The Doosra - Cricket Blog - Times Online - WBLG

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.

Was Tendulkar's Sydney special his best?

I got a very interesting email from Anandkumar in Bangalore this morning. With his permission, it's shown below...

Notwithstanding the sheer delight of watching his matchwinning 117 not out on Sunday against Australia, statistically too ,  I thought this ought to rate as the best [one-day] innings in  his illustrious career. Here are some statistics  thanks to Statsguru on Cricinfo.

Kumar and Tendulkar shine as Gilchrist fades away

Two of one-day cricket's biggest legends, automatic picks for any all-time XI, and yet the manner in which they exited the Australian stage couldn't have been more contrasting. Sachin Tendulkar's marvellous 91 set up the game for India, while Adam Gilchrist's first-over dismissal meant that Australia's chase was ill-fated from the start. With India's win, the tri-series also went into the pages of history, without the home win that a near-capacity crowd at the Gabba would have hoped for.

Tendulkar buries Australian jinx

This is the 29th and final tri-series to be played in Australia, and the finals will almost certainly be Sachin Tendulkar's last games on Australian soil. In 38 previous one-day matches, he had never managed a century in Australia, with a 93 against Pakistan at Hobart being the closest that he had come. In recent times, his second-innings record had also come in for scrutiny, with Sanjay Manjrekar calling him the "elephant in the room" that no one dared talk about.

All too easy for India

This was a match between two teams journeying in different directions. After a disastrous World Cup, India have revamped their one-day line-up to such an extent that they've pushed Australia to the wire in three games in the CB Series, winning one. Sri Lanka, runners-up in the Caribbean less than a year ago, have been shockingly poor, lasting the full 50 overs only in one game.

Million-dollar babies go down swinging

After the IPL auction last Wednesday, Ricky Ponting expressed his surprise at how little ($400,00) he had gone for, before saying that a recent poor run with the bat may have contributed. In that context, it was almost inevitable that he would prove a point before the CB Series was over. That it came against an Indian team that commanded top dollar should surprise no one.

Yuvraj and the imaginary slump

Cricketing fame is a fickle beast. Two months ago, after a dazzling one-day century against Australia and a captivating Test hundred against Pakistan - not to mention those Twenty20 high jinks in South Africa - Yuvraj Singh was poised to take over the mantle from India's old guard. The tour of Australia was seen as the ideal place for the coronation, the crucible in which Yuvraj could prove that his time had truly come. Reality though bit very differently.

Last exit for an adopted hero

In all the great westerns, the hero rides off into the sunset, mission accomplished, and it was altogether fitting that Adam Gilchrist left Australian's western-most cricketing outpost a winner. That he scored a century was an additional bonus for a WACA crowd that was slow to take him to their hearts when he made the switch from New South Wales well over a decade ago.

Old master and old tricks

In South Africa last September, India proved themselves to be adept practitioners of T20 cricket, but in a rain-reduced game at the Manuka Oval in Canberra, it was one of the old pioneers of slash-and-burn batsmanship that put paid to their chances. Even as India endeavour to fashion a young side ahead of the next World Cup, Sanath Jayasuriya proved that there's still place for experience at the highest level.

Doing it the hard way

Had India knocked off the 160 needed in around 30 overs, this match would have been dismissed as an aberration, as Australia having a poor day. Instead, it took them 45.5 overs to inch past the target and the manner in which they were made to struggle could well be the making of a young side. You learn nothing from strolls in the park, like Australia's demolition of Sri Lanka on Friday, but defeats and close finishes contain lessons that sportsmen, no matter how experienced, can afford to skip.

Will India's youth policy work?

You can never read too much into one match, especially when it's the first that several members of the team have played on Australian soil. The opening game of the CB Series may have been abandoned, but it gave most Indians a glimpse at the future, of a day when a team devoid of Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly - more than 60,000 international runs between them - takes on the world. At the Gabba, the middle order spoke of the new beginning - Gautam Gambhir, Rohit Sharma, Manoj Tiwary and Robin Uthappa. 

End of one-day road for legends?

The selectors will never come out and say it, but it's becoming more and more apparent that Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly may have joined VVS Laxman by the wayside in one-day cricket. Emboldened by the manner in which a young side outplayed all-comers in the T20 World Cup, they've decided to gamble on youth for the CB Series. So while the likes of Dravid, Ganguly, Laxman and Anil Kumble go home, youngsters like Piyush Chawla, Praveen Kumar and Rohit Sharma fly in. There's also place for Suresh Raina, whose international career stalled in 2006 after such a promising start

A time to be young

Across the Indian Ocean, an irrepressible Dale Steyn was showing just why youth must be given its fling, even at the expense of legends like Shaun Pollock. And in admittedly more relaxed circumstances, the young bucks from Pakistan and India followed his lead in a dead-rubber match that had too many cameos to ever be boring. Pakistan could take great heart from the displays of an inexperienced pace trio, with Sohail Tanvir, the newest recruit, doing the most damage. There was also a sprightly allround show from Fawad Alam, and a tidy performance behind the stumps from Sarfraz Ahmed.

From the sublime to the nervous

When India and Pakistan met at the Gaddafi Stadium in February 2006, the one-day series was beautifully poised at 1-1. Pakistan set India 289 to win, and Mohammad Asif soon began to move the ball this way and that almost at will. India lost two wickets in no time, and with even Rahul Dravid struggling to put bat to ball, it was left to Sachin Tendulkar to show everyone just how it should be done. His judgment was impeccable, and his shot selection faultless. While Dravid struggled to get a run every other ball, Tendulkar ticked on serenely, utterly changing the complexion of the match.

India prevail despite Butt masterclass

It takes only one poor umpiring decision to ruin an otherwise enthralling game. India would in all likelihood have won this match, but Amiesh Saheba's spontaneous triggering of a magnificent Salman Butt innings took some of the sheen off the proceedings. By that stage, Pakistan needed 49 from 20 balls with only two wickets in hand, but the erroneous decision denied the crowd the possibility of another down-to-the-wire conclusion.

Younis and Boom Boom make profligate India pay

This high-scoring thriller may have entertained a passionate crowd on the eve of Diwali, the festival of lights, but it also revealed many of the frailties that have condemned both teams to middle-of-the-road mediocrity in recent times. Given how incredibly sloppy both were in the field, it was somehow appropriate that the game ended with a fumble at cover.

India cruise against Pakistan Lite

As India-Pakistan contests go, this was an especially tepid affair. Indian generosity in the field helped Pakistan to 239, but the pursuit was accomplished so casually that you had to pinch yourself to believe that one of sport's great rivalries was being played out in front of you.

The last two games on India's tour of Pakistan in 2006 had been similarly uneventful. India won with ridiculous ease at both Multan and Karachi, with the strength of their middle order the difference between the two sides.

Let the games begin

For most of my generation, India-Pakistan matches meant day-long jousts in white clothes in intense Sharjah heat, at the end of which Pakistan usually won. For nearly two decades, until the match-fixing scandal persuaded the Indian board that the venue had been tarred with the corruption brush, these matches were the staple diet of cricket-lovers in the subcontinent. Former greats mingled with Bollywood stars, and some dubious characters, in the hospitality boxes, and the passion in the cheap seats was no different from that found in Mumbai or Karachi.