Pushing the limits? © AFP

Are love of cricket and love of India synonymous – or are they, in a contemporary context, mutually exclusive? It’s a question that has troubled me often, most recently when a respondent to one of my posts – which semi-facetiously suggested an Indian batting collapse could inject some energy into a destined-for-a-draw Chennai Test – implied I was being unpatriotic.

Since I’ve never measured patriotism or sense of national identity in terms of worshipping dead-on-arrival pitches, I must say I was left bemused. What amazes me even more – and has amazed me for years – is how much and how easily a certain Indian type of Indian cricket fan manages to work himself into a frenzy over fairly inconsequential fixtures.

I’m not going to pretend I’m an ivory tower intellectual who doesn’t scream, shout, wave his fist and manically thump the television at a particularly engrossing stage in a cricket match. Of course I do. I respond as a passionate fan, occasionally as a passionate Indian.

When an Indian player is reported – unfairly in my opinion – for racism, it makes me boil. When India won the Perth Test recently or the limited overs tri-series finals in Austalia, I exulted, felt vindicated like many other Indians did, and was happy to tell everybody within hearing distance, “It serves those Aussies right.”

Having said this, I find it impossible to get similarly emotionally charged while watching matches as deathly boring as the one that’s just ended in Chennai. Aside from Sehwag’s innings – a tribute to fast scoring and stamina in energy-sapping heat – will I even remember this match? Will anyone?

Later in 2008, India plays a tri-series in Bangladesh in June – almost certain to be interrupted by the monsoon – and hosts England for seven ODIs. Unless it’s a particularly exciting game, do I see myself biting nails and praying fervently for India – My Country, My Team! – to win in the fourth match of that series? Can I be expected to treat it with the same importance and emotional investment as the Perth Test, the ICC World Twenty20 or the CB tri-series final in Australia?

Sport can become a channel for nationalism and feeling for one’s country at landmark moments. I still remember Rahul Dravid hitting the winning run and raising his arms at Adelaide in 2004. I was there in Athens when Rajyavardhan Rathore won that silver medal and I was weeping copiously. Yet, can this happen on a round-the-year basis, from Singapore to Sri Lanka, Nagpur to Napier, or wherever the endless and meaningless Indian ODI itinerary takes my television and me?

I know my answer. If you have another one, good for you.

Technology does strange things to us. It has created a generation of cricket cyber-nationalists who are, for the most part, infuriating. India is the best and the damn the rest, goes the mantra; cricket, in these circumstances, becomes less a sport or a human endeavour to savour, more a vehicle for pet dislikes, obsessions and prejudices.

This is a group whose cricket has a limited geography – being focused solely on India, Indian matches, Indian players – but is also essentially ahistorical. The natural corollary to cricket as hyper-nationalism is cricket as anti-contextual. Usually this translates to: the best is now; or rather, the best is the current player I like. He is unprecedented, there was never another like him.

When I was growing up, there were fellows in school who were devoted to statistics, forever quoting one or the other to make their point. I must say I went through my obsession with statistical trivia as well, I still enjoy it at times, but it doesn’t consume my entire cricket. I’ve outgrown that period, as so many cricket buffs do.

Desktop cricket fanaticism, however, is a re-rendition of this belief that record-books and statistics don’t just embellish cricket, they ARE cricket. Statsguru is a very useful tool provided by Cricinfo and while it can be invaluable for research, it can also lead to some fairly moronic analyses.

The other day, somebody wrote in insisting that Srikkanth was only as effective or fast-scoring in ODIs as Rahul Dravid because they both had a strike rate of (if I recall) “71 per 100 balls”; and that by the strike-rate parameter, Sehwag was a greater batsman than Srikkanth. Since the person has obviously already made up his mind, how do you even begin a discussion on batting-bowling equations, pitch conditions, opposition bowling strengths, the evolution of one-day cricket from the 1980s to now?

Sehwag may well be a better batsman than Srikkanth – though that is a subjective call and surely all 10,000 or 50,000 people watching a cricket match have the right to see events their way and, in a sense, to watch different versions of the same game – but is a strike-rate enumerator going to decide that?

A quick response to the negative mail after my previous post. I wasn't comparing Sehwag's batting to Shastri's. The only point I was making was that the two are among the most gritty Indian batsmen ever: hungry, willing to take a deep breath and go on and on. Both want to maximise the gifts they've been given. This is unusual for Indian cricket, which -- from Jaisimha to Sandeep Patil to Sanjay Manjrekar, to pick three random names -- has been a saga of under-achievers.

While statistics don't tell the whole story, Shastri used his limited talent to hit 200 once; Sehwag, obviously a better batsman, used his greater talent to hit 300 twice.

Second, while I'm happy to doff my hat each time Sehwag entertains me and scores big, and scores quickly, it's a little silly to suggest, as one reader has done, that he's better than V.V.S. Laxman. Hayden has hit a triple-hundred and Ponting has not, but nobody suggests the Australian opener is a greater batsman than his captain.

Let's not lose perspective and nuance here.

I still believe it’s a bad, unequal wicket that doesn’t make for a great contest. I still believe this match is likely to be drawn. Yet, nothing, just nothing can take away from Sehwag’s innings. Every time he scores a century – and 10 scores of over 150 bear this out – he goes on to make a big one. He doesn’t throw it away, there’s a hungry, gritty, run-chewing monster inside him.

It’s tempting to compare Sehwag to K. Srikkanth, another hard-hitting batsman with a quick eye and delightful wrists who, if memory serves me right, got only two hundreds in Test cricket. I remember both those innings – one in Chennai itself, against Imran in 1986-87, and one a season earlier in Australia (which I heard on the radio, but didn’t see). So often, he’d blaze his way to 30 or 40 and then get bored, twirl his nostrils, make some silly error and go home – another of a long list of Indian stylists who scored fewer runs than they should have.

Sehwag started off looking podgy – he is much fitter in real life than the photographs do him credit – but today his stamina spoke for him. It’s remarkable that in team with four batsmen who’re all rated above him, he’s the one who refuses to get out. It would be sacrilege perhaps to mention him in the same breath as Bradman and Lara – the others to have hit two triple hundreds in Tests – but look how he’s polished his limited skills set and where it’s taken him to ... He’s a bit like Ravi Shastri in that sense, only more free-scoring.

These past two years have cost Sehwag a lot – his form, his place in the team, his shot at captaincy. He’s lost that slot to Dhoni and if he decides he doesn’t want it, maybe it’ll just free him up for a long innings as India’s most prolific opener since that day in Mumbai in 1987 when Sunil Gavaskar left the crease for the last time. There couldn’t be two more different batsmen; but only one of them ever reached 300.

Tomorrow, could he make it 400?

Just read a piece by Harsha Bhogle in today’s Indian Express on how the ICC’s more sinned against than sinning. Not sure I agree with that. In fact the way the ICC’s made a mess of international umpiring is a case in point.

The first thing an economy needs is infrastructure – before the booming factories, you need to get the power stations running and roads ready. Cricket’s equivalent, I suppose, is the paucity of top-level umpires. The ICC’s Elite panel is woefully small and overworked, leading to, most recently, Simon Taufel announcing he’s had enough.

How has the ICC tackled this? In a very ad hoc manner. At its Dubai meeting, I expected a discussion – if not a blueprint – on upgrading umpiring skills across member countries leading to, say a doubling to the Elite panel strength in 15 months or 18 months. Some discussion on using technology to aid umpires or even take over decision-making to some degree would also have helped.

It’s all very well to say umpires are intrinsic to the game and cricket needs the “human touch”. These are fine clichés for a Sunday afternoon game – not for a multi-million dollar, serious sporting enterprise. If umpires have to take recourse to technology and replays more and more, so be it.
They’re not the stars on the field, the players are.

As the biggest economy/stakeholder, the BCCI should be leading the discussion on the future of umpiring. With IPL and with a very busy international programme for its team(s), India needs top-quality umpiring and umpiring solutions more than anyone else.

What the ICC has come up with is woefully inadequate. I mean, either Darrell Hair and Steve Bucknor are good umpires or they’re not. Either they’re good enough for all teams or they’re not. I believe Bucknor is no more a top-grade umpire, which is why he should not be standing when England plays Australia or New Zealand plays Sri Lanka for that matter. The ICC can agree or disagree; it can’t half-agree. To keep Bucknor out of India’s matches and keep Hair away from Pakistan’s games sets a very bad precedent.

What a terribly forgettable day of Test cricket – and to think it came right after the rivetting stuff in Australia. If the rest of the series is like this, these matches will be the best advertisement and pre-publicity for IPL and T20. Part of me is already praying for an Indian collapse tomorrow and a follow on. Else, we’re headed for yet another draw.

To bat in these oppressively hot conditions is torture, to watch shoddy fielding is even more so. Since the BCCI is in such experimental mood these days – having taken to IPL with gusto – why can’t it decide that all Test matches in India between, say, March 15 and October 1 (or between the festivals of Holi and Diwali that traditionally frame the Indian summer), will be played under floodlights. The first ball could be bowled at 5.30 pm.

I know it sounds a silly idea, but it’s better than playing in Kanpur and Ahmedabad in April, as the Indians and South Africans will be doing.

On another note, thanks for the welcoming messages in response to the first post. deepak2 warns me I have my job cut out replacing Mukul. Deepak, I’m not competing; if I manage half Mukul’s success I’ll be happy. Actually, if I blog in a year half as good in terms of playing skills and drama as the one in which he did, I’ll be happy.

To more excitement, and to fewer days like this one!

It’s been 24 hours since I was given the freedom to start blogging by Cricinfo’s editors. It’s also been 24 hours since I decided to read Mukul Kesavan’s last post. “Blues Brothers” succeeds – perhaps replaces is a better word – “Men in White” and I attempt to fit the shoes of someone of a bigger size. It was appropriate, I felt, to read that valediction, in homage if nothing else.

Then I read the responses; at the time there were 126 readers who’d mailed back following that final post. Some liked Mukul and said they’d miss him; others loathed him and couldn’t wait to share their glee at him leaving the crease. Either way, there was strong emotion and great vehemence. It scared me. In India, in cyberspace at least, we take our cricket seriously. Writing on politics – which is my day job – seems almost tension free in comparison.

Well, 24 hours are enough to battle trepidation. It’s appropriate to start with an introduction. Like all cricket fans, I’m a contradiction. I grew up reading of the Golden Age of Cricket, of Trumper and Clem Hill (with whom, I discovered to my utter joy, I share a birthday). Yet, as March vanishes into April, I can’t but confess I’m looking forward to the IPL razzmatazz. True, it’s not the same game – but it’s the only one we have.

This blog is supposed to be a wide-eyed fan’s view. As a journalist, and one who writes occasionally on the business and politics of cricket, I cannot entirely escape the cynic’s view. So this blog will perhaps reflect the inner confusion of the blogger. So much like the great game isn’t it – immaculate defence one ball, cross-bat swipe the next? Cricket brings out the paradox of life.

It’s a strange day to start. A Test match has begun and I haven’t been able to watch it. I don’t get Neo on my television, Doordarshan is not showing the matches – more correctly, not stealing pictures it couldn’t legitimately buy – and even old All India Radio has walked away from ball-by-ball commentary.

I’ve followed the match on Cricinfo. By tomorrow, I’ll have to make amends and contact my DTH service provider and get that damned Neo signal. Maybe radio commentary will come my way too in the coming months. India has a plethora of private FM stations but they’re banned from broadcasting news. Live sports matches constitute news and so there’s no commentary on private FM stations.

The government, I hear, is considering, allowing news broadcast on private radio. So is cricket on FM the next media revolution my generation must encounter and come to terms with? Will my son, all of 17 months, grow up listening to Delhi Daredevils pulverise Chennai Superkings (and are those corny names) on FM? Will he read my collection of cricket books? Will he watch Test cricket at all?

Come to think of it, will we watch Test cricket at all, at least this year? After a pulsating tour of Australia that was, really, the best advertisement for Test match cricket, with all the attendant ceremony and drama, the BCCI has just announced that it’s cutting down the England series in India from three Tests to two. To make up, Mr Sharad Pawar and his friends will torture us with a meaningless ODI tri-series in Bangladesh in the midsummer madness of June!

What was that about carefully nurturing Test cricket and not allowing it to be overwhelmed by ODIs and T20 and IPL? Oh just another BCCI yarn ...