Retirement plans in Indian squad..!!??

Retirement plans.. this sounds familiar to all of us, but here i am talking about the Indian cricketers who should be planning one or forced to plan one. we have VVS , Dravid The Wall , master blaster SRT, sehwag , Zak,  MSD to name a few. with the recent dip in their(some, not all) forms and the age(yes they are called old at 30+) they are bound to think in this direction. I know it may be a lil too early for some of them but its inevitable. Thats not the only reason for it. With the current young talent emerging in indian domestic leagues and they way they are doing overseas it shud be made convenient to the youngsters to settle into the unfavorable conditions and get some good experience so that they dont get embarrassed when they are thrown a bigger challenge at them. V kohli , Vinay Kumar, Suresh Raina and so on have got good ability and talent but they are constantly failing to deliver overseas, what they have been doing with so much ease in the sub continent.

Pillar of Indian Batting Line up

VVS Laxman

1.VVS Laxman:
                      Yes guys, we all know that VVS has got the least lifetime in the current Indian test squad. We have all seen the bravery acts of him in getting india out of the worst situations and produce a respectable result and sometimes even won the match. Remember the eden garden test against Aussies. Yes such is the caliber of the man i'm talking about. But if you look at his current form he has consistently failed to deliver at the International level. He has been regularly failing to find back his form back, be it the india tour of england or home series against WI or the ongoing Border-Gavaskar trophy. The form dip is not the only reason he has been rated top in this list. The never ending problems due to his back injury is also the reason he is thinking of or being forced to retire as early as possible.It may not be a fair with vvs for BCCI to take any bold step of dropping him from the team, but unless he perform and prove his worth to the team, i think BCCI is bound to take action. According to my gut feeling he'll announce his retirement at the end of the Adelaide test , the forth and last match of the series. With the Indian cricket schedule in mind, yes we are not playing any test match in another 6 months, it will be a good on the part of VVS to retire right now.

2. Rahul "The Wall" Dravid:

Rahul Dravid

                       Rahul Dravid, "The Wall". He is the second in this list and most probably next person to exit after VVS Laxman. He had wonderful 2011 year as a batsmen, even though india suffered humiliations at the hands of England. He has scored around 1200 runs in the last year with 5 hundreds at an incredible average average of around 60. But he failed to continue doing the same down under. as like VVS even he is aged and is in the twilight of his career. He retired from ODI n T20(played only 1 of it anyway) at the end of england tour. but he is expected to do good in test matches till he keeps playing(rather enjoying) it. Having the previous years record to back him he has bought in some more time to stick around play his left out International cricket peacefully. But this is the right time for Dravid to think about his retirement. Even though BCCI has its eye on his retirement it cannot force him into retirement as it can easily do in the case of VVS. But still he will always be in BCCI's RADAR. couple of bad series and he might be packing his backs earlier than he had planned to. India's very infrequent test match schedule in the future also can work out in Dravid's favor since the age has already started to show its signs on him, e might get lot of much needed breaks between series so that he can rejuvenate himself and be ready for the next challenge. Having said all that i cant see him playing him beyond 2012 any more. Max he may retire in first half of 2013. I would love nothing more than to see him bat like the text book definition of batting.


3. Sachin Tendulkar:

Sachin Tendulkar after his famous knock of 200* against
South Africa.

                      As expected the next on this queue is our very own "master blaster", the go of Cricket, Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar. He enjoys the liberty of not being frowned upon by BCCI for his inconsistency(if any) nor has the worry of his form going down. In the entire of his career(as much as i have seen), he has never let his form go down considerably, except the time he had his injury(The back injury and the infamous Tennis elbow), during which he had get used to much lighter bat than what he used to. Any one on this earth is vulnerable to such changes. But he stuck in there hard and determined and what we see today is pure magic. The way he can tear the opposition into pieces , i hardly see any one in the entire cricketing world doing it for so long time. Having said all that he also one day face the inevitable. He has already reduced playing the ODIs considerably and he never played any T20s after his first one. Talking about Tests he has scored more than 2200 runs in last 2 years at an average of more than 58 which also includes 6 110s. As far as i can see, no body in the world can influence him on his retirement other than him. as said even he has to retire one day and that day might not be very far away. The whole world is speculating him to retire after the much hyped 100th 100. but the way he is playing currently there are no guarantees of this as such. From what i can see he might not play anymore cricket of any for at any level after 2013. Yes he can continue playing cricket as long as he is enjoying it. I would hope that day when he stops enjoying playing cricket might not come at all. As we all know he is the kind of person who gives youngsters much encouragement. But still the team INDIA will be needing him at each and every major competition they enter.

Is Clarke an Australian Cricket team captain...??!!

The era of cricket i grew up watching i have seen many captains come and go. The most significant of them are the Aussie captains, namely Waugh and Ponting who have won the "World cup" as captains. The thing i most respected them for their attitude as a captain. Ponting in particular for his aggressiveness in the field. Ponting , "The Punter" , as they call him was in particular was a treat to watch his captaincy in the match. the "win it no matter how" attitude was the most significant one. The kind of aggressive field setting, the belief that your team is capable of handling the most of the difficult situations were few to name. But we cannot for get the infamous sydney test against India in 2007-08 Border-Gavaskar Trophy. But that adds to the message i'm trying to convey here.

       On the other Aussie captain i'm talking about here , i think we all(at least most of us) have witnessed the 1999 World cup. How the Aussie were down without carrying any points into super six stage. Being defeated by Pakistan and new-zealand in the group stages,they were required to win all their matches in the super sixes facing strong teams like India and South Africa, which they won both in a very convincing fashion. Then Waugh led the Australians to a epic semi-final win(Yes, it was a tie but i would like to call it a victory). Honestly it was one of the best cricket matches in my list. Then they went on to massacre the Wasim Akram(Another great personality in the Cricketing world, both as a player and captain) led  pakistani team. Even though there are may other occasions which proves the capabilities of Steve Waugh but i would rate this achievement of his the best.

      Coming to their current successor Michael Clarke.To start with i dont see a leader in him to be able to lead a cricket team, that too one like the Australian cricket team. The Australian cricket team are like the Brazil of Football(some can call it Soccer). Even a second string would be competitive at the international level. To be able to lead a team like that you need someone who the team can look up to when they are in crisis, like the Waugh or the Ponting.I know its a little too early for this but i dont feel Clarke is truely capable of doing what Waugh and Ponting did for so long. He had been named the captain of the australia Twenty20 cricket much before than the ODI and Test, i would like to skip that part because of the little respect i have for the shortest form of the game. Micheal clarke took over as a captain of the Australian cricket team after Ricky ponting was sacked from the spot when they ended their rien on the World Cup in the 2011 Cricket world cup held in India. Many(including me) still think that punter should have been continued as the captain of the Aussie since he had that calibre to lead the team like that. But thats another story including the form dip , age etc etc. Lets talk about the first venture of clarke as the captain. The Australia tour of Sri Lanka was a rain struck tour. Yes they managed to win the test series 1-0 but to the australians standard and the current shape the Sri Lankan team is post world cup, we would expect aussie to win much more consistently. but they some how managed to win it. thanks to the excellent batting performance by M.Hussey and the formidable australian (pace)bowling attack. Also they were very less competitive in the ODI series. The next venture of australa was the SA tour. I think i need not remind you of the 2nd test match in the tour. Even though SA choked for 98 in their first inning, you would not expect Aussie to fold for as a low total as 47(Nevermind the fact that they were 21/9). Many may blame it on their batting failure, or the kind of wicket they were playing on but still the captain has to take responsibility for his teams actions and the consequences from it. Result series drawn 1-1, which according to me Aussie should have won quite convincingly. Atleast against the low confident South African team after they once again proved their "The Chokers" title in the World Cup quarterfinals against New Zealand. Here again the the ODI series was won by Aussies , but not very convincingly. Here thanks to Shane watson's good all-round performance.

      Then came the worst of all. The new zealand tour of australia. According to me looking at the NZ team Aussies should have won the test series convincingly 2-0. But they managed only to draw the series 1-1. The second test match in particular in Hobart was the clear evidence for the fact that Post-ponting(As i would like to call it now) australian cricket team doesn't seem to working together as a single unit anymore. It looks as if each one is just bothered about their own business. They no more are bound by one strong leader that the Australian cricket team has been used to for so long a time. The likes of Waugh and Ponting had made the australian team to always look up to your captain when things are not going the way you would have appreciated. Each entity in a team has to be kept together and co-ordinated with at most interest by the captain of its team. The captain should be a person whom everyone in the team respects and obey his orders. And the captain should take responsibility of the whole team. Frankly i dont see clarke is doing a good enough job of leading a team like australia. You dont see that presence of a leader in the team that is constantly leading his team. Yes they are doing good against India in the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy, but i blame that in indians performing poor rather than Aussie doing great here. This leaves us with the question Is Clarke a competitive captain who can lead a team like australia. Will he be able to lead the Aussie to the top of Test Ranking again..?? Can clarke lead Australia to yet another world cup victory(Yes, next one is in 2015 in Australia and NZ). Can he bring back that murderous australian team back in to the world of cricket. Well its too early to make conclusion yet, but i dont see all these happening in the near future. Only time can answer these question. Lets wait and see what the new captain can do in his term. For now, enjoy the Border-Gavaskar trophy.