Blog Posts by AR Hemant

Today, MS Dhoni lost the toss. Yet again. He has lost 13 of his last 14 tosses in Test cricket, and surely the statistical odds of that are mind-bogglingly small.

Since I’m not very good at math, I asked my friend, sports enthusiast and math wiz Mahek Vyas, to calculate the probability for losing 13 tosses out of 14.

He says the magic number is 0.000854, or one in 1170.

Long story short, you’re more likely to experience one of these freak incidents than lose 13 tosses out of 14:

1. You have never heard about global warming: 1 in 8
2. You will see a UFO: 1/14
3. You will get hemorrhoids: 1/25
4. You will be on a plane with a drunk pilot: 1/117
5. An airline will lose your baggage: 1/138
6. You will date a millionaire: 1/215
7. You become a New York Times best-selling author: 1/220

To put things into perspective, India were given a 66 to 1 chance of winning the 1983 World Cup. Those odds are huge when compared to Dhoni's phenomenally bad run with the toss.

The last two lost tosses have resulted in South

It wasn’t quite quantum physics, but we did tell you so.

Suresh Raina’s problems with pace are well-known. We had pointed out before the Test series that he could make way for Che Pujara.

Reports say this is likely to happen in Durban, where the high-stakes Boxing Day Test will be played.

In this space, we had also argued that there’s a case for resting Rahul Dravid in the New Zealand series to allow Pujara a longer (and much-deserved) look-in. This didn’t happen.

For whatever this Durban opportunity would be worth, we think it is terribly unfair to shove Pujara into the mix so late, given India are 1-0 down heading to a venue that holds horrors of pace and bounce.

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Do you remember 1996? Allan Donald had the same effect on India as a bulldozer has on an orange in its path.

In 2006, South Africa played four pacers and Andrew Hall. Another massive defeat resulted. Both times, India’s bowlers outperformed their batsmen.

One wonders if South Africa would leave Paul Harris out of their

Ever wondered what the CVs of famous people would look like? No doubt, these would be extremely impressive and hard to emulate.

Here's Manmohan Singh's CV and here's Barack Obama's before he became president of the United States. [PDF links]

Some months back, this writer had compiled Sachin Tendulkar's CV, just for the kicks.

Here's an updated version of it. [You can download the PDF here]

[scribd id=45739067 key=key-1m0ihdh09i92lw3fxcr4 mode=list]

Sachin Tendulkar has reached where no other man may reach again. At 7.36 pm Indian time, he pushed Dale Steyn through a heavily manned cover for four, bringing up his 50th Test hundred.

While it is a milestone to be celebrated, it is a job only half done in the Centurion Test, where India are hanging by a thread.

Tendulkar, playing his 175th Test, is on his fifth Test tour of South Africa and India have won just one match here, in 2006.

He has 11 hundreds against Australia, nine against Sri Lanka, seven against England, six against South Africa, five against Bangladesh, four against New Zealand, three each against West Indies and Zimbabwe and two against Pakistan.

Here's a list of batsmen with 20 Test hundreds or more.

Here's a list of all Indian batsmen who've scored hundreds in Tests.

Highlighted rows indicate active First Class cricketers.

i) India’s final frontier? Surely you joke. The last time this expression was used, Australia were in India in 2004, having won everything that mattered, home and away. India have not won a series in Sri Lanka in 17 years. They’ve not won a Test series in Australia and South Africa, ever. To call South Africa the final frontier would be to thoughtlessly hype this series.

ii) Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman and Sachin Tendulkar may not return to South Africa to play Tests after this tour. They have below-par records in that country. Will they set it right for good? That partly depends on what well South Africa’s bowlers perform. Just how good are they? Former captain Clive Rice commented that India have better bowlers than the home team.

iii) There’s been plenty of talk of a fast, bouncy wicket in Centurion. In Dale Steyn, South Africa have a lethal leader of the attack. In Morne Morkel he has a good partner. But Morkel has a less than threatening record against India — six matches, 15 wickets

Jonty Rhodes has had the disappointment of seeing South Africa miss out on World Cup glory four successive times despite being among the top contenders each time. He feels the current squad has no weaknesses heading into the 2011 World Cup.

Here, he answers questions from Yahoo! Cricket in an exclusive chat:

What will it take to finally get South Africa in the World Cup final?

One run more than the opponent (laughs). I wish I knew the answer to it. It's not rocket science. But we have been to World Cups previously believing that we can win the tournament. Almost always there is talk that South Africa cannot make it whether it is at a Champions Trophy or the ICC World Cup. In fact not many remember that we won the inaugural ICC Champions Trophy in 1998.

Since then it has been a dry period for us in ICC tournaments. But if they can make it this time it will be amazing. I truly believe this team can because they have some amazing youngsters like AB de Villiers, JP Duminy. They are

From being also-rans, Zimbabwe slowly became the team everyone took seriously, before political turmoil brought them back to square one. But normalcy seems to be returning to their set-up. They’ve beaten West Indies, India and Sri Lanka this year.

Recently appointed captain of the team, Elton Chigumbura believes they’re heading in the right direction --- especially with the franchise system at the domestic level, which has attracted foreign players and coaches.

Yahoo! Cricket caught up with Chigumbura to find out how are they placed with the World Cup coming up. Excerpts:
On how Zimbabwe are preparing for the World Cup

We are here in Bangladesh right now. The guys are working hard, especially on how to play the slow bowlers. So after this tour when we go home, we’ll know what we need to work on, on the bowling and batting side, so that we come back to the sub-continent for the World Cup, we will be a step ahead. It’s good to play Bangladesh. We’ve not had a good start in this series;

New Zealand seamer Kyle Mills says his team's current slump in ODIs means they can only improve from here. He reckons they have the side to win the World Cup and that India, Sri Lanka and Australia are the other teams that he thinks will make the semi-finals.

Mills spoke to Yahoo! Cricket about his memories of the 1992 World Cup, his last-minute exclusion from the 2007 World Cup, and what he hopes to do in 2011.

New Zealand have had a form slump.
What can we expect from them at the World Cup?

Once we get to India and get into the hype of the
tournament, no stones will be left unturned and I can guarantee that every
member of this squad and the management group will be doing every thing they
possibly can for the duration of the whole tournament. Everyone’s going to give
a hundred per cent, training hard for it. So there would be nothing left in the
tank at the end of the World Cup.

You
had missed the 2007 World Cup due to injury. What are your thoughts heading
into the 2011