The cricket World Cup's schedule was ostensibly set up to ensure that, at the very least, India made it to the knockout stage. In reality, it was set up to ensure that all the teams that made it to the knock-out stage did so because of a proper body of work and not because of one or two fortuitous days of play (as was the case with Kenya in 2003). In the end it worked out well. Say what you will about England's tortured path to the quarter-finals, they had a chance to atone for losing to Ireland and Bangladesh. Similarly, Bangladesh needed a sustained performance and not just one good day (beating England, for example) to get it to move forward.
Also, the schedule was spaced out such that no team complained about not having enough time between matches, ensuring that all 8 teams came into the QF's with plenty of rest as well as match practice.
With that in mind, here are some thoughts about the quarter-final matches that have been played so far.
India-Australia
i) While most folks were anxious that we met the Aussies so soon, I was actually happy about it. Beating the Aussies in the quarter-final was always going to be (mentally) easier than taking them on in a more tense atmosphere of the semi-final or final.
ii) The Australian team walked through their Group A matches untroubled for the most part because the only teams that could have realistically beaten them were Sri Lanka and Pakistan. One game got washed out without the batting being exposed while the second was a loss that was put down to the vagaries of playing in a dead rubber. The Aussies first real test were the Indians and the current edition of the Indian team is, pound for pound, mentally stronger and technically more sound than the Aussie one. Ironically, the fellow who may be the most fragile mentally (in the general opinion of many folks) is the fellow who just crossed 18,000 runs and is leading all scorers at a World Cup. Yet again.
In other words, the Aussies were ripe to be taken and the Indians did just that.
iii) Ricky Ponting played an inning that seemed as inevitable in its march towards a century as it was impressive to watch. Two factors worked in his favor. One, the Indians did not have a single bowler who could bowl a bouncer to save his life, so Ponting did not have to worry about that egocentric pigheadedness that has pervaded his batting of late - the stubbornness to pull the ball as if he were a re-incarnation of Andrew Hilditch in his prime.
Second, the pitch was not a batting beauty, so he was required to play the bowlers more carefully and had to eschew his normal mode of batting. Ponting in his prime was the anti-Dravid at the #3 spot. Where Rahul Dravid built his innings with impregnable defense from which he slowly expanded his range of strokes as he settled in, Ponting's MO was to attack, attack, attack until it forced the opposition's captains to spread the field and wait for a mistake. Even his forward defensive pushes used to be delivered with a gusto that was intimidating...until bowlers like Ishant Sharma and Steve Harmison, in combination with a subtle dulling of reflexes, began to make him hop around for doing that.
Therefore, Ponting's inning was a restrained one. Eight years after the event, I still have vivid nightmares about the 140* made by Ponting in the WC final against India. Today's inning was even more impressive for me than that one for the skill he displayed against a set of bowlers who were fighting with him every step of the way. For the first time ever I was actually hoping Ponting would score a 100 because the way he batted today, he deserved it. Big time.
iv) I am 100% positive of two things about the way Ricky Ponting got out. I do not recall ever seeing or reading about Ponting hitting a reverse sweep. Second, that is the last time we shall see him attempting that foolhardy shot in a meaningful game. While it was probably not as seismic a shot as the Mike Gatting reverse sweep fiasco, it was the difference between 260 and 275, in my opinion. And those extra 15-25 runs would have made it more interesting, that's for damn sure (to quote Reacher). Why on earth did he play that shot at that time? I asked myself the same question when Tendulkar, not content with barely getting a ball over midwicket's head once in the 2003 final, tried to repeat that shot against McGrath, with fatal consequences. Déjà vu all over again. In a good way, this time.
v) By not hitting a single hook/pull shot and still making a 100, Ponting will have (hopefully) realized that run-making, as you grow older, requires a difference mindset. SRT successfully made that transition (Tiger Woods is currently struggling with one right now). There is no shame is not being the marauding attacker, Ricky. Your determination to succeed and range of strokes are more than enough to easily get you by for another 5 years. All you have to do is placate that ego and learn to duck or sway out of the way of a bouncer. Or, take a leaf out of Sehwag's book, and look to dab it down to fine-leg and live to fight another ball.
Here's a recommendation to you, Ricky. Watch VVS Laxman or SRT bat. They hook and pull only when they are totally comfortable and settled at the crease. Otherwise, they are content to duck out of the way of the bouncer.
One last point. Freed of the burden of having to lead the side, SRT has had the luxury of focusing simply on his game. Ponting, I know it feels empty to not be leading a side you are playing in, but I believe you will enjoy your batting a lot more if you do so.
vi) Virender Sehwag has an injured shoulder. All the press is about the swelling in his knee, but I think that is simply misdirection on the part of the team management. Watching him bat, it seemed quite obvious to me that the fellow who made the 175 on the first day of the World Cup is not the fellow who was batting today. His hands are his biggest asset. Today he was not fluid when he was moving his hands through the line and I think there is something wrong with where the hands are getting their movement from, rather than his feet.
vii) When SRT scores a century, India does not win. When he scores a 50, India wins. What a conundrum to contemplate for the next two games (yes, I had a vision that SRT was walking out to bat at the Wankhade and it was so vivid I refuse to believe that it was wishful thinking). Personally, the fact that the current ICC Test cricketer of the year is leading the ODI World Cup run-scorers list, while also having been the leading scorer in the last edition of the IPL (T20) tells me that SRT is as close to a complete batsman as there has ever been in the game. I am not saying the best, the greatest, the most exciting or anything like that (even though arguments can be made for all of them) but simply - the most complete. What a player!
viii) Based on what I saw in this match, I propose one change to the Indian line-up and then I think we have the team that will win the World Cup. It is a fairly radical suggestion - drop Munaf Patel and bring in Yusuf Pathan.
Here's why: With Ashwin opening the bowling and Zaheer Khan only bowling 3-4 overs at the start, new ball bowlers are not really required. (I want to call Munaf a "fast bowler" but that is not true. Shahid Afridi has, at times, bowled balls faster than Munaf has in this World Cup). India has 3 full-time bowlers - ZAK, Ashwin and Economy Singh. Yuvraj Singh has become a 10-over bowler, too. So a combination of Pathan, Raina, and SRT (and even Kohli as Dhoni surprised us with today) can bowl the other 10.
Munaf is not going to be bowling 10 overs anyway the rest of the way. Here's how he has done this tournament:
10-0-48-4 (Bangladesh)
10-0-70-2 (England)
4.5-0-25-1 (Ireland)
Did not play (Netherlands)
10-0-65-2 (South Africa)
5-0-20-0 (West Indies)
7-0-44-0 (Australia)
Look at those numbers again. Are they really what you want from your opening bowler? In addition to that, the fellow gives away at least another 10-15 runs with his fielding (or lack thereof).
Surely, a combo deal of Pathan-Raina-SRT can give us 10 overs for 60 runs, too. And maybe even take a few wickets here and there, and save a lot of runs.
Masada, I know you don't read my blog, but on the off chance you do, please, please go in with just ZAK as a faster bowler. Drop Munaf and please do not get swayed by the conventional wisdom that you must have two medium-pacers at least or that Mohali is a fast bowler's paradise. Be bold, in return you get to have the luxury of batting Pathan as low as #8. Batting is going to be our calling card to the championship and Munaf is not such a significant upgrade in the bowing department in order to merit keeping him any longer.
Please, please.
ix) When the ICC drafted its controversial 15 degree rule for chucking, it stated that:
All bowlers will be permitted to straighten their bowling arm up to 15 degrees, which has been established as the point at which any straightening will become visible to the naked eye.
So, in essence what they are telling us is that a flexing of 8-10 degrees is done by almost every bowler and is not visible to the naked eye. So, even "model" actions such as McGrath's or Hadlee's have some flexing in them. In other words, if you can see flexing of the arm or bending of the elbow, then it means that the bowler is exceeding the 15 degree limit by a far margin and chucking the ball.
I saw both quarter-finals and, from my limited vantage point of the replays on the small screen, there were quite a few deliveries that were hurled with actions too jerky to be within the 15 degree limit. Shaun Tait, Economy Singh, and Mohammad Hafeez come freely to mind. The ghost of Johan Botha is lurking and tomorrow he may get added to that list in my head. Where's Chris Broad when you need him?
x) Finally, after the halfway stage of the game, one thing became very apparent. If India lasted the distance without getting all out, it would win the game. Even Ponting admitted as much. With about 10 overs to go, a couple of my colleagues watched along with me for a few minutes. For both of them it was their first time watching the game. Even as I explained the game, the basics, and the situation they asked me - why are the Australians letting the Indians take these easy singles? For a long, long time Ponting was content to spread the field and the Indians milked the runs. Four-five runs an over is no sweat when there are just 4 fellows inside the circle. The Indians were able to get close enough to the target where a few boundaries opened up the game.
Only when the Indians took the batting powerplay in the 46th over, by necessity rather than request, did the field come in. By then the horse had bolted and the pressure was less enough for Raina to launch Brett Lee for a six into the stands. To use an NBA term - that was the dagger. But if Ponting had closed in his fielders much earlier and dried up the runs, he could have created some panic. Going into the game, the big talk about the Indian line-up was their propensity to commit hara-kiri during their batting powerplays in the World Cup. So, why would you wait for the Indians to decide when they wanted to take the powerplay? Force it upon them artificially by closing in your fielders.
Gah! It was captaincy by the numbers. Ponting has never been the most tactically astute of captains, his outstanding captaincy record notwithstanding. But, what are all the support staff with their laptops and video analysis and strategy sessions doing?
Australia did not play like a team that deserved to be in the top 4 nations, their #1 ranking notwithstanding. As a result, India are left with a match that is against some nation it has only occasionally met on the cricket field in the past few years. I wonder if anyone else will even show up for the game as it is being played between two local teams.
I, on the other hand, can't wait!
Also, the schedule was spaced out such that no team complained about not having enough time between matches, ensuring that all 8 teams came into the QF's with plenty of rest as well as match practice.
With that in mind, here are some thoughts about the quarter-final matches that have been played so far.
India-Australia
i) While most folks were anxious that we met the Aussies so soon, I was actually happy about it. Beating the Aussies in the quarter-final was always going to be (mentally) easier than taking them on in a more tense atmosphere of the semi-final or final.
ii) The Australian team walked through their Group A matches untroubled for the most part because the only teams that could have realistically beaten them were Sri Lanka and Pakistan. One game got washed out without the batting being exposed while the second was a loss that was put down to the vagaries of playing in a dead rubber. The Aussies first real test were the Indians and the current edition of the Indian team is, pound for pound, mentally stronger and technically more sound than the Aussie one. Ironically, the fellow who may be the most fragile mentally (in the general opinion of many folks) is the fellow who just crossed 18,000 runs and is leading all scorers at a World Cup. Yet again.
In other words, the Aussies were ripe to be taken and the Indians did just that.
iii) Ricky Ponting played an inning that seemed as inevitable in its march towards a century as it was impressive to watch. Two factors worked in his favor. One, the Indians did not have a single bowler who could bowl a bouncer to save his life, so Ponting did not have to worry about that egocentric pigheadedness that has pervaded his batting of late - the stubbornness to pull the ball as if he were a re-incarnation of Andrew Hilditch in his prime.
Second, the pitch was not a batting beauty, so he was required to play the bowlers more carefully and had to eschew his normal mode of batting. Ponting in his prime was the anti-Dravid at the #3 spot. Where Rahul Dravid built his innings with impregnable defense from which he slowly expanded his range of strokes as he settled in, Ponting's MO was to attack, attack, attack until it forced the opposition's captains to spread the field and wait for a mistake. Even his forward defensive pushes used to be delivered with a gusto that was intimidating...until bowlers like Ishant Sharma and Steve Harmison, in combination with a subtle dulling of reflexes, began to make him hop around for doing that.
Therefore, Ponting's inning was a restrained one. Eight years after the event, I still have vivid nightmares about the 140* made by Ponting in the WC final against India. Today's inning was even more impressive for me than that one for the skill he displayed against a set of bowlers who were fighting with him every step of the way. For the first time ever I was actually hoping Ponting would score a 100 because the way he batted today, he deserved it. Big time.
iv) I am 100% positive of two things about the way Ricky Ponting got out. I do not recall ever seeing or reading about Ponting hitting a reverse sweep. Second, that is the last time we shall see him attempting that foolhardy shot in a meaningful game. While it was probably not as seismic a shot as the Mike Gatting reverse sweep fiasco, it was the difference between 260 and 275, in my opinion. And those extra 15-25 runs would have made it more interesting, that's for damn sure (to quote Reacher). Why on earth did he play that shot at that time? I asked myself the same question when Tendulkar, not content with barely getting a ball over midwicket's head once in the 2003 final, tried to repeat that shot against McGrath, with fatal consequences. Déjà vu all over again. In a good way, this time.
v) By not hitting a single hook/pull shot and still making a 100, Ponting will have (hopefully) realized that run-making, as you grow older, requires a difference mindset. SRT successfully made that transition (Tiger Woods is currently struggling with one right now). There is no shame is not being the marauding attacker, Ricky. Your determination to succeed and range of strokes are more than enough to easily get you by for another 5 years. All you have to do is placate that ego and learn to duck or sway out of the way of a bouncer. Or, take a leaf out of Sehwag's book, and look to dab it down to fine-leg and live to fight another ball.
Here's a recommendation to you, Ricky. Watch VVS Laxman or SRT bat. They hook and pull only when they are totally comfortable and settled at the crease. Otherwise, they are content to duck out of the way of the bouncer.
One last point. Freed of the burden of having to lead the side, SRT has had the luxury of focusing simply on his game. Ponting, I know it feels empty to not be leading a side you are playing in, but I believe you will enjoy your batting a lot more if you do so.
vi) Virender Sehwag has an injured shoulder. All the press is about the swelling in his knee, but I think that is simply misdirection on the part of the team management. Watching him bat, it seemed quite obvious to me that the fellow who made the 175 on the first day of the World Cup is not the fellow who was batting today. His hands are his biggest asset. Today he was not fluid when he was moving his hands through the line and I think there is something wrong with where the hands are getting their movement from, rather than his feet.
vii) When SRT scores a century, India does not win. When he scores a 50, India wins. What a conundrum to contemplate for the next two games (yes, I had a vision that SRT was walking out to bat at the Wankhade and it was so vivid I refuse to believe that it was wishful thinking). Personally, the fact that the current ICC Test cricketer of the year is leading the ODI World Cup run-scorers list, while also having been the leading scorer in the last edition of the IPL (T20) tells me that SRT is as close to a complete batsman as there has ever been in the game. I am not saying the best, the greatest, the most exciting or anything like that (even though arguments can be made for all of them) but simply - the most complete. What a player!
viii) Based on what I saw in this match, I propose one change to the Indian line-up and then I think we have the team that will win the World Cup. It is a fairly radical suggestion - drop Munaf Patel and bring in Yusuf Pathan.
Here's why: With Ashwin opening the bowling and Zaheer Khan only bowling 3-4 overs at the start, new ball bowlers are not really required. (I want to call Munaf a "fast bowler" but that is not true. Shahid Afridi has, at times, bowled balls faster than Munaf has in this World Cup). India has 3 full-time bowlers - ZAK, Ashwin and Economy Singh. Yuvraj Singh has become a 10-over bowler, too. So a combination of Pathan, Raina, and SRT (and even Kohli as Dhoni surprised us with today) can bowl the other 10.
Munaf is not going to be bowling 10 overs anyway the rest of the way. Here's how he has done this tournament:
10-0-48-4 (Bangladesh)
10-0-70-2 (England)
4.5-0-25-1 (Ireland)
Did not play (Netherlands)
10-0-65-2 (South Africa)
5-0-20-0 (West Indies)
7-0-44-0 (Australia)
Look at those numbers again. Are they really what you want from your opening bowler? In addition to that, the fellow gives away at least another 10-15 runs with his fielding (or lack thereof).
Surely, a combo deal of Pathan-Raina-SRT can give us 10 overs for 60 runs, too. And maybe even take a few wickets here and there, and save a lot of runs.
Masada, I know you don't read my blog, but on the off chance you do, please, please go in with just ZAK as a faster bowler. Drop Munaf and please do not get swayed by the conventional wisdom that you must have two medium-pacers at least or that Mohali is a fast bowler's paradise. Be bold, in return you get to have the luxury of batting Pathan as low as #8. Batting is going to be our calling card to the championship and Munaf is not such a significant upgrade in the bowing department in order to merit keeping him any longer.
Please, please.
ix) When the ICC drafted its controversial 15 degree rule for chucking, it stated that:
All bowlers will be permitted to straighten their bowling arm up to 15 degrees, which has been established as the point at which any straightening will become visible to the naked eye.
So, in essence what they are telling us is that a flexing of 8-10 degrees is done by almost every bowler and is not visible to the naked eye. So, even "model" actions such as McGrath's or Hadlee's have some flexing in them. In other words, if you can see flexing of the arm or bending of the elbow, then it means that the bowler is exceeding the 15 degree limit by a far margin and chucking the ball.
I saw both quarter-finals and, from my limited vantage point of the replays on the small screen, there were quite a few deliveries that were hurled with actions too jerky to be within the 15 degree limit. Shaun Tait, Economy Singh, and Mohammad Hafeez come freely to mind. The ghost of Johan Botha is lurking and tomorrow he may get added to that list in my head. Where's Chris Broad when you need him?
x) Finally, after the halfway stage of the game, one thing became very apparent. If India lasted the distance without getting all out, it would win the game. Even Ponting admitted as much. With about 10 overs to go, a couple of my colleagues watched along with me for a few minutes. For both of them it was their first time watching the game. Even as I explained the game, the basics, and the situation they asked me - why are the Australians letting the Indians take these easy singles? For a long, long time Ponting was content to spread the field and the Indians milked the runs. Four-five runs an over is no sweat when there are just 4 fellows inside the circle. The Indians were able to get close enough to the target where a few boundaries opened up the game.
Only when the Indians took the batting powerplay in the 46th over, by necessity rather than request, did the field come in. By then the horse had bolted and the pressure was less enough for Raina to launch Brett Lee for a six into the stands. To use an NBA term - that was the dagger. But if Ponting had closed in his fielders much earlier and dried up the runs, he could have created some panic. Going into the game, the big talk about the Indian line-up was their propensity to commit hara-kiri during their batting powerplays in the World Cup. So, why would you wait for the Indians to decide when they wanted to take the powerplay? Force it upon them artificially by closing in your fielders.
Gah! It was captaincy by the numbers. Ponting has never been the most tactically astute of captains, his outstanding captaincy record notwithstanding. But, what are all the support staff with their laptops and video analysis and strategy sessions doing?
Australia did not play like a team that deserved to be in the top 4 nations, their #1 ranking notwithstanding. As a result, India are left with a match that is against some nation it has only occasionally met on the cricket field in the past few years. I wonder if anyone else will even show up for the game as it is being played between two local teams.
I, on the other hand, can't wait!
1 comment:
I am also hoping that Pathan plays instead of Munaf. Munaf, like you said is barely contributing as an out and out bowler.
Pathan can match Munaf in bowling figures, plus is a far superior fielder. Of course, he is a batsman too!
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