Cricket | Voice from the rooftop

Club over country

Posted on May 30, 2011 by Vincent Augustine D'Souza

There is a feeling that cricketers prefer club over country. Gautam Gambhir playing IPL matches when he had an injury and opting out of West Indies tour is one instance. As Dean Jones put it was a choice between 11 crores for IPL and 2 crores for West Indies tour. It is said that as per contract Gautam Gambhir would have got the full amount of 11 crores for IPL if he had played five matches. He did not have to play other matches. However the contract could have something in fine print that required Gautam Gambhir to play all matches to get the full amount. When Sri Lanka wanted its players to return early for practice for England tour they were told that payments to players will be held up. Lasit Malinga retired from Test cricket instead of giving up IPL.

BCCI owns IPL. Franchisees pay money to BCCI and players. They want to recover their money. Franchisees drop players whom they do not want. BCCI wants money and does not care about players getting medals for country and did not send a team to Asian Games.

Interview with a Pakistani cricketer

Posted on April 8, 2011 by Vincent Augustine D'Souza

Q: You said Pakistanis are large-hearted, Indians are not. What do you mean?
A: Pakistanis are ready to lose matches for friendship. We lost semi-final at Mohali and showed our large-heartedness. We dropped Sachin Tendulkar four times. We could have scored the winning runs. It was not difficult for us to score 261 runs. We did not score and allowed India to win.

Q: Poor fielding and batting is not a sign of large-heartedness. Kamran Akmal on an average drops two catches in every match.
A: Kamran Akmalâ€™s heart is larger than other Pakistanis. His heart is the largest in Pakistan. Behind every successful man there is a woman. Behind every successful batsman there is Kamran Akmal. But against India other fielders dropped catches. We showed our friendship. About batting, even in the last over we could have won. Misbah-ul-Haq could have hit five sixers consecutively and Pakistan would have won. Instead he did not score a single run and gifted his wicket.

Cricket is not war

Posted on March 29, 2011 by Vincent Augustine D'Souza

Sport is not war. Cricket is a game and should be treated as such. In football and hockey many times players get physical. Sometimes football players play karate or kick boxing for which they deserve red card. In cricket scope for getting physical is limited. Some people talk of cricket as of war. They talk of India-Pakistan match as mother of all battles or the biggest battle. That should be avoided.

In a tournament there is one final. There is no final before the final. Some people first talked of India-Australia quarter-final match as final before the final. After that they talked of India-Pakistan semi-final match as final before the final.

Cricketers and walking

Posted on March 26, 2011 by Vincent Augustine D'Souza

There are people who praise cricketers who walk without the umpire having given them out and criticize cricketers who do not walk without the umpire having given them out. A batsman has to do his job and the umpire has to do his job. If a batsman is not out but the umpire gives him out he has to go. Umpireâ€™s decision has to be followed.

Cricket is a team game and when a player represents his country he has to think of the consequences for his team and country. Sachin Tendulkar in the match against West Indies walked even though the umpire ruled him not out. Ricky Ponting in the match against Pakistan did not walk. He was given out by the third umpire after watching TV replay. Ricky Ponting was right when he did not walk.

Bangalore tie

Posted on March 1, 2011 by Vincent Augustine D'Souza

Looking forward to the game between India and England today should be a cracker. My prediction a tie.
That was Shane Warneâ€™s prediction about India versus England match on 27/2/2011 which came true.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni won the toss and elected to bat. That was a good decision.
India scored 338 runs and were all out in 49.5 overs. They did not bat 50 overs. Two batsmen were run out at the end. The score looked good enough for India to win the match. Vivian Richards said if they can not win this match they can not win the world cup.
The match swung between England and India. When Andrew Strauss and Ian Bell were batting I hoped India would win by one run as Australia had done against India twice. Then wickets began to fall and when England had to score 42 runs off 24 balls to win the match Indiaâ€™s victory seemed assured.
In the 49th over Tim Bresnan reduced the margin before being bowled by Piyush Chawla.
When the last over began England needed 14 runs to win the match. India needed to restrict England to 12 runs to win the match. There was hope for India.

Boring tournament

Posted on February 24, 2011 by Vincent Augustine D'Souza

Cricket World Cup 2011 is proving to be a boring tournament. It has 14 teams and spread over 43 days. Olympics, Asian Games and Commonwealth Games are of 14-16 days. Football World Cup with 32 teams is about 32 days.

When Cricket Word Cup began in 1975 there were eight teams and four matches per day. The gap between matches was not long. In 1987 there were three matches per day. In 2011 it is one match or two matches per day with long gaps for teams in between. India played Bangladesh on 19/2/2011 and its next match against England is on 27/2/2011. In an ODI tournament a team having to wait for 5-8 days to play its next match is strange.

India and Cricket Word Cup 2011

Posted on January 22, 2011 by Vincent Augustine D'Souza

India hosts Cricket Word Cup 2011. If India wins it will make history. No host country has won Cricket Word Cup. Sri Lanka was a co-host country that played semi-final and final outside Sri Lanka in 1996. India hosted Cricket Word Cup in 1987 and 1996. Both times it lost in semi-finals. Some say Indian…

Journalists and exaggerations

Posted on January 8, 2011 by Vincent Augustine D'Souza

Journalists are expected to report facts without exaggerations. They do not have the liberty to exaggerate. Poets and writers of fiction have the liberty to exaggerate. “De Villiers was quick to get to the ball, running Dravid out at the striker’s end by a mile.” (Aditya Iyer — Gambhir, Tendulkar keep India in hunt —…

Sunil Gavaskar and BCCI

Posted on November 10, 2010 by Vincent Augustine D'Souza

Sunil Gavaskar claims BCCI owes him money. BCCI disputes the claim. Sunil Gavaskar says he has not demanded dues from BCCI but has sent gentle reminders. If someone says I will pay you X and I say no and he says I will pay you X + Y and I say yes it is not a demand. The payment regards to membership of IPL Governing Council. How much was X and how much was Y? It seems X was one crore rupees per year and Y was four crore rupees per year. X was in writing. Y was promised orally by Sharad Pawar, then BCCI president. How to deliver Y was not decided because of logistics.

M. A. K. Pataudi and Ravi Shastri were also members of IPL Governing Council. When BCCI decided not to make payments to cricketer members M. A. K. Pataudi and Sunil Gavaskar chose to quit and Ravi Shastri chose to continue. How much M. A. K. Pataudi and Ravi Shastri were paid?

Fall of Lalit Modi

Posted on October 16, 2010 by Vincent Augustine D'Souza

Lalit Modi is wanted. He built up IPL and got lot of money for BCCI. All was well till he tweeted about Kochi IPL franchise and put Shashi Tharoor in trouble. BJP wanted Shashi Tharoor out from cabinet. Shashi Tharoor being a Congress member had to resign. If he had been a member of DMK or NCP it could have been different.
Congress would have its revenge. There was pressure on BCCI. BCCI suspended Lalit Modi. Lalit Modi was defiant. He did not quit. Court cases followed. BCCI reconstituted IPL Governing Council and Lalit Modi was out of IPL and BCCI.
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