Sports round up

A sports round up for a change,

Terrific run chase by South Africa. Scoring 414 without breaking a sweat at Perth against Australia in the fourth innings is no joke. Australia is surely on the wane.
Australias strength during their period of dominnace was the top 3 batsmen and the bowling led by Shane Warne and McGarth. With Hayden and Ponting struggling, and the bowling not upto scratch, they are surely on the wane. Looks like they are going down the West Indies route. So much for their cricket infrastructure, systems and planning. Nothing can replace raw talent. Something England had always lacked. And the reason why they were always a me-too team.

Contrary to popular myth, Batsmen dont win test matches regularly. You need a good bowling attack to take 20 wickets. That was the success of Clive Lloyds team of the 70s and 80s. Lloyd had Roberts, Holding, Garner and Croft/Marshall.

Ian Chappesl Australian team had Lille, Thompson and Walker. Imrans Pakistan had himself, Sarfraz, Qadir. Wadekars indian team had Prasanna, Bedi, Chandra and Venkat.The current Indian team has a nice bowling attack in Zaheer, Ishant and Harbhajan. The moral of the story is - if you want to be the number one test team, you better have four good bowlers.

Our Chairman of Selectors normally is at the receiving end of the stick. But Kris Srikkanth,who took over on October 1st 2008, needs to be complemented. He handled the Ganguly issue nicely. Gave him a farewell series and Saurav went out with head high. He also handled the transition from Kumble to Dhoni very well. Finally he gave a long rope to Rahul Dravid, when everyone was baying for his blood. And Dravid finally came good. The team looks settled now. With Gambhir at last finding his niche in the team, Yuvraj coming in for Ganguly , Badri and Rohit waiting in the wings should Dravid, Sachin or VVS retire, the post Fab four period doesnt look too bleak. And we are winning. For old timers like me, who has seen India lose regularly, this is indeed a great turnaround.

Unsung Indian sports persons did well during 2008. Vishy Anand retaining the World Chess Title, Abhinav Bindra winning an Olympic Gold in Olmpics, Saina Nehwal making waves in Badminton, Jeev Milkha Singh becoming Asian No.1 in Golf, the Chess players doing very well in 2008 in tournaments - it has been a great year for the Indian Sports.

I sincerely wish this shall kickstart a sporting revolution in India