The umpiring on day one at Sydney - Day one of the New Year Test was marred by poor umpiring decisions, with India getting the worst of it. A select

	Ganguly appeals in vain for a leg-side catch off Ricky Ponting

"Blind men in white coats do India in"
Headine on the front page of the Times of India on January 3

"Umpires and traditionalists resist the onset of technology to resolve tricky decisions. Nothing in yesterday's events advanced their cause... Batsmen and fielding teams ought to be allowed three references an innings, the strategy adopted in tennis. It is high time the lords and masters of the game adopted this policy.
Peter Roebuck pushes for use of technology

"They claim technological assistance takes too long. But even if is slow, we still must use it. Otherwise, all of a sudden the game's taken away from a side, as it happened in the case of India on Wednesday."
Dean Jones is another in favour of assistance for umpires

"I don't think the game needs to go where every decision gets referred, There are ways you can improve it, but let's not push and poke and prod it too much."
Andrew Symonds, who was reprieved twice on the way to a counter-attacking hundred

"Today, we had a decision referred to the third umpire, and you still got the wrong decision made."
Ian Chappell, referring to the stumping appeal against Symonds that was ruled not out

"It's time for Steve Bucknor to retire. He has been a good umpire, but he is past his sell-by date. He is human. ICC must do something about it."
Ravi Shastri knows just where the problem lies

"The world's No.1 umpire for the past three years is Simon Taufel from Sydney and he should be out in the middle making the crucial decisions under pressure for this is what the best aspire to.I believe the argument for neutral umpires was valid years ago when there was a degree of acceptance for mediocrity due to a lack of television cameras and part-time officials, while the scourge of match-fixing was also lurking beneath the surface."
Steve Waugh makes a radical suggestion

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Sidhartha raja
From:- Patna,Bihar

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Shane Warne's captaincy - More than a year after retiring from international cricket, Shane Warne had captained the underdogs of the IPL to top of t

'He takes his gambling instincts onto the field' ©Getty Images

"In the world there can be only one Taj Mahal. Similarly, there can only be one Shane Warne."
Dinesh Salunkhe, the Rajasthan Royals legspinner who is yet to play first-class cricket, declares his captain one of the wonders of the world

"It shows that when you play under good captains you tend to pick up a lot of good leadership qualities and instincts. Warne has, I think, benefited from playing under good captains and he is very much in control of things in the IPL."
Younis Khan, a Royals signing who hasn't played for the side yet, applauds from the sidelines

"You can study psychology for as long as you want, but he has lived it."
Jeremy Snape, the Royals' assistant coach and holder of a degree in psychology

"Not only has he led the cheapest franchise to the top of the table ... he has cajoled his team's unheralded youngsters and - even more difficult, this - almost convinced everyone that he is now best mates with Graeme Smith."
Lawrence Booth highlights Warne's key achievement, in the Guardian

"He is a great player and he leads from the front. He has done a great job in putting the team together and motivating them to give their best."
Glenn McGrath has a few words of praise for an old mate

"His captaincy creed, 'We can win from any position,' is like the common cold - it's contagious. If a team under Warne pulls off a stunning victory or two, the players start to believe that it wasn't a miracle, just an everyday occurrence."
For Ian Chappell, Warne is the best captain Australia never had

"Even a long break from the game doesn't seem to faze him."
Rahul Dravid, one of the other captains in the tournament, salutes

"Incredibly, his devotion to the team, and especially to the young players in it, even includes learning the Hindi language so he can communicate better - and not just the Namaste [G'day] that is about as far as most expatriates living in India can go. Example: "Ab tu jaake batting kar" [Now you go and bat], Warnie the linguist was heard telling Ravindra Jadeja during a net session the other day with such nonchalance that he never turned to see if anyone noticed."
Bruce Loudon in the Australian details Warne's efforts to bond with his team

--
Sidhartha raja
From:- Patna,Bihar

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India's win in Chennai - 'It had to have been preordained'

Finally Tendulkar slays his fourth-innings demon © AFP

"My dream has come true. I have won a Test for India with Tendulkar."
Yuvraj Singh has played 222 ODIs, scored 10 centuries, won 17 Man-of-the-Match awards, but came of age in this Test

"I've scored a hundred in the second innings, but to actually win a match, play the winning shot, that was something I wanted to do. This makes it really, really special."
Sachin Tendulkaron how much it meant to him

"The toughest win [as captain]. We were not present for the first three days of this Test, did not take wickets and bat the way we should have batted. But we won this match over the last two days."
MS Dhoni kept his 100% record intact, but only just

"When the chase began, I didn't give Dhoni and Co. more than a 10% chance. [Virender] Sehwag, however, changed everything. It's almost unreal that somebody can change the course of a match within 68 balls. What an innings of 83. Our chance of winning, in my opinion, straightaway jumped to 60%. Yes, there have been greater batsmen than Sehwag, but few better match-winners."
Kapil Dev lists the percentages

"Remember the ball was jumping, turning and behaving unpredictably. England will be going over and over how they managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. The big danger is, it could eat away at some of the players."
Geoffey Boycott talks cricket while all others seem to be discussing the healing

"Virender Sehwag started off, and Sachin Tendulkar played a super, super knock. The script couldn't have been better - a man from Mumbai scoring a hundred to conjure an amazing win for them. In fact, both the sides can feel proud to have played a superb Test, and bring back Tests to where it should be."
Kevin Pietersen takes comfort in the fact that there is no shame in such a loss

"In making his declaration, Pietersen underestimated India's talent and audacity every bit as much as Andrew Flintoff did Australia's in Adelaide two winters ago."
Simon Wilde in the Times lays the blame at the captain's door

"Make no mistake, this will be a bitter pill to swallow."
Mike Atherton points out that England will not emerge scar-free from the experience

"At this stage, when the whole country was demoralised after what happened in Mumbai, India needed something symbolic to lift their spirits, and this wonderful victory will make everybody feel a little better, although the wounds of Mumbai won't heal completely."
Sunil Gavaskar, another Mumbaikar, on what the victory means to India

"Ravi Shastri interviewed Tendulkar and Yuvraj after the match was over, and Shastri said Tendulkar's hair was standing when he said he did this for Mumbai … Cricket has been a terrific healer - ask the 35,000 people who were in the ground today."
David Lloyd is wide-eyed with wonder

"Yuvraj played his perfect part, but the day, the match and the country demanded it belong to Tendulkar. It could not have been scripted more perfectly: a boundary to win the match and complete a century. It had to have been preordained. Had to be."
Some things are just meant to be, Mike Selvey says

"This Test was a great advertisement for Test cricket. It is probably the best possible time that we could have had a Test like this. As you can see, a Test win is somehow more memorable than a Twenty20 or one-day international win."
Sanjay Manjrekar on the boost this win gives the premier form of the game

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Sidhartha raja
From:- Patna,Bihar

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