The IPL is a party and Pakistan aren't invited. This news has been met both sides of the border with several knee-jerk responses - the operative word in many cases being "jerk".

Basically, the Indian franchises snubbed the Pakistanis because they didn't want to spend the money (and their limited, coveted spots) on potential no-shows.

Fair enough, but instead of saying this straight up, the IPL decided to invite the Pakistanis, wait till they'd donned their dinner jackets and knotted their bow-ties, then called them just before they left home to say, "Sorry, you know, actually we decided something would probably happen to you on the way over, like you crashing your car or getting an upset tummy, so we're gonna ask someone else. See ya around."

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I blame Kumble and Srinath

An impossible tail-end partnership from over a decade ago, and how it made an eternal optimist of one Indian fan

Sidin Vadukut

22-Jan-2010

So a few days ago India was playing Sri Lanka in the final of the Tri-Nation Bore-nament in Bangladesh. Kumar Sangakkara, if you recall, won the toss and put India in to bat first. India, no longer the spineless pushovers they used to be in decades past, flatly refused to do so for any length of time. After 43 overs, the boys in blue were seven wickets down for 213. Or to put it in Sri Lankan numbers for our foreign readers, seven for "two-and-a-half Dilshans".

As the tragedy unfolded on a TV screen in the office canteen, an excited colleague offered instant analysis: "Oho! Now getting 300 is going to be very difficult. But if Zaheer stays..."

Instantly Zaheer got out.

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The great Indian machismo crisis

Why aren't more Indian cricketers hairy, uncouth, beer-drinking, potty-mouthed swine?

Krish Ashok

18-Jan-2010

Indian cricket has a lot of lots of things. It has lots of money, lots of superstars, lots of victories in recent years, and lots to decide who gets to play, given the amount of young talent that's coming through the ranks from domestic cricket. What it lacks is machismo. Like with water in the Sahara, mortgages in the US, and sporting spirit in Australian cricket, Team India has had a machismo crisis.

Kapil Dev was the last Indian Randy Savage. They say that in his home state of Haryana, there is only one kind of culture: agriculture. But what does Kapil do? He gives us those shaving-cream ads and loses every last bit of his aura courtesy the sheepish grin exposed in them.

Every Indian from my generation has a series of iconic images imprinted in his mind, and none exudes machismo.

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The importance of being unwatchable

If you can't sit through plod-fests, three-hour fifties and a Mark Richardson innings, what sort of sorry excuse for a cricket fan are you?

Alex Bowden

17-Jan-2010

"I got as much pleasure from a good leave as I did from a cover drive," said Steve Waugh this week. Good man. That's the spirit.

Cricket supporters these days are spoilt. With Twenty20 and Virender Sehwag, they're seeing breathtaking innings on a regular basis. There's a very real risk that the art of watching dull cricket will be lost and that's something that we can't allow. Enduring six hours of two-an-over nothingness in the vague hope that something might happen is what separates cricket fans from followers of inferior sports.

Fortunately, several batsmen have stepped forward in the last week or so. Mike Hussey is only statistically interesting and that's the lowest form of interesting there is. He hit 134 in the second Test against Pakistan. Jacques Kallis' very name is a byword for interest-sapping ploddery - he hit 108 against England in Cape Town. Finally, in the Test prior to that, Alastair Cook produced the kind of innings that is often described as 'watchful' when 'unwatchable' is perhaps more accurate. He managed to make 118 despite hitting the ball solely to the leg side.

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The Ranji Trophy is the new ICL

The IPL is under threat from India's premier domestic tournament and the BCCI won't stand for such nonsense

Anand Ramachandran

15-Jan-2010

The classic Ranji Trophy final between Mumbai and Karnataka, which saw packed stands and soaring TV ratings, unprecedented for a domestic first-class match in India, has led to an unexpected fallout. The BCCI has banned the Ranji Trophy with immediate effect, saying that the tournament's success is a threat to the IPL.

"The IPL is, as you all know, India's leading domestic tournament. Anything that threatens the IPL's popularity, and hence commercial viability, must be banned. Ranji Trophy is the new ICL," said an agitated Lalit Modi, symbolically tearing up a copy of the final's scorecard.

"The Ranji Trophy is a rebel tournament which is not authorised by the BCCI. Hence all players and officials involved with it will be barred from all official cricket activity in all forms of the game - including book-cricket, table-cricket and Slogout," he confirmed, proving that, like most Indians, he had been paying no attention whatsoever to the country's premier domestic tournament. When someone pointed out that the Ranji Trophy was indeed a BCCI-organised tournament, he expressed surprise, saying, "Can't be. I've never heard the term 'Ranji Trophy' discussed even once at any BCCI meeting for the past several years."

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Stop the madness

India v Sri Lanka? Lord have mercy

Sidharth Monga

13-Jan-2010

One of these days the crowds will throw up in stadiums. On purpose. In synchrony. Mass streaking will happen.

They will put up tents in the heat and dust of Dubai, outside the ICC's headquarters, and smoke hash and play rebel songs until they get a written assurance that India and Sri Lanka won't play each other for the next five years. Not in Tests. Not in ODIs. Not in Twenty20. Not in women's cricket. Not in carrom. Not in women's carrom.

The written assurance will also have to guarantee that if India and Sri Lanka happen to reach the final of the 2011 World Cup, that match will be abandoned - dangerous pitch or not - and that the losing semi-finalists will play for the World Cup.

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The Akmals: a TV series

Are events involving two Pakistani siblings Down Under putting you in mind of an 80s American sitcom? You're not the only one

Jarrod Kimber

13-Jan-2010

INT. FAMILY HOUSE - DAY
(A jolly tune plays with a friendly voice singing about families as we see a woman, MRS AKMAL, being pushed into the house by a man, MR AKMAL.)

MRS AKMAL Ah, it is good to be home.

MR AKMAL Glad to have you back.

(Two youngsters run down the stairs, UMAR AND KAMRAN. They are slapping each other and yelling.)

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Beware the finger spinner

They used to be diversions, brought on to give everyone else a breather, but now they're in the thick of it and taking wickets

Alex Bowden

11-Jan-2010

Graeme Swann, Paul Harris, Nathan Hauritz, Harbhajan Singh, Daniel Vettori - even Omari Banks. How quickly things change. Not so long ago, the orthodox finger spinner was used as a pause button during a Test match; now sides are built around them.

Countries who couldn't cope with the excitement of wrist spinners used to put finger spinners in their sides for two reasons. The first was so they could say they had a balanced attack. They didn't actually want a balanced attack, but they wanted to say they had one, and picking a finger spinner allowed them to do this. The second reason was so that quick bowlers could have a bit of a breather without anything really happening while they were doing so. The finger spinner's aim was to make nothing happen and allow nothing to happen.

You can imagine captains issuing rallying cries such as: "For God's sake, don't do anything wrong." The bowler would then deliver his full repertoire: the quicker one, the dart, the one that goes straight on, the arm ball. Occasionally they might try and turn one, at which point the captain would put a friendly arm around their shoulders and ask them what the bloody hell they were playing at.

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The struggle to save Twenty20

The terrible threat to the shortest form of the game. And why merit is thankfully being sidelined as a criterion for qualification

Anand Ramachandran

08-Jan-2010

In the wake of some minor rumblings over the dilemma of whether to pick picking Friedel de Wet over Makhaya Ntini in the ongoing South Africa-England series, comes a new controversy that threatens to rock international cricket. While some observers wondered if Ntini was being kept in the team for reasons other than cricket, suggesting that South Africa still had racial issues in team selection, others have protested that de Wet's selection is a clear case of "discrimination based on merit".

"You can't pick a cricketer over another merely because he's a better player. That's discrimination pure and simple - you are saying one cricketer bats or bowls better than the other, and so he should get preference. Absurd. These 'merit' quotas must go," bellowed a spokesman for the Society of Unskilled Cricketers, Kent. "If cricketing skill is the only criterion, then what happens to the prospects of young cricketers who have worked hard to have been born into a particular race, or in a specific geographic region, or speak a specific language? All their efforts will come to naught, simply because another player is picked over them just because he consistently did well in domestic cricket. We won't allow this," he said vehemently.

However, South Africa's chairman of selectors, Mike Procter, strongly denied the allegations. "Friedel de Wet has been picked purely for valid, non-cricketing reasons. All allegations that his undoubted merit and cricketing ability have anything to do with his selection are vindictive and baseless." Procter also clarified that South Africa has a long and proud tradition of not being swayed by merit. "How else would you explain the careers of Boeta Dipenaar, Neil McKenzie and Gerhardus Liebenberg? If we were discriminating based on skills, these guys would never had played for South Africa," he pointed out cleverly.

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