Why I want West Indies to win World T20 and why Sri Lanka have to change a bad habbit

I write this before West Indies play their semi final against Australia, so by the time you may read this they may be out. I will nail my colours to the mast and pick West Indies as the team I would like to win. 

There are a few reasons why I would like them to win the competition, the first being that India are now out I needed a new team to back. Another reason is that I would like to see West Indies back at the top of world cricket. If I were to ask my father right now who has been the best ever team, or player in cricket history, im sure he would reel off West Indies and a few of their players such as Sobers. 

Given my age I do not remember a time where the West Indies were ever a force in world cricket. Over the last 25 years they have had very little to celebrate apart from Brian Lara (the last of their true greats) and a Champions Trophy. 

There are a few reasons why West Indian cricket has been in the doldrums, one is the poor organisations of their cricket board and the other being increased competition of other sports. Cricket has lost some of their best talent to sports such as athletics and basketball. For example Usain Bolt is made for fast bowling, although this would have been a major loss to track and field he could have been brilliant. I suspect that if he was born 20 years earlier he would definitely have been in cricket.  

The last reason I want this new generation of West Indians to succeed is that spirit of their team. The way the players celebrate a wicket, the way Pollard throws himself around on the field, the laid back persona of Gayle. A reason why they have qualified to the semi finals is the fact that their quality batsmen are very useful bowlers, their good bowlers can add runs with the bat and their fielding is very very good.

So come on West Indies bring back a bit of love for cricket in the Caribbean. 

Yesterdays match saw Sri Lanka qualifying to the final by beating a good Pakistan side. Getting to the final of a major international cricket competition is something that Sri Lanka are very used to. 

Since they won the world cup in 1996, they have been to 2 world cup finals, 1 champions trophy final, and a world T20 final. These have all resulted in them loosing, although the champions trophy final had been rained off 2 days in a row, so could be discounted. 

It is a real shame for Sangakara and Jayawardene not to have won a major trophy just yet. This habit of loosing in finals is something that they will want to quickly change. The best opportunity for this will be in the final, the same place where they had won their solitary world cup.   

Taufel's retirement leaves a dearth of umpiring talent

Come the end of the World T20, a great career will also end. This being Simon Taufel's career as an umpire. He now moves into a new role for the ICC titled 'Umpire Performance and Training Manager'. 

It is hard to believe he is only 41 years of age, as he has been umpiring for many years already. He is way ahead of umpires his own age. In fact the man who replaces him in the elite umpire panel (Bruce Oxenford) is 11 years his senior. 

Simon Taufel started out as a bowler playing with the likes of Adam Gilchrist and Michael Slater. But injury ended his playing days, this resulted in him changing from playing to umpiring. If he looks back he may actually believe that he has done a lot better than he would have playing. 

As an umpire he has been immense, I cant remember any notable mistakes from him. This being rather unlike Daryl Harper and Darrell Hair before him, who had their careers tarnished by costly mistakes and accusations. He has also not ruined his legacy by continuing until his eyes had gone, like Steve Bucknor. 

Having umpired in a boxing day test, before the neutral umpires rule had been implemented and one world cup final he has pretty much done it all. He would have had more than one final, had Australia not been so dominating by constantly qualifying for the final. 

Without Taufel there is definitely a dearth in talent. I believe Billy Bowden to be a really good umpire and in my opinion the next best after Taufel. He also brings his own style to the job. Aleem Dar and Asad Rauf are also very experienced, but the rest have not been around for as long. It is now Taufel's job to develop these umpires and make them to his own standard. 

Let me know who has been the best umpires over the years in the comments section much appreciated.

World T20 - How has the ICC got this wrong?

So the tournament is well under way and there has been nothing to really write about. There are many people who dislike this version of the game anyway. I am normally a defender of T20 cricket, saying it should treated separately to any other format, but this time it has left me a little bored. 

I do not blame everything on the ICC but their record of organising tournaments is not good at all. The world cup in West Indies a few years back was the worst tournament ever organised. This time around may be a little bit more disappointing to the ICC, as the WT20 is usually the competition they organise the best. Lets look at the reasons why this has been poor tournament so far:

1. No incentive to win the group: leading to dead rubbers:

The super eight groups were pre-decided, so as long as all the expected teams qualified, they knew who they will be facing in the next stage.  This could work, but then in my mind it has to be done by the so called minnow team in each group NOT playing the first two games in each group. I believe the only reason to have this seeding system is to make sure India play Pakistan once in the tournament, and the ICC make as much money as they can. This happened to both Zimbabwe and Afghanistan, both teams played the opening two games of the group and were subsequently knocked out. This is before Pakistan or the West Indies even bowled a ball. 

All this mean that the games: Sri Lanka v South Africa and England v India were dead rubbers (pointless games). Although both games were entertaining they didn't matter one bit. England being demolished by India and South Africa thrashing Sri Lanka by 32 runs in a 7 over a side game. This game in particular seemed to me the most pointless of them all, both teams through the next stage, no incentive to come top. I do not really think a 7 over game should be counted in the stats. It particularly messes up bowling stats, as we saw with Malinga going for 27 runs in his two overs.  

2. Why is the competition being played in the monsoon season?

To me this is the most awful scheduling, the ICC obviously do not know how the weather works in Asia. If they would like help on this I am more than willing to travel to Sri Lanka and explain to the person deciding on the scheduling that it is still the monsoon season, and that games will be rain affected. Why not play in another season when it is less likely to rain?

3. Minnows have not performed:

This is not actually the ICC's fault, but a definite reason why the competition has been a bit of a bore so far. Zimbabwe were the worst side, making club sides look good. Afghanistan bowled well against India but were atrocious in the field and lacked any quality with the bat. Ireland seemed to be slow out of the blocks against Australia and the match against West Indies was abandoned half way, but in all truth they probably would have lost.

So I have a good moan, lets hope the tournament improves now, which I am sure it will, weather permitting.  

I will leave you with a picture of the tournament so far: 

World T20 so far

The warm ups are all done and dusted and  there has been three competitive games  at the World T20 tournament, so what have we learnt. 

1. India will not challenge for this trophy due to their poor bowlers:

Watching India labour to a win over Afghanistan after unsuccessfully defending 185 against Pakistan in the warm up game, it is clear that India have a terrible bowling unit. Zaheer Khan seems to be unfit not taking a wicket in the match. His bowling at the present time is very average compounded by his fielding. Zaheer like Balaji look like old age pensioners running around the boundary, T20 should be a young man's game. Irfan Pathan has been in decent form before warm up games, but against Pakistan he was clueless, bowling a full toss to give them the match. The one wicket he took today was a clear inside edge given out LBW, that could easily have been a game changer. Rohit Sharma batted for 3 balls today, its time Dhoni puts in another front line bowler (who is actually decent) into the team.

2. England and Pakistan are looking strong:

These are only warm up games so should be taken with caution, but both teams have impressed. Pakistan showed the good side of their batting against India chasing down 185. This is impressive as people have questioned Pakistan's batting. The normal Pakistan batting did return in the next match being bowled out for 96 chasing only 111. In this game Pakistan impressed with the ball, bowling England out for a low total. England outplayed Australia in all departments on Monday as well as a fine bowling performance to skittle Pakistan out today. The two teams have very good bowling attacks which should impress throughout.

3. Australia are vulnerable in batting once the top 3 are out:

Today Australia were not tested to their full batting capacity, this due to their good bowling display. I am not sure if the poor batting was due to complacency or something else, but after Watson fell it was all down hill. The captain Bailey taking it easy scoring 6 runs off 17 balls. In my opinion they would be a much improved side if Bailey dropped out and David Hussey came into the team. 

4. The Colombo pitch is a good pitch for seam bowling:

Watching the Austrailian bowlers today it is evident that the pitch helps the seamer's. Watson in particular set the tone for his younger compatriots Cummings and Starc who both bowled fast and aggressively. Teams such as England, Pakistan and South Africa will be able to exploit these conditions well. I am looking forward to Stein, Morkel and Finn on this pitch. The Hambantota pitch seems on evidence to be a turner, as there were 9 wickets falling to spin in the 2nd innings. 

5. It was the Mendis show in game 1:

Jeevan Mendis started this route with his effort with the bat, scoring a good 43. He followed this up with 3 wickets in an impressive display. Jeevan would on any other day have expected the headlines, but his namesake Ajantha provided the best ever bowling record in T20 cricket. Figures of 4 overs for 8 runs and 2 wickets, truely amazing figures. Zimbabwe did not have a clue how to play him. Sri Lanka looked good during the match doing everything right, but I still have a slight feeling they will fall short. 

6. The minnows so far need to improve their fielding:

Afghanistan could have shocked everyone today if they had taken their catches. They played good cricket but were let down by the fielding. Ireland were under par in all departments, but they would be more disappointed that they did not put Australia under more pressure with their usual good fielding. 

Bring on the rest of the show, I personally cant wait to see West Indies play, for me the most intriguing team. 

Why is Dhoni so hated?

Over the last few months I have noticed on twitter and on various blogs that many people dislike Dhoni. These comments surface particularly when India lose, it seems if they lose its his fault. If they win its down to having a strong team, I am not sure how this works. On Tuesday night there were many comments on my twitter feed stating things like "Dhoni should be dropped," "Yuvraj had cancer and was out for a year and he still plays better than Dhoni has all year."

So I typed in Dhoni as a search term in twitter and it took my every person mentioning him, people wanted him dropped for not picking Harbhajan, and for not batting faster. I got the feeling that many people hate Dhoni. 

My personal opinion is that Dhoni is a big match player, who has a great ability to delivery when it matters. His innings in the world cup final should be remembered, where he had the weight of a billion people on his shoulders, yet he looked and played calmly. He knows how to chase down pretty much any score and will play according to the game, yes like any person he got it wrong in the T20 v New Zealand, everyone is due a mistake. His mistakes are normally when it does not matter as much. 

An argument I have heard a lot is that he has poor batting technique and is lucky he got a chance as a wicket-keeper even though his keeping is not great. Probably one of the most unorthodox batsman ever to have played, this is his style, which he has been highly successful doing. When he first came to the team he was purely a big hitter, he know has shown the other side of the game proving him well in test cricket also. 

	Runs	Average	100’s	Catches	Stumping’s
Test	3692	38.45	(5)	194	30
ODI	6908	51.12	(7)	199	66
T20	587	30.89	(0)	15	5

In my eyes if he was not a good batsman he would not have been so successful at all levels of the game, his stats as keeper are not that bad either. 

I have also heard an argument that he killed off other great players career. Again if this was true would Ganguly or any of the other players have told us by now? There was a dispute between Chappell and Ganguly, but have you ever heard Ganguly implicate Dhoni? Further to this it is in the best interests of Indian cricket if slowly the older players are fazed out before their own legacy is ruined. It has also benefited the younger players, as it has given Kohli and Pujara a chance in the team. 

The last and main argument to beat Dhoni with is that he is not a good captain and that he is lucky at best. This has to be the most nonsensical argument I have ever heard. You can be lucky may be with one trophy, but to win the amount he has cannot be down to luck only. Maybe he has an element of luck about him, in that he has good players, but mostly it is said that you make your own luck. So far in his captain-ship he has won the World Cup, World T20 and guided India to no1 in the test rankings (albeit very briefly).  

Added to this as captain of CSK his IPL team he has guided them to 5 out of 5 semi finals, 4 times into the final and winning it on 2 occasions. This my friends does not seem like luck to me. Finally lets compare his stats to other Indian captains:

Test Match Captains:

Captain	Games as Captain	No of Games won	Win %
Dhoni	39	19	48.7
Ganguly	49	21	42.9
Azharuddin	47	14	29.8
Gavaskar	47	9	19.1
Kapil Dev	34	4	11.8

Dhoni has the highest win ratio out of any of his predecessors, undoubtedly Ganguly has been a great captain also but Dhoni could surpass him. Do not forget that this win ratio is still the highest despite India not winning a match in the last two away series, which is amazing.

ODI:

Captain	Games as Captain	No of Games won	Win %
Azharuddin	174	90	54
Ganguly	146	76	54
Dhoni	127	73	63
Dravid	79	42	53
Kapil Dev	74	39	54

Again Dhoni has the highest win% here but this is likely to decrease a little if he plays as many games as Azharuddin. It would take quite a few losses for him to end up with a lower win ratio than either Azharuddin or Ganguly. 

T20:

Captain	Games as Captain	No of Games Won	Win%
Dhoni	32	14	44
Raina	3	3	100
Sehwag	1	1	100

The stats of Sehwag and Raina should not be considered as they have played less than 10 games. Dhoni does not have a bad record here either just a bit less than half wins. There is always a chance for him to improve in all 3 formats.

I am not saying that he should be considered the best ever player or anything like that, but I believe he should be respected for what he has achieved. Undoubtably one of the best captains India has had. For me it would be a disaster if he decided to leave. If you are one of those people who dislike him so much please let me know why by leaving a comment. I would be greatly interested to know anything which I am missing. 

Emotional comeback for Yuvraj

The date 11/09/2012 will be a memorable day in the life of Yuvraj Singh, it was the day where he made a comeback from a cancerous tumour in his lungs. I cannot comprehend what it is like to suffer from a life threatening illness, but to come back to top level sport after this is truly amazing. The game itself was pretty much a warm up to the world T20, but it meant a lot more to Yuvraj. To me it seems that the game signified to Yuvraj that he had won his fight. He tweeted before the match saying:

This nervousness is only natural for a person who stated that a few months ago he struggled to walk four steps. It must have been like preparing for a second debut, where all doubts return about possible weaknesses. Yuvraj personifies strength and character and will act as an inspiration to all, his twitter name @yuvstrong12 is a good match of his character.

So many people had doubted that he could make a return so soon, if at all, he has blown away all these doubts. From the showing in the match yesterday he showed that he is capable of becoming the player he was before his treatment. He bowled 2 overs, fielded at point and scored a quick 36, including a big six. After the game he was asked about the crowd chanting for him, he admitted to having a few tears in his eyes during the match. 

When last over started and Yuvraj was on strike I had this feeling that it would be the perfect way to finish this match if he had scored the winning runs. This would have been to perfect, I think he still did everyone proud, and maybe just maybe he can guide India onto more glory. 

If you checked his twitter feed over the last few days you would have seen many messages of support from across the whole world. Previously a British newspaper had hailed Yuvraj Singh as one of the top 10 ego's in sport. This is soething that cant be said of him now. 

The man who has scored 6 sixes in an over, was the man of the series in the successful world cup victory will now feel like he has a second wind. My message to the other teams is beware, this is a man who is just happy to play, he could be very dangerous with his new focus. 

PS: I am running 10K next year for Cancer research, if you would like to sponsor me here is the link: http://www.justgiving.com/AmitAcharya

World T20 - Bangladesh

The emerging force in Asian cricket, I believe they are a dangerous team who now believe they have a chance of beating any team. About 6/7 years ago Bangladesh lacked belief, they would have been beaten when the group had been drawn. The core of the team have been together for a while now, since the 2007 world cup. 

The captain is Mushfiqur Rahim, he is only 23 but has developed into a good leader. It is clear that he has always been an exceptional wicket keeper but his batting has come along over the last few years. He started out as a solid batsman but now has developed into playing a few shots. 

It is nice to see Mortaza back into the team, he has been very unlucky with injuries in the past few years. A quality bowler who used to trouble top batsmen, lets hope he comes back to his best. Ashraful is an enigma, he has the game to be a really good player, but recently he has disappointed a lot. Shakib Al Hasan is an exceptional player, up amongst the top all rounders in world cricket. 

Young players to watch: 

• Nasir Hossain: Another allrounder that can develop into a good player. His spin bowling can be a handful for opposition. 
• Shafiul Islam: Has been playing for a while, he is a good fast bowler. With Mortaza back he finally has a bowling partner up to his level. 

My Prediction:

It will probably come down to the game v New Zealand. This is a very big game for Bangladesh, as it would mean that they have once again qualified over a more established nation. They have good spinners in the team which could cause teams trouble, I think that New Zealand may pull it out the bag and qualify at their expense. GROUP STAGE