Cricket: The Worst Phase For Team India?

The Perth massacre of the Indian cricket team by Australia marked the third consecutive loss in the present India-Australia Test Cricket Series and the seventh consecutive overseas Test loss in the past seven months for India.  Such defeats that make a mockery of a cricket test match. No fights, no resistance, no determination—only abject surrender mindless and lacking any application.

Just imagine! A team that only recently occupied the No.1 position in Test rankings suffers an innings defeat when the opposite team scored only 369 in the first innings—not exactly a mammoth total by test standards. But India is immensely capable of doing the impossible! They make 161 and 171 respectively to offer a series-clinching win to Australia on a platter. No surprise then that Aussie skipper Michael Clarke want many more astounding victories to make a meaningful assault for the No.1 position.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni, rated as the most positive and winning captain India have ever produced, now holds the overpoweringly generous record of conceding six innings defeats—more than any other Indian captain. Meantime he earns a ban for the fourth test starting in Adelaide on January 24 due to slow over rate. The divine hand? This frees him from playing test matches for at least seven months.

For a change everyone is taking the blame for the debacle. Dhoni says he is responsible, the Indian cricket Board Chief Selector says the Board takes the responsibility! The only thing that is always above ‘blame’ is the magnificent IPL (Indian Premiere League T20)—extravagant cricket tournament in the shortest format of the game. This is the reason why nobody can pass on the buck to anybody as everybody needs everybody for the big bucks to roll in from the IPL. So better get consolation with ‘You see! This can be called the worst phase of Indian cricket. But it happens to every team sometime or the other. So, don’t blame IPL. Corrective measures will be taken.’

More questions come out of such assurances. Is this the worst phase only so far? What corrective measures? If you finally decide to drop the seniors—you cannot do that till IPL is over—how do you go about replacing them? Do you have cricketers who can fit the real cricket format—test cricket?  Do you call all top batsmen in top gear suddenly falling and continuing falling in heaps a natural phenomenon that affects every team? How do you define a team as ‘good, competitive and aggressive’? If you can have flat and lifeless pitches a home in the interests of the big bucks why don’t you then apply your money power to have the same specially made for India overseas instead of the juicy, green and bouncy pitches?

Ad Rating points for Indian cricket show a declining trend at the moment. The ratings should crash so that cricket is brought to the level of any other game played in India. Till then, nobody will be able to take the correct decisions or measures for the game of cricket in its truest form.

Happy Bhogali Bihu!

  

Bhogali or Magh Bihu—the harvest festival of Assam is celebrated in mid January that is the month of Magh about to begin. Bhogali means ‘aplenty’. And it’s winter when people are more energetic. Bhogali Bihu belongs to the farmers who harvest the ripe golden paddy crops after long and hard work and have a well deserved community feast of new rice, fish, meat and other delicacies. Plus celebrations. In some villages of Assam buffalo fights are still a rage. 

Magh Bihu falls normally on 13th-14th January as per the timing of Makar Sankranti. Sankranti means changing of direction. The time when the sun changes direction from one constellation (of the zodiac) to another is known as Sankranti. Transition of the Sun from Sagittarius to Capricorn during the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere (Uttarayana) is known as Makar sankranti. Only this year, a leap year, Bhogali Bihu is being celebrated on 14th and 15th of January, 2012.

Days prior to the Bihu get really hectic in a typical Assamese village. Stacks of harvested golden paddy crops collected in the backyard are taken to the inner courtyard, opened and spread in a circular shape. More and more stacks are added and it becomes a rustling circular bed. Then two bullocks are brought in and made to do a merry-go-round thrashing out the grains from the paddy branches by continuously treading on it. The separated grains are then packed in long bags and deposited in the barn or bharal-ghar. Bagfuls of paddy are then taken to the rice mills as per requirements of daily meals and making of a rich variety of rice cakes.

 

 The first day of the two day festival is Uruka when people get together in specially made bamboo-frame pavilion called bhela-ghar--thatch-roofed and walled by dry banana leaves for a feast with the new rice and fish, meat and other delicacies. This pavilion is lit and burnt up at dawn next day and people worship the fire god with various offerings. Apart from the community feast folks also make a haystack with bamboo and firewood added called meji and burn it up in the morning. During the uruka night people get warm with endless bonfires and hardly sleep.

The second day it’s a bonanza of rice cakes, laddoos of various types and other eatables at all homes with relatives visiting throughout the day. As it’s an auspicious day of Sankranti people do not take cooked rice and non-vegetarian items during daytime.

 

For Magh Bihu 2012 there is just one major problem in Assam--very high prices of fish and other items. On the other hand a very severe winter going on and people have really been enjoying the warmth of bonfires.
 

Assamese people all over the globe cannot help but observe this joyful festival though they may not get the right kind environment and climatic boosters.

 

The rounded balls made from fried coconut paste and sugar are as tasty as they are attractive! People living outside Assam or even abroad never forget to make such traditional delicacies and take pains to get those ready for the morning of the second day.

Happy Bhogali or Magh Bihu to All of You! Enjoy!

Cricket:Australia Massacre India in Perth!

Australia massacred India on the very first day of the third test in Perth today. The famed Indian batting strength is no more. Not even on paper! The celebrated cricket stars of Team India have failed again and again, and yet again! Not even one scored even a half century. The likes of Sehwag, Dravid and Dhoni were utter flops again. Very Very Special Laxman did nothing but ordinary once more. Only the finger-pointing Virat Kohli struggled to reach an individual score of 44.

India were bowled out for just 161, in similar manner as in Sydney or even in Melbourne. The demolition squad of Australia—Siddle and Hilfenhaus—was amongst the wickets today too. If Pattinson was there in action maybe the Indian innings could have folded up for less than hundred runs! His replacement, Harris, was also helped by magnanimous Indian batsmen to get into top form. 

Worse followed. In the Australian innings a lackluster Indian skipper Dhoni did not even think of giving the ball to Ishant Sharma who featured prominently in the historic Indian win at the same venue in 2007-08.  Australia scored freely and merrily at the incredible run-rate of nearly 6.5 an over reaching 149 for no loss in 23 overs at the end of the day’s play. While Indian maestro Sachin Tendulkar’s witch-hunt for the hundredth hundred continued pitifully David Warner scored a quickfire century for Australia. India lost the third test too in the very first day.

Now what? The seniors must leave immediately. But how to fill in the blanks? All the newcomers or most of them are selected only on the basis of their IPL (Indian Premiere League T20) performance where they sparkle for few minutes and make it to the one-day format. If they play one solid innings in one-day matches they get selected for the national Test team. But in what way they can be termed as ‘test players’?

Forget pointing fingers. Just try to follow the example set by Aussie skipper Michael Clarke who wants to be remembered as only a good test player and who has shielded himself from the possible damage of T20 format of the game. Is there any Indian cricketer who can do that—can he say ‘I’ll not play IPL anymore and be a good test player who can make the country proud’? Hello, any takers?

Else, there are just two options for the commerce driven Indian cricket board—scrap IPL or ban Test Cricket in India and for India.