Too early for Srinath to be a match referee?

Javagal Srinath had barely moved into his new role as a commentator that he is now offered the 'responsible' position of a match referee by the ICC according to this report on rediff.com. This may not be the end of his fledgling commentating career, but there are certainly questions to be asked about the wisdom of appointing a player whose playing career has ended just a couple of seasons ago as a referee.

It will boil down to the question of fairness and toughness -- can the referee be absolutely fair without being inflenced by personal prejudices and emotions, against players with whom he shared dressing rooms and intense rivalries with? For example, if Srinath has to haul up Rahul Dravid (or in a more unlikely scenario now, Sourav Ganguly) to reprimand or fine or suspend them, will he be able to do it?

Of course, it is not impossible and he may well have the objectivity and mental toughness to handle the tricky moments--- but why create a scenario that could easily have been avoided. A few years down the line, with the clarity of vision that distance from the game as a player will lend, would have been so much more appropriate.

Cricketers from the past generation, such as Dilip Vengsarkar or Shivlal Yadav, both with considerable administrative and management experience would have made better choices at this stage.

Flattering to deceive

During the first test against the mighty Aussies, Bangladesh came so near to creating one of the biggest upsets of recent times; they dominated the test match for close to 2.5 days, but then unfortunately, the game is played over 5 days. So that did not happen. The outcome of the second test was probably never in question but for the prospect of heavy rains that threatened every day in the afternoon.

In the end though, Bangladesh had to be content with -- which they seeemed to take reasonable pride in-- taking both test matches against the Aussies to 5 days.

There is a difference in taking positives out of a bad result in a bid to look forward versus taking being satisfied with a bad result ("It wasn't as bad as we expected it to be" kind of sentiment). Sadly, what came through in the media interviews of Habibul Bashar, the genial Bangladeshi captain was exactly that.

Anyway, the two sides have moved on to the one day games with the indelible memories of that Cardiff shocker still providing the minnows the adrenalin fix if they wanted any. Yet again, Bangladesh had their chances, but in the end it was a familiar story. Bangladesh lacked the firepower to finish Australia off --- and the champions recorded another win, which as those who saw the game will acknowledge wasn't as easy as the scorecard will show.

It is absolutely certain that the team has some good talent in their ranks-- the tiny sparks flare up occasionally to give fleeting glimpses of vast reservoirs of potential. Unfortunately, it seems that they haven't reached that tipping point when all of that potential collectively explodes into results.

I believe it took a very controversial and acrinomious tour of Australia for Sri Lanka to reach that tipping point and begin to be seriously considered in the big league. What will it take Bagladesh to make them learn to win?

Sunny Gavaskar & the British Media

Seems like Sunil Gavaskar and the British media will never make peace. Sunny never misses a chance to take pot shots at the Englishmen -- be it how boring their cricket is or the whinging habits of English cricketers and/or media. Here's the latest as reported on the Quote/Unquote section of Cricinfo.
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"There were snide remarks from the British media about some of the hotels in India, very cleverly forgetting that hotels in places like Durham and Derby or Sussex are pathetic to say the least. At least none of the Indian hotels are known to be haunted as the one in Durham is"
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Wonder how Sunil Gavaskar would have gotten along on air with the Sky Sports commentary team, particularly Nasser Hussain, if he had been part of the commentary team for the recently concluded Eng- India series...

A playing field ?

Mike Hussey is a wonderfully exciting cricketer to watch-- his cricket oozes passion, he is incredibly talented and skillful and all those years of waiting for his turn in the sun seemed to have given him a reasonably good (cricketing) brain. So I was dispappointed when I saw this piece on Cricinfo, which reports that he was irked at knowing the stump microphones were not turned off between deliveries during the 2nd test match between Australia & South Africa.

The implication is that the Aussies would like to continue to say whatever they feel ---things that aren't really suitable for kids to be listening at home. They would rather that the microphones be turned off so that whatever 'chat' goes on in the center is not heard in the broadcasting rooms and from there in the living rooms of the watching public. To justify that a lot of things get said in the center in the heat of passion is absolutely ridiculous -- an odd exchange, an occasional taunt or two, the in-your-face glare etc. are integral to the on-field drama, but for some strange reason, Australian cricketers simply don't seem to know where to draw the line.

Shane Warne's penchant to talk dirty...on the phone..is well documented but can't the rest of the Kangaroos simply not give up talking dirty? They'll probably only learn when the others pay them back in kind and hit them where it hurts most, like a diminutive and affable Carribbean cricketer did to Glenn McGrath a few seasons ago (and unfortunately ---I don't condone whatever happened that day one bit)