It’s an India Pakistan Final!

What a great game it turned out to be….In my earlier post, I had written that the Aussies were the favourites to win the game. Maybe some one forgot to tell that to the Indian team…or if they did, they didn’t believe it.

India did start a bit tentatively though- the very first ball was nicked by Gambhir for the ball to fall short of Gilchrist. India had made just 36 by the end of the 6th over with Sehwag back in the dressing room. By the end of the 8th over, India had lost both openers and the score was just 41. Enter Yuvraj Singh – and then the game turned on its head. The very second ball he faced was dispatched off for a six and that was just the beginning. Yuvraj made 70 of 30 balls and dominated the bowling – it included 5 sixes and 5 fours! The 3rd wicket partnership between Uthappa and Yuvraj yielded 84 runs in 6.3 overs which ended up being the backbone of the Indian innings. Uthappa scored 34 (of 28) and Dhoni chipped in with 36 (of 18).  India finished the game on 188.

189 was a still very gettable target and the Aussie openers have been playing well throughout the tournament. India needed a couple of good performances from its bowlers and that’s what they got. RP Singh got the new ball to bowl first as reward for bowling well in the tournament, but it was Sreesanth’s performance that kept India in the game. He started badly with a four of his very first ball but took the wicket of Gilchrist in his first spell and even bowled a maiden. He was completely fired up and bowled like the Sreesanth we have come to know and admire. And when Hayden and Symonds were taking the game away from India, he came back to take the all important wicket of Hayden. Hayden made 62 (of 47 balls) and his innings included 4 sixes and 4 fours. When Hayden departed, Australia needed 55 of 32 balls and they still looked on target to win with 2 more overs left from India’s fifth bowling option (which had gone for 38 in the first two)

Pathan then took out Symonds and when he was out, Australia needed another 33 of 20 balls with 6 wickets remaining. Bhajji was the other bowler who was outstanding for India and when he took the wicket of Clarke in his last over with a yorker (what a huge wicket that was?), Australia needed 27 from 12 balls. RP Singh bowled one of the best overs under pressure conceding just 5 runs and it then came down to  22 runs in the last over with Hussey on strike.

Dhoni juggled his bowlers well and captained the side brilliantly, but when Joginder Sharma, who had gone for 31 runs in his two overs, came back to bowl the last over there were a few nervous moments. He started with two dot balls and then took a wicket. The match was finally sealed in favour of India.

Playing at Durban meant that it was like playing in India and Harsha Bhogle commented that he hadn’t seen so many Indian flags in a match even in India! There was even a sign in the crowd that said “India has home advantage”.

India now play Pakistan in the final. The tournament organizers couldn’t have asked for a better finale to the tournament. It is a great comeback for two teams that were knocked out of the World cup in the preliminary round just a few months ago.

-Mahesh-

Can Mazumdar do a Hussey for India???

In India there is a general perception that a player over the age of 30 should not be made to make an international debut. But I was looking at the case of Michael Hussey and his success at the international level and wondered if there was anyone of comparable experience, talent and form to get into the national side. The first name that I came across was Amol Mazumdar. So I just pulled out his domestic record and this is what I get.

Mat	Inns	NO	Runs	HS	Ave	100	50	Ct	St

127

192

22

8685

260

51.08

22

50

140

0

Now let us look at Michael Hussey and his domestic record.

Mat	Inns	NO	Runs	HS	Ave	100	50	Ct	St

193

345

33

16956

331*

54.34

44

75

209

0

OK, the Hussey record is so much superior. No comparisons. He has played more games and scored tons more centuries. Also the Australian domestic competition is at a much higher level. But we had our own Sachins and Dravids coming through our own ‘inferior’ domestic seasons. So!!!! But I am interested in a couple of factors here.

1. They are both approximately the same age.

2. They both have a very similar batting average.

3. In about 70 odd more matches, Hussey has scored about 20 more centuries and 25 more fifties.

My point is in the next 8 tests, if Mazumdar can score about 800 odd runs at an average of 40 odd with about 2 or 3 centuries we have got someone who is doing better than what Sehwag has done. Can we see if there are other comparable over 30 candidates out there. Mazumdar is in good nick now, Mumbai has won the Ranji Trophy, and if Mazumdar can do better than what I want him to do, he could even be considered India captain! Anyway we are speculating and this is an India fansite!!

– Sanjay

Current Worlds’ Best ODI Team

At the outset, let me confess that I am not a great fan of retrosptective Best-Of lists. I say this although I have participated in some such lists in the past and also on this blog. As I have mentioned in some of my comments here, it is really hard — and somewhat pointless, in my view — to compare across eras and time-periods. Having said that, I applaud previous attempts at list construction on this blogsite, such as:

• All time India One Day XV
  
• The India XI that did not get any chances
  
• All the time I thought I was in the India XV
  
• etc…

People say that Bradman was the best batsman ever. Sure, given what the great batsman had achieved, it would be extremely hard to argue against that. I would find it hard to agree against a hypothesis that he was probably the best batsmen ever! But how do we know whether or not Joel Garner (or Michael Holding or Malcolm Marshall or Richard Hadlee or Bishen Bedi) would have torn Bradman’s technique apart? At best, we could say that, given the way he played against his esteemed contemporary bowlers such as Jardine and Larwood, it is likely that he would have coped well against and combatted everything that the wily Garner, Holding, et al had to offer!

Then again, he may have been much better than what he was had he played against Joel Garner (or Michael Holding or Malcolm Marshall or Richard Hadlee or Bishen Bedi)!

Therefore, my preference is to compile best-current player lists. I much rather prefer to compile “best of the current lot” — BOCL — lists. If the BOCL for a country is not its national team, then that team is in trouble! So necessarily (and by definition) BOCL is a worlds’ best sort of thing.

So what is the Worlds’ Best ODI Team at the moment — based on performances over the last year or so?

One way of constructing such a list would be to take the current best batsmen and bowlers from the ICC ODI player rankings and see what comes out of the wash!

I decided to have a look at the top-8 batsmen, the top-8 bowlers and the top-5 allrounders.

The top-8 batsmen are:

Mike Hussey
Mahendra Singh Dhoni
Ricky Ponting
Kevin Pietersen
Chris Gayle
Andrew Symonds
Kumar Sangakkara
Mohammad Yousuf

The top-8 bowlers are:

Shaun Pollock
Glenn McGrath
Makhaya Ntini
Daniel Vettori
Chamindaa Vaas
Brett Lee
Shane Bond
Nathan Bracken

The top-5 allrounders are:

Shaun Pollock
Chris Gayle
Andrew Flintoff
Jacques Kallis
Sanath Jayasuriya

It is interesting to note that Pollock and Gayle are the only allrounders who are on the top-bowling-list and the top-batting-list respectively.

The union of these three sets is a list with a total of 19 players. Of these, it is somewhat interesting to see that Muthiah Muralitharan, Sachin Tendulkar and Brian Lara are absent. Just because they are proven match winners, I will add them to the list to give a total of 22 players. Given Glenn McGrath is retiring from all forms of cricket after the World Cup, it makes little sense to have him in this ODI team-compilation. So, out he goes! I know I will get into trouble with my Australian friends for this, but I just don’t rate Nathan Bracken. So, although he is 8th on the top-bowling list, he goes too!

So, the combined list of 20 players (in suggested batting order) is:

01. Chris Gayle
02. Sanath Jayasuriya / Sachin Tendulkar
03. Ricky Ponting (captain)
04. Jacques Kallis
05. Mike Hussey / Mohammad Yousuf / Kevin Pietersen / Brian Lara
06. Andrew Symonds / Andrew Flintoff
07. Mahendra Singh Dhoni / Kumar Sangakkara (wicketkeeper)
08. Shaun Pollock
09. Brett Lee / Shane Bond
10. Makhaya Ntini / Chamindaa Vaas
11. Daniel Vettori / Muthiah Muralitharan

This seems to me to be a reasonable team that perhaps represents the best collection of current ODI players.

— Mohan