Dhoni and Cook, Two Poor Captains Leading Test Teams, India V England Investec Test Series

It is a no brainer to know who are the two worst captains, especially in test cricket, at the moment. The answer is - Alastair Cook (Captain of England) and MS Dhoni (Captain of India). If you want to see most boring test cricket being played, then watch when these two lead their teams in the field. The game of cricket dies every moment when these two gentlemen take care of it.

So far the Investec test series India V England (2014) has been tied at 1-1 scoreline. India won at lords when conditions were more favorable to English team while England won at Southampton when pitch turned square on last day, the conditions that one would imagine would suit the Indians more than the Englishmen. Such results further put captaincy, rather poor captaincy, in focus. The victories are not result of any strategic intelligence of captains but just a lottery.

MS Dhoni, the captain cool, is a wonderful and proven leader in One Day Cricket (ODI's), but has always been found wanted at test level. Since his contributions are not much to the teams cause in 5 day cricket, it makes matters worse. It is clear that he is in team because he is appointed as captain of India, else he will never be able to make as a player into the team just based on ability, wicket keeping and batting, both. This is sad because there are more talented players than him, like Naman Ojha and Sanju Samson waiting to get chance and show their talent to the world.

Alastair Cook is wide known for his strategical incompetence in the field of cricket. He is someone who is known to let the game drift, so much so that other teams often regain the lost momentum and get into position of strength from that of weakness. Of late he has been struggling to perform as an opening batsmen as well. He had a torrid time against Mitchell Johnson, Australian fast bowler, in Ashes last winter. Cook has not scored a test century in his last 28 innings in test cricket. He showed signs of coming back to form with two half centuries at Southampton. But the fact that innings was full of luck, and chances that opposite team failed to grab doesn't quite give the confidence that he is indeed back in form.

Both captains are dependent on couple of players to get the result in their favor. If Ishant Sharma (now out of injury) doesn't fire for India, India cannot pick 20 wickets to win a test match, it is clear. Same is the case with England. If controversial James Anderson, medium pace swing bowler of England, doesn't get it right, no way England cricket team is winning any game of cricket.

Who will win the Investec Test  series India V England 2014, is anybody's guess. Both teams look equally vulnerable at the moment. Even wins does't guarantee anything. Such is the past record of both these teams, full of losses and defeats, that one cannot rule out them being back to worse once they start to loose a session of play.

Now the cricketing carvan move to Old Trafford, Manchester for the fourth test. Since both captains are tied as poor test captains, it will be no surprise that the match ends in draw, followed by another one at oval with similar result and test series ends in a tie. Although the controversy between James Anderson and Ravindra Jadeja, forcing BCCI and ECB to react in a hostile manner, might add much needed spice to contest.

Green Lords Cricket Ground Pitch - Good for India! Indian V England 2nd Test Match lords.

England has decided that they will serve the greenest cricket pitch ever produced on earth to the touring Indian cricket team in 2nd Investec Test match to be played at Lords Cricket Ground in London from July 17, 2014. This is because they believe their own bowlers, like James Anderson, Stuart Broad, Liam Plunkett, and Moeen Ali are of club standard. The way James Anderson. England's medium fast bowler,  cried seeing the Trent Bridge pitch is also the reason for this sudden love for greenery. Also there is an ego in England camp that Indian batsmen can't play on green tops (a notion as far away from truth as polestar from earth).

green pitch being rolled at Lords Cricket Ground, london

But what is England Cricket team (and management) are forgetting is -

• England batsmen are struggling with form. Captain Alastair Cook is horribly out of form along with Ian Bell and others.
• On faster pitches England was chickened out in Australia in Ashes.
• India have a better pace attack, more disciplined than the overrated English bowlers, to exploit the green pitch conditions.
• Green pitch never helps reverse swing bowling and that means the potency of England bowling attack will be greatly marginalized by the conditions.
• England bowlers are tired due to long hall in the field courtsey strong batting performance by India in previous test match.

If one looks at the recent history of Indian cricket, the team has always done well on pitches which have offered some assistance to the bowlers, be it in the form of spin or in form of pace and bounce. If one cast the mind back to last  years Indian cricket team has tested victories in bowling friendly conditions at Durban (South Africa), Perth (Australia), Headingly (England) etc.

The reason for India's better performance in bowling friendly conditions, contrary to belied that they should struggle, is that it covers up the weakness of the team. What is the weakness of Indian cricket team? The weakness is bowling. It is young and inexperienced with Ishant Sharma being the leading bowler. With all the great batsmen in their lineup the Indian team struggles to get out the opposition batsmen on flat pitches. On green pitches, however, the batsmen are good enough to put up decent number of runs on the scoreboard and then bowlers can weave their magic around the technically weak and vulnerable batsmen of other team.

With first test match being drawn team Indian has a great start already. Usually they start an overseas test series with a loss. Now on a green looking lords test match pitch, India will look to do one better i.e. to win this match. History says they have won only one match out of 16 played at Lords (Mecca of Cricket) so far. But after the end of this test match the number of wins will be 2 out of 17, thanks to green pitch.

India V England, Live Streaming, Test Series 2014, Watch live here, Listen Cricket Commentary, Cricinfo cricket

Watch Live Streaming of India V England Test Match Cricket Series 2014

India and England will start off the grueling 5 test match cricket series sponsored by Investic with first match being played at Nottingham from Jun 9, 2014 - Jun 14, 2013. Live streaming can be accessed here. Streaming will include updated scores, scorecard, commentary, and statistics.

India V England Cricket Score

To see the cricket score you can visit this page any time. Cricket score of test match played between Indian and England will be made available to users free of cost. Who won the toss and team for the test match will also be shown here as and when the events happen. The test match will start at 15.30 IST (Indian Standard Time).

England led by cook is most boring test cricket side

England yet again, for the umpteenth time, suffered a humiliating defeat against a minnow Sri Lanka in a recently concluded test series which according to cricket great pundits has been the most boring 2 match cricket series ever. Not only the cricket played was boring but also the teams involved.

It was a pathetic demonstration of how to play cricket (test match) as none of the 5 days in either of tests saw a team completing their full quota of mandatory 90 overs. The overrate was abysmal 75 overs a day. And if you think that was not enough, the empty stands at lords and Headingly cricket grounds at London, frequent drinks break, boring commentary, made it worse.  In fact there were many occasions when the  game of Cricket - so called Gentlemen's game was bought to disrepute by both Sri Lanka and England. The words spoken by the players, in frequent dog fights, were not something a family men would like to hear when sitting with children and elders in his drawing room.

The result showed Sri Lanka won 1-0, but do you know it was not cricket that decided the result, it was a machine o may I say a human made system run by machine called Decision Review System (DRS) that decided the winner. In first test the controversial and inaccurate system benefited Sri Lanka by giving not out to a batsmen and in second test it hurt England when the DRS favored Sri Lanka more than once. True cricket lovers still can't understand what benefits ECB (English Cricket Board) reaps by using such a flawed system. Thankfully, by the grace of GOD, it was a mere 2 match series since many cricket lovers would have fallen sick if it was a 3 or 5 test match series.

England was brutally exposed again, against a short ball, which was not quite delivered at 150 kph this time as in Australia (aka Mitchell Johnson) but by 125 kph slow slow medium Dhammika Prasad. Quite clearly the England batsmen were shivering, as was evident from shaking legs of Alastair Cook (captain of England), Ian Bell, and Moeen Ali (the new comer). Moeen gave so many chances (which Sri Lanka failed to grab) that it is very difficult to rate that innings as an International Level cricket innings. It was full of faulty strokes, third class footwork, and no temperament.

Among the two boring sides it is always difficult to conclude who played the most boring cricket but after little analysis, it is quite clear that England cricket team lead by cook takes the cake. Even Shane Warne would agree on this, no doubt.

It was funny how hard Nasser Hussain was trying to cover up the boring show of England. He said, in his cracked voice on sky cricket commentary - "England plays modern cricket, while Sri Lanka plays old fashioned cricket".

Among all the cricket captains in the world right now Alastair Cook is not only tactically the weakest but also the most boring captain to see in playing field leading his side.

Gautam Gambhir potentially a better test cricket captain than MS Dhoni

Mahendra Singh Dhoni or MSD in short continues to remain the captain of Inidian Cricket team even though he has the shameless away record among all the Indian captains thus far. The 8-0 away series drubbing where India lost to mediocre England and bore Cricket Australia's team in past couple of years has had no affect on MS Dhoni's captaincy as he continues to remain the most tactless captain ever. Under him India is likely to loose all the away matches this year as well. This will not be because of lack of quality players under him but because of his inability to use what he has got.

Gautam Gambhir - A Perfect Captain

MS Dhoni continuation as captain of India despite head shaker losses raises a question of two about the availability of resources for captaincy of India. Does India lack players who can lead the national team? After thinking about it - answer is comprehensive 'NO'. Far from it - India has many potentially great captains waiting to get an opportunity to serve the nation. Gautam Gambhir is the front runner in the race. The way he has been able to lift the morale of Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in IPL 7 after a horrible start to the league is a prime example of his leadership qualities. Some of the international great players like AB De Villers have openly said in press that Gautam Gambhir has a potential to become the great captain. Jaques Kallis, now retired from test cricket, also shares the same view. Only problem with Gautam Gambhir is his own form which is not enabling him to get into the first eleven and hence the captaincy looks far away thing to be had.

Form is not the only thing that denies players to get their true position in Indian cricket, there is politics too. Everyone knows the backing MS Dhoni get from selectors, although Mohinder Amarnath was exception and he had to paid the price for raising voice against MS Dhoni, and has done quite well in limited over cricket. This is another problem in Indian Cricket. If you do some thing well in ODI and T 20 cricket you are considered good for test cricket as well. This is especially true if your godfathers are in cricket commentary who are also the former greats. You might be wondering what commentators has to do with who gets the captaincy or not? It matters a lot in Indian cricket. If a 'kar' and 'tri' says good things about you - no one can replace you from captaincy position. On the other hand if 'kar' and 'tri' don't like you - you won't be in a team no matter however good your performance has been. Then there is 'ogle' as well - master of creating the environment in favor and in against (mostly against) the player. Ask Yuvraj Singh, Virat Kohli, and Ishant Sharma, if you don't know what I am saying, how the comments from Mr. Ogle has made their cricketing career a hell at various times.

They say that all salute the shining sun. MS Dhoni is a shining sun even though he is not the best captain for India at the test cricket level. Bad luck is that he has age and so many other factors backing him. This means that the most deserving players who can captain India, especially Gautam Gambhir, will continue to be kept denied the opportunity captain the Indian Cricket team. India is most likely to suffer another whitewash by the hands of England in the upcoming test series this summer. MS Dhoni might win the IPL 7 for CSK Chennai Super Kings but he will struggle to win a test match series for India, for sure.

IPL 7 has Indian Commentators again Cursing Young Indian Players

Many IPL seasons have gone and this is the 7th one. We have seen some magnificent display of skills by cricketers in the Indian Premiere League both with bat and ball. It has combined with some of the most spectacular fielding efforts, like taking amazing catches, to make the cricket contest worth watching. But one that that has remained the same, much to disappointment, is targeted insult and cursing of young Indian cricketers from Indian Commentators.

It has happened in all the seasons of IPL. Some of the Indian commentators and cricket writers feel awkward in the company of much better and knowledgeable english commentators from overseas. What happens is that they feel that they need to be neutral. So they tend to err on the other side i.e. they tend to bias towards the foreign cricketers and often cross the line many times to insult the young Indian cricketers.

Why Indian Commentators are overpraising slogging of Glenn Maxwell? Yusuf and Samson are
better hitters!

In this IPL Sanju Samson has played some amazing strokes. But to take away the credit and earn more money by continuously telling world that Indian cricket is not good enough to produce great cricketers one of the Indian commentators has termed Sanju Samson as a slogger. We all know that Glenn Maxwell is the real slogger who hasn't had an innings without life in the whole tournament. Yet this Indian commentator describes him a better batsmen than Donald Bradman and Sanju Samson as just a swing and a miss batsmen.

Also notice how in earlier editions of IPL the Indian commentators would keep bringing up the topics related to bowling the commentary more than the batting. This time they aren't even touching on bowling and only concentrating on batting and foreign hitters. Do you know the reason for this? The reason is simple. This time Indian bowlers have done better than the much talked about foreign superstar bowlers. Dale steyn's pants have been taken off by some of the local bowlers by smashing him all over the park. Much insulted indian fast bowlers are the leading wicket takers in this IPL season. So that no one appreciate their good bowling and the agenda of 'India is a worst bowling line up' continues to live on for these commentators to make more money, they have cunningly focused on batting. 

Yususf pathan did more in first edition than what Maxwell is doing this season. Yusuf's hitting was of gold standard than the mud standard of Maxwell. At that time Indian commentators used to say - 'real class of batsmen is known by test cricket,' this time no mention to test cricket is made and commentators are happy to tell to the audience that Slogger Maxxwell will even be a super star in test cricket. How ridiculous.  I have nothing against Maxxwell but how low would Indian commentators go down just to prove that they are neutral.

During IPL t-20 games there are twitter battles and contests going on in which we cast votes to favorite cricketers. Whenever someone like Yuvraj Singh is leading the vote percentage the blood pressure of one of the Indian commentator rises and he says Indian fans are brainless and so many  other things which can't be written on a social blog like this.

T-20 IPL cricket was started to give platform to young Indian cricketers. It is sorry to see that it has become a platform to insult the young Indian cricketers and overpraise the ugly skill less overseas cricketers. Thank god only four of them have allowed per team otherwise who knows what might be extent of insult of players like Sanju Samson from Indian commentators. Sorry thing is that even foreign commentators have lowered their standards of cricket commentary in company of India cricket commentary team.

Sri Lanka Just Lucky To win the T20 world cup

Have you ever seen the lady luck smiling more on anybody than the Sri lanka cricket team? The team that should gave been out in first round itself and should never ever have made the semifinals of world T20 has managed to somehow win the world cup. Even in the final they got lucky as India's best striker of cricket ball wasn't in good form on that day.

Let us see why sri lanka is the most undeserving winner of ICC world T 20. First of all their side is completely imbalanced. The team lacks quality and even few club level cricket teams have more talent than these bunch of egoistic cricketers from small emerald island. The sri lanka cricket fans are bad loosers, a fact well known to everybody. They shout a lot even when they should be quiet because their bowlers have iffy actions while delivering the ball giving them unfair advantage over other teams. In fact if one say that it is 'cheating' he would be the most correct cricket lover ever.

Sri lankan batting is all about slogging. Most batsmen don't know how to hold the bat. Most of them hold it upside down. The worst thing about sri lanka playing cricket is over appealing by their cricketers. Most of them play for money as it is clear from day to day fight between cricket association of sri lanka and its cricket board. There have been news coming from sri lankan news paper agencies that mahela jayawardene and kumar sangakkara wouldn't have played world cup final if the Sri Lanka cricket board not promised a huge sum of money as a prize. Apart from that the sri lankan batsmen are known to play for personal records rather than the team as it is clear from number of double hundreds and triple hundreds scored on flattest cricket pitches in the world. Mahela and Sangakkara who shiver seeing the sight of medium pacer scores almost all of their runs on slow low and flat wickets of Colombo.

Everyone had tear in their eyes when final match of ICC world T20 was over and highlight of the match was the disappointment among the true cricketers who knew that it was not Sri Lanka but their opponents (India) who were the deserving winners of the tournament.

ICC should also take serious action on how the senior sri lankan cricketers make expressions when umpires don't make decision that suits Sri Lanka. World cricket can't affort sri lanlka cricketers insulting umpires in front of audience who have come to watch the cricket match live in stadiums.