The Doosra - Cricket Blog - Times Online - WBLG

No more excuses

After Sydney, Teri Maa ki or Y Tu Mama to call it by another name, came to Harbhajan Singh's rescue. After his latest misdemeanour, where he crossed the line that separates verbal abuse from its physical counterpart, that famous and trite Bollywood cliché about brothers was briefly trotted out. No one bought into it, and an 11-game ban could go a long way towards cleansing Indian cricket of bad behaviour that has become almost endemic.

The slapper and the pest

As I was getting information together on the IPL's first scandal of sorts, I kept thinking to myself how drearily predictable it was. If the bookies had been offering odds on the first players to become embroiled in some sort of controversy, you can be sure the names Harbhajan Singh and Sreesanth would have been near the top of the list.

Cricket's Maradona does it again

This was supposed to be my day off, time away from the IPL after four matches in six days. But with Shane Warne on the bill in Hyderabad, I knew that I'd be in front of a TV, sooner rather than later. To not watch Warne would be a bit like expecting a teenager to look away when the Washington Redskins cheerleaders were gyrating right in front of him.

Postcard from London

With Dimitri Masceranhas still to play a game for the Rajasthan Royals, England are the only major nation whose players have yet to experience cricket's newest adventure. So, just how has the whole thing been received by the average fan back in the UK? Since research suggests that women are an important part of the new Twenty20 constituency, I thought I'd ask Sarah Boulton, a dear friend who's passionate about Arsenal (sorry about Anfield!), English rugby (nobody's perfect) and cricket.

The home boys come out to play

After the foreign contingent stole the limelight on the opening weekend of games, it's been the turn of the homegrown players to make an impact on the Indian Premier League. Virender Sehwag, whose Delhi Daredevils have looked a class apart so far, was in awesome form against the Deccan Chargers, creaming 94 from just 41 balls, though you wonder how different the result might have been had Chaminda Vaas's leg-before appeal been upheld in the first over.

Hollywood [Shane] beats Bollywood

Two day ago, people would have laughed at you for taking an early am flight to go and watch the Rajasthan Royals play. After just one bad game, the Jaipur-based franchise were being touted as wooden-spoon certainties. But is there any such thing as a certainty when Shane Warne's around? Mike Gatting and many others would tell you otherwise.

Pitch perfect

They may not have won the match, but Mumbai have certainly set the standard when it comes to pitch preparation for the IPL. No one who really loves the game can possibly enjoy seeing games where teams make 240 in 20 overs, with the bowlers utterly redundant. Some of the strokeplay looks PlayStation easy, and you wonder about the curators who produce such surfaces that make a mockery of the balance between bat and ball.

The wicket maiden and Mr Cricket

He may have retired from the international arena a year ago after playing an instrumental role in a third successive World Cup triumph, but Glenn McGrath's mastery of the bowling arts shows no sign of diminishing with age. Did it really surprise anyone when he bowled the first wicket maiden of the competition, handing out a harsh lesson to Taruwar Kohli in the process?

Starting with a big bang

Every sporting event has its seminal moment, that occasion when it goes from being just another competition to being an institution. For the European Cup, it was the night Alfredo Di Stefano and Ferenc Puskas inspired Real Madrid to a 7-3 triumph over Eintracht Frankfurt at Hampden Park. For the Superbowl, it was Joe Namath conjuring up victory for the unheralded New York Jets over the might of the Baltimore Colts. Whisper it quietly, but the Indian Premier League's defining moment may well have come in its very first game. If the first five hours in Bangalore were any indicator, the venture into club culture will be a resounding success.

You don't know what you're doing

On the eve of the inaugural IPL season, the organisers have scored an astonishing own-goal by refusing Cricinfo, the world's premier cricket website, accreditation for the event. The reason given by Lalit Modi, the IPL commissioner, is that the portal rights for the six-week-long tournament have already been sold to "an American company" which has exclusive rights to reports and pictures. There's just one problem. Not a soul has heard of this company, and the whole situation is akin to debarring the BBC from the London Olympics in favour of a crew operating out of a flat in the Isle of Dogs.

Cricket poised for its Columbus crossing

In just over a day's time, the face of cricket will change forever. Whether it's for better or worse is a matter that will be open to debate long after the inaugural season of the Indian Premier League ends on June 1. What is certain is that cricket's economy has undergone a seismic shift, and unless the game's administrators, not always known for their competence, respond, international cricket could soon become an irrelevance. Already, a Sydney Morning Herald report based on a survey done by the Australian Players' Association has revealed that 47 percent of national players and 49 percent of state players would give up the chance of baggy-green glory in return for a slice of the Twenty20 pie.

Turn turn turn

You have to go back almost four decades, to the Christmas Test at Chepauk in 1969, to find a game in which two Indian offspinners made such a dramatic impact. Erapalli Prasanna took 10 and Srinivas Venkataraghavan six in a game that lasted less than four days. Unfortunately for India, Australia had a handy offspinner of their own in Ashley Mallett and his 10 for 144, superbly supported by the tireless Graham McKenzie, inspired a famous 77-run victory that clinched the series.

Monstrous egos tilt it India's way

On the eve of this Test, an article in South Africa's version of The Times stated that "the Indian team is famous for being a collection of monstrous egos sloshing about in great vats of self-importance". It was a strange assertion to make, especially for a journalist that I've never met on a cricket tour. In fact, I'd be very surprised if he had ever come across Tendulkar, Dravid, Laxman or Kumble, men whose humility and dedication to the game has kept them near the top for so very long.

South Africa shade opening exchanges

For the second Test match in succession, the team batting first was bowled out on the opening day, but the fact that South Africa lasted 67.3 overs longer than India managed in Ahmedabad meant that they ended the day in control of what could be another abbreviated Test. A total of 265 might seem below-par for Indian conditions, but this is no standard-issue flatbed, and India's batsmen will be relentlessly tested by a pace attack that will be even more menacing on a wearing surface.

India could slip through the cracks

Desperate to square a series that they thought they would win comfortably enough, India have taken an almighty gamble with the Green Park pitch. It's dehydratingly hot in Kanpur and the surface already looks like something from a documentary on drought-hit regions. Large cracks criss-cross the surface, and with very little watering, it remains to be seen how long it will hold together. The chances of another three-day finish a la Ahmedabad certainly can't be ruled out.

Where did the pride go?

There have been some wretched Indian performances on my watch - the 54 all out in a Sharjah final against Sri Lanka [2000] quickly comes to mind - but this was possibly the most inept, and that too in a series that has far more at stake than just a random ODI bauble. Normally, a result inside three days suggests either a minefield of a pitch or a mismatch of Australia-Zimbabwe proportions. As AB de Villiers and Jacques Kallis proved in emphatic fashion on Friday, there was nothing diabolical about the pitch, but the huge gulf in class should both shame and worry an Indian team that had begun to think above its station.

India should forget blame game

At the end of the opening day's play at the Motera Stadium in Ahmedabad, Roshan Mahanama, the match referee, pulled up Jacques Kallis for violating the spirit of cricket. The mean-spirited Kallis had brought the game into disrepute by having the temerity to bat for 124 balls on a 'green top' where he was supposed to run up the white flag of surrender, as thrillingly demonstrated by India in 109 minutes of pure entertainment in the morning. Instead of following that shining example, Kallis and co-accused, AB de Villiers, eked out 106 runs in 34.1 overs in the final session, with utter disregard for Twenty20 principles and techniques.

Indian spin against Protea pace

After the designer turners that underpinned India's home success in the 1990s, three spinners in the playing XI has been a rarity. There has been the odd occasion, like Mumbai [2004] and Mohali [2006], but by and large India have opted for more balanced attacks in this decade.

The current injury crisis though has left them with little option but to go the spin-trident route. Zaheer Khan is out for the full series, while Ishant Sharma is unlikely to play a part even in Kanpurl. RP Singh was a disaster in terms of both fitness and form at Chennai, and Munaf Patel keeps dropping off the radar.

The ban on Shoaib is an outrage

The Pakistan Cricket Board's decision to ban Shoaib Akhtar for five years is yet another step on what has been a long and winding road to oblivion. Once one of the top drawcards in the game - no other team stretched the West Indies at much as they did when the men from the Caribbean were at their peak - the Pakistanis are now in danger of becoming a sideshow, with hardly any proper cricket on the itinerary for the next two years. On top of that, they've just decided to dispense with one of the few potent pace bowlers they have, a man who also happens to be a maverick and entertainer from the old Pakistani school.