India through to the finals

What a feeling it is. To be in the world cup finals beating Pakistan for the 5th time in the world cup. Its just difficult to digest. Goosebumps in the  tummy. Butterflies flew all around, screaming and abusing was a bit low key thanks to being in the foren country.

The tension to see in the finals after 8 long years and this time go one step further to lift the cup of glory in homeland was unpalpable. All superstitions were followed. Unmoved at times when things went right for India and when runs were leaked, when wickets didnt fall. Reeling Munna and Bhajji when they leaked runs. Blowing off Kamran Akamal when he showed his stupid poker face on screen during keeping and batting was all done.

Facebooking and watching cricket has been the trend this world cup. Update the status message on FB, update stats on FB, update number crunching there and put on some superstitions like Cmonnnnnnnnnnnnnn and to see a wicket tumble moments after that was all fun. Dont have the luxury to watch on TV on any channel, so have to rely on  the ISP and host of live streaming sites to watch the action LIVE.

It all happened on a day remarkable for Indian cricket, what a day it has been. Reaching 3rd world cup final, 2nd in 8 years and almost with the same group as it was in 2003.  Sachin, Sehwag, Yuvraj, Zaheer, Harbhajan, Nehra are the survivors of that match India lost in Wanderers to rampaging Ponting and co. This time its a step to go further. Win the world cup in Mumbai, the hometown of Sachin Tendulkar, country’s greatest sports icon and perhaps the best ever batsmen to play cricket in all times.

Thanks to Pakistan to turn up in India despite the hot and cold diplomatic relations, thanks to them for making the match living all the hype it had before this game even began. Thanks for them to provide us yet another opportunity to savior this victory. Beating Australia, Pakistan in the route to finals is amazing. The contests with this 2 countries have always been intense, thrilling and top quality. And Pakistan did go out in a proud fashion, forget what Misbah did in final overs, they have done their nation proud with almost flawless and mostly controversy less performance in the world cup. None expected them to come this far given what happened in past year in their build up to the world cup, so Afridi must be a proud man given how his men have delivered.

Sachin Tendulkar has played all 5 victorious games against Pakistan in World cups and he has been man of the match in 3 of them. He has scored 54, 31, 45, 98 and 85 in this 5 games. He has played with great Kapil Dev to Azhar to Jadeja, Mongia, Venkatesh Prasad and the great trio of Dravid, Ganguly and Kumble. Not to forget Javagal Srinath.

India won its first semi final at home. Previously it had lost its 2 semi finals, both chasing in 1987 to England and pretty controversially in 1996 to SL. This time India defended a 260 and won. 

The biggest turning point of the game was the dismissal of Gambhir in the 20th over which led to a mini-collapse in the 25th – 30 th over and a score of 350 became 260. Sehwag in his super assault on Umar Gul had set India on another huge total, but once he was out and the rest just went in the shell. Gambhir has been erractic this tournament. he has thrown away his wicket in almost every game. Something not expected from man of his stature.

Tendulkar was cratchy, scratchy and whatever, but his 85 set India to cross 250 and that proved to be the difference in the end.  MSD is excelling in captaincy, but his batting is concern.

What was too heartening to see was only 5 bowlers were used and everybody took 2 wkts each. Zahee was little bit off color, but he was made up by super Nehra and surprisingly Munaf.  Ashvin;s dropping was a debatable issue, but I still feel he will be a key man in the final and he should replace Munaf in the XI. Nehra got his rythm back in the 2nd spell and at helped him in the super final spell when he just gave few and got Riaz.

It was a day when the bowling and fielding excelled yet again and the batting was iffy.

In the end Younis and Misbah combined together to stall the stanis chase and its likely that this guys wont be part of the LoI set up in the future.  Misbah is test captain, but then who knows what happen in Pak cricket. The others — Shafiq, Hafeez and UKumal didnt quite turnup to play long innings that could have won their team this game. Yet they came this far and thats applaudable.

For a change there was no sledging this time and there was no “war cry” on the ground at least.  Expecting Pak to react to this loss graciously back their home and not call for the people’s head who featured in this tournament. They’ve got some very good positives in form of Riaz, Shafiq etc and once they are given chances they could come up as well finished product.

But for now lets savior the superb Indian victory and rally behind them to trounce the cheats of the world to avenge the painful defeats of 2007 and 1996. Lets burn the Lanka this time in Mumbai 8 months before the Dusshera festival.

More Kamran Akamal jokes

More Kakkumal bashing here:

http://www.wellpitched.com/2011/03/kamran-fakmal-bashing-brigade.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+WellPitched+%28Well+Pitched+-+a+cricket+blog%29

Another Kamran property is he fluffs everything from batsman;s bat and pockets everything which is not off the edge and appeals for it every time. Thats bcos those moments come rarely and fool him into thinking that he has actually caught a batsman’s nick.

Shabash Shabash Kakku Bhai Shabah Shabash

Kamran Akamal is one peculiar creature. He fluffs the nicks and edges that are off the batsman’s bat. Almost everything that comes his way. And then he makes a pig face or a poker face as if nothing has happened. Its a mystery that how far he has come along carrying this inadequacy of capturing anything that comes his way. Thats the basic skill every keeper must possess. He is dropped, he is back. He is in a cloud, he is cleared.

Pakistan has changed captains like Rakhi Sawant’s clothes or Veena Malik’s statements, but Kamran Akamal is a permanent fixture in the team. Right from Inzamam to Younis to Yosuf to Misbah to Butt S to Afridi, this lad has remained in the team. Razzaq came in, gone and again came in. MoYo ICL’ed, retired, came back, dropped and forgotten. Yet Kakku is in the team.

Asif, Shoaib, Amir spearheaded the bowling attacks and they were / are gone. Zulfi Haider came and fled. Kakku is still around. Afridi says this lad does the hard work in nets but in the real games his luck runs out. For 4 years in row ? Every time?  Everything changes in Pakistan cricket except Ijaz Butt and Kamran Akamal.  May be this 2 have had some secret pact.

Waqar is not yet ready to kick him out from the team. But the fans have given up. There was a very interesting video on this lad on You tube yesterday with the song ‘Teri G***d me danda re” which was good enough to crack anybody up.  The community in neigbhour country that follows cricket wants this man out. Who knows Kamran might stay in Lanka and seek a political asylum citing fear to his life. Or he might flee to Libya or Timbaktu.

He seems to be one creepy creature who has got weird smile, weird voice and you immediately feel urge to put on the tape on his mouth or mute the volume of your laptop / TV to avoid his torturous “Shahid Bhai Shahid Bhai”.

The next games Pakistan play would decide the future of this “Kaali Bakri” (as refered on cricinfo page 2) in the world cup. Yet as everyone believes he might cling on his place and even if he is dropped against Zim, he might return against Australia or in knock out stages.

Rosco on fire in Pallekele….

In walked Ross Taylor, on his 27th birthday, and he received two generous gifts from Pakistan. Before he had scored, Taylor edged the second ball of Shoaib’s second spell. Akmal moved to towards his right to take a catch that was his for the taking, and then stopped and looked expectantly at first slip, where Younis Khan looked on in shock as the ball sped to the third-man boundary. A ball later Taylor edged again, this time the easiest of chances straight to Akmal, who dropped it again.

How are Pakistani selectors, coach and captain persisting with this lunatic dickhead is beyond logical comprehension. He uttered “Shahid Bhai” 15 times in Afridi’s last over and what his reprieve costed Pakistan in last 6 overs is mind blowing. 

Excellent hitting Rosco. That would  shit hell scare the next opponent captain reluctant to play in Mumbai.

Team Preview : Pakistan

This time its turn of Pakistan to be previewed. Pakistan, the most controversial, most unpredictable team of the top 8 teams in the world cup. They are just jolted from the lengthy bans handed out to the 3 idiots of England tour, but then that was anticipated and the team seems to have moved on from that.

Trivia:

• Pakistan have not reached beyond 1st round in last 2 world cups : 2003 and 2007.
• After they won in 1992, they reached QF in 1996 and ended 2nd best in 1999. Since then its been a downhill for them.
• After 1999 they have not played with a same captain in 2 consecutive world cups. Wasim Akram in 1996 and 1999 was last one after Imran Khan in 1987 and 1992.
• Waqar Younis, the current coach was a flop in the world cups. He missed 1992 edition to injury, was off color in 1996, injured in 1999 and had a disastrous outing as captain in 2003.  Lets c how does he fare as coach in 2011.
• 2007 was most tragic world cup for Pakistan, they lost to Ireland and West Indies and then they lost Bob Woolmer forever and Inzamam retired from ODIs after world cup and from tests later in 2007.
• They have not yet beaten India in 4 world cup appearences to date. They lost out in 1992, 1996, 1999 and 2003. 1999 was most anticipated game as it was played during Kargil war backdrop and 2003 game was first one after the asia cup game in 2000.  If they play in this world cup, it would be first in a year and just 3rd in 3 years.
• They have never lost to SL in the world cup and we’d expect them to do the same this time too.

Team composition:

Afridi, Younis, Hafeez, Misbah, Razzaq, Rehman, Gul, Junaid, Kamran, Umar Akamal, Ajmal, Wahab, Akhtar, Shafiq, Shehzad

Opening Pair

They had good opening partnerships in their last series before the world cup. Shehzad and Hafeez might not have flair, but they are solid and if one of them sticks around and plays over, they could go long distance. Kamran Akamal is other option to go with the opening as he has had decent success with bat in that position. Many times he has had batted at no 3 as well and many times lower down the order.

Middle Order

Younis Khan at 4 and Misbah at 5 provide the stability and cool head when needed. Umar Akamal at 6 and maverick Afridi at 7 followed by Razzaq at 8. Batting seems long and dangerous untill they dont self implode or explode on their own.

If anybody out of Razzaq and Afridi gets going in the final 10 overs then the team could be expected to notch high scores. But the main problem is consistency. You never know which Pakistan side would turn up on a given day, which player would be a hero one day, villian the other day and flown the other day and banned the other some day. Shafiq has been replacing Umar off late though.

Bowling:

They dont have Asif and Amir, but they have Gul and Akhtar. Gul is one of the best bowlers today with the old ball and he has had good success in ODIs off late (England tour he took consecutive 4-fors). Akhtar, if fit can deliver 140 + balls consistently, can go for runs and also implode with wickets.  Junaid Khan is unknown commodity. Wahab Riaz has had decent success with the ball too.

Abdur Rehman, Ajmal and Afridi along with Hafeez form the spin department. Ajmal is the trump card of Pakistan and if he is conquered then it wont be long to demoralise the others in the pack.

Expectations

Controversies apart and given that Ijaz Butt keeps his butt away from the team and there is no other controversy, the team should find easy way to go through to the quarters. Hopefully they would beat Sri Lanka big time.

Game Changers :

Already covered in other post.

Negative Influence:

1. Kamran Akamal

2.  Shoaib Akhtar

3. Younis Khan

and

Ijaz Butt

Cricketing World

Pakistan have won the last T20 and avoided a clean sweep in NZ. They also ended the 6 match losing streak in T20s. And this time the Palak Paneer guy came good again with allround effort.

I am bit skeptical of planning PCB had for the team in the run up to the World Cup. 3 T20s and 2 tests in addition to 6 ODIs. Whats the meaning of 3 T20s? What purpose does it serve?

By the way they are the only team who have to give the 30 names for WC provisional squad. And they are hung up as Kakkumal, Shoaib Mirza and Danis Kaneria meet PCB’s “integrity committee to decide over their future in cricket. Now what happens and what would happen is anybody’s guess in Pak cricket.

Zim and BD are done playing their last games before the world cup and they sit idle for the next 43 days in the run up to the World Cup.

And perhaps SL and WI too.

SL are still a “formidable” side going to World Cup. I dont believe this. They are always formidable, they are always romantic side, they are fairy tale and what not. They have not played any serious cricket for over a month since that dubious and fart win over Aus in ODI series in Aus.  Yet they are formidable. For a change you have not heard from Sanga in long time. So have I. And thats good.

The rest of cricketing fraternity is busy playing Tests or ODI cricket.

Australia are moaning about Ashes loss and how useless Ponting is now. England have everything revolving around Ashes and they dont seem to think beyond Ashes. Perhaps they should stop playing cricket in between Ashes series.  Yet they want to be # 1. And Collingwood could be on his way out from Tests at least.

Clarke is the captain for the Sydney test and most probably for long term too. He is having a rut in the batting department and that has invited a lot of doubts over his choice of captaincy.

The Australian batting is no more formidable as it used to over  2 years before.

Katich or Hughes do not inspire confidence. Watson makes 50 but does not convert 100s. Ponting stopped making 100s since long time. Hussey is the only batsman, Clarke is metrofexual and Steven Smith as # 6 is fart.

Compare that to the likes of Hayden, Langer, Ponting, Gilchrist as good as 2007.  More than the batters they are missing Shane Warne, Gillespie and of course Glenn McGraw (Bill Lawry style).

Wont be a surprise if they lose the world cup in India next year.

Possible semi finalists:

1. India.

2. England

3. South Africa

4. Australia / Pakistan if neither of this teams implode or explode.

1 more day of 2010 and I would finish off 4th year of cricket blogging starting 2007.  Pretty good journey from a world cup to world cup.

Randomness in Fixistan continues

Madness continues.

Randomness continues.

A day before the selectors name squad for ODIs. They chose Afridi and Misbah. And 14 others. None of them are ending in Asif, Amir or Butt. They dont name anybody as captain. So Ukkumal expects he could be the captain. And yes Mr Dhadhi (beard) MoYo is selected too.

A day later Afridi is named captain for ODIs and Misbah is named for Tests.

Phew. Reasons behind not naming Afridi captain on day 1 is “not so good reviews on captaincy by management in England” and “public comments” which did not go down well with board. Who in the board? The face of the board. Mr Butt.

On day 2 everything goes well and Afridi’s sins are washed away. He is back as captain.

More drama.

Test squad is named. No Younis, no Kakkumal, no 3 fixers.

Misbah is captain. A man who has not played a test in almost 11 months is  captain now.  Here is the list of captains:

1. SL : Younis Khan

2. NZ : Dhadhi Man

3. Aus : Dhadhi Man

4. Aus : Afridi

5. Aus : Butt

6. Eng: Butt

7. SA : Misbah

8. NZ : ?

No one knows who would be next captain next series. Who knows Butt Ijazie would declare himself fit to play and take over the captaincy against NZ.

All the talks and calls for culling of Ijazie have gone down and he continues to operate in his own way.  Thats in our favor. We get more laughters and more fun.

Mr and Mrs ten percent

ICC has sent notice to Kamran Akamal indicating he is under scanner for his suspicious activities all this year for Australian tour, England tour and Asia Cup activities.  TOI reports that he had been notified before the Lord’s test too and he had replied to the notice. But the notice reply were found to be ridiculous and so he was charged once again.

This time the PCB was ignored. The notice was sent directly to the rogue keeper.

PCB chief returned to his homeland and received jeers. Still unfazed he declared he wont have any investigation as ICC and Scotland Yard investigation are already on. Actually he meant this

We are incompetent, impotent and idiots. If we launch any investigations then all we are going to do is say “Where is the proof” ? If proofs are unearthed we would ban and fine the players. And then have them submit the appeals and finally revoke the bans and fines. We would turn a blind eye to what the players do while on the tour, whom they meet, how much cash they make, whether they play cricket or do anything beyond that. We are incompetent, impotent.”

So in the end its back to the square one. Laughing stock. Amazingly, still nothing would happen. Butt, the bil of Pak defence minister shall continue to be  the pCB chief and continue to say “Where is the proof” and “Innocent until proved guilty”. He would be “impotent until proved potent”.

If Akamal is charged then why is he playing ?

A search for Ijaz Butt on twitter yields some hillarious tweets even from his own countrymen like “trading off Ijaz Butt” and stuff like that.

Irony is that who is going to kick him out ? The patron ? Mr 10 % :D. Who knows he might be getting some slice of the spot fixing payment from the bookies !! And Ijaz Butt would be getting his share too. Probably that explains the reason why this two buffoons are still in place.

Pakistan cricket needs to be isolated !!

For the first 2 or 3 days of Lord’s Test it seemed that Pakistan are back to being a decent Test team until Broad and Trott had the record shattering 332 run partnership for 8th wicket.

And then the hell broke loose.

Spot fixing allegations came out in open after News of the World broke the story how Mazhar  Majeed paid the talents of Pakistan cricket to ball no-balls during the ongoing Lord’s Test.

Since then the world of cricket has just been flooded with the shock and awe.

Its nothing new on the Pakistan’s part to be coping up with this allegations. They have had a history of such misdeeds and the current cricketers have illustrious seniors to look up for spot fixing and stuff like ball tampering, match fixing. Many of them are coaches now, have gone on to become highest ODI wicket takers and what not.

Salman Butt, Aamer, Drug Peddler Asif and ugly slut Kamran Akamal are the players indicated in this spot fixing stuff.

The English media is overboard with how Test cricket was killed at the home of cricket, the Pakistani media is yet to come to the terms with the reality. Poor they, they have had to cover a lot of such stuff in last 3 years. Mush, 10 %, Buttology, MoYos, Younises, Afridis, Butt again, Akamal muck,  spot fixing, T-e-Ts, floods, war against homegrown terror and what not.

PakPassion.net had glorified the Mazeed brothers having a dedicated section on the website named as “Agents Corner”. The Pakistani bloggers are quiet in the shock. Feel for them. Why do they even follow Pakistani cricket ?

As long as Pakistan is going to play cricket, this dirt and muck is going to be around. No matter how strong we have units like ICC ACU, Qayyums and stuff, the crooks of Pakistan all round the world are going to lure the poor Pakistani players who when debut do not even have manners (accent) or money to be correct on foreign tours. So its easy for them to be lured to petty temptations and sell their integrity for some pounds or dollars or Pakistani rupees.

When the country itself is deep in immorality of terror, home grown insurgency, floods and anti-world mindset its futile to expect this young cricketers to have any kind of integrity and morality.  And when the Ijaz Butts rule the PCB and act in a weird way to ban, appeal and overturn, its futile or better to not expect the PCB or Mr 10 % to act on the latest dirt from Pakistani cricket closet.

Best way would be to ban Pakistan from playing all forms of cricket till their administration comes clean on the laundering,  cheating and fixing. Worse even do not invite the cheats from Pakistan to play anywhere in the world for they would bring a lot of unwanted publicity and attention where they go. Let their team play within their own country.

Cricket wont die due to a misgiving from a rogue country. T20s wont die, Tests and ODIs wont die. Normal business shall resume. When its a normal of a Pakistani cricket to be corrupt then why pretend to be shocked and write obituaries for cricket when its in a good state though bruised a little bit. Just a bit.

The ODI series and the T20s to follow in England now become irrelevant and we should get our popcorn and coke to watch out the theaterical drama unfold in Pakistani cricket circles with Ijaz Butt being the old hero in centerstage. Just hoping that ICC would act strong this time to kill the virus of fixing forever and come too hard on the erring players, administrators and bookies.

Lights camera Action!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pakistan middle order fails again sans Umar Akamal

Pakistan play to lose. When they are off the field they fight and plot each other’s downfall. They secretly meet at former captain’s place and take oath on name of GOD to dislodge Younis Khan. On the field they have a brain freeze.

No matter Shahid Afridi is captain or no captain, he is bufoon just like Ijaz Butt. A duck.  Responsibility is never a strong point or atttribute for this forever 17 lad.

Mindless batting followed by some sensible batting by junior bugger is good enough for Pakistan to hand the game to their nemesis, the yellow fugly Ausssies.

Shahazib made 0, Afridi made golden duck, Kamran Akamal made 21, Shoania made 21 and Umar Akamal fought a lone battle to keep Pakistan in game.

I pity Pakistan fans who must be feeling disgusted for every inept performance the seniors and juniors dish out on every outing in the middle.

PS : Mohd Yousuf is planning a comeback to international cricket after Wasim Akram brainwashed the disgraced former captain.