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.

IPL T-20 cricket require skill as well

They blatantly say: "real test of a batsmen is in test cricket", as if playing t-20 cricket is a child's play. I am talking about the test cricketers of past who have never experienced what it is like to play a 20-20 over cricket match in a packed stadium.

It's amazing how the players who hit boundaries and sixes in t-20 cricket leagues like IPL and Big Bash, under immense pressure, are not given enough credit for what they do.

T-20 players deserve some respect

What a test cricketer of past never understands is that there is no time to assess a pitch, get used to a bowler, and  give first hour to a bowler while playing shortest format of the game, and therefore, when a modern day twenty twenty player plays innings after innings and scores consistent runs in a manner that 20 over cricket demands, he needs to be applauded.

Hitting 4's and 6's is not that easy, especially when international class bowlers are operating. Required rates of over 15 an over and even more is needed sometimes to win a cricket match. To achieve it, which a modern day cricketer does with great regularity, is an unbelievable performance. It is one thing saying that the format allows players to play in a free manner and makes it easy to clear boundaries, it's another thing to actually do it.

Same is true for bowlers as well. In test cricket you can get away by sitting on back of length and outside off stump line for whole day. in t-20 cricket you will be absolutely hammered. Plus there is limitations to the bouncers, wickets are flat, and batsmen are looking to score from the word go. Forget about the respect or reputation. Whoever you are, you will be attacked at the first possible opportunity. It doesn't really have to be a a loose ball for it to disappear out of stadium as far as twenty 20 cricket goes.

I bet not many test players of 70's and 80's would have been successful in modern day cricket. They would have been brutally exposed. No longer a forward defense would have saved a match for you. You got to either hit a six or loose the match.

Many of the cricketers of 70's and 80's would have struggled to keep their place in the team due to inability to hit boundaries at will, under pressure. They would have surely planted their foot forward and tried to swing the bat, but there wouldn't have been any connection between the bat and ball, as it requires more than that, it requires skills. Yet while commentating on TV, how easily they say: "T-20 batsmen just plant their leg, make room and swing the bat. Nothing special about it. Real test will be in test cricket. If they wan't to drive, get a car."

One has to remember that a modern day cricketer plays all forms of cricket. He needs to be equally good in all formats, unless he doesn't play them, as people end up judging his form in cricket by what they see him doing in one form of cricket and even come to conclusion that "he is out of form" even when next tournament is of another form of cricket. Thus a player struggling in T-20 cricket might end up loosing his place in Test Match cricket, even though he had previously done well in longer form of cricket. This is because T-20 has been publicized, by cricketers of 70's and 80's, as easiest form of cricket. So if someone in not doing good in easiest form of cricket how he will do well in toughest form of cricket 'test cricket'.

Virender Sehwag, India's opening batsmen, fell victim to such a theory. Sehwag was brilliant test match players with multiple triple and double centuries to his credit, yet when he got out early in ODI cricket people started questioning his technique. They completely forgot to realise that the batsmen was looking to give quick start to the team which has plenty of other solid batsmen who could have played longer innings if he got out. He wanted to get opposition under pressure and thus was going after the bowling.

But in India they ended up his ODI average of 34 odd and dropped him blaming him 'inconsistent', and completely ignored his average of about 50 in test cricket.

It is extremely important that those who judge players don't get confused with forms in different forms of cricket.  It is easy to get out in T-20 cricket if you are not selfish and play for the team. It requires immense skill to succeed regularly in T-20 arena.

IPL(Indian Premiere League) has given so much of confidence to players like Shaun Marsh, David Miller, Sanju Samson, Faf Du Plessis, Chris Morris, Kevon Cooper, Ainkya  Rahane, Kieron Pollard, etc.

These players have taken their confidence and skills gained from IPL to their respective nation. Mentioning things like batsmen get to play only on flat wickets and a quota of four overs from any bowler, is a complete undermining of bowlers' effort. If this would have been so easy we would have seen 200+ scores in almost every matches, but this is not. Bowlers like Dale Steyn, Mallinga, Cooper, Bravo, Brett Lee, etc. have shown that you can flourish in even these formats.

IPL is not an easy platform, it tests new-comers at a massive level, so much that by the time they come out of it, they are much readier than what they would have been by merely playing Ranji or Duleep trophy on flatter and crowd-less stadiums.
I hope after reading this article, X cricketers will give the respect to IPL and Big Bash players, who deserve it fully.

Test cricket is the pinnacle but IPL does require skill to do well. Some of the players may never be test greats like Pollard, Yusuf Pathan but equally test players like Rogers,Elgar and Cook are not IPL type of guys.

Should IPL7 happen or not?

IPL(Indian Premiere League), if it happens this year, will be in his 7th edition. This controversial league saw its worst days last year when few of the players caught red handed fixing matches, overs, and what not by Delhi Police. Given its history and controversial nature - Should IPL 7 take place or not?

Will fans see Auctioned IPL 2014 players playing
matches hitting sixes

To start off, there is already a problem that organisers of IPL are facing. Sushilkumar Shinde, home minister of India has made a statement "Due to general elections, it will be difficult to provide adequate security to IPL matches." Rumors are floating in cricket world that the 7th edition of IPL might be conducted in rainbow nation, South Africa.

South Africa? But didn't we read a lot about the boxing that is going on between the cricket board bosses of India and South Africa. Wasn't it right that Haroon Lorgat prepared schedule for India's tour of South Africa last year, and did it without consulting Indian counterparts, the Indian board felt like an upper cut was delivered to them. But BCCI members are tough elephants and they responded by delivering one below the belt by preparing a new schedule and tour was cut short to a length of micky-mouse film.

But confrontation among boards and how it will be organized is not the only problem which IPL7 is facing. There is more to it. The recent record of Indian national team, especially on foreign tours.

I have heard that most sportsperson have a huge self-respect . Given how Indian players performed in South Africa and New Zealand, will it not be a problem for them to captain players who did much better than them! McCullum will be playing under the leadership of MS Dhoni for Chennai Super Kings (CSK). The man who scored a triple century recently in Wellington Test, against a side captained by MS Dhoni. And MS Dhoni who? A man who  is now dropped from team and Virat Kohli is given the onus to captain India instead of misfiring captain.

See: Virat Kohli to captain India in Asia Cup

There will also be national elections, general elections 2014, during the time of IPL matches. With people having issues, and mad about getting them solve this time, and IPL without cheerleaders, it will be difficult for IPL 7 to attract interest. For the first time people will be more interested in Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhi, Arvind Kejriwal , and other neta's then MS Dhoni, N Srinivasan, and Gurunath Meiyappan. Country will be more important, for once, than the cricket VIPs.

Bad thing is that most discussion on politics are televised at prime time, 8 pm to 10 pm, in India. This is the same time when night matches of IPL are played. Not many people, excluding unemployed ones, watch day matches. I can't see how IPL7 can be successful this year. We might not see Chris Gayle hitting sixes and fours for RCB ( Royal Challengers Bangalore).

Yuvraj Singh gets resepect in IPL auction, sold for Rs 14 crore

Yuvraj Singh has never given the respect he deserves. He was the main reason for India lifting 2 world cups under MS Dhoni, but the has been smartly sidelined so that other can get more focus. This has been the story of Indian cricket for quite a long time. In future we will see Virat Kohli getting the same treatment. The biggest match winners of India are often ridiculed especially by those who played their cricket for Indian in 70's and 80's and never bothered to look at the score board it was enough to disturb their concentration. Yuvraj does look at scoreboard while batting, which is I think essential to remain aware of how many runs are needed in how many balls, and that is what every new cricketer should do despite running the danger of being ridiculed by great of 80's.

Yuvraj Singh, it is difficult to ignore a man who has hit six sies in an over

Coming back to yuvraj singh, who has been out of Indian team from past few series and also not selected for Asia cup, is a wholehearted cricketer and a true match winner. He is excellent with bat and in field, and pretty useful and smart left arm bowler. Only idiots can devalue what he brings to a cricket team. Vijay Malya's Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) identified the huge potential and rightly bought him by spending 14 Crore Rupees, although he deserved even more.

It is also good to see that Indian players are being sold for more rupees than foreign cricketers. This is an indian domestic tournament and while the greats of 80's sitting in commentary always try to show that overseas cricketers are better than domestic players and miss no opportunity to blame young indian players for losses, the domestic players do deserve the respect.

For the sake of Indian cricket I only hope that Yuvraj singh in good team like RCB, playing alongside chris gayle, AB De Villieirs and other players of his level, will help him in getting his confidence back. He was in odd company when playing for Kings Eleven Pujab initially, and then Pune Warriors in IPL cricket.

There are always some reactions, especially when someone goes for as much money as Yuvraj has. A certain Mr. Souymas says: "Reasons behind Yuvraj's 14 crore buy, he and sehwag were the only two Indian marquee players present in the auction list who can win the game single handedly, being Indian top order batsmen gives advantage of choosing 4 foreign players freely. Last time RCB had problems choosing foreign 4, if they wanted Muralitharan they had to drop Dilshan or vice versa, slso Yuvraj is a good bowler, can field well, has experience too. RCB were looking for good finisher, so they wanted him badly and the auction was a contest. Of Course 14 crore is costly, Lets hope Yuvraj brings the justice."

TSJ07 says: "I cant understand ppl going against RCB strategy.They had a plan and wanted a batting heavy unit with decent bowling which they certainly got with Morkel and Starc. So they can have four foreign players,Gayle,ABVD,Morkel,Starc with India's best two in shorter format,Kohli and Yuvi. Now with Yuvi they can add 15-25 more runs they averaged last time which can be defended in T20 even with avg bowling. Last yeat they scored in the range of 180-200 and still lost due to poor bowling(Thanks to Vinay and co) but now with Yuvi they can 15-20 extra runs. And he can filed very well and bowl little bit of spin as well.RCB just needs couple of good Indian bowlers and couple of good Indian batsmen at cheap price. Still there are decent unsold or uncapped left to buy.Many would be unsold this time." 

 It seems longlivetestcricket doesn't like the RCB move to buy Yuvraj Singh, he says: "Think now Mallya would always be remembered for the 2.3 Million dollar joke for buying Yuvraj when his team had major problems in bowling all these years. They were struggling to defend 200 odd run totals last time and he's again splashed it all on Yuvraj just because 'Virat Kohli wanted it'. His bowling is nowhere to help as an allrounder and coming at No.5 behind Gayle,Kohli, AB won't have much to do. I mean seriously he could have bought Mitch,Shami, Bhuvi/Pankaj all with that amount. Good luck to RCB fans with this decision otherwise story would remain same as last edition. Kings XI have been the star of the day so far with Mitch,Bailey,Marsh,Sehwag, Saha Pujara at cheap pricing to add to Miller, Vohra and still have a huge purse left."

allabouttheoak has something to say loudly: "Urgh RCB! I support this team every year, it's not their batting which is the issue its's their poor bowling. Come on Vinay Kumar and Zac as your lead pacers??? the former was a serial match loser, and the latter on the verge of break down. Why oh why did they not go for Johnson!?!?! did they not see how destructive he was for MI last year?? and not to mention over the ashes.

This really doesn't bode well for the future of team India if this was Kohli's idea, i think he just wanted to do his mate a favour, no cricketing sense behind this decision. Im sorry but Yuvraj is easly the biggest waste of money in the IPL, he does so little, and on top of that he's lazy, just look at his record for goodness sake.

Why didn't they save money and actually buy a player who would help their campaign...

and last season they left dirk nannes on the bench for the whole tournament, seriously this team has more money than sense.

Great team. Stupid management.

This really doesn't bode well for the future of team India if this was Kohli's idea, i think he just wanted to do his mate a favour, no cricketing sense behind this decision. Im sorry but Yuvraj is easly the biggest waste of money in the IPL, he does so little, and on top of that he's lazy, just look at his record for goodness sake.
Why didn't they save money and actually buy a player who would help their campaign...
and last season they left dirk nannes on the bench for the whole tournament, seriously this team has more money than sense. Great team. Stupid management. "

Now they are the personal views of people, but I think If yuraj can get back his mojo with aided confidence he can again help  MS Dhoni win another world cup, in Australia 2015.

Shocking revealings of IPL probe done headed by Mukul Mudgal

Justice Mukul Mudgal's report on IPL controversy revealed some shocking things that are hard to believe for Indian cricket fans. Six astonishing lines from Mudgal report has highlighted the corruption in IPL and has managed to raise quite a few eyebrows. Already cricket lovers want to get rid of Meiyappan, Chennai Super Kings (CSK), Rajasthan Royals and others whose name has come up in investigation.

Raj Kundra (owner of rajasthan royals) believed, as per report, that betting was legal in India. He is UK citizen
and betting in cricket is legal there. He is in trouble now.

As far as Gurunath Meiyappan is concerned, this is what report has to say: "The Committee is of the view that Mr. Meiyappan was accredited/authorised (though implicit at times) by the Franchise Owner i.e. India Cements, to participate and be present when various crucial decisions were taken in relation to CSK. One such example of authorisation is, the fact that India Cements themselves forwarded accreditation requests for Mr. Meiyappan, every year for the last six seasons, requesting for grant of accreditation access cards in the name of Mr. Meiyappan under different nomenclatures (i.e. Owner and Management)."

It seems like Meiyappan had extra constitutional power at CSK and although he claims to be just a cricket fan he could sit in team meeting, sit in a dugout, and also can wander around the cricket pitch.

Cricket fans, especially those who love IPL cricket are understandably angry and have their view points. Here are some angry reactions from cricket lovers:

GrindAR says "Probably Gurunath is not as slave as Mr Singh... mostly because he knew how to quench his desires silently. Poor Singh has to be ideal example of being a pawn of worthless party wanted to rule the country by divide and conquer.... Wait.... something very similar term we refer to somebody from west who looted the country until 65 yrs ago.... wait.... people still have the same situation... in fact worst than 65 yrs ago."

Mriganka Shekhar Chaliha says "Our ex cricketers including Shastry , Gavaskar and some others ( take out Dravid , Sourav and Laxnan )are mere pawns of the big corporate known as BCCI . BCCI under Srinivasan and India cements is a farce in a democracy like India and this commercial house , the way it us being is being run now , has become the greatest threat to the survival of the beautiful game not only in India but in the world. Some of the cricketers and businessmen are playing with the passions of the millions like us. BCCI should be revamped and IPL should be stopped this year. If at all its run it should be run in a different format under a different body in future. Its becoming too much and fans will soon run out if patience looking at these unbearable events."

Sachin Endulkar says "BCCI has 'officially' made cricket all about money. The first step that government of India or the courts should take is to scrap BCCI as an institution and all other sports federations as well. A law should be passed on structure, organization and working of all sports bodies in the country, with special mention of their priorities. Development of the sport and sportsperson should be the number one objective of all sports bodies. Finally in order to minimize political interference no active politician (i.e. member of any state or national party) be allowed to take any part in the functioning of any sport federation. Only then will we have a clean sports culture and see ourselves grow as a true sporting power in the world." 

There are some other interesting views as well. You know how people can react in India. Someone suggested that they should now officially change the name of India Cricket team to India Cements. There are calls that MS Dhoni should step down from captaincy.

This is a very troubling development. There seem to be ominous implications for Srinivasan, who is the head of BCCI and the future Chairman of the ICC. His role in both these organizations should be in jeopardy. The Big 3 (India, Australia, England) now have a big headache.

The BCCI should be run by our past eminent Cricketers. There should be no place for technocrats and power brokers in managing cricket. And in the end, What are the odds of different betting laws in India?