Mathews should not captain

I  hate to talk about individuals, but sometimes we have to breach that ethic when something looks so clearly evident and straightforward. This post is not favouring anyone or opposing the current captain as a player. To be frank, it is just to say that his captaincy looks so very dumb.

Yesterday SL lost with a heavy margin to Bangladesh. Although they were the favourites and a SL win would be a surprise at that moment, the scale of loss was too bad for even this weak team. It opens scary speculations about the team and its captaincy. It shows symptoms of chronic diseases that may not be cured in the short period before WC.

Despite the individual brilliance of Malinga, the rest looked like a flock of deer in the headlight. It wasn't the best opposition, just Bangladesh, and they were suffering from an injury and many collapses. I don't think the game was lost in any missed catches. I think they lacked a plan for the game entirely. And the captain was just hoping that something will bring the victory - something like a weather event or divine help or something.

I think the lowest point of the game was what happened after Tamim came for the second time to bat with the injury. He wouldn't have survived any delivery onto the stumps. But the only one he played was bowled to his body [WTF? injure him more?] and then SL captain never thought that other batsman should not be given the last ball single. That is street cricket, backyard cricket, or even no cricket but common sense. And that gives the best statement about SL captain.

That captaincy explains why SL loses. Have talent but no plan no thinking, just waiting for something to happen. And that also explains why SL does well in tests but fail in shorter formats. Simply because they play good strategies as evident in West Indies test series, where Mathews is not the captain. When he did last in tests we almost lost to Zimbabwe. Anyone would have been better, Chandimal, Lakmal, Tharanga, Thissara [Thissara was pretty good in captaining]. The batting failure also shows signs of lack of any plan, as they just played their shots and lost wickets.

Also, it was a crazy selection. For the lack of a batsman, they played a bowler. While having a player like Dickwella aside they played an extra bowler. Then to patch the hole they created in batting they played Dhanajaya too early and lost him. The only gain we had in SA series was the settling of no 6,7,8 with Dhananjaya Thissara and Dasun. It is very important to keep them intact, because, when Chandimal recovers they will surely be batting at those positions. If they want to fill Chandimal they should have played someone else. But keeping those 6,7,8 positions intact. For me, this tour's expectation would be how SL's 6,7,8 play in collapses [which will surely be there]. They should not have broken that just to accommodate this game.

Anyways, one more loss may kick them out in whichever stage. At least let's hope they'll do basics right. And among them, for me, is to relieve Angelo Mathews from this unnecessary burden of leading the side.

Nevertheless, I started suspecting the potential of the coach too. This cannot happen w/o his guidance.

Ball tampering and illogical laws of cricket

In the follow up to Smith-Warner-Bancroft saga, the concerns of St Lucia incident involving Chandimal was already apparent. If we recap the proceedings, Smith-Warner-Bancroft saga had one high quality in it, that it was absolutely stupid. I mean, here we have a cricket team that discussed to change the shape of the ball in the team meeting, brought a sandpaper (of all things) and took it in the middle of the ground and applied it on the ball in clear daylight. If that much was not enough they chose a sandpaper with a yellow back, whereas yellow has been a color chosen for road marks for the drivers to see at a distance.

So, as expected, they got caught, confessed, cried, daddies patted, wives walked by and finally, we all have a clear case. Despite the shame and what not, everyone must be happy to have a clear decision in the game, win or loss you may call it.

But the real thing is not that clear, many scores level and game ends in the margin of doubt. Sitting in the middle of all the mess is the game of Cricket, the champion sport of vagueness and incomplete legislation. For an example, it is perfectly legal to tamper the ball with some things whereas some other things are not allowed. The allowed things are also not clear, and there is no definite margin. You are not allowed to apply foreign objects but you can apply a handkerchief which is a foreign unregulated object itself. You are not allowed to apply any rough material, but you can use your outfit. Now how many have thought of the possibility to have a sandpaper-like logo on the outfit?

This is another vague case in cricket like pitch fixing, where the curator is allowed to "fix the pitch" for the advantage of the home team, but not for the advantage of the bookies.

Laws are more than partial, in fact, they mean nothing here. They lead us to lunatic ends.

So did they in St Lucia. Dinesh Chandimal was thought to be feeding himself a sweet and rubbing saliva on the ball. So his action is deemed as a tampering, but had he taken the sweet during the break and kept it in his mouth, it would be perfectly legal to apply saliva. I mean, it is legal to apply saliva, legal to eat sweets, legal to have sweets in the mouth and apply saliva as long as you do not put it in the mouth in front of the camera. All that for a street myth that sweets change the shine of the ball.

And was it a sweet? As Chandi had sweets and almonds in the pocket and says that he does not remember which one it was. As the camera fails to find which one, he was in effect accused of "having sweets in the pocket" which any school kid can get caught when parents put their trousers to wash.

Now, this is not a face-saving for Chandi. Seriously, he may have intentionally changed the shape of the ball. Not only him, maybe most of these sweet chewing cricketers are doing the same. But it could equally be fair to say that they eat sweets totally unintentionally.

What a lunatic law is that cannot differentiate the two, define the margin. Not just here, the whole list of tampering techniques can be portrayed as totally innocent and natural actions, except for a yellow sandpaper

I don't know whether Dinesh Chandimal cheated or not, although he is hell bent insisting that he did not. But he is surely sitting on a match ban, as the same claim was upheld against Du Plessis. Punishment is going to be harsher than that due to current ICC drive against tampering (or the subset of tampering which they cannot stand). Regardless of his innocence, SLC (or whatever remains under that name) should take this the longest they can, for the sake of clarifying the law correctly, just like we managed with the flexing of the elbow.

Like I said before, we can tackle the yellow sandpaper in clear daylight. But such fools are so rare, mostly the culprits mimic the innocent and innocent get caught by mistake. Usually, a legal system should protect the innocent at the cost of the occasional culprit getting away, but here it does exactly opposite.

The rise of Bangladesh

After their back to back wins in Nidahas T20 Trophy against SL which eventuated the latter's exit, many are talking about the rise of Bangladeshi cricket. Most ppl think that it started with the tenure of Hathurusinghe. Although he was instrumental in the matter he wasn't everything.

If you want a turning point, you gotta go back to 2007 WC first round, India vs Bangladesh. See the scorecard. There are three names with 50+ scores. And those three names, youth at the time are the three colossal towers of their game in 11 years from there. India received an exit from WC after that game.

But that was only one fact. There are some other facts that Cricinfo won't report. The team management, cricket administration, school level upliftment, infrastructure development, etc. The secondary achievements like U19 dominance (most those noteworthy U19 players are now in national side), quality and effective first class (list A, T20 local included) and T20 franchise that is managed very well. Also most importantly the enthusiasm of a big nation that caused it all.

Bangladesh is a big nation, and their economy is capable of building a world-scale dominance like in India. Since the second big nation in cricket - Pakistan - has gone bonkers, they have the capacity of becoming the other cash cow after India.

There was once a time where rich nations dominated cricket whereas poor nations struggled not only in the game but also in everyday life. Finances of the game were only ripe in richer nations and players of poorer nations merely volunteered for prestige and privilege. Although the struggle of everyday life may remain somewhat the same, the poverty lines have moved inside the national borders. Of those poorer nations, some rose up above the richer nations purely for their collective purchasing power, being bigger consumers in total hence having more value in the money invested in sponsored activity such as cricket. Population instead of per capita GDP became more important. And today they throw ridiculous amounts of money into the game where the players of richer nations look more like volunteers playing for prestige and privilege. It won't be SL or West Indies ever because few millions of people mean nothing anyways. But India, Pakistan or Bangladesh have individual populations bigger or in the range of the sum of all the other smaller test nations.

I am not talking about Bangladesh winning next WC. I am talking about the center of gravity moving close to them like it did with India. Them handing out big sums to first world beggars who would tweet and facebook after each game to patch up the hurts that their Bangali sahibs got from them during the match, just like how Starc would do after Smith's actions hurt his franchise master Virat Kohli. I foresee a second India across its Bengali border.

Speaking of India, money came long before but the recent in-ground dominance of India also began in a game in 2007 WC, incidentally against Bangladesh. Yes, the defeat in that same game changed Indian think tanks a lot and we all know their response through the past 11 years after that humiliation.