(B-7) Do we have the Team to repeat 1983 & 2011??

IPL is over and we are done with our both practice matches. Most awaited world cup is starting today and its right time to discuss about our chances in England.

Nobody would doubt about India’s presence in top-4. Kohli’s got enough strength as a captain to take team to the semis but Australia and England are going to be there too along with 4^th team. Looking at our 15 men squad, the selection seems to be based on IPL performance only and that is obvious and right too. 13 out of 15 selected boys showed great character in IPL (excluding Kedar and Vijay). But right after IPL was over, players from rest of the teams went directly to the England for practice and the great Indian players went on a vacation. Right effect was seen in 1^st practice game where India manged to get 200 odd runs only (even Pakistan scored 320+ in 5 consecutive games a week ago). The nation supports cricketers but also expects their seriousness towards their job.

KL Rahul has resolved the issue of no 4 spot in the team and that is surely huge relief. He continued his form from IPL and scored classy 108 against Bangladesh. But in both games our both openers got no idea about the pitch and this is not a good sign. We need at least 35-40 runs opening in 10-12 overs in every game so that Kohli and middle order will get some momentum to build the inning. They say Dhawan is the man of big events but if that is true then he has got very big role to play. Kedar Jadhav for me is the free wicket to any opposition & DK should get the chance instead of him. Rahul is looking good but has to be consistent so that MS will be able to do his job properly along with Hardik.

I don’t think 3 spinners will play against Asian teams and Bhuvi will be the man-to-go against them with 2 spinners. Shami & Bumrah are in great form and they are capable to do justice with the well known statement ”Bowlers win you tournaments”. Kuldeep had off IPL but Chahal was RCB’s key bowler and they both together ball really well every time provided that MS is behind the wickets. Bhuvi is slightly lacking in taking wickets but when it comes to saving runs, he’s still one of the Dads.

If hardik doesn’t perform in first 2 games, he’ll have to make space for Shankar. If Shankar plays well then he will be continued and pandya would be seen in fielding dept only. After KWK, he has huge responsibility to prove his worth else will have to wash his hands from XI. I guess VK, Dhoni and Bumrah are going to contribute almost 50% of total team in every game but to win this edition, rest 8 boys will have to do something which is quite exceptional as well as phenomenal. Australia are sure shot in the final and if these 11 Indians don’t do better than best world cup team then they’ll take their 6th trophy to the home.

(B-6) What MS Dhoni has taught me about ‘Real-Life’??

Since his Jersey no is 7 and my favourite no is 7 too, I’ve shared 7 Lessons MS taught me about real-life with this blog. The post might look lengthy but readers won’t get bored while reading as every single point relates to each and everyone alive.

Always prioritise your Country:– He’s the one who gives message through his own actions. He’s one of the reasons why I believe that athletes do serve country by playing with some kind of commitment. MS was in Australia for #WC2015 when Sakshi gave birth to their 1^st daughter. He wasn’t even carrying his phone to have his full focus on ongoing WC and Raina had to convey him this news. Being dad for 1^st time is such a precious moment for any man but in his opinion he was on National duty. Country comes first, everything else can wait. MS even uses gloves with Camouflage while keeping wickets. Everybody knows his love for Army and after retirement he’s gonna serve country by joining military. Ain’t such patriotism worth applicable for we people too ??
Treat Success and Failure in same way:- From past few years I haven’t seen MS celebrating after winning and neither does he react anything after loss. His reactions are always limited to some extent. Biggest lesson is that treating both in similar manner keeps us well on the ground. Success has ruined more people than failure and most importantly rather than shouting after success or sitting in a corner after failure, neutrally dealing with situation is respected more.
Cold blooded persons are most dangerous persons:- Cold blooded tortoise had beat fast and furious rabbit in racing.MS is well-known for his calmness on field. Reporters even try to smash him down the ground off-field but he’s very much famous for his witty replies ( we’ve witnessed best example of this when MS smashed an Australian reporter with “that’ act in press conference after semi-final defeat in T20 WC 2016). Somebody has said that people with unstable mind can’t take right decisions. staying calm under pressure can make you successful because you develop optimism. Having an optimistic outlook is important quality of an effective leader. Even VK wants calm MS to bat down the order in pressure situations kyuki Mahi bhai jesa koi hardich nahi hai.
There is always scope for Creativity:- Have you ever wondered why miracles are seen only when MS is there behind wickets? He always brings something creative to the table be they catches or run-outs or stumpings. He even stops ‘let-cut’ shot with the help of his legs. Creative activities help us acknowledge and celebrate our own uniqueness and diversity. Creativity encourages self-expression. No matter how simple a thing looks, there is always something you can do with it to make it better. Just look around and you’ll see lot of things you can modify but nobody cares about them but if you do something to it, you’ll be known for a long. Just give it a Try.
Process is more important than result:- This is what Dhoni frequently says and he does stand with it too. Result is always that actually makes count but process followed can give you long term benefits. Often we hear that MS is loosing his finishing ability with age but in my opinion he has started the process where he’s preparing new boys for finishing games. We don’t see that when boys like Kedar Jadhav, DK, Jaddu and Bhuvi hit hard in last overs, MS stands on the other end to guide them. How is it relatable with life? We give up after failure but the life says,”You’ve to lose small wars to win a battle” and we don’t look at long term effects of our gains from that loss.
A Leader should lead by Example:- The team won’t respect the captain because he’s captain but will respect him when he’ll show his character by example. My dad isn’t the person of many words but he makes his point by his own example. It took MS 42 innings to be No.1 ODI batsman and soon he took over captaincy. Even seniors played under him. The point I want to make is that he had capacity to take responsibility and to finish the job. He proved his worth by performances. He showed them something what the whole team believed to follow.
No matter how you start, finish it like Dhoni:- Dhoni is the first name that comes to the mind when I hear ‘finishing’. When 2 runs are required from 6 balls and MS is on strike, all we expect is monstrous SIX from him. We don’t give much importance to how he has played in that particular inning. You might not get good start in any phase of life but if it doesn’t finish well then you are responsible for that. Bill Gates once said,”If you are born poor then it’s not your mistake but if you die poor then it’s definitely your mistake”. How you finish it does reflect your character. Proper finishing can isolate you from most of the people.

Here I terminate my long post and the topic was chosen by instagram followers. Many voted for ‘India’s chances in 2019 WC’ and that’s gonna be my next blog post.

(B-5)Koffee with Cricketers

After the dramatic episode of Koffee with Karan featuring 2 ultra legends of current Indian team, social media has taken both players on fire.Although India is Democratic country and everyone has right to speak up, It’s shameful to comment on topics which are highly sensitive to people living in the country. As a professional player, you must know that cricket is like religion in India and must also mind before making any statement. Here people treat cricketers as heroes but it is the same country where just a single allegation of fixing can take you to ban for lifetime.

Well we have been seeing so many posts hitting this issue but you mustn’t miss the following ones. I was seriously fighting an impulse to share them through blog.

Few days before one lady was saying “Chalo fraands chai peelo” but Hardik & Rahul wanted to drink coffee hence they are facing consequences. :B

This is small collection of funniest posts I found on Twitter and Instagram. Did you see something funnier than this? Reach to me then.

(B-4)Duckworth-Lewis Method (Part-3)

In last 2 blogs I’ve explained 2 situations where Duckworth-Lewis method is used. With this blog I’ll explain the last situation and will end up with this topic. You may refer following links to get access to last 2 blogs.

Situation-1 https://cricksid.wordpress.com/2018/12/19/b-2-duckworth-lewis-method/

Situation-2 https://cricksid.wordpress.com/2018/12/29/b-3-duckworth-lewis-method-part-2/

So there are 2 basic assumptions which are at reference while using D\L method.

At the start of game, both teams have 100 points at them and they vary as per chart. 2) If rain spoils 1^st inning then target should be increased and if such happens in 2^nd inning then target is to be decreased.

In first situation we saw what happens when Rain interferes in 2^nd inning and the further play is not possible.

In second situation I explained with reference to 1^st situation how game progresses when game restarts after rain is stopped.

In this third blog on D\L method I’ll explain What happens when rain interferes in first inning and the inning is quited there.

Let’s take an example. Team batting first scores 200 in 40 overs at the cost of 6 wickets. Means they have 22.8 points remaining at them (see the chart){10 overs remaining, 4 wickets in hand}. Suddenly rain starts and umpires declare the inning. Means they have consumed 100-22.8=77.2 points.

Team batting next will also get 40 overs to chase down the target with all 10 wickets in hand, Means at the start, they’ll have 89.3 points at them(see the chart). Hence they are getting 89.3-77.2=12.1 points more. Now as per norms of ICC, avg score of 1^st inning is 235 and new target will be increased based on primary assumptions. New target will be 200+235*12.1\100=228.4 i.e. 229 runs.

This is a bit complex situation to understand, if you don’t get it after reading for 1^st time, reread it, you’ll definitely understand. You may take my help as well.

Suggest me topics you would like to read here. Happy New Year2019. Love you all .<3

(B-3) Duckworth-Lewis Method (Part-2)

With reference to last blog, I’m here going to continue explaining Duckworth-Lewis method. There are 3 situations in which umpires refer this method to proceed match further. Here I am providing the link to my last blog for those who have missed it and to get linked with this. blog.https://cricksid.wordpress.com/2018/12/19/b-2-duckworth-lewis-method/

So there are 2 basic assumptions which are at default in D\L method:

1)At the start of game, both teams have 100 points at them and they vary as per chart. 2) If rain spoils 1^st inning then target should be increased and if such happens in 2^nd inning then target is to be decreased.

I’ve explained 1^st situation where Rain interferes in 2^nd inning and the further play is not possible. Now let’s directly jump to 2^nd situation.

Situation-2: Rain starts in 2^nd inning after 40 overs and and when it stops, time of 5 overs is wasted.

Suppose team batting first makes 299 runs in 50 overs(They consumed all 100 points). Next inning starts and they score 250 runs at the loss of 6 wickets in 40 overs and suddenly rain starts. When rain stops, time of 5 overs is wasted. As per chart, before rain they had 22.8 points and after rain they currently have 14.3 points in hand. Means they overall lost 22.8-14.3=8.5 points. Ultimately they will get to consume 100-8.5=91.5 points. As per primary assumption, there target is to be reduced to 91.5% of the original target.(300*91.5\100=274.5 i.e.275 runs). Therefore in last 5 overs they have to make 275-250=25runs.

So this was all about situation number two. Will be posting one more blog to finish-up with the topic Duckworth-Lewis method.

Again I repeat I welcome all comments though good or bad. Let me know if you got this situation and please give me suggestions to get better with this.

Thanks.

(B-2) Duckworth-Lewis Method

This time I thought to divert some attention from India’s poor performance to somewhere else. We all have heard about Duckworth-Lewis method but we don’t understand it at all. I’m gonna explain this method in simple language through this blog.

As we are aware because of insta memes that Duckworth and Lewis were 2 statisticians who developed this method. They made a chart as shown below. There are 2 basic assumptions in this method:-

At the start of game, both teams have 100 points at them and they vary as per chart. 2. If rain spoils 1^st inning then target should be increased and if such happens in 2^nd inning then target is to be decreased. (This method is for 20&50 overs cricket games only)

There are 3 situations where we take reference of D\L method. I’ll elaborate each situation through different blogs as we hate reading lengthy theory.

Situation-1:- Rain interferes in 2^nd inning and the further play is not possible.

Suppose the team batting 1^st scored 300 runs in 50 overs and the team chasing the target reaches 250 runs in 40 overs at the cost of 6 wickets. Means they’ve 10 overs remaining with 4 wickets in hand . Therefore this team has 22.8 points left at them(check the chart).

Since they initially had 100 points, they have consumed 100-22.8=77.2 points by now. As both teams should get equal chance of winning and as per the primary assumption, their target is ‘reduced’ to 77.2% of the target set by the team batting first. Hence (300*77.2\100=231.6 i.e. 232) their target should be 232 runs but they have scored 250 runs so they are declared as a winning team by margin of 250-232=18 runs.

I hope you people have understood 1st situation through this post and if such situation arrives onwards, you’ll predict the winner with margin before umpires do. If you’ve any doubt in above calculation, do comment. If you learnt something from this, do comment and stay tuned for next 2 situations. I’ll be explaining them in the interval of 3 days. Thank you.

(B-1)Kohli would certainly love to see this ahead of 2nd Test.

India got comprehensive victory in 1st test against the mighty Aussies on their soil. The achievement is worth celebrating as long as the victory is concerned but were we sure about winning until the 40th wicket fell?? As a cricket fan, few points striked my mind.

Although we don’t put failure of M.Vijay on the count, India lagged in quite a few places. L. Rahul should know the worth of his wicket, Shaw won’t take much time to swipe him out. Same is true about Rishabh too. Aussies tail added almost 💯 runs to the team total in 4th inning of the game. Indian tail added only 10 balls to the inning. This could seriously turn the game to the host’s side. Ishant, Shami and Bumrah have to work on this if India wants to clinch the series.

The default aggression of Aussie Pacers is treat to watch as long as you are not against them but the way Indian trio was bowling wasn’t at all exciting. Starc can bowl 150+ kph continuosly but he was on 140 only and focused on swing and off-cutters and Bumrah had the fastest bowl of the game (153+ kph). Cheers for Bumrah but what would give more pleasure is the swing movement, beating the batsman and looking in his eyes after that. Hope to see the sight in upcoming games.

Batting an eye on Kohli’s aggressiveness will be offensive obviously but that’s where MS always stole 💯/💯 marks. But the level of captaincy was of the height of mount Everest.

Pujara’s ‘Dravid’ knock, Rahane bringing runs right in the 1st game, Kohli’s captaincy, Ashwin’s contribution in both departments are my take aways from the game. Unfortunately Ashwin won’t be there for this game.

In my 1st blog I’ve had some hard words but it’s just about observing things for betterment. I would love to discuss about these points in comments. #bcci #vk