Hats off to 'Unbowlable' Chanderpaul

By Rico

Shivnarine Chanderpaul is not counted among enterprising cricketers of his generation. He is not one of the most gifted either. He is known for having one of the crabbiest techniques in world cricket, infamous for his unorthodox front-on batting stance .

But, he is amazing stuff. If there is one cricketer who has an unwavering concentration and keeps on improvising all the time, that is Chanderpaul. He would use soft hands, canny deflections, a whiplash pull-shot and what not, if they produce runs.
He has for long been the Mr Dependable of West Indies side. If a Brian Lara or a Chris Gayle are stylish strokemakers, Chanderpaul is a grafter and accumulator. When every other more enterprising compatriots fail, he is supposed to play the sheet anchor's role.
He was simply ''the unbowlable'' in England this summer. He batted 17 hours and 40 minutes without being dismissed, scoring 446 runs from three Tests and averaging 148.66 with two unbeaten centuries.
Michael Vaughan considers Chanderpaul's 116 not out in the third Test, which almost won the game for West Indies, as the finest Test innings he had ever seen.
His explosive form in the Twenty20 and ODI exploits (202 runs from three matches with one hundred) led his coach David Moore calling him one of the most versatile cricketers in the world.
During the third Test against England, he crossed 7,000 run mark, the seventh West Indian and 30th batsmen in the world to have done so.
In his 104-Test career, he has scored 7182 runs. And with age in his side, the unassuming left-handed Guyanese, who turns 33 in August, has every possibilty to become the third West Indian to score more than 8,000 runs when he retires. He can even go past the great Sir Vivian Richards' 8,540 Test runs.
A healthy average of 46.63 in Test, better than Desmond Haynes, Gordon Greenidge, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Gayle and 6975 runs at an average of 38.96 from 221 ODIs.
So folks, please welcome Chanderpaul in the pantheon of all-time greats.

Image: search.tvnz.co.nz

Hogan-inspired Monty wanted to be a wrestler!

By Private

Thank god for the small mercies!!

Hard to believe but a WWE-crazy Monty Panesar would've gone on to break bones rather than bowling off-breaks had he not come to know that the wrestling bouts were a television gimmick and were actually fixed!

According to the tweaker's brother Isher Panesar, Monty changed his mind only after being told of the startling truth and rest as they say is history.

'Incredible' Hulk Hogan gave way to Shane Warne as young Monty's idol and he switched his attention to cricket.

''Monty always wanted to play cricket for England -- well, at least, after we found out the wrestling wasn't for real, that it was all fixed."

''We were always wrestling in the house, me and Monty, but when he heard that the WWE wrestling was all acted, he was too competitive to want to do that any more.

''People seem surprised how much he was appealing in the Third Test at Old Trafford but he has always had that competitive streak, that thirst for wickets."

Isher also defended Monty's much-talked about excessive appealing, saying that it came naturally to the left-armer.

''You can't stop Monty from being Monty, just like you shouldn't try to stop Kevin Pietersen being Kevin Pietersen. The game needs personalities."

(Picture Courtesy: Redmolotv.com)

Ignored, Afridi's anger boils over in the team bus!

By Kowalski

Pakistan cricket's resident hell-raiser Shoaib Akhtar is for a change not at the centre of the fresh turmoil that seems to be brewing in the team.

Instead, it is the usually funny Shahid Afridi, who is the cause of tension in this volatile side.

The story starts at the Abbotabad training camp where the team was training under the watchful eyes of the Pakistani army. As it turned out, even these gun-flaunting army men had a tough time dealing with their cricketers, who are always prone to making headlines for wrong reasons.

Apparently there was a "physical clash" between Afridi and team manager Talat Ali over a seat in the team bus!! The PCB seriously needs to examine this team bus thing because off late the Pakistani cricketers have made a habit of settling all their scores in the bus only!

Remember the Akhtar-Woolmer clashes that happened inside the bus most of the time?

Well coming back to Afridi, it's no secret that the fellow is not particularly happy with the appointment of Salman Butt as the deputy to skipper Shoaib Malik. And how can he be after projecting himself as captaincy candidate in the run-up to Malik's appointment?

And now that he has been overlooked for the vice-captaincy as well, the Pathan pride seems to have been hurt all the more. And I don't think anybody can blame him. Come on Butt as vice-captain of Pakistan is a bit, no very hard, to digest.

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Why Abdul Kalam should be made Team India coach…

By Joe

After Graham Ford thumbed his nose at BCCI, the search for a full-time Team India coach is far from over. That evokes the obvious question, why is it such a complicated job? Is it rocket science? At least BCCI seems to think so.

In such a scenario, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam surely fits the bill. Preposterous it may sound, but you can’t have a better person than the “Missile Man of India” to deal with the rocket science of coaching Team India.

And Kalam is no alien to cricket. After Sourav Ganguly’s men had returned runners-up from the 2003 World Cup, Dr Kalam threw a tea party in the cricketers’ honour. The teacher in Dr Kalam explained to the cricketers how important it is to play as a unit and shared his view on science and technology.

Logically too, there should not be any problem. The popular President with tinted tresses is at the fag end of his term and would have to vacate the Rashtrapati Bhavan for its probable next occupant Pratibha Patil.

Always game for new challenge, Dr Kalam probably won’t mind having a shot at cricket coaching.He already has a 2020 (or is it Twenty20?) vision of India as a super power and we can expect a similar upturn in Team India graph under the motivational speaker. After all, both the president and a cricket coach share striking similarity in the fact that both take the backseat.

Out there, Prime Minister runs the country and captain skippers the team.After all, you can’t coach Sachin Tendulkar or a Rahul Dravid at this level. All you need is a manager who can help in strategizing and keep the players motivated. As President, Dr Kalam is the supreme commander of the armed forces and formulating strategy is his forte.

Critics may point out that Dr Kalam has never been sighted anywhere near a cricket stadium. But then Bennette King too never played first class cricket and still coached the West Indies in the World Cup! He was in fact a rugby player!Besides, when it comes to motivation, you can’t have a better person than Dr Kalam.

In brief, he is techno-savvy, inspirational, innovative, approachable, visionary and a master strategist, all rolled into one. Now, did we ever have a coach who wore so many hats at the same time?

(Picture Courtesy: Reuters)

Astle, Cairns in hit list for possible ICL sign up

By Rico

More good news coming in for Zee Group-backed Indian Cricket League (ICL) with former New Zealand Test and one-day stars Nathan Astle and Chris Cairns having been targeted to sign with ICL.

New Zealand Cricket Players Association (NZCPA) has also given green signal to their cricketers willing to play in ICL, provided they do not cut across their contractual obligations with New Zealand Cricket Board (NZC).

Amid reports of Dean Jones luring over some big Kiwi stars for ICL, NZCPA manager Heather Mills said all the players who will be on New Zealand Cricket (NZC) contracts would be free to play in Subhas Chopra's ambitious cricket leauge, provided they seek a clearance from NZC, which he said could not be unreasonably
withheld.

He considers players as individual contractors, not employees, so as long as a cricketer is able to fulfil his obligations to NZC he can go and play for another entity.

He gave example of Stephen Fleming and Scott Styris, who will be playing county cricket in England when their new NZC contracts kick in.

He meant to say that New Zealand players who have national contracts with NZC can play for ICL when they are not doing national duties. This is surely good news for ICL though no currently NZC contracted player has been approached so far.

However, the NZC is unlikely to grant temporary releases to the contracted players this year because of their packed international calendar, which includes the innaugural Twenty20 World Cup in South Africa in September followed by a month-long South Africa tour from November 9 till December 2.

Images: cricketfundas.com; in.rediff.com

Kiwis set to take flight to Indian Cricket League?

(Subhas Chandra announcing ICL. Photo/ Zee News)

By Kowalski

An interesting bit of news is coming from the usually quiet Kiwi Land.

Rumour is rife that a couple of top New Zealand cricketers have been lured into playing in the rebel Indian Cricket League by Dean Jones, one of the Directors on the board of this shrouded in controversy league.

But to my utter disappointment, Shane Bond is not one of them. The pacer says no one has shown any interest in him so far and he couldn't care less.

Well, it's a pity for fans like yours truly if he is not one of those high-profile names that have been finalized by Jones because I don't think they'd be bigger than Bond.

But even as we wait for these mystery names to be out in open, greats like Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne have already shown their interest in playing in this so called rebel series.

Looks like Subhash Chandra is all set to give BCCI a run for their money!

Graeme Hick: Colossus in County, underachiever in international arena

By Rico

At last, Graeme Hick had something to cherish when on June 17 he became the 16th batsman to have scored 40,000 first-class runs in the County Championship Division One match against Warwickshire at Edgbaston.

Hick's career has been a unique story. He is a colossus in county cricket, where he continued to churn out the centuries in his sleep for life-long county Worcestershire but never shone in international arena.

He was chosen at 16 years of age for the 1983 Zimbabwe World Cup squad, but did not play in the mega event. He had to wait until hewas 25 and had already made 57 first-class hundreds to play international cricket for England. In 1987, he was named as one of Wisden's five Cricketers of the Year, mainly on the basis of his county record.

By the time he burst into international scene, public interest in his seeming destiny as a great batsman was intense. He was considered England's Great White Hope and even compared with Sachin Tendulkar and Brian Lara. But, Hick had a disappointing England career.

He was given a hero's reception by the crowd when he came out to bat in his Test debut at Headingley on June 6, 1991, against the fearful West Indian pace attack. A tortured 51 minutes later, he was back in the pavilion having made only six and his weakness against body-threatening ultra-quick deliveries badly exposed. He was dropped after scores of 0, 43, 0, 19 and 1.

He went on to play 65 tests over a decade, in and out of the England side, scoring 3383 runs at an average of 31.32 with six hundreds and 18 fifties.

Hick's failure in the international arena has been attributed to the perceived technical flaws in his game. He is suspect against the short ball. Atherton felt as early as 1991 that Hick was ''good, but not in the Lara or Tendulkar class.''

Some, like Shane Warne and Ian Botham, felt Hick was the victim of poor man-management -- a player who had been messed around and should have been handled differently.

Steve Waugh opined Hick's success at county, in turn, ruined him as his technical weakness went untested in a ''largely innocuous'' county bowling environment. Hick's international career has been the tragic story of a prodigy turning a cropper, but now he will have at least something to tell his children and grandchildren.

The 40,000 club members: Jack Hobbs (61,760), Frank Woolley (58,959), E H Hendren (57,611), CP Mead (55,061), W G Grace (54,211), Herbert Sutcliffe (50,670),Walter Hammond (50,551),Geoffrey Boycott (48,426), T W Graveney (47,793), Graham Gooch (44,846), T W Hayward (43,551), Dennis Amiss (43,423), Colin Cowdrey (42,719), Andrew Sandham (41,284), Len Hutton (40,140), Graeme Hick (40,000)

Image: nobok.co.uk

Punter bats for a noble cause

Ricky Ponting's touch may not exactly turn trash into gold but his signature does dramatically enhance the price value of otherwise mundane things.

New Delhi can testify to that for a bat signed by the Aussie skipper fetched Rs 1,65,000 in an impromptu auction here last week.

The entire sum would go to ING Vysya Foundation which has launched 'Run Ricky Run' campaign to educate underpreviledged children in India.

Under the scheme, for every ODI run that the prolific scorermakes, one kid would be sent to school. Ponting plays his next ODI on September 29 against India in Bangalore and the scheme would continue to one year thence.

''I think it's an honour to be associated with such a cause,'' Ponting said.

''It's upto me to score plenty of runs and help send thousands of children to school,'' he said and quipped, ''There would be added pressure on me everytime I come to bat next.''

Ponting, however sought to play down parallels drawn with his predecessor Steve Waugh, who's associated with 'Udayan' that helps rehabilitate children affected by leprosy.

''No, I am not trying to emulate Steve. I'd come to India so many times before and I really wanted to do something. Then ING Vysya proposed this and I gave my nod,'' he said.

Pietersen feels the heat

By Kowalski

The list of those getting sick and tired of playing cricket matches after cricket matches just keeps getting longer. And the latest to send out an SOS against an overdose of the game is English swashbuckler Kevin Pietersen.

The 26-year-old says the amount of international cricket is just unacceptable to him. He goes on to add that he hates spending months away from his family on overseas tours and wants more time at home after getting married to his model girlfriend Jessica Taylor this December.

"I don't like spending time away from my family, I don't like it at all, especially since I met Jessica. All these future tours that just get chucked in here and there, they don't make me happy. There are so many exciting things to look forward to in life other than cricket and I've changed a heck of a lot both as a person and a player," he said.

Now, this is one of those rare occasions I would agree with Pietersen. I hate to admit it but the fellow makes sense. I mean those money and power hungry ICC bosses, not to mention, the equally currency-obsessed home boards don't seem to give a damn to what these poor cricketers go through while playing one overseas tour after another.

Our very own Team India skipper Rahul Dravid has been quite vocal in expressing his displeasure over too much cricket.

"…schedules are crammed, over-crammed if you ask me. I don't know how we are going to fit everything in," the Indian captain had said after the drawn first Test against Bangladesh in Chittagong.

But is anybody listening? Last heard the ECB was yet to react on Pietersen's grievances and Dravid's complaints had been, as usual, debunked by the BCCI.

Image: kevinpietersen.com

Woolmer family a picture of dignity amid the drama

By Rico

In the nearly three-month drama of Bob Woolmer mystery death, one shudders to think of a largely silent dramatis personae -- Gill Woolmer and her two sons, Russell and Dale -- who faced the nightmare of their lives with utmost patience and dignity.

Just imagine, to have been told that your husband's/father's death had been caused firstly by natural causes, then by strangulation, then by poisoning, and once more by natural causes. Not to mention the motives ranging from match-fixing to involvement of underworld to religion of Pakistan cricket and what not, will have caused an emotional trauma unimaginable to most of us.

Another dramatis personae, rather the lead actor, the handsome and articulate Jamaica DCP Mark Shields, perhaps tumbled from a possible international fame (in case he had cracked a murder mystery) to a cop whose reputation suddenly nose dived after doing lots of commendable work in the Caribbean – bringing down crime rate – not to speak of other high-profile jobs to his credit while at Scotland Yard.

His alomost everyday sound bytes, from Woolmer's death was 100 per cent murder to appearing for a BBC Panorama, to finally saying that he has no regrets when his boss -- police Commissioner Lucius Thomas – told a stunned world that his charges had acted ''in haste'' while treating Woolmer's death as murder, after three foreign pathologists declared that the Pakistan coach died of ''natural causes''.

''If anybody should ask me why I should resign, I would ask why. We did a thorough investigation. We could not guess and we had to keep an open mind,'' Shields had said though his own establishment and the whole world now seemed to have accepted that Woolmer died of heart attack.

Understandably, Dr Ere Seshaiah, the Indian-born government pathologist on the basis of whose post-mortem report Jamaican police treated the case as murder, stuck to his murder theory but Pakistan Cricket Board and Jamaican opposition members are baying for his head.

Understandably agian, the purportedly botched-up investigation had also invited the wrath of Pakistani past and present cricketers though PCB chief Dr Nashim Ashraf has made it clear that they are not going for any defamation suit.

Shields, interestingly, even tried to take the credit of solving the mystery saying it was he who used science and technology to solve it -- a la Indian official claiming victory even in defeat. The high-profile cop was perhaps let off easily.

The drama, it seems, is over except what Coroner Patrick Murphy had to say about the cause of "natural death."

In the meantime, hats off to Gill Woolmer and her children. Hopefully, they can now grieve in peace and get on with their lives.

(Picture coutesy: VIEWIMAGES)