About this cricket business in India

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:i think venkat stepped in at a time when lots of people in the team were not getting along with gavaskar, and kapil had just started his career. he was an ok captain, but india played mainly for draws in that era anyway.

there was a time when marathis ruled the roost in indian cricket, but i have a sense that it is more democratic now. many of the payers who succeeded phenomenally in the last several decades have been from karnataka or AP. tamilians are also being given lots of chances, but they need to make some solid contributions -- many have great potential murali vijay, ashwin, dinesh karthik, mukund etc. of these only ashwin has made steady contributions and done enough to displace a frontline cricketer from the team (harbhajan singh) to earn a lasting place in the team.

truthbetold wrote:Shivalkar was as good as any one of the Indian spin quartet.

Marathadi-Saamiyaar wrote:VV Kumar - some thought was the bestest orthodox leg spinner. But he belong to the 60s and he did well in those 2 tests - just that he ran away from the Windies bowlers. You cant blame him as there was no helmet or restrictions on bouncers (or bumpers) bowled by Hall, Griffith, etc.

As a small boy I saw him in the 70s bowl and the batsmen really could never figure out where exactly the ball was pitching - it was such a beautiful archy trajectory. The batsman had to look "up" at the flight taking the ground off the eyesight - thus making it difficult to judge the relative position geometrically. Then not to mention his superbly disguised googlies.

Marathadi-Saamiyaar wrote:

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:i think venkat stepped in at a time when lots of people in the team were not getting along with gavaskar, and kapil had just started his career. he was an ok captain, but india played mainly for draws in that era anyway.

there was a time when marathis ruled the roost in indian cricket, but i have a sense that it is more democratic now. many of the payers who succeeded phenomenally in the last several decades have been from karnataka or AP. tamilians are also being given lots of chances, but they need to make some solid contributions -- many have great potential murali vijay, ashwin, dinesh karthik, mukund etc. of these only ashwin has made steady contributions and done enough to displace a frontline cricketer from the team (harbhajan singh) to earn a lasting place in the team.

There was a time when there were 7 to 8 players in the Indian team from Bombay alone.

Other than the 3 spinners, everyone was from Bombay... and they still desperately tried to replace Bedi with Shivalkar.

Kris wrote:

Marathadi-Saamiyaar wrote:VV Kumar - some thought was the bestest orthodox leg spinner. But he belong to the 60s and he did well in those 2 tests - just that he ran away from the Windies bowlers. You cant blame him as there was no helmet or restrictions on bouncers (or bumpers) bowled by Hall, Griffith, etc.

As a small boy I saw him in the 70s bowl and the batsmen really could never figure out where exactly the ball was pitching - it was such a beautiful archy trajectory. The batsman had to look "up" at the flight taking the ground off the eyesight - thus making it difficult to judge the relative position geometrically. Then not to mention his superbly disguised googlies.

>>>Me too. I got his autograph as well. It was at some match in Loyola. One of my older cousins was a big fan of his and sing his praises as a leg spinner.

garam_kuta wrote:

whoa ! lemme ask you this: did engineer complete a century before lunch or not, against windies?

truthbetold wrote:Gk,
cricinfo says he plundered 94 before lunch against hall, Griffith, sobers, and Gibbs.f
Frederick's of windies scored a century before lunch against fearsome lillee and thomson.
At Perth if I remember correctly.