Over-rated

Saj Mahmood

He has pace - a good looking approach to the wicket and bowling action - height - to date he has not upset the authorities or his teammates - YES I agree with the plethora of pundits who like him, rate him on that front - but NO, I am genuinely sad to say, as things stand he does not have an international career ahead of him.

He has looked good in spells - looked really good that spell against Sri Lanka and in the Lords one day final - but you can count those displays on the fingers of one hand.

If he improves, yes, pencil him in again - but what evidence is there that he will improve? He is 25.5yrs old - it's wrong of Both to keep describing him as young / inexperienced. He was first touted for an international career as far back as the 2003 England academy squad. He has had 4 years of top coaching in which to develop consistency of line and length - and he still can not deliver this save for the odd over or two. I suspect Troy Cooley could have helped him come on and it's a pity he didn't break into the England set up prior to 2005/06.

I am sad to say this as I have warmed to the guy - he has the right attitude - but I think it's better to draw a pencil line across his name and let him return to county cricket and perhaps transform into the test-class paceman we would have loved him to be.

Whinging Kiwi

Crowe says Bracewell should resign

Woke up to find another Crowe critique on cricinfo. I don't like him for his controversial and more significantly, unjustified comments. He is another rent-a-rant. The louder you shout, the more the media will pick up on it kind.

His speech last year at the Spirit of Cricket gig annoyed me the most. Particularly how he underhandedly picked out Muralitharan for criticism, (given that notable commentators / bowlers of the ilk of Holding and Angus Fraser have been satisfied that Murali's action is legitimate - how can Crowe imply it is not without being exposed to the same evidence shown to them). At least have the guts to name him. Then he went on to suggest teams like Bangladesh will never improve. It's fair to say they were granted test status ahead of schedule, but to play fortune-teller and say they will never be a force to be reckoned with flies in the face of dedication to set up a cricketing structure and oodles more support for cricket in Bangladesh than New Zealand (has anyone seen the sporadic attendance at a test match in NZ?).

Anyway moving to the present day, he rants at Shane Bond for having a fish curry before a key ODI? what if New Zealand had beaten Australia? that would have meant they could've beaten Sri Lanka yesterday? Let's not forget this is a New Zealand team which had performed creditably in beating every other team bar Australia and Sri Lanka (pre tournament favourites in many people's books). Let's not forget this is a New Zealand side which had already been comfortably beaten by Sri Lanka once already in the competition. Anyway, Martin, you have your headline. Enjoy the limelight.


Anyway I end this piece on a light hearted note: Cricket Max - LOL

A Tale of Two Captains

Todays semi-final between Sri Lanka and New Zealand, saw the former win and reach the World Cup Final for the 2nd time, whilst unfortunate New Zealand fail at the penultimate hurdle yet again.

Jayawardene had a blinder - he built the text book one day century and not for the first time in this world cup, made some decisive decisions on the field, to turn around his side's fortunes.

Alas for Stephen Fleming, generally touted as the best captain out there in the international game (English supporters would claim Vaughan is the best - and Australians could justifably say that their team's success hides the captaincy influence of Ponting) - today he could not kill off the Sri Lankan innings after fall of the 3rd wicket, and his team conceded 100 odd off the final 10 overs. When it came to bat, he fell for single figures.

Previously in this competition, Jayawardene led the field (no pun intended) in opting to play around with the timing of the 3rd power play (beyond the previous pattern of waiting for the fall of a wicket) - subsequently I noticed Ricky Ponting and others also did the same (re Tait in Aus vs England).

Thus the team which played better on the day, the team with more matchwinners, with more flair, the team captained better on the day won. New Zealand are a very decent one day outfit and creditably lost to another one.

All is not well in the Windies Camp

Bennett King resigns as West Indies coach

Yesterday at a press conference he gave a less than ringing endorsement of Ramnaresh Sarwan - saying that he seemed to be the most obvious candidate to take up the West Indies captaincy as he was the vice-captain, but it doesn't necessarily have to be the case that vice-captain becomes captain. I think Sarwan's reported drinking and partying activities have put a scar on his leadership credentials. Yet he remains the only obvious candidate. Darren Ganga is yet to cement his place in the test side and a split captaincy is far from ideal in a scenario where Sarwan is the more experienced (internationally speaking) player of the two.

Putting this aside I don't think Bennett King has done much to improve the West Indies over his period in charge. Sure they are a decent one-day side (pre-world cup), but that seems to be more due to the talent on board rather than a team gelling to be greater than the sum of the parts a la New Zealand / Sri Lanka.

Former West Indies captain Brian Lara refused to rule out a return to first class cricket after making his final bow on the international stage on Saturday. In his last press conference as skipper of the World Cup hosts, Lara also expressed regret that he would not be part of next month's tour of England -- a view which is likely to fuel speculation he retired after being told he would not lead the team in that series.

I'm not sure where I stand on this. I grew to love Lara the batsmen - outside of the two ginormous innings he played against England (whom I was supporting at the time). I don't think as an on field captain he was that bad - better than chanderpaul. It was his off-field disputes with the Board which seemed to filter onto the pitch ie. some really strange selections in the World Cup just gone (gone as far as the Windies team are concerned). They say Sarwan is a good on-field captain - assuming he gets the nod, we can see if ths is true. However, statement of the obvious - they have noone to replace him - not even a Hooper/Sarwan/Chanderpaul category player.

Cricinfo

I am a huge fan of cricinfo. I love the score updates - as near to the tv/radio experience as one can get. Ideal for when one is at work. The feature writers on the whole know a lot more about cricket than Newspaper columnists.

What it is missing - well I've always thought :D - is my own comments and views. I'm joking - it's near as well the complete cricket site. However, I would love to be one of the contributors/writers on there. Not having that option, I hope this blog is the next best thing - and I really hope one or two people read it. As it stands I'm not telling any of my friends about this blog / this idea - as they will laugh.

Anyway if anyone strays upon this site by accident - please leave some motivational comment.

Cheers

Post 1 finished - wasn't too hard.