Ceat Cricketer of the Week: With Punter back, Oz will be stronger

New Zealand has had a pretty forgettable season so far. They lost all their One-day matches in Bangladesh and then lost all the One-day games in India too. It would certainly have helped if the team had come to India straight after their tour of Bangladesh, for they would have then not had to look to adjust to the weather and the pitches would have been similar. The gap of less than a fortnight could have been occupied by playing some warm up games in India which would have stood them in good stead for the India tour.

Instead, because there is some silly clause between the New Zealand Board and the players union, the team had to fly all the way back to New Zealand and then after spending a few days, fly all the way back to India. This would have been perfectly understandable if the tour of Bangladesh had been a long one like England’s tour of Australia was, but it was barely a couple of weeks and so it made no sense for the team to fly home and then to India.

Long flights can be tedious and boring at the best of times. How many movies can you watch and how many hours can you sleep or if you are an Australian on the flight to England, how many beers can you drink? So it’s not surprising that the younger guys try and liven things up a bit. But even here they get into trouble for helping another passenger pass some time. Since when is doing a good deed termed bad?

Coming back to the cricket, their misery was compounded as the Pakistanis beat them in the two-Test series and then won the One-day series as well. What the Kiwis would be pleased about is that they stretched the Pakistanis in the last game and won that comfortably. However, the Pakistan team is noted for taking it easy once they are leading in the series and having already won the series, they tried out some new faces and so were not at their full strength for the final game.

Jesse Ryder, promoted to open the batting in this One day series, came up with the goods scoring a quick-fire century and helping his team get past 300, which was always going to be a big ask for the Pakistanis, who would have been looking forward to getting home from their tour of New Zealand.

Though it was tempting to make Southee ‚the player of the week for his large heartedness on a flight, it is the southpaw, Jesse Ryder who is the Ceat international cricketer of the week for his swashbuckling ton in the last ODI versus Pakistan.

Diaby’s red card cost us Newcastle game

Abou Diaby’s sending-off changed the game on Saturday. It affected us more psychologically than on the footballing side because we became too worried about protecting our lead as we were down to 10 men. Instead of continuing to play, we invited pressure. I thought we were very unlucky with some of the decisions as well but I cannot do anything about¬†that. It’s very frustrating to let such a big lead slip because we played a good game and we had an opportunity to take three points in the title race. Newcastle kept fighting, I knew at 4-0 the game was not over because it was important to keep our nerves and continue to play.

Against a team that has already ‘lost’ the game, when they get back into the game you are always under threat. That was very important for us, not to allow them to get back into the game. Therefore, we were certainly guilty by going down to 10 men. Abou was very disappointed after the red card and he has to try to get over that. It’s a shame because he had a great first half. His reaction could be explained by the fact he has been injured so many times from bad tackles that he lost his composure.

I was surprised by both penalty decisions too. But I am not the referee and I don’t think my opinion is very important now because we cannot go back and change it. Mathematically we dropped two points but psychologically the damage was bigger on Saturday because everyone was very disappointed in the dressing room. The future will tell whether we bounce back strongly.

In the Arsenal Tata Tea Jaago Re Soccer Stars, in the Bangalore leg, Boys Sports Company defeated ASSC Centre of Learning by 2 goals to nil and over this weekend the soccer stars from Kozhikode have their chance to shine at the Corporation Stadium. With this we bring a wrap to the south zone and move next to Lucknow – the 18th & 19th of February at the Chowk Stadium.