tag:blogs.cricinfo.com,2009:/bluesbrothers//133 2008-09-28T14:50:32Z Movable Type 3.34 tag:blogs.cricinfo.com,2008:/bluesbrothers//133.7449 2008-09-28T14:39:13Z 2008-09-28T14:50:32Z

Ashok Malik

'Greg Chappell can offer some advice – but we should stop behaving like he's got the Watergate tapes in his briefcase' © AFP

Infuriating at the best of times, the cricket media has gone completely bananas in recent days with a series of non-stories. First, there was this controversy over whether the BCCI had broken its rules in making Narendra Hirwani a selector. Apparently, the rulebook said the selector should be a former player, retired 10 years. It seems Hirwani was playing cricket after that date. It’s a stupid rule and its breach shouldn’t really bother anyone. Yet, the cricket press went on and on as if it were the biggest infraction since Bodyline. Second, the “betrayal” of and “secrets” being carried by Greg Chappell became news. The former Indian coach was now adviser to the Australian team and would allegedly “reveal weaknesses”. I’m no Chappell fan but to suggest he is guilty of some sort of deceit or treachery in this case is baloney. ]]> He's a cricket professional and has a right to offer his services where he wants. If his contract with the BCCI didn't stop him from being employed elsewhere and didn't compensate him for a cooling off period, why should we blame him? In any case, what secrets could he be carrying? Bowlers like Zaheer Khan and Anil Kumble and batsmen like Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid have been playing cricket for aeons. Footage and computer analyses of their game, their strengths and weaknesses, is easily available. True, Chappell can offer some advice – but we should stop behaving like he's got the Watergate tapes in his briefcase. With the quantum of information, data and visual evidence now available, each cricketer's game is well known to rival teams. Even while selecting the IPL squads, the franchises took recourse to mathematical modelling (on the basis of player data) and television footage. All of it was available in the public domain or could be got from sportscasters for a price. International teams must be working even harder at such background stuff. It's a far cry from the past and reminds me of an old story from the winter (summer in Australia) of 1980. The Indian cricket team was set to visit Australia and Dennis Lillee and Len Pascoe were confused about what to expect. They had never played a match against India, and Lillee had only bowled to one of the Indians, Sunil Gavaskar, in an Australia versus Rest of the World series in the early 1970s. The Australian fast bowlers – captained at the time by, as it happens, Greg Chappell – sought out Ray Lindwall, who had bowled to the Indians in the 1947-48 series down under and toured the subcontinent in the 1950s. Lindwall, by then a comfortably retired florist and far from the fearsome bowler he once was, scratched his head and said all he remembered was the Indians in 1948 were a little weak against the ball moving away, outside the off-stump. He apologised that he could be of no further help. Lillee and Pascoe went home none the wiser. As the Indian innings began on the first morning of the first test match in Sydney, Lillee ran in to bowl and, taking a chance on the basis of Lindwall's fading recollection and throwaway line, tried to get the ball to move away from off. Here's what happened: fifth ball, Gavaskar edges one outside the off stump to Rodney Marsh; India zero for one. I hope current Australian coach Tim Nielsen's laptop can do half as well as ol' Lindwall's sense of observation! However, one must credit the Australians for taking this series seriously. With the cancellation of the Champions' Trophy, they had time on their hands and used it well – coming to India early and giving their fairly new team a taste of the conditions here. This brings us to media goof-up number three. Reporters have detected a conspiracy in Lalit Modi giving the Australians training facilities in Jaipur. Apparently, the rest of the BCCI is angry with him for "allowing" the opposition to prepare better. This is another of those wild theories that floats around when journalists have nothing better to report and need to invent stories. My sources in the BCCI tell me the anger against and so-called isolation of Modi in the Board is completely exaggerated. That aside, there is something to be learnt from Ricky Ponting and Cricket Australia. When the Indian team toured Australia in 2007, the BCCI drew up an itinerary that gave Kumble's men just one practice game before the first test – this for the toughest tour of them all! The world's richest Cricket Board was too preoccupied making its team play elsewhere and too busy to send the squad early, perhaps to a sports training facility (and Australia abounds in them). It was not a priority. I have no idea whether the Rajasthan Cricket Association is charging the Australian team for providing pre-series practice. If they had asked, Cricket Australia would probably have paid. Getting the team ready for a big series would have been seen as more important. Indian cricket doesn't function like that. That's why we can't understand why the Australians came here so early and why they weren't playing an ODI tournament in Malaysia instead. That's why we're convinced there's some underhand deal between Modi and the Australians, that all is not what it seems. A cricket culture gets the administrators – and the media – it deserves. tag:blogs.cricinfo.com,2008:/bluesbrothers//133.7284 2008-09-12T05:09:51Z 2009-05-30T13:27:36Z

Having said that, we’re about to enter a long and interesting Test match season – and it would be appropriate and fitting for Ganguly to walk out after a gripping innings in an international match, at the peak of his authority, having taken his own decision. Yet, time is running out for that aspiration

Ashok Malik

Sourav Ganguly was dropped for the Irani Trophy game after a poor showing in Sri Lanka © AFP

I’ve been avoiding getting into this silly “Should Saurav Ganguly retire?” debate. Part of the reason is, of course, that I’m a big fan of his pluck and derring-do, of him as a batsman and more so of him as perhaps India’s finest captain. Admittedly the Big Four – Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman – didn’t have a good series in Sri Lanka. The batting cost India victory and Ganguly’s form was the poorest. As such, I wasn’t surprised when he was dropped for the Irani Trophy game. Having said that, we’re about to enter a long and interesting Test match season – and it would be appropriate and fitting for Ganguly to walk out after a gripping innings in an international match, at the peak of his authority, having taken his own decision. Yet, time is running out for that aspiration. He says he has another two years in him, I’m not too sure. A few matches and perhaps part or even all of the coming season is plausible. Two years? Too long. India can’t wait]]> outof favour. He was never given a chance to fail, only dumped unceremoniously even after decent innings. In contrast, Yuvraj Singh had his chances but has become India’s leading ODI game-changer rather than Test match mainstay. With a new foursome – Kaif, Sharma, Badrinath and Raina – at the edge of the Test team, the selectors would need to calibrate the rejuvenation of the middle order. One by one, piece by piece, the brilliant veterans will have to be replaced. This is a special, delicate moment. India’s finest middle-order line-up is about to hand over responsibilities to a successor generation. It calls for enlightened action and sense of dignity from all concerned – the Old Guard, the Young Pretenders and the BCCI officialdom. Granted Tendulkar will go only when he wants to and granted Laxman will probably be chaperoning the new middle-order, as the youngest and only survivor from the immediate past, for longer than many imagine. Even so, some harsh decisions will be called for. By the time India begins playing the first Test match in New Zealand at the end of March 2009, at least two names in the batting list should be playing for the future, not batting from memory. Postscript: Ganguly’s far from done. It’s become a bit of a cliché to suggest that former cricketers or even outgoing cricketers have a lot to contribute but, often enough, it is difficult to find precise roles. Ganguly’s reputation as a fair-minded risk-taker, the rare Indian captain who was not just articulate but non-parochial too, makes him a shoo-in for the chief selector’s job. Using the special powers now given to him to, essentially, appoint anybody he wants as selector, the BCCI president should fast-track Ganguly, as soon his playing days are over, into the job. He’s too committed to Indian cricket and too unprejudiced a mind to be left writing newspaper columns.]]> tag:blogs.cricinfo.com,2008:/bluesbrothers//133.7118 2008-08-25T06:38:59Z 2008-08-25T07:10:33Z

The Champions' Trophy is an unwanted extra on the international cricket stage, irrespective of whether it is played in Pakistan or India, Australia or England

Ashok Malik

The Champions' Trophy is an unwanted extra on the international cricket stage © Getty Images

Sometimes crisis provides opportunity. While one can be fully sympathetic towards Pakistani cricket fans, it is important to see the postponement of the Champions' Trophy in a wider perspective. This is a useless, pointless tournament that nobody really wants – not players, not sponsors, not television viewers. The Champions' Trophy is an unwanted extra on the international cricket stage, irrespective of whether it is played in Pakistan or India, Australia or England. With the Champions' Trophy gone, I suspect the Twenty20 Champions' League or some such IPL-inspired blockbuster will rush in to take its place. It will mean better business for the men who run global cricket and probably keep the players – who wouldn't mind extra money – happy too. Perhaps it will also allow the international calendar to be spread out this winter. With some juggling of dates, the England tour of India could now see three Test matches rather than two. This will gladden purists. The point I am trying to make is, given the advance of T20 and the fact that Test cricket will always be the classical version of the game, the space and indulgence for long, spread-out ODI jamborees such as the Champions' Trophy is going to contract. Rather than flog a dead horse, let the ICC bury the Champions' Trophy altogether. As soon as conditions are deemed suitable in that country, Pakistan can be compensated with other tournaments or tours. ]]> Rather than pussyfooting and pretending it can restrict T20 – or, on the other hand, that it is doing enough to preserve the sanctity of Test cricket and the integrity of proper rather than truncated series – the ICC needs to get realistic. The international cricket calendar is simply too crowded and needs to be cleaned up. It is clear as crystal that the game's stakeholders – fans and sponsors alike – cannot sustain two mega-sized ODI tournaments within two years of each other, not with T20 as the new elephant in the room. The ODI World Cup is obviously non-negotiable; therefore it must be the Champions' Trophy that heads for the guillotine. It would be so much better if the ICC faced up to facts and was honest in its public statements. Does anybody quite expect the Champions' Trophy to be played in October 2009 – whether in Pakistan or anywhere else? In June 2009, the T20 world cup will be played in England. Already it is expected to crowd out endorsement money and television interest. Does it do justice to the world's leading cricketers to expect them to play a second global tournament roughly three months later? What about the viewers? Won't a fatigue factor inevitably set in? tag:blogs.cricinfo.com,2008:/bluesbrothers//133.6940 2008-08-05T03:36:48Z 2008-08-05T04:06:17Z

The refusal to surrender, the arresting arrogance, the almost imperious self-belief – it reminded me of Douglas Jardine. Only those who don’t see Jardine though a narrow, one-dimensional prism will know what I mean, I suppose. Anyhow, I’ve admired Pietersen ever since. May he have a good run as captain

Ashok Malik

Kevin Pietersen after being appointed England captain © Getty Images

Having appointed Kevin Pietersen as captain of England, Geoff Miller, chairman of selectors at the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), talked of seeking a leader who brought “fresh enthusiasm and ideas” and who could lead the team in all three formats: Tests, ODIs and Twenty20s. As a huge Pietersen fan, I must confess to being deliriously happy. Not since Ian Botham has the most talented and exciting cricketer in the English team been appointed captain. It was said of the Australians that they selected the XI best cricketers and then simply chose the best of the best as captain. The English did things differently – which is why Mike Brearley had a long, memorable spell as captain and even Keith Fletcher was at the helm for a tour of India, one which he probably shouldn’t have made even as a batsman. On the other hand, John Inverarity – the bespectacled mathematics teacher and intellectual cricketer who was a sort of Australian Brearley – never came close to captaining the national team.]]> three captains is quite another matter. If England is glad Pietersen can claim a place in all three international teams (Test, ODI and T20), it would rather have him captaining all the year through, for all sorts of games. That was probably the clinching factor that swung the Indian T20 and ODI captaincy (and Test vice-captaincy) for Mahendra Singh Dhoni as well. Here was one cricketer who, the selectors were sure, could be part of all three XIs. A Yuvraj Singh may never sustain as a Test cricketer. In 2007, when Dravid quit and a succession plan was being put in place, Virender Sehwag was out of form and so ruled out of contention (it may have been a different story if Dravid had hung on to the captain’s job for another year). Now, of course, Dhoni is almost certain to don Anil Kumble’s mantle as leader of the Test side. The change is probably no more than a season away. It’s interesting that while the idea of captain Dhoni or captain Pietersen represents continuity and stability to administrators, neither has been around too long. Both came into their national XIs about three years ago and have, in a fairly short period, raced past more experienced colleagues who were fancied as future captains. In their own way, Dhoni and Pietersen have displayed nerve and resilience. In the Pietersen’s case, the challenges were unique in that he changed countries and was called a mercenary by both his former South African compatriots and a sceptical English cricket fraternity. In one of his early series, he toured South Africa and was booed and barracked by a crowd that saw him as some sort of a traitor. He fought back with three hundreds. The refusal to surrender, the arresting arrogance, the almost imperious self-belief – it reminded me of Douglas Jardine. Only those who don’t see Jardine though a narrow, one-dimensional prism will know what I mean, I suppose. Anyhow, I’ve admired Pietersen ever since. May he have a good run as captain. ]]> tag:blogs.cricinfo.com,2008:/bluesbrothers//133.6856 2008-07-26T18:36:49Z 2008-07-27T03:45:02Z

Ashok Malik

Ajantha Mendis: a lethal new addition to the Sri Lankan attack © AFP

For an Indian cricket fan, the first Test match of the series in Sri Lanka was a humbling experience. The Indian cricket community and media not being given to patience, inevitably the attack will begin – on the captain, the poor spin bowling and the ageing middle order. Frankly, that is an issue I don’t want to touch upon for the simple reason that one Test match is too little time in which to decide that entire careers are over and wholesale changes are needed. If the rest of the series proceeds like this, then perhaps there may be long-term issues to address. Even so, that is meat for another post, another time. The point I want to focus on today is how Sri Lanka, for the past 20 odd years and certainly since the mid-1990s, remains the most underrated and under-appreciated top quality cricket team in the world. To an attack led by a fine fast bowler and one of the greatest spinners in history, they’ve added a lethal new weapon. Their cricket system has this enviable ability to churn out a series of elegant and/or devastatingly destructive batsmen, one after the other. ]]> India Today on Sri Lanka’s cricket nursery. I can’t recall the entire article but do remember a reference to the integrity and honesty of the Sri Lankan cricket work ethic. I think it was in Brijnath’s article that I read about the Wettimuny brothers, Sunil, Mithra and Sidath (Sri Lanka’s first test centurion). reproducing a fraying, century-old English coaching manual, page by page, painstakingly drawing the illustrations, copying the text. It was an age before ubiquitous photocopying machines and scanners, I suppose, and being classicists, the brothers felt the young cricketers in their charge must learn cricket the right way. The romantic in me would like to believe that some of the young men in the team that smashed India on July 26 were beneficiaries of the Wettimuny way. It is an unusual anecdote but to my mind a memorable one. The Wettimuny brothers’ act was perhaps the most moving tribute an international cricketer had ever paid to his art form, a reverential prayer to “Mother Cricket”, to borrow an expression South African coach Mickey Arthur used recently, albeit in another context. I wish I could rattle off names of Indian cricketers who would gladly do the same to pay their dues, pass on their skills to another, less endowed generation. For me, that sentiment, that sense of obligation sums up cricket more than statistics, razzmatazz and other trivia.

	The pride and passion of Sri Lankan cricket fans is never overdone or overaggressive © AFP

I’ve never seen a cricket match in Sri Lanka – though I do want to go there for a test some day – but have visited Colombo three times. I’ve discussed cricket with auto-rickshaw and taxi drivers, government officials, hotel waiters, bookstore managers, bartenders, you name it. The Sri Lankans love their cricket, are fiercely proud of their cricket team and badly want it to win. Yet, it’s struck me that their pride and passion is never overdone or overaggressive. It’s not as if they’re trying to tell you that not only is the Sri Lankan team good but the Indian (and every other) team is bad or otherwise less than reputable. There is no deliberate running down of the other guy. Perhaps he exists, but I’ve never met the Ugly Sri Lankan Cricket Fan. I’ve encountered his equivalent in or from India, Pakistan and Australia more often than I’d want to. To me, the best cricket tradition is one that plays the game hard, speaks in the contemporary idiom and yet salutes cricket’s glorious, unparalleled heritage. Among the three major Asian countries, I think Sri Lanka has it just right. Indian cricket swings wildly between (usually imagined) victimhood and overweening arrogance, including telling English county clubs whom to select or drop. Pakistan’s is another cricket establishment with just too many chips on its shoulder. Sri Lanka is different. It fights and fights fiercely when it has to. Ranatunga was the prototype of the assertive, tough-as-nails Asian captain when he defended his star bowler – accused of chucking – through a gruelling tour of Australia. He took on the umpires, the other team, the unfriendly press – because he believed in his cause, his team, his country. Even so, Sri Lankan cricket does not believe in a permanent war theory. The past is over; the mid-1990s are dead. The team and the country have moved on. The Indian and Pakistani cricket boards, on the other hand, are continually fighting yesterday’s wars. If you’re ever in Colombo, visit the Cricket Café – at least that’s what I think it’s called. Among other things, it serves great sea food but that’s not the only reason I have fond memories of it. In its own manner, it’s a delightful little cricket museum, with memorabilia from, well, Old Blighty to New Ceylon. It has place for Hutton and Hobbs but, equally, for Murali and Mendis. To me, this signified a small but important lesson. Sri Lankans love their cricket team and also love cricket. They don’t see the two emotions as either synonymous or mutually exclusive. I’ve never visited an Indian restaurant with a similar sensibility. Sure, I could go to one with posters of current Indian cricket stars – but would that be a celebration of cricket? There is a difference. Sri Lankans, as a society, understand that difference. That’s why it’s impossible to grudge them victory, even when they’ve hammered your team.]]> tag:blogs.cricinfo.com,2008:/bluesbrothers//133.6613 2008-06-25T09:19:30Z 2008-06-25T18:03:22Z

The welter of emotions that June 25, 1983, triggers within me – or, indeed, a few million others of my generation, give or take some years – is too personal and too complex to adequately convey to someone much younger or from another country or culture

Ashok Malik

You had to be there © Getty Images

This past Sunday, my niece, all of 17 and a week away from her first day in college, came over. I took her for lunch to a neighbourhood restaurant and as we ordered I found her watching the television set behind my back. A news channel was on, and a feature on the Prudential Cup of 1983 was being telecast. “What’re you watching so quizzically?” I asked. “It’s Kapil Dev,” she said, “I wonder what he’s doing on television.” “It’s the 25th anniversary of the World Cup victory. It’s probably a silver jubilee special.” “Twenty fifth?” she rolled her eyes, “who cares ...” I stared back, smiled what I thought was a wry smile and tucked into my chicken tikka masala. It was not that I had nothing too say; it was that I had too much. The welter of emotions that June 25, 1983, triggers within me – or, indeed, a few million others of my generation, give or take some years – is too personal and too complex to adequately convey to someone much younger or from another country or culture. At lunch on Sunday, my niece was another country. In a sense you have to be English to fully understand what the 1966 World Cup meant for your society. For that matter, you have to be Pakistani to fully appreciate what the 1992 cricket World Cup victory stood for. It would help, of course, if you’d been around to watch those games, or just experience them on radio or television.]]> I was 14 that summer, and on June 25 my parents dragged me to the engagement of a close family friend’s daughter. It was a quiet, private party – about 30-40 people in an apartment. It was soon apparent that everybody’s mind was elsewhere. The engagement date had been fixed months earlier, well before anybody knew how the Prudential Cup would turn out. Yet, as it happened, it now coincided with the Big Day. I’d seen most the Indian innings at home, but as the party picked up pace, India began to pick up wickets. The couple was urged to exchange rings double quick, chairs and sofas were moved around, and the party crowded before one small television. Even dinner – an elaborate spread it was, since the girl’s father owned a swish restaurant – was served in between overs, right by the television. To cut a long story short, the party ended early, and everybody drove home manically to catch the last few wickets, and announce victory. It often struck me in later years that few actually wanted to stay back and watch the whole match at the party venue itself. As victory moved from possibility to probability, people began to reach for their car keys. It was if they wanted to be in their individual homes when the magic moment arrived. I suppose you can party anywhere, but you have to be home for Diwali, or Christmas or Id. June 25, 1983, was a day vested in sacredness. For me, the moment was particularly and doubly sweet because justice had been done. Mohinder Amarnath was my favourite cricketer, a boyhood hero who I thought had been treated unfairly by the selectors and the Bombay lobby that then ruled Indian cricket – it still does, but that’s another story. The Prudential Cup completed a dream comeback for him. He’d stood up to Imran Khan in the winter of 1982-93 as all around him crumbled; he had hooked and hit his way to runs and glory against the West Indies – India’s only series in the Caribbean while facing the pace quartet – earlier in the year; and he had made the World Cup his own. I guess it’s not just age that causes me to remember 1983 more than other years, other victories. Adelaide in 2004 and Perth earlier this year; the Test series triumph in that remarkable tour of Pakistan in 2004; the brilliant burst that took India, after a faltering start, to the 2003 World Cup final – there has been much to cherish in recent years. Having said that, the 1983 moment still stands out, simply because it was, for that period, so unusual. India rarely won anything significant those days. In the immediate past, we’d beaten West Indies, Australia and England at home, but all of them were second-rate sides, without the Packer players or some top star or the other. The victory against Pakistan in 1979-80 was memorable but came, except for the final two Tests, in the absence of Imran Khan. Imran himself showed up India’s batting as sub-prime in the 1982-83 series. That was a time when the average, reasonably informed cricket fan could recount which Indians had scored centuries at Lord’s and newspaper writers still saw that, for some reason, as a pinnacle of achievement. Today, even Ajit Agarkar has scored a century at Lord’s. The 1983 team was not India’s best ever. I would argue that the 2003 World Cup finalist XI had a better batting line-up and, with the exception of Kapil – who I would happily have had for the then tyro Zaheer Khan – a better bowling attack as well. Yet, the XI Good Men of 1983 were honest cricketers. They had what illustrious predecessors and successors have sometimes lacked – pluck, grit and courage. Kapil hit 175 not out coming in at 9 for 4. Don’t forget, Roger Binny, Madan Lal and Syed Kirmani supported him at the other end for close to 250 runs. Yashpal Sharma and Amarnath were not history’s most elegant batsmen – but I’d want them on my side at Armageddon. In many ways, the fact that Twenty20 and IPL have taken over cricket in 2008 has completed a circle that began with the Prudential Cup. Starting 1983, the limited-overs game – F50, to use today’s argot – was recognised as one for bits-and-pieces cricketers: those who could bat a bit, bowl a bit, chase the ball hard in the outfield. Madan Lal and Binny were never going to be Test match greats but they were invaluable in an ODI. Twenty20 has inverted the pyramid. It’s brought back the specialist. Only an outstanding bowler – Glenn McGrath comes to mind – can restrict runs or even hope to bowl a maiden over in this format. As for front-ranking batsmen, they have a huge role coming in at the top of the order. The middle or late order is not always as important in a Twenty20 game – for the most part, either your first four batsmen win the match for you or you lose. In 1983, it was so different. The mouse roared, the little man punched above his weight. On a Sunday evening 25 years ago, we were all kings for the rest of the night. tag:blogs.cricinfo.com,2008:/bluesbrothers//133.6587 2008-06-22T06:36:19Z 2008-06-22T10:15:57Z

While the whole world is threatened by terrorism, Jaipur and London were one-off incidents. Pakistan has been a battleground for the past few years, and the past seven or eight months have been particularly disturbing

Ashok Malik

Players have a right to be worried and a right to be consulted on security issues, without cricket officials giving them a “take it or leave it” ultimatum © AFP

It seems we’re set for another round of that old and decidedly bogus phenomenon – cricket’s so-called racial divide. Australia and England face the prospect of top players refusing to go to Pakistan for the Champions’ Trophy. The country is violent and turbulent, they argue, and the tournament is being played on the anniversary of 9/11 – though I doubt that final factor makes the cricketers any less or more vulnerable. The ICC should have seen this coming but has been deliberately and cussedly ostrich-like. A few weeks ago, I met a senior cricket official from a south Asian country and asked him if he foresaw problems ahead. After all, nothing had changed between the cancellation of the Australian tour of Pakistan in April and now. Pakistan was unlikely to experience a change in threat perceptions by the late summer. Would not the same logic and the same fear factor that drove away Andrew Symonds and Cricket Australia still hold true? My question was waved aside with an “It’s all okay.” Now that the problem is beginning to emerge and be heard, the ICC is still insisting that Pakistan is perfectly safe and that the upcoming Asia Cup is an adequate dress rehearsal. Should the Australians and English think otherwise, be certain that somebody will conjure up the familiar “Asians versus Old Empire” argument and sundry Indian and Pakistani busybodies will go around making smug statements about how the West hates cricket’s new power equations.]]> This is not to suggest that the cricketers who don’t want to go to Pakistan are necessarily correct or even consistent. Yet, the fact is they have a right to be worried and a right to be consulted, without cricket officials giving them a “take it or leave it” ultimatum. True, the Jaipur terror blasts did not affect the Indian Premier League. In July 2005, the Lord’s Test between Australia and England began exactly two weeks after the London bombings and there was never a suggestion of cancellation. Even so, there are two factors to be considered in case of the Champions’ Trophy. First, while the whole world is threatened by terrorism, Jaipur and London were one-off incidents. Pakistan has been a battleground for the past few years, and the past seven or eight months have been particularly disturbing. In 2002, Australia moved a post-9/11 series in Pakistan to Sri Lanka and Sharjah, and the ICC nodded in agreement. It can be argued that the security situation in Pakistan has worsened in the past six years. Not that Pakistani cricket fans are to blame for this, but surely if cricketers are anxious they have a point. Second, and this is a more damning indictment of the cricket establishment and its dogged refusal to realistically understand what motivates a sportsperson, nobody takes the Champions’ Trophy seriously. It is a meaningless, oversize tournament that is set for obsolescence, especially after the success of Twenty20. If no Australian cricketer even considered going home from England in 2005, it was because an Ashes series was cherished as a personal landmark and a larger tradition not to be messed with. In the case of the IPL, the instinct was baser – the money was so good that nobody wanted to flee the bank. Noble aspirations and commercial impulses – so much of our lives is a mix of these two motivations, why shouldn’t it be so for cricketers? The Champions’ Trophy is different. It is a crashing bore. The last edition became a television disaster after the Indians got knocked out, indicating that only mindless fanatics – the sort who follow their team’s scorecards during side matches in Zimbabwe – were interested. While scheduling tournaments – in terms of frequency as well as geographical setting –cricket boards and the ICC must consult their players. If some players want to pick and choose, given an over-burdened cricket calendar and a host of other attendant parameters, they should be given that space. As societies, we need to stop treating cricketers as proxy soldiers. Otherwise, private employers like the Indian Cricket League will seem more attractive and amenable. If my boss refuses to listen to me, I may settle for a less high-profile but reasonably paying job elsewhere. By all means play the Champions’ Trophy in Pakistan – and may it go off smoothly and swimmingly – but don’t rubbish or penalise the players who express their doubts or don’t want to go. The ICC and its affiliates, sadly, have an HR policy devised for robots. tag:blogs.cricinfo.com,2008:/bluesbrothers//133.6518 2008-06-12T03:44:00Z 2008-06-12T05:37:34Z

People who had never read Neville Cardus were weeping in his memory. Those who wouldn’t spend an afternoon watching an exacting and gripping run crawl in, say, a New Zealand versus England Test, were shedding tears for the “traditions of the great game”. Critical reactions to the Indian Premier League came wrapped in exasperating hypocrisy

Ashok Malik

It is difficult to re-read Cardus’ prose and imagine him reporting an IPL game © Getty Images

The magazine MW commissioned me to write a piece on whether T20 lent itself to good cricket writing. My response, which appeared in MW's June issue, is reproduced below. A cricket writer friend who read it says it's guaranteed to make me enemies. I wonder why ... People who had never read Neville Cardus were weeping in his memory. Those who wouldn’t spend an afternoon watching an exacting and gripping run crawl in, say, a New Zealand versus England Test, were shedding tears for the “traditions of the great game”. Critical reactions to the Indian Premier League came wrapped in exasperating hypocrisy. It is important to understand how we play, describe, consume and celebrate cricket today in comparison with, to pick a random noun, the age when Victor Trumper was justifiably hailed as an artiste even if his Test average – a meaningless bauble that – was only 38. These changes are not unique to T20; they have been true for ODIs (F50, if you like) and even modern Test cricket. What was once a languid, gentle pastime is today a muscular, rapid-fire sport; there is less grace, more punch. It has given us openers like Matthew Hayden, whose batting has all the charm and delicacy of a butcher but who is so brutally and gloriously effective. It has also led to scoring rates in Test matches routinely crossing three or four runs an over, and remarkable athleticism that is, paradoxically, saving about 40 runs per Test batting day. ]]>

What was once a languid, gentle pastime is today a muscular, rapid-fire sport; there is less grace, more punch © Getty Images

Does this also tell on the way we write about cricket? Admittedly it is difficult to re-read Cardus’ prose and imagine him reporting an IPL game between Chennai Super Kings and Bangalore Royal Challengers. Yet, while Cardus is the Don Bradman of cricket writing, his is not the only prototype. Cardus was evocative, descriptive and sometimes florid. He was a writer of his day; like John Arlott a generation later, he tended to use more words than may have been strictly necessary. My favourite cricket writer is actually E.W. ‘Jim’ Swanton, Hutton to Cardus’ Bradman (or Laxman to his Tendulkar, suit your analogy), and a crisp, spare writer who would have been a natural in a T20 press box. So it’s not the length of the match that circumscribes the writer but the writer’s inherent skills that re-create the magic of cricket, any type of cricket. That brings us to point three: why has IPL reportage in Indian newspapers been so uniformly pedestrian and non-memorable? This again is an issue that needs deeper examination. With a few honourable exceptions, cricket writing in Indian newspapers, magazines and websites is sub-standard. As the number of column inches and pages devoted to cricket has increased, the quality of cricket writing has dropped. There are good political columnists around, fine cultural and film essayists, engaging book reviewers; so why aren’t there a plethora of readable cricket writers? Why do so few cricket writers have a sense of narrative? There is a sinister inverse correlation between volume and quality of cricket coverage. Today, editors and newspapers (and executive producers and news channels) are driven by cricket as celebrity. They need the oxygen of access: for that exclusive bite from this batsman’s mother, that prized photograph of that bowler’s dog. The casualty is disinterested assessment, acute analysis and well-thought out criticism. IPL didn’t create this monster – India’s cricket media brought it upon itself. ]]> tag:blogs.cricinfo.com,2008:/bluesbrothers//133.6459 2008-06-01T02:35:55Z 2008-06-04T08:36:08Z

On June 25, 1983, India won the Prudential Cup. The run-up to the silver jubilee has been marked by silly controversies and spurious theories. This (June 1) morning in The Pioneer, I looked back at simply the cricket For cricket...

Ashok Malik On June 25, 1983, India won the Prudential Cup. The run-up to the silver jubilee has been marked by silly controversies and spurious theories. This (June 1) morning in The Pioneer, I looked back at simply the cricket

	For cricket fans of a certain generation, June 25, 1983, remains, quite without question, the date of their lives © Getty Images

Before the Delhi Daredevils, there were Kapil’s Devils. For cricket fans of a certain generation, June 25, 1983, remains, quite without question, the date of their lives. It was the day India won the Prudential Cup and a bunch of nine journeymen and two all-time greats (one of them, Sunil Gavaskar, a trifle out of form) pulled off the biggest miracle in Indian sport. India has won much since. Especially in the past decade, after the Sourav Ganguly-John Wright duumvirate took Indian cricket into the 21st century, literally and otherwise, and introduced it to a modern idiom, India has reached an ODI World Cup final, won the Twenty20 World Cup, won Test matches in Australia, Test series in England, Pakistan and the West Indies. Yet, a flurry of success and a hyperactive cricket media environment make remembering dates and landmarks impossible. ]]> Chalo jawanon, chal ke ladenge (Onward soldiers, it’s time to fight).” Greenidge’s lucky dismissal – Sandhu tried to explain later that he had deliberately swung the ball six inches but never mind – only brought in Viv Richards. The King smashed Madan Lal as only he could and the commentary team was speculating on the match being done in 30 overs. It was time for the mother of all miracle moments. Richards pulled Madan Lal, got it a bit wrong but seemed about to get away with it anyway. The ball climbed, Kapil Dev, running backwards, his eyes only on the ball, grabbed it mid-air. Richards was gone; almost as Richie Benaud was beginning to say: “Richards miscues but it doesn’t matter ... Another boundary for the great man, the West Indies on course for a hat-trick ...” After Richards walked back, there was a sense of urgency and new energy in the Indians. This wasn’t going to be a walkover, no it wasn’t. This was a team supposed to be split between the Bombay and Delhi/Punjabi camps, between Gavaskar and Kapil. Yet, by the middle of the West Indies innings, the collective brains trust of the Indian team was in business. Gavaskar was pointing to positions, advising Kapil on field placing, while Syed Kirmani and Amarnath watched. When it came to the crunch, the Indians didn’t let each other down. It was a fairy tale; and Cinderella did it with time to spare. Great events lead to great mythology. Immediately after India’s biggest ODI cricket victory, Dom Moraes wrote another of his incomprehensible essays, attributing the achievement to disagreeable “north Indian nationalism”. I’m still trying to figure out what he meant. Twenty-five years on, the Prudential Cup has spawned thousands of articles, dozens of self-styled experts and even some anodyne PhD theses – this changed the face of Indian cricket, made it an aspirational calling for young people, introduced money and ODI mania to Indian cricket fans and so on. Actually, the Prudential Cup of 1983 did little of the sort. True, the winning XIV were feted, met by the prime minister, serenaded by Lata Mangeshkar, a custom-written song (the remarkably unmemorable Bharat vishwa vijeta) and given DDA apartments in Delhi. Yet, India’s one-day cricket binge was at least four years away, and should correctly be dated to the hosting of the 1987 Reliance Cup. Cricket commerce arrived only in 1993-94, when the Board of Control for Cricket in India sold television rights to private channels and began monetising its key properties. True, the Reliance Cup would not have happened – India would not have bid for the right to host the 1987 world cup – if Kapil’s Devils had not won. Yet, it is perhaps best to remember June 25, 1983, for what happened that day in London, not for peddling spurious, post facto theories. Every underdog has its day; this month, 25 years ago, we had ours.]]> tag:blogs.cricinfo.com,2008:/bluesbrothers//133.6389 2008-05-19T14:43:37Z 2008-05-19T14:45:13Z

I’ve spent most of the past week in Hubli, a small city in northern Karnataka that has been, in a strange way, an IPL eye-opener for me. Every evening, as the work machine shut down, the Indian Premier League was...

Ashok Malik I’ve spent most of the past week in Hubli, a small city in northern Karnataka that has been, in a strange way, an IPL eye-opener for me. Every evening, as the work machine shut down, the Indian Premier League was about the only entertainment available or accessible to the strangers in town. As such, I spent the week watching T20 games almost uninterrupted. As I soon discovered, the rest of Hubli wasn’t doing very much different. IPL had captured the imagination. As a friend pointed out, nothing else was selling. IPL and Set Max had crowded out advertising from other channels and soap operas. Few big Hindi/Indian films were being released in the IPL period, because no film-maker was certain he or she could match the frenzy of abbreviated cricket. Thanks to IPL, lean season corporate advertising – summer is usually a dull time to roll out heavy-duty promotional campaigns – had been rendered an oxymoron. Not all of this was predicted. A number of well-meaning cricket fans from England and Australia and even within India were genuinely surprised at projections of IPL’s success, wondering if there was enough money to back the idea. In sum, what IPL may have done is created a new, complementary cricket market for the summer months. It will not necessarily take away from the traditional cricket season that runs from October/November to March. It is best to see T20 and traditional cricket as two separate sports or, perhaps, separate enterprises. In the United States, basketball, American football, baseball, golf and a few other sports are all sustainable. The Indian economy isn’t as big as the American one but it’s grown large enough to support more than one sport. Unfortunately, for a complex mix of reasons, India is essentially a single-sport society. There is only game in India that has mass following, engages a critical consumer population and invites corporate support. Thus far the sport was (traditional, Test/ODI) cricket. With IPL, the cricket business has multiplied and created another product to vacuum the money that remains. Whatever the sceptics may say, the fact is IPL is working. It’s carved a new audience for cricket. True, some of the T20 fans may not be around to watch the Test matches when Australia tours India later this year, but never mind. As along as there is enough for each segment, each type of cricket fan – and as long as there’re no moronic two-match Test series – nobody will complain. Before the IPL season began, I had my doubts whether it would have any implications on the selection of the Indian Test team. Over the past week or two, I’ve had to re-edit that thought. Having seen Rohit Sharma bat in the T20 World Cup, the ODI series in Australia and now the IPL has been a pleasure. As soon as there’s place in the Indian middle order – which means, when either Tendulkar, Laxman, Ganguly or Dravid walks back to the pavilion for the final time – Sharma should be playing Test cricket. He looks more capable for the longer game than, for instance, Yuvraj Singh. Next, Gautam Gambhir has now batted with enough fluency in all types of cricket to merit selection over Wasim Jaffer. He should be opening for India in Test cricket. Three cricketers I hadn’t seen much of before the IPL have also left an impression. S. Badrinath (Chennai Super Kings) is ready for India. Ashok Dinda (Kolkata Knight Riders) and Manpreet Singh Gony (Chennai) could add to India’s fast bowling options in Tests/ODIs. David Hussey will be 31 in two months and it’s difficult to believe he’s never been selected for Australia in an ODI. There’re names I’ve missed, of course, given the many new stars IPL has thrown up. Whichever way you look at it, it hasn’t been a bad deal for what was meant to be an off-seasonal gimmick. Let’s give IPL its due. tag:blogs.cricinfo.com,2008:/bluesbrothers//133.6274 2008-05-01T10:58:46Z 2008-05-01T14:27:55Z

For what it’s worth, here’re my thoughts on the Indian Premier League. The format: It’s exciting but repetitive, and after the first two or three games the cheerleaders became a distraction, even a chore, getting in the way of the...

Ashok Malik The format: It’s exciting but repetitive, and after the first two or three games the cheerleaders became a distraction, even a chore, getting in the way of the game. To be fair, these are points others have made as well and I can only nod in agreement. Perhaps more judicious use of Indian music and cultural products would make more sense to Indian crowds over the longer term. Somebody in Mumbai has suggested a bhangra troupe; film songs specific to players or descriptive of the situation (a six or a dismissal, as the case may be) could be other, equally corny ideas. In the vintage years of Test cricket, boundaries were occasional. One-day cricket (F50 if you prefer) made fours and sixes common. T20 threatens to make them commonplace. If a six is hit every other over it is going to cease to be exciting. T20/IPL will need to devise new benchmarks. Perhaps vertical targets will be set: “Hit the red line near the clubhouse balcony and score eight; hit that black line on the floodlight tower and score a 12.” ]]> Wren and Martin rules of grammar, do you? The teams: After the player auction, I remember telling a friend that Mumbai and Jaipur were the weakest teams. Mumbai was a “Dad’s Army”, and Jaipur seemed to have lost the plot. Shane Warne has proved me spectacularly wrong by inspiring and leading the Jaipur team into close to the top of the table, at this juncture. Even so, I’m still betting on Chennai, Delhi and Kolkata making the semi-finals. Jaipur and Mohali are my current favourites for the fourth slot. Nevertheless, given that one top-order innings can decide the match (McCullum, Sehwag, Hayden and Gilchrist have all provided examples), any prediction is the equivalent of planning a leisurely stroll on a minefield. That aside, the departure of Hayden, Hussey and Oram is going to have other teams fancying their chances against Chennai. One question that was raised before the IPL was how the old guard would take to the newest format. Dravid and Laxman have looked completely out of sorts, and need not be first XI sure-shots in IPL 2009. Given his ODI history, Ganguly was expected to relish T20 but even he’s disappointmed. Tendulkar’s been kept away by injury, of course; but the larger message is obvious: the IPL has played out generational change before Indian crowds. To go back to the mobile phone metaphor, epic novelists cannot, should not be asked to write text messages. In a perfect world, they should fade away with memories of their skills intact. One classicist who’s shone in the IPL, however, is Glen McGrath, who gave up playing for Australia a year ago. He’s been the bowler of the tournament so far and still looks good for another two years of international cricket. His spell against Bangalore on Wednesday (April 30) night was exceptional by any standards – Test, ODI, whatever. It takes rare courage to quit sport – or anything – when your powers are still with you. McGrath is in that league; he’s done IPL an honour by signing up for it. The brands: One of the challenges for the eight franchises is to build loyalty to the club, beyond loyalty to an individual player. Those who were Manchester United fans in Bryan Robson’s time, remained United followers in Cantona’s era and are gladly cheering Rooney today. That template is the IPL franchisee’s dream. It’s unfair to be asking this question in year one, month one, but how have the IPL teams fared in terms of building brand loyalty? There is, of course, a degree of local following – Delhiites back the Delhi Daredevils, Mumbaikars want the Mumbai Indians to win. The real test is how much support a team has garnered outside its base station. Here, individuals are proving magnets rather than corporate or collective identities. Dhoni’s fans are rooting for Chennai, Sehwag’s adherents for Delhi and so on. Among the owners, Reliance/Mukesh Ambani and Kingfisher-UB/Vijay Mallya could have made a cross-country impact but have been let down by underperforming teams. To my mind, the biggest success has been Kolkata’s. Knight Riders is seen as Shah Rukh Khan’s team rather than Saurav Ganguly’s. The Shah Rukh tag has brought in incremental sponsorship and following. It’s a wise move. Saurav will be gone in two years or so, Shah Rukh will still be around, and still be iconic. To have a non-player who won’t retire as your “key man” makes good business sense. ]]> tag:blogs.cricinfo.com,2008:/bluesbrothers//133.6250 2008-04-28T17:40:41Z 2008-04-28T19:13:36Z

Ashok Malik

Just because Harbhajan slapped Sreesanth doesn’t also mean that he called Andrew Symonds a monkey. There is no correlation © Getty Images

Four months ago, he was the wronged Indian, the “Sikh warrior” who had been done in by malevolent Australians. Today, he’s the villain, the hot-head who’s gone too far, been banned for the rest of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2008 edition – and who was probably guilty as charged by Andrew Symonds too. The most ridiculous aspect of the Harbhajan Singh-Sreesanth controversy – which in any case is the most riveting episode the IPL has thrown up so far – is the fickleness of the cricket media and the regiments of newspaper commentators and sound-bite pundits. With specials programmes like Chhante ki Goonj (The Resounding Slap) and Tamache ka Takkar (The Clash of the Slap) – and I hope I have those names right – making a further mockery of news television, Harbhajan has gone from national hero to international anti-hero, from one ridiculous extreme to another.]]> begun the battle. Third, even if one were to be extraordinarily charitable and exclude the recent tour of Australia and explain it as a case of a volatile cricketer being targeted by a clever opposition, the fact is Harbhajan is not the best behaved sportsman in the world. Sreesanth hasn’t slapped anyone yet but, overall, he’s even worse. Nevertheless, each time this is brought up, it is explained away with some pop sociology or similar claptrap: “This is the new, aggressive India”; “For years, we have suffered, now we will give it back”; “These are boys from small towns, middle India – they don’t care for reputations, they are not deferential to the white man”. I once brought up Sreesanth’s behaviour on a television programme and suggested somebody have a chat with him. It was instantly apparent that almost everyone in the studio disagreed with me. Ajay Jadeja, a fellow guest on the show, jumped to the fast bowler’s defence and said he was absolutely fine and it would be unfair to curb his natural instincts. Agreed, bad behaviour is as old as cricket. Some of what the Australians did under Ian Chappell – and seem to be doing now under Ricky Ponting – cannot be condoned. There is a crucial difference between playing hard and playing dirty. If Indian cricketers – “new”, “aggressive”, “super-confident”: choose your adjective – want to give it back when assailed or want to occasionally needle a batsman as he walks to the crease, I have no problem with that. There is an ocean that separates such acceptable gamesmanship from plain boorishness. Waving his bat, exercising his pelvic muscles mid-pitch, screaming and shouting, bearing his teeth, grimacing menacingly without reason, Sreesanth is the most visible face of this cricket boor; at least on television. The face, let us accept, is ugly. Precedent can justify anything, and nothing. Kepler Wessels hit Kapil Dev in the shin in the early 1990s, John Snow knocked down Sunil Gavaskar in the early 1970s. Neither was right and both should still be embarrassed. Harbhajan and Sreesanth are no better, no worse. There are moral absolutes on the cricket field. The state of Indian society and its evolutionary juncture cannot change those absolutes. Fourth, while Harbhajan is going to be sitting at home for the rest of the IPL and will forfeit his millions as well, it is my guess that Sreesanth has lost more in the long run. As Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s column in the Hindustan Times this [April 28] morning suggests, the Indian dressing room is less likely to take a clear-cut, good-bad binary position on the unseemly business. To the rest of the Indian squad, there need not be one obvious villain and one obvious victim. My hunch is Sreesanth will face a few barbs for, to use a friend’s phrase, “ratting” on a colleague and breaking club rules. This is not a value judgment; it is a cold, cynical assessment. By making a public scene, playing the wronged guy, crying on camera, blaming it on his “fever in the morning”, Sreesanth has betrayed a streak for exhibitionism and a low emotional quotient. On television, it works in his favour. In the Indian team bus, it could be his Achilles’ heel.]]> tag:blogs.cricinfo.com,2008:/bluesbrothers//133.6148 2008-04-17T02:22:02Z 2008-04-17T05:21:46Z

The more things change, the more they remain the same. IPL opens on Friday afternoon to excitement and enthusiasm, hype and hoopla. Yet, there is a certain disquiet over the opacity with which its business rules are being written and...

Ashok Malik The more things change, the more they remain the same. IPL opens on Friday afternoon to excitement and enthusiasm, hype and hoopla. Yet, there is a certain disquiet over the opacity with which its business rules are being written and made up as we go along. The BCCI says it's corporatised Indian cricket, but what about corporate governance? I wrote this in The Pioneer this (April 17) morning.

	Is Lalit Modi a player who is being given authority as regulator? © Getty Images

Much like the Beijing Olympics and China, the Indian Premier League was supposed to be the Board of Control for Cricket in India's coming out party. Much like the Beijing Olympics and China, IPL is turning out to be the BCCI's self-inflicted public relations headache. With the first ball due to be bowled -- and the first cheerleader squad due to begin dancing -- in Bangalore on Friday, April 18, afternoon, IPL is threatened with a boycott by news channels because it wants them to conform to unprecedented restrictions when showing match visuals. It has singled out cricket websites for special treatment, refused them entry to the media box and even the right to buy photographs from the usual news photo agencies. The argument of Mr Lalit Modi, the IPL commissioner, is that the portal rights for the tournament have been sold to an 'American company'. It has exclusive permission to report the match on the Internet and upload pictures. The name of this 'American company' and the address of its Website are, however, unknown. They cannot be revealed because of its upcoming stock market float. How can one visit a Website one doesn't know the address of? Ask Mr Modi and the BCCI. ]]> Actually if you ask the bumptious IPL bureaucracy any questions, you are likely to be told off, dismissed as a small fry journalist who doesn't merit a hearing, since the IPL top brass knows your employer. At a meeting with sports editors in Mumbai this is precisely what happened. The journalists got no clarifications, only a long list of media barons whom Mr Modi had on speed dial: "I know your bosses. Why should I talk to you?" In another life, the IPL commissioner could have been Governor of Tibet. This wasn't how the Great Indian League was supposed to be. The floating of IPL marked the marriage of cricket and capitalism, designed to give India a professional league and transparently-run sports clubs that would be accountable to fans and stakeholders. They would take rational and honest decisions when, for instance, choosing teams -- in short, be all that the BCCI itself had refused to be. Admittedly, IPL has become a huge, huge business opportunity. In the past few weeks, every third BCCI official has been on television extolling the virtues of making money, underlining India's critical importance to the modern cricket economy and pointing out that a domestic T20 league with international stars is a template for 21st century cricket. The self-congratulation may be misplaced but the IPL numbers are true. Simply put, eight teams, all of which are spending big on brandbuilding, have created a market for eight times as many cricket-related businesses than one Indian national team could do. Consider the evidence. In the past four to six weeks, film studios and related production facilities in Mumbai have been so packed with IPL-linked shoots that some Hindi film units have actually migrated to Delhi and other cities. Such advertising frenzy has not been seen since just before the 2007 World Cup; perhaps, it is even larger. The pie has expanded; there is now something for everyone. From Kolkata to Delhi, player agents and endorsement managers who hitherto fought and scrambled to get their favourite players into national reckoning have made comfortable arrangements with one IPL franchise or the other. Yet, there is a fly in the ointment; or, a tampered ball in the kit bag. There is a difference between ethical capitalism and crony capitalism. A business environment without an independent regulator is a non-starter. In the case of IPL, the BCCI and its officials are playing regulator, making up rules as they go along -- alright, some of this may be unavoidable because this is year one -- but also promoting their own business interests and helping friends and associates. Take the media issue. Over the past two years, the BCCI has begun producing its own pictures and hiring its own commentators. It pays a production house to actually put up and man the cameras and then, in real time, transfers the audiovisual feed to the channel that has paid it the most. The same model is being followed by IPL. It has hired TWI as a production house and sold the telecast rights to the Sony network In a parallel move, Mr Modi and his associates have recently announced that the BCCI will eventually set up its own channel and run its own cricket portal. There is nothing wrong with this per se; Manchester United owns a television channel as do many other sports bodies/clubs. The big difference is that there is a clear demarcation between those who run or have a stake in the club's media business and those who regulate the larger media environment for the individual sport. The chief executive of Manchester United TV does not also decide whether journalists from BBC or Sky Sports will be allowed into an English Premier League football match. Now consider what is happening with IPL. Officially, the IPL governing body is a committee of the BCCI. Two members of the governing body are Sunil Gavaskar and Ravi Shastri. This past week they ended their contracts with ESPN/Star Sports and signed on as the BCCI's in-house commentators. It is likely they will be in the commentary box for IPL matches. This seems highly irregular and could amount to a conflict of interest. The Election Commissioner cannot also anchor election news programmes on television. Second, Mr Modi is seen as the marketing wizard of the BCCI. He is the likely promoter of the BCCI's upcoming channel and portal. There is the valid suspicion that he is using his dual status as IPL commissioner to cripple potential rivals and existing media outlets. In short, a player is being given authority as regulator. Mr Modi is a man who wears multiple hats -- BCCI money guru, IPL overlord, a businessman with interests ranging from tobacco to media (he is the distributor in India of Fashion Television or FTV), most influential private citizen in Rajasthan. He is also IPL commissioner. It is an astonishing and demanding array of job descriptions. It would be best for Mr Modi's punishing schedule -- and for the credibility of IPL and the BCCI -- if he gives up the IPL commissioner's post before the 2009 tournament. The BCCI should hire a complete outsider from a totally unrelated industry -- anybody with an interest in cricket and an appropriate background in business economics would do -- and pay him a market-determined salary. It should also ask all IPL governing council members to sign an affidavit that they have no stakes, stated or unstated, in any franchise and are not benefiting financially from the tournament. These are routine insider trading clauses. For years the BCCI has ignored them; IPL cannot afford to do so. tag:blogs.cricinfo.com,2008:/bluesbrothers//133.6107 2008-04-08T17:55:43Z 2008-04-09T04:17:56Z

Ashok Malik

Indian cricket is treating the South Africa series with the same “let’s get this over with” contempt © AFP

Only India could have done this. Just weeks after one of the most rivetting, pulsating and action-packed set of Test matches in history, India is one part – the bad, listless part – of a Test series that is turning out to be a “no contest”. This is not to suggest there isn’t good cricket on offer. The South Africans are playing brilliantly and imperiously, looking – at least in April 2008 – the best team in the world. Their fast bowling has been impressive and made its presence felt even on the tombstone wicket in Chennai. As for Ahmedabad, any team that bowls out the other in 20 overs in the opening session of a Test match – however helpful the pitch and whatever the state of the opposition – deserves accolades. As of now, the South Africans are running away with the series. Other than the bauble of Sehwag’s 300, the Indians have nothing to remember it for. They look jaded and tired; their minds are on the IPL carnival. They are not Test match fit – and this is not merely a reference to the physical condition of individual players.]]> Indeed, the entire Indian cricket structure – establishment, officialdom, fans, media – is treating this series as some sort of a walk-on role, an interlude between the sublime concert in Australia and the rock star frenzy that the IPL promises to be. Frankly, only one side is treating this as Test cricket – hallowed tradition or hard sport, whatever it may be. That side is not India. It’s a question of priorities. More than once, after a long series down under, we’ve heard visiting or Australian captains say that they’re too tired by the end of the endless ODI tri-series that climaxes the Australian season. It’s treated as a tiring and tiresome sideshow, after the main event – the Test series – is over. Indian cricket is treating the South Africa series with the same “let’s get this over with” contempt. From next season, Cricket Australia is junking the tri-series altogether. What if some smart Indian official decides Test cricket is a waste of time? Indian cricket’s focus – commercial and political, given there’re simply more matches to hand out to allied state/city associations – is on ODIs. With the T20 fever at the cusp of turning into an epidemic and with IPL about to explode on us, the calendar is going to be even more packed. It’s a myth that the IPL franchise teams will play a tournament in India for 44 days and simply disappear for the remaining 321 days of the year. Already there’s talk of an “IPL exhibition series” in England. As the franchisees seek to strengthen their brands and clubs identities, they will inevitably lobby for more cricket featuring IPL teams. Let’s not pretend otherwise. What does all this mean? Test cricket will be pushed even further down the agenda. The BCCI will speak about how it treasures the longest game, but do nothing to preserve it. Short Test series will be fitted in between T20 razzmatazz and seven-eight game ODI series. South Africa is playing three Tests, later in 2008 England will come to India for only two. Is there a way out? I have a five-point route map for preserving Test cricket while acknowledging it will have limited appeal in the years to come. Even so, serious film festivals co-exist with multiplex blockbusters. Similarly, Test cricket must be given its due amid a plethora of 20 and 50 over events. So here’s my five-fold path: 1. The ICC should formally announce that all future expansion of cricket nations is going to be in the ODI and, more likely, T20 formats. China, the United States, Malawi, whatever, whoever may someday take part in the T20 World Cup but will never play Test cricket. 2. To ensure quality it would be a good idea, in fact, to reduce the number of Test teams. Bangladesh and Zimbabwe should be derecognised as Test teams. They can continue to play as many ODIs or T20 internationals as they want, even set up IPL franchise clones of their own 3. No Test series should be less than four matches long. Six Test match series went out with the 1980s, but four or five Tests would ensure a fair contest. That length would allow a team to recover from a sluggish start. Imagine a fourth or fifth Test against South Africa, with Zaheer Khan and R.P. Singh back with the new ball and Sachin Tendulkar back in the order ... A three (or two) Test series is a shame, even a travesty. 4. Test cricket should always be played in the host country’s core cricket season. For instance, India must play home Tests between November and February, not in April or May. Sri Lanka must not be forced to host Test series in rain-swept August only because it suits the visiting team’s travel schedule. 5. Since the number of ODI/T20/IPL/IPL-style fixtures is only going to grow (perhaps exponentially), what points 3 and 4 would suggest is that a Test team may be able to play only one or two series in a year. Test series will have to be spaced out, as they once were before a frenetic ICC Future Tours Progamme took over. Nevertheless, fewer Test series are worth the sacrifice provided they are longer and, almost by definition, more engaging. Make Test matches collector’s items. Right now, the ICC and the BCCI are leading a movement toward commodifying Test cricket. It worked for ODIs and may do so for T20, but is the kiss of death for five-day cricket. That is the lesson from the ongoing India-South Africa encounter. tag:blogs.cricinfo.com,2008:/bluesbrothers//133.6047 2008-03-30T12:52:00Z 2008-03-30T20:20:38Z

Ashok Malik

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. ]]> 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?]]>