Sudeep D'Souza

Since every one seems to be having a view about why India did so badly in the T-20 World Cup. I thought I would add my view to all the ones floating around. Right now I'm watching India getting spun out by South Africa and one of the commentators just said, "India has been found lacking in handling the short pitch delivery by West Indies and England and now they are finding it hard against the spinning ball." What an apt statement ! The only countries we beat were Ireland and Bangladesh and that too those wins were not really convincing. So what went wrong after such a successful experience in the IPL? I don't think it was fatigue as the coach put it. I don't think it was infighting in the team as some of the columnists have been suggesting. I don't think it is the lack of ability as all of them are good cricketers. I think it has to do with what each player learnt about other players from other countries in the IPL and brought back the knowledge to the nati...

Given below are the details of renting the ground at Lahari Resorts From 9:00am 2:00pm 7:00pm To 0:00pm 6:00pm 00:00hrs RATES WEEKDAYS Rs. 5000/- Rs. 5000/- Rs.10000/- RATES WEEKENDS Rs. 7000/- Rs. 7000/- Rs.12000/- PROVIDED BY THE RESORTS: Ø WICKETS Ø SCORE BOARD Ø MARKING OF CREASE NOT PROVIDED BY THE RESORTS: Ø BALLS Ø BATS Ø PADS AND KITS NOT PERMITTED: Ø CORK BALL Ø SYNTHETIC BALL PERMITTED: Ø GLACE BALL Ø RUBBER BALL Ø SOFT TENNIS BALL Ø HARD TENNIS BALL Here are some pictures of the match we played on this ground

This is a repost of the article I published on the 10th of Jan, 2008 as I have added a new ground - Lahari Resorts. View Larger Map In this post I will try and update the list of cricket grounds that i know in Hyderabad. The grounds that I have listed till now are MCH Play ground, Ameerpet Francis (Do not have the contact number but go to the ground and ask for him). The charges are Rs. 1100 for the ground. They do not charge for anything more. You get the ground from 9:00 AM to 4:00PM. The ground is small. Welfare Center, Sanath Nagar Dhanraj Babu (+91 9394556356). The charges are Rs. 1100 for the ground. They charge you an additional Rs. 500 for the mat and Rs. 100 for cleaning and drawing lines and stuff. They are supposed to give you the ground from 9:00 AM to 4:00PM but what they do is that they pocket extra money from another team wanting to play and give the ground out to them for the remainder of the day assuming that you won't play for the whole day. So what happened the o...

Here are some pictures from the cricket ground that is present at the Welfare Center, Sanath Nagar. Here are some points to note. The ground as you can see has absolutely no grass but the good thing is that is quite level and there are hardly any pot holes. They put a half mat but you have to make sure that it is nailed properly. So it is good for some of the players to reach earlier and make sure that the mat is nailed properly. You are not given any equipment including wickets so you have to carry your own. The boundaries are fuzzy which the caretaker of the ground will show you before the start of the match but you need to have a discussion between the captains and decide on the boundaries before the start of play since there is a stage and some walls that are quite close to the wicket. You will get no water on the ground so carry your own. We usually buy a 25 lt water can and take to the ground. Tell the caretaker to lock the gate and not to allow anyone onto the ground during the ...

With all the furore over the current test series in Australia there is one thing that is coming out very clearly and that is the incompetence of the ICC. I feel that the ICC is incompetent due to the following reasons Having laws that are vague - the law regarding racial discrimination is very vague and is completely left to the interpretation of the person who is administering it. With so much tension created by bad umpiring the ICC should have made sure that there was an amicable settlement to the racism issue by intervening and ensuring that it did not become the issue it is now. Dragging its feet on umpires - it does not have any method where umpires have to be accountable. Right now an umpire can do how many ever mistakes they want and there is nothing that can be done to them. It has hardly acted in a powerful manner as a governing body should - it has dragged its feet and let things escalate to a situation that it may be hard to come out of. Its time the ICC woke up and made it...

Being a bit busy with life and work and not getting much time to follow the cricket match - I was intently reading the sports section of today's paper and saw that India pretty much lost all hope of winning the match on Day 3. So I started to read some of the columns to understand what happened when I came across a column by Sunil Gavaskar that said " Ishant not yet ready for Test cricket ". And then this is what I read at the end of Day 4 - Ishant takes a 5er. Congratulations Ishant and I hope you continue to defy all your critics. The point to note here is that commentators and columnists have to be careful about what they say and write. Ishant is just starting his career and something like this from someone as experienced as Gavaskar is totally out of line. This is not the first time that this has happened and if you have noticed they never apologize or accept that they made a mistake which makes them look bad to the public.