Walk the talk?

Adam Gilchrist finds out that the famous walk of his not rubbing off on anyone else and others prefer to stand when they should be walking.

And that makes him angry (refer to the part in the article)

Greg - Your job is cut out for you

The Article by Harsha on the agenda for Greg Chapell as the coach of Team India is quite insightful.

The Indians take their cricket very seriously. This is as good as the national game and the pride associated with a victory or despair surfacing at every loss is very unique.

We expect a lot from Team India. We dream that our team becomes invincible, We dream that we win every time the team walks out.

Thus we expect a lot from Greg as well. He comes with a baggage of lot of expectations. He is expected to make winners out of the blokes we have. But BCCI needs to make the right decisions to help the coach. Give him a say in the selection. Select a Captain ASAP. Get over the Ganguly Saga.

Take this opportunity to look at Team India without Ganguly and Sachin. This will give an enormous opportunity to the youngsters who are knocking on the door. With the next World Cup in mind, we need to build a strong bench. This is the best opportunity to do the same.

Team of Performers?

I was going through the blog maintained by Prem Panicker and chanced upon some comments entered by one other blog surfer. He has written quite a funny peice on the selection of a team of "non performers"

His selection includes:

Team of failures:
1. Akash Chopra
2. S.S.DAS
3. Vinodh Kambli
4. Hemang Badani
5. Rohan Gavaskar ©
6. Parthiv Patel ( WK1)
7. Deep Das Guptha (WK2)
8. Sunil Joshi
9. D. Mohanty
10. Sharandeep Singh
11. Tinu Yohanan


He gives quite a good explanation on each selection.

Here is my response to this team by Mr. Selector (quite toungue in cheek):

Selector - You have missed the follwing -

1. Noel David (Remember this guy who used to be amazing when trying to make a difficult stop - mostly the first guy who started diving - but used to easily misfield the ones which were hit to him directly. He was also selected because he was am all roundr. I never understood in what?

2. Chatterjee - this is one person who waited so long for his place in the team (not that he deserved it anyway) that when he got it he forgot to perform.

3. Hrishikesh Kanitkar - Other than the boundary he hit for the Asia Cup Final, I doubt if anyone outside the Maharashtra Ranji circuit even knows about him.

4. Somsundar --something -- He I beleive was a hard hitter from Karnataka. The hardest he hit went to the 30 yard circle and the fastest he scored could be 5 in 25 deliveries. We did manage to persist with him for quite some time, hoping he will be our answer to Attapatu. never happened or we were not persistent enough - do not know.

5. The Opener slot has to go to Rathore. I will bribe you till you accept his candidature. None flopped heavier than him in that spot. The Others, including SS Das, Akash Chopra and Sadagoppan Ramesh (another stalwart you missed) at least had something to show off their resumes.

6. Pravin Amre - He hit them high but never long. Remember the high catch practice he used to give to Dean Jones? He too deserves a place in the probables

7. David Johnson (or a similar name) - another Karnataka bloke who ran in faster than he bowled. D Mohanty at least had a good English season, but this guy beats him in non performance any day.

8. Vijay Yadav - your selection of wicket Keepers is impeccable, but just in case one of them is injured can you consider Mr Vijay Yadav (Chandrakant Pandit is ready to coach him)

9. Salil Ankola - He is done with the TV soap opera and begs your attention for his candidature. I remember Harsha Bhogale once made a comment that Mr. Ankola can write a book on Hotels, because that is all he gets to see on an Indian tour

10. Abhijit Kale - do not worry he does not have money enough to bribe you and thus asks for a job purely on Merit. However if you want to play this game in Pune, then he cannot apply bcause that is the only place where he can score runs like his other ranji team mates

11. Amol Mujumdar - does he get at least a look? He has the right contacts.

Mr. Selector - I know you are faced with a daunting task, but then you surely have to look at all the performers in this category before passing the judgement.

BTW - Mr Lele can be your team manager. He is jobless currently.I do not doubt your choice, cause you have chosen the choiciest few. but do give a fair consideration to these blokes as well.

They deserve it and they demand it.