Bravo Michael Clarke

Michael Clarke has been one of  international cricket's premier batsmen over the last two years. Now he has shown that he is also the best leader in the cricket world.

Clarke's action in suspending 4 of his key players for one Test Match has caused a huge uproar. It has polarized opinions both for and against his decision. The general argument against his decision is that it is too harsh, and will not help matters as far as the morale of the team is concerned. I agree with both of these arguments, and that is the reason I think Clarke is a phenomenal leader.

Clarke has made a decision that will invite a lot of criticism, and perhaps hurt his side in the short term. However he has made it crystal clear that interests of the team come first. The rules apply equally to every member of the team, and the bottom line is to help the team win. Michael Clarke could have chosen the easy way out and let things slide. He didn't.

For me the point is not whether Clarke's decision is correct or not. The point is that he made a very tough decision at a very tough time for the team, and he made it for the right reasons. Opinions about the decision may vary, but Clarke is in charge, and he carries responsibility for results - short and long term. And he chose to act in the interest of the team at great personal risk. I wish we had candor like this in Indian cricket.

Bravo Michael Clarke!

Why India have never been able to dominate Test cricket

After watching Vernon Philander decimate the New Zealand top order in the Cape Town test, I wondered where Philander stood in the career strike rate rankings among bowlers. A strike rate represents the number of balls a bowler has to bowl on average to capture a wicket. It represents the true wicket taking efficiency of a bowler. Philander has been a revelation since his debut and already has 67 Test wickets in 12 matches. Sure enough Philander is second only to the legendary Englishman GA Lohmann on this list.

As I browsed through this list of 126 bowlers, I started looking for Indians and was astonished not to find an Indian in the top 50. All the usual suspects from the great Test teams are on this list - the Windies of the 80s, the Aussies from the 90s and 2000s, the great Pakistani pace bowlers of the 80s & 90s. Marshall, Holding, Roberts, Garner, Walsh, Thomson, Lillee, McGrath, Gillespie, Clark, Willis, Botham, Waqar, Akram, Imran are all in there.

The full list is here...Best career bowling strike rates

The first Indian to appear on this list is at number 87, and that name is the much maligned Chetan Sharma! Chetan Sharma has the best strike rate ever for an Indian bowler in Test match history! The only other Indians in this list are Irfan Pathan, and Zaheer Khan. Amazingly spinners like Warne, McGill, Murali, and Swann are in this list, but no India spinner is in the top 126!

No wonder India has never been a dominant force in Test cricket. A great batting line up without strike bowlers will give you a lot of draws, but not regular wins. Spinners usually bowl a lot of overs for their wickets, and are seldom match winners outside the sub-continent. However what you need to win consistently world wide are aggressive wicket taking pace bowlers. And we have hardly ever had them except for Zaheer Khan recently. That is why India rose to the number one ranking in Tests briefly. India's decline has coincided neatly with Zaheer's decline in wicket taking ability.

So what do we need to do to become a force in Test cricket? Cultivate a culture of fast bowling, nurture these bowlers, and make them feel like heroes. To win consistently we don't need as many Dravids, Tendulkars, Laxmans, and Gavaskars. We need more Zaheers. We need to create conditions favourable for fast bowlers all over the country, particularly in the North where we have more of the athletic and aggressive bowlers. And then take care of them.

Otherwise we will keep wondering where the next Dravid or Tendulkar is going to come from instead of worrying about the next Zaheer Khan or Chetan Sharma. We will continue to throw our occasional wicket taking fast bowler into ODI and T20 cricket and burn them out. And always remain an average Test side that is unable to live up to its potential.

Goodbye Bill Lawry, you beauty!

The iconic channel 9 cricket commentator Bill Lawry will retire from the commentary box at the end of Australia's test series with Sri Lanka. He will do two more test matches - the boxing day test at Melbourne, and the Sydney test from January 3 to 7.

If you are a Lawry fan, these are your last opportunities to listen to him live. I am, and intend to catch as much of the TV action during these two test matches as I can.

Lawryisms like "It's all happening there", and "you beauty" have become standard commentary phrases now. Lawry's unique voice, the trademark laughter, and the excitement in his commentary are unforgettable.

Thanks for the memories Bill, we will miss you. Wish you the best with your health and retirement.

For the full story check out http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/cricket/bill-lawry-to-retire-from-the-commentary-box-at-end-of-summer-test-series/story-e6frey50-1226528533064

Tendulkar and the future of the Indian test cricket team

Sambit Bal has summed up the Tendulkar situation very nicely in his article on espncricinfo today: "The team to play the next Test for India needs to be picked not merely with the next series in mind but the next season. The Tendulkar question will hang heavy, but it will be, as has been suggested widely, unfair to leave the answer to him. Indian cricket owes him gratitude, but not the burden of a perpetual debt.".

http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/current/story/597649.html

India will play Australia at home next, but then they have to tour South Africa, New Zealand, and England. If they want to be competitive on these tours, they better start rebuilding now.

Over to the BCCI to make some tough calls now.

A tale of two declarations

A declaration, and the approach to a declaration in a cricket test match tells you a lot about the captain, and the overall approach of a team.

On day two of the ongoing Hobart test match between Australia and Sri Lanka, Australia were cruising at 450/5 in their first innings. The scoring rate was high and conventional wisdom would have suggested that Australia would score 600+ before declaring, and have Sri Lanka bat for about 20 overs on day two. However that didn't happen. There were some signs of rain, which meant that the test match could be truncated. Michael Clarke declared at 450/5 to give himself some additional time to bowl Sri Lanka out twice just in case some time was lost to rain. As it happened, the rain never came, but Clarke's proactive declaration set the tone for the match, and Australia will likely win the test match anyway.

10,000 kilometers away India and England were battling each other in the Nagpur Test match. India could salvage some of their damaged reputation and level the series with a win, while England only needed a draw for a historic come-from-behind series win. After day three, India were about 40 runs behind England in the first innings. Their only hope was to bowl England out the next day, and chase down the runs on the fifth day.  Conventional wisdom would have dictated one of two courses of action - declare overnight and give your bowlers some more time to bowl the opposition out. Or have your batsmen go hammer and tongs for 30 minutes and get out or declare. Right? But that's not what happened. India inexplicably crawled along for 62 minutes and 29 runs before declaring. If that is not an example of lack of leadership, or just plain old brain dead cricket, I don't know what is.

That is the tale of two declarations. A captain looking to find a way to win, and another one looking for ways to not lose. Both India and Australia are teams in transition at the moment, but it is not hard to predict which one of these teams will win more test matches over the next 5 years.

Craig McDermott's mantra

For about a year from May 2011 to May 2012, Craig McDermott was the bowling coach of the Australian Test cricket team. He took over a team that was winning about half of its matches, and losing the other half. He transformed the Australian bowling unit with a simple mantra "Pitch the ball up". The results during his stint were spectacular - Australia played 14 matches, won 9, and drew 3.

What McDermott achieved with his bowling unit was remarkable, but what is even more remarkable is how quickly the lessons have been forgotten by Australia, and how completely they have been ignored by other teams around the world.

Since McDermott's departure from the Australian coaching staff, they have played 3 matches, drawn 2, and lost 1. Apart from the results, what is noticeable is how much the effectiveness of the Aussie seam attack has dropped. In the series against South Africa, they bowled too short most of the time, and failed to be consistently threatening. Against Sri Lanka in the test match today, their two wickets have come with full deliveries, but overall they have bowled too short.

During the time McDermott was doing his thing, the whole world was watching and admiring what he was doing, but failed to learn from him. Almost all international bowling attacks continued to bowl too short in Test matches, with the exception of Dale Steyn. What is going on? Why have McDermott's lessons been lost on everyone?

Perhaps the answer is that it takes a lot of heart and courage to bowl full and risk punishment. The ball does not swing and seam in all conditions, and the full delivery invites drives and it can be demoralizing if you are consistently driven through the off side for boundaries. Ian Botham famously said about Mike Hendrick, the former English bowler - "Throughout his career he bowled a foot too short. Twelve inches further up and he'd have been a world beater. He stopped himself being a great bowler". Botham was an extrovert bowler who was willing to risk punishment for wickets - a magnificent test match performer.

I suppose ultimately it is a matter of nerve. The one Indian bowler who is not afraid to pitch it up is Sreesanth. It is not surprising that he is perhaps the most consistently threatening Indian bowler when he is healthy and bowling well. McDermott would be proud of him.

Alastair Cook, do Indian cricket a favour - please

Dear Alastair,

You and your team have been magnificent in the cricket test series in India so far. We won the first test, but you guys came back with a steely resolve and thumped our back sides in the next two matches. It hurt, but we could not help laud your preparation, attitude and skill. Barring one or two exceptions, our sorry side couldn't bat or bowl, and the less said about our fielding, the better.

We didn't quite hand over the two matches to you, but our attitude of "give us spinning tracks, we will show up and beat the crap out of anyone" didn't help matters. We have so many folks in the team living on past glory, that there is no place for promising youngsters. But who can blame them when we have administrators who are too busy counting the money from TV rights, IPL contracts, and the like?

To cut a long story short, we need a big favour from you. Please, please, beat the crap out of our team one more time at Nagpur. I know, I know, I am being unpatriotic. But honestly, I don't see any other way to wake up the cricket establishment in India. You have administered a pretty good dose of reality to a team that was number one not too long ago. Now go ahead and deliver the knock out punch.

The last thing we want is for you to get complacent and muddy the waters by losing the last test match. Because an Indian victory at Nagpur will clearly demonstrate to our cricket establishment that all is well with Indian cricket. The 8-0 drubbing in England and Australia was an aberration. So were the last two test matches. So was the loss of form of most of the seniors over a 2 year period. The selectors will then look like heroes for persisting with the right players.

One last time Alastair, please don't let us down. Keep your guard up. Don't forget that you have an opportunity to make history. And do Indian cricket a huge favour.

Yours sincerely,

A diehard Indian cricket fan

End of the Tendulkar era

Sad as it might sound, we have come to the end of the Tendulkar era. The great man had a chance to save India the blushes in the last two Test matches against England, and he failed to deliver. It is reasonable to expect that he, as the senior player (who has been given a really long rope) would have put his hand up, and saved us at least one of the Test matches - a la du Plessis at Adelaide.

Of course Tendulkar's fans and supporters will be up in arms defending him. Their main argument will be that it has been a team failure. That it is not the great man who failed the team. It was every member of the team that failed the team. I agree. But the great man has greater responsibility. Because he is the Great Man. And he has not been able to deliver to that greater responsibility.

So what is he waiting for to announce his retirement? Perhaps he thinks that he is immortal - because he is Tendulkar. And of course the national selectors don't have the courage to drop him. And everyone thinks that he should be given the opportunity to decide when it is time for him to go. Accountability for current performance is not important. If you have the weight of past performances in your favour, you have a longer rope, a much longer rope.

The king can no longer perform. Long live the king!

The joy of watching Test Cricket in Australia

There are a couple of great things about watching test cricket in Australia.

One, the pitches make for exciting cricket and most matches produce a result. Batsmen love the ball coming on to the bat and the scoring rates are usually higher than in other parts of the world. Bowlers always have a chance since the pitches have pace and bounce.

The other great thing about test cricket in Australia are the commentators on TV. You get to listen to the likes of Ian Chappell, Mark Taylor, Bill Lawry, Ian Healy and others. Just like there is always something happening on the field, there is always an insight around the corner with these guys. The current series also has the ex-Hampshire captain Mark Nicholas in the commentary box - another good TV commentator.

Rework by 37signals - an awesome read

I just read the book titled Rework written by the founders of the company 37signals. It is a highly unusual book - irreverant, rebellious, unconventional. And written with simple language that a teenager can understand.

Some samples from the book:

• Underdo your competition - beat them with less!
• Planning is guessing - start referring to your business plans as business guesses
• Emulate drug dealers
• Hire only when it hurts

The (very small) book is full of practical, unconventional wisdom. Perhaps many things that we may have considered questioning, but did not have the courage to do so.

An absolutely invaluable resource for entrepreneurs.

Get a copy immediately and read it.