Aussie crowds embarrass Moody

Tom Moody, the former Sri Lanka coach, said he was embarrassed by the derogatory reaction and negative attention directed towards Muttiah Muralitharan by Australian crowds. Muralitharan's unorthodox bowling action came under scrutiny in Australia, where he was no-balled for a suspect action on two tours.

The treatment meted out by the crowds in reaction to these on-field episodes prompted him to boycott Sri Lanka's 2004 tour to Australia. John Howard, the Australian prime minister, joined the clamour by labelling Muralitharan a "chucker".

"As an Australian when I have been with the Sri Lankan team in Australia, or playing against them in the World Cup, it's the only situation we find in the whole of the cricketing world where we have this disgraceful slant on a cricketer," Moody told The Australian.

"My take on it, and I hope I'm right, and I've shared this with Murali, is that it's Australia's nature to show that response in a way of respect and acknowledgement of someone who is pretty special and unique".

Moody, who has taken up a coaching role with Western Australia, puts this attitude down to the competition between Muralitharan and Shane Warne, who finished his career as the world's leading wicket-taker with 708 Test victims. Muralitharan is second in the all-time list with 674 dismissals.

"They're protecting their own," Moody said. "Australia has produced the greatest legspinner of all time and Australians are very proud of that. There's that constant comparison between Warne and Murali, but I just think you cannot even begin to try and compare the two."

Muralitharan was first no-balled by Darrell Hair in the 1995 Boxing Day Test and Ross Emerson also called him in an ODI at Adelaide four years later. When the Sri Lankans walked off the field after the second incident, only an intervention by the respective boards and the ICC saved the tour.

Muralitharan's action was subsequently cleared under the ICC's 15-degree rule. He has toured Australia since his 2004 boycott and looks set to visit Australia again in November for a two-Test series.

Boycotting the Zimbabwe Tour - Right or Wrong?

For me, this is a real ’sitting on the fence’ argument, because I can see both sides of the story and I think they have equal merit.

On one hand, I think it is the right thing to do to be seen as not supporting a terrible regime in Zimbabwe. If we did go over, then it sends a message that we don’t care about anything else going on in the country, we just want to play cricket and that we condone the atrocious way that the government in power treats its citizens.

On the other hand though, sport has always been a great medium for change in countries. If we did go over, the people who are so oppressed in Zimbabwe would definately get a boost and this may spur on a time of uprising and (hopefully) peaceful protest. I can see how by not going, we are taking away something that the Zimbabwe people have been looking forward to for some time.

All in all however, I think that the government did the right thing in banning the cricket side from going.

What do you think?

Sri Lanka Cricket to question the legality of Gilly's "Hidden Ball" in next ICC Meeting

The longest ever cricket world cup took 47 days to conclude with a dramatic final between Australia and Sri Lanka, but yet it's not all over. Adam Gilchrist's "Squashed innings" which scored 149 off just 104 balls, while all the other Australian batsmen were struggling to score more than run a ball is now the hottest topic in the cricket world. This adds as yet another incident to the Australia's long history of "cheating in cricket", which includes the famous "under arm last ball" by Trevor Chapel, under the advice of then captain Greg Chapel, in an ODI against New Zealand.



So far, the legality of Gilly's innings was questioned by only the cricket fans and by few members of the blogging community. There's enough evidence to say that what Gilly did was illegal. A Squash ball cannot be a cricketing equipment, under any law either in Cricket law books or Squash law books. Australian cricket blogger JC, indirectly admitted that "a squash ball won the world cup for their country". All independent analysts (I mean, independent from Australia) agree that the facts raised by churumuri and some of the commenters in that thread, are un deniable. If you are an Australian, it would be hard to swallow most of the facts raised their. It's natural!

But what can a blogging community and fans do about this matter? Nothing but persuading the officials to take some action. I did the exact thing, by writing to some of the leading press and electronic media in Sri Lanka, to build a pressure on Sri Lanka Cricket, to bring this matter up. Then I realized I'm not alone! There were thousands of letters to editors, to some of the leading newspapers in Sri Lanka regarding this issue.

One such cricket fan write to The Island and says "Gilchrist has openly explained that it helped his grip and that means he has used an external substance other than those provided to enhance his batting. We are also perturbed at the Australians’ openly floundering the match rules and getting away. Sri Lanka feel robbed and rightfully so. You may feel that some of this grumbling is due to that"

Now the good news from cricket's point of view is, Australia is not going to get away this time. Sri Lanka Cricket's interim committee official, K. Mathivathan told The Island today that Sri Lanka Cricket will take this as a serious issue, and take the matter to net ICC meeting scheduled to June. He further added "It's unethical for Adam to do that, and laws could be brought to prevent doing such things in the future"

So, the cricket fans around the world now can be assured that Aussies will not be allow to just cheat like this and get away with it easily. But I personally, don't like the argument that the World Cup should be taken away from the Aussies, or the final should be played again. All in all Aussies have now won the world cup (even if it was by cheating), and now it's theirs for another 4 years. So let them posses it, break it or do what ever they want to do with it. What we want as cricket fans is justice. We want a clear statement from ICC that "It is illegal to use squash balls in cricket matches, and what Adam Gilchrist did was similar to what Ben Johnson did in 1988 Olympics"

Australian Dominance in Cricket. Good or Bad?

It’s being highly debated in the media that “whether Australia’s dominance in modern day cricket is good for the game or not?” I’ve seen many press articles and TV talk shows debating this topic, and I’ve seen so many former players insisting on, it’s bad for the game. Most of these people are in the opinion that “Australia should come down, so that the other countries will have a fair chance of catching them”.

I think this is rubbish. What Australia has achieved in cricket today, is the result of careful planning of their system for years. I believe their planning started on the day they failed to make it to the semi finals of a world cup held at home (1992). That day, they’ve realized there’s something seriously to think about Australian cricket. And, through their prestigious cricket academy, and the highly competitive domestic tournament they started planning to dominate the cricketing world in the next decade. The results started to come during the later part of the 90’s, especially towards 1999. Ever since then, they haven’t looked back. When a one class player get retired, they have 3 players to replace him!. Ricky Ponting, started his career as the “replacement” for David Boon. But today, Ponting has surpassed the fellow Tasmanian by a huge margin. So, what could we expect from the replacement of McGrath or Warne? Definitely not anything in lower quality than them.

So, if the rest of the world remain complaining about “invincibility” of the Australians, and do nothing other than expecting Aussies to come down, that won’t definitely be in the favor of this game. What the rest of the world should do is try to work hard, to get closer to Aussies. Not to expect them to come down.

Business of Cricket

Some one has mentioned in one of my posts, “Aussies take cricket as a business; not as a game”. I 100% agree with this. For Aussies, the game of cricket is not a “game” anymore. It’s a business operation for them. They have adopt all the business management principles into this game. Business management Concepts like “Zero defects” and “Systems Approach” are clearly visible in the Aussies game plan. Each player of the team are like executives. They’ve been assigned a “job to do” (Do they have cubicles too?) and they have to work hard to do the job better every day. There should be “zero defects” in the final product. Extensive usage of technology, and video footages make them perfect “business executives”. It’s said, that Matt Hayden was watching a video footage of Murali, even on his flight to Grenada for the Super 8 match against Sri Lanka. That’s ho the Aussies make them “perfect”.

The rest of the world have to catch up. Soon.

But the unfortunate thing about these recent developments is, it will degrade the natural spirit of this age old game. Some people are trying to compare the current Australian team with the Clive Lloyd’s great West Indian team in the 70’s. I’m totally against that comparison. Windies in 70’s dominated the game with their natural ability, and their innovative approach of playing the game. The rule of “Ball is there to be hit” was the greatest innovation by the Windies those days. And that revolutionized the game of cricket, and inspired such great cricketers like Dulip Mendis, Javed Miandad, Aravinda De Silva, Sachin Tendulkar, Inzamam Ul Haq and Sanath Jayasuriya in the sub continent. These are the players who took the “west Indian style of cricket” to rest of the world, and broke the west Indian monopoly in cricket. The current “Australian Style” is no way near the natural spirit of cricket, like that “West Indian style”. The Australian style is a complete mechanism of programming human beings to deliver “results”. Id Clive Llyod’s 70’s Windies team had the facilities that are given to the current Australian team, the result would be incredible.

What ever said and done, the fact remains “Australia is driving the game of cricket at the moment”. The rest of the world will have to catch them soon.

If you look at last 4 world cups, it was Australia who played the India Subcontinent in the finals. Australia secured their place in the finals with their highly professional approach to the game, and India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka reached the finals in these 4 world cups with their natural ability and raw talents, and based on the form at the time the world cup being played. (Especially Sri Lanka and Pakistan. India too, take a “business approach” to the game some times) So what about the other countries? What do them lacking? Natural ability or the professional approach?

ICC have to take a serious look into this, and make sure the countries like Kenya, Ireland and Canada will stay in the game with the hope of winning a World Cup soon.

If the young players in these countries start to think that “No matter how good we play, it’s always going to be Australia and Subcontinent in the final, and Australia winning in the end”, then its not going to be good for the game of cricket anymore. ICC and the national governing bodies of the game, should take serious actions to upgrade the quality of the game in all these countries (Including England and West Indies), and make them competitive against Australia. At the same time, they should make sure that the game is not getting “too much mechanical” as well.