New Zealand vs India, 1st Test Day 1

Today India began to play its 500th Test Match at the historic Green Park Oval in Kanpur. In a pitch that was expected to aid the home side India won the toss and elected to bat. The start was brilliant in the first session India managed to score 105 runs for the loss of just one wicket. 

It seemed like India will easily score 500 plus runs in its first innings. However the second session turned things on its head. After Pujara was out caught and bowled, Kohli ended up giving his wicket away for a very little score. He tried to hook a short ball, that took the top edge of the bat and went straight to the hands of the fielder Sodhi. Williamson posted two fielders for that particular stroke and Kohli fell into the trap. 

This started a procession of wickets in the second session India lost 3 wickets and managed to score only 79 runs. The final session of the day was going well till Ashwin and Rohit were batting but suddenly Rohit played a lose shot and got out caught and that opened the floodgates. Boult picked up the wicket of Wriddhiman Saha clean bowled for a duck. India lost 5 wickets in the last session. At the end of the day India was struggling at a score of 291/9.

However on the flip side, the pitch is turning and the wicket is deteriorating fast. India gets and opportunity to use the heavy roller in the morning. On this pitch using a heavy roller can make it deteriorate fast and then New Zealand can have real problems with the bowling of Ashwin and Jadeja.

Tomorrow there will be a real test of Indian bowling. 

India vs West Indies - 2nd Test

Cricket is called a game of glorious uncertainties. This showed again in the last day of the second test between India and West Indies. On the fourth day which was mostly rained off India managed to get 4 top order wickets for just 48 runs in the 15.5 overs bowled. However in the fifth day it was a different story. 

The last day of the Test match was a clear day with the sun shining hard play started on time. Anyone would have thought that 98.1 overs were more than enough to dislodge the West Indian middle and lower order. However things took a different turn. First Blackwood and Chase formed an excellent partnership 93 runs. They scored the runs very fast, in fact Blackwood got one of the fastest fifty ever made in a test match by a West Indian player. 

At the fall of Blackwood's wicket, Dowrich came in to bat, Chase and Dowrich batted aggressively. They added 144 runs to their partnership but unfortunately Dowrich got a bad decision from umpire Ian Gould and was adjudged out LBW. At the fall of Dowrich's wicket captain Jason Holder came in to bat and he made the most of the situation scoring 64 of 99 balls. 

Chase who got 5 wickets in Indian innings scored a brilliant 137 not out of 269 balls. India were able to take only 2 wickets in the 88 odd overs bowled by them. 

It was indeed a huge surprise to see the batting that was tottering against Indian bowling put up such a positive and spirited display. This performance should have increased the self confidence of the people involved  in the partnerships on the 5th day. We can expect to see better batting performance from West Indies for the rest of the series, it may rub into their bowling performance as well. 

Chase was rightly given the Man of the Match award for his all round performance. 

Rain in second Test - India vs West Indies- Jamica

Weather and cricket are closely related. The greatest enemy of cricket is rain. Soccer can be played even when it is raining, there are many other sports that can be played in rain. However cricket is not one of them. Even a slight drizzle can result in the stoppage of a match. Surprisingly it is observed that rain follows cricket. Even deserts like Sharjah received rains when cricket matches were scheduled there.

While the Indian team has dominated all the session in the second test with West Indies, the only thing that stands between India and a possible innings victory is the weather. Yesterday, a session and half was lost due to rain. This happened immediately after India declared the innings at 500/9. At the moment India has a healthy lead of 304 runs, with all pace and spin bowlers in form, an Indian victory seems imminent. 

However the weather forecast for today is not great either. There is storm and heavy rains forecasted. If the weather report turns out to be correct then we can lose the entire day today not a single ball may be bowled. One just hopes that the weathermen got it wrong or the storm weakens before hitting the shore. 

That leaves us to tomorrow however the wet ground and pitch may lead to further delay and India may get very few overs to bowl West Indies out. India scored their runs slowly, had they batted faster the declaration would have come earlier and it would have been possible to bowl few overs to the Windies batsmen who were struggling in the first innings. 

The nature is not under anyone's control one can just keep the fingers crossed and hope that we get maximum possible cricket with little or no rain. Everyone wants to see Indian pace trio and Ashwin and Mishra pick up wickets. It is up to the West Indian batsman's ability and technique, if they are to save the match. 

India vs West Indies - Antigua Test

Had you told anyone in the 70s,80s and even in the early 90s that Indian fast bowlers are faster than West Indian fast bowlers, people would have laughed at you and called you crazy. But today it is a fact. West Indies does not have the bowlers who are even close to the standards of Andy Roberts, Joel Garner, Marshall, Hall, Griffith etc. In the 70s the West Indian team had so many good fast bowlers that a great bowler like Sylvester Clarke had to sit out. 

In stark contrast today the West Indies hardly has any top class fast bowlers leave out world class ones. Their batting is way below the the batting standards of the teams of 70s and 80s. Very few of them average above 40. Add to that there are internal problems in WICB and talented players like Chris Gayle, Andre Russel, Dwayne Bravo, Dwayne Smith, Lendel Simmons are not a part of the current West Indian side which is a shame. West Indies needs them. 

The Indian team on the other hand outclassed West Indies in every department be it fielding, bowling or batting. Except for the first few overs by Shannon Gabriel, no West Indian bowler threatened Indian batting. The Indian batsmen were merrily making runs and the pitch was also good to bat on although the outfield was a bit slow on the first day. 

Virat Kohli helped himself to his first Test double century. Ashwin got his century as well and Mishra cashed in on the situation and got a nice fifty for himself. Indians just had to bat only one innings and that was enough. India enforced follow on after getting the Windies early and in the second innings West Indian batting did not improve, in fact the likes of Bishoo and Holder batted way better than the top order. Although Indian bowlers were tired the did get the 10 wickets in the second innings thanks to the 7 wicket haul by Ashwin. 

In the first innings the pitch aided fast bowling Shami and Umesh made most of the situation picking up 4 wickets each, Mishra got 2 wickets. Ishant bowled well in patches in both the innings however in the entire Test Match he managed to get only one wicket. The match was completely dominated by the Indians and it was over in 4 days with about 120 overs to spare. 

If the weather stays well in rest of the matches we may see a complete whitewash of the West Indian team by India. As an Indian cricket fan I will love to see that happening.  

IPL and water crisis

Many states of India are currently going through a situation of tremendous drought. Adverse scarcity of water is making people walk miles for water or live on contaminated water. Maharashtra is the most most drought affected state in the country. This year there are 20 IPL matches scheduled to be played in Maharashtra, in the cities of Nagpur, Pune and Mumbai. 

To maintain the stadium and pitch large amounts of water is needed. An estimated 6 million litres of water is needed in these three venues. In a state like Maharashtra, where the problem of water scarcity is extremely acute, it is absolutely inhuman to use water to maintain the grounds.

While it is true that not playing the IPL matches in Maharashtra will not solve the water problem of Maharashtra, at the same time one cannot let the precious little water left in the state, be used up in stadiums. The matches scheduled to be played in Maharashtra can easily be moved to places where water is in abundance. There are many venues in India which has no water shortage. Venues like Kolkata, Mohali, Dharmasala etc has no water shortage.

Particularly Dharmasala, this year there is not a single IPL match is scheduled in Dharmasala. The stadium in Dharmasala is ideal for holding cricket matches in summer. The current temperature in the city of Dharmasala is between 13 degree centigrade to 25 degree centigrade. In most other parts of India the temperature is above 35 degrees Celsius. So looking at the weather conditions, it makes sense to shift the IPL matches from Maharashtra to Dharmasala. 

Dharmasala stadium is one of the most beautiful cricket ground in the world. The pitch of Dharmasala is also a good one where one can expect to see high scoring matches. So shifting the the matches from Maharashtra to Dharmasala will be beneficial to IPL as well.

T20 World Cup and West Indies

Sometime back in 2015, I wrote an article about West Indian cricket, how it rose and dominated in the past and how it went down. I also wrote about the importance of revival of West Indian cricket. This year has been absolutely wonderful for West Indian cricket. Till now they have won three cricket world cups first it was the under 19 limited overs cricket world cup, then they won the Women's T20 cricket world cup and now West Indian men's cricket team are the new World T20 champions.

The final was played in very good pitch in Eden Gardens, Kolkata. Batting first England were unable to play the leg spin of Samuel Badree and lost wickets regularly. Although English batsmen played freely, the regular fall of wickets led to the slowing down of scoring rate and at the end of 20 overs, England only managed to get 155 runs. 

The pitch was very good to bat on, England were 30 runs short of a good total on this wicket. West Indies started their innings badly. In the second over captain Eion Morgan tried the off spin of Joe Root. Opener Jhonston Charles was so impatient that the tried to make room in the very first ball he faced and tried to flat bat Root over long on. However the bll took the upper part of his bat and went straight to Stokes at long on. In the same over Gayle tried to hit Root over long on, the ball did not hit the bat in the middle, the ball went up in the air and Stokes took the second catch. 

In a way West Indies gifted two easy wickets to England and made their job much tougher. To add to West Indian misery in the very next over Wiley brought one ball back to Lendel Simmons, Simmons missed the ball and the ball thudded into his pad. The umpire rightly adjudged him LBW. After the first three dismissals Dwayne Bravo and Marlon Samuels slowly built the West Indian innings. Samuels was batting well and was scoring fast, Bravo struggled a bit. In the last ball of the 14th over he fell to the leg spin of Adil Rashid. 

After that wickets of Andre Russel and Darren Sammy fell soon. However Samules was hitting the ball well and scoring fast on the other end he got decent support from Carlos Brathwaite who scored 10 of just 6 balls but the amount of runs they were able to garner till the 19th over was not good enough. At the end of 19th over West Indies were 137/6, needing 19 runs of the last over to win, it was a really daunting task.

Morgan gave the ball to Stokes. The batsman on strike was Brathwaite. The very first ball he faced from Stokes he tried to clear his left foot, but the ball was bowled in the direction of his legs and it was a length ball. Brathwaite just lifted the ball between square leg and long leg, the ball travelled 67 metres without bouncing to give Brathwait the first six of the over. 

In the next ball, Stokes tried to ball a bouncer, but he got the length wrong and the ball pitched a yard or two behind the popping crease. Brathwaite cleared his left leg and then lofted the ball over the head of long on for a 94 meters six. Now the possibility of a West Indian win was withing reach. The Windies needed 7 of the next 4 balls. 

In the third ball Stokes tried another yorker outside off stump, but this one also fell short and it was a nice juicy half volley that Brathwaite hit over long off after clearing his front leg. With this six the scores were level. Most people at the end of 19th over thought that England will win the World Cup, however three sixes in 3 consecutive balls changed the course of the match.

When the third six was hit, Ben Stokes was absolutely devastated. He sat on his knees with hands on his head. He collected himself and went back to bowl the fourth ball of the over, again it was an attempted yorker that fell short and Carlos Brathwaite after clearing his front leg, hit the ball over long on for the fourth six of the over. With this West Indies won the T20 world cup for the second time. 

It was one of the most exciting World Cup finals in the history of T20 cricket, enjoyed by fans across the cricket playing world. The match was played to a full house in Eden Gardens, when the last four sixes were hit, every six was greeted with a huge roar. The West Indies got lot of neutral support in Eden Gardens. 

Hopefully this year will mark a resurgence in West Indian cricket, with more and more youngsters in Caribbean taking up the game. In the Caribbean islands the game of cricket is under threat from soccer and basketball. The world cup of cricket in India has been a great success. People enjoyed the games thoroughly. 

World Cup T20 till now

World Cup T20 started with hosts India taking on New Zealand. The Kiwis are an excellent T20 side, India has lost all 4 matches earlier it played against New Zealand. The opening match took place between the two teams in Nagpur. The pitch was far from being an ideal T20 wicket. Indian bowlers bowled well, managed to restrict the Kiwis to 126 in the stipulated 20 overs. 

However when it was India's turn to bat things took a wrong turn. The kept deteriorating fast and the amount of spin generated by the spinners kept increasing. Its amazing how New Zealand knew in advance that the pitch would be a turner and had picked three spinners in their side. Although in terms of calibre the Kiwi spinners are average, but the pitch offered so much assistance to the spinners that even low quality spin bowlers were able to turn the ball square. 

The famed Indian batting line up was not able to stand up to the Kiwi spinners on that wicket and were all out for a paltry score of 79. 

The next two matches were complete run feast. The Pakistan batting side, whose performances in Asia cup was below average suddenly came to form this afternoon in Eden Gardens and on that flat wicket, were able to score 201 against Bangladesh's bowling attack. After many days Shahid Afridi got among runs scoring a quick fire 49. Before him Mohammed Hafeez and Ahmed Sehzad scored quick fifties. The Bangladeshis were not able to score the required runs against the mighty Pakistan bowling line up and lost the match.

The second match played this evening between England and West Indies was another run feast. The track in Wankhade was flat one and England scored 183 batting first. It was a good total, but luck was not with England. The dew on the ground was pretty heavy and they were not able to get the wicket of Chris Gayle. Gayle was in wonderful form and he scored 48 ball century today. The innings was a treat to watch as he hit the English bowlers all around the park. 

Gayle hit 11 sixes, some of them were so huge that they ended up in the second tier of the stands. Gayle has tremendous power in his arms and wrists coupled by the heavy bat he uses, it imparts great momentum to his shots. People come to watch cricket matches to see sixes and fours being hit. Gayle is able to provide them in plenty. This explains why he is such a popular cricketer in India. In fact for Gayle, the Chennaswami Stadium in Banglore is his home ground. He is player who is capable of winning not just a single match but tournaments for his team. Dropping such player from the West Indian side was the stupidest decision that West Indian selectors could have taken. 

Looking at the way West Indies have played, they are surely one of the favourites for this world cup. Pakistan are always unpredictable but the are definitely capable of winning the world cup as well, if their batsmen keep performing consistently.