23 YARDS

Ganguly v Chappell...

... is a case study now. Such fun these MBA students have.

The priorities of professionals

The stands stir to life when Yuvraj Singh walks in to bat. The press box comes alive when the sandwiches come.

The Kumble-report builder

Anil Kumble has just taken his 500th wicket, and newspapers from across the world have asked me to build a software engine that will construct reports on Kumble automatically: all bylines will be affixed after the reports are generated.

Here's a list of key words and phrases I'm planning to use to construct the report:

Bespectacled, engineer, mild-mannered, soft-spoken, unlike Warne and Muralitharan, metronomic line-and-length, hardly turns the ball, flipper, loyal soldier, matchwinner.

Don't believe me? See the reports tomorrow!

Subsidies

Should women's cricket be subsidised by earnings from international men's cricket? Should domestic cricket? My answers to those questions, in order: no and yes.

Domestic cricket acts as a feeder system for the international game; the healthier it is, the more international cricket benefits. Thus, there is good reason to subsidise it.

But women's cricket offers no such benefits to men's cricket. It should pay its own way.

Another Quit India movement?

Gaurav is amused by the number of English cricketers leaving for home before the Test series has even begun. Yes, much fun. But you corner these chaps and you know never, they might just be pushed into raising their game. They've still got some fabulous players left.

And, of course, they've got young Ponty. I can't wait to see him bowl to Sehwag and Dhoni.

Yardage resumes

I'm back from touring Pakistan, where I was covering India's Test series for the Guardian. I also blogged a fair bit on India Uncut (scroll down, or see Jan and Feb archives), but did not have the mental bandwidth to be able to update 23 Yards in that time. Apologies for the absence. Here I am now.

I'm covering India's Test series against England for the Observer, but I'll keep blogging through the series, if somewhat sporadically. Full service will resume once the series is over. Thank you for your patience.

Covers up on 23 Yards

It's that time of the year, and 23 Yards is on holiday for a few days now. But I had to leave you with some cricketing stuff to mull over, so here's my post in Metroblogging Mumbai on the decline of Mumbai cricket: "Whatever happened to the cricket?"

[In a gruff tone] I'll be back.

Smiling is good for you

This study reminds me of the point I'd made here more than a year ago: the cause-and-effect relationship between success and happiness doesn't always happen in the order we think.

(Link via email from Dev Kumar.)

Bouncy bouncy!

Such a fine moment it was. Towards the close of the third day of the Ahmedabad Test between India and Sri Lanka, Malinga Bandara beat Anil Kumble with a ball that bounced sharply, and Kumble gave the widest smile you'll ever see. It had joy, delight, pure happiness. "My turn next," he seemed to be thinking.

Fun would come.

A false familiarity

Veeru, Dada, Yuvi, Mahi, Bhajji: such familiarity we show with our players, as if we know them so well, as if we call them up whenever we're bored and say, "Kya Veeru, kya chal raha hai, ek beer-sheer ho jaye?"

And sometimes I think about how I would feel if strangers started calling me by my nickname, and if I saw it on newspaper headlines, heard it on TV, saw it used and abused in heated discussions in online bulletin boards. How strange that would be.

We think we know these men so well, but really, I'm sure we know very little.

Nooooo...

A nightmare for every bowler:

N..NNNNNNNNN.WN.2.

That's one over from Gladstone Small during a Warwickshire v Middlesex game at Edgbaston in 1982. And in case you're wondering where the wide came from, it happened when, as is described here, Small shortened his run-up to two paces to put an end to the no-balls.

(Trivia via "Next Man In" by Gerald Brodribb.)

DGB: 43 centuries

Sanjeev Naik wonders here why a double-century shouldn't be counted in the records as two centuries, and a triple as three. Interesting point.

I suspect that decision must be one that would have been arbitrarily made at some point, after which it would have carried on as custom. Had it gone the other way, SRT would still be a bit behind DGB.

"Saar, this is Mulki"

Chandrahas Choudhury reviews Ramachandra Guha's "The States of Indian Cricket," and presents us a couple of delightful excerpts. Worth a read.

Pick, pack, pock, puck

The sounds of cricket bats according to James Joyce. In "The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" he wrote:

The fellows were practising long shies and bowling lobs and slow twisters. In the soft grey silence he could hear the bump of the balls: and from here and from there through the quiet air the sound of the cricket bats: pick, pack, pock, puck: like drops of water in a fountain falling softly in the brimming bowl.

In modern times, with the kind of bats we have these days, the sounds have changed a bit, and we also hear shards of ice cracking along with drops of water falling softly. Maybe it depends on the hearer as well.

By and by, you can read Joyce's book here, and that chapter here.

Dropping Sourav

So Sourav Ganguly's been dropped. Without going into the merits of the case -- opinion is savagely polarised on this issue -- let me simply say that I am astounded at the reason Kiran More gave for Ganguly's sacking. He said:

We did not want Sourav at No. 6 because Yuvraj will play there. He has been consistent and we want to give him more opportunities. It's not done to have Sourav in the squad and not have him in the playing eleven.

]]> This is a ludicrous reason. More is actually saying two things here.

1] Ganguly is being kept out of the playing XI by Yuvraj.

2] It doesn't befit a player of his stature to be a mere reserve.

The implication of the first statement is that Ganguly is the seventh-best batsman in the side, and that if Yuvraj was, say, injured, Ganguly would be picked. By that logic, he should be in the squad. After all, if someone gets injured on the eve of the game, you'll have someone who Ganguly would ordinarily be preferred to getting the nod over him.

The second statement is equally silly. The Indian team and management has paid much lip service to professionalism, and by that token, every player should be treated equally. Saying that a player is too big to be a reserve reminds me of those stories from the early years of the 20th century, when Maharajas would only want to bat, and would sent their servants to do the fielding for them. Ganguly, despite the nickname affectionately given to him, has shown no indication of having such an attitude.

So am I saying that Ganguly should have been picked? No. All I am saying is that our selectors insult the cricket-loving public of India by trotting out such silly reasons. The real reason probably is something that More went on to articulate after the bit I quoted above:

We are also keeping the future in mind.

Now, you could agree with that or disagree vehemently, but at least it's a valid reason.

In other notes, one random bloke on the street was shown on TV giving a vox-pop on the subject. He said:

They should not have dropped Gaurav.

Thankfully, there were no follow-up questions on Drahul's captaincy or Tachin's elbow.