The Village Cricketer

The spinner that wasn’t good enough to get into the Aussie side in the first two matches has just taken his tenth wicket in the match, getting Ganguly in his last test innings, for a first ball duck. The Indians seem desperate to give the Canary Yellows a chance of winning this game. Tendulkar has just run himself out in the last over before tea. The Indian’s are still favourites to win, but they have given the Canaries a very real sniff of levelling the series.

Some time ago, to coincide with the World Cup in the Windies, TVC selected its most annoying ODI XI, which featured: Graeme Smith (captain), Matthew Hayden, Sourav Ganguly, Kevin Pietersen, Inzamam ul Haq, Andrew Symonds, Paul Nixon (wk), Shane Warne, Shanthakumaran Sreesanth, Glen McGrath and Andre Nel.

Now, I am soon going to have to do another, probably focusing on test cricket, and someone that is getting close to being included is Zaheer Khan. I’ve always had a lot of respect for Zaheer, despite the jelly bean incident, but he is gradually becoming a right whinger. Proof today, he managed to find himself in the way of Matthew Hayden (still annoying) running a quick single. Hayden knocked into him on the way past trying desperately to make his ground, was held up, and ended up being run out by 6-inches or so.

So what was Zaheer’s response? Run up to congratulate his mate at mid-off who executed the direct hit? Celebrate wildly? No, he went up the umpire to cry like a baby that Haydos had run into him! Even a Premiershit footballer wouldn’t be that ridiculous.

This was not a Nimbus Sport production for the Indian cricket board of control.

You can’t go to India without a spinner. Australia played three tests without a specialist tweaker and have suffered. They play a specialist and he takes 8. Granted Jason Krejza went for more than 200, but without him, the Aussies would still be bowling and likely to have to chase 900.

That’s why I think England have a better chance of beating India. We have a couple of decent spinners in Panesar and Swann.

India has just stuffed the Aussies out of sight, and I have to say that I had the pleasure of watching a good deal of it. India is my new least favourite team, however you have to admire the way they outplayed the Canary Yellow’s throughout the game. The Aussies bowling attack, its greatest asset in recent years, looked toothless on the Indian wicket, they were even poorer than I’d have imagined they would be. I’d go as far as to say that if they turn up to the Ashes next summer with Cameron White as number one spinner, and Shane Watson as fourth seamer, they’ll get beaten.

…but words are likely to result in a three match ban!

Yep, first the Canary Yellow’s complain that Harbhajan Singh called Andrew Symonds a “monkey” (I called my son a “cheeky monkey” this morning, does that mean I’ll have to miss nets for a month?). And now the Indians have hit back, accusing Brad Hogg of making an offensive remark to Anil Kumble and Mahendra Singh Dhoni during India’s second innings.

Racism should be condemned, and has no part to play in society, but it is interesting that it is the Canary Yellow’s getting upset about a few words. I do remember once being called a c**t six times in an over by a particularly articulate Aussie pro during a pre-season friendly a couple of years back, and the likes of Merv Hughes and Glen McGrath were infamous for their use of cunning linguistics! You’d have thought it would be best to let things lie in the field of play.

Allan Border and Steve Waugh have suggested that cultural misunderstandings could have contributed to the race row boiling over to the point of India suspending their tour. I would suggest that it is more likely to be a lack of culture causing most of the problems in Australia!