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Yet again, Dial C for Cricket (confusion as I like to call it) lived upto its reputation of making misguided discussions and trying to fit in reasons to conclude, as per convenience. This time they were in search of a hero and seperate him out from the rest of the team, honor him and undermine the efforts of the rest of the team.

Some how, architect of any win are always batsman, though in this match, it was also some great bowling by the Indian’s in the second innings. For England, out of 311 that they scored in the second innings, around 240 were contributed by a single partnership. When England had an opportunity to blow it away, they blew it up, and the credit has to go to our bowlers.

Now, Sachin’s innings was great by far, but I don’t know how would we have looked at it, say if he had not got a century and had Yuvraj (with the same effort that he put) bypassed his score. May be Yuvraj could have been declared the hero, rather than a sidekick that he was portrayed. Anyways, Sachin’s centuries are celebrated more than even double hundreds by other players. The problem is that we go too much into numbers and Sachin himself realises that very well. For Indians, Sachin is the heir apparent to Bradman and any further proofs (if there are still not enough of them), makes us go ga-ga. A little unfair to other players, though.

I hardly found an article even coming close to attributing the win to Sehwag for his out of the world innings. Sachin for me was the architect for India not loosing. With Sehwag’s innings, Sachin could make us win. Without it, Sachin would have still ensured that we didn’t loose.

I do feel for England, who didn’t deserve this, after playing good cricket. But if you look at it in a different light that should a team win because in two innings that it batted, there were only three partnerships? After having a great opening stand, you are all out for 35o?

On the other hand, India also won it fair and square and deserved it anyway. England would have definitely not deserved a draw, but either team winning was the ideal result.

Everyone needs hope to survive and most see hope in any kind of change. No wonder Barack Obama could hit the right chords in the hearts and minds of the American citizens. The Mumbai attacks not only claimed the lives of various Indian and foreign citizens, but also the posts of Home minister of India and the Deputy Chief Minister of Maharastra (The CMs post is hanging in balance).

While P. Chidambaram has been given the Home ministry, prime minister Manmohan Singh has taken up the finance portfolio. These were solely the reactions to the need of the people to see some action, see some change. It seldom matters whether the change is for good.

The India England test series is likely to go ahead on schedule, barring the change in venues. There was a scheduled pratice match in Baroda (Vadodara) which is likely to be shifted to a place near Kolkata – the place where the first test match also is likely to be shifted to. The Mumbai test venue has already been changed to Chennai.

The Live Earth concert also stands cancelled in the wake of Mumbai attacks. Ideally, they could have still gone ahead with it, without any entertainment performances (by Bon Jovi and AB) – as a token of respect for the victims. Also, that would have highlighted the spirit (don’t talk about this word in front of Barkha Dutt) of humanity.

It is really amazing to hear the commentary of Englishmen in the ongoing one day series between England and India. One can easily decipher the arrogance in their comments and the contradictions they make in what they say. The best example is from the second ODI. When Stuart Broad opened the bowling for England, the commentator didn’t mince words in expressing his displeasure at the move. He was of the opinion that either one of Flintoff or Harmison should open. However, when Broad picked up three wickets, he did a complete U-turn and said, “I told you this guy’s going to pick wickets for us”.

Yet another commentator described Yuvraj’s innings in the first match as Blitzkreig (all right), but termed Ravi Bopara’s innings (which basically involved slogs) as classy. Now, no doubt the innings was great under the circumstances, but classy?

It is fairly evident from the way they talk about the umpires’ decisions and about Indian dismissals (a gonner) versus English dismissal (unlucky). I prefer switching to the Hindi commentary, which is atleast amusing. Agreed, sometimes even Indian commentators can be erratic (Gavaskar, LS), but still they are much better even in their criticisms.

The series anyways is dead, with India now leading 3-0. You know actually Indians were praying for an England victory to bring it alive. 

Gautam Gambhir

The one player that is the most reliable today for India is not Virendra Sehwag, but his Delhi Daredevils mate Gautam Gambhir. Gautam Gambir has long proven his worth in the one-dayers as well as the twenty-20. He was not give a chance for long in the tests, with Wasim Jaffer being the favorite of the selectors despite repeated failures.

But, once he got the opportunity earlier this year in Sri Lanka, he has not looked back. Today, he proved again with this successive century why he is today the most consistent batsman for India in any form of the game of cricket.

I would really like him to continue his batting tomorrow and go on to make a double hundred. His double hundred would ensure a big first innings total for India, putting a lot more pressure on the already pressurized Austrailian outfit.

India has the best chance to wrap it up in this match itself. It should not let go of this golden opportunity to humiliate the best team in the world.

The last encounter between the two countries is remembered today for all the wrong reasons. What we did forget was that India, inspite of having the fab-four, did not display as much of a show with the bat as with the ball. The Perth test is the ideal example and could be the defining turn for Indian Test cricket.

All these years, India did traditionally better in test matches, compared to the one dayers. But now, the situation seems different. We are more confident of our one day (and T20) squad being victorious, compared to the test side. More so because both these sides feature quite different people, not to mention different captians. The captian of one team is unable to make it to the other team.

Anil Kumble always looked like a stop-gap captian after Rahul Dravid laid down the captaincy, but that stop-gap is now quite extended. On an individual front, Anil Kumble is not performing well. He is just not able to take wickets. He is included in the team, merely for the fact that he is the captain. This shows a bad sign. But, such a thing generally would happen when the person is irreplacable, which is not the case here.

We have a bunch of young and energetic cricketers, who have already proven their worth in the shorter versions of the game. They are now demanding a bigger role. Unfortunately, we will still wait for another big defeat to take some drastic steps.