Why Knight Riders coach John Boka-known must go

The seven deadly sins of Kolkata Knight Riders coach John Boka-known (boka means stupid in Bengali) and why he must go:

1. For floating the four-captain theory: It’s surely the dumbest theory in the history of cricket. The last thing that a team, which certainly isn’t the strongest on paper, needs is man-made confusion and demotivation. But Boka-known’s, oops, Buchanan’s theory did exactly that. At a time when the team should have been focusing on strategies to synergise its performance and outsmart its opponent, Buchanan’s non-theory ensured that KKR’s team spirit had taken a free hit before a ball was bowled.

2. For making Brendon McCullum the captain: In retrospect, it appears that the idea of having four captain was only a way of getting Sourav Ganguly out of the leadership role. But why McCullum? True, he can be a blazing bat, but what leadership quality has he ever displayed at home or abroad? Undeniably Buchanan’s initiative has weighed down a mercurial batsman with the crushing load of responsibility. Since he became captain, his scores are: 1, 21, 3, 1. And, by the way, has anybody seen any intelligent, pro-active move made by McCullum in any of these games. And one is not even getting into his using rookie trundler Anureet Singh in the last over against Rajasthan Royals and things like that. It appears the upgrading of McCullum has more to do with the Kiwi’s lack of experience, because it enables Buchanan to wield real power.

3. For downsizing Sourav: The Ganguly-Buchanan story is pretty similar to the Ganguly-Greg saga. Greg too wanted to control the team like a football manager does, forgetting that cricket and soccer are two different games. And he was out to prove that all ills in the national team originate from the Bengal left-hander. Initially, everybody listened to Greg. In this case too, owner Shah Rukh threw his lot with the coach. With IPL2 moving to South Africa, it was easier to downsize Ganguly without any fear of a public backlash. The deed was done. Except that the script has gone all wrong for Buchanan after that. Ganguly hasn’t faded away as expected by the Australian coach. On the contrary, he has been one of the few performers in the team. Go through the overall KKR record of IPL1 and IPl2. Ganguly has been the best KKR player by miles. So why has he been relegated to No 4?

4. For his touching faith in Brad Hodge: The Australian coach’s faith in the podgy middle-order Australian batsman is touching. Before he came out to bat against Mumbai Indians on Monday, Hodge’s IPL strike rate was in the 80s. That is like having a No 3 ODI batsman with a strike rate of 50. Hodge is yet to get a single 35-plus score in the eight IPL games he has played. A compact player, he seems to have no fourth gear, imperative for Twenty20. But Buchanan continues to persist with him.

5. For being clueless about the lower middle-order: It is one thing for the middle order to fail. It is another matter being clueless about it. Look at KKR’s 5-7 in the four games it has played in IPL2: against Deccan Chargers (A Chopra, Laxmi Ratan Shukla, M Henriques), against Team Punjab (Yashpal Singh, Chopra, Henrique); against Rajasthan Royals (Ganguly, Sanjay Bangar, Yashpal) and against Mumbai Indians (Yashpal, A Ghosh, Shukla). By the way, who’s A Ghosh? All I can say: It isn’t me. And, by the way, whatever happened to Debabrata Das who was reasonably successful last season?

6. For sending back Chopra and Bangar: Isn’t it strange that with the lower middle-order in such disarray, the think-tank feels confident enough to send back Bangar and Chopra. In all fairness, the two shouldn’t have been bought in the first place. Chopra is a rare batsman who dances down the track against spin only to offer a defensive shot, as he did against the Deccan Chargers. But why send them back when it means that KKR is left scrounging for the likes of A Ghosh. And if Ghosh deserves a second chance, why don’t Chopra or Bangar, who are at least proven internationals. And has Buchanan thought about the decision’s impact on the remaining KKR players? Can they really perform with the sword of being sent back hanging above their heads?

7. For being unsure about team’s bowling strength: Buchanan is clueless about his team’s bowling strength. Other coaches were much quicker in discovering the potential of slow bowlers on South African pitches. It took the KKR think tank three games to discover Ajantha Mendis. It was Mendis who put RR on the backfoot. His 4-0-19-2 was the  first match-turning spell by a KKR bowler this season. Agreed he got clobbered by Yusuf Pathan in the Superover (whether he was the right choice for that specific job is another question only Buchanan can answer) and by Tendulkar-Jayasuriya in the following game. But he remains a wicket-taker whom lesser players find impossible to handle. Again, Murali Karthik, an experienced Twenty20 bowler, was left out after two games where his figures were 4-0-23-0 and 1-0-7-0. Why?

Agreed, KKR doesn’t have the best bowling attack in IPL. But it isn’t the worst either. Don’t forget they also have Moses Henrique, Moshrafe Mortaza (why buy somebody with so much fanfare if you don’t play him?) and Ishant Sharma. How about a bowling attack of Ishant, Henrique or Mortaza, Mendis and Karthik? With Ganguly, Gayle and Shukla there to do the fifth bowler’s job. But to do that, Buchanan will have to drop Hodge. The four foreigners in this playing XI would be: Gayle, McCullum, Henrique/Mortaza and Mendis.

Solution: There’s only one way to save the season for KKR. Sack Buchanan. Now. Replace him with anybody, even Mandira Bedi. But Buchanan must go down under. There’s nothing he can contribute positively to this team. Sacking him will not make KKR the winner of IPL2. But it will improve the dressing room atmosphere and bring some passion back into the side.

If he cannot be sacked, then I have a ‘phony’ theory, rather appropriate in times of fake bloggers, for KKR owner Shah Rukh Khan to consider: Why not have four coaches and one captain? Surely having 25% of Buchanan is better than having 100% of him.

Row over Suites in SA like Scramble for Free Passes in India

As the Indian Premier League and cricket controversy are never far apart, a new controversy has raised its head, this time related to the clash for suites between the Suite Holders’ Union and the IPL. The IPL wants to retain full control over use of the suites, which had been stipulated by them if certain games were to be held by them.

Predictably, the suite owners, who have been offered pavilion seats as compensation, are far from pleased about the exchange.

Ever attended a live cricket match anywhere in India; either domestic or international cricket? Well chances are you went on a pass of some or other sort. The mind set of most of us Indians is that when we think of watching a live match, we first ask around for free passes rather than head for the nearest ticket booking counter.

For the organisers of any international cricket match in India the biggest headache is the allotment of the free passes: to VIPs (and of course those that think of themselves as VVIPs), sponsors, associates of players, it is a long list of people that expect and in fact demand free passes! It is this mindset that led to the building of the Wankhede stadium in Mumbai when there was a perfectly adequate Brabourne stadium over at the Cricket Club of India.

It is probably this same Indian mind set which will have so many expecting their free VIP passes that has caused the Indian Premier League to dictate terms in case of the spectators suites in South Africa as well.

On Wednesday there was a meeting held between the IPL officials and the Western Province Cricket club as well as the Western Province Cricket association when the Indian Premier League laid claim to all rights over the allocation of the suites.

Failing this gaining of full control over the suites, the Indian Premier League said that they would withhold the staging of 8 matches. It was the IPL’s ‘non negotiable position’ that if the West Province club and association wanted to host the 8 matches they would have to relinquish all right to the suites.

To compensate for taking over the suites, the IPL is willing to offer seat in the pavilion as well as free food and drink as well as access to the F&B tent near the field. Reportedly, two games scheduled for Bloemfontein are also in jeopardy for the same reason of suite owners being unhappy about giving over all rights to their suites to the Indian Premier League officials.

If the IPL keep up this kind of autocratic behaviour, they are not going to earn themselves any popularity contests in a country that rose to the challenge of hosting the Indian Premier League with such alacrity and at such short notice and has so far been so accommodating.  

Freddie dismisses IPL fitness fears

Andrew Flintoff does not believe playing in the Indian Premier League will have a detrimental effect on his performances for England because of the amount of cricket he has missed in the last year.

The 31-year-old has had several niggling injuries, the latest of which was a hip problem that ruled him out of the final Test and first two one-day internationals in the West Indies.

It has been suggested Flintoff should be wrapped in cotton wool ahead of the Ashes this summer, but the all-rounder told Radio Five Live’s Sportsweek: “I don’t know about that. I have missed so much cricket through injury that I don’t want to miss any more.”

He added: “I’ve not played a lot of Twenty20 cricket and I’d like to play more. I’m not saying the money is not very appealing, but there’s a lot more to it.

“I spent several weeks working very hard at my fitness when I came back from the West Indies and, hopefully, that will stand me in good stead come the summer.”

Other England players, notably Kevin Pietersen, have said the rigours of a long winter away have taken their toll, and Graeme Swann even likened the events of the last few months to an episode of Eastenders.

Flintoff’s Caribbean tour may have been interrupted by injury but he was involved in the debates following the terrorist attacks in Mumbai and he insists missing home is normal.

“It’s been a tough winter all round,” he said. “Going to India before Christmas with everything that happened, and coming home and going back, was testing for everyone.

“There have been lots of things going on. These are long tours. We are proud to play for England but people have got things at home as well and families who you desperately miss when you’re away. When you come to the end of a trip, of course people are looking forward to getting home and seeing people you haven’t seen for a long time.”

Slap-gate distant past, Bhajji focussed now

 

Last year’s slapping row with S Sreesanth and the subsequent ban firmly behind him, feisty Indian off-spinner Harbhajan Singh says he is focussed on making an impact in the Indian Premier League’s second edition.

“I missed the whole IPL last year because of reasons well known. But I’m looking forward to come back and it should be nice against Andrew Symonds, Matthew Hayden and all these big guys,” said Harbhajan, who was banned from inaugural IPL season after playing only three matches for Mumbai Indians for slapping Sreesanth.

Harbhajan slapped Sreesanth after a match between Mumbai Indians and Kings XI Punjab in Mohali for which he was banned for 11 matches which cost him around Rs 3 crore.

The Punjab off-spinner, who was in prime form during India’s just-concluded tour of New Zealand scalping 16 wickets, said the main reason Team India has been doing well is that the players are no more insecure about their place in the side.

“Why we are winning is because we are playing good cricket. Everyone is performing, everyone is willing to be a champion. A lot of credit must go to the support staff and team management for giving the surety to all the players that they would be getting at least 10-15 games. That gives a player a lot of confidence,” Harbhajan told a website.

“This team has a lot of talent of course like Viru (Sehwag), Gautam (Gambhir), Yuvraj (Singh), (MS) Dhoni, (Suresh) Raina … who have been doing big things which helps us believe we can win anywhere in any sort of conditions,” Harbhajan said.

“Probably that was lacking earlier, but now everyone is confident. They are not worried about their places, people go out to play for the team rather than playing for themselves.”

Harbhajan’s six-wicket haul in the second innings in Hamilton inspired India to a 10-wicket win, their first in 33 years in New Zealand before taking seven wickets in the drawn final Test in Wellington.

“It is always challenging bowling abroad – you don’t get much spin, bounce. You do get bounce but you don’t get sideways spin. It is always drifting kind of spin you get. Also with Anil bhai not being there it was challenging and there was a lot of responsibility on me as the senior spinner to do well. This was my third tour there and I’m glad that my wickets came at the right time – we won the game in Hamilton and we almost won it in Wellington, too.”

Harbhajan has now set his sights on a Test century and for this he said he would take tips from Sachin Tendulkar, his Mumbai Indians captain.

“One day I will get my hundred. I would like to spend time with Sachin, who has got so many centuries, and probably he can advise me to slow down or what I need to do to get from 60 to 100.”

He admitted Twenty20 was a batsman’s game but the bowlers will have to be brave and patient to earn success in this format.

“It is tough on bowlers. You need to be little more brave and smart and go with the flow. In this format you need to be smart rather than bowling magic balls.” 

 

Key looks the Twenty20 man to lead England’s World Cup quest

England were yesterday playing the familiar game of find a leader after Andrew Strauss was left out of their provisional 30-man squad for the World Twenty20 in June at his own request and with the selectors’ blessing.

Strauss will continue to captain the side in Tests and one-day internationals but his absence from the squad, which will be trimmed to 15 on 1 May, means England could soon be appointing their fifth different captain across the three formats of the game in under a year. Robert Key is the early favourite, although no announcement will be made until England appoint a full-time team director, possibly in the next fortnight.

Geoff Miller, the national selector, said Strauss “didn’t feel as comfortable in Twenty20 cricket as he does in 50-over cricket”. It is ironic, perhaps, that Strauss’s most commanding performance during the 3-2 one-day win in the Caribbean came in an innings reduced to 20 overs by the Barbados rain. But by then he had already informed the selectors of his reluctance to play in the World Twenty20 – a move also born out of his desire to be fully prepared for the Ashes, which begin on 8 July, only 17 days after the World Twenty20 final.

“Twenty20 is a different game altogether and his game, from all points of view, isn’t suited to it,” said Miller. “He accepts that and we accept that, so it wasn’t a decision made by any one person, it was a general principle. All the players want to win this Twenty20 World Cup. Andrew is motivated by it but it’s about the quality he would bring to it and the problems it could cause. Where would you play him?” Miller observed that Strauss “would still be learning about Twenty20 captaincy as well,” but among the squad only Paul Collingwood has captained England in official Twenty20 cricket while Kevin Pietersen has already declared he would not be interested. Andrew Flintoff will be considered, however, despite losing the vice-captaincy in St Lucia two years ago following the “Fredalo” incident.

“There are loads of options for us, Andrew is one of them,” said Miller. However, a more imaginative choice might be the Kent batsman Key, whose captaincy record in the game’s shortest format with Kent is 16 wins and 10 defeats, victory in the Twenty20 Cup two years ago, and leadership of the England Lions in New Zealand last month. Another possibility, Dimitri Mascarenhas, has led Hampshire only three times in Twenty20 cricket, but unlike Key – who has not represented his country for more than four years – he is part of the current England set-up.”We’ve got to make sure the captain is good enough to do the job,” said Miller. “We’re only picking 15 so the captain would have to be part and parcel of that side. Obviously there’s no point picking a captain who might be one of the guys to be left out.”

Key said: “It is the first step, though we’ll have to wait and see. There are a few of us with captaincy experience but there are a few things to put right before we get to that. We need to get a coach in and then see who’s in the final 15. It would be an unbelievable job [to be captain] – but there are a few who could do it.”England’s women have named every member of all their World Cup-winning team in an 18-player squad for their own World Twenty20, which will run parallel with the men’s tournament.

England preliminary WorldTwenty20 squad: Kabir Ali (Worcestershire); James Anderson (Lancashire); Gareth Batty (Worcestershire); Ian Bell (Warwickshire); Ravi Bopara (Essex); Tim Bresnan (Yorkshire); Stuart Broad (Nottinghamshire); Paul Collingwood (Durham); Joe Denly (Kent); James Foster (Essex); Steven Davies (Worcestershire); Andrew Flintoff (Lancashire); Steve Harmison (Durham); Robert Key (Kent); Sajid Mahmood (Lancashire); Dimitri Mascarenhas (Hampshire); Eoin Morgan (Middlesex); Graham Napier (Essex); Samit Patel (Nottinghamshire); Kevin Pietersen (Hampshire); Liam Plunkett (Durham); Matthew Prior (Sussex); Adil Rashid (Yorkshire); Owais Shah (Middlesex); Ryan Sidebottom (Nottinghamshire); Graeme Swann (Nottinghamshire); Chris Tremlett (Hampshire); Shaun Udal (Middlesex); Chris Woakes (Warwickshire); Luke Wright (Sussex).

 

TCS enters Indian Premier League

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) announced that it has inked a pact with Rajasthan Royals, Champions of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2008 for an initial period of three years.

Under the terms of the agreement, TCS will provide expertise information technology solutions to Rajasthan Royals organization, on and off the field, in an effort to enhance the efficiency of the organization and help them retain their title as IPL Champions of season 2 as well.

It will work closely with the professionals engaged with the team to improve their performance on the field and the franchie`s ability to offer greater value in terms of enhancing the viewing experience for the fans.

Shares of TCS declined Rs 8.6, or 1.48%, to trade at Rs 571. The total volume of shares traded was 73,838 at the BSE (12.52 p.m., Wednesday).