The Indian twelfth man

If there is ever a bible written for sports fans, one of the first commandments has to be: "Thou shalt watch a cricket match that India plays in India." Based on the evidence of the World Cup, the Bangladesh fans are perhaps just as passionate as the Indian ones, but then the Bangladeshi team does not give them opportunities to cheer as much as the Indian team does to its fans. It is an accepted fact - and it is of course true - that it is because of the Indian cricket fan's unbelievable passion for the game that India is the engine that drives world cricket today.

However, it is only when you see it from up close that you get a sense of the proportions of that passion, the cheerful insanity of it. And you watch abstract notions c

ome alive - for instance, the oft quoted fact of the crowd in India acting as the 12th man for the team. It works, and how! When the team is on song, there is non-stop bedlam. Every piece of work that is not terrible is cheered fit to bring the roof down if there is one.

And you can see players growing in confidence before your eyes. In India's thrilling tie against England, there was a point during the Strauss-Bell stand, when England seemed to be cruising to victory. The crowd lost its voice

a little, though not completely. And then, Zaheer Khan struck to get Bell out - which opened the floodgates and seemed to lend an extra decibel to forty thousand voice-boxes in the Chinnaswamy Stadium. When Strauss departed off the next ball, the noise level might have reached all the way to Delhi. With the mood of the crowd, the energy-level of the Indian team too underwent a sea-change. Suddenly, every fielder was attacking the ball.

The Indians were running like the wind, often with the man nearest to the one who was fielding also running to back up - just in case there was a mis-field. The fielders were geeing each other and the bowler up with constant encouragement and the team looked transformed from a beaten lot to one with a strong sense of urgenc

y and purpose. What the crowd also did, by its unstinting, unflagging support of the team, and by lifting the team's performance - was help paper over some disturbing weaknesses in the Indian side.

For starters, the bowling. A team that scores 338, does not have too many excuses if it can't defend it. True, the pitch was flat, but the bowling lacked penetration. There was a boundary ball virtually every over. One could argue that England's bowling was as bad, since India scored the same amount of runs as England did. However, for one thing the Indians have a higher pedigree in the batting department than any other team in the World Cup, and for another India's batsmen had to take a lot more risk to get to the total of 338 than the English batsmen.

The Englishmen were given generous lines, and helped by fielding that was safe but hardly electric - with the occasional fumble not too far away - and that is something the Indian team should be concerned about. The current Indian team resembles the kid in the playground who owns the bat. He comes and bats with a lot of energy and enthusiasm, but doesn't have the patience to bowl or field. Consequently, India have assembled a batting line-up that is the world's best - especially on sub-continental pitches. But the bowling and fielding continue to be sub-par. Given the performance against England, India will need Zaheer Khan to be inspirational for almost every match, and to ask that much of one bowler is neither fair nor realistic.

There were some mitigating circumstances for the loss - the pitch was flat and Andrew Strauss played his greatest ever ODI innings - but the fact remained that a better bowling attack would perhaps not have allowed Strauss to develop his innings into one of the best ever, or at the least, cut down his batting partners if he seemed immovable. It is critical that these questions get asked by the Indian team of itself, that they not be lost in the euphoria of a come-from-behind performance. Because if India get their bowling act together, they are likely to be unstoppable in the 2011 World Cup. After all, they will always be playing 12 versus 11.

Source: http://www.cricbuzz.com/cricket-news/37241/the-indian-twelfth-man

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Only Indian bowlers can deny Sachin WC

For the last two decades, Indian cricket has gained immeasurably from Sachin's presence- on and off the field. Sachin Tendulkar, gifted with talent and temperament, has reached almost all heights that can be scaled in the record books of cricket but the only thing that is missing from the cabinet of the living legend is a World Cup trophy.

Prior to the World Cup, all the pre tournament hype for India revolved around only one man - the little master: Sachin Tendulkar. Each and every Indian player came out and said that they wanted to win the tournament for the maestro.

On Sunday when Sachin took guard, everybody in the ground and millions watching on television could have sensed how desperate Sachin was to lift the cup and that his passion was still the same for the game.

Although he started slowly but when he got his eye in he cleared the boundary with ease and the England bowlers had no answer to his shots, the way he clobbered Paul Collingwood and Graeme Swann out of the park, fans were reminded of the young Sachin. One thing was clear on Sunday that he more than anyone in the team wants to win the coveted trophy and he can pace the innings the way he wishes and can slaughter any top class bowler.

But the Indian bowlers and fielders had some other plan, they were simply out of sorts and when they took the field inspite of being charged up to take the game to the opposition, they were restless and lethargic on the field.

Once again it was the bowling that led Team India and their fans down. Likes of Munaf Patel, Harbhajan Singh, Piyush Chawla, Yuvraj Singh were hammered all over the ground by some classy batting by Andrew Strauss, Jonathan Trott and Ian Bell.

Though Zaheer Khan was the pick of the bowlers for India but he too was expensive giving away 64 runs in his 10 overs but made up for it by picking up three crucial wickets.

Both the Indian games were an action replay of each other. On one hand where batting was just a class apart, bowling was well below par and wayward. Indian bowlers should take the England tie as a wake up call otherwise forget about the Cup, India won't be getting beyond the quarter final stage.

The key in saving India on both occasions was the lack of depth in the opposition's batting. This surely won't be the case against South Africa, who will have AB de Villiers walking in at 5 and Duminy at 6. Pakistan will have the likes of Misbah, Afridi and Razzaq in the lower order to hammer the opposition bowling. Likes of Sri Lanka and Australia also have good depth down the batting order and if bowlers continue with the same line and length, surely an early exit is on the cards for the Indians.

Talking about Sachin, critics and many people believe that Sachin plays for records. Are you kidding me here? Man who gives everything on the filed - play day in and day out and walks to the crease like it was his last match surely does not run after records.

What else do you expect from a man who is going out in the middle and scoring a century at less than a run a ball? He scored a classy 120 off just 115 balls that included 5 massive sixes and it was mainly due to his efforts that India were able to up the ante in the middle overs and reach a formidable target of 338.

But thanks to the Indian bowlers and fielders they ruined the day for the master with their pathetic bowling and fielding. If the performance of the bowlers is not up to the mark, it's surely not Sachin's headache. It's high time India know about their responsibilities and start giving more than 100 per cent if they really want the World Cup to be won for the little master.

Source: http://cricketnext.in.com/blogs/abhisheknandwani/2684/62252/only-indian-bowlers-can-deny-sachin-wc.html

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Sammy aims to revive pride of Windies past

New Delhi, Feb 23 (PTI): West Indies skipper Darren Sammy on Wednesday said his team would look to revive the pride and passion of the two-time former champions during their World Cup campaign which kicks off against South Africa from Thursday.

Sammy said his team received some useful tips from the former players of West Indies and they would look to implement them in their game and deliver with the "passion and fight of the 1980s".

"We received tips from a few former players. Clive Lloyd got in touch with me. Our manager (Richie Richardson) was also a part of the 1996 World Cup. So we would look to implement their advice in our game and deliver with the passion and fight of the 1980s to give something to our fans," Sammy told reporters ahead of their World Cup opener against South Africa.

Once the most dreaded team, West Indies have lost their aura and struggled to deliver as team. The 1975 and 1979 Champions have suffered a 5-0 whitewash at home against the South Africans, before losing 0-2 to Sri Lanka.

But Sammy said past records won't matter much in the World Cup and execution of plans and performance on that particular day will decide their fate.

"We have been in the sub-continent for more than a month and before that we played South Africa at home. We didn't do well recently but it is a prestigious tournament and we have a lot to play for," Sammy said.

"We have to play to our potential. Every game is a big match and cricket is played on a day and it doesn't matter if you are number one or number nine team. We have to go and execute our plans."

"We have self belief and we have to be consistent."

"Consistency is important in the World Cup to make it to the knock out stage. We have some potential match-winners in our side and we have to put them on the field and play 100 overs with confidence to get the best result," he added.

Sammy said some of his players have the experience of playing at the Feroze Shah Kotla ground during the IPL and Champions league and it would help on Thursday.
"Few of our guys played here during the IPL and Champions League and there inputs have been helpful. We have an idea about how the pitch will behave but we will have to wait and watch how it reacts tomorrow," he said.

Sammy said spin will play a crucial role in the matches here and exuded confidence that his team has two quality left-arm spinners.

"Spin has played an important part in the tournament so far. We have two quality left-arm spinner and also Chris (Gayle) bowls off-spin, so we have to consider all these options and choose the best team and perform," he said.

"The challenge would be to go out there and perform to the best of our ability. We are confident and we would look to take one game at a time. The objective is to reach the knock out stage and then focus on the game at hand," he added.

Sammy will have an unenviable task of leading an unheralded bunch of players to World Cup glory and the talented all-rounder said it is an honour to captain the side and join the legacy of the former greats.

"I didn't bring it (captaincy) on myself but it has been a massive honour to lead the side. West Indies has a greater legacy and to be part of that is an honourable job for me. Cricket is a uniting force for the Caribbean people. We would look to deliver with passion and fight of the 1980s to give something to our fans," he said.

Sammy said he handled the pressure of captaincy well and it didn't affect his game.
"I have been playing under pressure even before in my career and so the captaincy has not really changed my game. I have been handling pressure quite well. My idea is to just keep playing."

"I would be playing in the second half of the batting line up and would look to build long partnerships and also bowl economically. On the field, my job would be to inspire the players and also take important decisions when required," he said.
Sammy would be leading a side with four former captains,Chris Gayle, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Dwayne Bravo, - and he said it would help him in decision making during the World Cup.

"It is a good thing to have so many senior players around. They bring in a lot of experience and it would help me. The young can look upto them," he said.

Source: http://cricket.yahoo.com/cricket/news/article?id=item/2.0/-/story/cricket.yahoonews.com/sammy-aims-revive-pride-windies-past-20110223/

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