Cricket ramblings continue..

Realised that I didnt pay tribute to Nitin (Not u ganji - i mean Goel) - in my last post.. or to Swapnil.. Both fighters to the core - have been invaluable to the team.. and of course there is Esh who has bled for the team ;)

Anyway - this is not about being good to people.. this post is about my take on the strategy - and my attempt to influence team management...

I may trash some people and thier abilities here - but no hard feelings guys - u know how capitalistic worlds are run :p - but seriously - please dont get senti :)

First, Whats working? (pls note how i placed 'whats working' first - in the spirit of positive thinking :p)

a) Our bowling absolutely rocks (apart from the spin bowler who just plain sucks! and that we dont have a back up for Tapish - come on Bharat/Raff!)

b) Our middle order - Whether its the cool killer tapish, Solid Bakir, Paddu or the substitute middle order batsmen (Bharat, Lal etc) - we always look our best when these guys are in the middle.. singles come easy - the occasional four looks effortless - over the last 6-7 matches - this is usually a phase for 10-15 overs of the match - typically 8-23th over ..

c) No dropped catches yet - and ganjis slip catching nothwitstanding (actually even he got a runout :p) we've been a pretty neat side.. till now at least :)

Whats not working?

a) Our average score is lower than it should be - we should have hit the mediocre sides for at least 200 in each match

b) Our starts are slower than they could be (with restrictions and all that)

c) In the last few overs, the lower order isnt able to accelerate properly, either losing the wickets too fast in a frenzy to go out there and smash the first ball for four or six (read: Raff, Shiv and Paddu are going in too late :p)

My ideas on further improving an already excellent team. Pretty much all of it revolves around being flexible and not planning a batting order in terms of who goes after whom but thinking of who should go at what stage of the innings

So - this is how I believe we should structure our team - comments obviously invited :)

Core middle batsmen : Bakir, Tapish, Paddu, Matt, Bharat - these guys should ideally be there by the 10th over and one of these guys should play on till the end.. Send them at whatever situation they will score at a run a ball - only issue is that we have only 2/3 of this kind and so they shouldnt take too many chances

Single pickers: Lal, Swapnil, Manish, Venkat (?) - these guys should play around the core batsmen - these are our gritty batsmen, who can either stay there while the bowling going well and can rotate the strike and give the core batsmen more strike.. the occasional boundary is a sweet bonus.. :)

Slammers: Raff, Shiv, Nitin Goel - This is the bunch that flinches everytime some1 defends a ball pitched up - and Raff even goes to watch other games cos he thinks esh and Ganji are batting slowly.. Ideally if they play 4/5 overs in the middle - those will give almost 50 runs, now whether u want it in the early part (fielding restriction time), or around the 15th over to speed things up a bit or later in the 24th over onwards - thats completely the captains call but its a shame to have hard hitters sitting in the pavilion till the 27th over and then they need to go slam from ball 1 .. One more thing .. if they are slammers - no point asking them to bat like opening batsmen in the nets - let them have a go.. in the nets too :)

Opening Defenders: Esh, Ganji, Sriram - Sriram can pretty much play in any of the roles we talked about - so lets talk about what the blunters need to do .. Esh and Ganji need to ensure that for the first 5 overs we dont lose a wicket - not too differently from the last match - a little more single taking may help - and a few more of ganjis sweetly timed shots on the legside may actually help us forget the last 2 seasons :p

So nett, keep each of these groups ready depending on the situation of the match..

Anyway - thats the opinion from the bottom of the pyramid - im sure the the view from up there will be a little different..

but on a separate note : here is to Paddu - the glue that holds the splinters together.. Take away his brilliant cricket skills and mind, take away his enthu that lifts the team up or his super-gentlemanly conduct and ull still be left with his ever smiling self (despite pain, tiredness or plain irritation)

(if that doesnt get us up the order raff, nothing will!)

anyway - time to get back to work - i love WFH days :)