Indian pressure!

Second last over of the day, Dhoni standing on pitch since about 7 hours playing on 99 runs, pushes Anderson's ball to mid-off and sprints towards other end to complete 100th run. Direct hit by fielder, and Dhoni fell short by a millimeter. It was a risky run indeed.
                                               Anyone reading this will say that there was no need to run,but it's not that simple. Dhoni was standing on pitch for like more than a day after keeping wickets and leading his side for 146 overs. He is the guy with coolest head on his shoulder. And one of the fastest runner in current international players. Also to add to this, he avoided a lot of singles today while playing with Virat Kohli just to minimize the run-out risk.
                                    Then how can he make such silly mistake? It was certainly not like that he wanted the hundred badly, he knew that staying there was more important than this three figure number.  But if you can see the atmosphere in ground and the amount of noise being made by viewers, you can understand the pressure, player feeling at that time. This pressure is so high that even a calm guy like Dhoni couldn't control his nerves. When Dhoni was on strike on 99, each and every person in stadium was on the edge of the chair, shouting to the core. Any batsman will like to get away from this pressure as early as possible. Dhoni was trying to do the same.  I feel that these landmarks are rated way too high in this part of world. People making huge noise near to such landmarks puts a lot of pressure on player. Correct me if I am wrong, but I don't remember watching people making that much of noise in any other country when their player is near to landmark. Yes, they do celebrate after such landmark is achieved, but they don't put that much pressure before getting to it. I think that expectation pressure is more in India than in other countries.
                       But the second side of coin is they get lot of respect after achieving these landmarks. Player becomes the national hero in one night after such innings. Some folks may say that people praises personal achivements more than team game.. but well, thats the way it is..
                           There is a difference of 22 yards between 99 and 100. How much it matters is upto you!!

Why do Indian spinners don't turn the ball?

This is the question I am asking myself again and again.. after India trailing by 2-1 in 4 match test series with 1 to go. In post match presentation Dhoni said that batsmen didn't played well. They couldn't score well. But how did England put the total of more than 500? Indian batsmen didn't played well was the fact but not the only problem. If you have seen this match, Panesar and Swan were turning balls and asking questions to Indian batsmen on each and every delivery.

In last innings England came to chase a target of 41 runs. Cook was in hurry to finish but seeing him coming down the pitch, Ashwin turned the ball outside off and got him stumped. That ball did turn a lot and if you see in the reply, seam position of the ball was pointing to slips, a classic seam position for a off-spin ball (leg-spin for Cook as he is left handed). Cook totally missed the ball, couldn't connect to it. My point is Ashwin can turn the ball and even in-form english batsman couldn't read it. Ball did turn to some extent for the other 2 wickets India got in this innings.

If Indian bowlers could have done this in First innings England could never have scored 500 runs and put Indian batsmen in pressure in the first place.


This was the main difference between Indian and English spin bowlers. If you see other balls in last inning, Bell easily finished match in matter of minutes, those balls didn't turn much. If you observe closely, Ashwin was holding ball across the seam and trying to turn, obviously ball was not turning enough and Bell played them easily. Why he was doing this purposely if he was able to turn the ball?
 On the other hand, English spinners did turn ball good enough. Indian batsmen didn't really throw their wickets, those were good spin deliveries on which batsmen missed their shots and timing.

There is a lot of cricket going on these days in the form of IPL, 20-20, one days etc where we can see many new Indian faces as spinners. But sadly, I can not find a single spinner who is turning the ball like classic spinners do. Like Warne and Muralidharan. Everyone seems to be very excited about bowling new things like Carom ball, Other one, Wrong one, Googly (this not new) and Top spins.  But they are forgetting basics of spin bowling: to turn the ball. These other techniques will only help if they spin the ball and use these things wisely. The wrong one is wrong only when you bowl it rarely, it becomes predictive if you use it every now and then.

The other day I was watching an interview of Bapu Nadkarni on television - a legend  Indian spinner who represented India in 1950-60's. He said that there used to be Pata/ flat wickets at that time. Spinners need to make a spot, a rough area on pitch for ball to turn. They used to ball on the same spot for day in and day out to create such patches on wickets and then turn the balls. Then the man showed his hand with which he used to bowl. His fingers were bended permanently! Finger bones were bended by bowling and trying to turn the balls on Pata wickets... This was the dedication these men have shown.
Now a days, spinners are getting good wickets as captains influencing decisions about wickets. They should use this opportunity and work on their basics..

If you want people to call you spinner, you should start turning the ball!