I witnessed this miracle on TV - ball by ball...

The fifth day of the first Test match against England was nothing less than a miracle. Imagine chasing 387 on a fifth day pitch in India, that too at P.A Chidambaram stadium where the highest successful chase was 155/8. Veeru set up the game for India on Day 4 but we still required 256 more runs to score on Day 5 with 9 wickets in hand.

And the innings that Mr.Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar produced in this situation was filled sheer brilliance. Not that he needed to prove his class or clear any doubts that he is not a "match-winner" (for all those who still doubt this - please click here), but this innings will definitely go in the history books as one of his finest knocks as the Little Master accomplished his 41st century with the winning runs. It was only appropriate for the winning shot to come from his blade!

The support that he got in the form of Gambhir and then Yuvi cannot be neglected either. When you are chasing 250 runs on the final day, it is important that you have some aggressive batters in the line up and Yuvi proved to be that on this important day. You rarely see Sach celebrate his hundreds jumping in the air as if it were his first Test hundred. That indicates the importance of this knock in his mind and truly so.

In the post match interview, I have rarely seen Sachin so excited about his feat although he under played it in view of the horrific events that preceded this feat in his home town, Mumbai. Even Yuvi said that "today his childhood dream came true" - to win a Test match for India with Sachin Tendulkar. This little guy has been in the Cricket arena for 18 years now and he still doesnt cease to astonish me!
Please keep going Sach!!!

Incase you missed the end of this epic Test match - Click here

All good things have to come to an end!

And we all witnessed that at the Wimbledon on Sunday, July 06, 2008!
Roger Federer who has ruled the Center Court at Wimbledon since 2003 was dethroned by Rafael Nadal in the longest finals in the history of Wimbledon [4-6, 4-6, 7-6, 7-6, 9-7]. Although I would have loved to see Roger make the history books with this sixth consecutive Wimbledon title, it just wasnt to be. He made way too many mistakes for the class of player that he is and oh did they prove him costly. Nadal on the other hand made fewer errors and maintained his quality of game despite losing the 4th set after holding two championship points at one stage. He was definitely the better player on the day and therefore deserved the result in his favor.

With the team winning the Euro 2008 earlier in June and now a Spaniard being crowned on the grass court, it must be a big party time in Madrid!!!

Roger, I hope you come back will even more vigor and show the world what a champion sportsman you are!

ROGER THAT!!!

Ambidextrous Pieterson and the trouble thereafter!

Recently in an Eng-NZ ODI, England's Kevin Pieterson played a shot that created some arguments in the Cricketing community. At the outset, I was wondering what the ruckus was all about but after carefully giving it some thought, I did see some validity in these arguments.

Kevin Pieterson's swap shot

As Michael Holding points out in his commentary, if the batsman can change his guard at the last minute, the bowler should also be allowed to do so without notifying the umpire who then would notify the batsman. He should be allowed to sneak in from behind the umpire and bowl either a left or right-handed delivery as he chooses. Although not many players are ambidextrous and will be able to do this effectively, the privileges should be the same. However, a counter argument to this could be that the batsman has a split second to react and play his stroke while the bowler has comparatively more time to think and plan his next delivery.

Cricket is changing so much day after day and one never knows what stranger things are yet to come our way!!!

When umpires played God at SCG...

I am still in a state of shock even after couple of days since the Sydney test ended in the most dramatic Cricketing fiascoes that I have ever witnessed thus far. I still cannot digest the fact that the umpires and not the players' performances determined the result of this well-fought test match at the SCG. If only the so-called "elite" umpires would have done their jobs a little more competently, the match would have ended much differently.

As if this was not enough hurt to all Indian fans, the "sledging-boys" of Cricket (Aussies) found themselves on the receiving end and realized that they couldnt take it as well as they like to dish it out. They conveniently forgot their motto of "what happens on the field, stays on the field" and suddenly became cry-babies (as Akram called them rightfully). I liked the article by Tim de Lisle that actually talks about eliminating this issue from the root cause instead of trying to be politically correct.
And although this was not enough, they seemed to forget the spirit of the game and claimed some really "disputable" catches on the final day of the test match.




Photo Courtesy The Times of India - Showing Ganguly's catch by Clarke (no way does Clarke seem to be in control of his body after catching the ball and the ball clearly looks grounded) and Dravid caught-behind dismissal off the pad.


The only bright side of this ugly incident was to see the support extended to the Indian team from all fronts including the Australian public and the unity that was evident in the Indian camp.
Sanjay Manjrekar for Cricinfo

Such an end to the final appearance of some of the Indian stars (Sachin, Rahul, Sourav, VVS, Anil) at their favorite Australian hunting ground was ironic but hopefully this new spirit will add some "masala" to the rest of the series and to Indian Cricket in general for a long long time.