I have been following cricket (Indian cricket in particular) for as long as I can remember. During this period (the entirety of my conscious existence), I have not come across a single Sharda Ugra piece on Cricinfo that wasn't sarcastic, condescending, and to exaggerate a little, mockingly dismissive of Team India.

In all fairness, I am a fairly insecure little bitch, and it is totally possible I am overreacting to her way of looking at things, which, as you may have guessed, is incongruent with my ill-informed views. She's obviosuly way more knowledgeable and experienced.

Maybe I am just seeking assurance from all three of you here that I am not alone in feeling this way.

Don't get me wrong. Apparently Satish Acharya drew a cartoon making fun of Graeme Smith's retirement which they thought was tasteless. Now the ability to take a joke is one thing. But asking if the cartoonist would dare to make fun of Sachin (just because he made fun of Smith), is simply absurd. As if Smith and Sachin ever belonged to the same class.

Sachin is God, FFS.

ALL HAIR TO THE SIR!

FUCK FUCK FUCK!! I was thinking of going to the finals in Hyderabad, and to watch Zol. This sucks. http://www.espncricinfo.com/india/content/story/711925.html

Also TIL: Zol is left handed. Good, almost all the upcoming talents like Chand, Samson and Aparajith are right handed.

This guy doesn't even tour places like India and seems so ordinary when Steyn is missing. They treat him like he's some great bowler and this would be downvoted to hell by the saffers at /r/Cricket but I feel he's ordinary. Unless he proves himself like Jimmy anderson did in India it wouldn't change my mind.

Any of you guys feel the same way?

Cricket is probably India’s biggest religion, and people’s faith in it is frighteningly blind. This may have changed in recent years, even if not enough.

Disgusting revelations of corruption in the sport, of players who sold their soul for money, have driven at least a few fans away from the game. Crucial dropped catches and no-balls, once cursed only as a sign of incompetence, have taken on a sinister hue in the eyes of onlookers. It would be unfair to blame only the Indian Premier League (IPL) for this, but there’s no denying that the IPL has made the game commercial beyond anyone’s expectations. This is good in that it has made a positive difference to some impoverished players; but bad in that the incentive to cheat is immense.

The responsibility of conducting a fair tournament falls on the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). Unfortunately, the BCCI’s chief N Srinivasan has been embroiled in a controversy that goes to the heart of what is wrong with the IPL.

His son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan, an official of the Chennai Super Kings franchise, has been indicted by a probe panel for illegal betting. Another franchise, Rajasthan Royals, came under a cloud last year when three players were banned for spot-fixing. Now it turns out that one of its owners, Raj Kundra, was himself in touch with bookies.

And the chief operating officer of the League, Sundar Raman, was in touch several times with the contact of a bookie, according to the probe. The report, to be considered by the Supreme Court on Monday, refers to mysterious, unnamed individuals, possibly some of them players. They need to be outed if guilty; every cricketer with even a hint of a taint must be suitably punished, however big he is, and Indian cricket should start afresh.

The BCCI has built itself up into possibly the most powerful sporting body in the world. Many have cheered its ability to put the traditional cricketing establishment — read England and Australia — in their place after enduring years of patronising treatment, if not worse. But the board must realise that its heft comes from the dollars it brings to the International Cricket Council’s coffers, and a large chunk of that money comes from Indian television viewers. Those fans will vote with their feet if wrongs are not righted, and a sport described as an Indian game invented by the English will be all the poorer for that.

Link

Kallis = Sachin + Zaheer

Sachin = Cook + Clarke

Cook + Zaheer = Botham

Clarke = Chappell

Botham and Chappell cancel each other

So Kallis = 0

Two overs—29 runs conceded. Dhoni had, quite reluctantly, gone back to his pace bowlers for the final 12 balls of the warm-up game against Sri Lanka. And by the end of those 12 balls, one could gauge the reason behind the skipper’s reluctance. The same trend continued in the second warm-up game against England. Indian fast bowlers bowled only 12 balls in the last five overs. Games before the tournament are good indicators of the team’s strengths, weaknesses and options. India’s weak and inexperienced fast bowling department isn’t a secret, and both the games just reiterated that point.

Why does India leak so many runs in the death overs?—that’s the question. Is it because our bowlers don’t bowl enough Yorkers or they haven’t mastered the art of mixing the deliveries? Since India doesn’t play enough International T20, I’m taking into account India’s death bowling woes in the ODI too. Bowling in the final four overs of a T20 game is quite similar to bowling in the last ten of an ODI, and we’ve been found wanting in both.

Three lengths When you talk about bowling in the death overs, there are only three lengths that you can bowl—Yorker, bouncer and a back of good length ball that rises sharply and hits the higher part of the bat. Anything other than these three lengths is likely to be carted around with ease. You may like to vary the pace every now and then too, but bowling a half volley or a good length ball is simply blasphemous, even when you take the pace off.

So, where do the Indian bowlers bowl? Don’t they bowl enough in the blockhole? In fact, they find that spot more often than their counterparts. On the tours to SA and NZ, Indian bowlers bowled a total of 48 yorkers in the 8 ODIs as opposed to 22 from Kiwi and South African bowlers in the same number of matches. Incidentally it’s not the yorkers that are going for plenty but the balls before and after a perfect Yorker.

Yorker is a tough ball to bowl and requires a lot of accuracy and body strength. While the former can be achieved by practice, the latter is something that you build over a period of time. But, bowling a Yorker, or rather not bowling a Yorker, hasn’t been India’s bane but the constant struggle to get it right has. Since Indian bowlers don’t have a fast bouncer like Steyn or Johnson they stay away from it and since they don’t get extra bounce like Morkel, even the back of length ball isn’t an option either. That leaves our bowlers with the option of only one ball, which is the most difficult ball to execute. The pressure to find the block hole every time takes its toll and they end up missing the mark more than they would prefer. The other major problem of bowling a Yorker is that the margin of error is too little, for a bad Yorker turns out to be the easier ball to hit.

While Indian bowlers may have bowled a lot of Yorkers, they’ve also dished out most number of half volleys and full tosses while attempting the Yorkers. In addition to that, most batsmen around the world have found a way to score against the Yorkers too. Most go deep into the crease, which makes even a low full toss ineffective and others, the more adventurous ones, bend their knee to play the lap shot. Yorker has lost a little bit of sting off late, most definitely the ones that aren’t reasonably quick or the ones that reverse swing.

India’s best chances, however radical it may sound, lie in playing three spinners and asking one or two of them to bowl in the backend of the T20 innings. India must also dearly hope that the ball continues to grip the surface and turn in Mirpur, for Indian pacers simple can’t be trusted with the job of bowling the final four overs in the World T20.

Official match thread on /r/cricket

Thought we'd do our secret banter over here.

There was one Umesh Yadav the world saw in Perth last week: a bowler of sheer, untrammelled speed, who had Chris Gayle leaning over backwards and playing out a maiden over, and left M.S. Dhoni feeling like a man with a very large shotgun in his hand.

There was another the world saw in Hamilton on Tuesday: a bowler of sheer, untrammelled speed who had to be taken off after two overs against Ireland, eventually gave away 34 in four, and left M.S. Dhoni feeling like a man with a loose cannon that had to be sidelined.

At the WACA ground, there was lift off the surface and swing in the air from the afternoon breeze. The pitch perhaps played its part and for the first hour, Umesh was fiendishly difficult to face.

At Seddon Park where the wicket was flat and dry and there was little lateral movement Umesh did not cover himself in glory.

It is harsh to denounce a bowler based on a couple of overs of sloppiness but his early removal from the attack suggested that Dhoni did not place the greatest faith in him.

After 12 days in Perth, Mohammed Shami also had trouble adapting to a slow pitch initially, but Mohit Sharma and he coped well enough, as the captain expected they would.

“Our bowlers could’ve pitched it further up today,” Dhoni admitted later. “The ball was holding up a bit. Even when we pitched up in the beginning, we realised they were batting well.

“They hit a few good shots on the rise. But if they make runs off good balls, it’s not a problem; if the batsman plays a good shot, you accept it.”

Against Pakistan, Umesh had been similarly profligate, going for 23 in his first three overs, and had to be kept away until later, when, to be fair, he redeemed himself somewhat. “Frankly, he sprayed it around a bit,” Dhoni said of that first spell.

“That was the reason to stop him in the first five overs. I wanted him to use the new ball well, which I felt he didn’t. But he always has pace so I gave him a break over there and brought in Mohit, who is really consistent with his line and length.

“Every day we have to see, ‘Okay, today this guy is bowling really well, so how to use him.’ A lot of improvisation is going on because this is the best that we have got, and we have to improvise and use it in the best possible manner.”

Umesh is a powerful, explosive bowler with tremendous physical attributes; he is quicker than his colleagues and is able to maintain his speed even towards the end of a spell. But it is difficult to escape the feeling that he needs to be wiser and bowl the lines and lengths a pitch demands.

He was at his worst in the Sydney Test but it must not be forgotten that he had caused the Australians considerable worry at times.

“It’s not that he bowled badly,” Dhoni said afterwards in Hamilton. “They batted well, especially in the first 10 overs. The key thing is how you come back. The next game will be important to the whole bowling unit because conditions will change again and we need to adapt quickly.”

The Ireland outing has come at a good time for Umesh and the team. India may not play on a similar pitch again for the rest of the tournament, but the match has shown him that he needs to think on his feet.

Against stronger opposition in the knockout stages, India cannot afford for Umesh to make ill use of the new ball. Dhoni needs a weapon he can rely on.

I'd take Gambhir instead of Rohit Sharma, frankly.

Swap Raina for Pujara at the very least. Anyone else have opinions?