Apocryphal Stories !!!

The much vaunted middle order of India, before they embarked on the tour of England, made public their desire of scoring a hundred at Lord’s and getting onto the honours board. Only one of them was successful and he went on to score two more hundreds in the series, only to see his team being whitewashed On the other hand, the man who it was thought would score his 100 th century on the hallowed turf of Lord’s came a cropper till the last innings of the series. It was in that innings that he started to come into his own and the century of centuries and consequently, a draw seemed to be on cards. It was not to be as India stumbled onto a defeat as soon as he was dismissed As it always does, the failure of Sachin Tendulkar on this tour sparked off a huge debate about who is the better player of two. It is without doubt that if it comes to the range of strokes, effervescence, and rising to the occasion it is Tendulkar who would run ahead but when the parameters are set to being effecti

Last month when India were on a tour to the Caribbean, they handed out debut to a player who is almost considered as the next batting great- Virat Kohli. He did not make any use of the opportunity and had to return to the repair shop immediately. His technique was found wanting against the short balls and the working over that he got from Fidel Edwards is something that would stay in the mind for some time to come Now in England, the youngsters and not so young, especially the left handers, are being hunted out with the short balls. Anybody who saw the dismissals of Mukund, Raina and Yuvraj, would have lost hope on them countering the short balls. Mukund did not make anything of the reprieve he got of the first ball he faced in the second innings. Instead his response to a continued barrage was to put the hand in front of the helmet grill! For long, the talk about Raina was his susceptibility to the short balls. Any kid with a working knowledge on cricket will tell you that the si

The media and the experts are crawling all over the Indian cricket team after the first two Tests. They have their reasons to do so. The supporters of the Indian cricket team, after having been through the high of World Cup victory, are just about to see their worst nightmares come true- Losing the Number one status in Test cricket A lot of observers will put the loss down in the first Test to habit. The loss in the second Test was more shocking as it was due to ineptitude, inability and the lack of a stomach for a fight. In the two years of   their reign as numero uno, India were never a dominator but a team that had high bounce backeability quotient It is as much an administrative failure as it is the players. Knowing the Indian players, the board should have seen to it that the players had more practice matches than one. It was essential for the players coming from the tour of Caribbean as it would have required a lot of effort to adapt to the conditions. Turns out that the playe