The politics of cricket

Rain has curtailed today's Champions Trophy match between NZ and Aus - maybe it would have been a good thing if it were washed out! But then, Australia would have been un-necessarily cheated of points (and that would have made the run rate in this group very crucial - assuming both Aus and NZ, beat Bangladesh).
Anyway, rather than a boring ODI run chase, we are getting to witness some off-field antics :
1. The Kumble- Kohli spat, where it appears that a coach who put the team first is getting the boot because he over-ruled the captain's wrong strategy!
2. The episode of Ramachandra Guha resigning from the India CoA - read his full letter here .
3. The pay dispute between Cricket Australia and the players.

Both points 1 and 3 are a confrontation between players and administrators; where public opinion might generally favor players, it is necessary to acknowledge the value administrators bring. Which is where, reading Ramachandra Guha's resignation letter/ mail will be interesting. He mentions how a few 'superstars' and their egos are skewing the way of working. How, in order to accommodate these interests, rules are being broken.
My view is that now since we have enough respectable retired cricketers in every country, they should be made administrators and allowed to administer without political interference. That way, there is more certainty of not only the interests of the game being protected, but also of the spirit of the game being upheld

The run up to Champions Trophy

So, Champions Trophy (CT) starts tomorrow and will last all of 18 days. Another boring 50 over tournament that's largely catering to television audiences. The warmup games and the Eng-SA ODI series that's running in parallel have had some common themes :

1. It looks like it will be a batsman's paradise - 300 plus scores are easy!
2. Chasing is not so difficult - The old IPL rule; win the toss, bowl first. The batsman dominate the game so much that they will chase down any score.
3. All teams look good, but Australia, England, SA and India look better.

But one interesting thing that might spoil 1 and 2 above, is this - fast bowlers can definitely make a huge dent. Not so much due to sheer pace, but more due to their ability to bowl intelligently. If they can swing the ball then even 130-140 kmph can be dangerous - Bhuvaneshwar and Umesh showed that in the India-Bangla match yesterday. And if you can bowl fast+intelligently, then again you can cause serious damage. Rabada and Parnell did that in the third ODI versus England. It is interesting that thanks to the fast bowlers in the opposition, both Bangladesh and England had half their team back in the hut for less than 25 runs!

So hey, this might be a run fest, but there are very good chances of some lopsided games. If the fast bowlers give the bowling team momentum, then recovery will be tough for the batting team. here's to good bowling then!