Everyone wanted a slice of him and Tendulkar was in the mood to oblige © AFP

At first glance, the setting wasn't befitting of the occasion. It was an invitation-only media session with Sachin Tendulkar on the eve of his completing 20 years in international cricket. The Taj Land's End hotel was the perfect venue because it was only a few minutes’ drive from his home in suburban Mumbai. But the room was small, tucked away in a corner of the second floor; dimly lit; and had such a narrow entrance that the television cameramen struggled to get their equipment through.

Of course only a few had been invited. Inevitably, though, word got around and inevitably everyone piled in. Could it really have been any other way? So there were nearly as many television cameras as Tendulkar’s Test hundreds; the chairs were taken up quickly so many of the journalists squatted on the floor, almost engulfing Tendulkar in a semi-circle. Coverage of the event was embargoed till November 15, the actual day of Tendulkar’s landmark, but word came soon that a couple of television channels were broadcasting it live. It felt shambolic.

Even so, the organisers couldn’t have made it more charming had they tried. There was no flash or ostentation, no grand stage and no barriers; Tendulkar was in such proximity that some of us could have extended our arms and touched him. It felt intimate and cosy and the most colossal of superstars felt endearingly human. It was apt too, because he has been the most human of superstars. I use word human here to describe simplicity and humility, not frailties and misdemeanours associated with fame and glory.

Throughout his life Sachin Tendulkar has worn his celebrity lightly. He could have hardly been unaware of it yet somehow he has managed to stay impervious to it. Perhaps it’s just been easy: that’s the way he has grown up. When asked if has found the mantle of greatness tedious or the scrutiny by the media suffocating, he has an uncomplicated answer. “This is the way I've known my life from the age of 14. I'm comfortable with it.”

Not everything about Tendulkar has stayed the same. His game has changed, evolved rather. It has become more nuanced, more mature, subtler, more versatile and, to the occasional chagrin of his fans, more watchful. His voice has got more timbre in it and he speaks a lot more at press conferences. He is father to two children, and the 10-year-old Arjun tries to hit as many balls into the stratosphere as he can. In a newspaper interview published on the occasion, his wife Anjali was tickled by the idea, however improbable, that father and son could play together.

But there is a Tendulkar that hasn’t grown up. Cricket for him is not a vocation, not a ticket to stardom and riches, and perhaps not even about the India cap he so cherishes. It is what defines him, what makes him, and he has no hesitation in admitting that he needs cricket as much as cricket needs him.

I asked him how he has managed to retain his enthusiasm for the rigours of practice after so many years. He didn’t have to search for an answer. “Cricket lives in my heart,” he said with striking simplicity. “Whenever I'm on a cricket field I enjoy it, and somewhere there's still a 16-year-old hidden inside who wants to go out and express himself.”

It was meant to be a 90-minute session; it lasted close to five hours. Everyone wanted a slice of him and Tendulkar was in the mood to oblige. He switched effortlessly from English to Hindi to Marathi; dignified the most inane question with an answer; even took on a politically-loaded one that provided newspapers with a front-page headline (Mumbai belongs to India, he said when asked, indirectly, about the recent campaign by a party that has made Marathi chauvinism its central plank); but had the wit to not to be drawn into the Warne-Murali debate (Whom would you rather face if they were bowling together? “I’d rather be in the dressing room.”); and didn't lose patience with the photographers who all wanted that final shot.

I left while he was getting ready for another one-on-one session. “Must be the most varied attack you have had to face in a day’s play,” I remarked, attempting lame humour. He flashed a wide smile. His face is beginning to show signs of age but the smile retains its boyishness. “Yes, a lot of variety,” he said. He still looked alert and fresh. The cricketer in him would have approved.

	Younis is a rare kind in an age of PR-savvy, media-trained, brand-conscious and commercially minded cricketers © Associated Press

I met Younis Khan for the first time earlier this month. I had always wanted to meet him and, when I saw the Pakistan team at the ICC awards at the Sandton Sun in Johannesburg, I asked Osman Samiuddin, our Pakistan editor, to introduce us.

We shook hands, and then Younis gave me a hug. It was a natural, spontaneous and very subcontinental gesture. There was warmth in it and, if you wanted look for it, perhaps a message. In his simple and honest way, Younis has been trying to spread this message: make use of cricket as a positive force, for lifting spirits and for spreading goodwill; but treat it as a sport where, inevitably, there will be good days and bad.

We chatted briefly. Pakistan had beaten India a couple of days prior to that and Younis felt for MS Dhoni. The previous day, he said, he had been chased by a few members of the Indian television media seeking a quote or two damning the Indian captain. “Why are you after Dhoni,” he asked them, “winning and losing, it keeps on happening. Today, it is his turn, tomorrow it could be mine.”

It is easy to like Younis. His is a rare kind in an age of PR-savvy, media-trained, brand-conscious and commercially minded cricketers. He doesn't weigh his every word: he speaks what comes from within, and his earnestness is both refreshing and endearing. He wasn't wary of expressing his reservations about Twenty20 even when he was playing it, and he willingly walked away from it at a time ageing cricketers see it as a handsome retirement benefit.

His captaincy came up in the conversation. “You shouldn't walk away from it this time,” I said in jest. “No, no,” Younis said with utmost seriousness, “some good things are happening in our cricket. Kuchch karke jaana hai (I want to do achieve something before going.”)

Two days later, with the semi-final on the line, Grant Elliot lobbed the simplest of catches to Younis at short extra cover, and Younis, his broken little finger in a bandage, went at it gingerly and spilled it. Elliot went on to win the match for New Zealand and Younis was asked the inevitable question at the press conference: was he worried about what people were likely to say given Pakistan’s history?

Not at all, Younis said. It was only a few days ago that he had run out Gautam Gambhir with a direct hit with the same hand and he was a hero; today he had dropped a simple catch and he would be a villain. Such things he had learnt to take in his stride.

Perhaps he was being naïve, but then, honourable men have the right to expect better from the world.

	The SuperSport Park in Centurion - clearly, the prettier ground © Cricinfo Ltd

I was contemplating dialing a cab when I had a stroke of luck. A young South African journalist who had been assigned the Wanderers game was driving down to Centurion to watch the South African chase. I gratefully hitched a ride.

Centurion is around 40 kilometres from Johannesburg, and the drive takes 30-40 minutes. The highway is dotted with office buildings that belong to leading South African companies that have been moving away from Johannesburg's expensive, and increasingly decrepit, central business district. Locals say that it is easier to get to Centurion from many parts of Johannesburg than it is to the Wanderers, which is at one end of the city.

Continue reading "Lucky to be in Centurion"

Most interesting. We are currently running a poll seeking your opinion on the future of one-day cricket, and on last count, more than 62% of you think it should be left as it is.

The other options were:

It should be fixed at 40 overs a side
40 overs and two innings
And played less frequently

The ECB has decided where it stands and scrapped the 50-over game at the domestic level. The English have traditionally been the forerunners for change, however, only 18% of you seem to favour the 40-over format which the board has adopted.

The 50-over format, will of course, be around till the expiry of the ICC television rights in 2015. But who knows how the game would have changed by then?

As for me, I’d start with not reducing overs, but matches. What one-day cricket lacks the most at the moment is meaning and context. That’s the subject for a bigger piece.

This message landed in my Facebook message box: “How good are u as an editor I wonder? Why don’t u ponder how really good the likes of Laxman and Sehwag are?”

I wouldn’t say I am surprised by the feedback to my previous post. But a bit disappointed, yes, because the point I was trying to make seems to have been largely missed.

My intent was not to put Thilan Samaraweera, or Sri Lanka batsmen, down. I was trying to use Samaraweera to illustrate the devaluation of batting averages in the 21st century. I pointed out how reality has caught up with Mike Hussey too. Perhaps a lot of you have responded to the headline, which read: “How good is Samaraweera?” With hindsight, we could perhaps have used “The truth about batting averages”.

Now let me use the example of another Sri Lankan batsman to further argue my case.

Aravinda de Silva played his Tests between 1984 and 2002. He was a breathtaking strokeplayer who came to be called Mad Max after he brought up his first Test hundred hooking Imran Khan for six. He scored another century in the same series, 105
out of a team score of 230. The second-highest score was 25. By then he had been promoted to No. 3; and his runs came against Imran Khan, Wasim Akram and Abdul Qadir.

His next century came in Australia, a quite brilliant 167 in Brisbane, in only his second Test in that country. In the following Test, in Hobart, he scored 147 (75 and 72). And his next hundred was 267 off 380 balls, in his first appearance in New Zealand.

He finished with an average of 42.97 from 93 Tests. It felt right. De Silva was a good batsman who played some great innings. He could have scored more
runs, but he played too many strokes for his own good. He left a lot of memories, perhaps none better than the half-century and hundred in the semi-final and final of the 1996 World Cup.

In a few months we will be picking an all-time Test XI for Sri Lanka. I will bet that de Silva will be one of the first names on the shortlist. I am not so sure about Samaraweera.

VVS Laxman? He is perhaps a bit like de Silva: a good batsman with some great innings. But is he as good as GR Viswanath, who had a lower average? I
love watching Laxman bat, but he wouldn’t make my all-time Indian XI. Vishy would.

Sehwag is a different story. I don’t think he would have averaged 50 in the 1990s. But wherever he has played and whoever he has played against, he has made runs. Big runs and in an emphatic manner. But is he as good as Sachin Tendulkar? Let’s not even go there.

	© AFP

With his second successive hundred against New Zealand, Thilan Samaraweera has taken his batting average to over 50, the magic number that used to confer greatness on Test batsmen. He now stands 29th on the all-time averages list, and if the list is restricted to batsmen with a minimum of 50 Tests, he jumps to 18.

Samaraweera, of course, deserves his success. In March this year he was hit by a bullet when terrorists attacked the Sri Lanka team bus in Lahore, and he feared he would never play cricket again. He had just hit two back-to-back double-hundreds then. You can argue that his returns have been halved now. But as S Rajesh tells us, Samaraweera has had a cracking couple of years, averaging over 76 in his last 15 Tests.

Still, how good is he? We perhaps don’t know yet. He averages 31.22 against Australia, 24.66 against South Africa, 28.87 against England. In Australia he averages 22.66, in England 4.25, and in India 10.50. He has played 30 of his 54 Tests at home, and averages nearly 60 in them. Seven of his 11 hundreds have come at home, and his career average has been massively boosted by his five Tests in Pakistan, in which he scored 633 runs at 90.42 with three hundreds. His other hundred came in the West Indies.

Continue reading "How good is Samaraweera?"

	Ponting's Headingley fifty had all the makings of a classic © Getty Images

Marcus North was Man of the Match for his second hundred of the series, Michael Clarke scored more runs than him, and even Stuart Broad and Graeme Swann nearly scored as many but, for me, Ricky Ponting’s was the innings of the match – and, arguably, even the innings of the series.

Rightly, batsmen are judged not merely by the number of runs they produce but the quality of those runs. It was clear from the merry romp of England’s ninth-wicket pair that batsmen can do plenty of things once the pressure has lifted. With nothing to lose, and nothing to fear, Broad and Swann were able to flay the same bowlers who terrorised their top-order colleagues for two successive days. Ponting, though, switched on his act when the match was still open.

When a Test side gets bowled out for about a hundred runs on the first day, it is natural to assume that the conditions are tilted heavily towards the bowlers. Australia entered the match with a history of weakness against swing bowling. It cost them the series in 2005 and the Test at Lord’s this summer, and when the ball swung for one session at Edgbaston they lost seven wickets for 77. In most cases, bowling your opponents out for 102 in the first innings is good enough win a Test, but only if your own batsmen don’t perform as badly.

Ponting had gone missing after a big hundred in his first appearance in the series, and the pitch at Cardiff was so benign that only six Australian wickets fell in 180 overs. In the previous innings, when Australia were in danger of losing the Test, he was bowled through the gate by an offspinner, the species that has troubled him throughout his career. And he came to the crease here after Steve Harmison, a man returning to the Ashes battle, had claimed an early wicket with a nasty, steepling ball that Simon Katich was forced to fend off in front his face. The first ball he faced from Harmison zipped through Ponting’s bat and his body, not far from the inside edge.

From here, Ponting produced 78 off 101 balls. At one point, he was 32 off 20 balls, with five fours and a six. It was thrilling, counter-attacking batting on a pitch that still had plenty for the bowlers. It can be argued that England bowled poorly to him but often a great batsman in supreme touch can have that effect on bowlers. By the time he was out Australia were ahead by 38 runs and would have had to bat like zombies to lose the Test from there.

As the years roll by, the scorecard will reveal Ponting’s contribution as one of the half-centuries in a match Australia utterly dominated. The truth is that it was the defining innings of the match. It had every ingredient that makes a great innings: counter-attack, supreme skills, the purest of strokes, and most of all, coming when it truly mattered.

	VVS Laxman drives during his epic 281 in Kolkata © AFP

As some of you promptly pointed out, I forgot to mention Gautam Gambhir in my post on batsmen who use their feet against spinners. Hell, Gambhir even jumps down the pitch against the quick bowlers, and that takes some nerve. He was India’s best batsman on their last Test tour of Sri Lanka, where some of his more illustrious colleagues struggled to decode Ajantha Mendis. Virender Sehwag’s double-century in
Galle was the innings of the series, but Gambhir was the most consistent and secure Indian batsman on tour.

For sheer viewing pleasure, though, I’d still go for Michael Clarke. Gambhir is quick out of crease, but he is more jerky, and he moves around a bit too much; sometimes he gives himself away by moving out too early. Clarke is more fluid and graceful and he keeps the bowlers guessing.

Traditionally, Indian batsmen have always used their feet against the spinners, as have the Australians. Good players of spin bowling don’t merely hit booming shots after having come down pitch, but often knock the ball around for singles. Sunil Gavaskar, who had the surest footwork, did it all the time, as did Ravi Shastri. Gavaskar never swept. And he rarely lofted
the ball.

So also VVS Laxman. Of the all the things he did at the Eden Gardens in
2001, his driving against Shane Warne was the most sensational. One ball,
he’d drive Warne off the rough and against the spin through midwicket. The
next, Warne would go fractionally wider and Laxman would drive it inside-out
through cover. He was god that day.

Of course, no one did better for a whole series than Brian Lara. Warne has
confessed to having nightmares about Sachin Tendulkar jumping down the
pitch; I wonder what visions Muttiah Muralitharan had in his sleep in those
days in 2001, when Lara tormented him with the most dazzling array of
strokes you could ever see employed against a spinner. In picking the ball
out of the bowler’s hand, Lara had few rivals.

Carl Hooper, his team-mate, was one. I was told this delightful story about
Hooper by a cricketer. Warne forever looked for little signs in batsmen that
would give him foreknowledge about a possible sortie down the pitch. But
Hooper proved impossible to decipher. He stayed still till the last possible
moment, and never left the crease before the ball was delivered. Finally,
after many overs, and many videotapes, Warne cracked it. It was in the eyes.
If Hooper had decided to advance down the pitch, his eyes widened and the
stare grew a bit harder in the stance.

If I ever have a conversation with Warne, the first thing I will ask him is
if he managed to exploit this knowledge.

	For Michael Clarke, the sashay is a mere extension of his footwork © Getty Images

I like watching Michael Clarke bat. He is not quite the stylist in the mould of Mark Waugh and Damien Martyn, the two recent pleasure givers from Australia. His batting is not as much about touch as it is about quick hands. In that, in there is a bit of Steve Waugh in him.

But I can’t take my eyes off him, when he is batting against spinners. There is something about batsmen who use their feet, and the contest between a courageous spinner and a courageous batsman is one of the great joys of cricket. It’s a battle of wits as well as of skills.

Usually, cricket’s central action, the act of bat meeting the ball, or the ball beating the bat, lasts only a moment. The rest is all build up. Watching the bowler galloping can be a sight, but rarely does a run-up reveal anything. But when you see a batsman spring to his feet, it heightens anticipation: you know something is about to happen. Apart from a ball hit in the air in the direction of a fielder, nowhere is the drama as drawn out. That an aggressive stroke is not inevitable only enriches the experience.

Continue reading "The joy of twinkling Clarke"

Let me enter the guilty plea at the beginning. I could offer up a dozen excuses why this page hasn’t had a new entry for a couple of months, but that would be a waste of space. All I can offer is a promise to be more regular.

It's been nearly three weeks since Cricinfo’s new look was launched. Your feedback continues to pour in, and it is gratifying to us that it does. Most of you have liked what you have experienced, and many have offered constructive criticism about the things you haven’t liked. Some of you who have absolutely hated it have let us know in the most certain manner possible. But even the angriest feedback has been reassuring: a reflection of what Cricinfo means to you, and how much you care.

We have been listening. Not just listening, but acting on several of your suggestions.

The full scorecard is now full again, with all the innings presented in a single frame, as opposed to behind tabs.

The local time has been restored on the scorecard pages (that was an oversight), the typeface for the commentary has been changed, and only boundaries and dismissals are now displayed in bold in commentary.

The other significant revisions have been on the homepage. The news links looked slightly orphaned under the strong main panel. We have now lifted them by adding bold headlines and organising them the way they used to be in the old design. The page looks more balanced now.

Download speed has been matter of concern for many. We were aware of the issue while redesigning the site. It is a richer page now, it has a larger lead photo, and there are more thumbnails and more links, so inevitably the page is heavier. And no, the video player isn’t contributing to the load.

It¹s perhaps a much smaller issue on broadband to which standard the world is marching inexorably but we have been working on the problem and I am happy to report that the page is quite a few kilobytes lighter already, and it's going to shed more weight yet.

The black news module has divided opinion quite sharply at that. Like it was with Geoff Boycott and Sourav Ganguly, it’s either love or hate (I loved them both), with little middle ground. The idea of using a strong colour on top was to create a focal point for the homepage, and to that end, it has already served its purpose: it has got plenty of attention. But we are not
impervious to the matter of readability, and let me assure you that the matter is under consideration.

Keep writing, and we will keep listening.