India, the heart of world cricket has produced some fine batsmen and strong bowlers, but who is the best?

We thought, lets break it down into the Top current Indian Cricketers doing the rounds in the current Indian squads.

1. Sachin Tendulkar - An easy choice, the little master is an extremely popular and successful Indian Cricketer – a great batsman, with a solid average.

2. MS Dhoni - Dhoni the wicketkeeper has only been on the scene a short time, but is a genuine match winner. A very talented indian cricketer.

3. Anil Kumble - The first bowler on the list, he is the third highest wicket taker in the world with 619 scalps in test match cricket.

4. VVS Laxman – A personal favourite, Laxman was a solid, gritty batsman much in the Steve Waugh mould. Very patient, could dismantle other attacks on his own.

5. Harbhajan Singh – A tough, passionate spin bowler, Singh is a player that can trouble other sides especially Australia. His mental toughness is a great asset.

India is producing some great cricketers and they remain in the top sides in the world in all formats of the game. Their recent series against Bangladesh was a massive success and after recently getting over a 30 year drought in the West Indies – under the captaincy of Rahul Dravid – they are looking solid. Dravid has since stepped down however and MS Dhoni remains the Indian Cricket Captain in test matches, one day (50 overs) and T20 cricket matches for India both in India and away from home.

Indian Cricketer is a post from: World Portal

Here is video of the Afridi ball biting incident:

Afridi who was captaining the Pakistani’s in the absence of Yousef Youhanna (Mohammad Yousef) deliberately puts the cricket ball in his mouth like an Apple and takes a long bite at the ball.

The 3rd Umpire must have seen this on the cameras and soon after reported it to the umpires on the pitch.

After some questioning of Afridi (the man they call boom boom!) the umpires inspected the ball and then called for a replacement ball to be brought out.

However, with a slight delay the crowd became rowdy – then a crazy fan jumps the WACA fence and charges out on the field deliberately tackling a Pakistani player and requiring security to flock in from everywhere – a crazy night at the WACA where Australia only scraped home by a few runs with Mike Hussey and Ryan Harris getting the side home in the final over with a few balls to spare.

Shahid Afridi Bites Cricket Ball is a post from: World Portal

At the present moment, 2010 – you would have to say that India has probably the best cricket team in the world. While in recent years Australia has dominated in one-day cricket, test cricket and improving in T20 (20/20) too – more recently India has proven best in the test and one-day 50 over formats.

Australia has fallen away, beaten by the English in the Ashes – but then bounced back to hammer the lowly ranked West Indies and Pakistan in home tournaments.

For India, while they have struggled at the 20/20 format of the game – they remain very strong as a test cricket nation and continue to be solid in the 50 overs form of the game also.

With players such as MS Dhoni, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Verender Shewag – they have power in their batting that can destroy opponents bowling.

India currently face Bangladesh in their series and are doing it quite easy, putting the lowly ranked Bangladesh away in most cases.

Over in South Africa – it has been a hard fought series between SA and the English. With things evenly poised. South Africa have always been a strong one-day side, but struggled in the longer form of the game against quality opponents.

The English are the biggest improvers, but consistency remains the key for them. With Freddy Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen the keys for this side, they also possess a real unique bowler in Sidebottom who can move the ball around.

But coming into Feb 2010, you would have to say that India has the best cricket team (side) in the world.

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As an Australian, we believe that India is the new home of cricket and enjoy the challenge of playing India when they tour here in Australia and when we travel to India to challenge them as the leading cricketing nation.

The Indian IPL tournament remains a great icon of the game, and Australia and other nations are very slow to catch up to India in this area of the game. Now, here is the Best Indian cricket player listing:

Virender Shewag

Sachin Tendulkar

Sourav Ganguly
Rahul Dravid

Mahendra Singh Dhoni

Yuvraj Singh
Harbhajan Singh

Virat Kohli

Zaheer Khan
Sreesanth

Gautam Gambhir

Rudra Pratap Singh
S. Badrinath

Rohit Sharma

Irfan Pathan
Ishant Sharma

Praveen Kumar

Munaf Munsa Patel
Yusuf Pathan

Ravindra Jadeja

Anil Kumble

Amit Mishra

Murali Vijay
V.V.S. Laxman

Manoj Tiwary

Ramesh Powar
Murali Kartik

Suresh Raina

Robin Uthappa
Vijay Dahiya

Sunil Joshi

Ajit Agarkar
Mohammad Kaif

Lakshmipathy Balaji

Hemang Badani
Ajit Wadekar

Yajurvindra Singh

Yashpal Sharma
Mohammad Azharuddin

Ashish Nehra

Sadagoppan Ramesh
Surinder Amarnath

Lala Amarnath

Mohinder Amarnath
Bishan Singh Bedi

Nikhil Chopra
Sunil Manohar Gavaskar
Ajay Jadeja

Robin Singh

Syed Abbas Ali
Sanjay Bapusaheb Bangar

Javagal Srinath

Parthiv Ajay Patel
Dinesh Mongia

Rohan Sunil Gavaskar

Jai Prakash Yadav
Madan Lal

Andrew Leipus

Manoj Prabhakar
Debasis S. Mohanty

Kiran More

Kapil Dev
player of century
Shiv Sunder Das

Navjot Singh Sidhu

John Geoffrey Wrighth

Best Indian Cricket Players is a post from: World Portal

Indian cricket has been undergoing a transformation since about a year from defensive or negative cricket to aggressive and positive cricket. Thanks to the Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni Team India must have seen the last of ‘generous’ cricket.

Dhoni is aboslutely the future of Indian cricket. With Sachin Tendulkar getting older in years, the wicket-keeper and dynamo batter Dhoni is set to carry the Indian team into the future and ensure they match the likes of Australia for the leading spot in test, 20/20 and one day cricketing ranks.

Just watch the score line. 2-0 against Australia in ODI Tri-series in Australia; 2-0 against Australia again in home Test Series; 5-0 against England in home ODI series (the lead could have been more devastating if two matches were not cancelled due to the Mumbai terror attack of 26/11); 1-0 against England again in home Test series and 1-0 lead against Sri Lanka right at the start of 2009 in the ODI series in Sri Lanka. The margins are quite significant because zero figures in all of them. This had been an Australian specialty since long.

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And still more significantly nobody is making exclamatory writings or utterances. Nobody is saying these are ‘incredible’ or ‘freak wins’ or ‘flukes’ or ‘upsets’. The cricket scribes, commentators and specialists had developed a mindset over the years on India’s pathetic display and so always tended to dismiss even deserving wins as ‘flukes’ or ‘upset wins’ at best except perhaps during former skipper Saurav Ganguly’s aggressively successful years. India was described as ‘capable of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory’ or ‘capable of losing matches from any position’. This writer too tried to explore the theorem of ‘how not to win’ for India. Team India was called ‘chucker’ as they managed to lose most of the crucial final fixtures.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni is aggressive by instinct. He has already been lauded as a master thinking captain and is having an enviable success rate in both Tests and ODIs. He has a stout body language and his disarmingly sweet smile makes it infectious. Then with his success as a batsman in any position he becomes a perfect leader who can lead from the front and can now manage to ’snatch victory from the jaws of defeat’. No wonder then that all Team India players are infused with a positive body language and are playing true to their potential, at last. Add Gary Kirsten, former South African opener with stupendous record, to that and you see the results.

Old iconic star cricketers are getting thrown out as Team India now focuses attention only on winning. Australia had been in the positive cricket bracket of late and the beginning of their fall started when their ‘positive’ approach had gone overboard with undue foul aggression and crude uncalled for sledging. India and South Africa are giving Australia the most bitter run for their top spot now.

The Dhoni factor needs to be studied with care and needs to be guided to seemingly unattainable heights. It should not be hyped. Positive cricket is something everybody looks forward to watching.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Chinmay_Chakravarty

Indian Cricket – Dhoni is a post from: World Portal

MS Dhoni

Mahendra Singh Dhoni (MS Dhoni) born in Ranchi, Jharkhand to parents named Pan Singh and Devaki Devi. Dhoni’s parents, moved from Uttarakhand to Ranchi, dad worked as a middle manager.

One of the most gifted Indian and World Cricket Players; Dhoni has not only become the face of cricket in India but probably the world. Well respected by Cricketing nations, England, Australia and South Africa.

His batting ability is quite sensational, his cricket shots full of power and he has regularly achieved high scores in Test Cricket, One Day Cricket and 20/20 Cricket. More recently he has become the face of IPL (Indian Premier League). The growth of Indian Premier League Cricket has been huge, led by the likes of MS Dhoni, Shane Warne and other major cricket personalities. The big batting and cross-batted cricket shots Dhoni regularly plays are well suited to the 20/20 form of cricket, he is more widely known for his power batting as opposed to his wicket keeping.

Dhoni has one sister Jayanti plus a brother Narendra. Originally with long hair, Dhoni recently cut it quite short; he cut it because he wanted to look like his favourite film star John Abraham. Dhoni is a fan of Adam Gilchrist, and his childhood idols were cricket teammate Sachin Tendulkar, Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan and singer Lata Mangeshkar.

Young Dhoni had listed Sachin Tendulkar among his heros as a kid, however Mahendra Singh Dhoni was actually a goalkeeper for the football team in his school (DAV School, Ranchi), and he always very good with tennis and badminton racquets.  Actually being chosen at club and reps level in both these sports. But all that changed when his football instructor Mr K.R. Banerjee sent him to play cricket for a local club.

He had not really played cricket until that time, but  Mahendra Singh Dhoni or ‘MS Dhoni’ as he is now called, provided immediate evidence of his wicket-keeping skills and became the regular keeper for the Commando Cricket Club (1995-98). Based on his club cricket performances, he was picked for the 1997-98 Vinoo Mankad Trophy U-16 Championship and did very well indeed. Football’s loss thus became cricket’s gain, and Mahi made his Ranji Trophy debut for Bihar in 1999-2000 as an 18-year-old, coming through the ranks of the Bihar and East Zone U-19 squads.

Full name Mahendra Singh Dhoni
Born July 7, 1981, Ranchi, Bihar
Current age 27 years 247 days
Major teams India, Asia XI, Bihar, Chennai Super Kings, Jharkhand
Also known as Mahi
Batting style Right-hand bat
Bowling style Right-arm medium
Fielding position Wicketkeeper

Mahendra Singh Dhoni is a post from: World Portal