Monthly Archives: October 2009

BCC! Lands ICC Interview on WADA

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A coup by the guys at BCC!. An excerpt:

We have read / heard enough that BCCI is not too happy with the “Whereabouts” clause. There also have been reports of other boards supporting BCCI’s position. Could you elaborate on what the consensus is right now?

There have been reservations expressed about the filing of “whereabouts” information. All the other elements of the ICC Anti-Doping Code remain in place including in and out-of-competition testing. The consensus right now is that all parties are committed to a zero-tolerance approach to drugs in sport and there is a desire to find a solution to the difficulties being experienced.

Read the whole thing.

Alternatives to the Super Over

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Andrew Hughes has a few:

The Dance-Off

For reasons that are not immediately apparent, watching people dance badly on television has become very popular in certain parts of the world. What better way to cash in on this trend than by introducing a ballroom dance competition to settle tied cricket matches. Each team will choose one pair of players to dress up in spangly suits and silly grins and perform in front of a celebrity panel of dance floor dynamos, including Ravi ‘Rumba’ Shastri and Sunny ‘Samba’ Gavaskar. Watch out for Kolkata’s fabulous couple of captivating captains, Sourav Ganguly and Brendon McCullum. Their foxtrot is something to behold.

That is much better than the Eliminator any day.

Launching Cricket Question & Answer Site

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We just started a new cricket question and answer site at http://cricket.kridaya.com. Unlike a blog, this allows you  to participate as a full member of the site asking questions and providing answers to others. You will gain votes and badges for activities including voting, tagging and so on. As you gain badges, your reputation will grow and you will get more rights such as the ability to edit answers and moderate the site.

Go crazy at http://cricket.kridaya.com. You can login using your Gmail or Yahoo! account.

Kridaya Cricket Q &A

Dravid Dropped from ODIs

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And so the soap opera continues to unfold.

This is just another example of why India is on the path to destroying their hopes of winning the World Cup on home soil. Instead of building a strong core team and finding backups, they decided to go with Dravid for short-term gains. The gains didn’t materialize and lots of time lost.

As of this moment, India has the following:

  • No set of primary team members who are available all the time for critical matches.
  • No strategy of backup players for essential team members.
  • No fixed team structure, as in no batting order.
  • A captain under siege.
  • No unique strategies or tactics.

Count in me as not impressed.

Delayed Humor of the Week

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I meant to post this at the time (October 6), but better late than never. From Achettup (SOAL):

Heads of boards representing England, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka and the West Indies announced moments after the Champions Trophy’s closing ceremony that they were withdrawing from the ODI format. When pressed by every reporter present on whether the decision had been influenced in anyway by Australia’s undisputed dominance of the format, all eight shouted in unison “NO!”

Maybe they should have an ODI tournament that does not have Australia playing. Or start placing some cricket balls in strategic positions when the Australians are in practice. Even at this early stage, I cannot see why Australia could not win a fourth World Cup in succession.

Champions Trophy Predictions: Bronze Model and Wooden Spoon

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I did okay on the predictions at Commentary Position, ending up at the third position. The major points haul was choosing Australia as the eventual winner of the tournament. If England had played more to form in their first two matches, I might have ended up winning.

But I crashed miserably with Fantasy Cricket, ending up last in the BCC! league. Since it was my first attempt at it, it was par for the course. Maybe try better next time. It is, of course, easier to predict teams than players. So we will see.

All I can see is that I am lucky I didn’t bet any money on any of this.

Another IPL Team Bites The Dust

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Technically, Bangalore are still alive after today’s loss against Victoria. But they have only one match left (against Delhi Daredevils). They need to win that, hope Cape Cobras lose to Delhi and Victoria, and then they manage to squeeze through on Net Run Rate (which is terrible right now). Doesn’t look very likely. In any case, either Delhi or Bangalore will be eliminated in this round and probably both.

At this point, Victoria has 4 points and are also very likely to qualify, unless they lose to the Cobras, Delhi beats both Bangalore and Cobras and NRR comes into play.

I think the IPL teams could have done a better job if they had a few weeks to prepare for the tournament. But the Champions Trophy was there and the teams never got together. It will be strange if there are no Indian semifinalists in a home tournament. And a big blow to the IPL’s glamor.

Wayamba and Otago, We Hardly Knew Ye

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Today had a good thriller between Trinidad & Tobago and the Deccan Chargers. For the second time, the Chargers lost a match they should have won and have crashed out. This is kind of the way they played the first IPL, though I thought being the 2009 IPL champions would have made them change their ways. Maybe only in South Africa, not back home.

Anyway, the second round starts. We have two leagues each with four teams. I was under the impression that the two qualifiers from each group would go into different leagues. The reason being that it was not a Super Six or Super Eight league with all the qualifiers. So it made sense to move the teams into the leagues based on their seeding and their position at the end of the first round.

Apparently, this is not the case. The top two from each group move into the same league and play matches against a top two from another group. And then whoever tops the league move into the semis. This is almost the equivalent of having a first round league with 6 teams and then selecting the top two to go to the semifinals. Except of course, that we don’t get 5 matches involving the bottom placed teams.

On one hand, this makes sense. You probably get more high-quality matches. You eliminate 10 matches, thus saving five days from the schedule.

On the other hand, with the 3-team groups, one poor match can mean elimination for a good team. To come back from a loss means having to worry about the run rates in matches you are not part of. Second, a home team like Deccan Chargers is eliminated too early, leaving fans high and dry. Also even though some teams are worse than others, they all contains stars. Consider Wayamba, full of the Sri Lankan players. They are gone now after just two matches.

It would be nice to have an extended league phase so that we can get to know the teams and get behind some of them. Having 5 matches each allows for changes in fortunes and lots of predictions, making things fun.

I suppose the next Champions League may be different with more teams (including teams from Pakistan). They should have at least two teams from each country and restrict India to two. They should at the very least have the first round with groups of four or more. 2 matches and out is not good.