Idle musings

Sunday, 14-Jul-2019 saw two superb finals that will be remembered for a long time to come. In Wimbledon, Novak Djokovic defeated Roger Federer in the men's singles tennis final. Some time later, England narrowly pipped New Zealand in the cricket World Cup final at Lord's stadium. There were two deserving winners at the end of the day, but it is the spirit of the runners-up which stands out. I believe that the term "loser" is unfair in both matches ! Both, the New Zealand cricket team and Roger Federer fought valiantly and had victory beckoning at times. Until the 30th over or so in England's inning, New Zealand were the favourites to win. It was Jos Buttler and Ben Stokes who led the fightback for England. Similarly, Federer had a couple of championship points in the fourth set. Djokovic saved them, won the fourth set, took the decider fifth set into a tie-breaker and then won it to seal an amazing final ! Since the cricket World Cup final was also in progres...

    IPL 8 has ended with a winner that few would have expected in the middle of the tournament. Mumbai Indians appeared unlikely to qualify for the knock out stage. Before that the cricket World Cup ended with a more predictable winner. It would have been a fairy tale finish for New Zealand had they won the cup. This was reality though. The professionalism of the Australians came to the fore in the final as they dismantled the New Zealand batting that had faced few tests.     After the world cup, there has been IPL 8 of course. Also, England faced West Indies in an engaging series that promises a new dawn for West Indies cricket. West Indies has uncovered a couple of young stars who can play a lead role in time to come. The first test between New Zealand and England was an absorbing one. New Zealand was in control for the initial part of the test but then in a couple of sessions, England inched back in and soon took the upper hand. It was an engaging conte...

THANK YOU, MASTERS     Sachin Tendulkar has announced his retirement from one-day internationals. It is a matter of time before he will retire from Test cricket as well. This year has seen the fade away of three batting superstars in cricket - Dravid, Ponting and Tendulkar. Cricket will be poorer in their absence. The teams will find replacements but the unique characteristics of these three batsmen will be missing. Such is cricket.     To me, Sachin was always second among my list of idols. My early teens were fired by the innings of Sunil Gavaskar. As the blog http://fewidlethoughts.blogspot.in/2011_04_03_archive.html indicates, my interest in cricket developed AFTER the 1983 World Cup win. After the World Cup win, Clive Lloyd and the West Indies toured India.     The Windies were led by Lloyd and he had the fearsome Malcolm Marshall and the Rolls Royce of West Indian fast bowling, Michael Holding as his spearheads. Looking for revenge,...

MY DREAM INDIAN CRICKET TEAM - 2012 The Indian cricket team's tour of Australia is coming to a close. Unfortunately, there are a few unpleasant similarities with the England series in 2011. First, we have lost the third test and a 4-0 prospect looks extremely likely. That is one obvious similarity with the English series :-) Apart from the series scoreline, the previous test series before we played both England and Australia in their respective countries was against West Indies. That is another similarity. Thirdly, our famed batting line up disappointed us in both tours. In 2011, India won the cricket world cup and most of its stars played the IPL after that. Since then the team has played cricket almost continuously. They then won the one day and test series in West Indies. My own opinion is that this led to an unconscious complacency. In West Indies, if the catch of one of the current West Indian batsmen is dropped in a test, the chances are that there would be another one comi...

The hype over the Indian World Cup victory annoys me a little now, though it has begun to die down with IPL 4 starting yesterday. It is a fantastic achievement by the team, I agree. The final match was a thriller and I enjoyed it - particularly after India won the match and the world cup ! Yes, it was a fine win ; yes, it was a long time coming ; yes, Sachin (above all) deserves to hold the world cup medal and trophy. One week after the win, I feel that the hype is too much. In the final, there were two superstars of the sub-continent facing each other, with Sachin and Muralitharan playing. My own feeling was a feeling of sadness that one of these would have to walk away unsung, while the other would be revelling in memorable victory. I dreaded to think that Sachin would be left empty handed again and when India did win and Virat Kohli hoisted him on his shoulders, I felt happy for him. I did feel a little sorry for Muralitharan though. The celebrations have been over the top, as c...

TWENTY 20, CRICKET AND INDIAN CRICKET     Yesterday, the first one dayer between India and Australia was washed out in Bangalore. The Australians have made an ominous beginning to the Future Cup. After being 90 for 4, they ended up with 307/ 7 in 50 overs. The "pup" Michael Clarke made 131 off 130 balls. Romesh Powar's bowling was rusty  : he gifted full tosses as the first ball in the first couple of overs of his second spell. The well-settled Clarke and Brad Haddin needed no second invitation and duly clouted the balls for sixes. R. P. Singh also erred in line, bowling to the leg stump of the right handers. Again this was capitalized by the Australians. This was a match that we would have lost 8 times out of 10.     Before the match, there was the usual war of words and Andrew Symonds was quoted as saying that he was amazed by the (over?) rection in the Indian media to India's Twenty 20 World Cup triumph. He needs to understand India better if he ha...

RANDOM THOUGHTS .... about the cricket World Cup, books that make me think and Spiderman 3     The dust has settled since I last wrote. India bowed out of the cricket World Cup leading to a lot of condemnation of our cricketing heroes. The Wall, the master, the Bengal tiger ..... everybody in the cricket team became objects of criticism. A lot of it was justified since we simply expect and demand more in the only team sport that we can think of being world beaters ! The World Cup went on with Sri Lanka emerging as the possible contenders for the cup. In the end though, it was the sheer professionalism and preparedness of Australia that saw them through easily. I saw a hoarding of a famous Australian beer that put it best. It simply said : "Australian for HABIT" and showed the cricket world cup ! That hoarding says it all !     What of India ? Piyush Chawla made a promising debut in the one dayers against Bangladesh, but there are still some key people miss...

MY DREAM INDIAN CRICKET TEAM The Cricket World Cup ( http://www.cricketworldcup.com ) is in progress in the West Indies and yesterday, we lost to Bangladesh. In my opinion, Dravid erred in choosing to bat. Perhaps, the plan was that we would get good batting practice for the later matches in the first innings and then we could restrict them. Of course, the Bangladeshi bowlers had other plans ;-) The morning "juice" in the wicket was rather venomous. In the early part of our innings, the ball moved around just enough to keep our batsmen quiet. It took Yuvraj's belligerence to cut the shackles loose. I wish Dhoni had built on Yuvraj's knock. I expect that the two of them will be very important for India's chances in the World Cup, particularly against Sri Lanka. In my view, Dhoni has the maturity to play a steadying role in the middle overs since he can also run well between wickets. Yuvraj and he are the two best runners when we bat. If they come to bat in the mid...

THE MATCH - AND AFTER     After 7 years, there has been an Indian team touring Pakistan for a cricket series. The one day series got off to an eventful start. See http://in.rediff.com/cricket/2004/mar/13india.htm for details.     It was clear that the players felt the sense of the occasion. The Pakistani opening bowlers bowled far too many wides and no-balls, which would be discussed at length during the day by the cricket commentators. However, the Indian openers also felt the nerves, I thought. There was bravado in Sachin's shots, but a lot of it appeared put on. Sehwag was almost sedate in comparison, initially. The unconvincing opening made me feel that the bowlers could get an upper hand. In fact, Inzamam-ul-Haq said that had the bowlers been more disciplined, the moisture in the wicket might have caused more problems to the Indian batsmen. As it was, there were a couple of close shaves : a catch off a no ball and a dropped catch ; Sachin and Sehwag b...