The Mumbai daily DNA has an interesting bit of stats on the lowest winning totals in India.
The 203 that India defended at the Kotla on Tuesday was the third lowest score.
In fact the five lowest totals defended in India have been by the home side.
Here’s the list, courtesy DNA:
193 vs Aus(141), Ahmedabad, 1986
195 vs SA (193/9),Kolkata, 1993
203 vs Eng (164), Delhi, 2006
212/6 vs Pak (212/7), Hyderabad, 1987
220/7 vs SA (185), Mumbai, 1996

I know this is a bit of flogging a dead horse.
But two of the three men that Arvind Lavakare slammed in his column were instrumental in India’s win in the first one-dayer at the Kotla.
Harbhajan Singh and Irfan Pathan took 8 wickets between. In addition they added 65 critical runs between them, more than 30 percent of India’s score.
Take them out and you would have thought that England were playing Kenya.
And the third man he flogged is getting his shoulder operated on in England.

Sorry, could not resist saying I told you so.
In my post this moring, I had predicted that 220 would be a good score on the Kotla wicket. In any event, India’s 203 was more than enough.
The Kotla curator Ram Babu Gupta needs to be put out to pasture. First of all he does not know how to prepare a pitch for a one-dayer. And once he makes one, he does not know how to read it. His prediction that this was a 300 wicket was way off the mark — unless he meant that the combined scores of the teams would be that.

Mumbai’s bookies are on the run after repeated crackdowns by the police. But they are nothing if not enterprising. Worried that their phones may be tapped, they have devised code names for the players. The Mumbai tabloid Mid-day has an interesting article on the punters and their codes.
My favourites:
Sukda Bombil for Ajit Agarkar. For those not used to Mumbai lingo it means dried fish.
Googli sardar for Monty Panesar
Kaalia for Blackwell and Ghanti for Bell

The curator of the Ferozshah Kotla claims he has prepared the perfect one-day pitch for the first ODI.
‘It is a perfect wicket for a one-day match. I think you will see scores of around 300,’ Ram Babu Gupta said last night.
It’s just 20 overs into the game now, and imperfect pitch comes to mind. Some balls are kicking, some are keeping low. If India manages 220, it will be match on.

First it was the Barmy Army. They inspired the Swami Army. Now get set for the Dada Army.
Fan clubs are good. They add colour to any match. As long as they don’t cross the line, more power to them.

Those following the South Africa-Australia series would have heard her.
Kass Naidoo is a rare lady cricket commentator. She does a good job too. And hearing a female voice describe proceedings has great novelty value.

She seems to have quite a following in South Africa and host a popular sports show called Gameplan.

Here's her profile.

Sunil Gavaskar writing his syndicated column says that the treatment meted out to players like Sourav Ganguly and V V S Laxman is affecting the other big guns in the team.
'Is it too much one-day cricket? Is it that some players are taking their place for granted, or is it that there's now a real fear in the team about their place, and so they aren't able to play their natural game and thus are more susceptible to the slightest bit of pressure? Perhaps the treatment to Sourav Ganguly and then VVS Laxman has had an effect on the seniors as well, and they are afraid, very afraid that they will be next and thus are playing like men condemned,' he writes.

Arvind Lavakare is an angry man. I am angry too. For the same reasons. But I mostly don’t agree with him.
In his column ‘Those who booed Tendulkar were right’ for rediff.com, he makes plenty of relevant and needed-to-be-made points. But his anger boils over into his writing.
It’s a kind of mob mentality at work here. The nation is seething, you are too. So dash off a column and vent your anger. You’re likely to find an interested audience.
So he pulls down Harbhajan Singh, slams Irfan Pathan and then takes sides with the few lumpen elements who booed Sachin Tendulkar.
Sure Bajji has not taken many wickets lately, but he is not a lesser bowler. A couple good breaks and he will be back among the wickets. If the barren spell continues, sure sit him out. Send him back to the boondocks we call first-class cricket, and let’s see if he is good enough to come back.
Pathan has lost some bite. But the man still takes wickets. He took a hat-trick recently, remember? He is lethal on helpful pitches and he should get plenty in the West Indies. He’ll bounce back. That kid has spunk. We can’t pin the England debacle on him.
Finally Tendulkar. He’s a man who earned his stripes over 16 years. He’s going through a bad spell, sure. But do you wipe out a decade and half of great cricketing achievement by joining a lumpen lynch gang baying at a man who is down?
If anyone is going to spell finis to SRT’s career, it has to be the man himself. The memories of those 16 years demand a fitting finale. If we don’t get it fine. At least give the man a chance.
And bad as India performance was on that that afternoon at the Wankhede, all England, depleted and all, did was level the series. In the words of Lance Klusner ' after the World Cup semis against Australia ' ‘No one died’.

Sachin Tendulkar has slipped to his lowest ranking in 13 years.
‘Tendulkar’s slide reflects the fact the England series was the third in succession where he failed to average 40 runs per innings,’ the article says.