or captian during WC 03. Even kumble was illtreated, his bolwed to his heart for the limited oppertunity. SSO TEAM REACHED fINAL B'CUZ OF SACHIN AND OTHER PLAYERS NOT B'CUZ GANGULY'S LEADERHSHIP OR AGRESSION ganguly scored 3 100 against namibia and kenya but failed to deliver with bat in final as a captian he was not there when team required.this time team failed b'cuz some players deliberately played negative cricket and played big role in defeat to humiliate dravid and chappel. dravid has better winning odi average than any other captain.and recored of winning 18 odis even ganguly' tenure in 5 captaincy, ind won 76 odis out of 146 but 32 were against weaker team like ZIm. kenya, bangadehs and namibiz. while under dravid captaicny team won 33 odis of 64 matchs and 2 only against Zim team lost against SA and bangladesh when ganguly was captain also. ganguly promoted groupism in team. he treated team as his won property players who were good on his book were getting chance. Even laxman kumble after good performance were out of team when he was captain. This time some players deliberately played negative circket , had big role in defeat and did not support team or captain. the diff is ganguly had godfather and continued as captain even he was out of form for long time Dravid does not have god father to support him in bcci board members and chief selector criticized dravi%u2019ds support sewag but sewag is highest rungetter ( 164) and only batsman to score a 100 and won MOM. Even against Bermuda no other batsman clicked%u2026 infact some board members and cheif selector critised dravid for his support to sewag. but sewag ended up like highest run getter and only batsman scored 100 and won MOM Dravid as captain has the support of Kapildev, imran khan and gavaskar About retaining Dravid as the captain, Kapil said: %u201CWhy are we forgetting that this is the same Rahul Dravid who led India to victory while chasing 17 matches in a row, setting a new record. Why did not anybody question his captaincy then? http://www.telegraphindia.com/1070326/asp/sports/story_7566131.asp Matching orders http://worldcup.indiatimes.com/quickiearticleshow/msid-1807342.cms Gavaskar who was of the view that Dravid should continue as the captain despite the World Cup debacle.
"Rahul is 34 and you do not sack captains at 34 when they are peaking. I don't see any reason for a change because Dravid has not shown any sign of pressure. His batting has not faltered", he said. http://worldcup.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1803820.cms Dravid and Chappell should be allowed to continue Imran Khan http://sify.com/khel/wc_fullstory.php?id=14416168
RE:dravid should have godfather in BCCI
by Suman Bhat on Mar 26, 2007 02:48 PM Permalink
WHATEVER U SAID GOES BACK TO U THE FILTHY WORD RELFECTS UR SIC BRAIN GET SHOCK TREATMENT
RE:dravid should have godfather in BCCI
by Suman Bhat on Mar 26, 2007 02:37 PM Permalink
U sic person get shock treatment to ur damaged brain before putting some rubbish filthy msg
RE:dravid should have godfather in BCCI
by Ankur Khanna on Mar 26, 2007 02:30 PM Permalink
'Inauspicious' it is this blindness which is killing indian cricket
why can we see that the backbone/ cricket infrastructure is in pits, the BCCI has no accountability, and politicians are lining up to take charge in the meantime, nobody cares for INDIA
RE:[object]
by Ujjwal on Mar 26, 2007 02:47 PM Permalink
well said......I think Dravid and Chappel r very well conversant in Middle fingering each other in these days. Sharad Pawar should be allowed to join them.
RE:dravid should have godfather in BCCI
by Ankur Khanna on Mar 26, 2007 02:22 PM Permalink
Exactly, Dravid must be allowed to continue with Yuvraj being groomed as a future prospect
RE:dravid should have godfather in BCCI
by Dileepan Raghunathan on Mar 26, 2007 03:16 PM Permalink
A team is as good as its captain. A captain typically influences the team's perforamnce a lot more than any of his players individually can. THis team could have, with all its problems, performed a lot better, if they were led on the field well by a meaningful captain.
RE:dravid should have godfather in BCCI
by Ujjwal on Mar 26, 2007 02:34 PM Permalink
and U should be allowed to assist Dravid and Chappell in making great decisions.....
RE:dravid should have godfather in BCCI
by Dan Lewis on Mar 26, 2007 02:28 PM Permalink
take a break and go to a nearby mental hospital immidiately.Dont delay.Better late then never.
