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)

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

Captain Courageous...or Leader Looney !

By Private

(Writing for a blog is way too difficult than starting one. At least that's what my experience has been as I have three defunct blogs to my credit and the last one was updated back in May 2006! But if I thought I could do away with writing on "Sting in the Tail", I was wrong. For my teammates -- Skipper, Rico, Kowalski – are hell bent not to let me breath easy.)

So, there I was searching for something to write upon when I stumbled on this piece of news that Somerset skipper Justin Langer declared for 50 for eight against Middlesex. Now that's bold if not insane. I can't imagine any Indian captain doing that (not that they are all sane). That prompted me to do a quick check and compile some of the most innovative/shrewd/bold decisions skippers around the world took in the past.

1. Arguably one of the most cunning captains the game has ever seen, Mike Brearley declared Middlesex first innings naught for naught in crucial and County Championship decider against Surrey. But for a brief 23 minutes of play on the second day, the first two days were washed out. The next day Surrey were bundled out for paltry 42 in 76 minutes flat on a damp green top.

The crowd expected Middlesex to build up a hefty lead so as to gain bonus points in the remaining time but Brearley thought otherwise. He called back his openers – John Emburey and Ian Gould – after they'd faced only one ball. The innings was declared 0/0. The bowlers wrecked havoc on Surrey again and bundled them out for 89. Middlesex were left to score 132 in 27 minutes and another 20 overs thereafter. Again Brearley led from the front and made a magnificent 66* to craft a win and Middlesex went to share the title with Kent.

2. An almost similar thing, although with not so much at stake was done by Steve Waugh. In January 2002, with the home series against South Africa wrapped up, the Australian captain decides that only positive cricket from his side will bring the fans to the New Year Test at the SCG.

Having won the toss, he elects to forfeit his first innings. South Africa reach 200 without loss but their lower order once again fails and they are all out for 201.

The hosts' 567, completed in 60 overs, was enough to ensure victory after a second disappointing knock from the tourists.

3. Rahul Dravid, although no where in league of above-mentioned gentlemen, is one of the boldest captains India has ever seen. No we are not talking about his much-maligned experiments with truth…err…I mean batting order but the way he used to, and still, give importance to the results than personal records.

Sachin Tendulkar was still the reigning deity when, during the Pakistan of tour of 2004, Dravid chose to declare the innings when the little master got stuck at 194. The stand-in captain drew flak from every corner but the decision was justified when India went on to win the Multan Test.

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