Dear Friends,
                    I will not be posting anything for over a month as I have my exams at university.I will make this an active blog once I become free

Sourav Chandidas Ganguly

You will not need too much of introduction about this man.He is called as the god of off side. You need to understand the bowler and his bowling to be a good batsman. You need to understand the batsman and his batting to be a good bowler. You need to understand the game of cricket to be a good captain!And Ganguly is a captain,the real captain. Though its not a formal way of writing an article when you quote a personal incident but I am forced to quote this incident;one of my 70+ year old relatives in 1999 on seeing Ganguly’s 183 innings against Sri Lanka said “indha chinna paiyan romba nanna aadrdhe !Ithaala dhaan India team  future la strong aaportho ennamo ! ” It means “this small kid plays well!Because of him India’s future may probably get better!  ”.And the most interesting part is, this was the last words from his mouth.He died the next morning in sleep out of heart attack.And his last words became true!

                            Ganguly is a great captain and probably the greatest captain India had. And many will not decline if you say him as the third greatest Indian batsman of all time. The Bengal tiger made his one day international debut in the year 1992.Still he managed to become a regular player of the Indian team only after 1996 test debut in which he scored a century. From then on he started creating huge impacts with batting. 1997 to 2002 was his career peak and through out that period he was considered as the best oneday batsman on earth even ahead of Sachin Tendulakar.He became the third batsman in history to score a century in each of his first 2 test  innings. In oneday internationals he topped  the calendar year 1999 with 1767 runs with an average of 46, which is the second highest ever runs acquired by a batsman in a calander year next to Sachin’s 1894 runs in the year 1998 and 6 runs ahead of Dravid’s 1761 which he scored in the same year of 1999.His ODI domination continued during the next year also as he again topped the calendar year 2000 scoring 1579 matches(7^th highest individual annual score ever) but this was a better year than 1999 as he scored so many in just 32 matches which is better than the previous year’s 41 matches, with a better average of 56 and 7 centuries in the year. But 1999 was not the first year for Ganguly to become the highest run getter of a calendar year; in 1997 itself he achieved that feat for the first time scoring 1338 runs. In 1998 when Tendulkar topped Ganguly stood second in the world. So he was the 1997’s highest run getter, 1998’s second highest,1999’s highest and 2000’s highest run getter!!From 1997 to 2000 he played 147 matches and scored 6012 runs with 16 centuries and 33 fiftys.This 4 year achievement of Ganguly looks like  career figures of some top class batsmen of his period like Andy Flower isn’t it?  Is there any doubt why he was called as the best ODI batsman during that period? Was Wisden wrong in rating him as the 6^th best ODI batsman of all time?

                                He managed to score 11,363 runs(5^th highest overall till date) in one day international format with 22 centuries . He was not a great test player any way. Better to say that he was not so good like onedays. His test performances are not of a legend’s standards.He managed to score his only double ton towards the end of his career.Still he is a legend for the things he did not only as a batsman but also as a bowler who has taken 100 oneday wickets with 5/16 as his best figures; Not only as a bowler but also as a fielder who has taken 100 catches!;last but not the least,not only as a fielder but also as a captain!He is the one who totally changed India’s approach of playing from a coward’s approach to a tiger’s approach. Indians always feared playing big teams in 90s which even Sanjay Manjrekar, a former member of Indian team during 90s agreed with. Ganguly as captain changes everything. He captained India to win 21 tests which is the best record by any Indian captain! He has won 76 odis as a captain. He has a major role in India’s 2011 world cup victory though he retired 2 years earlier as he was the key reason for the formation of strong and fighting Indian team! 

                     Mohammed Azharuddhin

Azar was banned from playing first class cricket as he admitted that he fixed 3 matches against England becoming the third player in cricket’s history to be banned for match fixing. This drastically would have reduced his number of fans following and no one will disagree the fact that he deserves a negative popularity ahead of the positive one as he has done something which affects the nation’s popularity. He has got back enough for his match fixing sin as we all know that he was banned for life time, still if its not enough, he lost his son, the final settlement for being the national traitor.  Forget about his disastrous end. Its time for us to recall his positives alone.

                   If  you make a list of  top 10 Batsmen India has ever produced or the list of top 5 captains India has ever had, you cannot omit his name. Azarhuddin is both technically and statistically a world class captain. His batting was not good but great. He is more like Laxman, a wrist player. One of the greatest wrist players of cricket. There is no one better than him in wrist flicking the ball. The match fixing issue shadowed his greatness, otherwise the 1991 Wisden Cricketer of the year would have been spoken as high as Gavaskar or Tendulkar. He could have been the second batsmen on earth to score 10,000 ODI runs after Sachin if something like that did not happen. And no one who made an international debut in 1984 would have dreamt of a 10,000 in odis.

                 Azar was undoubtedly one of the top 3 or 4 greatest batsmen in the world during his period. He was both a shorter format and a longer format specialist. His First class record was so good that even after playing 229 first class matches he had an average of 52. He is one among the very few Indian batsman to score 50+ centuries in first lass matches, and yes he scored 54 centuries with 226 as his highest innings score in the 20 year long First class career. Though he wasn’t able to score a double ton in test cricket his presence in the team was always required for India as we had a lot of issues regarding the batting in 90’s before the emergence of Dravid and Ganguly. In tests, he has an average of 45 which is too good for a No.5 batsman, as good as Laxman of today .He holds the world record of scoring 3 centuries in  row in his first three Test matches. He is one among the very few to end the test career with a century. To be specific he started with a century and ended with a century. Through out his career he scored 22 test centuries in 99 tests.

                         Now its time to highlight his shorter format achievements . He has done few things which no other Indian did and he has done so many things which only few other Indians did as far as One day cricket is concerned. Maintaining an average of 40 for 432 List A matches is not a joke. His 156 catches in oneday international cricket was a world record. He was the second highest run getter in ODIs(9378) for a long period. His highest score is 153 not out in ODIs. His 62 ball hundred against Newzealand in 1998 was the fastest by an Indian for 11 years till Sehwag bettered it(60 balls).

        I can’t finish this article without writing a paragraph on his captaincy. Azar has captained India during most of the 90s and has created a big impact as a captain. His 14 test match wins as a captain was a national record until Ganguly surpassed it. He has lead India to 103 odi victories which is an unbroken Indian record till date.

           He has done a lot to his team.He has done a lot to cricket.Undoubtedly he is a legend. Few hundred thousand dollars tempted him. He betrayed his mother land. Undoubtedly he is a traitor.To conclude he is a good cricketer though not a great human.Hope he becomes a better human after the bitter experiences of loosing his goodwill and  his son.                        

               

Laxmi Ratan Shukla

For the past 7 or 8 years Indian ODI team has been in need of a good fast bowler allrounder.A good fast bowler allrounder means that he should be a good batsman and a good fast bowler as well. So the previous point clearly says that its neither Irfan Pathan nor Virat Kholi, allrounders who could satisfy only one of the criteria. Why do we need a pace all rounder? If you have a weakness then rely on your strength. It’s the policy that any Cricket team (not only a cricket team) follows on earth. And it implies to the Indian cricket team too.Every team has its own strength.Every country produces players who are exposed more to their conditions and obviously their strengths will revolve around their conditions.

                 Everybody know well that the Indian sub continent assist spinners more than pacers. Australia and South Africa badly lack spinners. Their bowling revolve around their pacers even today.They used their strength to overcome their weakness.Though both teams did not manage to make it to the semis, without doubt they were competing well until their presence was there in the tournament.Now coming to the point, India has never had a quality pace attack in its history just like how South Africa never had a quality spin attack.We have more than 4 spinners who could really do well at the international level.Just see whether South Africa team management would reject any one of  Harbajan,Ojha,Ashwin,Misra,Chawla and Rahul Sharma if they are offered only one . We don’t have more than 2 quality pacers who can maintain a good economy rate through out the innings.We don’t have more than one pacer who bowls well during death overs .So using 3 pacers will not make sense isn’t it? From a fan point of view, damn sure no Indian fan would be confident with the team’s bowling lineup if the team has 3 pacers and 1 spinner (say Zaheer,Praveen,Umesh and Ashwin).If not 3 pacers ,then 2 pacers and 2 spinners? That too isn’t a great bowling attack.Just cant imagine an innings with just 20 overs of pace isn’t it? It makes your opponent more used to your strength (spin). Having a part time spinner like Jadeja will not help as we all know that he cant always give his 100%.

           So what to do? Analysis clearly reveals that the key here is having 2 full time spinners for a spin dependent nation like India. But a team should have 7 complete batsmen to have a confident batting line up. As already mentioned, 2 pace bowlers are not at all sufficient. Irfan cannot be the 7^th batsman for sure.Probably he can be the 8^th.By now the person reading this article will feel the dearness of a pace allrounder’s presence in the team.It will enable the Indian team management to pick 3 pacers(including him) , 2 spinners and 7 complete batsmen(every one of them better than Irfan Pathan).So who is the pace allrounder? The candidates are Lakshmi Ratan Shukla, Abishek Nayar from List A cricket. And the hero of the article L.Shukla has proved to be a better oneday player when compared to Abishek Nayar.

               The 30 year old Bengali Allrounder has already worn the blue jersey in 1999 and unfortunately he wasn’t able to last for long in the jersey.He was also a part of India test squad during the ACC Asian Test Championship 1998-99 yet failed to make his test debut .He hasn’t impressed too much in the longest format. Even after playing more than 100 first class matches he averages just near 35 with his batting and has taken just 121 wickets.So there is no question of his absence in the Indian test team. But middle order righthanded batsman has been very good in the 50 over List A format. He has 2585 runs in 115 List A matches averaging 33 which is as good as Raina’s ODI batting record and far better than Ravindra Jadeja’s List A record(His ODI batting record is even worse as all knows). And his bowling in List A is pretty decent as he has taken more wickets than the matches he played (117 of 115). This bowling performance is more than enough for a 3^rd pace bowler who is going to bowl not more than 6 overs a match and when the team has 2 specialist spinners isn’t it? His bowling average of 26 is also better than Ravindra Jadeja’s 28. He has been highly impressive at the domestic level at several occasions. Even recently he lead Bengal to victory with a century and a four wicket haul where 3 of his victims were the top 3 (Jaffer, Rahane and Revandkar) batsmen in the Mumbai’s batting order. There is no doubt that he is a complete batsman and his bowling economy rate is a real bowlers economy rate of 4.48. 24th of February 2012 is not long back when he scored a 151 against Jharkhand. Is there any more justification needed for him to be given priority over Ravindra Jadeja and Yusuf Pathan to be selected in the India ODI squad? He is now a highly experienced player too atleast at the domestic level. 

                       Now let us imagine a playing eleven. 1.Sachin/Sehwag 2.Gambir 3.Kholi 4.Rohit 5.Raina 6.Dhoni 7.SHUKLA 8.Irfan 9.Ashwin 10.Ojha 11.Zaheer/vinay. Can you suggest a more balanced team. This team has 7 complete batsmen ,2 semi-batsmen(Ashwin and Irfan), 3 pacers and 2 specialist spinners who can bowl better than Jadeja or Yusuf.

                         Lakshmi Ratan Shukla is now young and experienced who will be fruitful if exposed to more international cricket.We have wasted some 5 or 6 years of his international career. He is 30.Being a fast bowler allrounder not more than 5 more years of service to the nation’s cricket we can expect from him.It’s the right time to select him for him to be fruitful in 2015 world cup.     

Cricket fanatics....now in blogger:-)

hi friends,
              now cricket fanatics has stepped its leg into blogger....hope the blog gets more successful here than the group in facebook
                                                       -Arvindh