In btw Omer, I never thought that you have any anti-indian bias, I know how big a fan you are of Sehwag.

I am in a hurry today so will write in detail in the new blog latersss.

Basit Ali has given a statement that Yousuf and Butt should be sacked from the ODI team.

No need to apologise, I told you when you came on this blog that you have a nice heart and you’re a nice guy. I know you are patriotic- many of us are. The good thing is you apologised, which shows character.

This is not my criticism towards you, but towards people generally. I don’t understand how “personality” matters when assessing how good a player is. Shoaib Akhtar was a great bowler when in rhythm, but he is never fit which is why he is pathetic. Even if Tendulkar was arrogant like Akhtar, I would still rate him as high. That is because, in assessing quality I don’t take into account my natural biases. What I am trying to say is that, Dravid is one of my favourite players partially because he is a gentleman and a very decent guy. Tendulkar is not amongst my favourite players, but he is a genius and the best batsman of all time. So that is the difference; personally I don’t like Tendulkar, but I understand his greatness.

I don’t like Wasim Akram personally, but I understand how great a bowler he was (in fact I dislike Wasim Akram very much). I don’t like Miandad or Inzamam personally, but they were great players- Miandad, slightly better. On the other hand, personally I like Shahid Afridi because of his straightforwardness, but I don’t consider him that great a player. Some of it is his own doing because of his refusal to play Tests.

Misbah’s Test record is pathetic, just check his performance when not playing against India. Why is he being called back into the team?

Omer,

I did not say that Gambhir is Dravid right now I just said that he is in the making and ofcourse Dravid also had many ups and downs in his career so what if Gambhir failed in this innings so did the Great Jaat of Najafgarh-Sehwag, VeryVerySpecial.Laxman and also the so called God of Indian Cricket who needs no introduction after all the chest thumping done by the Indian Media in the past One Week.

apologies accepted Now forgettO about the past lets discuss this test.

After seeing the fall of early wickets, I slept like a log (it was late night here) and I woke up a while ago and I am pleasantly surprised to see that he did not disappoint me and my prediction came true. It wasn’t an exploding innings but a star studded old fashioned innings that was full of cricketing strokes. In his own words, he said this:

“It’s nice to get this feeling of batting the way I have. I’ve been through some tough times for a couple of seasons. I thought the flow’s sort of come back this year, in various forms of the game. It was probably one of my most fluent efforts over the last few seasons.”

Bravo Dravid, you did the job but, don’t stop here, keep guiding Harbhajan and Zaheer Khan to stay there and give you support and you go for the two or if possible three hundred.

Murali gave away 90 runs so far, I wonder why they are not playing BAW Mendis? I want someone to go after him.

From time to time, I guess, we all indulge in little indiscretions when making comments out of either passion or some experiences we have had. Javed and khansahab are both very decent and gracious. So, I don’t think there would be anything personal here. By expressing your views the way you did so decently and honestly shows what a nice person you are yourself as many Indians that I know are like that too.

After 4-32, that’s a great come back from India mainly because of Dravid. The Wall has shown again what a great player he is. Tendulkar takes all the limelight but Dravid too has performed some great feats.