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***Official*** India in Pakistan
- Thread starter Pratters
- Start date
Dissector
International Debutant
I guess Mudassar probably knows what he is talking about but it seems like a strange strategy. Why not just prepare a green,bouncy wicket since Pakistan has a far better pace attack. They couldn't do this with England which also has a good pace attack but the Pakistanis don't really have to worry much about Pathan/Agarkar/Khan/Singh, do they?
We all should demand a refund from the PCB
This is a crying shame. Such a DEAD pitch is an insult to all the cricket followers around the world who follow India and Pakistan. Mudassar Nazar is dead on - this is just unacceptable. It's about time the fans stopped coddling such ridiculous pitches and games. Utter nonsense !
Everyone knew that Lahore was not suited for cricket at this time of the year so why play there ??
This is a crying shame. Such a DEAD pitch is an insult to all the cricket followers around the world who follow India and Pakistan. Mudassar Nazar is dead on - this is just unacceptable. It's about time the fans stopped coddling such ridiculous pitches and games. Utter nonsense !
Everyone knew that Lahore was not suited for cricket at this time of the year so why play there ??
Inzamam slams "dead wicket"
Has Inzamam been taking lessons from Ganguly in verbal spin ?
Inzamam slams "dead wicket"
By a Correspondent
Lahore, January 15, 2006
Pakistan skipper Inzamam-ul-Haq today slammed the "dead wicket" at the Gadaffi Stadium for the first Test against India here.
Calling it a "bowlers graveyard" Inzamam said, "I am disappointed with this wicket. This is a batting paradise with nothing in it for the bowlers. We could have done well with a 'sporting' pitch with something for the pace bowlers and for the spinners".
"This is an important series for us and we are trying hard to win it. I believe in playing positive cricket. And anyway, if you have a negative attitude, you will still lose and predict this Test would be a draw. I hope the wicket at Faisalabad for the second Test would be a sporting one", he added.
"I am hopeful of a good pitch at Faisalabad. I would like the wicket there to have something in it for the pace bowlers. Here everybody in the batting line up has contributed and that's a good sign for us. Younis Khan didn't do well against England, and it's good to see him get back into form. Shoaib Malik has also done well at the top of the order and the lower order also looks good in the way both Shahid Afridi and Kamran Akmal have batted", he said.
"Shoaib Akhtar just strained an ankle. But he should be all right. I am also happy to see the India-Pakistan series being phased out on the lines of the Ashes Series. In the recent past, we have played each other too often. Still India-Pakistan series is always special", he added.
Has Inzamam been taking lessons from Ganguly in verbal spin ?
Inzamam slams "dead wicket"
By a Correspondent
Lahore, January 15, 2006
Pakistan skipper Inzamam-ul-Haq today slammed the "dead wicket" at the Gadaffi Stadium for the first Test against India here.
Calling it a "bowlers graveyard" Inzamam said, "I am disappointed with this wicket. This is a batting paradise with nothing in it for the bowlers. We could have done well with a 'sporting' pitch with something for the pace bowlers and for the spinners".
"This is an important series for us and we are trying hard to win it. I believe in playing positive cricket. And anyway, if you have a negative attitude, you will still lose and predict this Test would be a draw. I hope the wicket at Faisalabad for the second Test would be a sporting one", he added.
"I am hopeful of a good pitch at Faisalabad. I would like the wicket there to have something in it for the pace bowlers. Here everybody in the batting line up has contributed and that's a good sign for us. Younis Khan didn't do well against England, and it's good to see him get back into form. Shoaib Malik has also done well at the top of the order and the lower order also looks good in the way both Shahid Afridi and Kamran Akmal have batted", he said.
"Shoaib Akhtar just strained an ankle. But he should be all right. I am also happy to see the India-Pakistan series being phased out on the lines of the Ashes Series. In the recent past, we have played each other too often. Still India-Pakistan series is always special", he added.
Shame on you, BCCI
We, the fans, pay to keep these stupid people in power so we can get politically motiveted selections (thanks Pawar, Dalmiya and Ganguly) and DEAD pitches (thanks Woolmer and Inzamam)
Shame on you, BCCI
By: Khalid A-H Ansari
January 15, 2006
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sydney: It’s a horrible blast from the past: the news that the touring team’s management in Pakistan was coerced in the matter of selection against the expressed wishes of the captain and coach.
The report has come just when cricket fans were becoming smug following Team India’s recent heart-warming performances and beginning to believe that the cataclysmic changes in the top echelons of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) were making for efficient and responsible administration of the game.
According to an agency report datelined Lahore and widely published in Australia, “Sourav Ganguly was included in the Indian team for the first Test against Pakistan due to pressure from cricket board chiefs”.
Attributing the report to a “team source”, the story reveals that “coach Greg Chappell and captain Rahul Dravid did not want Ganguly to open and could not fit him in the middle order without disturbing a trusted combination.
“But team manager Raj Singh Dungarpur, under instructions from the BCCI, is understood to have urged Chappell to play the experienced Ganguly in the match.
“The manager was asked to convince Chappell to play Ganguly because of his vast experience,” says the report.
The former captain was preferred over two regular openers, Gautam Gambhir and Wasim Jaffer after Chappell had told the media last Tuesday that two batsmen out of Sehwag, Gambhir and Jaffer would open the innings.
“Any two of the three will play because all three are in good form,” the coach is reported as saying.
It goes on to add that during training on Friday, Dravid, Chappell and Ganguly “were seen having an argument in the middle, apparently over the batting order.”
This makes one wonder whether the baffling decision for Dravid to open yesterday with Sehwag was their not-so-subtle way of telling the Board to go to blazes, even though it was a case of cutting the nose to spite the face!
By way of background, the agency story details BCCI president Sharad Pawar’s meeting with Ganguly and senior players before declaring that India’s most successful Test captain was not a “disruptive influence” in the team, contrary to Chappell’s explicit belief in the leaked email to the previous dispensation.
All that I can say from this distance is that, if true, the report is shocking in the extreme.
It only reinforces my thesis over the years that the more things change in Indian cricket, the more they remain the same.
This piece is not about the controversy over Ganguly’s merits and demerits regarding selection for the tour. In my view, Ganguly’s services to the team and country as batsman and most successful captain ever need to be enshrined in letters of gold.
But that is not the issue. In my view, Ganguly’s selection was flawed in the first place, since it was patently driven with political intent at the instance of interested BCCI bigwigs, who have no business to poke their dirty noses (to borrow an expression from Field Marshal SHFJ Maneckshaw) in matters of selection, and in shameful contravention of majority opinion in the selection committee.
Personal, regional and (cricket) political aspects apart, the national selectors, had they been worth their salt, ought not to have countenanced any outside interference from any quarter, including from the very top, for any reason, whatsoever.
By virtue of being nominated on the national selection committee by their state associations, they are presumed to be men of unimpeachable integrity and expected to act only and exclusively in the national interest.
The selectors should have stood by their conviction and had the courage to resign. But does that ever happen in India?
No matter how you look at it: the BCCI ‘diktat’ to manager Dungarpur is despicable, smacks of political interference of the most disgusting kind and deserves to be condemned in the strongest terms, irrespective of the personalities involved.
It is obvious the current BCCI dispensation is hell-bent in establishing its credibility by projecting itself as being whiter than white.
Towards that end, an image of fairness towards Ganguly, who was perceived as being the raison d’etre of his so-called masters in West Bengal, their sworn enemies, is vital.
Needless to say, it is also craftily intended to erode Jagmohan Dalmiya’s power base in a state where he is perceived in many quarters as being an ‘outsider’.
The way things have turned out, the change in the BCCI power structure has been a blessing in disguise for Ganguly who, in his wildest dreams, could not have expected their support.
That apart, the BCCI must, absolutely must, refrain from interfering in affairs that impact directly on the team’s performance.
After all, the Board officials just do not have the requisite wherewithal in terms of knowledge and experience on the field of play, as compared with the captain, coach and selection committee members.
For another, in their obsession with matters of ‘kursi’, they often forget that the national interest should be paramount.
It’s time they realised that they are merely the custodians of the hopes and aspirations of millions of cricket ‘deewaane’ in the country.
We, the fans, pay to keep these stupid people in power so we can get politically motiveted selections (thanks Pawar, Dalmiya and Ganguly) and DEAD pitches (thanks Woolmer and Inzamam)
Shame on you, BCCI
By: Khalid A-H Ansari
January 15, 2006
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sydney: It’s a horrible blast from the past: the news that the touring team’s management in Pakistan was coerced in the matter of selection against the expressed wishes of the captain and coach.
The report has come just when cricket fans were becoming smug following Team India’s recent heart-warming performances and beginning to believe that the cataclysmic changes in the top echelons of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) were making for efficient and responsible administration of the game.
According to an agency report datelined Lahore and widely published in Australia, “Sourav Ganguly was included in the Indian team for the first Test against Pakistan due to pressure from cricket board chiefs”.
Attributing the report to a “team source”, the story reveals that “coach Greg Chappell and captain Rahul Dravid did not want Ganguly to open and could not fit him in the middle order without disturbing a trusted combination.
“But team manager Raj Singh Dungarpur, under instructions from the BCCI, is understood to have urged Chappell to play the experienced Ganguly in the match.
“The manager was asked to convince Chappell to play Ganguly because of his vast experience,” says the report.
The former captain was preferred over two regular openers, Gautam Gambhir and Wasim Jaffer after Chappell had told the media last Tuesday that two batsmen out of Sehwag, Gambhir and Jaffer would open the innings.
“Any two of the three will play because all three are in good form,” the coach is reported as saying.
It goes on to add that during training on Friday, Dravid, Chappell and Ganguly “were seen having an argument in the middle, apparently over the batting order.”
This makes one wonder whether the baffling decision for Dravid to open yesterday with Sehwag was their not-so-subtle way of telling the Board to go to blazes, even though it was a case of cutting the nose to spite the face!
By way of background, the agency story details BCCI president Sharad Pawar’s meeting with Ganguly and senior players before declaring that India’s most successful Test captain was not a “disruptive influence” in the team, contrary to Chappell’s explicit belief in the leaked email to the previous dispensation.
All that I can say from this distance is that, if true, the report is shocking in the extreme.
It only reinforces my thesis over the years that the more things change in Indian cricket, the more they remain the same.
This piece is not about the controversy over Ganguly’s merits and demerits regarding selection for the tour. In my view, Ganguly’s services to the team and country as batsman and most successful captain ever need to be enshrined in letters of gold.
But that is not the issue. In my view, Ganguly’s selection was flawed in the first place, since it was patently driven with political intent at the instance of interested BCCI bigwigs, who have no business to poke their dirty noses (to borrow an expression from Field Marshal SHFJ Maneckshaw) in matters of selection, and in shameful contravention of majority opinion in the selection committee.
Personal, regional and (cricket) political aspects apart, the national selectors, had they been worth their salt, ought not to have countenanced any outside interference from any quarter, including from the very top, for any reason, whatsoever.
By virtue of being nominated on the national selection committee by their state associations, they are presumed to be men of unimpeachable integrity and expected to act only and exclusively in the national interest.
The selectors should have stood by their conviction and had the courage to resign. But does that ever happen in India?
No matter how you look at it: the BCCI ‘diktat’ to manager Dungarpur is despicable, smacks of political interference of the most disgusting kind and deserves to be condemned in the strongest terms, irrespective of the personalities involved.
It is obvious the current BCCI dispensation is hell-bent in establishing its credibility by projecting itself as being whiter than white.
Towards that end, an image of fairness towards Ganguly, who was perceived as being the raison d’etre of his so-called masters in West Bengal, their sworn enemies, is vital.
Needless to say, it is also craftily intended to erode Jagmohan Dalmiya’s power base in a state where he is perceived in many quarters as being an ‘outsider’.
The way things have turned out, the change in the BCCI power structure has been a blessing in disguise for Ganguly who, in his wildest dreams, could not have expected their support.
That apart, the BCCI must, absolutely must, refrain from interfering in affairs that impact directly on the team’s performance.
After all, the Board officials just do not have the requisite wherewithal in terms of knowledge and experience on the field of play, as compared with the captain, coach and selection committee members.
For another, in their obsession with matters of ‘kursi’, they often forget that the national interest should be paramount.
It’s time they realised that they are merely the custodians of the hopes and aspirations of millions of cricket ‘deewaane’ in the country.
Jono
Virat Kohli (c)
Imran and Holding have pinpointed why Pathan has lost some pace since his last tour to Pakistan in 2004. His grip on the ball, in particular his thumb position is doing him a disfavour and taking away a lot of pace from the ball when he bowls.
Honestly this Straight Drive show rules. Bowlers of the calibre of Holding and Imran talking about the art of fast bowling is just great to listen to.
Honestly this Straight Drive show rules. Bowlers of the calibre of Holding and Imran talking about the art of fast bowling is just great to listen to.
