The first one

The recent comments made by Rahul Dravid about the report presented by Indian Cricket Team's manager for the tour of South Africa, Chetan Desai , did not come to me as a surprise. Not that I was expecting such a comment from him but its more a question of capability of doing such a thing or making such a comment, which might be considered silly by many. Talking about one person's credentials in the Indian Cricket History, who is doing a managerial job with the team, is at best laughable. Furthermore, since the comments made were more about general attitude of Sehwag's and not about batting or bowling technicality, they don't seem unfair either. No cricketing knowledge is needed to gauge general attitude. And I think, Mr. Dravid erred in criticising a person while batting for his player. Defending your player is one thing and questioning managers credibility is quite another. So, why am I not surprised given Dravid is a nice guy and all that? Simply because he has

Finally, England have their first win against Australia during the ongoing travesty called the "Commonwealth Bank Series " after their miserably botched Ashes campaign where the only thing that they won was the toss a couple of times. And by travesty, I meant for the English. They have been generally deriding one day cricket during their build up to the Ashes. How very stupid of them.. I mean, I can understand Australians deriding one day, tests or whatever form of cricket. Hell, the guys win most of the games, any form of it and win every single one that matters. What I don't understand is how can England, so miserable in anything which says limited overs or any cricket in general these days, have such a complacent attitude . Specially, with the World Cup barely few months away. Till the Ashes were comfortably snatched, every other English player seemed to be in Ashes dreamland. Anyways, Ashes have gone to dust now and the English need wins like the other day to boost/ s

I have good amount of optimism about India 's chances in World Cup 2007. I believe the pieces of the puzzle are slowly falling into place. So, here is my eleven for the World Cup given present form and fitness. I will give the reasons for my optimism later on in the post. 1. Sourav Ganguly 2. R. Uthappa 3. R. Dravid 4. S. Tendulkar 5. Yuvraj Singh 6. MS. Dhoni (wk) 7. V. Sehwag 8. Irfan Pathan 9. AB. Agarkar 10. Harbhajan Singh 11. Zaheer Khan The rest to make up the 15 are as follows: 12. Dinesh Kartik (wk/middle order bat) 13. S. Sreesanth 14. Ramesh Powar 15. VVS . Laxman Let me give you my opinions about each one case by case: 1. Ganguly has done enough till now to be included in the squad as the first choice opener. He has scored runs regularly since his return in all conditions home and abroad. Also, the fellows unquestionable thirst for the bigger stage will hold India in good stead. If I were the coach, I will tell him not to throw away his wicket and build his