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.

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.