Episode 15 - The Tamil Nadu Premier League with Aushik Srinivas

Here we discuss the recently concluded Tamil Nadu Premier League cricket tournament and we have a member of the tournament winning team Albert Tuti Patriots Aushik Srinivas. We take a look into the life of the modern professional cricketer. The episode ends with a shocker his name is in fact pronounced as "Aashique"

Episode 14 : Is it time for Cricket to Move to Neutral Venues?

The #FastAppeal team was recently at the T201 at Lauderhill. What was it like to watch a match in a neutral venue. Especially, how was it when MS Dhoni denied L Rahul the second run in the final over by DJ Bravo that eventually changed the outcome of the game.

Episode 13 - Indian Olympic Conundrum

Back after a hiatus, we are now partnering with The SportsRush .What should India do to make a bigger dent in the Tokyo Olympics 2020? Some simple, specific and realistic solutions without pointing any fingers.

Episode 12 - Sophie's Choice (T20I World Cup Edition)

Would you prefer a hooker or a sweeper? Would you like to bowl first or to field first? The crew makes these tough choices in a game of "this or that".

Episode 11 - One ball, One Over, One Match, One Tournament

If you had to pick one player to play One Ball, One Over, One Match or One entire Tournament for you, who would you pick? The crew speculates, on the context of the upcoming T20I World Cup.

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Episode 10 - Talking cricket with Baba Aparajith

We talked about the game of cricket and the game of life with budding cricketer Baba Aparajith who plays for Tamil Nadu, The Rising Pune Super Giants. We learnt that Stephen Fleming once showed up to the Chennai Super Kings locker room dressed up as a cop.

IPL Auctions - When Christoper Nolan tries to teach you Calculus

Like every year the IPL 2016 auction was filled again with some brain scratching buys and unbelievable snubs. We hilariously fail at our attempts to understand the rationale of the franchises. We have finally decided that the IPL auction is like Christoper Nolan trying to teach you calculus, fun all the way but just don't try to make any sense of it. 

NFL vs Cricket - What NFL team most closely matches each national cricket team?

The NFL superbowl is this weekend and most Indians in the US now will be turning off the TV and logging on to Willow cricket on their streaming devices. Here we try to compare NFL teams and their national cricket counterparts, and try to identify which teams are most similar in spirit.

Australia - This is a no-brainer. The New England Patriots. Both are teams with strong winning traditions. It would be a big surprise if either teams did not make a deep run into their respective tournaments. Very well coached and tactically much superior to their peers. While Tom Brady has been the mainstay of Patriots for years, Australia also have been steadily captained by strong personalities like Ponting, Clarke and Smith. Another very striking similarity is that they tend to produce their best cricket/football during high voltage clashes. Just like how the Aussie domestic system continues to churn out exceptional players regularly, the Patriots generate players both from drafts and free agency that are highly productive in their system.

India - India are definitely the 2016 Pittsburgh Steelers. You have to be afraid of the batting and offense of each team. The top heavy offense captained by Ben Roethlisberger along with Antonio Brown, LeVeon Bell and Martavis Bryant can drop 45 points on any defense on their day. Likewise, the batting juggernaut of India with Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Shikar Dhawan in current form can similarly devastate any bowling attack as we recently saw in Australia. The defense (and the bowling) clearly lacks bite, but somehow manages to do just enough to clean up after their offenses. 

England - A team that has good balance of the young and the experienced, offense and defense, bowling and batting. Arizona Cardinals and England are perhaps sailing in the same ship. While exciting young players such as Tyrran Mathieu, Ben Stokes, David Johnson and Joe Root do offer a good foundation for each team in the future, it is imminent that both teams may soon be facing a fight against father time. It is perhaps in best interests of both teams to try to win a championship while Carson Palmer, James Anderson, Larry Fitzgerald and Alistair Cook are still on the field.

Pakistan - No team fluctuates so seamlessly between brilliant and rubbish as Pakistan does, perhaps except the New York Giants. On their best days both teams can defeat the top contenders. You can never write these two teams off no matter how mismatched they are. On the same hand we have also come to expect inexplicable defeats against weak opponents. Misbah-ul-Haq is a derp face like Eli Manning.

South Africa - It baffles me to hear that a team that has been this strong for all of the last decade has never found the gas to go all the way and win the top prize. They have forever now been trying to ward off the “choker” tag. While I am talking about South Africa, I might as well be talking about the Cincinati Bengals. All round team with good offense, good defense and no obvious weaknesses. Why they fail on the big stage is a mystery that confounds everyone.

New Zealand -  No chest thumping, no drama, just a team that is quietly getting things done. The Kansas City Chiefs are a good comparison to the Kiwis. Clearly, bowling/defense is the strength of each team. The offense/batting relies on the underrated consistency of Jamaal Charles/Kane Williamson and sporadic bursts of brilliance by Maclin or Kelce/McCullum or Guptill. I think if the Chiefs find a quarterback who is not as vanilla as Alex Smith, and if New Zealand find a game-changing finisher to play lower down the order, they would be much harder teams to beat. 

Sri Lanka -  Baltimore Ravens. Your big stars and marquee players have retired and the vestiges of what once was a formidable team are struggling to keep up to the reputation. Your games are becoming increasingly boring and I would happily watch re-runs of my favorite sitcom instead of your games. Unless some of the younger talent start to create some buzz, I am not likely to tune in any time soon. Terrell Suggs may be Tamilian.

West Indies - This one was a tough pick but West Indies have to be the Dallas Cowboys. Your team used to be good. At one point your team was indomitable. But now those days are over, now your team is rubbish and has been run to the groundly purely by mismanagement. While the West Indies needed corrupt officials, internal politics and bureaucracy to get that done, Jerrah Jones managed to do that singlehandedly in Dallas. Chris Gayle and Dez Bryant are infected by the same strain of verbal diarrhea.  

Bangladesh - They will be a good team in a few years, much like the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. They have had limited recent success and upset victories in the shoulders of new names such as Mustafizur Rahman, Soumya Sarkar, Jamies Winston and Mike Evans. But their success largely depends on whether these names can turn out to become match-winners on their own strengths.

Zimbabwe -  There are two kinds of bad teams. Bad teams you like and want to succeed, and bad teams that just frustrate you with their ineptitude. Zimbabwe and the Cleveland Browns are clearly factories of sadness. A team can’t perpetually be stuck in rebuilding mode. The glory days of the Flower brothers are a fading memory now. Even when against the odds a talented prospect such as Branden Taylor or Josh Gordon stumbles to your team, he is brought down by the surrounding dysfunction and gets wasted.

Marry, Date or Dump? : IPL Draft

If you owned an IPL franchise, would you marry these players, date them or just dump them?

IPL Auctions - A Very Expensive Fishing Trip

Sending owners to bid at the IPL auction is much like sending your girlfriend into a mall with your credit card. You both know there’s a limit, have an idea of what you want to buy, but still can never guess what you’ll walk out with - Did you buy all the work clothes you really needed? Or did you walk out with an over expensive négligée that will surely turn heads but will only last for that one glorious night? But, seriously, it is that time of the year when true patrons of the game put themselves in the shoes of the owners and fantasize about the team they need. The process of building a team goes much beyond buying an eclectic mix of players. It involves building a culture, creating a productive environment for player development, hiring astute coaching staff with vision such that your team is a turn ahead of every other team in every single game. This is what makes sports management truly challenging and fun. The IPL auction in the past few years has been a stage where tactical nous noses ahead of money. An auction which is a loose parallel to a linear equation with an unimaginable number of unknowns. And this is exactly why it is impossible to predict such events without accurate awareness of what teams might want. Given the knowledge of teams, coaching staff, the current squad and the purse, I am going to indulge myself in predicting a few key buys in this logistical nightmare. In other words, I am going to map the needs of each team to the top players available for this auction.

1.  Yuvraj Singh - Key contenders -SRH/Pune. SRH is a key player because Warner, Williamson and Boult are automatic choices and they have a non-existent middle order. Pune would also show interest because of Dhoni’s love to choke with spinners and the fact that he preferred Yuvraj over Pandya in the recent T20s against Australia. Without Jadeja in his arsenal, Pune would kill for Yuvraj.
2.  Ashish Nehra - Key contenders -RCB/Pune/Rajkot/SRH. RCB really need this. They have never had anyone to complement Starc and here is a good Indian fast bowler who can bowl at death. Fleming fought for Nehra at CSK and if he tends to do it again, Pune would also be in contention. SRH released Ishant and hence they would love some experience at the death to go all out attack with Boult upfront. Rajkot also is an obvious choice becuase they have an entire team to build. 
3.  Ishant Sharma - Key contenders - Rajkot/Pune/KKR. He was by far the most successful bowler for India at Australia (ODI series). Rajkot and Pune will obviously be in the fray for both Indian and imported quicks because they have no fast bowlers at all. KKR would also flirt with this idea but only at the right price because of Umesh’s inconsistency and lack of backup Indian options.
4.  Dinesh Karthik/Sanju Samson - Key contenders -DD/Rajkot. Delhi don’t have a keeper. Delhi’s middle order is messed up. Karthik has done well in Kotla.  Delhi have the highest purse and may perhaps be the only team willing to shell out the money for him. Period. Rajkot need a keeper as well unless they plan on having Brendon McCullum keep.
5. Mohit Sharma/Dhawal Kulkarni/Parvinder Awana - Key contenders -Pune/Rajkot/KKR. Indian seamers often are the fulcrum of any good IPL bowling attack. All of them need primary/backup Indian seamers and Dhoni’s love for hard-working seamers puts them high in the ranks for a spot at Pune. Needless to say, Rajkot have similar needs. Meanwhile, Umesh has not exactly been torching oppositions, hence, one amongst these three will be a good back option for KKR as well. 
6.  Shane Watson - Key contenders - DD/SRH/Pune. He was the surprise omission in the pre-draft process between Pune and Rajkot. I am sure both teams will be crying tears the size of October cabbages after seeing him run through India in the recent series. On top of this, all these teams lack a genuine pace bowling all-rounder who can bat really well. And, these teams have a big purse to take it out of the reach of other franchises.
7.  Martin Guptill/Aaron Finch/Dwayne Smith - Key contenders -Rajkot/Punjab. Firepower at the opening slot can make or break a team’s season. Rajkot are desperate for a 2nd opener; Punjab need a replacement for Viru. All 3 batsmen can go on to make huge scores at a strike rate north of 150 and wreck any well laid plans. Guptill in particular has been in great form in recent times.
8.  Tim Southee/Mustafizur Rahman/Dale Steyn - Key contenders -Pune/Rajkot/DD. These teams need a world class bowler. Southee, Mustafizur and Steyn are 3 very quality pacers who are in the market. Knowing the kind of bowler Steyn is, he will be eager to make SRH pay for their gaffe. Pune and Rajkot need to build a strong bowling unit from the bottom up and DD is looking for a reliable option to complement the ageing Zaheer and the inconsistent Shami. Mustafizur may be the budget option among the three.
9. Stuart Binny/Thissara Perera/Irfan Pathan/Mitch Marsh - Key contenders - Pune/DD/Punjab. If I pick a team, these would be my utility players who will do just what is asked of them. The idea is that they would play the roles of Dwayne Bravo or Corey Anderson. They allow teams to play an extra bowler/batsman without compromising on the quality of the team (yes, even Binny.. a little bit). 
10. Ishan Kishan/Rishab Pant/Washington Sundar/Karun Nair - Key contenders - RCB/Punjab. Uncapped Indian players are key to a successful IPL franchise. The U-19 T20 WC has thrown up some talent who will generate quite a buzz during the bidding. Captain Ishan and hard hitting Pant are both batsmen and keepers who should draw a high interest.  Washington Sundar is an exciting tall, young leftie who has a penchant for clearing the boundary. Meanwhile, Karun Nair from RR, has already proven himself in the earlier seasons.

 Some teams clearly have a need in certain areas and we have hoped to address these issues. These players are those we believe will have an impact on the bidding and are of strategic importance to the teams. We would be happy with even 40% of predictions working out.

Feel free to provide your own predictions and inputs on what we have given here. Especially if you have an opinion about Rajat Bhatia. If we find your opinions interesting, we would definitely talk about it for 5 minutes before landing a punch on your face! Cheers!

 By

Team Fast Appeal

Episode 7: 6 balls to an over

We take a look at 6 exciting and important topics. One of which is "What does Ravi Shastri do for the Indian cricket team?"

The art of producing holistic cricketers

A quick glance into Indian Test, ODI and T20 results in the new decade point towards quite a few problems that need urgent attention from the team’s infamous management. To begin with, Saurav Ganguly vacated the no.6 spot in the test team 8 years ago and we are still selecting players for that position by spinning a wheel to pick one out of Suresh Raina, Rohit Sharma, Ravindra Jadeja, Stuart Binny, Wriddhiman Saha or Naman Ojha. In the top of order, many have given up on Shikhar Dhawan whilst Ravi Shastri with hope and a prayer still continues to provide him opportunities. In the same time frame, barring Zaheer Khan till he hung up his boots, we have never really had a fast bowler who is an automatic selection. In ODIs, if not an all-rounder to the quality of Jacques Kallis we don’t even have one with the utility of Corey Anderson. And to add to the misery, we are slowly starting to see Dhoni’s super powers wane. For a reputed international cricket team, I must say that we are producing talent at a painstakingly slow pace. 

Rahul Dravid, at his MAK Pataudi lecture was critical about the nature of wickets dished out for the Ranji games. He even talked at length about how kids should be given a fair chance during school cricket by rotating them for matches and suggested the idea of a batsman retiring after he scores a 50 or 100. He reckons that this in turn will drive more kids to take up the game now they have a fair chance of succeeding. One can only admire the simplicity of the solution. In a post retirement interview, Virender Sehwag was at his cynical best while talking about corruption in the Delhi Cricket Board during player selection. After being dropped from the Indian team, he indicated that he had been constantly playing the Ranji Trophy and claimed that Mohit Sharma broke down with an injury purely because of playing back to back games at 2 different places with just 2 days of rest in between. While the changes that Dravid proposes will need work from the ground up, the problems that Sehwag sheds light on are battles we shouldn’t be fighting at at all. In the end they are two side of the same problem. While one appeals for quantity and drawing the average school goer into cricket, the other cries for quality and maintenance of existing talent.

To be fair, some of Ganguly’s replacements mentioned above did not lack quality, but, they simply weren’t well-rounded cricketers. I would say that we were lucky to have chanced upon these talents, despite the inherently flawed (and reportedly corrupt) set up, just due to the sheer volume of youngsters playing cricket. It becomes even more important to develop these youngsters and provide them with the intangibles to make them into cricketers are ready to face any team anywhere. Achieving such competence in a sport that is heavily influenced by conditions can be a tiring exercise. The obvious solution is developing a strong meritocratic domestic circuit mirroring the Australian system but this process will take time. But there are elementary changes that can cause a great deal of improvement. First, we must make sure that the Ranji and Duleep trophy games should truly push the players to play with a greater sense of competition. A drawn game should be awarded no points as opposed to split points, this automatically increases the value of winning. Along with this, we should consider having a rigorous calendar for our domestic cricket requiring more commitment from players irrespective hectic the international schedule is. There is no reason to play a meaningless 1 test, 3 ODI series against any opposition. As much these games destroy the context of the series, it also bores away your genuine viewer and well wisher. At this era where information and data are considered to be huge assets, we should be taking cues out of how Australia conducts its Matador Cup and Sheffield Shield. Making our local games meaningful and more competitive will not only help identify talent better, but will in itself provide intangible qualities such as tenacity and gamesmanship to the players playing at that stage. 

In cricket in general but more specifically applicable to India, scoring and taking wickets in alien conditions still remains the holy grail. As we lay back in our couches trumpeting the commercial success of Indian cricket, other Cricket Boards are working hard at bettering their systems. Money has never been the issue for BCCI, it has always been about how the money is used. The lack of both initiative and innovation is appalling. One idea is that, every year, we can pick 15 cricketers from the domestic system and 5 wildcards from the IPL (the IPL has in some cases been a good stage for few cricketers that have otherwise been dragged down by nepotism and bias in their domestic circuits). Instead of sending these cricketers to the casualty ward that we call the NCA, we could send them to what I like to call a “finishing school”. The initiation process for these younsters should have legends like Sachin, Wasim Akram, Glenn McGrath rubbing shoulders with these cricketers and working on their technique. Nothing inspires greatness as greatness itself. Also this need not be an elaborate set up, but rather just a 20 day boot-camp following the IPL. However it is important that this should be an annual tradition and be marketed as an award or honour for youngsters. Nothing will fire up a young cricketer more than the opportunity to work with their childhood heroes. 

This pool of 20 cricketers could then go to England, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia (the assumption being that they are already good in Indian conditions) and participate in their domestic circuits. Stats clearly indicate that players mature nicely when they make their second and third tours in overseas conditions. So, why not make their International senior debut a second coming? Even though it may or may not translate to long term success for each individual, the experience of playing in each condition will provide flexibility in team selection and tactics when touring overseas. This “fellowship” programme should be seen as a gateway to senior cricket and getting awarded this will itself serve as the driving force behind our domestic system. Rome was not built in a day. But it is disheartening for a fan to see his team perpetually stuck in a “building” phase and constantly underachieving. The only way to pull out of the doldrums is iterative improvement, and a systematic approach to physical and mental conditioning. Such trivial measures maybe a small step for the board but it’s a giant leap towards not disappointing the educated cricket enthusiast. 

By Jeyenth Veerarahavan

Episode 6: Sharma, Sran, South Africa and Some other things

What is the exact talent that the very talented Rohit Sharma has? Who is Barinder Sran? Why are South Africa failing? These and many other questions, the team takes a look.