Asia Cup - Do we really need one?

After spending 'busy' days down under, Team India getting ready to defend their Asian Championship title. Asia Cup - A tournament played between all Asian teams in 50 over format and at the end one comes out as winner and called as Asia Champion.


Question is Do we really need tournaments like Asia cup? There is already a bigger and better tournament called "World Cup" played every 4 years. Every team has a dream of winning it and India is recent winner of world cup. Team participating in Asia Cup have already won this big trophy at least once. Pakistan in 1992, SL in 1996 and India in 1983 and 2011. So if you have such a big honour under your belt, what pride you have calling yourself as "Asia Cup Winner"? When you have already dominated world of cricket, no matter in which year, playing trophies like this makes no sense to me. I never heard of Australia-NZ playing for Pacific Island championship or SA-Kenya-Zimbabwe playing "Champion of Southern Africa".


If we are really playing tournaments like Asia cup, Asian team should give a thought on playing young players in their squad. It is obvious that you cannot gamble on new players in World Cup. Tournaments like Asia Cup are perfect place for younger people to step in and showcase their talent. Who knows we might get another Sachin, Murali out of this young bunch. Playing same old people day in day out in all these 'much hyped' tournament is really painful.


But there are cricket mad people and i am no exception to that. But after watching cricket for so many years, still not able to digest the concept of Asia Cup. Tournament will start from tomorrow and 2 big Asian Teams, India and Pakistan will come face to face after their WC semi final encounter. No matter how much I criticise Asia Cup, when India will play Pakistan or when Sachin Tendulkar will play his trademark shot, I will go Mad, that's for sure..


Enjoy the Asia Cup... :)

Test cricket - no more gentlemens game..Thanks Dravid

All Right...Finally Gentlmen from World of Cricket decided to hang his boots. Like his batting where he gave good thought before playing each delivery, he must have given a same thought before taking decision of lifetime.

Journey started all the way from his state team, Karnataka. After scoring loads of consistent runs, finally he managed to open doors for world of cricket. Every player in the world have dream of making his test debut at Lord's and Dravid was no different than other cricketers. After England won the 1st test, 2 debutant got their test cap in 2nd Test, Ganguly and Dravid.


Batting at No 6, he showed lot of character in his debut test match and almost pulled out a dream of scoring 100 on debut. But he was not lucky enough and managed to get a nick and walked back to pavilion after scoring good 95 runs. After that inning, England always remain his favourite place to score runs. Every time Dravid travel England, wickets keep falling at the other end in swinging condition, but this man was rock solid. Bowler need loads of patience to get rid of this player.


Consistency has always remain the key factor for Dravid. When he started to bat at No 3, we found new Dravid. No 3 position in any form of Cricket is consider as most challenging position and this man loves challenges. Be it a good start from team or bad start from team, the moment he walks on the field, he always look calm and composed. Australians try sledging, South Africans tried short balls, but they can't move this rock an inch. He prefer to answer with bat and that is what he did throughout his career.

Who will forget Kolkata test when Dravid and Laxman pulled out a victory from hopeless situation. Dravid was the perfect partner for Laxman on that day. The way Laxman was playing in Kolkata test, what he need was someone who can hold the other end. Dravid anchored for good 2 days and made australians paid for everything.

India never known as better tourist team. Winning test matches in Australia, SA, NZ always remain a dream. But match winning 100 at Adaleide, 90 runs inning at Perth really set the momentum for Team India. Along with Tendulkar and Laxman, he pulled back some great victories overseas. As said earlier, England always remain one of his favourite hunting country. In July 2011, finally a dream come true after scoring 100 at Lord's...what a celebration that was..never saw Dravid celebrating any of his 100 in such fashion. That 100 really means a lot to him. He do not want to prove anyone wrong, but he wants to prove himself that he can do it...all he need is Patience.


One day affair was not so good for Dravid. People always criticised him as slow starter, but at the end of his career, he managed to play over 300 ODI games, with 10000+ runs and 12 centuries under his belt. Not a bad career for a player who was always under the hammer in one day cricket for his place. In 2003 world cup, he stood behind the stumps as Wicket keeper and scored runs as well. 


Dravid was really a hope for billions of indian cricket fans. We can always sit back and relax when Dravid was batting. No matter at what pace he play, but his presence on the ground matters a lot to cricket fans. Unfortunately in a country dominated by Tendulkar fans, he did not get the respect that he deserve and that's the most cruel part of his career. He won the matches in India, overseas single handedly. But not enough for fans to rate him over Tendulkar.

One blog never ever will be enough to cover journey of this legend. But now Time to say goodbye to this greatest batsman from world of cricket. Test cricket will always miss him at No 3 spot and at his favourite position, first slip.

Thank you Dravid for all the wonderful memories from Test Cricket.

Adiós...!!!