The Surfer
Jug Suraiya blogs in the Times of India that the country is utterly hooked on the IPL, and has a light-hearted take on the advantages of not being obsessed by the tournament
If IPL has enslaved us - and there's no if about it, it has - there have never been slaves happier in their bondage. Onion prices? Inflation? Total logjam in Parliament? Pakistani terror? Saffron terror? Chinese incursions into Ladakh? We swat them away like the pesky machchars (mosquitos) that they are. Don't worry, be happy, IPL's here.
An editorial in the New Zealand Herald questions the absence of the UDRS in the ongoing New Zealand-Pakistan Test series and states that India's reluctance to use the UDRS will affect it at some stage.
Unfortunately, India, the power-broker of the modern game, was far less canny in its one attempt at using the system, in a series in Sri Lanka in 2008. All but one of its referral attempts in three tests failed. The Sri Lankans won 11 of their referrals. But rather than learn from this, the Indians have chosen to oppose the system, thereby placing it in limbo
Adam Parore in the New Zealand Herald writes that New Zealand's Test struggles continue to centre around the top-order batting, because they don't have players who can consistently score big centuries.
All sides have their idiosyncrasies, but this goes way beyond that. Since I can't see a reason for the problem (batting conditions in the third innings are often close to as good as they get in a match), it's hard to suggest a solution.
Shailaja Bajpai writes in the Indian Express that the most striking part of the IPL auction telecast was how bad it was
A good telecast would have done the following: clearly identified team owners at each table instead of making us squint to read the ID cards on the table; given us the names of the bidders with the amount being bid, the winning bid, the team composition after a successful bid, and told us how much money a team was left with to spend and who was left in the kitty
Pat Symcox, who was once the face of South Africa’s spinning unit in the 90s, is now the poster-boy of Remax — the country’s largest real-estate franchise
Andy Wilson in the Guardian examines the credentials of six of the batsmen in contention to replace Paul Collingwood in England's batting line-up, alongside Eoin Morgan: Jimmy Adams, Ravi Bopara, Andrew Gale, James Hildreth, Adam Lythe and James
Suresh Menon writes on Dreamcricket.com that not much has changed about the IPL despite the ouster of Lalit Modi
The message from the franchisees was clear: sport is not about sentiment. It is business. It is about the bottom line. It is about results. Corporate India dealt with cricketers in a matter-of-fact manner, reducing the great names in the game to their bowling averages or strike rates. Getting a young team together or a bargain or a cheap buy was more important than anything else.
It was a lesson for the cricket board which often lets emotion cloud its judgement, and is happy to rely on past glory when the current form is not so good.
Andy Wilson in the Observer looks at how England captain Andrew Strauss transformed himself into the on-field brains and driving force of the successful Ashes series.
He is a very English hero, though one of South African stock who has been shaped in many ways by Australia. The series win Down Under is an achievement of which the England captain will be justifiably, if discreetly, proud
No, it's not the Ashes
"It was the world’s first documented nation-versus-nation sporting event, a September 1844 contest in New York City between Canada and the United States.
When Anil Kumble announced he would not play in the fourth edition of the IPL, it seemed like he had made a bold statement to shun any conflict of interest that may arise from him being a Board official and still being involved with an IPL team,
Granted that Kumble, who is also chairman of the National Cricket Academy, doesn’t have a direct conflict to the extent some of the others mentioned above do. He doesn’t pick players for the Indian team like Srikkanth; he doesn’t directly control funds for the IPL like Srinivasan; and he’s not in a position to do blatant favours for his friends like Modi was. But by aligning himself to the Bangalore IPL team, Kumble, the official, lost an opportunity to do something expected from him the right thing.