• There’s a growing community of Indian cricket fans that has become weary of its TV commentators. Game after game, we hear the same set of cricketing greats offer chewed-up clichés and banalities on air — so much so that you can predict what they will say next. Their opinions veer towards the safe and the obvious. Controversial topics are to be avoided, sponsors are to be appeased. We had argued earlier this is a lot like paid news: and that is tragic.

    Luckily, another set of cricket fans have volunteered to remedy this. Their collective efforts go by the name of Test Match Sofa . The growing popularity of their live podcast out of London indicates you don’t need to have played a hundred Tests to be able to describe a game. Daniel Norcross, the site’s founder, sums up his case well when he says you don’t need a Bentley to know your way around town. As Harsha Bhogle once asked those who question his place in the commentary box, how many trucks has Ratan Tata driven?

    Test Match Sofa (TMS)

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  • There is always room for improvement. I am happy with my current performance but not satisfied. I want to get better. In fact, in any profession one must strive to get better and better. I always want to remain a student of the game because that is when you grasp more and are always keen to improve - Sachin Tendulkar

    WOW!

    I was not much of a cricket fan when the master blaster made his Test debut against Pakistan on 15 November, 1989. But now, I may perhaps stop following the sport when Sachin Tendulkar retires.

    The master batsman completes 21 years (again, 21 years) in Test cricket on November 15 and continues to inspire generations of cricketers with room for improvement on his mind. Most runs, centuries, half-centuries, fours, sixes and what not - Sachin has broken every possible record in international cricket and is still on the prowl.

    Life would be flat without dreams. It's really important to dream – and then to chase those dreams. I really believe it's this dreaming that makes

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  • MS Dhoni's recent comments about the Umpiring Decision Review System caught the eye. In Ahmedabad, two decisions from Steve Davis involving VVS Laxman and Zaheer Khan gave India heart-burn. Also, we'll discuss Kumar Dharmasena's decision today to bring back Martin Guptill with the third umpire's help. I'll come back to that in a bit.

    First, when pressed about using UDRS to avoid Ahmedabad-like situations, the India captain said:

    "You have two umpires who are supposed to take good decisions on the field. If you see Laxman's decision, I don't know what to say exactly about it."

    And continuing about the reliability of UDRS, he says:

    "I am not going to buy a life jacket that doesn't come with a warranty."

    Now, here's the problem with Dhoni's stance. When you say "if you see Laxman's decision", you're going to use TV replays to prove your point — the same TV replays which you say are unreliable for UDRS.

    So, sorry Mahi, you can't have it both ways.

    Then, the bit about warranty and

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A Yahoo India blog that parks itself just beyond the boundary line, to observe, annotate and comment on happenings both on the field and off it.

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