Allan Donald says that the world cup should be called off.

The ICC differs in viewpoint. At this moment, as suspects of Bob Woolmer’s murder aren’t known, the show going on is okay. However, if some one is arrested who is deeply associated with cricket or associated with betting/match fixing or some thing, it will be very difficult for the world cup to carry on.

Update 2: Woolmer was strangled. The world cup and cricket comes under a shadow.

Update: Cricinfo is reporting breaking news on Woolmer.

Pervez Mir, the Pakistan Cricket Board spokesman, told AFP: “The police suspect that Woolmer may have been murdered. They have started an investigation.”

A lot of people said to me after hearing the news of Woolmer’s death that cricket is just a game. However, with so much money involved in the game, cricket is far more than that today as is most professional sport. Modern sports generates so much money and provides employment to so many people, not just the sportsmen playing the game. It will be a sad day for cricket if Woolmer was indeed murdered regardless of who did it.

*****

Bob Woolmer’s death has come as a huge shock. As a keen follower of South African cricket in the 90s, I had the opportunity to see how brilliant Woolmer’s cricketing mind was. Cricket is a game which has plenty of room for strategy and innovations if some one is creative. Cricket suited Woolmer perfectly in this regard. He brought innovations and thought about the game with a modern perspective for which he was widely regarded as the best coach in the world.

As a coach he had success with Warwickshire county club and then reached great heights with South Africa. Australia has been the best cricket team in the world for what now seems an eternity. However, for a period in the 90s - 1996-99, South Africa had the best one day side in the world. No small credit for that goes to Bob Woolmer. Woolmer always had that new point of view no one could have thought about and it was evident every where - whether it was team strategies, field placements or team compositions.

All rounders and lower order batsmen started getting a new meaning in international cricket. South African lower order batting would have guys like Shaun Pollock, Lance Klusener, Nicky Boje. Even Pat Symcox made runs and was contributing to the team apart from his bowling. I remember a match versus Australia where Woolmer opened with Lance Klusener and brought Pat Symcox in at number 3. Klusener made 92 and Symcox made 26. South Africa ended up with 301 and won comfortably in the end. That’s just one match which shows how brilliant Woolmer was.

Many people suggested that Woolmer shouldn’t coach Pakistan but he followed his beliefs. Not that long ago, the team was progressing exceedingly well. Woolmer was creating depth in the batting and bringing in more options for the team in bowling. Woolmer always had a vision with a team and specific players were backed if it was believed that they could do a job which would add to the over all team strength of the team. So Shahid Afridi was brought back when no one gave him much of a chance. There were many other interesting things done in Pakistan cricket in that phase where they were looking good - things like Shoaib Akhtar being disciplined and then brought back which could extract the best output out of him. In his short time with Pakistan, Woolmer managed to create an attachment in the hearts of the common Pakistan cricket fan just like he had done in South Africa.

In 1999, Woolmer couldn’t win the world cup with South Africa. Pakistan in 2007 was to be Woolmer’s redemption. Sadly, Pakistan cricket went from one low to another in the past months culminating with the exit of Akhtar and Asif from the world cup. Without the bowling spearheads, there was little chance of Pakistan winning the world cup.

First as a player, then as a coach, Woolmer served cricket and added a lot to the game. RIP.

The two upsets will give hope to the minnows in cricket for many years to come. Hope can lead to formation of goals and goals, when aided with proper plan of action, can lead to great things. So 17th April, 2007, has the potential of having many positive effects.

There is another aspect I am wondering about. Pakistan is out of the world cup in the first round and India has a very real chance of following suit. So will this trigger off lowering of following of cricket? Has the lowering of following already started but we just do not notice it yet?

Earlier, people used to follow every ball when India played. Now, many are happy with just following the score. I remember how the Eden Gardens used to be full and you had to pay double the price written on the ticket to watch the game if you didn’t buy your ticket early. However, the last few years have seen lower number of crowds and empty seats - some thing unimaginable earlier.

People will not go on following a sport forever and are not immune to factors like results. Many years ago, hockey enjoyed huge popularity. However, losses and disappointing performances over the years has meant that hockey is a shadow of it’s former self in India. Wins are very crucial for increasing and/or sustaining the popularity of a particular sport in a nation in the long run.

Given the following cricket enjoys, India and Pakistan should produce far more successful cricketers and cricket teams. However, the lack of infrastructure over the years has meant that talent cannot be tapped or honed properly. 17th March should be a warning sign for the authorities in India and Pakistan to get their act together and chart out a proper plan for cricket for the people wont always keep following, the sponsors won’t always keep coming and the money won’t always keep flowing.

The bubble can indeed burst.

Marlon Samuels is arguably the most talented batsman to emerge out of the West Indies in recent times. He is very stylish but adds a lot of substance along with it because of the talent he possesses - the perfect package whether you are a marketing man, a general fan or a purist who likes to see quality out there on the field.

At 26, Samuels can be termed an under achiever. He will play the most beautiful shots and deceive you into believing that you are in for watching some thing special before getting himself out. The test and one day averages of 28 and 30 respectively do not do his talent justice. In this, he has been following the path of V.V.S. Laxman and Carl Hooper.

However the good part is that he has time on his hand and seems to have finally turned the corner. The 63 off 70 balls in the inaugral world cup match was not out of the blue. In the 2006/07 season, Samuels has an average of 38 from 19 matches. It gets better if we consider only 2007 - an average of 51 from 5 matches which includes 3 fifties.

Crisis brings out the best in the mentally strong characters and the match fixing cloud may be a trigger for him to do greater things. With the likes of Bravo and Dinesh Ramdin, Samuels represents a core group of young cricketers who make you feel optimistic regarding West Indies cricket. They seem to have a fire in the belly which can transform the talented and gifted to performers on the world stage.

The world cup is just hours away. So what is the blogosphere and internet in general talking?

House of Honcho has a nice world cup preview.

If I had to get off the fence, Aus would be my pick to win, but at $3.20 on Betfair no thank you. I expect the South Africans to somehow stuff it up again, and if I didn’t have to take conditions into account, Sri Lanka is in my mind the main danger. India will leak too many runs in the field, and the remaining four teams who are all paying over $10 are a little over-priced as despite question marks over their consistency, all they have to do is win enough games to qualify for the semis and then win 2 games on the trot. Any of the eight sides can do that.

Vishnu on the other hand asks us not to forget the minnows, considering the past record. Given the number of matches minnows play this time, a few upsets are very much probable.

An astrologer thinks that India will play in the final.

Kalyan is clear regarding his expectations from the world cup and he explains them with strong reason:

I think if the team plays at it best and gets beaten by a better team (ala WC’03) and not panic (ala WC’96) - i would be smiling at the end of the WC campaign - WC in hand or not!

The world cup is being held in the West Indies but you would think it is being held in India if you look at the hype. A world cup road show is being held by google across India. Google also has the world cup venues in google earth.

As a cricket fan, I am hoping that the West Indies reach at least the semis and the world cup heralds a new era for them. I do think that they have the team to be able to reach the semis as well if they play to their potential. Rahul Bhattacharya says it best - rally round the West Indies.

I was thinking that Pakistan has a very good chance this year –good bowlers, very good batsmen, good depth in the XI, Bob Woolmer and a track record of doing quite well in the world cups in recent times if they do not run into India. However, this was before Asif and Akhtar found themselves out of the tournament.

Coming to the actual tournament, round 1 matches versus the minnows are very much like the warm up matches which precede them. Given that the world cup will carry on for nearly 2 months and we will see a marathon of matches, the semi finalists will in all likelihood be those who deserve their spot. My semi finalists, in order - Australia, South Africa, India and West Indies.

Semi-finals –

Australia over West Indies;
South Africa over India

Finals –

Australia over South Africa.

Given the unpredictability of the one day game, the cliché – ‘any of the top 8 teams can reach the semis is very true.

It will be an unprecedented and a huge accomplishment, even by Australian standards, if they do manage to win the world cup for a third consecutive time. The West Indies couldn’t do it in 1983 when they were thwarted by India the current era where one day cricket is more understood by the teams compared to the 70s and 80s, and the game is more competitive on the whole, it would be a much bigger achievement.

Where individuals are concerned, I am looking at Nathan Bracken and Sourav Ganguly to have huge world cups. Bracken has been nothing short of exceptional for Australia in the last few seasons. However, 2007 has been below par for him and he will look to reverse that. Ganguly, on the other hand, has had a tough last couple of years for various reasons. With the 2007 world cup, in all likelihood to be his last, he will look to go out gloriously.

However, given out of the blue performers in the world cup, be it teams (India in ‘83, Pakistan in ‘92, Sri Lanka in ‘96) or players (Gary Gilmour, Geoff Allott), I am not very sure how any prediction can be made with a lot of conviction. So take the above predictions with spoonfulls of salt.

Now, who do you think will win the world cup?

Picture taken by Smither Jones.

Being a huge Martin Scorsese fan, I was rooting for him to win the oscar. The Departed wasn’t the best movie Scorsese directed. Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, Raging Bull, The Last Temptation of Christ, to name just a few, rank above it for me. However, no one can grudge the great man his Oscar. I took time out to revisit Raging Bull, one of my favourite Scorsese films.

Raging Bull is the story of boxer Jake La Motta. The movie explores the problems of La Motta. It shows how genius and talent are not all what are necessary to reach the top. More importantly, as it is with most great movies, each viewer can relate to the movie and asks strong questions to himself or herself. Are we our worst enemies? Where do real problems end and the mind’s illusions begin?

In the movie, Joe Pesci, playing Jake’s brother Joe, tells Jake to do himself a favour and to leave Vicky (Jack’s wife) before she ruins his life. Basically, Jake was required to evaluate priorities and take a firm stand regarding what’s important - his career or things which distract him from it. Scenes which show Jake thinking regarding Vicky’s supposed unfaithulness even while he is boxing show early signs that it is having an impact on his career. It is evident never more than when he beats the face of a boxer to pulp just because Vicky said that the boxer had a beautiful face.

A general viewer may not have similar problems as Jake has but he will have various problems at his own level which will deter and stop him from achieving goals - some of which he cannot rectify - like Jake could not rectify the obsessive streak he had regarding his wife. Every one is Jake because of this in his own personal plane.

Pete Sampras used to be called the tennis guy while he was in college. He used to go to the college, attend required classes and apart from that, he used to play tennis all day. He often said that he made a lot of sacrifices to reach where he had reached. Bradman once stated that he saw many much more talented cricketers than himself. However, he made the most use of his talent.

I am reminded of some thing Robert De Niro said in another movie, A Bronx Tale - there is nothing as sad as wasted talented.

Wimbledon has finally agreed to equal pay. The NY Times reports:

- After years of holding out against equal prize money, Wimbledon bowed to public pressure Thursday and agreed to pay women players as much as the men at the world’s most prestigious tennis tournament.

The U.S. Open and Australian Open have paid equal prize money for years. The French Open paid the men’s and women’s champions the same for the first time last year, although the overall prize fund remained bigger for the men.

My views are pretty much uniform on the equal pay issue which I had expressed in a detailed post about a year back:

I scoff at the idea (of equal pay). The issue is not about women’s rights. The issue is not about equality. The issue is about market worth. If women’s tennis is more sellable, I would not grudge it even paying more than men’s tennis does. I do not like that the other 3 Grand Slams have succumbed to the pressure tactics in one way or another, at one point or the other other.

Women’s tennis and men’s tennis are different sports. So if one has more spectators than the other, one gets more revenue and distributes more to the players.

Equality in pay is not the right answer. If the women attract more money, pay them more; if they attract less money, pay them less. I don’t see why equal pay should ever even come into the equation in the given scenario.

From the look of things, the future looks promising for British tennis. I have spoken on Andy Murray looking good and he has defeated Roddick now to reach the finals in San Jose. Two very important aspects in raising the stature of a game are

1) heroes (which some one like Andy Murray can prove to be), and,
2) the infrastructure and facilities needed for promising young players to develop their games to reach the next level.

Ever since Roger Draper was appointed Chief Executive of the LTA, things have been looking up. A blueprint for British tennis has been prepared and plans have been laid out and are being acted upon in a structured way.

In a piece on tennis-x, Lynn Benerbaum wrote a few months ago:

His first endeavor is to build up a solid leadership team. So he launched a recruitment website for a series of LTA executive positions, including the heads of men’s and women’s tennis. The site attracted more than 25,000 visitors, and thousands of applicants. The association’s goal is to have new names and faces in place by the time the LTA’s new National Tennis Centre at Roehampton opens at the end of February.

A major goal is to import top new coaches to groom young English talent, in what The Times of London called “The LTA’s Foreign Aid Package”. The LTA has already sanctioned a three-year deal for Brad Gilbert worth more than 1 Million Pounds which includes coaching And Murray. Now Draper is trying to persuade Paul Annacone to lead the men’s game. If he accepts the position, he will work alongside other high-profile recruits such as Gilbert and Lundgren, who will put the new restructuring plan of the British game into action.

The investment in Murray with steps like getting some one like Brad Gilbert to coach Murray is starting to reap benefits now. The stern test will come in Wimbledon this year. Some thing like Henmania for Murray wouldn’t be unlikely. It is unlikely that Murray will win Wimbledon this year though and he will have to deal with the expectations and the pressure of fans, media more now than ever before.

Where infrastructure is concerned, looking towards the Monte Carlo Tennis Academy is definitely a step in the right direction. From BBC Sport:

The Monte Carlo Tennis Academy, launched in 2006, is now providing one of the platforms from which British tennis hopes to develop the next Andy Murray and Tim Henman…

…The players spend seven weeks of the year at the Monte Carlo Country Club with the rest of the year spent training and playing in tournaments all over the world, from Australia to Florida, Sunderland to Wimbledon.

Wimbledon lies at the heart of tennis and it is unfortunate that tennis hasn’t had a major champion from Britain for what seems ages. The need for a better system which will be effective in providing champions in the future is being acted upon. Hopefully, it prove effective and reap long term benefits for British tennis and tennis on a whole.

Further reading: Draper answering a few questions of BBC, fans.

The nominations for the Indibloggies, the annual Indian blog awards, have been announced. Sportolysis - The World Sports Blog has been nominated as well in the sports category!

Do take part in the poll and submit your votes, regardless of whether you think you should vote for this blog or not..

Whom am I kidding? Vote for me!!

PS - Voting closes on the 20th of February (US time).