Tag Archives: Cricket

Russian Cricket Team Starts Spring Preparations

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The United Cricket League Russia is preparing for the 2013 games. The popularity of this sport, which has a great following worldwide, until recently was relatively unknown in Russia, points out Tanvir Khan,a member of the team management. He says that it is not surprising that the vast majority of players in the Russian League are Indians, Pakistanis, natives of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka having Russian residence permits. They are all in the majority of cases, like me, either graduates of Russian universities, businessmen or students.

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Tanvir Khan: “The United Russian Cricket League unites eight teams of 11 players each. Some of them are very good and great players. Last year, the League of United Russia was recognized and registered with the International Cricket Council (ICC) in London.

We also have 200 additional players. And among them are a few Russians. Our matches are held at the Moscow State University’s (MSU) baseball stadium which has an artificial turf cover. We play every Saturday and Sunday during the four months of favorable weather conditions. These games invariably attract quite a few Russians, some of whom want to try their hand at the game and have shown impressive results.”

Having crossed from Europe, from its homeland in Britain, to the colonies in South Asia and Africa, cricket has become extremely popular there. And now in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka it is revered as a national sport. The young students, who had come to Russia from these countries to study during the past decade or so, just could not give up their passion for cricket. We are organizing matches in Russia for the 13th year and are also participating in international matches, says Tanvir Khan. And very successfully too for we have won Silver in the European championship.

This year we have scheduled 64 games – says board member of the League of United Russia, Tanvir Khan. We expect the arrival in Moscow of teams from Latvia and Estonia. And then we shall visit them in Riga. Our colleagues in Belgium have invited our team for a friendly match. And this is not at all the complete list of our travel plans for which preparations are on going.

On May 1, this year, the Russian team will hold its first home match at the cricket stadium in MSU. It is possible that some Russian players will also take part in the match. This sport is gaining more and more recognition among the Russians.

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Busy Mahendra Singh Dhoni fails to appear for B.Com Exam

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A busy cricketing schedule has led to Indian team captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni failing to even appear in the first semester examination of B Com degree after enrolling himself for the course five years ago at a city college.

Dhoni, who enrolled in B. Com in 2008 at St Xavier’s College here, could not clear even one of his six semesters, “absenting” from examinations due to busy cricketing schedule, and his results in the first semester had been marked as absent.

“Yes, he (Dhoni) would have been among the students who got the degrees,” Principal Nicholas Tete said, after giving away degrees to 1,790 students of his St Xavier’s College on the occasion of the fourth Graduation Ceremony here yesterday.

“Dhoni registered for the three-year course in 2008, which is effective for five years. And he can renew afresh, (if he wants to complete the course),” Tete told PTI here today.

“We had prepared study material for his first semester and sent them to him. (But) he did not respond,” he said.

Dhoni, who has Office Administration and Secretarial Practice as his subjects in B. Com, had completed Plus-II in 1999.

“A teacher feels good giving away degrees to successful students, and the students feel happy after completing a course successfully,” Dean Jayant Sinha, one of the teachers in the college, said, adding happiness would have been doubled had Dhoni completed the course and got the degree.

“However, he can complete the course in future. Education is a continuing process,” Sinha said.

The degrees were given to the batch of 2008-11, when Dhoni had registered for the course, he added.

Pakistan’s Twenty20 cricket league postponed

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The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) postponed its franchise-based Twenty20 tournament for an indefinite period to solve management issues.

According to a PCB statement Friday night, the lucrative Pakistan Super League (PSL), scheduled between March 26 and April 7, was delayed after sponsors and other investors demanded more time to submit bids, reports Xinhua.

The delay will also help the PCB ensure the participation of international foreign players.

“Some scheduling conflicts that arose after PSL dates were announced could result in potential star players missing out on the opportunity of participating in PSL,” PCB said.

Following a long drought of the international cricket at home, the PCB officially unveiled its plan to organise PSL Jan 10 by inviting cricketers around from around the world to participate.

The league comprise five teams. Each team will have a maximum of six foreign players for the first three years. All 23 matches will be played at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore.

Pakistan is the fourth Asian cricket nation after India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka that launched cricket league involving foreign players.

The decision came after the country failed to convince any of the first grade international cricket teams for a home series in Pakistan due to security reasons.

The league management offered a handsome amount of cash for each player in five categories comprising Diamond ($100,000), Platinum ($70,000), Gold ($50,000), Silver ($25,000) and Emerging ($5,000-10,000).

To shrug off the security reservations by the players, PCB Chairman Zaka Ashraf also offered foreign players insurance worth $2 million and tax free other incomes.

The PCB also said over 80 foreign players had already signed for the PSL auction but the process of getting No Objection Certificates from the relevant boards was still underway.

Tendulkar to review cricket future in November

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Sachin Tendulkar has for the first time admitted that at 39 he may not have much cricket left in him and will reassess his cricketing future next month.

Tendulkar’s retirement has been a topic of debate for quite some time now and the batting great said though he does not have any immediate plans, the thought of retirement has been on his mind.

He said that taking a decision on retirement after playing the game for close to 23 years will be a “hard one” and he will go by what his heart says.

“The moment of retirement is going to be hard because I haven’t experienced anything close to what I might go through when I retire. It depends on what my heart tells me then. I need not take a call right now. When I play in November, I will reassess things,” he said.

“I am 39 and I don’t think I have plenty of cricket left in me. But it depends on my frame of mind and my physical ability to deliver. When I feel that I am not delivering what is needed, and then I will re-look at the scheme of things. I am already 39 and no one expects me to go on playing forever,” Tendulkar told ‘Times NOW’.

India play a four-match home Test series against England starting on November 15 in Ahmedabad.

Tendulkar, who holds almost all the records in world cricket after playing 190 Tests and 463 ODIs, said that it would be a tough call for him to hang his bat and he will go by what his heart says.

“I don’t know. It is going to be hard because I haven’t experienced anything close to what I might go through when I retire. I cannot relate this moment with any other moment in my life. It will be a tough call. I will go with what my heart says,” said Tendulkar, who has scored 15,533 in Tests and 18,426 runs in ODIs.

The Little Master’s cricketing exit is a touchy issue. It took three deliveries and the cricketing world was buzzing with news and views on Sachin Tendulkar’s retirement. Click further to read what cricketing legends have said about the ‘retirement’ issue.

Should Sachin Retire from ODIs? Majority say YES

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Opinions are never right or wrong, never constant and yes, the opinions are changing. “You can’t contain Sachin’s deeds in a statistical frame. He brings unstinted joy to the art of batting. Statistics will happen because cricket is about runs and wickets. But how can you evaluate Sachin’s contributions by just counting the number of runs he has scored. To me, he best symbolizes the heights an individual can rise to dominate a team sport. Words can never capture the beauty of Sachin’s cricket,” this is just one of many quotes from the cricketing legend Kapil Dev on Sachin Tendulkar who now feels that it’s time Sachin quit ODIs. “From what we have seen in the last three months, he should have announced his retirement before the World Cup. It’s important to know that every cricketer has his time,” Kapil told ‘Headlines Today‘.

Surprisingly, it’s not just Kapil, but a large number of Indians seem to be of the opinion that the god of cricket should leave one-day cricket and it was quite evident in a Times of India online poll which concluded that 57 percent of respondent feels that Sachin should retire from ODIs. While 41 percent answered ‘No’ to the question ‘Should Sachin retire from ODIs?’, as many as 57 percent of respondents voted ‘Yes’.

TOI had nearly 47,000 people responding to its poll out of which 19,127 voted ‘no’ and 26,813 answered in favor of the question and around 817 (2 percent) people were undecided.

The calls come from different corners asking Tendulkar to call it quits from one-day cricket and many eminent cricketers were heard echoing the public opinion including Kapil Dev, EAS Prasanna, Sourav Ganguly and Kirti Azad. Ganguly once said, “The thing I like most about Sachin is his   intensity. After being in the game for so long, he still has the same desire to do well for India in any international match. I tell you what, this man is a legend.” And today he says, “Sachin has to ask himself whether he is good enough to play one-day cricket day in and day out; whether it’s helping him missing tournaments and playing a one-day series after 8-9 months; whether it’s helping him as a one-day player or if it’s helping Indian cricket as a one-day team. If Sachin can’t get an answer to these questions, he has to go.”

Former Indian cricketer EAS Prasanna backed Ganguly and Kapil and said, “If he continues to fail like this, people will have a wrong impression of him. I think it is better to retire when he is at his best,” MSN reports.

Former test cricketer Kirti Azad said, “The selectors should waste no time in dropping Tendulkar, Dravid and Laxman from the national team if they do not retire on their own following the massive drubbing in the Test series against Australia.”

The genuine thought process that went into the call for Sachin’s retirement from one-day cricket by general public is quite questionable as it’s highly possible that the public anger and frustration over India’s pathetic show Down Under, Ricky Points decision to retire, and the opinions of former players have influenced the results of the poll.

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Does the Media deliberately divide People?

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Is the Media misusing the freedom of press? Should it be made more accountable? The careless behavior by some of our television news channels has necessitated some kind of a control by a regulatory body. Poor quality journalism is something this country has been facing since the advent of electronic media. Any exaggeration without verifications and proper investigations seem to become news that gives a wrong picture or partial facts. In other words, media has become the creator of a false world that the people of this country seem to be living in. Media has also been dividing the people of this country through careless reporting. This view was shared by none other than the newly appointed Chairman of Press Council of India, Markandey Katju. In a Democracy, everybody is accountable, and it is high time media is also made more responsible, he felt.

Off late, some of the deliberate blunders by the media are aimed at dividing people on communal lines. Speaking to CNN IBN, Justice Katju said, “Whenever a bomb blast takes place, in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, within a few hours almost every channels starts showing that an e-mail or an SMS has come that Indian Mujahideen have claimed responsibility or Jaish-e-Mohammad or Harkat-ul-Jihad, some Muslim name.” This has created an impression that every Muslim is a terrorist, when 99 percent of the religious community is good people.

Another mistake that our media frequently makes is targeting the majority community in the name of secularism and provoking them against the minority. Secularism includes all communities, including the majority community. Some of the dirty political games seem to have crept into media as well. In short, there seems to be a deliberate attempt on the part of the media to divide people on religious lines, which is contrary to national interests.

Markandey Katju feels the only solution to the problem is to bring Electronic News Media also under Press Council of India.

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Apart from this, the media has created a false image in the minds of people. In a country where 80 percent of the people live in chronic poverty, facing inflation and other serious issues like unemployment, media has been portraying a different India, the “Shining India”, which is only a partial reality. Instead of focusing on developmental issues, the media is seen to be increasingly projecting film stars, cricketers and fashion parades.
In lines of the slogan of Roman emperors, “If you cannot give them bread, give them circuses,” in India, cricket seems to have replaced circuses, as many of the leading channels have caught the IPL cricket fever, and people are getting the same illness, which is hardly going to solve the problems of this country.

The Last Match of the Great Wall

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As the whole world watches, amidst the thunderous applause from the crowd and the players, the man walks past the ground, ending a legendary era of class, passion, and rectitude in the game of cricket – a scene best wished for The Wall of Indian Cricket, Rahul Dravid as he plays his last ODI match. He is a man the world adores for his skills and techniques, but the real worth of the great cricketer has often been hidden in the shadow of his contemporary legends, Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly.

Rahul - The Wall

What will his absence mean to the world cricket? We are going to miss the graceful flicks, the breathtaking timings, and the poetry in motion on the crease – those standards of cricketing fast vanishing from the game in this new era of unorthodoxy and pinch hitters. He epitomized the test cricket and played the role of India’s ‘go-to man’ in pressure situations. Nearing the end of an embarrassing two-month England series in which victory looked far ahead of Team India, Dravid’s exit from ODIs will definitely leave a void in the squad, the dependability factor which many wonder if any can fill.

The Wall of India

Great talents cannot be hidden and so was Dravid’s who was spotted by former cricketers seeing an amazingly skillful kid scoring a century on debut for his school team. Fondly called Jammy by his classmates, the Bangalore boy began his cricketing career in his early teens as he represented the state at the under-15, under-17 and under-19 level. He made his one-day debut in 1996 against Sri Lanka replacing the spoiled kid of Indian cricket Vinod Kambli. He mastered the art of this gentleman’s game and lived by it for over 15 years now, a great cricketing saga that can never be erased from the books of cricket. In 2007, he become the third Indian player and the sixth in the world to score 10,000 runs in ODI cricket and with one match to go, he has 10,820 runs from 343 matches to his credit. The 38-year-old right-hander has scored 12 hundreds and 82 fifties.

Records are many but to cite an unusual one, he is the highest scorer to be overlooked for the Man of the Match award. Despite his career best 153 against New Zealand, the MoM went to Sachin Tendulkar for his unbeaten 186. Though a fault of none, he has been overshadowed, not once but many a times, by some of the equally great performance from his contemporary stars. The delight of his debut ODI century in 1997 was sunk at the glory of Saeed Anwar’s then world record of 194.

Mr. Dependable

Against the popular notion, Rahul Dravid holds the record of scoring the second fastest fifty by an Indian in one-day cricket. His 82 fifties in ODI is the second highest by an Indian and the third highest by any in the history of cricket. He has been a part of two of the largest partnerships in world cricket – A 331-run stand with Sachin Tendulkar for the second wicket against New Zealand in 1999 and a 318-run partnership with Sourav Ganguly.

He has always been in the scene, cricket never left him neither he did. His embraced the spirit of the game so tight that he emerged victorious at each falls. And now, as he walks down the crease, one last time in the blue jersey, it bleeds not blue but tears down the eyes of his loyal spectators who loved the glorious game in its entirety.

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Author – Binu Paul,SI