Archive for the ‘Cricket’ Category

Culture of Corruption? -India,Pakistan,Bangladesh

Tuesday, August 31st, 2010

Ricky pointing yesterday said in radio interview that he was shocked. Known as punter himself , he felt that allegation on pakistani team should be investigated to get to the root and he also suspected that it is culture of subcontinent. View which watson too subscribed too in more polite manner. Anil Kumble slammed this stating that it happened in west Indies , southafrica and even Australia . So it is global issue but not culture issue.

Anil has right to say what he said. For player who has played more than 17-18 years in upright way , he has right to slam anything like this but this culture thing needs little elaboration and should be taken in holistic view than just cricket.

When Jinnah came up with two nation theory ,he made up his case citing festivals,aspirations , role model , heros and such things. He argued that heros for Muslims are villains for Hindus and vice versa. He argued that there has always been two nations existing in India.

Jinnah had his way and pakistan was born. By definition word pakistan means ‘land of pure’. So land of pure was born with dream of providing land to subcontinent muslims.

Was pakistan dream bought by all muslims of subcontinent. Answer in no. Many stayed back in India while many moved to pakistan to live their life as per dream in which they were enrolled.

Now as 63 years have passed ,if we look back at all these years , amidst war between India and pakistan , issues like kashmir and terrorism , there are many things which are common in India and Pakistan,Bangladesh.

The number one thing which is common in all three is high level of corruption. Out of 163 countries surveyed , Bangladesh comes is 155 ranked , Pakistan is 134 ranked. India managed to improve its position and is now ranked 84th. So there are 83 more countries in the world which are less corrupted than India but that also means that India is highly corrupted.

Another thing common in Bangladesh , India and Pakistan is governance. While Pakistan and Bangladesh being small countries have often been bullied by army ,India has had democracy barring brief period of emergency . Still highlight of governance in all three countries is lack of accountability , divide and rule , fear based politics.

Since India is home to all religions , division in name of religion is easy. India being home of Hinduism , caste based politics is also easy and what caste,religion can’t do region can obviously do. When all fails , Pakistan’s name is good enough to get the job done.

Pakistan on other hand has 96% Muslims so religion based politics is not lucrative. But region based is. Taking hardline stand and blaming raw,mossad,cia aiming at only Muslim nuclear equipped country comes handy. Similar is story of Bangladesh.

Governance uses tool of corruption ,right from filling personal bank accounts to wooing voters.

When Jinnah called Muslims and Hindus as two different nation ,what he forgot was culture and common heritage. While all three countries share rich heritage and ancient civilizations , in same way it shares minus of that and one of the big minus point is corruption. In great history of Indian subcontinent , cases of betrayal,bribes in form of cash or post too makes its presence felt.We have role models of Ram ,harishchandra in India a stats says it all. Corruption has really become part of subcontinent lives and no matter how much we call ourselves different , we are more same than we think we are. We may call ourselves hindus or muslims but what binds us is common problem.

As scotland yard continues its investigation , it is time to look within and ask ourselves ‘do we have culture of corruption?’. The place which produced bhagat singh , chandrshekar azad , tilak , subash , even non corrupted jinnah and mahatma gandhi , the same place has deep rooted corruption in the sytem , in one’s life.

Oops They Did It Again ? : Match Fixing Ghosts Returns In Pakistan Camp

Monday, August 30th, 2010

Few days ago I read a well written wonderful blog post on dawn. It was on current balling attack of Pakistan and author rated them as world’s best bowling attack of recent times. As cricket fan ,I could not stop myself commenting on that blog. I am big fan of Mohammad Asif , Mohammad Amir , ajmal . Add gul and akhtar when in form to that attack and they can demolished any strong batting line up. They can make shewag , tendulkar , pointing , kallis , peterson look like fighting for life and they can tame any great batsman on their day.

Pakistan has had typical characteristic when it comes to playing cricket. They are unpredictable , they can win against mighty aussies or southafrica or in form Indians while they can get defeated against minnows . What they would come up with is what even wikileaks can’t leak!!!!!!!!!!!. Only thing which any team playing against pakistan can be sure of is that Pakistan cannot be taken lightly.

Yesterday as I woke up , my dad informed me about pakistan cricket team coming under scanner for match fixing . As I switched on the television , it was all over the channels. Considering cricket being as important as budget or even more , for Indians , news channel were competing among themselves to show the video footage , calling experts to get their views.

It was sad to see name of amir , riaz , amin making round in thing like match fixing. Amir is one of best things to happen to cricket in recent times. He had bowled in australia , england and really performed well. The match in which he has been accused of bowling pre decided no ball , amir took six wickets and teared england top order apart. In same match he is being alleged of balling no ball by taking money to suit booker’s business.

Ofcourse what he is being accused of or asif is being accused of didn’t change the match scenario but how can one draw the line?. If allegations are true , how can one be sure that these people wont take money for loosing entire match?

What saddens me is not just cricket match fixing allegation. Cricket would survive and cricket lovers are far more forgiving lot. Azhar who was banned for life for match fixing ,now is member of parliament , cronje is one of most popular man in southafrica even after his death , shane warne is all time great while mark waugh too is remembered for his catches and batting than his infamous fixing thing ,jadeja is seen commenting on matches in prestigious channel . So these things are often forgotten and forgiven and game goes on.

What saddens me is holistic view. Pakistan is on cross roads in history. It is facing worst situation since its independence. It can be said to be worst situation than 1971 war. It is fighting war against own creation called taliban and extremist. It is having floods which has effected large population , its democracy is seeing revival after long time . Amidst this if pakistan could have got good news in any form , it would have been from cricket considering how much they love cricket. Ofcourse it wont have solved any of practical problems but it would have been something to cheer about.

Asif or butt or amir are not zardaris or gilanis or sharifs or khayanis. They cannot fix problems of pakistan but they can atleast play their game without fixing it. They can atleast bring smiles to country in crisis. They are role models for pakistanis and they can provide great examples of strong characters. At least they can do that. Isn’t it?

India Wins In Typical Indian Way

Thursday, August 26th, 2010

Tri Series In Srilanka has had all the drama which we quiet often see in bollywood movies. Randiv bowling no ball to prevent century from shewag which triggered outrage among Indians , made headlines ,became part of discussion and debate. India played srilanka next in league match. We all were counting match to be in typical dharmendra style -’mein tera khoon pijaayunga , aa raha houn mein’ but it didnt go that way. srilanka nailed India in that match and Indian media called dharmsena as dhitrashtra.

Yesterday’s match India’s famous batting line up was expected to fire. It was pitched against bowling line up of kiwis which had humiliated Indians by bowling them out cheaply. It was karo ya maro match and pushed against wall , in typical Indian way , we expected them to fire but they didnt. Dinesh karthik looked like hockey player who was asked to bat. He tried to connect to ball as if his team mate had made the pass to him.Rohit sharma has mistaken cricket to be one ball game and tries to hit the ball with word go, yuvraj has lost his touch and is finding difficulty in hitting ball much like he is finding difficulty is dating girls ,these days. Raina who made great debut in test too failed. The cool skipper did hanged in fortunately but it was one man show. Shewag who made bowling pitch and good attack look ordinary and India some how managed to post total of 220 plus.

By the time Indian innings got over , it looked like one of those series which should be forgotten. The super stars of IPL , the mega stars of ad world and great batting unit on paper looked ordinary and since India lacked zaheer , harbhajan , match looked heading for kiwi’s victory. Such has been India’s bowling performance that even bowler like srishanth is missed!!!!!!!!!!!!.

Fortunately dhoni went for 4 seamers and all four delivered. Pravin is deadly bowler in pitches which supports swing bowling , munaf is like kid who refuses to grow but at times he does deliver and yesterday was one such day, nehra has been bowling well since his come back and Ishant too did the trick. India won and made it into finals.

While winning does help it also puts same questions again and again. Why can’t India give professional performance?. Why do we need inconsistency and high drama quiet often?. Why do we need situation where we have to win to make into finals?. Questions which would be needed to be answered before world cup. I hope we do sort this out.

Laxman Does It Again- India wins third test match , dhoni’s clean record stays

Saturday, August 7th, 2010

Locator map showing India and Sri Lanka
Image via Wikipedia

As India team for test series for sri lanka got announced , there was discussion going on in an prestigious web portal of India. Some body questioned laxman’s selection!!!!!!!. Now questioning laxman’s selection in test team is like questioning ‘why is tata’s name in most trust worthy business men?’. Never the less for sake of records v.v.s laxman has highest average in last five years and second highest after gautam gambhir entered the scene. Test matches would never be same once laxman retires.

9 years ago India were down and out from the test against australia. Having found itself in hopeless situation , laxman produced gem of innings and along with dravid not only made sure India is save but India went on to win the test match. According to tendulkar , dravid , ganguly , kumble , that inning did more than winning the test. It changed entire belief system of Indian cricket and new self belief was induced among all cricketers.

Today after nine years laxman did it again. Yesterday’s paper read ‘ India facing possible defeat in Colombo Test’ and all hopes of sachin tendulkar (bhishma pitama of Indian cricket). Stats too were in favor of sri lanka, pitch was getting tough but tendulkar played cautious innings before class of laxman made sure that India won. Raina too supported laxman ably.

V.V.S laxman has time and again proved his class and this innings would also be cherished long time by cricket experts. Media for strange reasons doesnot flash laxman as much as others and some or other do question laxman’s selection. Thank god they are not selectors!!!!!!!!

With this win dhoni’s clean record of not loosing series still remains since India has drawn the series.

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Muttiah Muralitharan – No ‘Doosra’ like him

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

Photograph of Muralithran taken in 2004
Image via Wikipedia

It is not every day when India loses still one doesnot feel too bad about it. It is not every day that when world’s number tag is at stake and still you want one opponent to take wickets against you. It is not every day that opponent is backed up.

22/7/2010 is not just another day. It is day when history has been written. It is day when an icon is retiring. It is day

when a man who didn’t chase records but created it is saying good bye to the world of cricket.

Muttiah Muralitharan , the man who re defined spin bowling , the man whose dusara got every teesara player shocked and every

player being scared is saying good bye in style to cricket. The legend has one match to get 8 wickets and reach 800 wickets

mark in test cricket and he did just that. Muttiah muralitharan is now officially first person to have crossed 800 wickets mark and perhaps would remain the only one to do so.

To reach to 800 mark , one needs to play 160 test matches and take five wickets averagely in each test match.Considering a nation plays 10 test matches in an year , it would take 16 years for a great bowler to reach 800 mark. He has to maintain his form through out , remain mentally and physically fit , then he can reach that level.It is as good as climbing mount everest!!!!!!!!

As muralitharan joins his contemporaries shane warne and anil kumble as being retirees , an era today comes to an end. No more we would see ‘eyes wide open’ bowling gesture. No more we would see smiling gentleman who could beat greats in flight. No more we would see exceptional bowler who could spin even in cement pitch!!!!!!!

It is time to say good bye to one of ‘THE MAN’ of spin bowling. As we bid good bye , we wish him all the best for his future. There wont be any ‘doosra’ muralitharan.

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