Exit, stage left.

Another early exit for India from what was basically a crap tournament. Almost all the teams playing looked disinterested - especially England - and went through the motions. The pitches were rubbish - you would have expected run feasts on Indian flatbets after the Monsoons, but instead the BCCI, for reasons unknown, told the curators to prepare ox-cart tracks which have led to - barring a couple of exceptions, a string of alarmingly low scores.


The timing of the tournament is extremely odd as well. Having it a few months before the world cup makes no sense, especially in terms of attracting public interest for the 'big one' in the Carribean. The sensible thing to do now would be to scrap the Champions Trophy as an ODI tournament and convert it into a Twenty20s affair for future editions. There have been whispers here and there about that happening, but the sanctimonius BCCI needs to first endorse the new whambang version of the game for the idea to go anywhere.

Drumming fingers for some action...

Its been a fairly dull couple of weeks in the world of sport despite a champions league machday and a disciplinary hearing. Chelsea beat crap Eastern European opposition, Madrid beat crap Eastern European opposition, Liverpool and Arsenal might as well have done the same thing... yeah, not much to report.

Inzy showed up at his hearing in another interesting "east meets west in a horrible mismatch" attire and got banned from the champions trophy for his trouble. So did Darrell Hair, come to think of it, with the ICC citing a thinly veiled "security concern".

Hopefully some excitement awaits us with some domestic league action and champions trophy qualifiers coming up in the next few days.

The Maestro returns and gets screwed over by D/L

I woke up up early this morning with a sense of expectant premonition (but I always do that when Sachin comes out to bat, so best not to read too much into it) and opened the cricinfo page to find him not out on 99. Brilliant way for me...er... him to make my...er... his comeback.

Batting on a cabbage patch with basically a ditch at a good length for right handers, our hero braved all the odds and showed his enemies that there is life in those thirty-three year old tennis elbows yet.

Of course, the only enemy he couldn't conquer was the calculus of variations or quite possibly abstract algebra that goes into the Duckworth-Lewis method. For the uninitiated, this is a technique used by umpires to determine an "effective" score in rain interrupted one-day games. It basically involves them futzing around in the umpires room, chatting about the wife and kids and then pulling a random number out of their arses when the match referee shows up and asks them what they're doing.

Complete bollocks as usual. Someone shoot the ICC.

A Beautiful Game

Few would have been ready for a world cup final re-match so soon, but when France and Italy were cast in the same Euro 2008 qualifying group some months ago, the 'big day' was destined to get a replay in less than two months.

And it couldn't have been more different. In terms of intensity, sustained excitement and quality of football, yesterday's France vs. Italy game played at a packed Stade de France was heads and shoulders above the world cup final.

Some argued after the game that the Italian team looked like they hadn't fully returned from vacation and were still basking in world cup glory. Nonsense. The truth is that both teams were practically full strength and Italy was thoroughly outplayed by a France team that was free flowing in attack and barring the glitch on the set-piece that led to Italy's only goal, extremely tight and well organized in defence.

Domenech finally seems to have seen sense and he showed that by playing a much more attractive 4-4-2. The 4-5-1 he played in the world cup was probably more due to Zidane's presence and while that formation was perfect for showcasing the maestro's magical skills and ability to almost singlehandedly win matches, it put a lot of pressure on the other players, especially Henry and Vieira.

Vieira espeically seems to be playing with a lot more freedom and authority than he did during the world cup. Another revelation from the game was Gouvou and not just because he scored two of France's three goals. Playing alongside Henry, he proved to be a slippery as well as powerful striker, as his second goal proved when he shrugged off Cannavaro's challenge to head past Buffon. Gouvou is a man Domenech has not been particularly kind to. He keeps playing him in different positions, usually bringing him on as a substiture for Maluoda which doesn't seem to be his natural position.

More than anything else, the game provided an excellent opportunity to see three goals sneak past Buffon - something I don't remember seeing in a while. I think this is as good a time to say it as any -- Allez Les Bleus!

To 'Assinine' Laws

A lot has been said but very little done to address the striking imbalance between bat and ball in cricket. It is too easy to score at over a run a ball these days, especially on sub-continental flatbeds.

It is similar to the imbalance between defending and attacking in football - there, changing the offside rule so that there is atleast daylight between the striker and the last defender before he striker gets called offside would make a big difference to goalscoring.

How are bowlers expected to take wickets in 42 degree heat at Chepauk on a grassless flat track? Let them fiddle around with the ball a little bit, as long as its with their hands. Sure, lift the seam, what the hell? Bob Woolmer called law 43.2 an ass recently. Mike Selvey writing on the subject in the Guardian gives a few examples of 'ball tampering' incidents and allegations in the past:

Remember the old tale of a first-class English umpire, once no slouch himself as a seam bowler, who having inspected a ball with a seam that had been picked so hard it would have sliced carpaccio, threw it back to bowler with the comment that if he didn't get a five-for with it he wasn't worth a light. It was cricket's equivalent of driving at 80mph on the motorway.

Selvey does go on to suggest that 'tampering' only became an issue after the Pakistanis started getting reverse swing, starting with Sarfaraz Nawaz and Imran Khan in the 70s and 80s and then with Wasim and Waqar in the 90s, thereby putting a racial and maybe political spin on it. All possibly true, of course, but that is a topic which this blog is not at all about. We do not condone race and politics.

Andrew Miller writing in Cricinfo agrees that the 'Dark arts need to be brought into the light'. He argues, among other things, that what qualifies as ball tampering is often lost in nuance:

Pakistan's underlying grievances, however, stem from the double standards inherent in ball-tampering. As anyone who has ever played the game knows, a bit of spit and polish is perfectly acceptable, essential even, but a bit of scratch and scour ... well that can only be the devil's work.

Finally, the most vilified man in the incident - Darrell Hair - finds himself a supporter at long last in Harry Pearson writing in the Guardian blog. He takes particular exception to the "Mini-Hitler" accusations directed at Hair, emnating from Pakistan:

As to whether Hair is a "Mini-Hitler" all I can say is: I hope not. After all, the 53-year-old from North Sydney weighs 18 stones. If he is a miniature version of the fascist leader, then Hitler must have been even more of a colossus in reality than he was in his own fervid fantasies, standing atop the Reichstag swatting at allied aircraft like an unsavoury version of King Kong.

A Dream in a Broad Sense

While I attempt to keep this blog free of magic realism, this particular incident (or rather coinkidink) warrants publishing.

A couple of weeks or so ago during one of the tests between England and Pakistan, the TMS team on the BBC started talking during the tea interval about the Twenty20s cup which was in its final stages at that time. They mentioned Stuart Broad in particular, the tall 20 year old quickie who plays for Leicestershire and has had an impressive season, and whether or not it is too early to talk of him as an Ashes prospect for this winter. It was a very brief exchange and the subject was quickly changed, quite possibly because Blowers got distracted by sea gulls or the blue trams pulling into Old Trafford Station.

Fast-forward a couple of weeks to New York City and more specifically, to my bedroom between the hours of midnight and 8am starting last night. In the dream that filled the gap between those hours, a very tall bowler named Broad bowling in a street game at an undisclosed location - but most probably Melbourne, by the feel of it - gets extraordinary bounce from good length deliveries and takes several wickets in that innings including a hat-trick. For some reason, the passers-by on the street keep referring to that game as the Ashes.

The first thing I usually do after waking up every morning and checking my email is open the BBC sports section. To my shock when I did that today, there was a large article on the front page talking about the rise of Stuart Broad and it included bits of interviews with him and his father - former England batsman Chris Broad.

What is the point of this fable? That the seed of a thought was implanted in my brain via the media a couple of weeks ago and I had a dream about it yesterday. Just like any other normal person. And then it got published in the BBC this morning.

Where the Sun don't Shine

It is time people stopped being super critical of cricket boards and tournament organizers and gave them credit where it is due. This 'glass is half-empty' attitude is especially distressing in these difficult times, when one seeks inspiration, not spirit deflation. With that, ladies and gentlemen, I introduce to you the beautifully constructed shenanigans of the "ongoing" "tri-series" in Sri Lanka, which has proved once and for all that the Big Cheeses of all major cricket boards have elevated incompetence and skullduggery to an art form.

By organizing a tournament in the middle of a war-zone and worse still, in the middle of a monsoon season, sub-continental boards have proved yet again that the driving force for such events is potential television and advertising revenue and not preparation and conditioning time for major ICC events.

The last bit of competitive cricket the Indian team played was in early July in the West Indies. With the Champions trophy starting in early October, why not give the team a long and well deserved break till late August-early September, before calling them in for a one month conditioning camp culminating in two or three warm up games? Not a chance. A completely pointless series in SL had to be organized which meant that the players had to cut short a much needed rest and recuperation period to start preparing for it.

If a series had to be played at all -  and some people might argue the case for having a few international games under a team's belt before  a major tournament, then have it in a place like Sharjah or Dubai, where the pitches are similar to the sub-continent, but more importantly, where it is NOT RAINING CONTINUOUSLY right now. Of course, the bigwigs have decided on having another tri-series in Malaysia in mid-september. Again, not the smartest thing to do because of the weather there.

Well, here's to hoping we get to see the Indian team in action for a couple of games atleast, before the champions trophy.