Team India in 2017

It was a strange feeling not seeing Dravid and VVS in the batting card for team India last week in the first test against Kiwis. The team was without the services of the two veterans after almost 15 years. 

With 5 out of the 11 players in our squad in their 30's, we should be prepared to see more such replacements in the near future. 

Keeping that in mind, youngsters like Pujara and Kohli have shown tremendous promise and considering the performance of recent Under 19 team, the future of Indian cricket looks bright.

Here's a prediction for the Indian test team 5 years from now keeping in mind the 7 batsmen 4 bowlers combination used often by the Indian team. In bracket the members of the current playing 11 which they will replace are shown.

• Ajinkya Rahane (Gautam Gambhir)
• Unmukt Chand  (Virender Sehwag)
• Cheteshwar Pujara
• Virat Kohli(c)
• Manish Pandey (Sachin Tendulkar)
• Suresh Raina
• Parthiv Patel (wk) (MS Dhoni)
• Ravichandran Ashwin
• Umesh Yadav
• Harmeet Singh (Pragyan Ojha)
• Sandeep Sharma (Zaheer Khan)

While its almost certain that players like Pujara, Kohli, Raina, Ashwin will be there for many years to come (hoping that they are not prone to any career threatening injuries), players like Sandeep Sharma, Harmeet Singh, Manish Pandey also present a strong case for themselves.

Cricket World Cup-2011

          Summer of 2011 was in many senses "Unique". The world had witnessed the Japan Tsunami, Hosni Mubarak resigning in Egypt, Earthquake in New Zealand, in the national events we had A Raja being arrested in the 2G case, historic results in the West Bengal and Tamil Nadu polls, Saina Nehwal winning the Swiss Open, Vishwanathan Anand regaining his world no 1 title. There was one more  thing which was notable in the last summer. Cricket's biggest spectacle had landed in the sub-continent for the third time.

         

         

 The world cup was set up perfectly with great anticipation, with ICC's campaign-"The Cup that Counts" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhrUpmjFY5E)showing 14 captains walking on a tight rope to get their hands on the trophy which also showed the sub-continent street culture, pepsi too didn't stay away, it came up with its campaign- "Change the Game" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFzQUZTuw5Q), which featured the likes of  Dhoni, Pieterson, Bhajji, Sehwag, Shakib, Dilshan ,Malinga and my personal favorite Billy with his "tedhi ungal", Nike also came up with the "Bleed Blue" slogan, and later on released an exciting commercial during the tournament (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvRPz_zoTK4), and how can we forget "De Ghuma ke" - the official theme song! In short, the anticipation of the event was reaching a new high with each and everyday building up to the countdown.

         

         

BCCI's dominance

BCCI's dominance in World Cricket: Can it be Justified?

These days there are talks everywhere about the ICC being dominated by the BCCI. BCCI has in past been accused of using its financial might to influence some of the decisions made by ICC. How often do we hear some of the other member countries and former cricketers accusing BCCI for its interference in some key cricketing issues, that is probably a reflection of the financial power of the world's richest cricketing board- but does that give them the license to dominate at global stage?