Cricket - The Gentleman’s Game

Indian cricket captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni had received several life threats in the past and recently he got two life threat letters in a span of three weeks. The letters threatened to kill Dhoni if he doesn’t pay them Rs. 50 lac. The person who sent the letter claimed himself to be the follower of Underworld Don Dawood Ibrahim. Dhoni’s family has handed over the letters to the Police Department of Jarkhand and the police have successfully traced the origin of the letters to a local criminal named Tasleem.

The police believe that Tasleem  has no relation with Dawwod and is just trying for some easy money. Tasleem was not found in the district for the last few weeks. In wake of the threat letters, the security for Dhoni has been upgraded to z-category, the highest level of Security in India.

Dhoni was not happy with the security surrounding him all the time and has travelled without guards a couple of times in the last few months. Now Dhoni was instructed to be more careful and cooperate with the security officials. Dhoni also applied for a Prohibited Bore Arms license to protect himself. Currently he has a non-Prohibited Bore license.

We had been seeing many wrong umpiring decisions, but the frequency of these errors in escalating in the last few years. The standards of umpiring are plummeting which was evident by the recent decisions given by umpires. The decisions taken in the Australia-India series last year costed India the tour. Such decisions were repeated in the on going Australia-South Africa test series, this time in favor of the South Africa.

The Umpire being highly criticized is Aleem Dar from Pakistan. He umpired the test match in Australia and delivered two wrong decisions declaring Mathew Hayden and Mike Hussey out. In both the decisions, TV replays clearly showed that the batsmen were not out. Dar faced severe criticism and even apologised to the batsmen for his wrong decisions. But he cannot give back Australia the test match it lost to South Africa because of his decisions.

Australian spinner Shane Warne talked about this and said that Dar is way too erratic in his decisions. He suggested Dar to take a break and said that the umpiring standards in cricket are too low. Poor umpiring decisions can severely impact the spirit of the players.

Day-Night one-day matches have changed the face of cricket and became very popular in a few years, particularly because they allowed people to work through the day and then go to the stadiums. Now there is a proposal to make the five-day test matches also day-night i.e. they would start in the afternoon and continue in the fled lights. The attendance in the stadiums for test matches is miserable and this proposal is to encourage people to get to the stadiums.

However, the purists who believe in the purest form of cricket did not buy this new idea. They said that this would further commercialize the game and that the match format should be left as it is.

Australian cricketer Shane Warne on the other hand had something different to say. He believes that day-night test matches are required for the survival of Test cricket and said that if the current format continues, the one-dayers and T20 matches will soon take over the test cricket. He said that test cricket needs support from other countries (other than India, Australia, England and SA) and counties will be interested to play test matches only in day-night format which attracts crowds.

Shane Warne has retired from the International Cricket and is probably the next Prime Minister of Australia. Not true, but an poll in Australia suggested that Shane has  decent chance of being the next prime minister.

In the second test match between Australia and South Africa, Shane Warne was commenting the match, when the current prime minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd joined him in the commentary box. The viewers were then given a poll, who among Warne and Rudd, they prefer as the next prime minister and surprisingly 70% of the viewers voted for Shane Warne. Of course, theses results do not imply anything, but they led to some interesting comments from Warne and Rudd.

After seeing the results, the conversation went like this:

Warne: I’ve no idea how to do that.

Rudd: Mate, it’s all in the wrist action

Warne: OK, well then I might be half a chance if it’s all in the wrist

Rudd: I haven’t been this low for a long time

Amusing conversation!

Pakistan cricket captain Younis Khan made pretty interesting comments regarding the IPL tournament organized in India. He said that though players from all cricketing nations play in this tournament, it is the Pakistani players in action that attract the Indian crowds to the stadiums. He cited the match in which Shoaib Aktar played for Kolkata Knight Riders and said that next to Indians, Pakistanis are the most popular players in India.

These comments came in the wake of speculations that Indian Government will not allow the Pakistan cricket players in IPL. Indian Government has already ordered the BCCI not to tour Pakistan in wake of the recent terror attacks on Mumbai. Younis Khan hoped that politics and sport remain separate and that Pakistan will play for IPL.

He also expressed his disappointment when India canceled its tour to Pakistan scheduled in Feb, 2009. He said that India tour would have helped PCB by generating a lot of revenue and hoped that at least Sri Lanka will tour Pakistan in place of Pakistan. He said that if Sri Lanka also decides not to tour Pakistan, Cricket in Pakistan may die out.

The temple kahaaniya of Indian cricket captain, Mahendra Singh Dhoni has finally come to an end. The fans association which announced that it would construct a temple to worship Dhoni, finally took back its decision.

Earlier this month, the association announced a temple in Jarkhand for Dhoni without talking to Dhoni or his family. The family members were irked by this act and clearly stated that they are not in favor of this construction and asked the association to refrain from doing this.  The mayor of the city, who is a close associate to Dhoni went on saying that the association is craving for ‘cheap publicity’

Amidst these comments the Fans association had to take back their decision and finally announced that there will not be any temple and also apologized for taking such a decision without the consent of Dhoni or his family. However, the association has now decided to place a life size statue of Dhoni in the city and develop an art gallery with Dhoni’s pictures around the statue. The association said that the gallery will be completed and opened on August 15th, 2009

Dravid had the worst slump of his entire career this year. His performance this year was miserable so much so that there were people demanding his retirement or removal from then team. The selection committee did not lose its confidence and finally Dravid could make a ton against England in the second test match at Mohali. This had silenced his critics for now, but Dravid knows that this is just one century.

If he fails to perform in the next match, these voices will rise again and Dravid is trying to get back to his form. He has decided to play in the local matches (Ranji) and will be playing on the side of Karnataka. He said that playing in domestic cricket will help the players in retaining their form.

However, he denied that he is playing this match just for the sake of regaining his lost form and said that the Karnatak boys had requested him to play on their side. He said that this is an important match and he is playing only for the sake of the team and not from a personal point of view.

He should have agreed!

The Fans club of Mahedra Singh Dhoni, Indian Cricket team has announced that they would build a temple and worship the ‘god’ of cricket who earned fame for their state and also changed the fate of the cricket in India, according to his fans. You can find a post about this temple in one of my previous posts.

However, as expected, this idea of the temple did not go well with Dhoni and his family members. Dhoni did not speak against his fans for obvious reasons, but his family expressed their lack of interest in this idea. In fact, Dhoni’s father has given a rather interesting answer to the fans club.

He asked the fans to maintain some balance, citing the defeat of India against Bangladesh, when the fans burnt an effigy of Dhoni and then attacked his house at Jarkhand. He said that the fans have attacked Dhoni when he failed in Bangladesh and are planning to build a temple and worship him when he is on a winning spree. He urged (or ordered) the fans not build a temple and said that our religion does not permit worshipping of a person alive.

The President of Dhoni fans club in reply said that he respects the opinion of Dhoni’s family but would take the final decision regarding the temple only after discussing with the other members of the club. This statement is just to satisfy his ego and hide the humiliation he faced for this ‘temple’ idea and it is more than clear that there will not be a temple for Dhoni.

After a rather dull victory in the home series against England (1-0), India has climbed up one step in the ICC test cricket rankings to the second place. South Africa has taken this position for a brief period after their victory over Australia in the Perth test. But India’s victory over England in the Chennai test and the draw at Mohali secured it two points and thus reclaim the second position in the rankings.

However, India might very soon drop back to the third place. They will soon be playing a 3 test series against Australia in Melbourne and anything except a loss of the series will secure South Africa the second place in the rankings.

Meanwhile, there is no change in rankings as a result of the recently ended West Indies - New Zealand test series.

Bangalore Cricket team for IPl, The Royal Challengers was always found in news during the last IPL tournament. The team ended up in the seventh position of the eight teams but was more talked about than the winners, because of its owner Vijay Mallya. Vijay had lambasted his team openly in the media for their dismal performance. He even censured Rahul Dravid.

Now that the trading for the second season has begun, a few newspapers published that Vijay will sell out his entire team except for Rahul Dravid and buy a new team with fresh talent. However, yesterday Vijay condemned these articles and said that he is planning to sell only three players and also mentioned that all the players he would sell would be non-Indian players. He did not reveal the names of the players he would send out.

He also said that in case no one buys the players he decided to sell, he would put in huge sums and buy fresh talent to acheive a balanced team, unlike the team in the previous season. Vijay seems to be pretty determined to win the IPL this time. Wish him all the best.