England tour India over the winter. They play two Tests, which is clearly too few. They will also play seven one-day internationals, which is clearly a huge waste of everyone’s time.

You can’t blame India. The last time England toured, the Test series was drawn while the one-dayers were so painfully one-sided they might as well have been us - seriously, we can just about pull off ‘waving’ with our left hand, but nothing more complex than that.

Some England fans (read ‘the English media’) are disappointed by the venues, but we’ve been to quite a few of the towns and it’s not all bad. The one they should be complaining about is bleeding Mumbai. If you want to see a man channelling urine down the inside of his leg and out of the bottom of his trouser leg, go to Mumbai.

Ahmedabad

The first Test’s at Ahmedabad and seemingly everyone hates it. We have no idea why. Despite being in Gujarat (and therefore dry) Ahmedabad’s a top city. They have camel taxis as well as one of the most underrated tourist sights in the entire world.

In the middle of an industrial estate, with no signs or paying-to-get-in or anything else, is this:

Someone will doubtless correct us, but it’s the Dada Hari Vav. It’s a well.

You might think of a well as being a ruddy great hole in the ground, but this is a step well. You can walk down it, descending floor after floor until you get to the water. It’s dark, it’s huge and it’s inexplicably elaborate.

Also, if you do go to the Test in Ahmedabad, you can take a holiday on the island of Diu afterwards. Diu is just off the Gujarati coast and they let you drink there. They also don’t tax you for doing so, so it’s REALLY cheap.

Indore

The second one-day international is in Indore. We’ve a vague notion that we’ve been there, but we can’t recall a single detail. We were probably changing buses. It might have been the station with the unusably bad toilets, thinking about it. (Note: That’s ‘unusably bad’ not ‘unusually bad’. The unusually bad toilets were usable - consider that.)

If you go to the Indore match, make sure you head out to Mandu which is a ruined city. The great thing about Mandu is that there’s a healthy supply of monkeys.

We’re not sure if you’re aware of our entirely wholesome, but perhaps also slightly insane appreciation of monkeys. It stems from an incident which led to our being accepted as their god.

Mandu is a good place to meet monkeys. Tell them we sent you.

Tags: England, India by King Cricket
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Sanath Jayasuriya might have pummelled a trademark hundred, but Ajantha Mendis won Sri Lanka the Asia Cup.

If you want to see some impressive bowling figures, read on: 6-13 off eight overs. Virender Sehwag had hit a 26-ball fifty when Mendis came on to bowl, so the young spinner basically just flat-out won the match.

Having one baffling, unconventional, once-in-a-generation spinner would be enough for most nations, but not Sri Lanka. They have to have two. Greedy swines.

Ajantha Mendis bowls ’spin’. He’s not bound by petty distinctions like that between off-spin and leg-spin. He bowls everything.

He bowls everything and then has the face-slapping audacity to add another delivery - the carrom ball.

Tags: Ajantha Mendis, India, Sri Lanka by King Cricket
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With Virender Sehwag doing some spectacular repairs to his surprisingly ordinary one-day record, it’s easy to overlook his juvenile, boundary-hitting accomplice, Suresh Raina.

Sehwag followed his 44 ball 78 against the might of Hong Kong with a 95-ball 119 against Pakistan’s increasingly mediocre attack. Suresh Raina took 68 balls to hit 101 against Hong Kong and kept his eye in with 84 off 69 balls yesterday.

We liked what we saw of Suresh Raina when England toured India a couple of years ago. He was 19 at the time and we thought him organised, composed and dynamic as well as loads of other adjectives which we haven’t really thought about, but which make it sound like we know what we’re talking about.

Tags: India, Pakistan, Suresh Raina by King Cricket
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Two things struck us about India’s defeat of Pakistan today. Actually, no things struck us. Two things gently bobbed towards us after we’d stared at the scorecard blankly for what seemed like forever.

Firstly, India fielded quite a lot of youngsters. Yusuf Pathan’s 25 and most of his team mates probably envy his deep voice and lack of self-consciousness when wearing a cardigan. Kids admire people at ease in a cardigan, right?

Rohit Sharma, Suresh Raina and Praveen Kumar are all 21, while Ishant Sharma and Piyush Chawla are both 19.

And then the second thing strikes you: They’re all REALLY good. It’s a more-than-decent international side that’s only unusual for the fact that none of the players have ever had a conversation about ‘whether it would be better to go with Nomadic Glow or Magnolia in the hall’.

Tags: India, Pakistan by King Cricket
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India is the home of spin bowling, so we always want to see EXTREME TRIAL BY SPIN whenever there’s a Test over there.

There’s some batsman who’s supposed to be good against spin bowling. Yeah? How will he fare in an EXTREME TRIAL BY SPIN?

Harbhajan Singh opened the bowling for India today, hinting that South Africa’s batsmen were to face an EXTREME TRIAL BY SPIN. South Africa pretty much failed their EXTREME TRIAL BY SPIN, getting bowled out for 121.

You might think you’re all right against spin, but only the finest can withstand a true EXTREME TRIAL BY SPIN.

Tags: India, South Africa by King Cricket
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We only ask because if they get good at it and develop a taste for it, they’re touring England in the summer. England’s batting line-up is currently supporting the entire sports psychology higher education programme in this country.

South African coach, Mickey Arthur, says that Steyn, Ntini and Morkel are going to persist in trying to keep India’s batsmen out of their comfort zones.

India have traditionally used a comfort zone to relax their players prior to every Test match. It’s a certain section of their hotel where the carpets have all been replaced by duvets and the players are offered a selection of velour tracksuits or pyjamas.

Steyn, Ntini and Morkel have hit upon a number of tactics to keep the Indian batsmen out of this haven. Morne Morkel has managed to get hold of a few rolls of police tape, which he’s going to put across the door as if there’s been some sort of crime within.

Makhaya Ntini is going to try and lure the Indians elsewhere by phoning them pretending to be their agents. He’s going to tell them that there’s a special IPL ‘double your money’ competition for all the players involved and all they have to do is be the first to complete a treasure hunt that he himself has put in place.

Finally and most deviously, Dale Steyn has managed to get a job on the front desk of India’s team hotel. Whenever anyone asks him the whereabouts of the comfort zone, he’s instead going to direct them towards the ‘misery zone’ where everyone has to queue up to watch various mobile phone adverts, before a dedicated professional has some one-to-one time explaining what each product says about its owner.

Tags: India, South Africa by King Cricket
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Vehement letter C denier, A B de Villiers, is currently 217 not out, which knocks India’s 76 all out into a cocked hat.

A B de Villiers is young and richly talented. Let’s invite him round for tea but then pretend that we all thought he was a vegan. Then, when he asks why he’s eating different food from everyone else, we’ll say, “oh, sorry. We thought you were a vegan,” and instead of sharing the rest of the food, we’ll just let him carry on eating the vegan stuff.

Then afterwards, we’ll all play hide and seek in the garden, only everyone will hide inside when A B de Villiers is seeking and we’ll lock the door and he won’t be able to get in. Then we’ll pretend that we’ve lost the key and can’t open the door and then maybe it’ll start raining.

That’ll teach him.

Tags: A B de Villiers, India, South Africa by King Cricket
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All out for 76 in the morning session of day one. Eye-catchingly disgraceful.

At just 120 deliveries, this was also the 12th shortest innings in terms of balls faced for any side in Test history. In recent times, only England’s 46 all out against the Windies at Port of Spain in 1994 (115 balls) and the West Indies’ own 51 all out against Australia at the same venue in 1999 (118 balls) have been shorter.

This is more like it though. We support India over South Africa, but we support bowlers over batsmen and this was payback for the poor bastards who’d had to put up with the well-ironed bowling green of the first Test.

Dale Steyn, Makhaya Ntini and Morne Morkel must have been yelping like demented puppies who’d been treated to six bottles of Thums Up when they saw a hint of green on the wicket this morning.

Somehow controlling their excitement, they succeeded in putting the ball in ‘the right areas’. More specifically, they put it in the area called ‘the stumps’ as Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Sourav Ganguly and Anil Kumble were all clean bowled.

Take that, batsmen. That’s for having it your own way pretty much all the bloody time.

Of course there’ll probably be some sort of investigation as to the standard of the pitch if it continues like this. It’s not these pitches you need to worry about. It’s the ones that produce scores of 540, 627 and 331-5. They’re the ones that are ruining cricket.

Update: Suave has captured Ganguly’s stout resistance nicely.

Tags: India, South Africa by King Cricket
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Rahul Dravid hit his 10,000th Test run today en route to his 25th Test hundred. It’s a little bit overshadowed by Sehwag’s triple hundred, but that’s pretty much the way it goes for Dravid.

Dravid was very much the support act for Sehwag yesterday, hitting 68 in a partnership worth 268. Stunning innings like Sehwag’s can’t happen without a batting partner though and it’s no coincidence that The Wall was protecting the other set of stumps during VVS Laxman’s sublime 281 against Australia as well. In between all the forward defensives he found time to tot up 180, which is some second fiddle - a second fiddle encrusted with rubies, played by a perfectionist, perhaps.

Today’s 111 saw Dravid’s average edge above that of the man who’s overshadowed him most throughout his career. Rahul Dravid averages 55.41 in Test cricket. Sachin Tendulkar now averages 55.31 after registering a duck. With Sehwag only adding 10 to his overnight total, perhaps he and Tendulkar were merely being gracious enough to give Dravid a day of his own.

We move that Dravid’s day becomes a national - no - international holiday, so that he’ll get the respect he deserves for all eternity. There’s nothing like a day off to heighten your appreciation of someone.

Tags: India, Rahul Dravid, Records, South Africa by King Cricket
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Virender Sehwag has now hit the fastest Test triple hundred. He was always likely to achieve it, which is perhaps the biggest compliment of all. A freak innings like Nathan Astle’s is one thing, but Sehwag does this kind of thing consistently. At the close of play Virender Sehwag was 309 not out and he’d scored those runs off just 292 balls, hitting 41 fours and five sixes.

Sehwag’s hit 309 before, against Pakistan. It took him 375 balls. That shouldn’t be bettered, but it just was. Sehwag can also boast the second and seventh fastest Test double hundreds of all time (assuming this one still counts as the third fastest now that he’s gone past 300).

As we said earlier, no batsman other than Virender Sehwag can sustain this speed of scoring for such long periods. He has a unique ability to strike good balls for boundaries without offering chances. Can anyone else play such outrageous shots without seeming in any danger?

He’s only the third batsman to score two triple hundreds after Don Bradman and Brian Lara. Has he got any adrenaline left for tomorrow? Lara’s 400 will surely come under threat if he has. Ordinarily 91 runs is a long way, but Sehwag has so comprehensively shredded this South African team they’re liable to go foetal when they see him return to the crease. He’s made Rahul Dravid look like a tail-ender.

Virender Sehwag must surely be regarded as one of the greats now. Yes?

Tags: India, Records, South Africa, Virender Sehwag by King Cricket
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