ChinmayC Blog

England have entered the final of Carlton Mid Triangular Cricket Series played in Australia beating a listless India by 3 wickets with 19 balls to spare in the 4 th ODI of the Series in Perth today. England now face unbeaten Australia in the Final to be played in same city on Sunday, the 1 st of February 2015. For a change a better performance by Indian opener Shikhar Dhawan (38) and a half century by Ajinkya Rahane (73) gave India a good start and with Virat Kohli coming at No.3 for the first time in this Series India looked to be in a sound position to push for a formidable total. But, the ‘Calypso’ collapses that seem to have become a part of Team India reduced the team to 136 for 5 from 102 for 1 and then 165 for 9. Mohammed Shami, the last man standing, hit a lusty 25 to make India reach 200 at least; else India would have done exactly the same as they did last time against England. This is despite the presence of two confirmed all-rounders in the team. The famed batting line-u...

If Team India is proven third time lucky tomorrow then they will definitely play Australia in the Carlton Mid Tri-Series Cricket Final on 1 st February 2015. India got what they wanted on 23 rd January when Australia defeated a resurgent England overcoming a huge 300+ target with three wickets in hand and just a ball to spare. India proved lucky again on India’s Republic Day, 26 th January, when they got hold of two precious points through the backdoor as their crucial match against undefeated Australia got washed out due to persistent rains. India did not look to be in a sound position to hope vanquishing a dangerous Australia in that match. Now, with these two points, India just needs to defeat England who have 5 points from the match against India including a bonus point straight and simple without bothering about bonus points or run rate pressures. Their two injured players, Ravindra Jadeja and Ishant Sharma, have come back into the team and this could be crucial in the Perth en...

Nine months after forcing BCCI President N Srinivasan to resign the Supreme Court of India has virtually demolished the big-money-powered cricket clout of India in a landmark judgment delivered today on the IPL Spot Fixing Scandal and Conflict of Interest case. The court said that Srinivasan created the conflict of interest himself by bringing in an amendment to the constitution as BCCI Chief. The court struck down this controversial 6.2.4 clause that allows BCCI officials to own IPL teams and have commercial interests. Scrapping of this rule means that Srinivasan cannot contest the BCCI elections which the court ordered to be held within next six weeks. Supreme Court gives Srini one option though—you can fight election if you give up your IPL team Chennai Super Kings. This is not one of the easiest options to make use of because of obvious ‘cricket’ lobbies, players, business and revenues. Furthermore, the court constituted a three-member panel of judges to decide the fate of Chenna...

Defending World Cricket Champions India supposedly embarked into the Carlton Tri-Series played in Australia with an overwhelming concern for the bowling department and perhaps finding a solution before the ICC World Cup-2015 begins in Australia and New Zealand. But in the very first two matches against Australia and England respectively India had all the concerns possible for its batting only. In the Melbourne ODI against Australia Indian batsmen failed to capitalize on the Rohit Sharma ton and fell short of another at least 20 runs to hope to put some pressure on the strong home side. In the Brisbane ODI today India recorded its lowest ever all-out ODI total against England and crashed to a humiliating defeat in a horribly one-sided match. On both occasions the Indian tail did not wag at all maybe to welcome MS Dhoni back into captaincy.   Rather than writing a report about these one day encounters it will be much better to just note down the questions… and questions emerging out...

“Ki…ki…ki…ki…ki…!” “Don’t try that on me, ok? I’m not at all afraid of you!” “Ki…ki…ki…ki…ki…Kiran!” “How you convinced the Congress to support its bitter foes ever I don’t know. But never try such tricks on us now. No way! You’ve seen it from the very beginning.” “How could you do this to me?” “It is the result of what you have been doing all the time.” “We had the same mentor, same ideals and fought for the same noble cause.” “And you left the same mentor high and dry, used him for your relentless ambitions at all possible levels—local, regional, national and international.” “You cannot deny my basic objective—cleaning the system from within. I was so committed and tried my best.” “And so you ran away from running the government. Being the ruling leader you still sat and slept on the streets to carry on what goddamn objectives I could hardly understand.” “You must understand why. ‘Central’ circumstances forced me to do so.   I had no options. I had to make sure that the Bill wa...