Cricket - The Gentleman’s Game

A few days back it was almost confirmed that the Indian subcontinent will host the next Cricket world cup to be held in 2011. Things seem to be changing fast and probably India (along with Pakistan and Sri Lanka) will not be able or allowed to host the next world cup.

What is the reason? Terror attacks.

Sri Lanka is known for its ‘ever lasting’ fight with ‘LTTE tigers’ and is never considered a safe place. Pakistan is also known to be a very unsafe place. Finally the recent terror attacks on the city of Mumbai in India have added India in the lest of unsafe countries. With all the three countries in the subcontinent prone to terror attacks, the International Cricket Control (ICC) has decided to reconsider the feasibility of organizing the next world cup in the sub continent.

The ICC Executive Council will meet in South Africe next week to decide on this issue. In case the decision goes against the Indian sub continent, Australia and New Zealand might be the venue for the next world cup.

It is known that after the terror attacks on Mumbai, the England team has called off the on going one-day series and has returned to their home country. However, the England Cricket Board has assured that their team will return to India to play the Test series to be held in the month of December. The ECB has said that its players will be back to India once things return to normal in India. However, the English players have decided otherwise.

An English daily has reported that Flintoff and Harmison from the England team might not return to India for the test series and that they cited their family as the reason for not willing to play in India. These two players are considered a threat to India on Indian pitches and their absence would worsen the situation for England which was already miserably defeated by India in the one dayers.

The two players said that this is their personal decision and that they wouldn’t try to influence the other players in the team and stop them from touring India. To be noted that the English media did not support the decision of these players. The media felt that pulling off the team might give a sense of victory to the terrorists who attacked India.

The England team yesterday flew back home after they abruptly called off the India-Engalnd one day series in which the English were lagging by 5-0. This comes in the wake of the terror attacks on the city of Mumbai in India. Terrorists have attacked the Taj hotel in India which was brought back into the control of Army after three days.

As the England team flew back to England, the captain of the team Kevin Peterson has revealed that all of their cricket kits were left in the Taj hotel which was one of the places attacked by the terrorists. Before the test series begins, the England players were supposed to stay in this hotel and this their luggage was shifted to Taj. Fortunately the attacks began before the England team moved to this hotel.

To be noted that in these attacks the terrorists specifically focused on American and British nationals and killed 23 of them. In case the English team has arrived at the hotel before the attack began, one can imagine how worse the situation would have been!

England Cricket Board has decided to call off the on-going India-England one day series in wake of the terrorist attack on Mumbai in India. India has already won the seven match one day series against England by winning all the five matches and thus the result of the remaining two matches has become unimportant. So, England’s decision to call off the one day series wasn’t a big problem.

However, there was also a Test series (two tests) immediately after the one0day series and one of the two test matches was to be played in Mumbai. So, it was expected that England will call off the test match series also. ECB’s decision was otherwise. Indian cricket board has held extensive meetings with ECB officials and finally convinced them not to cancel the test match series.

India has promised adequate security to the players of England and also the venue of the match to be held in Mumbai will be changed to some other Southern India city, which is not decided yet.

In the wake of the terror attacks on Mumbai, India the champions league which was scheduled to be organized in India starting from December 3rd was postponed. The league was planned to be organized in three cities in India, one of which is the terror struck Mumbai.

However, the Champions Twenty20 League was not canceled and was only postponed. It is reported that the organizers of this tournament will meet on December 8th to discuss the possibility of rescheduling of this event early in the next year. This tournament involves eight teams and money worth six million US dollars and thus it is not possible to completely scrap the tournament.

Rescheduling the tournament is not an easy task, said one of the spokesman. 2009 was filled with the very busy schedules of them teams and to find a gap to accommodate the tournament when all the teams are free is a challenging task. Finding free venues, dealing with broadcasters and sponsors is another big task. It was suggested by some to organize the league in Australia but finally it was decided to be organized in India.

A few teams like New Zealand and England have already canceled their trips to the Pakistan as they found that the security situation in that country is too critical. The sudden cancellation of the tours has put Pakistan Cricket Board in a crisis and a few weeks ago Indian Government also decided that it will not send its players to Pakistan.

However, Pakistan successfully convinced the Board of Cricket Control in India that they can provide adequate security to the players and made BCCI agree to let the tour go as scheduled in the early next year. BCCI has announced that Indian team will be touring Pakistan and there was also a meeting arranged in India in the month of December with Indian players regarding the security in this tour.

This time it was the players who expressed their unwillingness to tour Pakistan. All the senior players of Indian team (Sachin, Dravid, Sehwag and Dhoni) have openly expressed that they are not willing the play with Pakistan in their country as they feel that the security threat is too high. This comes in the wake of the Pakistan External Affairs Ministry skeptical about the security threats to Indian players, in spite of PCB’s complete assurance. With all the top players against Pakistan, it is almost confirmed that the tour will be canceled. So, yet another canceled tour in Pakistan.

India is on a winnig spree and the players have been applauded for their success. Ironically very people recognized the role of India’s new coach Kirsten in this success. This South African former batsman replaced Greg Chappell as the coach of Indian cricket team and is the third consecutive foreign coach to the Indian team.

He talked about his experience as Indian coach and working with the Indian team. He said that he is quite pleased with the performance of his team. He specially mentioned about the huge cultural difference he has been experiencing and how his knowledge of the Indian culture helped him mingle with the team easily.

He praised the Indian cricketers for being humble inspite of the huge celenrity status and importance they enjoy in the country. He said that his players are quite professional and respect the coach and peers irrespective of their experience and status.

He finally said that he prefers to maintain some distance from the players and that he respects the personal space of his team members. He also said that he would definitely make the senior players of the team an integral part when the game strategies are to be decided.

Australia is now in a crisis both in terms of experience as well as spin bowlers. After the recent performance in the Indian tour it is being rumored that Australia might consider getting back some of its senior players and especially Shane Warne who has been the backbone of the Australia spin attack fora couple of decades.

A few days back Shane Warne has been to India for a meeting regarding the Rajasthan Royals cricket team (IPL). He was asked about him ‘comeback’ speculations and Shane Warne simply denied them saying that he is enjoying his post retirement life and he has no intention at all to return to the International Cricket, whatever the circumstances may be.

 He said he would come back, probably as a commentator but never as a player into the field.

Disgusted Mahendra Singh Dhoni has yesterday threatened to resign from his duties as the Indian captain. In the last selectors meeting Dhoni wanted to have RP Singh in the team inspite of RP Singh’s failure in the second one-dayer. However the selection committee thought otherwise and preferred Irfan Pathan.

Not selecting RP Singh is not the reason for Dhoni’s disgust. All of this which happened in a closed was leaked to the media and this is what frustrated Dhoni. He said “something or the other leaks out”. He was quite disappointed that everything that happened in the selection committee is getting public and this hinders him from speaking his mind in the meetings.

He then threatened that he would resign to his post if this continues. The BCCI top officials had to immediately intervene and warned all the selection committee members not to talk anything about the their meeting proceedings to the media. They said that they are very serious about this ‘leak’ and do not want this to happen again in the future.

Dhoni has taken back his decision to resign. He sincerely urged the members not to talk about the meetings which were supposed to be private. “If everything goes out to the media, we could instead invite the media and discuss in their front, was what he had to say.

The Indian cricket team is on a winning spree with three consecutive wins against the one-dayers with England and is planning to finish the seven match series with the fourth win here at Bangalore. Sachin Tendulkar has said that he would join the team in Bangalore. He opted out of the first three games. So, Dhoni - the captain of Indian cricket team was asked about Sachin’s comeback.

Dhoni said that a player of Sachin’s class is always required in any team and that he is very happy to have him back in their side. Though he did not reveal who will be put out of the team to accommodate Sachin, he said that any player would be willing to do this, given the experience Sachin brings into the team.

He also taked about the position in which Sachin will bat. The opening pair of Sehwag and Gambhir has been doing very well in the first three matches. However, as Sachin has comeback, Dhoni said that Gambhir will now be in the third position and Sachin will open along with Sehwag.

Dhoni concluded saying that there is a lot the youngsters of the team can learn from Sachin and that he hopes that Sachin will keep playing for the Indian team as long as possible. When asked about Sachin’s capability as a bowler, Dhoni said taht Sachin is very open about his fitness and that he would definitely consider Sachin as an option for bowling as Sachin has won many matches for the Indian side in the past with his bowling.