Monday, April 03, 2006

Asians, old-timers, ghosts

On seeing that Sajid Mahmood and Vikram Solanki were both playing in today's international, I began to wonder if England would set some sort of record by playing four players of Asian origin. That was before I found out that Kabir Ali had been dropped. Ah, well, but the original thought that was sparked by this news remained: England's team is starting, slowly, or so it seems to me, to reflect the growing Asian presence in its domestic cricket scene (one that apparently, has taken a long time happening in itself).

Meanwhile, on the Indian team end, a huge retrograde step taken by playing Ajit Agarkar. I don't get, what with all the talk about building a new team, what this man is doing in there. He's never been more than a occasionally useful quick (no, I haven't forgotten his first 50 wickets in ODIs and I haven't forgotten Adelaide 2003 - they prove my point!), an inconsistent batsman, and a regular fielder. So much spring cleaning done, and this man survives? Wait, let me float a conspiracy theory: maybe he is a Pawar man. So there.

And, when will Sehwag return to form? That double hundred in Pakistan is such a distant memory now; he's been missing in action all season long, and the devastating effect this has had on India's fortunes is all too apparent. He looks terrible (watch how Anderson cleans him up in the highlights film), and by all rights, should/could have been dropped by now.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I do not understand how people can just be blind in reacting to the inclusion of Ajit Agarkar. The media is always trying to project him as bad performer, which led me to do a research on his performance. Currently he is in the ODIs, the 14th ranked in the list of All-time wicket takers, just behind Kapil Dev. He has 240 wickets only from 156 Matches. Only 4 players have taken less matches to reach 200 wickets than Agarkar.
He has not been a regular player for India in recent years. If he has been given a long run in the team he would have performed better.
Therefore, when people like you (knowledgeable about cricket) react this way there is no surprise when the laity have wrong conclusions and opinions about a silent, decent, and a really gentleman player, Agarkar.

3:06 PM  

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