How the BCCI was rocked and whats the hoopla about?

ICL is going stronger by the day. It is good to see the monopoly of BCCI falling away in whiff. It was long overdue and fast coming. The most absurd thing ever to come from BCCI is that it is a 'club' and not related to India the Nation. With a body like BCCI coming up with things like these, it was only time they were calling their own fall sooner or later.

However, ICL has a lot on their hands, if and when, they are going to take off. Some wise men need to sit down and discuss some finer issues pertaining Cricket today. Here are the issues they would want to think about:

1. What would ICL's stand in case of bowlers with suspicious bowling action. Would ICL be the new ground for bowlers with suspicious actions?
2. How are the ICL going to handle drug abuse in Cricket?
3. How would ICL handle players who are involved in doping?
4. What strategies would ICL adopt to see that there is no match-fixing?
5. How would the ICL deal with incidents like sledging or the jelly gate saga?
6. How would the ICL handle incidents like the sledging, jelly gate saga, a la gatting-shakur rana, a la miandad - kiran more saga, a la abhijeet kale bribery saga, a la miandad - lillee fight saga, a la sree santh - michael vaughan saga and so on that have rocked Cricket.
7. How would the ICL deal with racial discrimination in the game?
8. Would the ICL allow their contracted players to play in county cricket in England?
9. Earlier BCCI snubbed both ESPN-Star and Zee when it came to broadcasting cricket in India. Would the two media giants come together to snub BCCI now?
10. It is speculated that the players on ICL role would lose their jobs with railways/airlines/corporates and so on. Would the ICL back them up with jobs in the media and other business interests of Zee?

Players are listed according to respective countries. According to Heath Mills, the manager of the New Zealand Cricket Players' Association New Zealand Cricket would suffer the most. Pakistan Cricket Board wouldn't agree more, after losing last year's highest test runs scorer Yousuf Yohanna ditched them to join ICL. I hope the ICL radar is high on searching some more international and national players. Here's a list of players they can go after.

Australia
Simon Katich
Justin Langer
Neil Harvey
Andy Bichel
Michael Kasprowicz
Shane Warne@
Glenn McGrath@

India
Lakshmikant Balaji
Tinu Yohannan
Hemang Badani
Vijay Bhardwaj
Ravneet Ricky
Reetinder Singh Sodhi
Pankaj Dharmani
Ajay Jadeja
Mohd. Azaharuddin
Aakash Chopra
JP Yadav#
Dinesh Mongia#
Ambathi Rayadu#
Abhijeet Kale
Dheeraj Jadhav
Hrishikesh Kanitkar
Amit Mishra

England
Adam Hollioake
Nick Knight
Marcus Treschothick
Robert Key

Pakistan
Saqlain Mustaq
Saleem Elahi
Asim Kamal
Shabbir Ahmed
Mohd. Sami
Arshad Khan
Abdur Razzaq#
Inzimam-ul-Haq#

Srilanka
Marvan Attapatu
Nuwan Zoysa
Russel Arnold
Upul Chandana

New Zealand
Chris Harris#
Chris Crains
Stephen Fleming
Nathan Astle
Mathew Sinclair
Daryl Tuffey
Andre Adams

A Drought of 21 Years

21 years on and still waiting. Tomorrow is a new day, a new hope. A hope of changing things lying stale for 21 years and how. 9th August might just be the day that changed the fate of the Indian cricket team and its undying supporters.

Pray. Pray with me that the Indian skipper doesn't not come up with centuries old cliché of, 'it is just another test match' at the toss or pre-match conference. No Rahul, this is not just another test match. For Heaven's sake, it isn't just another test match. India have lost the plot in Zimbabwe in 2001, in the West Indies in 2002, in Australia in 2003, in Pakistan in 2004, and in South Africa in 2006 after going one up in the series.

It remains to see if India keep the same team that won the Trent Bridge test match. Speculations are rift that Ramesh Powar might get a look-in, instead of the old wily fox Anil Kumble. The reason: Powar can exploit the foot marks created by the two left-hand bowlers (if India bat first, Powar can also explot the foot marks of Ryan Sidebottom). Powar gives it tweak and is a known campaigner when the wicket starts to crumble. But what about the tail? Kumble has been able to gobble the tail, unlike any Indian bowler in the last two tests. Sree Santh by all means is lucky to survive the cut. I only hope that he comes out stronger, the criticism for the shoulder barge, the beamer and now the exclusion from the one-day team should boost him and his team. He has this tendency to get under the skin of the opposition like Sourav Ganguly used to have earlier. It remains to be seen how well he performs, as he is very mercurial.

England's ploy could be to exploit the extra bounce at The Oval. They would look forward to Chris Tremlett to do that. However, they can not rely too much on someone who has just made his debut a few tests ago. Too much pressure might just break Tremlett and in turn would open the floodgates for India and let it off the hook.

To sum up matters, everything largely depends on how the opening combination of Jaffer and Karthick negotiate the new ball. If they manage, anything close to the first innings partnership of Trent Bridge, England might want to kiss good-bye to their supreme record and the Pataudi Trophy too.

~ Vijayendra