Mumbai meltdown

Last copy from The Australian's correspondent in Mumbai:

"Twenty20 is perfectly suited to India's young men who smash the ball with incredible ferocity and can sustain such efforts for the short period needed, although they do find themselves exposed over longer forms of the game.

"Australia fielded badly and conceded 24 extras - and that didn't include the two fives the fieldsmen gave Gambhir in run-out attempts that resulted in overthrows.

"The visitors looked tired and eager to get home and drove the route to the airport a few hours after the game. The Indians drove the reverse route four weeks back in front of a million or so people.

"It was an amazing scene then and one that steeled a couple of the Australian players to take them down a peg or two.

"Those celebrations were reprised to a lesser extent when the Indian players clambered aboard Gambhir's new car and did a lap of honour of Brabourne stadium.

"If you looked up in the stands as they did you could almost see the ghost of English captains past, wondering what on earth these colonials had done to the game."

Good to be back

... and in that time: India won a thrilling Test series; lost an equally exciting ODI series 4-3; won the inaugural Twenty20 and are currently back in India and already back on the ODI bandwagon.

That's the size of the current international calendar and the Nutley can't afford too much time away as it struggles to understand coding and html. I'm the acronym Pebkap someone once told me: problem exisiting between keyboard and person. Anyway, this blog is tentatively back and running and will form part of a new website called lovecricket.net.

This will be launched in the next few weeks during an exciting time for all facial haired cricket lovers. The Nutley will be involved in Movember this year, which aims to raise money for male prostate cancer. More later

Scotched

A lack of posts this week from the Nutley, to go with the lack of cricket being played. I've been in Glasgow where the India and Pakistan one-off charity game was due to be played.

All that was managed were handshakes with Prince Charlie from both teams before the rain came down and the match cancelled. A shame for the Clydesdale Cricket Club, who had worked tirelessly for three months to get the game on. If it had been played the following day it would have been played in near sunshine.

Anyway, listen to the podcast of the event as I try and make 10 minutes of audio from a game that never happened.

Cricket the catalyst for break-up

More hot cricket-loving gossip from Mumbai... It looks like the international touring calendar has been responsible for another break-up in the world of cricket as Indian Yuvraj Singh and Bollywood actress Kim Sharma have split.

Best excerpt from Sharma interview:

Did you become friends with any cricketers during your relationship with Yuvraj?

I am sick of cricketers and I don’t want to talk about them. I am over with that stage of my life.

Silly bowling tricks

Nice anecdote from Charles Randall's cricket site:

John Barclay mentioned to a taxi driver in India during the England Schools tour of 1970 that the umpires never gave anything out. “Ah, that’s easy,” said the driver. “What you must shout loudly, instead of ‘howzat’, is ‘where’s Allah?’ and then the umpire will instantly point his finger to the sky and say ‘up there’.” Didn’t work, but Barclay tried it again for Sussex at Ilford in the 1981 season. “Not out,” said umpire Shakoor Rana. “Not that silly trick again,” he whispered later.

Powar spinner

As ever, India are imminently back on the cricket scene. Their tour to Bangladesh early next month excludes a few big names but this blog is overjoyed with the inclusion of right-arm off-spinner Ramesh Powar.

The 28-year-old has been an on-off ODI player for three years now (24 wickets at 27 from 18 matches) without even a sniff in the Test arena. The image of Powar in India's light blue one-day kit, sporting trademark red shades to complete his rather portly figure has always left the Nutley running for the remote whenever he is playing. Perhaps he is the Test arena's answer to our man Dwayne Leverock.

He seems to have this ability of how the game should be played, too: a great fighter coupled with a smile or two after a ripping delivery. He also gives the ball good flight and it is refreshing for India to have an off-spinning talent in the making after years of left-arm slow bowlers and leggies.

Has he the potential to succeed at Test level?

India to finally reward fans?

With 2006 being a relatively quiet year in Indian cricket, 2007 will be a rollercoaster year for Greg Chappell's troops.

Already in the grips of a home ODI series against the West Indies, the World Cup will heap more pressure on the team from its millions of expectant fans, while Test tours to England and Australia will be just as tough.

However, the last year has seen little cricket from India and this must be one of the few times before a big tournament like the World Cup that the players will go to feeling fresh.

Read Sunil Gavaskar's article on India's year ahead here.

Cricket crazy

As if they didn't have enough to get their teeth into with all the political wranglings in Indian cricket, the Indian media have now taken to savaging the live coverage of cricket on domestic radio.

Sunday night's popular 'Cricket Controversies' on ND-TV was this week titled 'Why is cricket coverage so sub-standard on Indian radio?' (Brian Johnston will be looking down aghast). The show featured the acclaimed broadcaster and journalist Harsha Bhogle, who actually made his name on state-run radio.

The heated debate lived up to its title with one guest star getting rather carried away and demanding that cricket 'must be taken off the air in the new India'.

The night at least finished on a more relaxed note when a local Mumbai radio DJ suggested that coverage of the game should be more laidback. To make his point, he did three impersonations: a squeaky Sachin, an angry Sourav Ganguly and, most bizarrely of all, a rather Indian-sounding Geoffrey Boycott!