ChinmayC Blog

Powered by an incredible surge of the rising Indian fast bowler Mohammed Siraj India have crushed Sri Lanka by 10 wickets in the Asia Cup-2023 Final played in Colombo today,  winning their 8 th title of the tournament, followed by Sri Lanka with 5 and Pakistan with 2 title wins . The hosts won the toss and as expected chose to bat first. So far in the tournament, all matches were won by teams batting first; however, in the Final today things took a different turn. The match was also delayed by rainy weather and the Indian pacers smelt some swing in the pitch of which they took full advantage. After Jasprit Bumrah removed Kusal Perera in the very first over of the match, Mohammed Siraj achieved the rarest of rare feats by taking four scalps in just one over or in just six balls—his second and only the fourth over of the match. Four wickets in the Lankan top order reducing the hosts to a sorry 12/5. And the slide did not stop there. Siraj fired on to his fifer in just 16 ball...

  Dunith Wellalage Just when this writer expressed his extreme disillusionment with the cricket of Team India thanks to the haphazard style of player selection cum mindless experimentation in the run-ups to all possible international tournaments, and even threatened to permanently lose interest in the matches India play or is going to play, Team India had bounced back to the winning habit by first bamboozling Pakistan into one of its most crushing defeats of all time in the reserve-day yesterday, the 11 th of September 2023 and then defeated the hosts Sri Lanka in a low-scoring match today, the 12 th of September 2023, thus making way to the Asia Cup-2023 Final to be played on Sunday, September 17. India have now 4 points from 2 matches continuing to top the points table with a formidable net run-rate (NRR) and either Pakistan or Sri Lanka can join them in the Final depending on their virtual semi-final clash on Thursday, September 14. Conceding two defeats from their two matches...

  The cricket matches in all three formats of the game between the arch-rivals India and Pakistan have become a rare variety in the recent years with the ardent discerning cricket lovers waiting for their matches at neutral venues. The matches between them in the one-day World Cup, the T-20 World Cup, and the Asia Cup have always been eagerly awaited. However, in the last two years the fan enthusiasm seems to be dwindling with a sense of listlessness seeping in as regards both Team India and their matches. And risking being rough or grossly unjust I have to point the finger at the Head Coach Rahul Dravid who was appointed in the job in November, 2021. No doubt, he had taken over with the ripe legacies of India—not able to break the jinx of not winning a single ICC title since 2011 ; India’s group-stage exit in the T20 World Cup played in 2021; Team India management blinded by too many choices of young cricketers (courtesy IPL ) thus ushering in the mindless and endless experimen...

It’s always opined by knowledgeable folks that when a car is kept sitting in the garage for months its maintenance suffers—ranging from battery disorders to even rusting in the body—not to speak of the atrocities heaped upon the inactive object by the rats. This means that all humans of various professions and even lifeless objects need to do what they’re meant to do, on a regular basis. Else, maintenance issues emerge leading to breakdowns of various types and escalation in the expenses. Cricketers are much more prone to such inactivity disorders, because it follows naturally that the more they play the fitter they get. Thanks to the experiments-cum-rest syndrome adopted religiously by the cricket management of India these basic principles have not been followed. As one of the results, the crux of the Indian bowling attack, Jasprit Bumrah who had been on indefinite rest, is out of the ICC Cricket T20 World Cup-2022. Now, the entire Team India management is in a daze, unable to take th...

Continuing with the Asia Cup-2022 legacy and the experiment-legacy since time IPL the swashbuckling Team India management, the dead- ‘wall’ coach and the devastatingly discerning selectors had once again preferred batsman-keeper Dinesh Karthik ahead of Rishabh Pant in the playing eleven pitted against the T20 World Champions Australia in the first of the three T20Is in Mohali on 20 th September, 2022. Keeping up with the ‘traditions’ Karthik came in to bat after the supposed all-rounder Axar Patel and was still lucky enough to have four overs to play out. Unfortunately, he could not capitalize on this golden opportunity and perished cheaply. Not only that, he failed miserably to read a suspected LBW ball to convince his captain Rohit Sharma to go for a DRS. As the replays showed the ball hitting the leg stump clearly Rohit vented out all his pent-up anger on the poor but experienced Karthik. Rohit’s magnanimously displayed public anger could perhaps also be the result of the ceaseless...

That India had been kicked out of the Asia Cup-2022 should hardly come as a surprise or some kind of a setback for the Indian cricket board, the Selectors, the India captain and the India coach, because this tournament too has been another clog in the machinery of experimentation for determining a ‘national’ squad for the ICC T20 World Cup-2022 that starts in October in Australia this year. While the ICC had been trying laudably hard to provide valuable practice in the shortest format for all the contesting national sides Team India or the franchises thereof or the team management had been basically trying to justify the IPL and to vindicate the selections therefrom. During this time most of the cricketing superstars of India had been rested or allowed to recuperate from supposed injuries, and as a crucial part of the experiments the superstars, all IPL-captain stuff, were brought in for this international tournament which totally neutralizes the earlier experiments with the IPL stars ...

Well, as far as the three batting stalwarts of Indian Cricket—Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and KL Rahul—are concerned they’re needed all the time irrespective of the relentless experimentation process with promising youngsters and whatever frame of mind or form they’ve been in recently. They can come anytime anywhere and for all key white-ball world tournaments they are a must, and they’re always justified in displacing batsmen like Deepak Hooda, Shubman Gill, Ishan Kishan and even seasoned campaigners like Shreyas Iyer and Shikhar Dhawan. However, it stops just at that point. After they do or don’t do their bit in their batting the all-rounders take over. No doubt, all-rounders like Ravindra Jadeja and Hardik Pandya have been doing great in recent times. But putting in them all the responsibility to bowl, to bat and to win the matches cannot be a long-term strategy. Besides, as has been witnessed in recent months, the in-form and specialized batsmen like Suryakumar Yadav and Dinesh Karth...

It is only logical that the unbeaten team of the Unimoni Asia Cup tournament become the eventual champions. India was the only team that remained unbeaten and in the Final tonight became the worthy champions beating an upbeat Bangladesh by  3  wickets. However, the highly competitive match was not without its moments of worries or even scares. First, it was a risky toss to win owing to India’s decision to field first, because in the slow pitches of UAE a total around 250 often proved to be insurmountable. Second, Bangladesh did show the promise of running away with the match while batting. Third, in the Indian innings loss of Dhawan and Rayadu early and the departure of Rohit while in full flow raised scares for an Indian conquest. And then the fall of Dhoni at the score 160/5 put the onus of a victory on the bowlers again. Put into bat Bangladesh started a brilliant opening partnership of 120 runs in just 20 overs and looked set for a total of over 250 runs. However, all the ...

In the last Super Four match of the Unimoni Asia Cup-2018 played in Abu Dhabi tonight Bangladesh played like tigers overcoming a spirited-in-splits Pakistan by  37  runs. It was a virtual semi-final with the winner set to meet India in the Final to be played in Dubai on Friday, 28 th September, 2018. Seemingly Pakistan could never recover psychologically from the dumps inflicted by arch-rivals India, not once but two times. Their batting was lackadaisical and painfully slow this time too. More importantly for millions of fans all over the globe, a possible third encounter between India and Pakistan in the tournament was snuffed out.      Bangladesh won the toss and elected to bat first. After a shaky start they finally managed to put up a competitive 240-run target for Pakistan thanks to a glorious but unlucky innings of 99 by Musfiqur Rahim and a dashing 60 by Mohammad Mithun. Pakistan bowled them out in 48.5 overs. In reply Pakistan also tottered at the start ...

India enter Unimoni Asia Cup Final to be played on 28th September, 2018 beating Pakistan by 9 wickets, their second win against the arch-rivals in the tournament. Indian openers Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma hit a scintillating partnership of 210 runs and Pakistan had to engineer a run-out to separate them. In the process Shikhar hit his second century of the tournament with other consistent good knocks. Consecutive explosive knocks by captain Rohit Sharma is wonderful as compared to his earlier habit of following a terrific knock in one innings by a failure in the next. His century too was brilliant and worthy of a captain making the win a mere formality.  Never saw such an extremely one-sided India-Pakistan encounter and such severe Indian mauling against Pakistan. Their first encounter was also one-sided, but that was largely due to an absolute Pakistan batting collapse. In this match Pakistan started shakily or rather over-cautiously, but finally put up a total which could be...

Yes, it is indeed a huge relief that India have reached the Super Four stage of the Unimoni Asia Cup-2018 and that they are going to play Pakistan at least two times, the big one coming up tomorrow in Dubai. Because, Team Hong Kong has suffered two losses--one at the hands of Pakistan and the other to India tonight, the latter being a most unwelcome thriller for Indian fans. This sense of relief owes its origins to two basic reasons, like it or not. First, after the ODI series loss and the Test series disaster in England Team India has suffered a telling loss of credibility. There, only captain Virat Kohli played with some of the bowlers in tandem, and now here in UAE even the captain is missing with the one day specialists brought in again. Therefore, you never know who in Team India will play and who will play how. Upsets are common in tournaments, and last night Afghanistan eliminated Sri Lanka, one of the main contenders for the Cup despite everything. Tonight's match was almos...

The 14 th edition of Asia Cup of One Day Internationals (ODI) between cricket playing nations of Asia began tonight, the 15 th of September, 2018 in United Arab Emirates. UAE hosts this tournament for the third time due to well-known reasons. In the inaugural match played at the Dubai International stadium Bangladesh crushed Sri Lanka by 137 runs. Bangladesh, batting first, innings was built mainly on a superlative 144 runs by Musfiqur Rahim who was the last man out setting a competitive target of 261 runs. Sri Lanka began very shakily and kept on losing wickets at regular intervals including a  run-out, the whole team finally getting bowled out for a mere 124 . With its string of successes in last two years Bangladesh has become the team to watch out for in this two-week tournament. It was nice to see Lasith Malinga back in the Sri Lanka team and also among wickets again. Asia Cup this year has six teams with Hong Kong joining the five full ODI members—India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka...

Ravichandran Ash win-- P layer of the Match & Series India today clinched the T20 International Series against Sri Lanka 2-1. In the 3 rd and final match played at Visakhapatnam Team India annihilated the visitors wining by 9  wickets. For a change skipper Dhoni today won the toss and put the visitors in surprising everyone—perhaps keeping in mind the dew factor. And the decision vindicated him thoroughly. He opened the bowling attack with Ashwin and two wickets fell in that over. Ashwin went on to capture 4 wickets for just 8 runs—a no mean feat in the shortest format. Displaying a total lack of application and spirit the full Sri Lankan team folded up for a humiliating 82 with Nehra taking 2 and part-timer Suresh Raina chipping in with 2 wickets. The victory for India seemed a mere formality which they completed in 13.5 overs with the loss of Rohit Sharma. The slow track where Sri Lankan spinners got some turn delayed the proceedings a bit. Shikhar Dhawan (46) and Ajikya R...