Virender Sehwag became only the third batsman in the Test cricket world to be stumped on a score of 99. Yes, with the team looking to chase down a target of 642, Sehwag made the cardinal error of dancing down the track to a bowler who was bowling for the first time in the day and in the process, missing the ball and getting stumped.

It is a wonder that Sehwag has even got away doing this before. However, there is a difference between what he usually does when he is in the 90s (or 190s or 290s!) and in this game. On other occasions, he has had the measure of the bowler and hence realises what he is bowling. In this case, it was Suraj Randiv’s first ball of the day and he had bowled only three overs earlier.

This had happened in the 2008 edition of the Asia Cup as well when Sehwag had started off well in the final and looked like taking the game away from the opposition. Ajantha Mendis came on for his first ball and Sehwag tried to hit him out of the park and was stumped.

As it is seen here, he does not seem to learn!

The Pakistan team management is keeping a close eye on some members of its touring squad in England after reports claimed that the players were mixing with “suspicious characters” and violating the PCB guidelines. According to a report in daily Jang, team management was also looking suspiciously into the interaction of some players who had even invited these people into their rooms which was against the ethics and the guidelines of the tour.

“After the mixing of some players with these suspicious characters who don’t have very good reputations even the team management is looking closely at the way some players lost their wickets in the run chase at Leeds against Australia,” the report said.

The report also said that when the tour started players had been given clear guidelines on how to behave during the tour but some were found involved in violating them as they were seen mixing with their “agents” near the dressing room and in the team hotel.

“Some of the agents have been seen with the players in restaurants and the team hotel,” the report said.

When contacted Pakistan manager Yawar Saeed dismissed the report as a bundle of lies and an attempt to create controversy around the team.

“There is nothing shady going on. No player is doing anything wrong nor violating the team discipline. It really upsets me when such stories come out and that too before an important Test series against England,” Yawar said from Nottingham.

“We are not investigating anything nor the movement of players. Before the tour the players had informed the Board about the agents they had in England and we are aware of them.

Before the tour the players were briefed and they are following the guidelines,” Yawar said. More »

Now that is good news indeed. MS Dhoni has had a plethora of excuses at the end of the first Test match in Galle about how the swing of Lasith Malinga was the reason behind their loss in the game. It has not been declared that Malinga has been declared unfit for the second Test match and will miss the game.

So, with Muralitharan out of the series with his retirement, and Malinga injured, India will be facing a virtually second-string attack. Can we expect a better performance from the Indian batting now?

No, not that one expects the side to win the game. Because to win a Test match, they will need to get the opposition out twice, and with the kind of bowling line-up that India has, it is almost impossible to expect that.

But, can we at least expect a draw? With a batting line-up like the one India has, it is a surprise that the side managed to capitulate twice in two days, but now that they are being helped with a reduced bowling, one can at least hope for that much. No?

There are rumours that the given Shahid Afridi has resigned from the captaincy of the Test match cricket, the captaincy of ODIs and T20Is may also be given to Salman Butt. One hopes for Pakistan cricket’s sake that this is not true, because that would mean that the hierarchy in the cricket board is shorn of any logic or rationale.

True that Afridi made a mistake in doing what he did, but that does not mean that the Pakistan Cricket Board also makes the same mistake. Under Afridi, the Pakistani side seems to be gelling well as a team, and to expect the same to happen under someone else in a set-up will be foolhardy.

Pakistan’s basic problem has been that their decision-making has been so haphazard that one almost feels that the time may be right to get in a new PCB chairman. Under Ejaz Butt, Pakistani cricket has degenerated like never before and one gets the sense that if this were to continue the way it is, life may never get back to normal for them.

And yes, Afridi should be reprimanded for being so whimsical about his decision to quit.

Shahid Afridi has resigned from the captaincy of the Pakistani Test cricket team and retired from this format of the game.

Afridi had been selected to captain the Pakistani side in all the three formats of the game, but only four days into his job as the captain of the Test team, he has decided not to continue with the same.

Pakistan lost the Test match to Australia at Lord’s rather easily by 150 runs.

Surprisingly, this was the third time Afridi has retired from Test match cricket. He was never too fond of the format of the game, but was forced into taking up the role by the PCB. He has now been criticised by the former cricketers like Aamer Sohail and Imran Khan, both of whom have said that quitting the side in the middle of the series was not the right thing to do.

Pakistan have already announced that Salman Butt would be the captain of the side. However, for a man who has already made seven comebacks to the side, it will be a difficult job against an opposition like Australia. Especially after having to open the innings as well!

Warning signs are here for the Indians with the Test series against Sri Lanka to come. First and foremost they were handed a pasting when the second-string Sri Lankan batting hammered a 500-plus total at the run-rate of four runs per over, and then, the batting was made to struggle for its runs.

Of the two, the Indians will be more worried about their bowling. The batting was relatively better and managed to get to 300 at a decent run-rate with a century to Yuvraj Singh and an 89 for Gautam Gambhir. The rest of them were coming off a lay-off and seemed rusty, but come the 18^th of July, they can be expected to get better.

The question is about the bowling. Will the Indians have the firepower to take even ten wickets? Ishant Sharma is not only coming off a lay-off but was also injured before that. Abhimanyu Mithun has never played an international before. Munaf Patel always starts off looking half fit and progressively deteriorates after that.

Harbhajan Singh was unfit for the tour game, and the other two spinners were just taken apart. Pragyan Ojha captured five wickets and will partner Harbhajan, but will they have sufficient fuel in the bowling tank?

I don’t think so!

The IPL team owners have said that they miss Lalit Modi, but have welcomed the new set-up as well. Well, they have no option but to think of maximising their profits, and in business, friendships come second only to the bottomline.

So, my surmise is that Lalit Modi may soon see him being forgotten by even some of the franchise owners who had vouched for him – and are still doing that – unless he can get his name cleared within the BCCI.

Unfortunately, it does not look like the BCCI is willing to relent. In the latest move, N Srinivasan, the Board secretary and Modi’s sworn enemy, said that the answers provided by Modi to the show cause notice were all baseless and an enquiry will proceed.

Modi may say that Srinivasan’s response is a mockery of law, as he has claimed. But the point is simple, you take on one of the biggest and one of the oldest sporting bodies in the country, you are going to bounce off them – without affecting them too much.