ARTHUR: WE WOULD HAVE TO PLAY EXCEPTIONALLY WELL

Mickey Arthur believes that it won’t take so much more time now before the Australian Cricket team rebounds from their Test Cricket crisis.


The last time the Aussies hit rock bottom, Arthur had been in charge as the coach, where they went down 4-0 in 2013 to India, with the homework-gate saga that followed and the lack of discipline that pervaded over the team as of that period.

These factors accompanied by the Champions Trophy game in England, ensured that Arthur’s time as the national coach of the Australian team, came to a premature end. With Arthur not taking it lying down, he instituted legal action against his employers, Cricket Australia, which in the end, led to a private settlement between both parties.

Arthur has however come out to speak about the situation of the Australian team, where they lost Five Tests in a row, and dropped so many players after the Hobart Test, a situation which he attributed to being a natural part of cricket in the international scene. Continue reading “ARTHUR: WE WOULD HAVE TO PLAY EXCEPTIONALLY WELL”

MS Dhoni Favors Fitness for Long Term

MS Dhoni says fitness is the only base for him to make the call of retirement.


Till he feels his running speed is up to the level he wants it to be, he would keep looking to represent India and it’s only when he starts having troubles achieving the same sort of speed in terms of his running, he would decide hanging his kit.

There has been a huge interrogation mark over the form of MS, but, as per the busty Jharkhand wicketkeeper, form can’t be the same all the time for anyone playing the game. It would fluctuate, but, what must be constant is the level of fitness especially when you get close to 35.

MS, who has normally kept himself away from the low profile tours like those of Zimbabwe and Bangladesh in the recent times, is travelling to Zimbabwe this time around with the rookie players and that is perhaps because of the lesser workload that he would have on his shoulders in the coming season.

The Indians, going by the programme that the BCCI has released, are mostly playing the tests in 2016-17 and are hardly appearing in the coloured clothes.
MS, who has quitted the longest form already, will have abundant leisure time then and therefore, there’s no reason skipping the Zimbabwe tour.
Continue reading “MS Dhoni Favors Fitness for Long Term”

Harbhajan Singh’s test career might have come to an end

Harbhajan Singh’s test career might have come to an end with his axing from the Indian playing XI for the second test match against Sri Lanka which was played at P Sara Oval, Sri Lanka.

Harbhajan had brought back into the Indian test side presumably on the insistence of the new captain Virat Kohli.

But, he failed to repay the faith put in him. He played in the one off game against Bangladesh and although, he got three wickets there, none of those wickets came when the batsman was trying to play a defensive shot.

However, despite that, he was retained for the Sri Lanka series and was even included in the playing XI for the Galle test match.

But, on a pitch, where the other two Indian spinners i.e. Ravichandran Ashwin and Amit Mishra enjoyed bowling a lot and shared 15 wickets between them, Harbhajan could get just one wicket in both the innings together and could not even manage to score some handy lower order runs.

India lost that game from a winning position and the think tank had no choice, but, to make some changes going further in the series and the first player whose place was found out to be quite vulnerable in the XI was Harbhajan.

The veteran off spinner was replaced by Stuart Binny and Binny, to his credit, made some crucial contributions in the remaining part of the series both with bat and ball. Continue reading “Harbhajan Singh’s test career might have come to an end”