July 24, 2009

Posted by Cricinfo at in Ashes

Ashes decider

By contrast, viewers of Australia's first (and only) innings at Cardiff could be forgiven for thinking they were watching the sixth test of 2007, rather than the first of 2009. After two years, it seemed that Australia had merely resumed its winning run against its old foe. Hundreds from Katich, Ponting, North and Haddin helped raise Australia's highest Ashes total since 1934. Sometimes, the roles were even reversed. Panesar and Anderson's unbroken last wicket stand was likened to Lee and McGrath's at Old Trafford four years ago. Collingwood's match-saving 74 was every bit as important as Ponting's 156.

Despite (or perhaps because of) their contrasting scorelines, the 2005 and 2006/07 series shared several important features. Reputations were tarnished. Ponting's captaincy - already questioned by some - lost further legitimacy. In Australia, Flintoff proved himself an unsatisfactory leader. Australia's narrow defeat was every bit as devastating as England's humiliating loss. Even now, the memories of both must cause the minds of many to darken. For Australians, 2005 upset the natural order. To restore that order, no simple retaliation would suffice. Nothing short of an annihilation would begin to sooth the wounds. And in being thumped five nil, England did not only lose the Ashes - it lost a little of 2005. As Gideon Haigh rightly pointed out, while England can forever claim the Edgbaston Test, Adelaide 2006 belongs to Australia.

English aspirations (to the status of an equal and the title of number one Test nation) were revealed as mere pretensions. After its 2007 triumph, another Australian win would further reduce 2005 to a vivid but regrettable stain on Australia's otherwise unblemished recent Ashes record. An English victory would not only silence Australian talk of an 'aberration', but elevate England into a frontier unconquered by Ponting's men.

For the time being at least, the current series has the air of a decider, of a final set following a first set tie break and a second set bagel. Its significance has been inflated by its remarkable predecessors. Perhaps it will help to settle the score of which of the two was the greater victory. And while some of the principle players have gone from the scene, both captains will fight bitterly for the last word.

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July 22, 2009

Posted by Cricinfo at in Ashes

Fred's final fling

From Benjamin Matthews, United Kingdom

	Australia had no answer to Andrew Flintoff's fiery spell © Getty Images

The retirement of Andrew Flintoff (MBE) after the current Ashes series is sure to ignite varying forms of debate over the next few weeks. Matters of opinion from the media pack may criticise the allrounder for the timing of his announcement, while other voices will no doubt pen glowing tributes to the talismanic Lancastrian. Flintoff will continue to make himself available for England's future ODI and Twenty20 squads. The carrot of future IPL contracts looming large may cast doubts for some over the motives behind his decision to leave the longer format of the game, but none can debate the match-winning contributions he has made for the English team over the years.

Charismatic, inspiring, down-to-earth are all compliments that spring to mind for a man whose appeal transcends class and cricketing opinion. Minor antics off the pitch have at times marred an underlying focus and dedication to the game that some have occasionally overlooked. Relentless pace and a fiery all-or-nothing attitude have been drawn from honing high levels of fitness which were doubted at the beginning of his career; many focussing on his heavy set frame. Such a build, whilst undoubtedly a major asset to his stinging bowling and power hitting, has also unfortunately been to his detriment.

The reoccurring knee injury sustained while playing in the IPL flared up again after this series' first Test and after multiple ankle surgeries, Flintoff has decided to call it a day. The relentless rigours of the five-day game have proven to be too much for his body to cope with, Flintoff having missed 25 of England's previous 48 Tests. Flintoff took his bow into international Test match cricket in 1998 against a strong touring South African side. Unfortunately the prized wicket of Jacques Kallis was his only real reward of note in that series and subsequently, his county form suffered.

There were always glimpses of his destructive capabilities during this uncertain period, most notably an explosive 135 from 111 balls in the quarter-finals of the Natwest Trophy in 2000. "We have just watched one of the most awesome innings we are ever going to see on a cricket field" gushed David Gower. A Man-of-the-Match 42 not out in a ODI against Zimbabwe followed, causing Flintoff to enthuse: "not bad for a fat lad!" High praise and high jinx indeed, but it wasn't until the England management packed him off to Rod Marsh's ECB academy in 2001 that he began to realise his huge potential.

That short, sharp, shock culminated in a reformed, more dynamic Flintoff who toured India that winter; proving his startling revelation as a tight, aggressive seam bowler. The relief of his coming of age was plain to see when he ripped off his shirt in celebration after the final ball of that tour, Flintoff having bowled an exceptional over to level the one day series. His Test career really started to take shape on the 2002 tour to New Zealand, where in Christchurch on his 13th Test appearance, Flintoff scored his first international century. 137 from 163 deliveries signified a concentration and temperament well suited to Test cricket.

By 2003, he had become a consistent performer in the Test arena. A magnificent 142 from 146 balls against South Africa, followed three Tests later by a match-swinging 95 to help England save the series cemented his position as an integral part of the English Test batting unit. An ability to force such a momentum change was testament to the fact he had become a player who could not just change the face of a one-dayer, but a player who could change the face of the modern English game forever.

Despite having become England's most consistent Test bowler by this stage, 5 for 58 versus the West Indies in Barbados 2004 (including the wickets of Brian Lara, Ridley Jacobs and Shivnarine Chanderpaul) was Flintoff's first major haul. He was named the Man of the Series later that year for his performances in the home white-wash of the same touring opponents. Again, the indications of his leading influence with both the bat and ball - 603 runs and 24 wickets - were being displayed and were acting simply as precursors for yet even greater things still to come.

2005 was his annus mirabilis largely due to his performances in the triumphant Ashes series of that year. It was the series in which he left an indelible mark on Test cricket not only for his contribution towards the series win, but for his contribution to the playing of the game: hard, but always fair. The iconic portrait of Flintoff consoling Brett Lee after victory at Edgbaston is a gesture of sportsmanship synonymous with the all-rounder, as well as an image etched into the consciousness of all cricket fans forever more. Being named ICC Cricketer of the Year was his reward for averages of 40.20 with the bat and 27.29 with the ball. His 402 runs and 24 wickets won Flintoff the Compton-Miller medal and inspire some to call it 'Fred's Ashes'.

Memories of that series will linger forever in the mind of the man who inspired England to victory in that series, as they will in the minds of a cricketing nation whose love affair with the shorter modes of the game are somewhat supplanting their affections for the truest form of the game. So Freddie 2009 - one last hurrah? Reignite those final embers and bring that urn home.

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Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

Goose on the Barbie

The word 'innovation' has taken on connotations of a curse in cricket when it comes to the workings of the ICC. It is a get-out-of-jail-card used when faced with the detritus of bungled up decisions and take cover behind the facade of bleeding-edge decision making. Faced with the consequences of their own ineptitude and inaction, it is their norm to embark on a dangerous path of innovating their way out of the mess without thought given to the consequences. Every recent development stemming out of their offices has revealed an inability to act when it was prescient and meddle and tinker their way out of the aftermath. And now, we are being preached to about the length of Test matches being the reason why for diminishing crowds?

Every time Freddie Flintoff clangs a ball off Phil Hughes’ helmet in the 2009 Ashes, rivalry and history aside, consider why even neutrals will look forward to this bi-annual clash. It is easy to look past all the hype, hubris and hoopla that surround the series and relish a simple fact. It happens only once in two years. It allows for the loser to lick their wounds and wallow in the face of the smirking winner for two years. It also permits the cycle to build up steam again in the lead up to the next edition. All of this unfolds without the drama getting diluted by insignificant head-to-head meetings between the two teams in between.

Right now, to anyone who is getting hot under the collar and is on the verge of spewing indignantly about the Border-Gavaskar trophy being a more valued contest compared to the Ashes, I say: Sorry mate, not a chance. You know why? A big reason is the seven ODIs series against Australia that pans out this fall in India like it did in 2007 too, just before India headed off Down Under. Why on earth do we need this? And why did Australia have to visit India for a full fledged Test series in 2008 when the ball from the previous edition was still warm from January of the same year? These days, it feels like Ponting talks to Dhoni at the toss more often than he chats with his wife at the breakfast table. Can’t we be allowed to anticipate and relish the prospects of what has rapidly turned into one of the most compelling rivalries in cricket without enduring these larcenous attempts to bolster the boards’ bottom lines?

This June, it dawned on most of the cricketing world - as they watched Younis Khan and his men celebrate their T20 World Cup win at Lord’s - that the next T20 World Cup will be held in eight months time in the Caribbean! This impending Rosemary’s Baby of a T20 world championship will not permit Pakistanis to savour their team’s superb showing in England this summer before it gets underway again. Yes Shahid Afridi, you are entitled to rue this disastrous scheduling fiasco which won’t let you be the proud holder of the Man of the Match trophy from the final for even a calendar year before it is up for grabs again. And in between the two T20 World Cups is the ICC Champions trophy this fall? What kind of scheduling logic from hell produced this cricketing calendar for our consumption, one which ensures that in a period spanning eight months, we get to view the national teams of all the cricketing nations competing for a world crown three times? A year later, we get the World Cup in the subcontinent too?

Have the overlords heard of overkill? Have you ever woken up from a nightmare in which you saw yourself waking up from another nightmare?

Consider the ICC’s most recent “innovation” which gets set in stone starting this October and that is the team initiated review system. While I may have too many personal reservations about this move, it is prudent of the ICC to explore this avenue to ensure uniformity in the decisions of umpires. What is irksome in this case is not their dabbling with the use of advances in television technology to assist umpires, but their utter reluctance to address the root cause that necessitates it. Tinkering away with a toolbox of Hawkeye, Snicko, Hotspot etc. and endless deliberation about their use masks the fundamental question that needs to be asked of the ICC. Allow me to pose the question this way: How come, in spite of being the financial hub, command and fan central of the sport, India has failed to get an umpire into the “elite” panel since S. Venkataraghavan retired after the World Cup in 2003?

That is six years for a country that has eighty percent of the fan base and financial clout to not have a single person be considered qualified enough to be an international umpire on a long term basis! Does this even concern anyone on the ICC as much it gets their goat over the use of technology to resolve decisions? Do we really have a system in place to develop, monitor and evaluate the competence and quality of umpires? On one hand, given the manner in which the BCCI bulldozes anything and everything in its path to dominating the sport (like having an appointed umpire kicked out on the eve of a Test match), the absence of an Indian umpire in the elite panel can convince you that a perfect system exists. One that has prevented the BCCI from bullying the ICC into shoe-horning an Indian umpire into the panel. A more plausible view is that with their singularly laser focused attention to the bottom line regarding TV revenues and their hyper-ventilating exertions of milking it through a rabid frenzy of match scheduling, the ICC aren’t bothered enough to try and ensure that the quality of umpiring rises to a level at par with the interest in the game worldwide.

Are competence and quality being sacrificed at the altar of technology?

Mull it over, gentlemen of the ICC. We want you to succeed at the administration and management of the game we so care about. But first, convince us of a few things. Convince us that your periodic meetings about the Future Tours Program are not like the floor of a stock exchange with touts shouting themselves hoarse about buy and sell orders for upcoming tours. That we don’t feel like Ponting and his lads landed in Joburg for a Test series even before Smith and Co. flew back from their epochal win in Australia. That you will start to pull the plug on meaningless tournaments like the Champions Trophy. That your gaze will focus on “sexing up” pitches for Test cricket, the state of the game in the Caribbean and the quality of umpires in India before you fret over infiltrating the market in China or the 2020 Olympics.

And leave Test cricket alone.

We promise we will come back in droves to Test matches if you do this. And for heaven’s sake, forget the golden eggs. This goose is sizzling on the barbie right now. We can smell the burnt meat too. And it is not pleasant.

Comments (7)

July 20, 2009

Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

How to save Test cricket

Each team in the division needs to play every other team twice in the course of a season. This means every team plays 10 test matches in a season and the total number of test matches in a season are 30. Every team gets to play 3 matches at home and 7 matches on neutral or away grounds. Every country needs to host five test matches i.e. 3 involving the home team and 2 test matches involving neutral teams. Every touring country can play a maximum of 2 games and a minimum of 1 game in any other country.

All this might sound confusing so it is best to describe it using an example. The top 6 ranked teams are Australia, South Africa, India, England, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. The WTC will start in England which means England should play 3 home test matches and host 2 more matches not involving them, at the same time no other country should play more than 2 games and everyone should play at least once. I have generated a few fixtures to illustrate this.

1. England v Australia
2. India v South Africa
3. England v Pakistan
4. Australia v Sri Lanka
5. England v India

England have played thrice, Australia and India twice and South Africa, Sri Lanka and Pakistan only once.The WTC then will move on to the next host country. Let us assume the next host country is Pakistan. Again using the same rules, that Pakistan will play 3 games at home and host 2 neutral games.

6. Pakistan v Sri Lanka
7. England v Sri Lanka
8. Pakistan v South Africa
9. South Africa v Australia
10. Pakistan v India

From Pakistan the WTC moves on to India.

11. India v Australia
12. England v South Africa
13. India v Sri Lanka
14. Australia v Pakistan
15. India v England

After India the WTC moves to Sri Lanka.
16. Sri Lanka v South Africa
17. India v Pakistan
18. Sri Lanka v England
19. South Africa v Pakistan
20. Sri Lanka v Australia

From Sri Lanka the WTC heads to Australia
21. Australia v England
22. Sri Lanka v India
23. Australia v India
24. Pakistan v England
25. Australia v South Africa

And finally the WTC heads to South Africa
26. South Africa v India
27. Pakistan v Australia
28. South Africa v England
29. Pakistan v Sri Lanka
30. South Africa v Sri Lanka

At the end of this set of fixtures every team has played the other ones twice and all teams have played a total of 10 matches. A draw/tie will fetch you 1 point, a home win will fetch you 3 points and an away/neutral win will count for 4 points. The team with the most points wins the WTC and the bottom 2 are relegated to the second division. The second division will also follow the same principles regarding fixtures, tours and points.

There are still a lot of unanswered questions. How is this scheduled? The England leg from July to the middle of August, the subcontinental leg from October to the middle of December, the Australian one from the end of December till the beginning of February and South Africa during February and March. This will also leave the players free to participate in the lucrative IPL in April and May.

What happens when two of these are relegated and say the West Indies and New Zealand are part of the top 6? The scheduling is tweaked so that the main cricket playing season of these countries is included in the schedule. I know some of you might not be happy with my set of fixtures. Why do England and Australia get to play each other at home on both occasions while India and Pakistan don't get that privilege? The fixtures will change from season to season and this set of fixtures is not the definitive list. You can easily create many other variations but the rules need to be followed and obviously more rules can be added.

What then happens to ODI cricket? Ideally I would want that limited overs cricket be only played in tournaments like the World Cup or Champions Trophy but more short tri-series can be held for the teams that are playing only 1 test match on tour. Example - Pakistan, South Africa and Sri Lanka only played one game each on the tour of England so they can easily play an ODI tri-series during this time.These games could form the part of an ODI Championship but I'm getting ahead of myself.

It would be great if something like this is implemented. An India vs Pakistan Test match in England will be amazing at the same time an Ashes test match on a Mumbai dust bowl should be equally interesting. Existing trophies like the Border - Gavaskar or the Ashes can still be won or lost based on the head to head for a particular season.

I think the time has now come to seriously pay heed to MCC's warning to save the greatest game on the planet - Test Cricket.

Comments (7)

July 18, 2009

Posted by Cricinfo at in English cricket

Oh, for one more Welshman in Cardiff...

That was Freddie’s Ashes, yes. And rightfully so. Flintoff’s towering, exuberant, aggressive, overpowering and ubiquitous presence for every second of that series was unquestionable. His numbers were there to prove it too – 24 wickets at 27.29, the most by a bowler and 402 runs, the second best on England’s batting list. But there is that small matter of the bowler below Freddie on England’s bowling list for the series. 18 wickets in only 4 matches and at a miserly 21 a piece were the numbers for Simon Jones. Prime statistics they are and tell the story of an integral contribution to the team cause. But when the books were being tallied, the champagne being popped, a Prime Minister being visited at home and MBEs being awarded to the entire crew, he had somehow faded into the background, nursing his errant ankle.

Freddie’s astonishing bowling - especially to left handers - harvested the bulk of the watching public’s psyche, but can we forget what Simon Jones did in 2005? Michael Vaughan, who garnered accolades for his innovative captaincy four years ago seemed to have an uncanny, if not spooky knack of bringing on Jones every time he needed to turn a trick to nab a wicket. And Simon’s penchant for grabbing one of the first ball of his spells must have left Vaughan wide-eyed and chuckling in glee. But it was his astonishing control of reverse swing, honed to an art and science for the team by his close friend Troy Cooley that mesmerized. Screaming corkers whizzed past outside edges and swinging yorkers thudded into disoriented batsmen’s pads time and again.

Cheeky grin in place and an almost mock seriousness on his mien the rest of the time, the Welshman was a revelation and joy to watch – especially to neutrals not versed in the details of his sojourns for Glamorgan or England. His smooth and relaxed runup disguised the guile that was waiting to reveal itself to unsuspecting Aussie batsmen. Overshadowed on pitch and in print by Freddie’s belligerent presence, he seemed to glide through the entire series, smiling. Harmison and the reticent Hoggard even, seemed more visible all through. Always fielding on the boundary somewhere, he seemed to be only in the peripheral vision of the national consciousness. Except when Vaughan threw him the ball and the smooth and upright runup proceeded to unleash those zingers at the batsmen. Or when he indulged in some clean hitting at innings end, clearing the boundary with surprising ease (“Sixaah!” exclaimed Mark Nicholas as one of his crisp swings cleared the ropes effortlessly). There was something relaxed about him with the bat or ball in his hand, and in the uproar over the conquered urn, he was the one poking his head between shoulders in all the group photographs it seemed.

In the years that followed, Vaughan and Flintoff’s injuries barreled all news of his travails under the surgeon’s knife to the periphery of cricket’s awareness. Harmison decapitating the slip fielder with the opening ball of the 2007 Ashes and Hoggard losing his place to Sidebottom are recalled with more alacrity by cricket flowers than the footnotes Jones was making in the papers with his unsuccessful attempts at getting back to playing with some semblance of regularity. Frustrating and dark times they were at a critical juncture in his life and career but he somehow was left to fend off his demons by himself.

“Before these funny familiar forgotten feelings
Stop walk' all over my mind”

crooned Tom Jones again in “Funny familiar Forgotten Feelings”. So, before things get too heavy in the upcoming weeks continuing at Lord’s, and minds get trampled over with the drama of events on the field, I just want to say this Simon: You were missed out there in Cardiff, bachgen. You were special the last time we saw you and while your career may have unfortunately swung in reverse, those screaming reverse swingers and those scorching yorkers in 2005 won’t be forgotten for some time. Fate and your body have conspired to keep you away from what you do best, but rest assured, you were a champion. And as you watch your mates from 2005 out there at Lord’s, and you nurse feelings like that your countryman Ryan Giggs has watching the football World Cup or the Euro, keep your chin up laddie...and keep smiling.

“Raise your arms in the air, now shake 'em”
-Tom Jones, “You can leave your hat on”

Comments (4)

July 16, 2009

Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

The missing ingredient

Cricketers from Karachi are street-fighters. The get in your face, and they don’t take nonsense from anyone. They are always up for a mid-pitch chat and are usually the mentally strongest of Pakistani cricketers. These characteristics are born of the environment which they grow up in – an unforgiving and grim city, the country’s capital of commerce and business and industry, a hodgepodge of ethnic and sectarian groups living side by side. In such surroundings, only the strong (and cunning) survive. You figure out unconventional ways to get ahead, take shortcuts, and work hard. There’s nothing pretty about Karachi – a concrete jungle with few sights of natural or constructed beauty – and there’s very little that’s pretty about Karachi’s cricketers. But similar to the relationship between the city and the country at large, Pakistani cricket teams have historically relied heavily on Karachiites, from Hanif Mohammad to Javed Miandad to Rashid Latif to MoinKhan, because these are the people who provide the backbone and fight.

Cricketers from Lahore too betray their origins. Lahore is a city of gardens and basant, of fun and frolicking, of grand mosques and red brick architecture. It is, in short, a classical and beautiful city. The cricketers it produces mirror these characteristics. They tend to be attractive in their play, technically correct, and easy on the eye. Think of Wasim Akram in full flow, or a Mohammad Yousuf cover drive, or Imran Khan’s wind-up just before he bowled (and please save the emails; Imran Khan may be a Pashtun, but his cricketing education took place in Lahore, at Aitchison). Cricketers from Lahore, as well as other big cities in Punjab similar in their DNA to Lahore such as Multan (think Inzamam) and Sialkot (think Zaheer Abbas), have generally provided the flair for the national team.

Finally, there’s Everywhere Else. Little can definitively be said about Everywhere Else, for the region stretches from the Hindu Kush to the Arabian Sea, from the Durand Line to Rajhastan. But because cricketers from Everywhere Else tend to come from more obscure backgrounds, they have to do more to be noticed. To that end, they tend to one thing well, and nothing else, because it is that one thing that will stand out at the various camps and trials from which Pakistani talent is plucked. Waqar Younis (Burewala) or Mohammad Asif (Sheikhupura) show this to be true: enormously talented with the ball with almost unnatural gifts (Waqar’s pace and direction, Asif’s control and seam movement), but like all other Everywhere Elsers, these two – at least at the beginning of their careers – were incapable of doing anything else. No matter, because Everywhere Elsers fulfill the all-important role of outrageously talented specialists.

Of course, these are gross generalizations, and there are always exceptions. Pakistan’s most successful opening partnership ever shows the flip side of these characterizations. There have been few more languid and beautiful players in Pakistan’s history than Saeed Anwar, who batted like a typical Lahori, especially when playing through the off-side. Saeed, as we well know, was born and bred in Karachi. By the same token, Aamir Sohail was an extremely strong and punchy individual, street smart to a fault, and combative in almost everything he did. He, of course, is a Lahori through and through. In general, however, the point stands: Karachiites provide the fight, big city Punjabis the flair, and the Everywhere Elsers fill in the gaps.

This gets us to a diagnosis. Pakistan’s second innings in the second test against Sri Lanka spoke volumes. The one player to provide the most fight was, quite naturally, Fawad Alam. And where is he from? Karachi, of course. Did Fawad and his ungainly shuffle make anyone forget about Lara or Kanhai or Gower? No. But, pardon the expression, he showed balls – Karachi balls. No one else did, except for perhaps Younis (who showed with his dismissal that, owing to his originating from a different planet, he defies such geographic characterizations).

Fawad’s role speaks to a larger problem: for quite a while, the hardnosed Karachiite role in the national side has been completely vacant. There is no one that opposition teams hate playing against, no one to rile them up, no one to get in their faces with constant chatter and a game to back it up. Asim Kamal had the mental fortitude and the talent but lacked the opportunities, Faisal Iqbal had the motor mouth and the opportunities but lacked the ability, and Shahid Afridi – well, aside from his superlative performances in the T20 World Cup, he has wasted his quite considerable talents; if anything, his performances against South Africa and Sri Lanka showed us what could have been for the last decade. To get back amongst the elite in international cricket’s small fraternity, Pakistan needs more Fawad Alams. Put differently, it needs more Karachiites.

Fortunately, the new chairman of selectors is Iqbal Qasim, himself from the port city. If ever there was a time for the chairman to play regional favorites, now is the time. For Pakistan’s test team, there really is nowhere else to go but up.

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Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

A salute to wicket keepers

Who were the keepers who were great at their craft? In the early years of test cricket before World War I there were Kelly, Lilley, Blackham and Carter. After the war came Strudwick, Duckworth and Ames for England and Oldfield for Australia. Because these two countries played the most, they produced keepers with the best skill and technique. Tallon, Evans and Langley continued the tradition of good wicket keeping from these two countries while Cameron and Waite of South Africa were worthy of being counted in the list. Moving on over the years we have Grout, Knott, Taylor, Kirmani, Deryck Murray, Wadsworth, Wasim Bari, Dujon, Marsh, Healy, Russell, Boucher, Gilchrist…. This is just a ‘top of the mind’ scan of keepers over the years who distinguished themselves in the game. Recently, Prasanna Jayewardene of Sri Lanka has emerged as probably the best among current keepers. His glove work is a throwback to the old days – dapper and very reliable keeping.

Pakistan can look back with pride at Wasim Bari (and Imtiaz Ahmed who was also a fine bat) while India can never forget Engineer and Kirmani. But for a horrendous series in West Indies in 1976 when he kept fluffing chances of Venkataraghavan, Kirmani sustained a very high quality of keeping. Engineer was flamboyant but spectacular catches and missed chances are strewn in his wicket keeping record. Kirmani kept brilliantly to the fast and unfathomable leg spin of Chandrasekhar, as litmus a test as ever can be. Some swear that Kirmani once effected a stumping of such brilliance, taking a wickedly rising ball from Chandra over his left shoulder and flicking the bails off, that it has never had its equal ever again.

Wally Grout was easily the best keeper from Australia in the long period between Tallon (1950s) and Healy (1980s). He was very special – unobtrusive, superbly efficient, he would stand up to Davidson the peerless left arm swing bowler. These days, we see keepers stand up to the medium pacers in limited overs cricket to prevent batsmen from jumping down to thrash them. But for Grout it was an aggressive wicket creating option. At Chennai in 1959, seeing Manmohan Sood the Indian batsman dragging his back foot out of the crease in the process of playing inswingers to leg off the toes - Grout signalled to Davidson and stood up. Davidson beat Sood with a big swinger and Grout completed the leg-side stumping. It was wicket keeping at its best. Keepers in the earlier era stood up a lot more to medium pacers. Examples that come to mind are Duckworth to Tate and Evans to Alec Bedser. In fact, because of the nature of wickets and because many of the keepers stood up to the fast bowlers perhaps the byes conceded may be higher for the keepers of those days.

The authors recall Jeffrey Dujon do some acrobatic wicket keeping to Roberts, Marshall and Holding when the Windies came to India in the eighties. But he never had an opportunity to keep to high class spinners. In fact except for Walcott (who had the opportunity to create dismissals with Ramadhin and Valentine) all the West Indian keepers have a very low percentage of dismissals off spinners. This is true of New Zealand keepers as well. This also holds true for the South African keepers especially after the departure of their great googly bowlers by 1930. South Africa of course would be very pleased that Boucher now holds the record for most dismissals having overtaken first Healy and then Gilchrist. Healy is probably the best modern day example of the neatness that is associated with high quality keeping to spin and pace.

The great keepers are not flashy, they are unobtrusive. The biggest praise that such keepers expect would simply be: “He doesn't miss anything”. That phrase brings us to talk of Alan Knott the Kent and England keeper about whom, his team mates say they cannot remember him missing anything significant. Knott kept brilliantly to Underwood even on bad wickets and unlike most others, never seemed to have had off days or a poor series. Knott’s contemporary Bob Taylor was considered by many to be a superb keeper but Knott was good enough to keep Taylor out through his career. In fact after Knott retired, Taylor who was almost as old as Knott kept wickets for many years – and was easily the best among keepers of his time.

There have been quite a few instances where superior keepers have been kept out of the team by a less proficient keeper because that person was the better batsman. Leslie Ames played for England between 1929 and 1939 and kept Duckworth out of the England team. In the 60s Jim Parks a non-descript keeper kept out more competent keepers. Keith Andrews of Northamptonshire was an outstanding wicket keeper who played just twice for England because ebullient Evans – etched in our memory is the photograph of an airborne Evans breaking the wicket - and his bustling batting kept him out. More recently in Pakistan, Kamran Akmal retains the job on the basis of his batting.

Which of the wicket keepers were wonderful batsmen? Gilchrist of course to begin with: The most destructive No. 7 in test cricket history, 17 tons, many of them helping Australia wrestle a win from difficult situations he also won two World Cup finals for Australia. Kumara Sangakara, a most cultured left hander is a pivotal batsman for Sri Lanka. Who can forget this lion heart’s mammoth double century as he almost shepherded his country to an improbable fourth innings target against Australia? Clyde Walcott of West Indies, one of the 3 Ws, had a batting average of 56 and 15 centuries. Walcott would have walked into any World XI of his time on his batting alone. In fact he kept wickets in 15 tests and was good enough to keep to spinners such as Ramadhin and Valentine, a task that must have surely called for some level of competence. Alec Stewart played with the certainty that he was worth his place in the England team as a pure batsman but in 82 of the 133 tests that he played he kept wickets – without inviting censure while never qualifying to be clubbed with the very good keepers. Andy Flower was Zimbabwe’s best ever batsman and gave them the bonus of a reasonably efficient keeper. There have also been examples of some who began as ordinary keepers but grew with the job. Rodney Marsh started his test career being derisively labeled “Mr. Iron Gloves” for his clumsy wicket keeping but improved so much over the years that “caught Marsh bowled Lillee” became a part of cricket folklore. Dhoni till the recent T20 championship has had a fairy tale career. Starting as an ordinary keeper who entered the team because of his destructive batting, he has taken to captaincy with panache. If his learning curve so far is any indication and if his back also holds up, he will improve.

An annoying feature in modern day cricket is the way keepers keep up a constant verbal exhortation after every delivery. Chirpiness from keepers such as Evans and Engineer was to keep their sides positive but this ability to disturb the batsman with chatter and sledging is unfortunately being seen as a part of modern day wicket keeping skills! However one skill that wicket keepers of the modern era have added is the ability to convert average or even poor throws from fielders into run outs – something vital in these days of third umpire camera verdicts.

There is perhaps something silently glorious about the wicket keeper. It is the nature of sport that it is the swashbuckler who is in the limelight – be it centre forward, swordsman, racehorse or batsman. It takes a certain deep immersion in test cricket to recognize that it is the keeper who is at once both the shepherd and the workhorse. The great glove men concentrate through every ball of the innings so that they do not miss the crucial snick or let that hated bye through. To do this over five days and then also chip in with the bat shows that the true warrior in cricket is the wicket keeper.

Comments (6)

July 8, 2009

Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

Supporting an underdog

My friend, who fancies himself as a judge of human character, went on to suggest that this (support for the underdog) was a sign of inner frailty, a flaw. He was driving at the common perception that losers beget a loser mentality.

Is rallying behind a champion really a way of emancipation, leaving no room for the baggage of irony and self-deprecation that comes with defeat in your corner? The nature of this debate is brilliantly captured in the comedy film A Fish Called Wanda, with its classic example of "Brits are from Mars, Americans are from Venus." In the scene where Kevin Kline's American character is about to finish off the Brit played by John Cleese, the former gives vent to his feelings about England: "You know your problem? You guys don't like winners!" To which Cleese replies "Winners...like North Vietnam?" This gets Kline all defensive; "We didn't lose to North Vietnam! It was a tie!"

My peers have tended to view my support for New Zealand with curious disdain. Now, rooting for the underdog is something that actually comes quite naturally to us Indian fans. The current decade has finally given us (I use 'us' and 'we' with some reservations, given that the Indian cricket has always been my second love, behind the kiwis) the sort of brash, assertive team we've been craving for decades, and we can confidently expect more victories than defeats. And yet, we continue to align ourselves with less fancied teams when watching neutral encounters.

Perhaps this is because, for the most part of the previous century, Indian cricket mirrored India's gradual development as a free nation; an impassioned struggle for respect and self-belief, so we could assert ourselves among the world's elite. We celebrate, in our history, many revolutionaries who fought (often in vain) to secure freedom from an alien ruler. This celebration extends to cricket, which is why most Indians would have cheered for Chris Gayle's lone vigil against the Lankans in today's semi final - a man trying to make a statement on behalf of his team, as well as his belief in the supremacy of this T20 format. The same fans - provided they weren't blinded by nationalism - would also have cheered Pakistan's improbable march to the finals, in the face of troubled times.

However, I doubt much sympathy would've been extended to the poor South Africans. The pathos in their defeat, that of a team trying to shake of the yoke of being labelled "chokers", has not been lost on us; yet we, or most of us anyway, would have had a good laugh at it. Maybe this brand of defeat is something we'd rather not identify with, because it somehow exudes hopelessness instead of that heroic-romantic aura.

Which brings me to the main point. In defeat, to garner the affection of onlookers, you must be a certain kind of loser. The England side of the 1990s, whose messy defeats often bordered on parody, makes for an interesting study in this regard. Mark Ramprakash, often unjustly treated by the selectors, was always battling insecurity and inner demons; you could see it at the crease, and the feeling persists his manner was too tedious and neurotic for him to be liked.

By way of contrast, Darren Gough, with his cheeky smile and his antic of lying flat on the ground after dropping a catch, was impossible not to love. His luckless streak actually worked for him, endearing him to us all the more. Which is why I feel New Zealand should give Shane Bond a contract and lure Chris Cairns out of retirement, even if it makes no difference to their results; if they must be losers, let them at least be lovable losers.

I initially got thinking about the underdog issue when I remembered my response to a blog post back in April. The article featured team previews and predictions for the upcoming edition of the IPL, and I stated that I would support the Deccan Chargers because "somebody has to" (they were completely written off in the comments section; even the writer, a Hyderabadi herself, had no hopes for them).

In hindsight, it was funny that most fans chose to overlook a team which had Symonds and Gilchrist in it. But, now that I think of it, was I supporting these underdogs for the right reasons? Nevermind, self doubt is a bastard of a thing.

Comments (5)

June 19, 2009

Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

Why Twenty20 needs other forms of cricket

For the time being let us assume that cricket as a game is played only in the Twenty20 version and that there is no Test cricket or ODI (which is very much possible going by Chris Gayle's words). Even though it is too early to judge, the predictable patterns emerging from the world of Twenty20 is that there are no champion cricketers in Twenty20. Every tournament, every match has its own heroes. Twenty20 most probably is not going to throw up a hero for a decade or even five years, forget about a Pele or Maradona or Bradman or Sachin. I am not sure whether a Sporting game can sustain in the long run without the so-called "Legends".

My understanding is that legendary players play an equal role in the growth and sustainability of the game as the attractiveness of the game itself. How many of us can imagine Brazilian soccer without Pele? I am almost sure that eighty percent of school cricketers in India in 1990s dreamt about becoming "a Sachin Tendulkar" rather than "a batsman". If Twenty20 does not produce its legends who perform consistently over a period of time, can it sustain the public imagination across generations? Is Twenty20 capable of producing its legends without the existence of other forms of cricket? I will not say no, but I am pessimistic, because, let me quote "it is easier to play at your top level for three hours" and hence a lesser-skilled is almost equally rewarded as a highly-skilled.

My theory is that as much as cricket needs Twenty20 for its growth, Twenty20 may need Test cricket for its survival. As a game, T20 needs champions and Test cricket is the source where it can hope to get get champions from. In future, Twenty20 may become the basis for entry into cricket, and whoever does well in Twenty20 may have to adapt themselves to become consistent Test Players (I seriously doubt if it is going to happen the other way, which is bad news for the Rahul Dravids of the cricket world). Test cricket, then, is going to produce champion players and teams, and whose failure we are going to celebrate as "upsets" or "surprises".

Comments (4)

June 13, 2009

Posted by Cricinfo at in T20 World Cup

The thing about T20 cricket

Only three days into the World Twenty20 and one of the Kings of cricket teams thus far is out of the tournament. An associate member of ICC, Ireland easily Pushed Bangladesh out of the second round and England the host team were galloped by the nascent Netherlands in the opening game. Another finalist for the last World Twenty20 is struggling to move to the second stage. So who is your favorite for World Twenty20?

Yes, now you have the luxury to keep Australia out and probably by tomorrow you would also be comfortable to keep a few good teams out. But the question is, coming into this tournament, how many of us believed that Australia would crack like this? How many of us believed that Netherlands would punish a team that is considered to be the father of this format? How many of us thought that Pakistan would be so unsure about its place in the second stage? Do we still dare to have a favorite?

One of my favorite writers, Harsha Bhogle, recently mentioned in his article about the impact of the duration of a game by saying "If football was played over 20 minutes Manchester United and Barcelona may not have been in the final." This is the underlying difference between a T20 and other fatherly forms of cricket. When the game is reduced to shorter duration, the strategies must change and at the same time, it adds an element of surprise into it. It is easier to play at your top level for 3 hours, but not so easy when you have to stretch the same to over a day. At the same time, there is a little room for making mistakes when you are up in the short format, since there is a little room for recovery.

In the longer format of the game, even if you make some mistakes, there is time for you to recover, your team and the captain can plan out counter attacking strategies. But such luxuries are not accepted by T20. Such basic things have allowed us to see surprises more often which in fact are not surprises, because there have been far too many. This probably is the core of T20. And probably this would be the reason for T20 to be a huge success.

Comments (2)

May 16, 2009

Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

In Defence of Sreesanth

And then, of course, there were his graceless barbs directed at Ishant Sharma, who was still finding his feet in world cricket on a tour of Australia. But if this article is about Sreesanth, where does Hayden fit in? He does, you see, because the opponent he dismissed with so much contempt was the same bowler whose bowling proved so vital to India's success at the T20 World Cup in 2007. One of the batsmen whose skin he got under, and dismissed, was Matthew Hayden. But back to Sreesanth.

Like a lot of people, I had never really heard of Sreesanth, nor would I have been able to answer the trivia question that forms part of his Cricinfo player page. When India headed to the West Indies, a rare Test series without Sachin Tendulkar, it was with probably their least experienced bowling attack in ages. Along side Kumble and Harbhajan were three relative rookies - Sreesanth, Munaf and VRV Singh. And yet, some of Sreesanth’s performances stood out - the snorter that got Brian Lara in the decisive final test, the beauty that gave Gayle a pair in that crucial fourth innings of the same test. So when India arrived in South Africa for a Test series, at a time when India's famed batting line up was struggling, the last thing anyone expected was for a nearly unknown Indian quick to lead the bowling to a demolition of South Africa as they were dismissed for 84.

After India had cobbled together a meagre 249 runs, the South African batting line up was laid low by Sreesanth's 5/40, and at one point, with the score reading 45/7, the more hopeful of India's fans, self included, rather naively believed that a follow-on was not unrealistic. As Mickey Arthur admitted after the first Test, India's bowlers taught the SA quicks how to bowl in those home conditions, Sreesanth clearly led the way. Unfortunately, India blew their chances and contrived to lose a series they had started so well. India had it bad, but Sreesanth came away with a good showing. His bowling in South Africa was promising, though he made headlines for his impromptu dance number in response to Andre Nel's sledging, which is probably still on Youtube.

With all this, the series to England should have been the point where Sreesanth "arrived" in Test cricket. After all, so many Indian bowlers have discovered that bowling in England can be so good for their confidence - no, this is not a slight at England's batting, but merely a reflection of how well India's swing and seam bowlers have utilised the conditions to help India win in England, and he appeared to be one of India's better swing bowlers. However, things went totally awry - a beamer to Pietersen and Atherton's subsequent refusal to accept that his apology had been genuine highlighted a series where Sreesanth slipped behind Zaheer Khan and the fast-emerging RP Singh in the quick bowling stakes.

All this while, something else was building up - where his pre-delivery routine drew indulgent admiration from commentators and "fans" alike, his break dancing abilities made him very popular on one of several get-rich-quick Indian TV programs which discovered the "world champs" after India won the Twenty20 cup. But as time went by, and results were not always as one would have liked, his hitherto grudgingly accepted aggression became the focal point for all - "fans" and commentators alike. Players from opposing teams were just as willing to get in and say a few things to him, believing somehow that his overt aggression was in any way worse than the beautifully defined "mental disintegration" tactics.

And there was the break dancing - where it had once been a source of applause and admiration, however grudging, people were beginning to show that there was only so much tolerance they were willing to display. And while some of us, yours truly being in a somewhat minuscule percentage, looked forward to his return at the IPL, the knives were being sharpened. Three matches - one each against the rampaging nice-guy Hayden, Rajasthan, and against Dwayne Bravo, the last being just one over - turned the tide. In between, he was at the receiving end of Harbhajan's anger during the first IPL, an action that seemed to harm the offender less than the one offended against. After Hayden's comments, chat forums were agog with talk that he was overrated. And to make things worse, a nearly unknown Indian movie actress offered her rather self-important sounding tuppence, which included calling him an "insignificant player", the irony of which may have been probably lost on her personally.

To add to his woes, the now widely-read blogger chose to anoint him with a most offensive and unbecoming moniker, probably more out of envy. In an IPL where all but one of India's premier bowlers were struggling to make a mark, this probably damaged Sreesanth more than any thing on the cricket field - and ironically, a cricketer who has been criticised for not being enough of one, was being reviled by someone who sought the comfort that anonymity offered, and whose comments were not in the slightest concerned with cricket, and the cricket-result-loving public lapped up this non-cricketing abuse eagerly.

Having said all that, it is fair to contend that Sreesanth has brought it upon himself. At a time when he should have been focusing on his bowling, he comes across, from the perspective of a cricket fan who does not know him personally, as a man of extremes. When Sreesanth offers praise, it is not always fulsome - it is over the top. When Sreesanth offers aggro, it is ditto. And he seems to fall apart in matches just as spectacularly. It is to his credit that despite all he is having to contend with, he is willing to keep playing and keep trying.

However, there is reason to believe that if Sreesanth can sort out all that is holding him back, he holds tremendous promise. Sample, for instance, the fact that in terms of overall bowling stats he more than holds his own against the current incumbents - the resurgent Zaheer Khan, flavour-of-the-season Ishant Sharma, the extremely promising RP Singh, and other contenders to the quick bowling slots in India's Test team such as Munaf Patel, Irfan Pathan and Praveen Kumar In fact when you do a comparison of these bowlers in terms of their strike rates, wickets per match, averages etc, Sreesanth does very well - so well does he perform, that in a ranking of India's top ODI and test bowlers he would be very close to the top on all of these parameters. But, as Cricinfo points out, he loses out on the one parameter that is so critical to the shorter and shortest versions of cricket - economy rates. In a ranking of India's top 50 bowlers in ODIs, Sreesanth comes in at #50 on this parameter.

In the shorter versions, his career is littered with such instances - 21 runs to Bravo in the recent IPL match, three sixes to Sohail Tanvir in the World T20 finals, an expensive first over to Imran Nazir in the same match and so on. There is, hence, probably a strong case for believing that in the case of Sreesanth, he may be the first of his kind in India - a specialist Test bowler, who needs time to evolve into an ODI/T20 bowler. But more importantly, there is reason to hope that if he can sort out his mental devils, Sreesanth will be able to fulfill the promise he offered in South Africa and in the West Indies. The question though is, with a headline-hungry media, an instantly forgetful cricket watching public, and an unwilling cricket organisation - in the form of Captain and selectors - who will give him the chance? More so, will Sreesanth give himself that chance?

Comments (18)

April 29, 2009

Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

Why blame Australia?

The problem stems from the recent trouble over suspect bowling actions, with Saeed Ajmal reported for problems with his 'doosra' and before that Johan Botha was called once again during the South African series over his 'doosra' and quicker ball. Now the suspicion in this case would not have come across in most cases, except that the team involved following both incidents was Australia. It takes only that sort of evidence for the narrow-minded to draw to the conclusion that Australia, who have struggled recently, are attempting to take bowlers who have had successes against them out of play. And to be honest, it is really easy to see the connection considering the history.

Muttiah Muralitharan was initially called for throwing in Australia in the early 90's by Darrell Hair, and that sparked a massive controversy. Ross Emerson did the same thing on Sri Lanka's next tour during an ODI, and that again sparked problems. When the '15-degree rule' was introduced, Murali no longer has any problems. Part of the problems is not with the Australian team as such, but as how the Australian team is viewed.

The Australian team that has dominated the greater part of the last decade has played superb cricket, but has come to be viewed as boorish, arrogant, overconfident and aggressive. That is true in quite a few respects; they were certainly no angels on the field. But there is no such thing as a saint on a cricket field. That issue was mostly developed under Steve Waugh's 'Mental Disintegration' ploy. It's not like Mark Taylor needed to sledge so intensely to win.

The Australian team has been viewed, primarily in the media, as bad losers and even worse winners and thus a lot of teams have their opinion switched firmly on the dislike. This has not been helped by the controversies that seem to follow them around, some of which they cause and some of which they are unfortunately drawn into. It wasn't the Australian team that called Murali, and in the two recent cases the spinners were called by neutral umpires, one of which was from the home country. Saeed Ajmal claimed that Shane Watson spoke to the umpires about it, but I'm sceptical about that claim as there isn't really any evidence of it and it wouldn't make any sense for the Australians to do it. They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The last Indian series was one of the bitterest series in recent memory. Indian fans were baying for blood following the Sydney fiasco (Many STILL go on about it), and the attitude among the newer elements of the Indian team was to match the aggression of the Australian team. Australia was never going to win that series, but the many on-field and off-field incidents left a bad taste in the mouth. Australia has become a great scapegoat for problems due to the fact that they are most unpopular team in world cricket. Hell, they are liked less than George W Bush.

Comments (24)

April 14, 2009

Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

The sublime left-hand batsmen

The argument as usual may be over a couple of names. Should Mike Hussey and Stephen Fleming not come in? Was Fredericks not a uniquely thrilling batsman? Should Gambhir be included merely because he has been so effulgent over the past few months? Surely Saeed Anwar of Pakistan has given viewers more than enough pleasure to be counted. And just because Hayden smote the ball powerfully does it make him less sublime? Readers may express their opinion of who they think ought to be in this pantheon of twelve.

Ranking these batsmen is something we do not want to do – it would be meaningless and insulting to their genius. Mount Everest has enough space for all of them.

What makes the left hander so special? For one the rarity because we still get to see only two or at best three in a team. Among batsmen who have scored over 2000 runs in Test cricket there is only one left hander for every three right hand batsmen. And then there are these advantages:

- Bowlers find it difficult to switch their line and the left hander is given opportunities on the leg stump and outside to score from.
- The normal incoming ball from outside a right hander’s off stump cannot get the leftie LBW since it pitches outside leg-stump of the left hander.
- Wicket keepers find the left side difficult and are prone to be clumsy keeping to left handers.
- Since the field has to change and the bowler has to switch line every time a single is taken - when batting with a right hander – the leftie irritates and disturbs their rhythm by his very presence. If there are enough left handers in the team, it makes sense to keep the batting order flexible to ensure a left-right combination at the crease as far as possible.
- Bowlers find it difficult to bowl from round the wicket even though it is an important option against the leftie. Spinners tend to bowl from wide of the crease while faster bowlers are always conscious of not running on to the pitch on their follow through.

Just as the right hander’s on drive is the touchstone of his prowess, so is the cover drive for the left hander. Does it have anything to do with the batsman’s stance? Neil Harvey was a hero to many when he burst on the scene and such was his footwork, grace and artistry that even 50 years later there are many who swear that he cannot be surpassed.

Of Sobers and his unlimited magic so much has been told that we just share one incident – when Benaud in the 1960-61 Test in Australia thought he had beaten Sobers with the googly, that magician changed stroke even as the ball was sneaking past him and whipped it back to the sight screen. Till date no one has remotely matched the insouciant grace and lissomness that Sobers brought to the ground.

Following Harvey and Sobers, was Graeme Pollock who perhaps could have ended up as the best of them all. Could he have sustained his initial tempo? Would he have been equally good when confronted by the best spinners from India and Pakistan? The jury will forever be out on that. Meanwhile West Indies unleashed a line of great left handers. From the 1960s till 2000 they produced a string of pearls – Lloyd, Kallicharan, Fredericks, Lara and Gayle. Lara did enough in a magnificent career to keep the debate going permanently as to who is the best batsman after Bradman. Has there been anyone with as much magic in the high backlift as Lara? Has there been a batsman who played as late as Lara – so much so that to mere mortals he looked supernatural as he seemed to have a choice of three shots for every ball. No one has ever faced Murali better than Lara and remember that for much of his career he carried a limp West Indian batting line up on his colossus like shoulders.

Grace – the most often used expression to describe left handers sits most aptly on Gower. None better than this worthy could conjure up the most sumptuous fare with the lightest of brush strokes - he would wave the ball away from him between point and cover and if you put a fielder to plug that gap then between them as well.

Aha, we are getting into hot water here – we are talking of batsmen splitting the offside and we have not said a word about Ganguly? But everything about his ethereal timing through the offside has been said by Dravid in his famous offside and God quote. However no less awesome was the shimmy to the left arm spinner to hoist him over long on and long off. Ganguly like many modern cricketers used a heavy bat but we guess he would have played those gorgeous square drives even with grand pa’s walking stick.

The first great left hander to grace cricket was Frank Woolley of Kent and England. Clem Hill was an effective but ungainly left hander in those early days. There were few left handed batsmen those days. All the great batsmen - Trumper, Hobbs, Sutcliffe, McCartney, Jackson, Foster, Mclaren, Fry and Ranji were right-handers. Till 1950 and the advent of Harvey, while one could reel of names of prolific right handers the left handers’ club could hardly conjure the odd name or two. England had only Chapman, Paynter and Leyland against big names like Hobbs, Sutcliffe, Hammond, Hutton and others. Down under against names like Bradman, Ponsford, McCartney and McCabe we have to dig deep to come up with merely Warren Bardsley - a dour slow accumulator.

India was even more bereft of left handers. Imagine, till the fifties - C K Nayudu, Lala Amarnath, Merchant, Mushtaq, Pataudi, Hazare, Umrigar, Manjrekar, Roy and not a single left hander amongst them. The first left hander who broke through was Deepak Shodhan who scored a hundred on debut against Pakistan in 1952 and immediately sank without trace thereafter. Nari Contractor, a determined and not inelegant left hander could have played longer for India but his Test career was cruelly finished by a near fatal bouncer from Griffith in West Indies. The most graceful of the Indians was undoubtedly Salim Durrani - a genius who could be wonderful when in the mood, had so much time to play the ball and such silken grace in everything he did. Many years after the languid but enigmatic Wadekar and the wasted talent of Surinder Amarnath, there was Vinod Kambli who made two double hundreds and a chockfull of runs in a couple of home series before fading away. The jinx on left hand batsmen in India was only broken by Ganguly, the most enduring and graceful of them all.

Was batting the other way round discouraged for some reason in those days? It certainly seems to have been discouraged in India. After all, the right hand is the one used for eating, writing, greeting and benediction while the lowly left hand was for well ... other less dignified tasks. In fact India contributes just three names to the list of 68 left handed batsmen who have scored over 2000 Test runs – Ganguly, Gambhir and Wadekar.

But the changes sweeping society can be felt - parents these days do not discourage children using their left hand for various tasks from writing to batting if they are naturally left handed. And India in fact has Yuvraj, Raina, Gambhir, and Irfan Pathan all in the ODI team.

One Day Cricket has its own strong contribution. No example could be more powerful than that of Sanath Jayasuriya. For five years after making his Test debut Jayasuriya was just an innocuous journeyman - till he was asked to open in ODI in 1195-96 by his captain Ranatunga. And the genius that had been bottled up announced itself to the world and then strode it like a colossus. Gambhir is another example. Adam Gilchrist made the No. 7 batting position the most feared one in Test cricket because he turned matches on their heads from this position. India’s Yuvraj Singh gets his chances in Tests because he is such a brilliant one day cricketer. Test cricket is seeing changes – run rates are increasing, fewer Tests are ending up as draws and there is place for the aggressive genius and therefore for the maverick leftie too.

By worshipping these dozen artists we are not in anyway being disrespectful to the others. If we wanted a left hander to bat us safely through two days of tsunami we would always want Allan Border and Shiv Chanderpaul in our middle order; or Andy Flower who for Zimbabwe was like Horatio on the bridge; if we wanted to take a tilt at the most daunting of targets we would want the pugnacious Smith to open the batting for us; to put fear into the opposition we want the oak like Hayden up front and the towering presence of Lloyd in the middle of our line up. All these stalwarts have averages that are superior to some of the players in our sublime list. But because they give the ball a mighty thump with the bat as opposed to the satin like touch of the sublime artists they perhaps qualify for a separate article that could be titled the “Mighty Left Handers”!

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April 13, 2009

Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

Left-Arm Fast bowlers

From Brendan Layton, Australia

They are the mythical bunch that is a diamond dozen, but those who have made it to the top have shone as some of the finest bowlers of the game. Mitchell Johnson has blown his way to the top of Australia's bowling attack following a humble start, and Zaheer Khan has emerged from a long and difficult apprenticeship to be India's top bowler. But the main reason they cause excitement is that they are left-arm quicks, and can do things a right-arm bowler would dream about.

The history of left-arm quicks traces all the way back to the very first Test, where England fielded Tom Emmett, a bluff Yorkshire professional who could bowl very fast on his day. Australia's attack, missing Fred Spofforth, opened the bowling with John Hodges, a Victorian bookmaker who played the first two Tests and never played Test cricket again. On the return match in England, Fred Spofforth was supported by Frank Allen, once hailed 'the bowler of the century', and a man who was allegedly a gargantuan swinger of the ball. He took 4/80 in the match as Spofforth annihilated England.

England would tend to rely on left arm orthodox bowlers in its early history, but they did produce an all-rounder who could be dangerous on his day in the form of George Hirst, who achieved more with the bat than the ball in his few Test appearances. More successful was Jack Ferris, who teamed up with Charlie Turner to form one of the most lethal partnerships in Test cricket history. Ferris' career was blighted by the weakness of the Australian batting at the time, and eventually left to play in England as a professional.

When South Africa initially came into the Test arena, they struggled to match the strong Australian and English teams, but they did have Arthur 'Dave' Nourse, a left-arm swing bowler who was the 'Grand Old Man of South African Cricket'. In the late 1920's, England unearthed a young lad from Nottinghamshire who would make his mark a few years later as the accomplice of one Harold Larwood. Bill Voce, although yards slower than his older partner, was a key figure in Bodyline where he would set the leg trap and use his awkward angle and great height to create havoc and a long run of bruises. He would have sporadic success in his career, and his last tour with Wally Hammond's team in 1946/47 to Australia when he was long past his peak was a disaster.

After World War II Australia unearthed a candidate for one of the all-time left-armers in Bill Johnston, a droll Victorian who had been a spin bowler before he turned to swing. He took 16 wickets against India in his debut Test series and then in the next five took at least 20 wickets. Not bad, especially when you consider that he was competing with Ray Lindwall and Keith Miller for the new ball.

Frank Worrell, a much-underrated bowler due to his batting talent, was often called upon to open the bowling for the West Indies as the struggled to find the next Learie Constantine. He took a best of 7/70, but a younger all-rounder from Barbados would supersede him as an all-rounder and player. Garry Sobers, arguably the greatest all-rounder of them all, took 235 wickets bowling swing, genuinely fast, or any type of spin he felt like.

When Australia toured South Africa in 1957/58, a lot of their hopes were pinned on Alan Davidson, who was finally being given the new ball after having to wait behind the impenetrable Lindwall/Miller/Johnston combination. He was acknowledged as a master bowler, but had played 12 Tests and had taken an unremarkable 16 wickets at 34.06. In the next 32 Tests he took 170 wickets at under 20 to reduce that average to 20.53. Doing that he established himself as the finest left-arm quick of that time, and he is only challenged as the greatest of them all by one man.

South Africa had developed Trevor Goddard as a useful all-rounder who at times opened the batting and the bowling for his country. When the arrival of some genuinely fast men gave him better support, the ferocious South African team of the 60's was born. The generation gap between the next gifted lefties was bridged by Richard Collinge, a gigantic but gentle swing bowler whose best was overshadowed by Richard Hadlee, but always gave his best for New Zealand.

Lefties struggled to make an impact in the 70's. Bernard Julien was spoken of as another Sobers but failed to have an impact. John Lever played 21 tests as a classy swing bowler, but had to shake rumours he used slave or something similar to get swing. Australia produced two with vastly different careers. Gary Gilmour was a spectacular swing bowler and hard hitting batsman who produced his best in the one day game. He struggled later in his career as the increasing professionalism left players of his ilk in the cold. Geoff Dymock, a maths teacher who struggled with remote postings for many years, was a determined, hard-working bowler who improved to such a state in his early 30's that he was considered good enough to partner Dennis Lillee during the Post-WSC reunion. He was the first person to dismiss all 11 batsmen in a team at Green Park in India in a match his batsmen still managed to lose.

In the 80's there was little to be seen of the left-arm quick, and it was thought they had gone out of fashion as quick as the Malcolm Marshall bouncer. Then suddenly out of Pakistan came a young man with a whippy action that could bowl fast and swing the ball both ways alarmingly late. Wasim Akram took 5/56 in his second Test and showed signs of greatness. At the turn of the decade, he was acknowledged the finest fast bowler in the world, even better than Windies beanpoles Curtley Ambrose and Courtney Walsh. Australian captain Mark Taylor, a man who managed a century against Akram hailed him as the most difficult bowler he had ever faced, and much better than any West Indian of the time. His record is formidable: 414 wickets at 23.62. He suffered during his career from a myriad of scandals, and late in his career he lost a lot of the zip that made him the most feared bowler in the world. That said, in my opinion Wasim Akram is the greatest leftie of them all.

Australia managed to produce a tall, gangling WA quick that could make the ball swing and lift from a good length. Bruce Reid suffered from back problems his entire career, but managed 113 wickets at 24.63, he was no mug when he got it right. Sri Lanka, after initial struggles, unearthed an invulnerable warrior who to this day carries their pace attack. Chaminda Vaas was never lightning fast, but he learned progressively as he went. He forsook pace to become a crafty swing and seam bowler, capable of blowing away teams on helpful pitches and containing batsmen with his accuracy.

Nathan Bracken had been earmarked as the next Bruce Reid when he came through the ranks, but it took a long time to make his mark. And now at 31, and having not played a Test since 2005, a classy swing bowler seems to have cruelly been cast as a limited overs bowler, despite being widely admitted as one of the finest swing bowlers in the world.

But the leftie rides again. Johnson and Zaheer are at the pinnacle of this class at the moment, but South Africa has Wayne Parnell waiting to take the fight. Pakistan's Sohail Tanvair is a wrong-footed and unpredictable quick with strong potential. And there is definitely one out there who could be the next Alan Davidson. The next Wasim Akram. Now that would be a treat.

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April 7, 2009

Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

Some ùbúntù

These are words that are guaranteed to bring to a halt whatever you may have been thinking about and force you to take notice. It is not possible to ignore the fundamental humanity of these pearls strung together and not feel about as big as a microbe in the grand scheme of things our lives are embedded in.

And before you begin to wonder, no, it is not a preamble to an attempt by me to proceed and espouse (in a futile and doomed attempt to try and sound just as eloquent) my own brand of homegrown philosophy on unsuspecting readers. The word ùbúntù (and what a beautiful word and philosophy it is) should be a dead giveaway though and should lead you towards at least a confirmation of the geographical source of these prescient thoughts.

This is an excerpt (quoted verbatim) from the 2008 edition of the MCC Spirit of Cricket Cowdrey Lecture, delivered by The Most Reverend Dr. Desmond Tutu last summer. The lecture was instituted in 2001 following the adoption of the Spirit of Cricket Preamble to the Laws by the M.C.C, the custodians of the laws of the game of cricket. The Preamble to the Laws which was officially added in 2000 is meant to enshrine the founding tenets of the Spirit of Cricket: fairness, honesty and respect. It states that "Cricket is a game that owes much of its unique appeal to the fact that it should be played not only within its Laws but also within the Spirit of the Game. Any action which is seen to abuse this Spirit causes injury to the game itself".

The lecture is now an anticipated event in the summer cricket calendar, giving the stage to an invited guest to elaborate on a topic of their choice related the game. Rev. Tutu joined a line of illustrious cricketing personalities who have graced Lord’s to deliver the annual lecture, starting with the thoughtful elegance of Richie Benaud in 2001. Subsequent years have been equally rewarding, with speeches by Barry Richards, Sunil Gavaskar, Clive Lloyd, Geoffrey Boycott, Martin Crowe and Christopher Martin-Jenkins. Rev. Tutu was an interesting, inspired, albeit quirky choice, if I may say so. But the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize winner’s heartfelt and at the same time, funny and delightful speech last year was quite memorable.

Rev. Tutu concluded his lecture last year with the words:

And so cricket reminds us that we are made for togetherness. We are made as those who are going to have to turn this world and make it something that is more compassionate, more caring, more loving, more gentle, and you here are part of God’s team plan, collaborators to help God bring about a realization of God’s dream. Could we have any higher aspiration, not only for cricket but for the whole of life as we humans experience it in community, that we live our lives in the Spirit of Cricket?

Michael Colin Cowdrey (1932-2000) was the initiator and the brains behind the Spirit of Cricket initiative along with another England great, Ted Dexter. Sporting the apt initials of his name M.C.C, which were carefully and calculatedly given to him by his father for obvious reasons, he was responsible for relentlessly championing the formalization of the concept that the spirit in which the game was played was just as important as the rules and laws that governed the play on the field.

We will be hard pressed to find anyone who can even contemplate debating over whether there can be a better example of a cricketer who personified the spirit of cricket more than Colin Cowdrey. In a long and illustrious career as an England cricketer and captain (114 tests, 7624 runs, 22 centuries), he was the very personification of grace and skill every single moment on and off the cricket field. Unfailingly friendly, courteous and polite to a fault to anyone he came in contact with, he lived the principle that even while going for your opponents’ jugular in a cricket match, it could be done with fairness and integrity along with equanimity of thought, language and demeanor. His courteousness and politeness somehow even extended to the legendary silken coverdrives of his. Quite large is the fraternity of fielders who over his long career, have run to the boundary to retrieve the ball Colin Cowdrey had deposited there, caressing it through the covers with supreme style. All the time wondering, as they picked up the ball from the ropes, if the shot would ever be played any more elegantly.

Colin Cowdrey had a firmly held belief that there was absolutely no reason why the game of cricket could not be played while adhering to the principles of fairness, honesty and respect. In fact, to him, why would you ever want to play it any other way? Concerned about the declining standards of behavior and conduct of players that he observed at all levels of the game around the world, he proposed and championed the idea of the Spirit of Cricket being made explicit in the Laws of the game. On his own volition, and expecting nothing in return for his efforts, he crisscrossed the English countryside, speaking at schools, cricket clubs and sports associations, passionately explaining to children, young athletes and sportsmen why it was equally important to cherish and hold those values as closely as they did their success in their chosen sport. And he unfailingly gave his time and attention to anyone who came in contact with him and expressed an interest in discussing his views on the subject. He wanted everyone associated with cricket to believe in and live these principles and took great pains to keep them at the forefront of their consciousness. I find it very hard to imagine the anguish he endured during the dark days of the match-fixing scandals in the late 90’s ("It's a new world, I don't understand it now."-M.C. Cowdrey) to see the game he cherished so much ravaged that way.

I share one thing in common, at least, with Michael Colin Cowdrey and that is the city of our births - Bangalore.

Growing up in Bangalore, my grade school days were the usual gleeful mix of friends, school, homework, comic books, ice candies and street cricket (of course!), memories of a mix I share fondly with millions like me all across India. Parents, millions of them like mine, while indulging and managing typical kids like my friends and I, worried about our education and sometimes, conscientiously tried to stuff some sense and respect for the culture and classicism of the land in us. In this way, my brother and I were sent off to study Sanskrit, the language of the classics, in the morning before school, along with a merry band of other similarly coerced kids.

Our walk to the center where we were to be all cultured up, took us through the quiet, tree-lined middle class neighborhood of Jayanagar, many roads of which were narrow enough that in furiously contested evening cricket matches, either the fielder at extra cover or the one at square-leg was inevitably stationed strategically in the “gutter” or storm drains that lined the streets. As we walked down a quiet street like this, a stone’s throw away from our classroom was a nondescript and typical suburban residence that used to bring a hush over the gaggle of kids as they passed by. Footsteps would slow down, conversation would cease and faces would look up with wonder and fervent anticipation. Anticipation of catching even a tiny glimpse of him in one of the windows. For this, as our reliable sources had informed us, was the home of Bhagwat Subramanya Chandrashekhar.

It is not easy to describe the wonder and affection that Chandra conjured up in the minds of children growing up in India during his heyday. Why just children, here was a cricketer adored and admired right across the country for his exploits, his gentle and genial nature and more importantly, for the thrilling spectacle and anticipation he provided with that uncharacteristic bowling action, spitting leg-breaks and disorienting power of his googlies. The memories of that coiled-spring run-up, the bounding steps to the crease with 75,000 roaring spectators keeping rhythm with their clapping, the whipping blur of his right arm, wrist cocked in a position dictated by a mind of its own, and Farooq Engineer or Syed Kirmani, standing right up to the stumps intercepting a fizzing leg break sometimes over their heads as the groping batsman looked back in confused horror….unforgettable.

After months of walking by the two-storey house, and questioning the validity of our sources’ insistence that Chandra indeed lived there, the suspense became too unbearable for us and we decided to settle the matter for ourselves. So one chilly, misty Bangalore morning, three kids walked up boldly to the front door of the house and rang the doorbell. They then stood there, legs quivering, all the boldness spent now, expecting a yelling at from maybe an accountant or physicist who lived there, and not Chandra. Or Chandra himself, asking us to bugger off and not bother him that early in the morning. The door opened and we were greeted with the smiling face of a lady who seemed genuinely puzzled and amused to see three kids shaking with excitement at her doorstep. “What do you want and who are you kids anyway?” she asked. I guess the bravest one among us finally mustered up the chutzpah to look her in the eye and say, “We would like to meet Chandra and get his autograph”.

Now, two things were possible at this instant. She could have developed a furrow in her brow, glared at us and said “Chandra? Who? Don’t you kids have anything better to do than bother strangers this early in the morning? Don’t you have school to attend?” The second possibility was the one that did occur. She smiled at us, turned around and called out ”Chandraaaaaaaaa...” While we held on to each other in a state of ecstasy and nervousness for what seemed like an eternity, bounding down the steps from the second floor came the legendary leg spinner, clad in shorts and a T-shirt. Bounding down, I would like to think, with the same number of steps as his famed run-up to the crease. He towered over us, looking down with that very familiar calm and open look on his face. “These kids want your autograph”, she said to him. As he looked at us and that hand that had turned many a game for the country started to reach out towards us, we were suddenly aroused from the paralyzed state we were now in and three notebooks meant for the Sanskrit class shot out in unison and miraculously appeared under his nose. Three scrawls later, he smiled at us and was gone, bounding back upstairs, to the top of his run-up. The lady (his mother?) smiled at our incredulous faces one last time and gently closed the front door. I remember absolutely nothing else about what happened next. I assume we did make it to our Sanskrit class that day.

Years passed. School was just a fond memory now and sadly, my Sanskrit notebook was nowhere to be found. Then one day, right across Bangalore and the rest of India spread the news of a horrific accident in south Bangalore. A really bad one, we were told. Chandra, our Chandra, had been involved in a smashup on the street riding his two-wheeler. He was badly injured and in intensive care. Both legs, they said. Could he ever walk again, they asked. Bedridden…wheelchair bound. What kind of nightmare was this? Would he ever come bounding down those steps again?

“Why did it have to be him?” we asked, trying to reason quite unreasonably with I am not sure who or what. Why Chandra? Why the quiet, gentle, private, goateed, Mukesh loving wizard with the goofy-looking round arm return from the boundary? Why the unpredictable, dangerous, lightning fast Chandra (“Maaan, his fast one is faster than Thommo’s!” - Viv Richards) who could terrorize batsmen when he was on song? We wrestled with the combination of worry and sadness about his physical health. We had internal conversations with ourselves about how much the country owed him. Owed him for everything, starting with the Oval in 1971. While reading about cash donations being made for his hospital expenses in calculated moves by governments at the state and national level and the statements of cricketers empathizing with his unfortunate accident, we hoped that our Chandra was being emotionally supported too. By his friends and colleagues being by his bedside. By just being there for him during these trying times. We wanted to him to get back on his feet quickly and stand again, with friendly hands around his shoulder. We didn’t want him to just recover. We wanted him to recover with a smile on his face. With the peace, comfort and contentment that comes with the company of caring friends.

Michael Colin Cowdrey, the President of the ICC, was in India for meetings and landed in Bangalore, his birthplace, a stop on his trip crisscrossing the country. After he picked up his bags at the airport, he walked out, met the party waiting to drive him to the Chinnaswamy Stadium or his hotel, and politely, I am certain, requested that he be driven to the house of Bhagwat Chandrashekhar. The hotel and the meetings at the Chinnaswamy Stadium for that matter could wait. More prominent in his mind were thoughts of meeting a respected compatriot, an old nemesis on the field, a valued member of the cricketing fraternity and most importantly, a small part of the jigsaw puzzle that made up the picture. A picture of a game that Colin Cowdrey so eloquently stood for in all his efforts since he entered it as a player and continued to embody. His colleague from the cricket pitch was ailing, and paramount in his mind was the need to meet him, sit with him, hold his hands and just say, “We are thinking about you, mate. And we will be with you as you recover from this.”

I have this vivid mental picture of a car driving down that very same street in the typical middle class neighbourhood in Bangalore, pulling up in front of the same nondescript residence, the car door opening and Michael Colin Cowdrey getting out. Walking up to the same front door and his finger pressing the same doorbell. Courteously introducing himself to whoever opened the door (Chandra’s mother again, maybe?) and requesting that he be permitted to call on Chandra. I can also imagine with a great deal of certainty what this visit would have meant to Chandra as he laid there, wheelchair and bed bound. An unexpected visit from a concerned colleague of the game and a face from the past that brought back a million memories and smiles to his face. If there ever was a reassuring, thoughtful and caring gesture being made to a man in dire need of one, here it was.

The M.C.C has just announced that Adam Gilchrist will be delivering the Spirit of Cricket Cowdrey Lecture this year at Lord’s on June 24. It will be at the height of the Ashes frenzy in England as the Aussies would be just starting their tour then. As far as the rest of the cricketing world goes, having exhausted our competitive, nationalistic and jingoistic juices in the months preceding this at the IPL and the T20 World Cup (which actually ends just three days before the lecture at Lord’s), it may behoove us to take a small break from the action on the field and see what this year’s lecture brings. And also say a silent thank you to the man the lecture is named after. It won’t hurt. It may even be rewarding.

I never had a chance to watch Colin Cowdrey bat, and can only imagine that silken coverdrive that people who were lucky to see him swear by. But I don’t think I need to use my imagination to understand the sentiments of John Woodcock, who penned the simple epitaph on Sir Michael Colin Cowdrey’s headstone:

"...some journey, some life, some coverdrive, some friend."

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March 27, 2009

Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

Call for entries

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March 26, 2009

Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

Coach v Captain

Looking at Ganguly's face in the press conference it was easier to fathom that he wanted to be somewhere else, he was trying hard to hide his disappointment, his expressions changing from anger to disbelief, even Buchanan said that if he was Ganguly he would be upset, Ganguly if he had his way might just have gone into invisible mode and smacked the hell out of Buchanan, but it was quite a sight to behold the coach and the captain seemingly at pains to explain the latest blockbuster innovation of Mr. Buchanan.

Ganguly was always a feisty character, prepared to speak his mind, never afraid to call a spade a shovel. When a similar sort of personality like Shahrukh Khan is the boss of the team there are bound to be ego clashes, throw in Buchanan into the mix and you have the perfect recipe for disaster, as a matter of fact both Ganguly and Shahrukh had huge differences of opinion in the IPL last year, but as any family would, they settled down to brush aside their differences, but it seems the infighting and petty squabbles have reared their ugly head again.

John Buchanan the most successful coach in history is a man who has always stood for invention, be it the Chinese style army camp organized for the Aussies prior to their departure to England for the Ashes in 2005, ironically they lost that series and also many in the team were not happy with him which is a different story altogether. He also predicted that players in future will be ambidextrous,where they can bat or bowl equally well with both hands, so it is not a surprise to see him coming up with another move this time of having different captains for different stages of a game.

Buchanan spelt out his plan, he will have a player walking out for the toss, a batting captain, a fielding captain, a bowling captain, probably a captain for overseeing what should be the menu for the players to eat, then there can be a captain as well to see who drives the team bus on the way to the ground. Innovation is Buchanan's middle name but it does seem he has gone a little too far this time.

In recent times we have had numerous coach-captain fiascoes, again Ganguly heads the list, his infamous spat with Guru Greg Chappell hogged so much news space in the media in India that he might well have been the most loved or hated man on the planet depending on your choice. Recently Kevin Pietersen just did not want anything to do with Peter Moores and ultimately both had to be sacked, but the repercussions were found immediately as England lost the Test series 0-1 to a spirited West Indian side.

What exactly is a coach's role in cricket? This issue has been discussed thread bare in the media numerous times, but to just state the obvious, a cricket coach is not the final authority on the game unlike a football manager who has to worry about substitutions, the time left on the clock, decide on who takes the Penalty kicks in a shootout, and several other finer details. A football manager has to be proactive since it involves his total effort into the game, a timely substitution at the vital moment can change a game, a cricket coach on the other hand does not have much to do other than ironing out small technical deficiencies that might have crept into a player's game.

There are so many back room staff in cricket nowadays that the role of the coach is getting diminished by the day. England for example have a separate XI of back room staff if you can call it that, if god forbid something happens to their main cricket team they can step in at any time without worrying about replacements. Then why cant the coach and captain co-exist peacefully in cricket? Is it because that either of them think that they are the sole authority on the game or is it that the coach wants to operate like a football manager who exerts more power on his players? Either ways unlike a football manager who is the final decision maker on the field, the captain will and always be the one who will be calling all the shots on the field, if the reverse of the above mentioned scenarios were to happen then it will lead to many Chappell-Ganguly episodes.

Shane Warne once famously said that the coach is one who drives the players to and fro from the ground, it is said that he was never in favour of coaches and especially not pleased with Buchanan's methods, he proved everyone wrong by winning the IPL last year when he successfully led a team of rank rookies to the title. In fact India too were without a proper coach when they won the series in England in 2007, the senior players like Sachin, Ganguly, Kumble, Dravid and Laxman were the decision makers on that tour, it just shows that you don't need a coach when you have such a top class line up.

It is debatable whether Australia would have won two World Cups without John Buchanan, they might well have because they had such a wonderful line up. With a bowling coach, a fielding coach, and a coach for every aspect of the game, the head coach of the cricket team is becoming just another man in a bunch of guys looking to produce the results. Strikingly coaches who prefer to be in the back ground like John Wright, Gary Kirsten, Duncan Fletcher have had the most success unlike the likes of Greg Chappell, who successfully turned the late swing of Irfan Pathan's bowling into a batting swing from which he has never been able to recover his tremendous bowling skills and finally a wonderful talent was lost to the world. Guru Greg even had the temerity to question Sachin Tendulkar's commitment after India bowed out of the 2007 World Cup which was as blasphemous as John Lennon saying that the Beatles were more famous than Jesus Christ.

Finally for the creme de la creme to finish it off and it comes from who else but Shane Warne, when asked during the IPL last year " What is the coach doing mate"? he replied in his usual naughty style, " He is driving the bus mate". That quote symbolizes what he thinks of coaches in cricket, probably he was right.

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March 25, 2009

Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

Leg Spinners: Stories and Anecdotes

From S. Giridhar and V J Raghunath, India

	Clarrie Grimmett continuously added variations to his bowling © The Cricketer International

Our previous article was merely a statistical assessment of 37 leg spinners in test cricket history. But the spice of leg spin is in the stories and anecdotes. Since our generation has seen Warne, Kumble, Mushtaq and Qadir in full television glory with each and every minute movement and sleight of hand shown to us in finest detail, we will recount yarns of the leggies of eras gone by.

We begin with a bit of delicious irony, more than 100 years old that surrounds the googly. Around 1900, Bosanquet the Englishman who invented the googly passed on the secret to his county colleague, a South African called Schwarz who in turn shared this with 3 colleagues in South Africa. The result was that when England visited South Africa in 1906, the hosts greeted them with a team that included 4 leg break / googly bowlers and they routed England 4-0. In fact South Africa often opened the bowling during that series with a googly bowler.

The googly even though discovered over a hundred years ago gives connoisseurs the same fresh pleasure every time it is bowled. Here is one that we draw from arguably one of the finest books by a cricketer. If you have read Arthur Mailey’s “10 for 66 and All That”, you will immediately recall the unforgettable chapter on Mailey’s first encounter with the ‘immortal Victor Trumper’. After all his anxiety and suspense, Mailey had a chance to bowl to him. A couple of perfectly good leg breaks were driven with absolute authority to the off-side ropes. Realizing that he might not get another over, Mailey decided to try his then newly invented googly. He tossed it up and saw Trumper coming down the wicket. The ball swerved out (unlike the leg break which would have drifted in). Trumper, uncertain, made the adjustment to play it away from his leg but the googly sneaked through between bat and pad. Trumper didn’t attempt to regain his crease; he just smiled at Mailey, shook his head and said “that was too good for me, son” and walked away. Mailey says he felt no triumph - he felt like a boy who had killed a dove.

Grimmett perhaps the most industrious and accurate of leg spinners, kept adding variations continuously to his bowling. To the extent that when batsman started recognizing his flipper because they could hear the snap of his fingers, Grimmett the wily fox, started bowling leg breaks with a snap of the fingers of his left hand! This amazing leg spinner’s book “Getting Wickets” is a much recommended reading for slow bowlers.

Tiger O’Reilly was so unplayable that when Len Hutton composed an All Time Best England XI to play Australia, he included Maurice Leyland. When questioned about selecting Leyland over more illustrious players, Hutton said that this left handed batsman had the best record against O’Reilly and that alone was enough in Hutton’s book to earn him this honour! The Don himself rated O’Reilly the greatest bowler he had seen.

Tich Freeman ranks stunningly high among leg spinners despite having just 66 Test wickets. Next only to Wilfred Rhodes in the number of first class wickets, he has the amazing record of being the only bowler in county cricket history to take over 300 wickets in a season and also the only bowler to have taken 10 wickets in an innings thrice. Can you imagine an English leg-spinner taking over 200 wickets every season for eight consecutive years without resorting to some seam and swerve in typically English conditions? The Wisden in its description of Freeman says no such thing – this very short man was quite simply a very remarkable leg spinner; classical slow leg spinner with deceptive flight, tremendous control and the full repertoire of leg break, top spinner and googly. Freeman played just 12 Tests but his match winning ability was overwhelming – 10 wicket hauls in 3 of his 12 matches simply mean Freeman gave his side a winning chance by his very presence.

For the authors, two Indians have a special place in our hearts. Subhash Gupte was nothing less than a sight for the Gods! Subhash had a lovely action and his right hand would do a kind of “S” before delivering that was truly captivating. Subhash had good control, fine flight and all the variety - including two different googlies. In fact, very often, he would lull batsmen with the easier to spot Googly no.1 and then fool them later with the difficult to pick Googly no.2. He would very often greet new batsmen with a googly first ball. When the Commonwealth team toured India in 1956 he did this to Sam Loxton (apparently forewarned) who calmly pushed the googly away to square leg for a single. As he strolled across for the run, he is supposed to have told Gupte, “don’t bowl me that stuff, Subhash; I can pick it every time”. Loxton later claimed he didn’t get any more googlies that innings. In the Test matches of those days, Subhash would bowl a few away from the turf to the keeper to loosen up when he was first brought on to bowl (after a few perfunctory overs from Ramchand or Phadkar or Umrigar). Immediately there would be a buzz around the ground and 'oohs' and 'aahs' as they watched these preparatory rites. If only Subhash had better close-in catchers to support him (Indian fielders in those days, barring Umrigar, just about caught balls that came comfortably into their midriff!), he would have taken closer to 200 wickets than the 149 he finally ended with against his name. The 3 Ws of West Indies – Weekes Worrell and Walcott – were absolutely certain that Gupte was the greatest spinner they had ever faced.

The second leggie for whom we have a special place in our hearts is the one and only Bhagwat Chandrasekhar who won nearly a dozen matches for India with his bowling. Immortalized for his heroic role in India’s triumph over England at the Oval in 1971, Chandra was a sight to behold when in full flow. Sleeves buttoned down at the wrist, shirt tail flapping, unruly hair flying, a brisk bounding run, 100000 spectators at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata chanting “Chandra! Chandra!” and five predatory close – in fielders waiting like vultures around the bat ... cricket when Chandra bowled had an electricity that has never since been matched. In the series against England at home in 1972, such was Chandra’s domination that he took 35 wickets while the rest of his bowling comrades put together had 40 wickets. He had the Englishmen in such a trance that he even got a batsman caught at short leg of a bouncer, a delivery that Chandra did unleash once in a while.

The best of stories need not be about those on top of the pile. We conclude with a gem about VV Kumar, a fine leg spinner who only played two Tests for India in 1960. This was narrated to Raghunath after he had played a good knock against VV Kumar in a club match at Chennai. Rangan, his cricket crazy captain at Nungambakkam Sports Club, ran the nets for not only his club but for all enthusiastic cricketers in South Madras. Top Madras cricketers would come to the nets in the early 60s and one of them was Kumar. It was during one such outing at the nets that Kumar bowling to Rangan – a good bat himself – impishly wagered that Rangan would not be able to even touch with his bat ten successive legitimate deliveries of his. This mind you, was on matting where the ball does not skid through. Rangan thought he would win the bet easily since even an edge would do. Later Rangan, recounting the scene in his inimitable style said that every ball from VV Kumar buzzed and sang and he could not fathom the turn or fizz even playing back and giving himself extra time and room to put bat to ball. To his utter dismay Kumar won the bet. Kumar in his heyday was that good.

The stories are endless. Leg spin is timeless, infinitely romantic. The fact is that on a placid wicket on the first day morning of a Test match, the fielding side captain depends on his leg spinner to turn on the magic. As the leg spinner and his captain discuss the field placements, as the leg spinner spins the ball from hand to hand, as he licks his fingers and approaches the bowling crease, every person watching the drama waits with bated breath. With a leg spinner as we only too well know, the possibilities are simply endless.

Comments (19)

March 22, 2009

Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

Leg Spinners – A statistical assessment

We realized that each aspect of performance – wickets, strike rate, bowling average, five wickets in an innings and ten wickets in a match – will have a bearing on determining the overall value or effectiveness of the bowler. We decided that for the strike rate, bowling average, five wickets in an innings and ten wickets in a match, we could create a Relative Index and convert each bowler’s performance into his individual index score. To calculate the index for a particular parameter, let us demonstrate with the example of Warne’s index for strike rate: His strike rate is 57.4. The cumulative strike rate of the 37 players in our list is 2627.1. So Warne’s SR Index is 57.4/2627.1 expressed as a percentage which is 2.7. Each player’s Index for each of the four parameters is calculated. The aggregate of the index for the four parameters of each player provides us the individual players’ index scores. Thus Player’s Index Score is the sum of Index score on SR + Bowling Average + 5w/Inn + 10 W/ Match. The lowest Player Index Score reflects best in class and so ranks would progressively go down as the index scores went up.

We also need to recognize and give value to the wickets that a bowler had taken as this reflects a bowler’s longevity and sustained performance. Since the 37 bowlers in our list range from an extreme high of 708 wickets to an extreme low of 20 wickets, we decided to convert the wickets to their logarithmic value (Let us call this Log W; 100 wickets would thus have a value of 2, 200 wickets would have a value of 2.3 and 400 would be 2.6, 1000 wickets would be 3). Sticking to our convention of lowest figures indicating highest degree of effectiveness, we created an Effectiveness Index by dividing the Players Index Score by the Log value of Wickets. Thus Effectiveness Index = Player’s Index Score/ Log W. Table 2 below ranks the leg spinners by their Effectiveness Index and seemed to be a fair representation and pecking order among the leg spinners.

But having done this, one realized that we must also consider the quality of opposition and the quality of batsman whose wickets had been captured. What proportion of the wickets was against weaker teams? How many of these were either lower order batsmen or tail-enders? Should we not apply some kind of factor for taking this aspect into our calculations? Here is where Mike Holmans provided us invaluable support. Readers will be familiar with Mike’s article that appeared on 19 December 2008 in Cricinfo where he presented the “Most Efficient Bowlers” by creating an index that specifically took into account these factors. So we wrote to Mike and requested him to present us with his index for each of the 37 bowlers on our list. Mike was immensely helpful. We acknowledge Mike’s help by christening his index as the Holmans Power Index of Efficiency.

From the Holmans Power Index - it was interesting to note that while champion bowlers such as Clarrie Grimmett and Bill O’Reilly were in the top in Holmans list too, bowlers of the pre-1930 era who did not play too many tests but had stunning strike rates such as Bert Vogler, Brendon Bosanquet, Ranji Hordern and Tich Freeman surpassed players such as Anil Kumble, Richie Benaud, Chandrasekhar, Qadir on Holmans Index. We decided that we would combine (and average out) the Effectiveness Index created by us and the Holmans Power Index to arrive at a ‘Composite Effectiveness Index’. We felt that this might help smoothen out some of the sharper differences between the two methods. And so it surely did. Thus while we will find the odd bowler surprising high on the Composite Effectiveness Index List, we have a reasonably large number of players in a pecking order that intuitively also seems right. And so we have these players, each with a composite effectiveness index that ranges from the best of them all – Warne at 36.46 to Chandu Borde at 74.66. This then is the final pecking order that we have arrived at as shown in Table 3 below.

We debated quite a bit about the merits of splitting this list into two separate categories or more - for instance separate tables and rankings for bowlers with less than 100 wickets and those with more than 100 wickets. We also toyed with the idea of separating cricketing eras and have separate lists for players who were from the pre 1930 era and post 1930 era and so on. But finally we decided that we will retain all of them in one pool. The fact that Warne, Grimmett, O’ Reilly, Chandra and Kumble are in the top ten would probably be greeted with unanimous agreement and add credence to our methodology. But we wonder if are stirring up a nice royal debate by placing Vogler, Hordern and Freeman in the top ten using our methodology. Obviously, even though they took fewer wickets, they were so strong on the other parameters that they pushed the likes of Mushtaq, Benaud, Gupte and Qadir to places 10 to 14. Having done with the stats, we cannot wait to narrate anecdotes and stories on our favourite leggies. Watch this space!

Comments (114)

March 16, 2009

Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

Expert's commentary

Perhaps the South African accent can come a close second. But most prominent South African commentators are actually Englishmen to begin with (maybe I am just thinking of Robin Jackman, but that's probably because not enough personalities from South African television have been heard by Indian viewers).

When one talks accent, it's difficult to leave out England. The once-popular Geoff Boycott has surely been surpassed by David Lloyd. Lloyd is funny (last night's T20 international included a hilarious account of why he thought umpires Clyde Duncan and Norman Malcolm were actually four different people!) and backs it up with an accent that appears more natural than Boycs' exaggerated attempts!

I guess accent could also increase the intonation, and that's where Ian Botham is a massive letdown. His delivery is just as dreary as his cricket was breathtaking. While Bob Willis would make someone unfamiliar with his craft believe that he was the Ashley Giles of his era! What about the Aussies? Bill Lawry cracks me up with his 'Austraaya' (though most Aussies tend to say that) and 'Shaun Povick'. Richie Benaud had his Sean Connery-esque tendency to inform viewers that the 'Ian Chappell ish with the two captainsh for the tosh'.

Closer home I think most Indian commentators give good accounts of themselves. Though I can never figure out how Sivaramakrishnan picks up the accent of whoever he's sitting in the commentary box with. Also the horribly un-Indian greeting 'go well' has gained currency with all Indian commentators, particularly when they're done with the toss or the match presentation.

Pakistani commentators befuddle you with their inability to get Indian names right. 'Saachin' Tendulkar and 'Yovraaj' Singh must be household names across the border, and I guess the answer to this must lie in the way most Indians do not know the exact pronunciation of Pakistani names (the ICL had a Pakistani cricketer called 'Haafiz' Khalid which our Indian commentators continually referred to as Hafiz, as that's how he spelt it).

There are some commentators who you'd want to hear to at any time of the day, irrespective of what accent they were bringing to the table. I am sure many cricket lovers like me are huge fans of the purr of Michael Holding, the way David Gower's commentary seems to reflect the elegance of his batsmanship, or the way Sunil Gavaskar (sometimes) gets into the mood for mischief and that's when his anecdotes come out flying.

All said and done, commentary continues to be an integral part of cricket. And hearing and learning to appreciate the way callers and experts from across the world use the English language is an experience that's often inspiring, sometimes funny, but never bad!

Comments (2)

March 10, 2009

Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

Stop pissing in my coffee

And if you are anything like me, you invest a lot in cricket. You start to follow the match scorecards daily even more diligently than ever. They become your alternate NASDAQ ticker. You look at strike rates and averages to forget the interest rate and the stock market index. You squirrel away small percentages of your feelings and inner voices towards this glorious sport and try to look at the return on your investments. Investments you have been making since you were a kid. From your piggy bank days, from the time of pocket money doled out by doting parents, from when you held your first paycheck in your hand. All the way till now.

You think back to the cricket of the last year or so, and a smile immediately appears on your face. There was Mendis bamboozling the best with his finger gymnastics. That magical spell from Ishant to Ponting at Perth. The Proteas using the Steyn gun on the Aussies to stunning effect. The Zen-like calm, combined with ruthlessness in Dhoni’s demeanor, as the Indians socked it to Ponting’s crew. The look of unbridled joy upon J.P Duminy’s face when he reached his first hundred at the MCG. The England team walking out at Chennai following the horrific events in Mumbai. Moments like that. Special moments.

Yes, there are frown inducing memories too. You remember Harbhajan and Symonds in Sydney. You fret over why you don’t remember anything about a match involving Pakistan. Sreesanth copping that slap (well-deserved, you may think) from the loose cannon Harbhajan. And why we still haven’t figured out how to prepare an outfield, leave alone a pitch.

And there are those bittersweet and poignant moments. Gilly, the Prince of Kolkata, Kumble and Haydos. Dravid, one of India’s greatest batsmen, suddenly looking lost, forlorn and scared in the nation’s gaze as he battled an extended loss of form. Vettori leading his hastily put together team with a quiet dignity, a wry smile and steel. You silently thank them for the memories. Cricket, at its best is good at generating just these kinds of memories. The very kind of memories you are relying on now to distract yourself.

These days, you wake up each morning and pick up your newspaper and settle down. You flip to the sports pages quickly. You want the business section to flash by in a blur. You are not ready to let it piss in your morning coffee yet. You are wondering about how Punter’s boys are coping in Jo’burg. Have Dhoni’s band of brothers acclimatized themselves in chilly Christchurch yet? Is Mahela really handing off the controls to Sangakkara in a few days? And will Freddie be able to walk out with his teammates behind Strauss in Barbados?

But wait! What has happened to your warm and cozy sports pages? Where are those match reports you were desperately seeking? The sports page looks kind of strange, doesn’t it? Big and lurid headlines screaming out at you. Must be something big. Ponting’s men wreaking bloody vengeance on the Proteas maybe? Something as unlikely and spectacular as Shoaib Akhtar actually playing and demolishing the Lankans in Karachi? Did Dhoni’s boys rack up 400 in a T20 match against the Kiwis? You go in for a closer look and then step back in surprise.

And in dismay.

The sordid Stanford saga is furiously unfolding in front of you and is occupying more and more newspaper acreage by the day. You remember that you even brushed past his grinning face on the front page. (Bloody hell, I believe he is on the front page of even the New York Times! What are they doing covering cricket?) This time around, the three letter acronyms pursuing him like ravenous hounds are not the ECB, but the FBI. The second round of the IPL auction (”There was a little element of feeling like a cow” – Adam Gilchrist, March 2008) has just been concluded with a discerningly muted euphoria compared to last year’s. Freddie, bum ankle and hip and all, is a millionaire and while K.P may have lost the captaincy, he has raked it in by the Mallyans of dollars. The second IPL season is almost upon us and they say the movie stars and billionaire franchise owners are fraught with worry about their splashy investments from last year. Shah Rukh is so worried that he may not dance for Kolkata this time. A worried Mallya is holed out on his yacht on the French Riviera nursing his drink. And Lalit Modi (him, of that four letter organization, the BCCI, with one three letter cricket league in his fist and another one under the heel of his Gucci loafers) has figured out yet another way to hog the headlines again. This time it is for losing an election and for being for accused of miscellaneous dubious activities, shady land grabs, political shenanigans and plain old fashioned crimes like forgery.

You take a sip of your coffee and realize that someone has indeed been pissing in it.

What happened ? All you wanted to do was to check your other investments. The ones which were going to tide you by the difficult times. You were looking for news of Tendulkar, but are inundated by news of his other boss, Ambani. For Duminy, but all you can find in these pages are stories of financial doom for the Deccan Chargers. For Gayle, but are being regaled with stories of that grinning bear whose offices in Houston have been sealed by the police. Look! There’s news of a nation-wide alert for the Texan god who descended on the unsuspecting Antiguans. What has he done now? It can’t be for bouncing Matt Prior’s wife on his lap last year, can it? Come to think of it, is this the first time the word cricket has been used along with the acronym FBI in the same sentence? You are looking for calypso tinged reports of huge crowds thronging the Sir Vivian Richards stadium in St. John’s but are staring at a photograph of long lines of people on the streets of the same city. They look too distraught to be standing in line for tickets for the Test match. What? They are lined up outside the locked up doors of their bank containing their meager life savings? They definitely don’t look like they are capable of heading over to that spanking new stadium named after the King himself. Yes, the new one built with Chinese money. And what are the Chinese doing funding and building cricket stadiums in the Caribbean? Have they lost their marbles? You remember getting Ntini’s autograph along the boundary at the Oval, and try to check out his bowling figures in yesterday’s match. But allegations against Modi for forging a signature have barreled it out to some obscure part of the newspaper.

Your are mad now. You should be mad by now. This wasn’t supposed to happen. They are storming your refuge too now. They robbed your city home and have now followed you to your cottage in the country and have ransacked it too. While you were outside, sitting by the lake, looking up at the stars. While you were out trying to enjoy the fresh air and the smell of leaves.

I, for one, resent this intrusion. I do not like the fact that I suddenly feel as if I got my investment reports mixed up. My two worlds have collided now in a way that they cannot be unraveled. I am being forced to wade through sewage now to get to the apple tree. I am forced to sit at the opera next to this obese, loud, belching, flatulent man who will proceed to eat his greasy burger and fries during the aria, while talking on his cell phone. The library I borrow my Rushdie and Roth from has been renovated and will now devote half its space to pornography.

Crass is what it is. An assault on my senses and sensibilities.

I do, and will bear a grudge against everyone who has been an accomplice in this crime of allowing these people to lay siege to my other side too. The one I had taken refuge in. Every single one of them. All the lawyers, financiers, diplomats, lobbyists, MBA wielding cardboard cutouts, businessmen, power mongers, politicians, dictators, hoodlums, ass kissers and boot lickers. There you go. I have pretty much listed the motley crew of people who are guilty of depriving me of a very simple pleasure that I had planned on relying on. A pleasure that they weren’t even supposed to be able to get their dirty paws on. The only problem here is that the same motley crew forms the list of office bearers of the collection of boards and organizations that are in charge of administering the very game we all care about.

Oh, you think I am over reacting here? I am being old fashioned, am I? Being a purist? Not willing to change with the times? Clinging on to an idyllic past in the face of an ever changing fast society? With all due respect to you my friend, that is the biggest load of putrid fecal matter you can throw at me. Bollocks to you, I say. In fact, I say that all the above over used and over abused reactionary platitudes are cowardly alternatives to admitting that things have gone awry. It has hit the fan, splattered across the room and is dripping down the walls.

Cringing at the failure to keep Lord’s off limits to helicopters of megalomaniac billionaires trying to make leery indecent proposals to the English cricket team is not being a purist. Not wanting to read about totalitarian despots who have clawed their way into the highest offices of the state and country’s cricket boards to dictate who plays where and when and for how long and against whom is not being old fashioned. And clinging to an idyllic past? I have news for you my friend. I am trying to cling to the absolute present. I am only trying to cling to the drama on the field here. To the bare bones dramatic reality of bowlers pitted against batsmen. And over reacting? You call a fervent desire to not see the very pulsing lifeline of the sport, the foundations of everything we want to remember, enjoy and hold dear to our hearts - and I am talking about the players, past and present here - being made to debase their images in this sordid drama over reacting?

Frankly, it is the image of the players which hurts the most. And yes, they are only images. But we are talking about the essence of what sustains our interest in the sport itself. The very collages of images of deeds on the field that make you come back again and again to the game. This is the one that is the most painful to bear.

Watching Sir Garfield Sobers wait at the edge of the circle of whirring rotor blades for Sir Allen Stanford to get out with his outsized valise of dollar bills is one image I never wanted to see. Not just now, in hindsight and in the light of him being pursued by the SEC and the FBI. Yes, Sir Garry was only doing his job and yes, he had the laudable goal of accruing financial benefits for his own cash strapped cricket board. But I am entitled to rue and mourn that image for what it does to my personal memory stash. We are talking Garry Sobers here. Arguably the greatest cricketer to ever play the game. The class, the style, the charisma, the talent and the breathtaking bravado with which he towered over the game in bowling, batting and fielding. A player who I never got to watch, but had absolutely no problem convincing myself that he was the real deal, the greatest and one of the most magnetic by a mile. Convinced to such an extent that my hackles rise when Yuvraj Singh is compared to him by some over-zealous hack writing in the Indian press. He should never have been put in a position where he had to stand on the grass that is still singed from his strokes from decades ago and shake that man’s hand. A man who had no qualms about openly deriding the game itself. Yes, I am entitled to be appalled by that image.

And then there is that photograph. The one that has been seared into the surface of my brain and is as fresh as it was a year ago. It is that photograph of the Texan overlord in the pavilion at Lords. Yes, that one. The one with the big transparent box with neatly packed twenty million dollars in the foreground and the man with the golden grin standing behind it flanked by Sir Vivian Richards, Sir Ian Botham and Sir Everton Weekes. I find it hard even after a year has passed to think about, leave alone speak about that image.

Because of Viv.

Viv.Oh Viv! Vivian Richards. Sir Vivian Richards! You, of the gum-chewing , magnetic and brooding walk from the pavilion with your bat swinging in your hands like a machete. The maroon Windies cap casting a dark shadow just over your gleaming eyes. The nervous anticipation and the dread of the fielding team rising with each step of yours. The desperate attempts by the opposing captain to suppress the urge to change the field three times before you have even reached the middle and taken guard. Stepping away three feet outside the leg stump and smashing Bob Willis over extra cover for six at the Oval. That 55 ball assault in the Test Match in Antigua that seemed to still unfold in slow motion. Swooping down on the ball like a panther for those 3 run outs at Lords in 1975. That smouldering glare behind that regal nose as Lillee stood in the middle of the pitch enquiring about your mother. You, who played your entire career with nary a word spoken, a smile on your face and when needed, a glare in your eye.

How am I supposed to come to terms with that image of you standing next to him behind the stash of dollars? Once again, your intentions were entirely honorable and that is precisely why he wanted you next him the first place anyway. But you in the same frame as him is just not right. You do not belong there. When I first saw the pictures from that day in the pavilion at Lords, I forced myself to think that you looked uncomfortable in the picture. I sincerely hope you were. And your old friend Beefy is right next to you too. Hamming it up for the cameras. Yes, the second greatest allrounder the game has ever seen. Headingly in 1981 and countless other exploits. A sublime and raw talent, who had the cricket world by the scruff of its neck and did it with a cheeky smile on his face for an entire decade. Beefy and Viv on the same team at Somerset! Can anyone forget that? He was months away from being knighted by the Queen. (Beefy, who we had chuckled to ourselves, had knighted himself in 1996 itself - with a bong.) And Sir Everton Weekes. One of the three W’s. A name which brings a look of admiration and pride on the faces of cricket lovers of my father’s generation to this day. The collective memories the three of you have provided has sustained generations of cricket fans. And will persist and pervade the thoughts of future ones.

Yes, this is what is being tarnished with everything that has happened over the last year and continues to have its fallout in public to this day. The characters causing the news for all the wrong reasons have been doing it relentlessly throughout this period. It may just be a coincidence that almost everything we are talking about is related to the new fangled hot shot kid in town – T20. And it is entirely possible that it is not. But that is not the point. I may have a personal opinion about not caring to wait for three matches to get to see Ishant bowl 9 overs, like he did in that magical spell at Perth last year. But I am at least entitled to want to watch a magical 2 over spell by Warney playing for the Royals against the Super Kings – the one where he mesmerized and fooled Dhoni into popping a catch to slip – without these characters shoving everyone aside, flashing their Rolex watches, mugging for the camera and also monopolizing the air waves and the print media.

Well, we are on the verge of falling head first into the second IPL season and if it is anything like the first, we are all in for some exceptionally offensive scenes that will be played out for our benefit. I for one, am bracing myself to see players from the past reverently kneeling with upturned faces and puckered up lips. Looking for the first one that passes by to kiss. It will make more of a dent in your saved up stash and will drive you insane. It should, if it is going to be anything like the one I would like to remind you of.

Last year, at the height of the IPL frenzy, Lalit Modi walked out to the middle and stood at the pitch alongside the commentators to toss the coin for the captains. A very professional looking but at the same time, a visibly hyper-ventilating Ravi Shastri introduced him to the TV audiences at home and suddenly said, “He is Moses of the game who has shown the path to blazing success.” Yes, he made this very statement looking into the camera as his fellow commentator yelped around next to him like an excited poodle. Even as I gagged on my coffee, I distinctly remember thinking that Ravi Shastri may accidentally have mixed up his myths and his Bible. Maybe he meant to say Midas, I thought. But, you know what? He didn’t. He meant Moses. He was trying to conjure up epic images for us of Lalit Modi parting the crowds at Eden Gardens and leading us to some kind of promised land up in the sky. He was just doing his job as commentator, of course. But did he have to lose all his bearings to mouth such claustrophobically sycophantic words? Ravi Shastri, who during his playing days personified a quiet and grim dignity. One who utilized his limited talents to the maximum possible and bravely fought many a memorable battle. One who fought his way from No. 11 all the way to becoming the de facto opener in Tests and ODIs. The one who we had proudly cheered for as he drove around the MCG in that Audi he got for winning the man of the Series award at the World Championship of Cricket in 1985.

Later during the season, he was to say “Lalit Modi is a tall man”. You are a tall man Mr. Shastri. You stood even taller during your playing days. Maybe you got carried away after you saw that gigantic 200 foot hoarding of Lalit Modi that appeared next to the Chennai overpass to coincide with the start of the first IPL season? For he is not a tall man. In fact he is quite a small man. Small but happens to be a big honcho at this bullying organization which is petty enough to deprive us of the pleasure of watching Shane Bond bowl to Sachin Tendulkar in a couple days. Just to buttress their own fiefdom. Just to squash that annoying upstart, the ICL, that seems to stick in their collective throat. Not that it has any perceivable threat to their coffers in any kind of way.

You don’t agree? Well, he and his cronies went one step further a few days ago. They withdrew Sachin Tendulkar this time, from an exhibition T20 game where Hamish Marshall, another Kiwi national team discard due to his association with the ICL, was penciled in to play. Just to bare their teeth again at the ICL and thump their chests. It would have been just an idyllic and old fashioned exhibition game, you know. How do you think that excited eight year old kid who was looking forward to seeing the Little Master in action at that game feels? He is just beginning to build up his own little stash of memories that he will need in the coming years. He is still in his piggy bank days in that. And that my friend, is a crying shame.

Damn right, I feel like I am violated.

Comments (74)

March 4, 2009

Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

Trip to Pakistan

A cash-strapped Sri Lankan cricket board probably saw this as an opportunity to kill two birds in one stone. One was to get some revenue out of the tour. And second to prove to the world that cricket of all sports could never be affected by terrorists. If nothing had happened, the world would've hailed Sri Lankans for their courage instead of talking about the darkness PCB is staring at today. What they did not understand is that it is hard to deal with lunatics like the terrorists. They only crave for publicity, money and some way to trouble people. They know that incidents such as this will be shown ad nauseam as breaking news on the various news channels, reporters will be mentioning this for at least a month and there will be debates and blogs (such as this one). But I digress.

My memories about the Indo-Pak rivalry go back to the World Cup 1996. I was 11 at that time and the match was played at my hometown Bangalore. This was the first D/N match at Chinnaswamy stadium. Ajay Jadeja had hit Waqar to every part of the ground and India made a good looking score of 287. We went out to play gully cricket believing that the match was in the bag. When we came back, Anwar and Sohail decided that Pakistan had to win WC twice in a row. They just thrashed the bowlers to all parts of the ground. 84 in ten overs and the whole of Bangalore was silent. Two bowlers from our our own state (Karnataka) were made to look like bowling machines. Anwar fell after a loose shot and gave a chance for the audience make some noise. But, Sohail kept going and silence pervaded again. Sohail was then removed by Prasad.

We kids remember discussing the dismissal almost every time we talked about cricket. The rest was history. A poster was released that had frame by frame shot of Sohail dismissal which soon became a must have for all kids.

Then came the Sahara tournament in Canada. If I remember correctly, the first time ESPN started broadcasting cricket matches and first time I heard Harsha Bhogle. In the second season Ganguly was hailed as an all-rounder and Inzy became famous after the 'alloo' incident. After the third season, in 1999 was when tensions were again rising between the two nations and cricket suffered all the way. The same charm of beating Pakistan wasn't there anymore even when the cricketing ties were restored. And now it has come to a grinding halt.

I am pretty much sure ICC has lot to think about after this incident. 2011 is not far away and things are definitely not looking stable. Of the 10 nations that were fit to play test cricket, Zimbabwe fell apart, Bangladesh are still minnows and now Pakistan have a problem on their hands. If ICC stages a dull tournament like the 2007 WC in 2011, there might be need for a new organization to lead cricket. But what Indians will miss the most is a classic India-Pakistan match.

Comments (5)

March 3, 2009

Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

Facebook for cricket

Jerome Taylor is furious. Monty Panesar and John McCain are now friends. Sarwan is wondering why he is still batting, when Shiv is out.

Sachin Tendulkar is finally in a place where the ball will come on to the bat. Younis Khan added the 'dead pitch' application to his iPhone. Matthew Hoggard feels left out.

Sangakkara is blogging. Allen Stanford is on the run, baby. Lalit Modi just lost the election, but is still happy. Viv Richards doesn't like beaches anymore.

Michael Clarke is feeling his throat. Andrew Flintoff is scheduled for surgery. Again. Giles Clarke is stupefied no one saw that coming. Lalit Modi wants to stress again that he is happy.

Kevin Pietersen needs time away from all the madness. He is going to the IPL. Chris Gayle just got referred. He didn't enjoy the experience. Mohammed Ashraful yet again hit 20 off 2 balls and got out. This has to end now.

Gideon Haigh is writing a piece on how he knew all along that Stanford was a sham. Steven Lynch is digging up records. Sehwag is looking for quick runs.

Stuart Broad's Stealth Zombie served a bowl of pain to Yuvraj Singh. Dileep Premachandran is done giving soccer analogies. Peter Lalor is taking a potshot at the BCCI. M.S. Dhoni is trying to stay positive. Ricky Ponting is mildly amused his team won.

Sambit Bal feels he shouldn't have written the article, after all. Iain O' Brien is exhausted. He will update his blog tomorrow, fans. Lara Bingle is no longer listed as single.

Mendis is wondering what's gonna come out next? Peter Moores is lost. Sourav Ganguly removed Greg Chappell from his list of friends. Irfan Pathan is tired of being treated like a spinner.

Lakshman Sivaramakrishnan has vowed to stop squealing during commentary. Samir Chopra is debating whether or not to blog full time. Shane Warne spent all his winnings on that random chick. In his defense, he was not sober.

Feel free to add your contributions. Barath.

PS: This is purely for the purpose of having some fun during work when my thesis adviser is not around. I don't mean to offend anyone. Seriously.

Comments (5)

February 28, 2009

Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

Note from Christchurch

Nothing would have prepared Ishant, Gautam and Munaf for the surprise of not being recognised by taxi drivers. On the flipside, it presented an Indian couple and one friend of theirs with an opportunity of a lifetime: to drop the trio to Nandoo’s restaurant and have a few photographs taken with them.

Harbhajan may have thought he was on a different planet, while queuing up for a subway at Cashel Mall in Christchurch. Sehwag enjoying a smoothie, Yuvraj’s cruise around the city, irfan’s jog at Cathedral Square have all provided the Indians in New Zealand something spicy to talk about and a high point of their life in Christchurch last week.

What’s more, many among the fans have been happily obliged by their stars with brief chats, photographs and autographs.

In the midst of all this excitement, Indian fans have also been careful to respect the privacy of the cricketers and allowing them the space to enjoy this beautiful part of the world and the slow pace of life, which can be a rarity in India.

For Indians living in Christchurch, life at present is full of happiness and it feels like Diwali after 6 long years. If India wins a few games, there will also be fireworks like never before.

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Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

My flag is bigger than yours

Now I'm as patriotic as the next man, though the next man in this case is probably serving a life sentence for high treason. Life is too complicated and fragile a thing to be carrying on your back a bagful of rocklike grievances which you solemnly unpack and hurl at anyone who questions your motherland (or fatherland, if that's your thing). But that's just me.

I'm a traitor to good old Blighty. The Barmy Army? Face-painting? Booing Shane Warne? Well, if you must, but there are few sights less attractive than a bunch of boorish drunks singing badly transposed football songs that don't scan in the general direction of a game they aren't really watching. For six hours. But I digress. And actually there is a less attractive sight than the aforementioned Englanders boiling in the Barbadian sun. It is the angry scrawl of a bile-inspired invective fired into the comments thread of a Cricinfo article.

In the past week two perfectly reasonable articles, one about the Aussie tradition of the victory song and another about the Karachi wicket, have trailed in their wake such a litany of hate and unreason, you'd have thought we were in the middle of a cricket war. Have we now reached the stage where it is not possible for members of one cricketing nation to discuss matters pertaining to another? Do we really only watch cricket to revel in the triumphs of our nation? Was George Orwell right about sport? Are we to look forward to another bout of flag-wrestling when the IPL begins and Cricinfo is deemed to be insufficiently critical/supportive?

So enough dear reader, restrain the angry patriotic beast that stirs in your breast, because like most beasts, he has no table manners, he urinates in the street and he will make you look foolish in public.

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February 27, 2009

Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

Three Seasons In One Day

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February 18, 2009

Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

Call for Entries

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Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

Dear Dr. Mallya

Secondly, Dravid was criticised for the recruitment policies adopted by your franchise. In actuality, Martin Crowe in his role as cricket operations officer was most responsible for the recruitment of players. However, even players who were suited to the Twenty20 format such as Cameron White, Dale Steyn and Jacques Kallis (at least with the ball) underperformed, while the same can be said for Misbah ul-Haq who you personally recruited. On the other hand, someone like Wasim Jaffer who cost only US$100000 scored a 40 and 50 but was widely criticised despite being injured for the majority of the season. Ultimately if the players don't perform there is little the captain can do.

Indeed, despite all the doom and gloom Bangalore still won 4 games, including one against eventual finalists the Chennai Super Kings, and suffered close losses against Kolkata Knight Riders by 5 runs, Delhi Daredevils by 10 runs and Chennai Super Kings by 13 runs. What's more, they finished comfortably ahead of Deccan, who were supposedly far superior to Bangalore's 'Test team'.

Kevin Pietersen has been touted as a possible captaincy candidate. However, it should be remembered that England players will only be available for the first 3 weeks. Pietersen would certainly not be setting a good example as captain by leaving. It should also be remembered that Kevin Pietersen's only allegiance to Bangalore is money. His services are loyal only to the highest bidder. This attitude is in stark contrast to Dravid, who is a Bangalore boy through and through and without whom the idea of city-based franchises, and indeed the idea of the IPL, would never have been possible. Dumping Dravid as captain may alienate many Bangalore supporters whose allegiance to their team was due to their local boy captaining the side, which could result in lower ticket sales and thus lower profits, which in this recession-hit world is certainly something to be avoided if possible.

However, the biggest reason not to install Pietersen as captain would be his ego which, as proved by the Peter Moores saga, is incompatible with figures of authority. His stint as England captain has raised serious concerns about his ability to deal with people, and with new coach Ray Jennings also being a strong personality, it is difficult to see how the two can work together, despite Jennings' statements. Indeed, Jennings' belief that the Moores saga will motivate Pietersen even more as a captain is indicative of the fact that Pietersen is motivated by himself and his ego only.

In contrast, Dravid comes across as a gentleman who always puts the team ahead of his own needs, which is an important attribute for a captain to have. Thus, I believe that you should retain Rahul Dravid as Bangalore Royal Challengers captain for the second season of the IPL. I hope you remember what Rahul Dravid has done for Bangalore is far more than Kevin Pietersen or even you will ever do, because if you alienate the people of Bangalore you may find that the damage will be irreparable. I trust you will do the right thing.

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February 12, 2009

Posted by Cricinfo at in World cricket

Penalising a genius statistically

If not for Sachin and Sehwag, India would have struggled to pass triple figures. Thanks to Cricinfo, you can check every one of the nine centuries scored by Tendulkar when India have lost. Perth, 1992. Edgbaston, 1996. Cape Town, 1997. Wellington, 1998. Bangalore, 1998. Chennai, 1999. MCG, 1999. Bloemfontein, 2001. Sydney, 2008.

To many, the very mention of these matches would evoke memories of some splendid innings by Tendulkar. See the scorecards, see the fall of wickets and you would struggle to chose the best among these centuries. In case you were fortunate enough to have watched these matches, most would make it to your list of Tendulkar's best. See the scorecards again, see the number of centuries in the 'India' column and the same in the opponent's column. Not much of a difference. Check the result. It was a convincing defeat. And now see the scorecards again. Erase the name Tendulkar and many of them would make for India's own version of the Sabina Park collapse.

India lost these matches mainly because the rest of the batsmen hardly made any runs or the bowlers were too profligate. And yet the only thing the only Indian to have lent dignity to these matches is reminded of is that they were not matchwinning centuries, simply because the other batsmen failed and India lost. What was Tendulkar's fault? He made runs when others did not. If so, then that was the bigger fault of his closest competitor in this era - Brian Charles Lara.

Only 31% of Sachin's 50-plus scores have come in winning causes. Perhaps if his team-mates had matched him in half these matches, the figure would have risen to 35%. And then he would have become the greatest Indian Test player. And oh, I forgot Tendulkar would have had six to seven Man-of-the-Match awards in victories and maybe a better average too. Apparently, these are important "logical" criteria for being a great player. Thus claim the authors of the Holding Willey report.

The authors are not the first and neither will they be the last to use this really bad statistic to quantify match-winning ability and believe they have presented a logical argument. I have heard such arguments being wrongly levelled against Tendulkar many times and every time I have seethed in anger. This time I decided to let it go against all those who throw a few convenient statistics and question his match-winning ability. Fact is, ability is not quantifiable. And I hope at least some of you concur with me.

If you think, this is just a ranting of a Tendulkar fanatic, let me dissect some of the other criteria the report talks about and lay them bare for all to see. Each of the criterion is actually more indicative of the team's ability to support their champions than the individual itself. Percentage of 50-plus scores in victories: Lara - 29%, Ponting - 70%, Hayden - 63%, S. Waugh - 60%, Richards - 50%, Gavaskar - 16%, Sehwag - 39%, Dravid - 37%.

Man-of-the-Match awards in victory : Lara - 4, Hayden - 8, Ponting - 10, S. Waugh - 13, Richards - 4, Gavaskar - 4, Sehwag - 4, Dravid - 5, (Richards and Gavaskar's Man-of-the-Match awards aren't accurate as they played in an earlier era.)

Average in matches won : Lara - 61, Hayden - 55, Ponting - 62, S. Waugh - 69, Richards - 52, Gavaskar - 44, Sehwag - 52, Dravid - 66.

Averages (Overall, Home, Away): Lara - 53, 59,48. Hayden - 50, 58, 42. Ponting - 54, 60, 50. Waugh - 51, 55, 47. Richards - 50, 50, 50. Gavaskar - 51, 50, 52. Sehwag - 51, 51, 51. Dravid - 52, 48, 56.

From these statistics, the ranking would read thus: Steve Waugh, Ponting, Dravid, Sehwag, Gavaskar, Richards, Lara and Hayden, barring one or two minor changes. Guess what, according to these numbers, Lara is way below Waugh, Ponting and Dravid. And how many of you agree with this?

In general most of the Australian greats would have pretty decent numbers when you compare any statistic related to matches won. The reason being that the team has rallied brilliantly behind them and helped them win matches. In effect, this statistic tells us more about a team's performance than about the player himself.

The final word shall not be mine but of Nirmal Shekhar's from Sportstar who had this to say when Wisden didn't deem it fit to include any knock of Sachin's in their list of 100 best innings in 2002: "Surely, you cannot penalise a genius for the mediocrity around him." And that's precisely what the statistics in the likes of the Holding Willey report do.

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February 10, 2009

Posted by Cricinfo at in World cricket

How Relevant is Law 41.5 Today?

I assume the law was drafted to counter Bodyline tactics, which was probably fair enough since in those days batsmen didn't have adequate protection and were not trained to deal with that form of attack - targeting the body rather than the stumps. One of the stronger arguments of the day was that it went against the spirit of cricket. But honestly, when we have restrictions on how many bouncers can be bowled per over, these arguments become irrelevant. Batsman today expect short pitched deliveries and are adequately trained and protected to face them.

Today the spirit of cricket is usually only invoked to divert attention from an ugly incident. There can be little doubt that the game has shifted firmly in favor of batsmen nowadays, and all this law does is take away a legitimate form of attack for the bowling side. The law has virtually cast a death sentence on one of the more interesting fielding placements in cricket - the leg slip. Which is a shame. When the fielding side can have someone at short leg, and two men out at behind and in front of square on the on side it is pretty clear what the tactics are. This is legitimate and considered a test of the batsman's ability to handle short deliveries aimed at his chest. Why then do we have to stop short of a full out attack and restrict the number of fielders that have to stand behind the popping crease on the on side, for tradition?

There are already laws, notably 42.6, which protect batsmen from dangerous short pitched bowling. Bowlers are penalized with No Balls, warned a couple of times and if they persist in banned from bowling further in the match. The skill of the player facing the deliveries is taken into consideration. Similarly, negative tactics are also put in check. So while the law is woven into the rich fabric that is cricket history, I believe it honestly has no place in Test cricket today, or even limited overs cricket for that matter. It takes away attacking fielding positions for both spinners and fast bowlers and therefore also specific lines of attack, which could only add variety and intrigue. If nothing else, at the very least it gives the appearance that the game is not batsman-centric, something we might well forget with all the new restrictions and laws in the shorter formats of the game.

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February 7, 2009

Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

Mumbai, the First City of cricket

Sachin Tendulkar and Sunil Gavaskar were both born to very similar middle class Marathi lineage and honed their cricketing skills in the playing fields of Dadar, which to use an old Duke of Wellington allegory, has won as many cricket matches for India as did the playing fields of Eton for England in battle. Actually this particular piece of evidence is staggering enough to convince any jury of Mumbai's case.

Which other city can boast of a contribution of 75 odd Test match hundreds and close to 22,000 Test runs within five miles of each other and with Sachin still in unrelenting form, we are standing and counting. Add Dilip Vengsarkar and Vijay Manjrekar, two other stalwarts from central Mumbai residence and cricketing education, we are talking over 100 Test match centuries and over 30,000 Test runs. That is pretty much an unbeatable statistic!

If it were just the odd four or five cricketers , one might have presented this as a statistical aberration, but these are just four of the very best that one mentioned to prove the case. In my possession as one of my 5th wedding anniversary presents, is a priceless memorabilia of a scorecard of a Test match in England in 1971 signed by the great Gavaskar. The Indian batting card reads thus: Gavaskar, Mankad, Sardesai, Wadekar, Vishwanath, Solkar and Engineer. Aside of Vishy, the entire batting line-up is from Mumbai with players who have grown up and played cricket within a square mile of each other.

Such has been the staggering dominance of Mumbai that as a city it has won more than 50 percent of the India's national championship, Ranji Trophy. The credit to plant the seeds of cricketing tradition lay in Lord Harris, Governor of Mumbai in the late 1800's and a serious cricket aficionado. While the game initially was played by colonial Englishmen, soon the local cosmopolitan population took to it with gusto in the various Maidans (or green fields across the city). The commencement of the Pentangulars, where teams were divided in what would be now regarded as hopelessly politically incorrect religious barriers (The Hindus, Parsees, Catholics, Muslims and hence the gymkhanas along Marine Drive), further strengthened the city's cricketing ethos. This tournament was pretty much India's first national championship and brought together the best cricketing talent of the country and also inspired locals to pursue the game with intent.

Of India's first three truly world class batsmen, the famous triumvirate of Vijay's (or victory), two, Merchant and Manjrekar came from Mumbai. The third, Hazare was from nearby Baroda. India's first great all rounder, Vinoo Mankad also came from the city but played his cricket for the erstwhile principality of Nawanagar of Ranji fame. But his son Ashok, ended his career as one of Mumbai's great captains and an Indian opener.

While Mumbai may not claim Vinoo, one the other magnificent all-rounder, Polly Umrigar, there is no doubt. Polly Kaka as was affectionately called, was a master batsman, especially of fast bowling, and competitive bowler and unlike many of his contemporaries of the time a great fielder. Later Dattu Phadkar, Ravi Shastri and Eknath Solkar were to continue Umrigar's legacy of producing word class all round talent.

However, Mumbai's greatest contribution would be to classical batsmanship, a tradition dating back to Vijay Merchant. Bred on a tradition of highly competitive club cricket and stern coaching, Mumbai produced a long line of traditional and classical batsmen (barring the odd exception like the mercurial Engineer) who were to form the backbone of the country's batting for decades on end. This tradition reached its glorious culmination with the emergence of Sunil Gavaskar, a batsman whose technical craftsmanship and classical style finds few parallels in the history of the game. And to think that his reputation could be marginally bettered by his peerless successor, the magnificent Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar, without doubt along with the beknighted duo of Don and Viv, the three best ever batsmen.

If there are still doubts about resting Mumbai's case, let me in conclusion present a possible all time Mumbai-XI. Gavaskar and Merchant to open, followed by Vengsarkar, Tendulkar, Vijay Manjrekar and Umrigar in the middle order. Engineer at No 7 a super wicket keeping all rounder. Zaheer and Ramakant Desai to share the new ball followed by Subhash Gupte and Paddy Shivalkar on spin. A team that could easily take on any best all time eleven. And by the way, a second Mumbai XI could read thus: Sardesai, Shastri, Wadekar, Ashok Mankad, Sandeep Patil, Phadkar, Solkar, Tamhane (wk), Agarkar, Ghavri, Nadkarni.

If I had to choose my favourite Mumbai cricketer, it would have to be Ekkie Solkar. Born of a groundsman from Dadar Gymkhana, Solkar epitomized the best of Mumbai, not just as a cricketer but as a city. Gritty and tenacious, he was a competitive batsman and deceptively difficult bowler (as Geoff Boycott would testify!). And as a short-leg fielder, just simply incredible. Every time there are reruns in television of the Chandra inspired 1971 Oval victory, I wait for Alan Knott's dismissal with Ekkie flying on from short leg to pick up the catch inches of the ground literally in front of the batsman's toes. Solkar was a great example of Mumbai's ability to recognize and nurture talent without any bias to background and class.

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Posted by Cricinfo at in World cricket

Another year. Another bowler

He got out to Mendis only once and Murali twice. They never made him look like a novice. But when you are Tendulkar, unless you make the bowler look like a novice, it counts against you. The one-day series would have provided redemption chance but yet another injury deprived us of the fascinating encounter. With Sri Lanka not being commercially viable to BCCI, it seemed the revenge duel might never take place. But, How quirky fate can be? With the humbling still fresh in memory, Tendulkar gets to face M&M again.

Even if this series had been years later, one can bet Tendulkar wouldn't have forgotten his miserable last series. Champions don't take failures lightly. And the best players are doubly dangerous when they are looking to avenge for failures. Murali has already spoken of revenge. It is to the credit of Dhoni's men that there have been nothing more than whispers about Sachin in the pre-series coverage. More than his scores, I would be curious about his methods against M&M. Will he take the bull by its horns? Unlike in Tests, when he seems sometimes caught between attack and defense, ODIs demand him to attack more - which is his natural game. This will work greatly in his favour.

I guess he might treat M&M with the respect their varying experiences call for. He will probably try to work Murali around. In ODIs, Murali is probably the bowler he has played most cautiously after McGrath. And as for Mendis, expect nothing less than a first-hand demonstration of his batsmanship that made many pundits place him only below Bradman amidst batting greats.

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January 21, 2009

Posted by Cricinfo at in English cricket

A New Yawn For English Cricket

“Obviously, we can’t just copy the Indians, so you’ll see a few differences,” said Clarke, gnawing on a piece of cheese. “For a start no-one will want to watch it, because it’ll be rubbish. So we’ve gone away from the idea of big stadia and we’re holding it in my back-garden. Well it was either that or Taunton. And we’ve sold the rights to Mongolian State TV, so those lazy old buggers in their armchairs won’t be able to see it either.”

Asked whether there would be IPL-style player auctions, Clarke chuckled. “Oh yes, sure,” he replied sarcastically. “What am I bid for this Gareth Batty? Do I see ten pounds. Ten pounds anyone? Don’t be daft, lad.”

The English Premier League will run from January to December, with forty-eight rounds of matches, a month of play-offs and a Grand Final to decide which is the least worst team. Amongst the galaxy of international superstars scheduled to take part are Jonas Van Kolpack, brother of someone who almost played for South Africa and former Australian 12th man Carl Rackemann or someone who looks very much like him. The eighteen counties have also been specially renamed for the tournament, the names being chosen by a consultancy firm, 'Old Rope Associates' and finely tuned to reflect the diverse reality of modern British life:

Lancashire Drizzle
Durham Beer Bellies
Yorkshire Moan
Nottinghamshire Accents
Derbyshire Fly Tippers
Leicestershire Kolpacks
Northamptonshire Traffic Cones
Worcestershire Wellies
Gloucestershire Flood Warnings
Glamorgan Slag Heaps
Surrey Shooters
Middlesex Mortgages
Sussex Nimbys
Hampshire Chemicals
Somerset Inebriates
Kent Bigots
Essex Nightclubs
Warwickshire Idiots

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Posted by Cricinfo at in Australian Cricket

Warne again

Richie Benaud still thinks Warne can make a comeback in this year's Ashes series and KP's desperate attempt to have Sir Shane made the coach of England goes a long way to confirming the fact that the Poms are scared that it might happen as well! But, as I mentioned earlier, all this talk has suddenly died down once David Warner has arrived onto the scene.

Andrew McDonald made his debut for Australia this summer and Ricky Ponting affectionately nicknamed him "Fanta". I wonder if Warner will be the new "Warnie"; if not just to get the opposition onto the back foot - something the Australians are masters of (among other things). Australia's fixation with all things Warnie is starting to get a bit creepy now. Just go see the new musical about him. Next thing you know, he'll be hosting his own reality TV shows: "Search for Australia's next top Warnie". But wait, we've already found him.

His name is David Warner. Critics have already started doing what they do best and labeled him a one-hit-wonder. If that is the case, I wonder if and how long they will persist with him in the hope that one day, one day he will repeat his heroics from his first hit out; and not just turn up and bowl his fast leggies with returns of 2/45 from every match and get out first ball. My Pakistani friend Ahmed suggested I put that last sentence in, by the way.

It's astonishing that a cricketer would get selected for what was the greatest cricketing team in the world without even a first class match under his belt. It's even more astonishing that some people want this man to be selected to don the baggy green left vacant by Matthew Hayden and enter a team which only 18 months ago was described as "harder to get in than out". Maybe Haydos thinks the same, for he retired the day after he saw Warner spin the Proteas out of the MCG.

Wait, I think Brad Hodge is at my door. ..... No, it was just the postie with my tickets to Sydney to join the Bankstown Cricket Club. For his sake and whatever happens next, I hope he does well and goes a long way to fulfilling his early promise, both in Australia and in Delhi. After all, Sehwag and Co wouldn't want to have let go of Shikhar Dhawan for nothing.

Now if only my German mate Hans Warneberger from Nar Nar Goon would stop thinking he suddenly has new found batting superpowers and strut out to bat with such disregard for the bowling that as the next man in, I'd have to get padded up even before he faced a ball.

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January 17, 2009

Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

The Scourge of our Times

Why do I harbour such ill-feeling towards the moderately talented? Well, ever since I read Lalit Modi's autobiography (Modi, Modi, Modi 'A Rich Man's World') I have started to see the activities of Vikram and his cohorts in a new and sinister light.

What is the biggest problem in the world right now? I think we all know the answer. Unofficial cricket. Let's be frank, it's the scourge of the modern age. It is sickening to think that even as you're reading this there are gangs of rebel cricketers hanging round on street corners all over India. Wealthy residents of Delhi are frightened to leave their homes lest they encounter some unofficial cricket. Only this morning, I had to confiscate a bat from a group of eight year olds playing in the local park. Had they sought ICC clearance? Had they hell!

Thank heavens then for the BCCI and their efforts to save us all from these dangerous insurgents. This dedicated band is working tirelessly, literally one, sometimes two afternoons a week on our behalf. You might say that they seem to be doing very well for themselves in the process. But you'd be wrong. They don't drive top-of-the-range cars because they like it. They don't wear expensive suits because they want to. It's just part of the job. In order to infiltrate these gangs of international desperadoes they have to think like them, act like them, get paid more than them.

The ICL rebels are undermining Test cricket and grabbing the cash to play in a pointless domestic Indian league designed purely to make vast piles of money for the shadowy clique in charge. Let's be clear, that is something that the BCCI simply will not tolerate. You might not like Lalit Modi or Shashank Manohar. But that's because you're a neo-colonialist and frankly you deserve to be crushed underneath a heavy roller pushed by Jesse Ryder. So join with me and stand up to these rebels, these ICL bullies, with their half-empty stadia and pink tracksuits. Go along to New Road, stand by the pavilion and tut loudly as Solanki strolls out to bat. If you meet Paul Nixon in the queue at the butcher's, pretend you don't know who he is. And if you see Dinesh Mongia flagging down a taxi, it is your moral duty as a cricket fan to steal his ride.

Let these people be in no doubt about two things. Firstly, that there is more to cricket than money. And secondly, that the BCCI know where they live and where they do their grocery shopping.

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January 11, 2009

Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

An Elephant Story

'Is that near Darwin?' asked Roy.

Suddenly, Mitch hurried to the front of the front of the line, his tusks gleaming in the setting sun. 'Skip, Skip, come quick!'

'What is it boy, can't you see I'm busy?'

'It's Haydos, Skip. He's not moving!'

Haydos had been around as long as anyone could remember and in his day had been a feared warrior. Always the first into battle, he would stomp up and down, waving his trunk and bellowing, smiting fear into the hearts of his foes.

But now he was a pitiful sight. His great bellowing had become a timid whisper. His arthritic hip meant he could no longer stomp and there were days when he couldn't even keep his trunk straight. The evil day could be delayed no longer. The law of the herd was harsh, but they could afford no stragglers. Punter knew that the time had come for the old campaigner, just as it came for Warnie, Pigeon, Gilly and the other one. Just as it would come for him one day.

'G'day, Haydos,' said Punter.

The old elephant was sitting down and tried to struggle to his feet.

'No, don't worry mate. No need to get up.'

'Just needed a rest, Skip. I'll be back on form for the next mission.'

Punter remained silent.

'What is it, Skip?'

'Thing is Haydos, we don't need you for the next mission.'

'Oh. Right. Give the younger elephants a chance. Good idea. Happy to stand aside this time, for the good of the herd.

'Or the mission after that,' continued Punter.

There was an awkward silence.

'Guess this is it then,' said Haydos.

Punter looked down, rubbing his trunk in the dust.

'Guess it is. Right. Well, I'll see you then.' Punter turned to walk away.

'Skip?' asked Haydos, for the last time.

'What?'

'Will you do me a favour and break the news to Roy. I don't think I can.'

'No worries mate,' said Punter.

And so the great old elephant lay down to sleep under a coolibah tree. Punter marched to the front of the herd, trying not to dwell on the day, fast approaching, when he too must lay down in the shade. He looked at the line of expectant faces. 'Right,' he ordered, 'keep a nice tidy line. By the left, quick march!'

'Incompetent oaf!' muttered Lee.

'Silence in the ranks!' shouted Punter.

And on they marched, the great, noble herd, trampling almost everything that lay in their path though sometimes they had to take the long way round.

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January 8, 2009

Posted by Cricinfo at in English cricket

Socrates on KP

Thank God then for Bob Willis. Called in to fill the gap between when Sky started to tell us about the 6 o'clock statement and when it actually arrived, old Bob grumbled, whinged and moaned delightfully for a few minutes, managing to explain that KP had been stupid and that the England players didn't like him. Then it was Gower's turn. "Is English cricket in a mess, asked the excitable studio presenter. Not really, I was thinking. "Yes it is," opined David and proceeded to lull us to sleep with a five minute exposition, the finer points of which I may only be able to recall under hypnosis.

Of course it's nothing of the sort. Socrates would have summed it up thus: "Wouldn't you say that yesterday we had a captain who wasn't quite up to the job?" "Yes I would." "And would you also say that we had a coach who wasn't that great?" "Well, yes, that's true." "And would you further say that the captain and the coach didn't work well together?" "I suppose that is true, yes." "And that the team was divided, not all of them supporting the captain?" "I would have to say yes." "And would say that these were bad or good things?" "Bad things, certainly." "And after today's mess, do these things still exist?" "Well, no." "So if it is a mess, isn't it a peculiarly good kind of mess, in which all the problems which existed yesterday have now been resolved?" "Why, yes it is." "So can it really be considered to be a mess?" "When you put it like that, no, I suppose it isn't." So there you have it.

Socrates would have made mincemeat of David Gower. But probably not Andrew Strauss. Which is reason number 94 in the long list of reasons why he should already be captain and we should not be having this conversation.

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January 1, 2009

Posted by Cricinfo at in World cricket

Pace like fire

Although all four were bowling right-arm fast, they offered the full spectrum of artillery, namely: Andy Roberts - fairly short in height, his bustling round arm action allowed him to bowl outswingers with the new ball that were difficult to pick up in the air. His deceptive pace, late swing, nagging accuracy and low delivery trajectory saw him collect a lot of lbw and caught behind dismissals.

Michael Holding - not called 'Whispering Death' without reason, he had the most fluent, languid fast bowling action in the game's history. A champion middle distance runner in his youth, he naturally favoured a long run up to the crease and his effortless poetry in motion belied a capacity to generate great pace and bounce. Without warning, he could disrupt the batsman by going off a short run up to send down even quicker deliveries (was he the game's greatest ever exponent of mixing long-run and short-run deliveries?). Holding's stamina and athleticism also meant he could bowl all day if required.

Joel Garner - if you are 6ft 8ins tall and have a reach-for-the-sky action where the ball is being delivered from a height of ten feet, then what you lose in pace will be made up for with bounce. Garner's ability to make the ball rear up off a good length on seemingly dead pitches made him an extremely awkward proposition in the era before bowling machines would be able to simulate such bounce in net practice. He was the perfect support bowler after opening spells from Roberts and Holding.

Colin Croft - like Garner, a member of the awkward squad but for different reasons. Where Garner went vertical, Croft went horizontal with a curious windmill action that allowed him to slant the ball away from left-handed batsmen and worry the right-handers with uncommon inswing. This crosswards bowling line was accentuated by his delivery point wide of the crease. Never a candidate at risk of being warned for running on the pitch, I felt Croft often got away with the opposite in putting his feet outside the crease at the point of delivery. So there you have it.

I salute Roberts, Holding, Garner and Croft as the greatest fast bowling quartet who bowled together in cricket history. Can you think of a better quartet? For example, are Larwood, Allen, Voce and Bowes turning in their graves at such heresy?

Comments (7)

Posted by Cricinfo at in World cricket

Genius?

In essence, this is a piece on genius. Who qualifies as one? Most importantly, is Laxman one? In order to justify that inexcusably long first paragraph, I begin by paying obeisance to my economic roots and making a few assumption/statements (none too far-fetched in my opinion): a genius is someone who is special; who, if in an academic field, thinks and acts and theorises at a level that the normal man can only dream of; who, if an artist/sportsman, is someone blessed with infinite amounts of 'creative power or natural ability' (OD); who, therefore, is a pioneer of sorts; who is far ahead of his times, innovative, inventive and different. Laxman's a man who's hard to catch or just isn't flashy enough to be under constant media glare. Interviews come at a trickle. And in the precious few, he's never verbose, not even close. But, he's not as soft or as silent as the media portrays him to be: he does say what he wants to say, perhaps more politely than most of the younger lot.

What interests and appeals to the cricket-lover in me is his take on any cricket-issue, his comments on the state of the game, the pitch, batting, slip-catching, they are mature, intelligent and incisive, indicative of a man who is a sound cricketing brain. Cricket-wise he is an extremely good strategist. Azharuddin, one of India's best captains ever, still believes he should be made captain and it really is a pity that we haven't seen enough of Laxman the Captain. Unlike many, I wouldn't judge him by his IPL stint simply because we just didn't get to see enough of him; however, that being said, he showed little of the spark or the genius a Shane Warne did, even in his initial few games. In conclusion, I think it would be far-fetched to term Laxman a genius, purely on academic terms; I don't see him as someone who has the 'vision', who sees the game from a level above the modern-day thinking cricketer.

'Creative power or natural ability': both interesting terms. Laxman has wrists of God, his flicks and clips of, not merely his pads but off deliveries a good two stumps away from his off-stump are special and unparalleled (no, even Azhar couldn't produce the shots he does). Blessed with tremendous amounts of natural ability, he's managed to 'create' his own range of strokes: different, silky and very, very special.

Every batsman has his own style and in a way, it may be argued that every batsman 'creates' his own style based on what comes naturally to him. But, what makes VVS stand apart is how different his predominantly wristy style is: the scale of the deviation from the batting manual is immense, far too much to be in the 'permissible' range; and yet, unorthodox as it is, it is still extremely effective. It is a manner that is new comprising of shots that are outrageously distinctive, testimony to his creative powers that can only be derived from his phenomenal natural ability. He definitely will not be a pioneer, simply because his batting is impossible to replicate. And he is different, though not a man ahead of his times (in fact, some may argue that he is slightly behind given the difference in his Test and one-day records).

If being innovative is bringing to the game something that it has never seen before, then Laxman, perhaps, just fits the bill. His stroke-play is unique, 'ground-breaking' even (a cruel adjective for such a gentle batsman). But, in a broader sense, innovation might also imply a continuous tendency to adapt, to learn, to change. And though, even after so many years of watching him bat, some strokes still leave me awe-struck, I can safely say that it is pretty rare that they'll shock me. The fact that he continues to retain his place in a line-up so star-studded shows that he's made adjustments, some technical, some mental, to the way he approaches his batting; the fact that he will always remain, in many eyes, someone of unfulfilled potential probably indicates that he hasn't done enough (or couldn't do enough) to continuously adapt to bowlers who began to see more of him. He's still managed to stay a couple of steps ahead, but it probably isn't quite enough to catapult him into Genius Inc.

Purely on natural ability, Laxman would make the cut. But, otherwise, taking all other grounds of qualifying into account, he'd probably qualify as a 'limited genius': one who probably requires a whole set of pre-requisites to actually come into his own. Most important, amongst those, is an opposition who is unashamedly attacking, a fielding captain who is not too familiar with his game and Laxman in a mood to be instinctive, to bat with abandon. There are few occasions where this happens: the most recent being that brilliant 109 in Australia, but otherwise, by and large, bowlers have learnt not to feed his strengths.

Laxman's response has been to mellow down, to solidify his defence, to let his instincts be guarded, in a strange way, in a quest to maintain his place in the side, he has limited his genius: it has proved productive, his innings are still punctuated by those magic flicks, but whole innings of magic are few and far in between. He's realised that the costs of continuing to try and live by the sword greatly outweigh the benefits of curbing his natural instincts. You won't see those beautiful but frustrating twenty-eights anymore, it's the gritty seventy-two that's become his trademark, valuable contributions, running around with the tail.

There's a lot to Laxman's batting that's brilliant: his timing, his much-praised hand-eye co-ordination and when in full flow, his invincibility against even the greatest of spin-bowling. It's not just his wrists that have got him to where he is. But, those very wrists have made him special - that have separated him from other greater mortals; that have flummoxed, with their snapping bite or their yummy roll, the best of bowlers; that have taken him to the brink of genius. He's there. Almost. And that's how it should be.

Comments (3)

December 31, 2008

Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

Change masters

	Hoepfully, Simon Katich will get the cricket ball more often in the future © Getty Images

From S. Giridhar, India

How often have we heard the expression, “Here comes ... the man with the golden arm” and even the most despondent supporter of the fielding team that has been defied for hours by the batsmen perks up with hope! What kind of legerdemain does this occasional bowler consistently serve up that over the years the change bowler has acquired an almost Robin Hood kind of charm? How many matches have they simply turned on the head because they wobbled the ball or spun the ball when the more accomplished comrade had almost thrown in the towel?

Recently, as South Africa against all odds ran down a target of 414 runs on the last two days of a Test, there were three big partnerships, each of them inexorably taking the match further and further away from Ricky Ponting and Australia. As I ran my eyes down the bowling column I saw Andrew Symonds had not bowled a ball and neither had Simon Katich. Would it have made a difference?

I don’t want to use Australia’s travails to base my story but as I cast my mind back for more instances of matches lost because the golden arm men were absent I cannot but stumble upon two significant India-Australia matches.

The first and most obvious one is the greatest comeback win ever in cricket history. Kolkata, March 2001 … India in their second innings, following on, are 200 for 4, down and out for the count. VVS Laxman is joined at the crease by Rahul Dravid. How well each one of us knows this piece of our history! I recall this only to demonstrate that Steve Waugh too had no change bowlers with golden arms at his disposal while Dravid and Laxman constructed the most monumental of partnerships. Steve had only his twin Mark and Ponting to relieve his main bowlers. By no stretch of imagination do either Mark Waugh or Ponting qualify as true change bowlers. Maybe for a change of ends, maybe when a match is petering out into a draw, but certainly not bowlers who will change the course of the game with the magic ball!

And the second example from India v Australia - this time it is Adelaide in December 2003. India in the first innings on their knees at some 180 for 4, miles behind a mammoth Aussie first-innings score. Dravid and Laxman get together and again proceed to put together such a long huge partnership that it seems they have been batting since Kolkata. What does Steve Waugh have at hand this time as change bowlers to break this pair? Mark again and Simon Katich, who with his left-arm chinaman stuff is different.

And having set the table so to speak, let us look at some of the occasional bowlers who have done enough to be spoken of as change bowlers who do not merely provide respite to the main bowlers but produce the golden ball regularly. Do I begin with the Virender Sehwag - Sachin Tendulkar - Sourav Ganguly trio? No rather let me begin with a chap who must be about 63 years today. Old timers reading this will immediately realise that I am talking of that quintessential man with the golden arm, Doug Walters. Walters, one of Australia’s best batsmen in the 60s and 70s, played over 70 Tests and was regularly called upon by all his captains – from Bob Simpson to Bill Lawry to Ian Chappell – every time they faced a road block. He would run his 10-12 paces and produce almost with predictable regularity the away-swinger or the in-dipper to break partnerships. The record books say that he took 49 wickets this way. Many changed the course of the match. If one averages out his bowling stats it shows that Walters bowled only around eight overs in a match and got a wicket for every 11 overs bowled.

If you allow me to use Walters as a bench mark, I can then set some kind of criteria and identify other men who can claim membership in this 'hall of golden arm' fame. So shall we look for the change bowler who has not bowled more than 13 overs in a match on an average and whose strike-rate is not poorer than a wicket for every 15 overs bowled? So we must consciously exclude from our list cricketers who are in the genre of batting al-rounder and restrict our search only to the genuine change bowler.

I am not going to begin this by trawling through statistics but would rather let my memory help me. I will recall the names of all those batsmen who in my view (time, memory, loyalty, emotion - all these will contribute to my selection) probably are change bowlers and not more than that. How do they measure up to the “Walters Gold Standard for Change Bowlers”? My mind reels out these names:

Mudassar Nazar from Pakistan – who can forget the furtive way in which he ran up to bowl medium pace, ball clasped in both hands looking almost stealthily at mid-off and mid-on as he began his run-up; Nathan Astle and Craig McMillan from New Zealand; Paul Collingwood from England; Chris Gayle, Viv Richards, and Larry Gomes from West Indies; Symonds, Michael Clarke and Katich from Australia; Aravinda de Silva from Sri Lanka and of course Ganguly, Sehwag and Tendulkar from India. Enough on the plate for some study! Here are the numbers against these gentlemen. Gritty to good to great to greatest batsman, all in this list!

(Bowler, Tests, Balls, Average overs per match, Wickets, Type, Strike Rate wickets/ overs)

Doug Walters, 74, 3295, 7.4, 49, Right-arm medium, 11.2
Michael Clarke, 41, 1294, 5.3, 18, Left-arm slow, 12.0
Virender Sehwag, 65, 2323 6.0, 29, Right-arm offspin, 13.4
Andrew Symonds, 24, 2010, 14.0, 24, Right-arm medium & offspin, 14.0
Chris Gayle, 74, 5867, 13.2, 66, Right-arm offspin, 14.8
Craig McMillan, 55, 2502, 7.6, 28, Right-arm medium, 14.9
Aravinda de Silva, 93, 2595, 4.7, 29, Right-arm offspin, 14.9
Mudassar Nazar, 76, 5967, 13.1, 66, Right-arm medium, 15.1
Paul Collingwood, 40, 1287, 5.4, 14, Right-arm medium, 15.3
Sachin Tendulkar, 155, 3880, 4.2, 42, Right-arm everything, 15.4
Sourav Ganguly, 113, 3117, 4.6, 32, Right-arm medium, 16.2
Nathan Astle, 81, 5688, 11.7, 51, Right-arm medium, 18.6
Larry Gomes, 60, 2401, 6.7, 15, Right-arm offspin, 26.7
Viv Richards, 121, 5170, 7.1, 32, Right-arm offspin, 26.9

A look at the bowling stats of these gentlemen exposes the error that I made in including Richards and Gomes in the list. Sorry, but if they are going to take a wicket for every 26 or 28 overs bowled it means that their team waited a very long time for their golden arm to show up! So out they go.

I am also tempted to drop Astle from the list because he too takes around 19 overs to produce a wicket but since he has over 50Ttest wickets I think he is doing something that my analysis is missing. So he retains his place in my pantheon of change bowlers with golden arms.

While doing all this, we must also be vigilant to ensure that bowlers who are bordering on being regular bowlers do not sneak into this exclusive club of change bowlers. Symonds at 14 overs per match I think is dangerously close to being viewed as a regular bowling option rather than as a change bowler but let us not be too strict with him and include him in this list. Do you feel good Mr. Symonds or do you feel offended that I clubbed you with the change bowlers?

Oh by the way I looked up the numbers for Simon Katich and he seems to be doing exceedingly well and may well end up on top of the heap by the time he puts his cricket kit away. His strike-rate is right at the top but he has only 13 wickets to show so far. That will surely change but for that he will need another captain, not the current one! I can see why Ian Chappell and the brigade of Aussie experts were baffled at the extremely limited use of Katich as a change bowling option during Australia's recent visit to India.

Please don’t tell me that I have missed out more obvious names because I know that already! I deliberately waded into this piece leading from memory and only validated those names against certain criteria.

For instance surely I ought to find a better representative than Collingwood for England in this list! Jog your respective memories and pull out worthier names. Like my cousin Babu, an avid follower of cricket for the past 55 years, who was peeping over my shoulder as I typed this article kept insisting that I must add Chris Harris and Greg Chappell to this list!

In fact, not disheartened by the fact that I have not added those name,s Babu is now hissing in my ear that I must explore and validate his hypothesis that good change bowlers make the best thinkers and the best vice-captains in cricket history. Now that is something I will leave to someone else.

I am only certain about one thing. Change bowlers produce the magic ball because they are batsmen, think like batsmen and when they get the ball in their hand they outwit the batsman using a batting brain. Howzat?

Comments (15)

December 29, 2008

Posted by Cricinfo at in Indian cricket

A tale of two greats

There was a time when the face of the Indian batting was always that of a 'Bombayite'. Right from Vijay Merchant to Dilip Sardesai or Sunil Gavaskar to Sachin Tendulkar to the much hyped Rohit Sharma, the city of Bombay has always staked a claim to the premier batsmen of any generation. The strength of the Bombay faction in the BCCI has always been paramount and has dominated the scene of Indian cricket, both on and off the field. Dravid and Ganguly were not only significant actors who were instrumental in breaking through the dominance of this clique and giving the Indian team a non-parochial face for the first time, they were themselves the most important part of it. That they replaced Vinod Kambli and Sanjay Manjrekar, two Bombay lads who were supposed to be the mainstay of our batting along with Sachin makes this all the more remarkable. Their Lord's debut was not the ideal platform for a youngster looking to ease into the team. On a fast, swinging track they came together with India in a spot of bother. They could not have been more dissimilar in style. Ganguly, later to be described by his partner at the other end as next only to God on the offside kept easing the ball through the point and cover regions. Dravid, then a predominantly leg side player relied more on playing off his pads. Ganguly, as we all know scored a century on debut and Dravid made 95.

In the next Test Ganguly scored yet another ton and Dravid missed out yet again being dismissed on 88. This was to be a reflection of things to come as they grew into two of India's premier batsmen. While Ganguly was the leading run scorer in ODIs till the turn of the century even beating Sachin for four out of five seasons, Dravid established himself as rock solid Test batsmen. It was also to be Dravid's fate for a large part of his career to be a pretty bridesmaid who gave numerous sterling performances only to be overshadowed by Ganguly or Tendulkar. The script continued into the new century when Ganguly was appointed captain and Dravid his deputy.

The Kolkata Test in 2001 was, in a sense the turning point in many ways for both, for Ganguly as a captain and for Dravid as a batsman. Hitting his way out of a slump in the most dramatic of matches must have given Dravid a lot of confidence as his star soared thereafter and he gradually came out of the shadows of his distinguished peers to become India most valuable player for the next half of a decade. He scored runs all over the world, adapted perfectly to the one-day set up, filled in as a wicket keeper when required and was a great support of his captain. For Ganguly, this was the beginning of the golden period as a captain. He had the uncanny ability as a captain to back match winning performers and get the best of them. Many believe that had Ganguly not been made the captain, he would have achieved a lot more as batsman. It is possible, for the biggest problem with Ganguly's batting was that it did not develop after a point. While Dravid and Sachin have constantly evolved as batsmen, made various adjustments to their game; Ganguly, once he has been sorted out, never managed to overcome his deficiencies.

It is universally believed that Dravid was a clearly inferior captain to Ganguly. I am not entirely sure. Ganguly introduced a lot of self-belief in his team and helped us get over out timid chokers tag and that was what we needed then. But, he was never a great tactician. He was easily rattled as a captain and many a times let the momentum slip through out of a lack of imaginative captaincy. Dravid, was a much more collected man on the field. His captaincy on the field always has more of method to it than Ganguly's who was tactically always on the whimsical side especially with respect to his handling of spinners and part-time bowlers. But what Ganguly lacked in on-field tactics, he more than made up through the way his communicated with his players and allowed them to flourish. Dravid tended more to lead by example through his own performances and commitment but despite the bulk of his runs never really had the aura of a leader.

While Ganguly left on high, scoring significant runs against the top team in the world in his farewell series, Dravid has so far doggedly stuck around in the midst of calls for his head. In the past month, many a sports journalists have made a living out of stories on the lines of 'the Wall crumbling'. His century at Mohali notwithstanding, despite being full of character and a testimony to his tenacity, I have a feeling Dravid will not have a swan song to end his career. If there is one thing that he has lacked in his otherwise illustrious career, it is the sense of timing that his longtime colleague and onetime co-debutante always had.

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December 27, 2008

Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

Inbox World XI

Comments (133)

December 26, 2008

Posted by Cricinfo at in West Indies Cricket

Little Kalli

In India through that winter he did enough and more to enhance his reputation. In the first Test (where a certain pair by the name of Gordon Greenidge and IVA Richards made their debut), Kalli scored a fine 124 against the best of Indian spinners on a dust bowl in Bangalore and followed that up with fine knocks in Calcutta, Madras and Mumbai. I followed his career closely and apart from some fine hundreds, he had the dubious distinction of getting out in the 90's 7 times.

His career ended in controversy. Bitter at being ignored for the captaincy after leading West Indies during the Packer regime, he lost some form and it seemed interest. He decided to take part in the rebel tour of South Africa and ended up being suspended from all internationals. He finished his career with some excellent seasons with Warwickshire but at 4500 odd runs and 14 hundreds, the figures do not do justice for one of Windies and indeed cricket's all-time great batsmen.

Kallicharran was a complete player and had every stroke in the book. He played spin and pace with equal poise and alacrity and accumulated runs against Indian spinners and Aussie pacers alike, at their pomp. He was also a big-match player with a penchant for playing crucial knocks at critical times. Of the many gems he played, my favourite is of course the much remembered assault on Lillee in the World Cup group game in 1978. Australia scored 190 odd which the West Indies were chasing. Kallicharran got his eye in and then launched himself into the Aussie pace attack, particularly Lillee. One incredible sequence of hooking and pulling produced 30 odd runs of just 10 Lillee deliveries.

Not since Sobers splattered him all over MCG enroute to the 254 for the World XI a few summers ago had Lillee been so severely dealt with. Kalli's 78 in that game and the subsequent 71 in the semifinal against New Zealand made him the player of the series and one of my pleasant memories of childhood is recalling Tony Cozier over the radio brilliantly describing Kalli's assault that memorable afternoon so long ago.

Comments (5)

Posted by Cricinfo at in West Indies Cricket

The rise of West Indies?

Chanderpaul is the only West Indies player to have tasted anything but defeat in this period. A closer reading is even more depressing. In the 60 matches that were played across those 17 series, West Indies won just 4, drew 6 ( of which 4 were rain-affected) and lost the other 50 matches. What is most mind-numbing is to recall that West Indies were unbeaten in 27 test series in the preceding 15 years (1980-1995). They fell off a particularly steep cliff didn't they?

There have been a few false dawns in these dark days of West Indies cricket - particularly at home. They have won Test series against Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka , England and New Zealand, and shared one with Australia. Despite the Perth heroics of de Villiers & Co., they still hold the record for the highest 4th innings target chased. Lara has played several memorable innings, Chanderpaul many valiant ones, Courtney Walsh became the leading wicket taker in world cricket and even Chris Gayle has a Test triple hundred. However, with the West Indies, it has seemed every step forward was inevitably followed by three longer ones backward.

That said, there is some reason for cautious optimism in the Chris Gayle era - A first ever Test win in South Africa, a drawn Test series against a decent SL side, a Test series against Australia which was much more competitive than was anticipated, and now this drawn one in New Zealand . Of course the backdrop to this has been the Bradmanesque efforts of the under-appreciated Chanderpaul in this period, but there have been other signs of life - Fidel Edwards and Jerome Taylor are a handy bowling partnership, Dwayne Bravo is enthusiastic and talented, and the fielding and the general way that the West Indies seem to be going about their business has significantly improved.

There are many areas to fix though, scarcely a series goes by without wrangling between Digicel and Cable and Wireless (although the toxic West Indies Players Association and the obnoxious Dinanath Ramnarine seem to have evaporated), Allen Stanford has funded the game, but muddied the waters, and the regional infighting seems to grow in inverse proportion to the team's performance on the field. Darren Powell shouldn't see the inside of a Test ground again, and surely there must be someone other than Dinesh Ramdin and Carlton Baugh. Chris Gayle needs to find an opening batsman who will be a partner rather than a one-night stand. However this draw against a mediocre New Zealand side may just be the beginning of the era of the era of West Indies submission.

If only that maniac, John Bracewell had been around as NZ coach, the West Indies may even have won it.

Comments (8)

December 24, 2008

Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

Despatch from Eden

For me, I cannot remember ever suffering from greater nervous anticipation than the night before the Test match. I rarely slept and waited for the clock to turn 6 am when I would get up with a spring and alacrity quite unbecoming of normal school days. No battles with breakfast that day which was consumed without complaint or delay. By 7.30 am I would have dressed and then would put on my new county cap ceremoniously in front of the mirror, imagining me leading out India as 80,000 would rise in unison to cheer. It was a routine every odd year, but what a delightful routine. There would be a party of usually 10-12 in a cavalcade of cars. Other from the locality would be leaving as well and the envious faces of those without the priceless tickets was a sight to behold. I along with another kid were the chosen two amongst the next generation by Dad and the usual suspects. (my obsession with obscure cricket statistics had obviously resulted in my passing muster in the civilisation Test). The lunch boxes would be readied by Mom with specific instructions (Rice and Chilli Chicken for lunch, oranges during drinks and cucumber sandwiches for tea). That itself was much part of the fun with the respective Moms competing to produce a more delectable lunch box than the other- the five days (if India lasted all five, that is!) were also a gastronomical delight with the smell of fresh food was billow as much across Eden as the sound of leather hitting willow.

My greatest thrill would always be as we approached the ground as you gradually wound your way amongst the teeming millions. It was as if all humanity had descended on Red Road where the cars would be parked for the couple of kilometers walked to the ground. As you walked you met familiar faces - teachers from your school who had forewarned teachers about attending class int he first day of the Test match (one famous class teacher threatened to fail anyone in English if any unfortunate earnest soul would be present of the first day of the Test against Asif Iqbal's Pakistan, fellow spectators whom you had met last during a Test Match and myriad others. The crowd was a mix from every social strata - from box wallahs in suits, and well heeled ladies in the latest chiffon, to the old clerk from writers building in their ubiquitous Dhoti - the lucky 100,000 on their annual pilgrimage to the greatest temple of cricket.

As I would walk in I would hear the sound of bat hitting wall and a shiver would go up my spine at the realisation that the Gods were on the field at the nets. Remember this was a time before live television and this was the only chance to see the heroes int he flesh. And as I walked in to the stands I would turn around sometimes mesmerised in awe as I would see RGD Willis warming up, Bishen Bedi turning his arm a bit. IVA Richards swaggering around taking catches and women gasping as Imran Khan Niazi would stand at the pavilion doorstep about to walk into toss giving the plebeians a royal aristocratic wave. Right through childhood till early adulthood, Eden Gardens was my favourite place on earth, where for 5 days the problems of homeworks and board examinations seem a distant away. And a place where learning Physics was all about Kapil Dev using the breeze from the hooghly post 4 pm to produce a devastating old ball spell after tea. And the frenzied debate of whether Gavaskar should have added an extra slip which would have snapped David Gowers slash. And then the classic counterpoint- glad he didn't, then how would we have seen Gower's elegant cover drive of Doshi. Always respect and love for a great opponent.

Post the toss the teams would be put up in the famous old score board (with Kolay biscuit advertising hoarding at the top). And then the Ranji block with the huge Boroline ad banner would erupt. This was the plebeian stand but very much the equivalent of the Sydney Hill. The crackers would start bursting and the conch shells would signal commencement of battle and then the good-natured barracking. Us from the members stand would be more reserved- not even a whisper during overs and necessary clapping for maiden overs and a well played forward defensive stroke! Fours through flowing drives were much appreciated. Sixes were sources of amusement but "tssk tssk...civilised batsmen (read Gavaskar and Vishwanath) did not hit balls over the ground". I once shouted sixer when Gavaskar was batting, and I was told by my Dad and any such repeat would result in banishment from cricket grounds! I kept my silence and peace thereafter.

I now shudder when I see the quality of the crowds at Eden or elsewhere. Test matches at non traditional centres are a disgrace and some real great matches off late has been played in front of empty stands (unlike in England and Australia where a great Test match brings in thousands through the turnstiles). The old faithful have all gone and opposition players are no longer applauded nor subtle nuances, like a great throw from the outfield applauded as much as a great straight drive. I still get goosebumps remembering the ovation Viv Richards received as he walked into bat in 1983. 90,000 rose to clap him fervently into the crease, a Roman salute to the greatest living gladiator in the planet. The King paused before taking guard, doffed his hat and raised his bat in acknowledgment, a brilliant cameo moment before rivalry was resumed. And the great Pakistani Asif Iqbal would remember his last test match with much joy - he mentioned later he would have taken Eden any day ahead of Lahore. He was run out in his last innings post which he was accorded a thunderous standing ovation with the members and the club house spectators all screaming in unison "three cheers Captain" as he walked up the stairs into the dressing room. This was the captain of Pakistan and in the midst of a seriously competitive series between the two traditional rivals.I have to say I had tears in my eyes that day.

I have not seen Saurav Ganguly bat amongst the Eden faithful, but I've seen Gundappa Vishwanath, Eden's favourite son throughout the 70's and till Saurav arrived, there was no one whom Eden loved more than the diminutive Bangalorean. In the famous Yuletide week of 1974 when I fell in love with cricket, Eden and Alvin Kallicharran at the same time, Little Vishy (or "Bhishee" as the Eden faithful called him) charmed Kolkata off its feet. With the Test Match poised evenly on the 4th morning, Vishy unleased in his inimitable style a counter-attack on Roberts, Holder, Julien and Gibbs. In real life he looked like a villainous side kick from a South Indian film. But armed with a cricket willow he was transformed into a Michaelangelo. His square and late cuts and glances of his leg were delectable and that 31st December morning he was in his pomp. His 139 contained 24 fours and old Eden hands still talk of that as the greatest innings they ever say. Next morning, the tactical mastery of Tiger Pataudi in conjunction with the spin wizardry of Bedi and Chandra resulted in Kalli, Richards, Greenidge and Lloyd all succumbing and India earning a famous New Years day victory. It was a magical way to begin my association with Eden and till 1989 when I left Calcutta for education and job, I hadn't missed a single ball bowled in that haloed ground. It was a privilege and pleasure that made my growing up years very special.

Comments (3)

December 22, 2008

Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

How long a rope?

What is Sachin falls in such a patch? Dravid scored a 9 out of 10 in his "public patience account". What is Sachin's score? 10 out of 10? Actually no. I think Sachin will have more impatience to deal with than Dravid. More people will cry out for his head sooner. That is because of the public perception of his records: what more has he to achieve? And due to the expectations all of us have from him. A cricketer is measured with what is expected of him - so the yardstick is not really the same for everybody. A 5 match series where Sachin averages 30 will be seen as a disastrous series for the little master. I would keep Sachin at 7 out of 10. Laxman? 8 out of 10. Again low profile is the key. I mean level of expectation.

One common thing in all the above three is a warm feeling of gentlemanliness, polite down-to-earth perception of these pillars that we have, which they truly are. That is exactly the thing that Ganguly lacks, he is the aggressor with more enemies than the rest of the Indian team (in his time) put together. I would put Ganguly's patience account score at 3 out of 10. Whatever the patience account score is, one thing is sure: if all of these gentlemen, by some miracle is given 10 out of 10, they will come out of any bad patch, and rule the world again. So a small point to ponder is: when they are not playing well, it is we that matter, not them. They will keep on trying anyway. It is up to us really how long a run we are willing to give them. The ball lies in our court, not theirs.

Comments (7)

December 19, 2008

Posted by Cricinfo at in Indian cricket

Welcome back Dravid

Earlier he had been scratching around and looked devoid of any scrap of self-belief. His foot movement was uncertain, he did not get a proper stride forward and was unsure about whether to leave the ball or not. Also he had forgotten to rotate the strike and the shots were too weak to reach the boundary even if he did manage to pierce the field. In short, all of Dravid's strengths had become his weaknesses.

But in this innings, after lunch, I see Dravid batting like the Dravid of old. He is leaving the ball with authority and defending with a firm stride and a firm stroke. His footwork is certain and decisive. But the biggest change has come in his body language. Earlier, he was making batting look impossible, head bowed, and an uncertain manner. Now he is moving confidently and batting decisively, looking like a wall. A smile is still not forthcoming but you can see that Rahul Dravid is again confident in his abilities.

It is essential for India that Dravid continues to bat in this manner. We need him for at least two more years. I have no doubt that the only reason for India currently not being number 1 in the ICC rankings is Dravid's loss of form. Our other players are playing the cricket of their lives, the missing link is our immovable no.3. There is also no ready replacement. India do not currently have a batsman with enough quality to take over the mantle. When Saurav Ganguly retired, Yuvraj was waiting in the wings. For all his inconsistency, everybody knows the talent and timing Yuvraj possesses. Such qualities are not yet present in any of the young pretenders, be they Rohit Sharma, Badrinath or Raina.

So I would request the selectors to continue having patience with Dravid. Even if he fails in the next innings, he has now shown that he still possesses the ability to succeed at Test level. The worry would be an erosion of his physical abilities. On the evidence of this innings so far, they appear to be as good as ever. My hope is that with the regaining of his confidence, Rahul Dravid becomes 'The Wall' again.

Comments (10)

December 10, 2008

Posted by Cricinfo at in World cricket

Not a time for symbolism

We Indians love our cricket. But we can't see poor English blokes coming here against their better judgment because they are getting a chance to play Test cricket for England in the event of big names opting out. Will the visiting English fans be given round the clock security, in the unlikely event that they come here to cheer their team? How can we, after an attack as horrendous as this, assume responsibility for the safety of foreigners, when we can no longer guarantee the safety of the locals? I am a little skeptical about the response I will get if I walk into a police station and ask for security because I feel unsafe.

India is unsafe at the moment. Five major attacks have taken place around the country this year - in Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Delhi, Guwahati and now Mumbai. India has now become a convenient target for the terrorist groups, which can no longer immigrate militants to the western world that easily anymore. If there is a militant group, with sophisticated weaponry at its disposal, intent on finding a vulnerable point in a country as big as India, they will find it. Our establishment is not prepared for unprecedented attacks, and pretending otherwise to the outside world is only hurting us Indians in the end.

The game should be played in an atmosphere of joy and calm. Touring abroad is all about enjoying the foreign culture and playing the game with the players' minds on the game, not getting locked up in their hotels. Let us not reduce the sport to a torturous obligation for the players and their families. If a strong message has to be sent to the terror network, the authorities should once and for all stop being politically correct, extend their vocabulary beyond 'we strongly condemn the attack' and get down to business.

At this point in time, I shall refrain from speculating on the ongoing investigations and possible roots of this attack. When the Test series gets underway, the last thing anyone wants to see is empty stands. Charging the locals half their wages for a lone ticket will be a stamp on the unofficially accepted notion that the Indian cricketing authorities are woefully ignorant and illiterate as far as the understanding of the game is concerned. Let the gates be thrown open. Not literally, of course.

Comments (9)

December 6, 2008

Posted by Cricinfo at in Indian cricket

Oh for a clean offspinner’s action

The batting seemed to be of good quality and I rather suspect that one of the batsmen was of a league cricket caliber because he played a cover drive and then unfurled a square cut of some elegance. The opening bowlers were also good – they ran in smoothly and delivered decent deliveries and not a wide bowled. But a wicket had not fallen and the captain of the fielding side with some visible impatience summoned his first change.

The new bowler sets his field elaborately, in fact rather too elaborately with much gesticulation. But we are finally ready. Aha! Seems to be a spinner, only 4 steps to the bowling crease. And what does he deliver? An entire over of extremely accurate offspin, every ball was like a dart, with the third ball he took out the ‘league cricket’ caliber batsman’s middle stump and with his sixth ball he plucked out the offstump of the completely clueless No. 3 batsman. Raucous cheers, much leaping around, high fives, lots of hugs…..

I straightened up, dusted my elbows and resumed my walk to the market. But this time my head was bowed and even from the other side of the road you could see that I was not a happy man. The reason was simple. This match winning offspinner bowled with an abominable action.

Of course tennis ball cricket bowling heroes have always been bowlers like our friend here. But these days the story of the maverick offspinner does not end in the neighbourhood maidan. Our friend already 19 or 20 years old must be bowling like this for a few years and by now displaying this brand of bowling in inter college matches too. He would be wrecking teams and may soon play a higher grade of cricket. So I muttered to myself as I continued on my way.

It was not even 24 hours later that I saw some live cricket again. This time it was on television, a match between two teams called India Blue and Green or Yellow or whatever. Both teams had an offspinner each. One of them was being spoken of very highly by the commentators, as the man to watch out for, he can put the brakes, he is a tricky customer, he is the one who will………….

This young man, Mohnish Parmar, has already played first class cricket, played for India A or equivalent teams and therefore must have passed muster with umpires in India, the national committee that reviews actions. But boy, what I saw made me rub my eyes in disbelief! Here he came on a diagonal run up as though measured and marked by Muralitharan. And then he contorts himself and delivers unbelievably copying Muralitharan. And of course he beats batsmen; he gets a wicket here, a wicket there and of the 24 deliveries that he bowled at least 16 of them were the Doosra! The pernicious Doosra is difficult enough to bowl and obviously places the maximum strain on the legality of the action. And through this entire period when this young man is bowling, the commentators make only the occasional apologetic reference to his action. If it is legal who am I argue with that? But if I say it was bloody outright ugly to watch can you deny me the right to say that? Later that evening in the same match, a rather studious looking chap named Ashwin bowled a spell of offspin for the other team – neat clean action, no Doosra, the straighter one of course and he got a wicket bowling a well-set batsman through the gate. But I don’t think he will cause as much grief to batsman as the other bowler and because we worship outcomes and not the process, I think Mohnish may well break through to national colours before the other chap. And thus we will bless, encourage and actively condone such bowling actions.

Something is badly wrong somewhere. A bowler with a dubious action in neighbourhood cricket is perfectly acceptable and in fact provides the much needed sharpness to the fielding side. It is okay so long as he knows that he will play and enjoy cricket as a pastime. But it is an altogether different matter if he is allowed to graduate to higher grades of cricket. In the long run we are doing the greatest disservice to him. Take the case of this bowler with the strange action from the Challenger series match. If he were to continue playing, he would put everything else in his life on the back burner – his studies, his office career, his family. How will he cope if just a short while later, umpires finally do what should have been done when he first began to play serious cricket? Won’t it be too late to change his action? Will he be as effective? What if all his dreams and aspirations come shattering down? Most importantly who is to blame? Why is our cricket administration turning such a blind eye to what is obviously a problem of endemic proportion. I am willing to bet that nearly every Ranji team has an offspinner with a dicey action either in the team or in the fringes of the team. And simply because our system does not have the discipline or courage to stop such bowlers and tell them to correct their actions before they bowl in a match again. I type in these words and in a not too pleasant mood file this piece away and out of sight.

I open the article because I have been compelled to write the post script. November is drawing to a close. Two news items in quick succession in the past fortnight tell us that the offspinners in our country are in trouble. Mohnish Parmar’s action has been questioned by the umpire in a Ranji Trophy match. And Sunil Rao the offspinner from Karnataka has also been told that his action is not what it should be. Why did it take so long? What the umpire spotted in Mohnish Parmar’s action must have been crying out loud for a couple of seasons. How much more difficult it would be for the young man now and how much easier it could have been if our cricket system had done its duty earlier. Legspin by the very nature of the action and delivery is impossible to be bowled with an illegitimate action but an offspinner if not careful can easily end up with an action that will bring grief to the bowler and the game. The administrators of the game in India own primary responsibility.

Comments (19)

December 3, 2008

Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

Another letter to Mr. Hilditch

I realise this is a difficult question to answer, but I figure that Mum and Dad will want to come and watch and they need to book flights etc. My understanding is that if I perform well in Perth and Melbourne then I will probably be dropped for Sydney. Whereas if I completely stuff up my first two Tests, I should still be a shoo-in for the third. The obvious temptation here is to try and bowl poorly in Perth thus guaranteeing me a Boxing Day Test, but if I am unfortunate enough to actually grab a couple of lucky wickets then I realise this would place my position in some jeopardy.

I'm sure you appreciate the conundrum I find myself in so confirmation of your selection policy would make things easier for me to organise this end. As I am led to believe this selection policy is likely to scar me emotionally, would it also be possible for you to recommend a good psychiatrist in advance? I have been advised that I am likely to suffer some deep-seated personal issues about the way I am to be treated in the coming months and I need to know if my health insurance will cover this. My mate tells that me you are a solicitor and therefore apparently an intelligent man and he thinks that you would have sneaked a clause into our contracts preventing us from taking legal action for chronic depression in years to come. So if I am to play with you guys I would first have to secure my mental well-being for the future.

This mate's friend's second cousin knows this guy who has a brother who has been through it all before, I think his name was Kim Yallop or something like that. Fortunately I'm told, he appears to be recovering quite well now. Should I be forced to carry the drinks for a game and am only needed in a support role, I too can offer my services to players that need counselling and as always, this is a skill I'm prepared to share with the rest of the team. Over the years I have counselled many of my mates when they have had relationship issues and I have consoled some of their wives and girlfriends too. But I can assure you that I wouldn't engage in any improper conduct with any player's partners unless it was consensual. Incidentally like your good self, this mate of mine is an opening batsman who is thinking of applying for Mr. Hayden's position, I told him to stop dreaming. He gets caught at fine leg on the hook way too often for an opener, but he seems to think that as long as you are the Chairman of Selectors that this wouldn't matter as that was your signature shot during your Test career. Anyway, he might apply in the New Year if his wife lets him. She gave him the ultimatum last week of cricket or fishing which caused a fair bit of angst as you could imagine but fortunately I was there to console her.

Mr. Hilditch as you never left a message last week, I can only assume that you called and couldn't get through. So I trust I am not being too presumptuous in giving you a gentle reminder about my availability over the Christmas holidays and as ever I look forward to catching up soon. Kind Regards Nick.

Comments (2)

November 28, 2008

Posted by Cricinfo at in Australian Cricket

Letter to Mr. Hilditch

Recently I have been sending down some useful deliveries on the industrial carpet at our office and was far too good for one of our employees, a Spanish lass named Lorena. Furthermore, I have also been bowling at Anderson Park after work on Friday afternoon where I managed to land nearly every ball on the pitch, which I understand is a pre-requisite for selection.

While I have never actually managed to ever turn a delivery, either to off or leg, I don't think this should hinder my chances as neither Cam or Nath have ever turned one either and which affords me to believe that this is no longer a requirement of an Australian Test Spinner. Another skill that I can bring to the team is my ability to get through the overs rather quickly. After bowling two overs the other day, I reverted to the short run up of one pace, where I was still able to land the ball on the cut portion of the synthetic wicket fairly consistently. This I believe will enable us to get through our 90 overs in day and as such reduce our fines.

When I was younger, my brother and I would often get through 152 overs in the backyard after school until Mum had dinner ready. I also have a Certificate IV in workplace training and assessing, and as a qualified trainer I am willing to put in some overtime to provide some assistance to Mr. Ponting in this regard. My movements in the field have been referred to as gazelle-like by myself and I am confident that I would stop most balls hit directly at me and a reasonable portion of those a metre or so either side of me as well.

As a part time umpire, I am well versed in the tactics of intimidation and this coupled with my recent foray into acting as an extra in a TV ad, leaves me with no doubt that I would be convincing and melodramatic on camera whenever things don't go my way. During my umpiring career I once received some invaluable advice from Stuey Macgill who told me all I had to do was "f***ing well watch and listen" advise that I am more that willing to pass onto Rudi or Billy Bowden during my first spell. As an added bonus I have a short temper and swear profusely - an attribute my work colleagues and manager could attest to and one which surely will enable me to fit in with your organisation's culture with a minimum of fuss.

There are some areas of my game that I need to work on such as my batting and although I was unlucky, I managed to get dismissed via every method possible last Friday in the dozen or so balls I faced. However, with the strength of our 1-10 in the batting order, I don't see this as a major issue. Besides, like for like, Chris Martin is only marginally more adept than me and I can't see this as being a major obstacle to my pending selection. As for my personable attributes, I believe that I have always been a pretty good bloke and have always made myself available for drinks on a Friday afternoon with my teammates from work - although it is to be noted, I have never gotten into a fight at the pub, and I wouldn't drink on match days if that was a requirement.

Would you be kind enough to advise me ASAP of your decision, as I need 24 hours notice to tell my boss Sue-Anne that I would be unavailable till Wednesday, However I do have 30 days annual leave up my sleeve and as such I can avail myself for Perth Melbourne and Sydney Tests as well. I look forward to discussing this further at an interview; if you wish and I can get referees from some of the guys at work upon request. Yours Sincerely

Comments (25)

November 25, 2008

Posted by Cricinfo at in Indian cricket

The best bowling attack in the world

The ingredients are intoxicating to say the least. A left-armer who can make both the new as well as old ball talk. Zak has shown a terrific understanding of the use of the angles whenever he comes on to bowl round the wicket to the right-handers. And his phenomenal ability to reverse swing early only means that the batsmen can relax at their own peril. Add to that the tall lanky Ishant who with his nagging accuracy and the ability to extract disconcerting bounce even on the most placid of wickets has made it amply clear that he is a force to reckon with at all times. The pressure exerted by these two is unbearable which forces batsmen to commit errors.

The performance of Hayden and Ponting, the two bulwarks of the Aussie batting line up, against these two is a testimony to this fact and had a massive bearing on the ultimate result in the most recently concluded Border-Gavaskar series. Both these bowlers make it very easy for someone like Bhajji to come and bowl to the new batsmen who have not yet got settled in the crease. Furthermore, we are spoilt for choices too and can pick anyone from Mishra, Munaf, RP Singh and Sreesanth to name a few more.

India has a long and impressive history of producing good batsmen, but sadly we have never had confluence of great bowlers at the same time which explains our poor win record. Agreed , that the quartet of Bedi, Prasanna, Chandra, Venkat had their time in the sun, but even they will admit that they could not win as many matches as they would have liked particularly abroad and the presence of a good fast bowler would have definitely helped them.

Kapil Dev shouldered the burden of bowling throughout his career and only K Ghavri and M Prabhakar lent him some support for a brief period of tme. The story was the same with Anl Kumble who ploughed a lone furrow but nevertheless still did a fabulous job as a strike and stock bowler throughout his career. But now I feel that the tide has turned and now we have a bowling Attack that can take 20 wickets in most conditions and on most wickets.

Bowlers are the unsung heroes of this game and it is a misnomer that bowlers will win you only Test matches. Australia has won the last 3 World Cups because their bowlers had pulverized the batsmen into submission. And take the latest ODI between England and India at Bangalore which was a curtailed 22 over match. The magnificent performance of Zak, Munaf and Ishant in the 3 powerplays was decisive. A new dawn is being quietly ushered in Indian Cricket which I feel will be the best in its history.

Comments (13)

November 24, 2008

Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

England's opening woes

Comments (0)

November 21, 2008

Posted by Cricinfo at in World cricket

Time for Cricket 2.0

Irrespective of the form of cricket, we need a clock like in soccer or basketball. There should be a certain amount of allowed "injury time" like in soccer. And the clock should stop for unforeseen delays or delays caused by the batting side. The clock refreshes after every hour. And if 15 overs are not bowled in that hour, the main bowler of the bowling team should not be allowed to bowl the rest of the innings or even better, the number of overs a team is short by should be multiplied by one more than the current run-rate of the batting side and those runs should be added to the batting side's score.

Also, umpires must be allowed to make a judgement before the start of play about whether they think play will last the full day. This should be done in conjunction with local officials and weather-people. There's no point going on like nothing has happened then all of a sudden whipping out light meters. That doesn't make the slightest of sense and literally casts a poor light on the professionalism of the game.

Further, cricket should be about maximizing resources: if there are lights installed at a stadium, they must be used at any cost if needed, irrespective of what the captains agreed to do. (This will prevent farces of the kind that happened in Kanpur recently). And the ICC must also scrap the rule that you need at least a one-hour delay to be able to shorten a lunch-break. The lunch-break should be shortened to 20 minutes in my opinion anyway. Similar rules are also needed in Test cricket. Why is the morning break shorter than the afternoon break? That doesn't make any sense whatsoever. They should be equal and absolutely symmetric.

There are a lot more things cricket needs to implement to make sure that focus is kept on cricket. Instead of referring close boundary balls to the third umpire, what cricket needs is linesmen standing close to the boundary. They should easily be able to tell. And calling front-foot no-balls should not be the prerogative of the field umpire. They should be concentrating on caught-behinds and lbws. No-balls should be called by the third umpire - institute the free hit in Test cricket too, so that the batsman can take advantage of it.

Also, if the field umpire makes a blatantly wrong decision, the third umpire must be allowed to overturn it immediately. All this talk about "cricket is a great leveller" or "it's like life, you take the rough with the smooth" is more suitable for enthusiasts who're locked in the Victorian age in my opinion. I'm a modern fan and I want to see the game be played properly, and the right decision to be taken no matter what. It seems almost farcical to not maximize the available resources in order to preserve some "time-honoured" traditions...I for one am not for tradition.

If people think the review system takes time, a good idea may be for the field umpire to have some kind of miniature hand-held screen which relays videos from the third umpire of the current delivery, so that he can have a look again (possibly with Hawkeye assistance for lbws) to be absolutely sure he has made the right decision. Of course, there should be a time-limit to that too. I mean if people can use iPhones how hard is this to implement? Also, sightscreen delays: I think they are really uncalled for. I think all stadiums should have a huge fence or wall of some kind built around the back and sides of the sightscreen.

Last but not the least: The umpires themselves. Not the umpiring, but umpires. First of all they should dress for the weather. It's stupid to see someone in dark trousers and a dark shirt umpiring in searing heat in the subcontinent. He's an umpire, not a business executive or something. What's more, that means that he is not in a relaxed frame of mind and affects his decision-making. Soccer referee wear is fine with me. Also, please, umpires, stop ambling around the field to get things done. Life moves quickly, so should you and the game. It takes an eternity to get those light readings done and it doesn't help when you walk like you're in the park for God's sake. Walk faster, and get on with it.

Comments (0)

November 14, 2008

Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

Dashing Durani

He is sitting a yard across from me and when the waiter comes to ask him what he would like, I see a bemused look in his rheumy eyes. He is not a frequent flyer and will have to pay for his drink. With not a trace of self consciousness, he asks for the card because he fears the drinks here are expensive. He goes up and down the list agonizing over the various drinks and their exorbitant prices. After much humming and hawing he asks for a small rum with a lot of soda to make it last longer. A few minutes later he says he should not have ordered a drink, and then almost to himself says that we keep making mistakes in life. There was - or am I imaging it – a fleeting shadow of great sadness on that time ravaged face. It still was a very handsome visage.

But that somber moment was soon gone because I narrated a story that quite made his day. This came – as do most of my cricket stories - from my friend Raghunath who played cricket almost good enough to make the Ranji squad. I remember every word of this story though it was narrated a good 24 years back. Fielding for Indian Gymkhana, 1969, Raghu had the privilege of watching Salim Durani at his imperious best. The captain set a field of deep third man, deep point, deep cover point, deep cover….every fielder just yards from the other and yet Durani kept uncorking a series of cuts, square drives and cover drives that left them standing. Word spread that “Durani mood mein hai” and within 30 minutes more than a thousand enthusiasts had come all agog to watch the genius at work! And then I had my first glimpse of this man’s generous nature. He was curious about Raghu, when did he play, was he a left hander too, where is he nowadays…..nothing about his own batting but all curious about the person who had such a nice story on him!

Over the next 45 minutes we covered a variety of topics and cricketers. And each time one saw Durani, generous with praise, large hearted, never a sour word about any player. Sample these:

“Venkat…bahut intelligent cricketer…Engineer tha (and you could see in that hushed tone great respect for that educational qualification)”. “Prasanna…much greater than his contemporaries, I could wait the whole day just to see him beat the batsman with his floater”. “Gavaskar….the finest among all he hated getting out even after making 150.” “Sachin….God made him and said, tu jaa cricket khel…that is genius.” And on a it went, a good word for everyone.

I then ask him to tell me about his own game. And I realize that he has greater pride in his left arm spin than in his batting. It was the only time during the entire conversation that we saw Durani assertive. I could spin the ball anywhere; I used a lot of change of pace; I used to release the ball in a variety of ways; my arm ball would hustle off the pitch….do you know that on the first day of a test match in 1964 on the dead Madras Corporation wicket, I reduced Australia from 99 for no loss to 211 all out? Two years earlier I had Dexter’s England in a whole lot of trouble with my bowling…9 wickets here, 6 wickets there….Durani loved recounting to us his bowling exploits. But he was strangely very modest about his batting. I almost think that even to this day Durani is torn inside by the realization that he did not use his enormous batting skills very sensibly.

I then ask him, how did our tail enders in those days play the fearsome fast bowlers without a helmet and without getting hit. These days even the best batsman keep getting hit on the helmet. Durani’s explanation is all arms and gestures. Those days even the fastest bowlers used swing more than bounce. These days actions are also more suspect (Aha! At last one disparaging word from the gentle genius) but don’t think people did not get hurt. I finished with cricket in 1974 after being felled by a bouncer in a Ranji match. They had to operate on me. And he parts his black hair (dyed or natural?) to show me where the surgeon had to do his stuff.

Our flight has been called. His rum is still half full and he has managed to spend an hour in the company of a fan who cherishes his exploits of 40 years ago. Should we offer to pay for the drink? No we don’t think Durani would like that. As we are getting up in walks Saba Karim, the former India keeper and they greet each other, Salim in fact getting up to clasp a fellow cricketer’s hands. I think Salim has some more good company till his flight is called.

Comments (1)

Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

For the love of the game

The first time I represented my school was when I was 14. I was studying at the time in a boarding school where the cricket team only had one match a year. It was the first time I saw a ball swing and also the first time that my best friend (very fast bowler) would try and knock my head of during practice. When I was a child, I dreamed of being Javagal Srinath, the sole bearer of pace in the Indian teams of the 90's. By the time I was 14, I had to settle for medium pace with a bit of swing and being a handy batsmen. The game we played against another boarding was strange in a way because it was the first time I had played on a matting wicket. We were beaten, and every attempt by our bowlers to intimidate the opposition resulted in a reply somewhere along the lines of "Good ball" after it had flashed past his nose.

The following year we beat them on their home turf in front of 300 of their students and cheerleaders! I hardly played a role in either of these two games, scoring one run of the last ball of the innings in the first and being run out for 2 in the second. The run out was shambolic I might add. I did not get an over in either of these games. When I returned to Mumbai, after changing schools, I was quite shocked at the lack of decent cricketers on our team. I was drafted in as a no.4 batsmen (too high a number for my skills) and the teams opening bowler.

My recent record speaks volumes for what has happened to our team. I have had two golden ducks in successive games after being given the responsibility of the captaincy and have failed to understand why wickets have bounce below my knees. Trying to dig a ball in short and get it above the height of the batsmens chest is virtually impossible. My bowling has not been as bad as my batting but I think cricket is a team sport and my perofrmance should not matter all that much. (Our total in the second games speaks volumes of our batting talent: all out for 103 chasing 170, no.10 was the highest scorer.)

For a lot of people like me, cricket is not all about winning or losing, it's about enjoying the game and so for me scores will not matter. I will try to keep going as captain although my tenure is nearing its end and also will try to keep enjoying the game and not worrying about international cricket. It's the passion in people that drives them toward the game, not entertainment like a Twenty20 match. That will always remain part of me.

Comments (0)

Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

A plan for Tests

What has not been mentioned though is that the timing and arrangement of Test matches in India always seems arranged in a completely ad-hoc and seeming random manner. Let me explain why I bring this up here. Almost all sports all over the planet has fixed routine that lets the fans anticipate their commencement and even perhaps plan their schedules around it. Having lived in the United States for the past half a dozen years, I have come to know that if the leaves are turning colors and the air is cool, it must be time for football. Or if it is October, the New York Yankees are wondering how much more money they have to spend to win some play-off games. The first weekend of February means skiing on Saturday (just a personal tradition) and Super-Bowl on Sunday. March equals college basketball. Similarly, boxing day and I am always scouring for news from the MCG and come NewYear's day it will be Sydney.

In contrast to all of this, the schedules for Test match series in India and without fail decided on only at the eleventh hour, told to the public at eleven thirty while the actual stadium are only readied at 11:50. By that time it is entirely too late or useless to even contemplate trivialities such as the paying fans. Further, we are told there is a rotation system for allotments of matches to grounds in a big country such as India. So why can somebody not publish a schedule which shows for instance that Nagpur hosts a Test match every third year in the second week of November? Or that Mumbai hosts a Test every three years in the first week of December etc?

The point here is that the sporting events mentioned previously are so much better recieved than Test matches in India because it lets followers be part of a tradition. Lets them be part of a fraternity of fellow cricket lovers. More importantly it lets for planning in lives getting ever busier. For instance if the people of Nagpur knew that a Test match will be played every three years on the fourth week on november, I am ready to bet good money that many would arrange to save their vacation time for those days, buy tickets in advance, plan to meet up with friends at the grounds and indeed do show up to watch cricket.

Now, there are some historical reasons behind the ad-hoc cricketing schedule of almost all countries bar England and Australia which first established their cricket seasons and all new comers to Test cricket had to work around it. But surely Indian cricket is now in a position to enforce a well defined season of its own. Now more than ever, when we actually have a team (almost) worth their fat paychecks. More importantly, India being the generator of the greatest share of money in cricket owns the responsibility of nurturing and promoting cricket in all forms including tests at home. A diminishment of Test cricket in India in all likelihood will not be good for the game elsewhere. So will the BCCI please stop wasting its energies fighting the ICL, ECB, CAB or any other organization with a three letter acronym and tell us what games to look forward to for the next couple of years?

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November 13, 2008

Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

Flying high with Sachin

There was a general sense of doom in life for the past few days. Dada is going, Jumbo is gone and Dravid is struggling. These are the guys I grew up watching. (Technically, I was 15 when Dravid and Dada made their debuts, but still.) It was a stark reminder of the end of middle class cricket. Sitting around in a canteen,discussing the latest Sportstar, trading posters, going to National College, Basavangudi grounds and watching Kumble play for Bangalore Cricketers (Circa 1991), I even remember meeting Javagal Srinath, whose sister lives down the road. I was elated when I saw his shirt marquee - Peter England. How typically Jayanagar! Cutting edge Bourgeouis Elegance. So overwhelmingly inclusive it felt.

I have just noticed that my general tendency to meander has caught up with me again. Back to the flight.

I stuffed my arm with newspapers and got in. A quick "Good Morning" to the graceful, middle-aged stewardess was followed by a side step to the right to find my seat, and more importantly, stowage area.

Around this time is when time froze. Sitting right in front. Seat number 1F was Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar. I shall not trivialise his greatness (Or make this piece tacky) by using loose adjectives of sobriquets here. He is Tendulkar. I'm sure you get it.

I really didn't want to stare. There were already a few pot-bellied trader type guys who were giggling like 12 year old girls. Sachin, now that I was already 25 seconds into my short peek at him, seemed a lot more, what's the word, pink than he looks on TV.

I was going to warm my behind in 1D! Same row, two seats away from the greatest, God-dest, cricketer ever! (Ok, I said no corny adjectives. I thought God-dest was a nice touch)

I said a quick prayer to ensure no loser makes a grab for the middle seat. I shoved my bags under the seat and looked askance to see if Sachin was checking me out. He wasn't. He was busy signing autographs, but I'm sure he did. You can tell these things.

The steward then put on his best accent and made the safety announcements. I was cursing myself. I really really wish I had taken a bath. Now I wasn't sure if the deo was working. What if Sachin wanted to change his seat? Imagine if he calls the stewardess and tells her, in his warm, endearing, boyish voice " This guy stinks. Give me window on the 30th row". I decided to avoid this scene by aborting my plan to hug him.

Five minutes into the flight, a middle aged guy wearing an ill-fitting Ed Hardy Tee and a wild pair of jeans came to our row and started blabbering in Marathi. I 'm not sure what he was saying, but he used a lot of names and had a wide grin throughout. He was uniformy fawning and utterly deferential.

Imagine the horror on my face, when instead of brushing him off by looking outside the window, (like we do to avoid shelling out change to beggars on trains) Sachin patiently replied in Marathi.

It was all so poetic. The syllables seemed carefully measured and worded. I could make out ("Barobar"- Right, Right) and "Ani"- And. Marathi is a beautiful language, Especially in Sachin's voice.

He signed probably 40 autographs at least in the hour long flight. He even blessed an infant. (I remember the name, I am going to track his progress. He's going to be huge.)

I kept thinking to myself," This guy is seriously polite. If he had no talent and wasn't a cricketer, he would have been a great hotel receptionist. Or a Front Desk executive for Air Deccan. No wonder McGrath could do nothing to him. How dare Gilchrist say all those things about him. Should I ask him something?"

I kept quiet and concentrated on the Economic Times Supplement in my hand throughout, except for the occasional stare with my tongue out. What could I tell him? I know so much about cricket. Why can't I come up with a good line to start the conversation? Maybe if I had a bath I would have been more confident. Then I would definitely have impressed Sachin. Maybe he would have called me his friend. Sigh.

'Accentboy' then announced landing. It was now or never. I swallowed hard. Time to go hell for leather, I thought.

"Excuse me, Sachin. Pradeep here, big fan." (D-uh!)

"Hi Pradeep" (Hand comes out.)

I don't shake well. Too soft sometimes, too hard sometimes. But this time, I just wanted to touch. Ideally, I should have hi-fived Sachin. I high-five well.

"Have you checked out the new stadium before?"

"No, that's why I am going early."

I felt quite kicked. It was a reasonably smart question I thought. Maybe it would have looked smarter if I was a girl. People always think girls don't know cricket.

The aircraft thudded and made a fierce landing at Nagpur airport. For a split second, I thought Maybe I could get to save Sachin's life.

Sachin seemed in a hurry to get out." Excuse me", he said, as he made his way to the aisle to pick up his bags. Why is he requesting me? I would grimace in joy if he stood on me and picked his bags.

I caught him one last time and took his autograph for my little nephew." Good luck Sachin for Nagpur", I said loudly as if I knew him. I tried to get a quick snap, but in my nervousness only caught his right shoulder on his way out.

I made a quick mental note to send a box of sweets to the travel desk for booking me in 1D. I also congratulate Naresh Goyal for discontinuing the Jet flight and pushing us into Jetlite. I salute all airlines with no business class.

I'm glad I did my MBA. I'm glad I joined my organisation. I'm glad they gave me MP state to handle. I'm glad there are no direct flights to Jabalpur and the only way is Nagpur. I'm glad I travelled today and not tomorrow.

I really doubt I'll ever sit side-by-side with my hero again. In case Sachin is reading - It was a pleasure traveling with you. Every single one of us on that flight was destined to have a great day on November 4, 2008. Nothing can go wrong today. And thanks, finally I have a story to pick up chicks with.

PS - I really wish I was less emotional about the whole thing, But it's Sachin Tendulkar. I'm sure you understand.

Comments (34)

November 12, 2008

Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

A call for more cricket

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Gambhir is only partly correct

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Sledging 101

When the Indian team complained about an Aussie player calling them 'bastards' during 'Bhajjigate', it first seemed like a bad joke, a distasteful tit-for-tat manoeuvre. But when you think about it, any derogatory remark about parents or spouses is quite offensive to people from India, particularly when it comes from people they don't know or like. I can't imagine going to someone like Kumble and questioning his parentage without feeling like I've done something very, very bad.

But Gambhir gets suspended because he took things to 'another level'. Why should the Western definition of 'another level' be addressed but not the Eastern one? The Aussies baiting of Gambhir till something had to give reminds me of Samuel L. Jackson smirking in the movie Shaft: 'Oh there you go, you just touched me! That's assaulting a police officer. You're under arrest'. (OK, I just admitted to watching the Shaft remake but let's not go there.) So which side is right? Who is stuck up and needs to lighten up? Does it matter? I don't blame the Aussie players, they are playing by the rules. It is just that the rules suit them more than others.

I believe the ICC Code of Conduct - Spirit of Cricket-whatever thingy needs to be overhauled to represent the sensitivities of all the cultures represented in the game. But this cannot work in a one-size-fits-all manner. For example a ban on the word 'bastard' will result in the entire Aussie team being suspended. Nope, there need to be very clear cut and customized rules for what one set of people can say to another.

Here are two that I can think of, would love to see more suggestions. 1. Never call a black man a monkey, especially if you are not black. Go ahead and call an Indian one, he will probably take that to be a comparison to the god Hanuman, and will then buy you a bottle of scotch, after having hit a century/ taken a five-for. (If he looks angry, repeat to make sure he doesn't think you're talking about his mother.) 2. Never physically touch Aussie players. But feel free to discuss the sexual exploits of their wives and /or parents, just make sure they are cancer-free.

Comments (2)

November 11, 2008

Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

Celebrating Rahul Dravid

I used to joke that only 2 people in India knew when to quit at the top of their game, Gavaskar and Sonia Gandhi, and was sure Dravid would be an addition to that list. As I write this piece Dravid has played possibly his last Test innings (3 off 14 after a second ball duck to Jason Krezja-). In the 25 test matches since that Jamaica masterpiece he has averaged half his earlier career average of 58, has been dropped from the one day side, and will hopefully go before he is shoved from the Test team.

He has endured misery in the 2007 World Cup and humiliation in the IPL, and gave up the captaincy abruptly to the great benefit of thousands of conspiracy theorists. Well, you know what, I actually blame myself for this. We hear sportsmen are superstitious, but very little has been written about the superstition of sports fans. When I moved into my apartment in Bangalore in August 2002, the first Test match I watched was the Headingley one, where Dravid's masterful 148 led India to victory. The Jamaica Test mentioned earlier was the last match I saw in that apartment.

My new house is nice, but unlucky for Dravid The aim of this piece is not to bemoan his fate , or to urge him to go, but simply to celebrate the greatest match winner (batsman) India has ever produced. Before you sharpen your knives, read the phrase again 'match winner'.

From the start of the Ganguly era through till that Jamaica game in 2006, Dravid averaged 96 runs an innings in the 17 matches India won. It gets better - he averaged 108 in the 7 overseas wins in that period, 111 in the 12 wins under Saurav Ganguly, and played masterpieces such as his double hundreds in Adelaide and Rawalpindi, 2 hundreds in the same game at Calcutta, the 148 on a Headingley green top and that epic partnership with VVS in THAT match in Calcutta in 2001. Just by comparison Sachin averaged 55 in that same period in India wins and 52 in wins under Saurav. Almost every major overseas win in that period seemed to be shaped by Dravid. That doesn't necessarily mean that he was a better batsman than Sachin, simply one whose performances meant more.

I read an article by Salim Yousuf on Gavaskar's epic knock of 96 at Bangalore in 1986. Yousuf was the Pakistani wicketkeeper who scored the second highest score in that match (45 not out) - and he mentioned "I batted despite the pitch, played my natural game and took risks, while Sunny played the perfect game for that pitch." So while a Sachin backed himself to hit Shane Warne over deep mid wicket, even if was bowling leg spinners into the rough from around the wicket, VVS would hit a sharply turning leg break over cover, and follow up with a flick over midwicket from an identical ball, and Saurav would back himself to beat the most populous off side cordon, Dravid would play in a risk free fashion - with a perfect technique.

A Sanjay Bangar watching Dravid at the other end at Headingley, would probably feel that he could try to play the same way as Dravid. However watching Sachin collar a perfectly good ball over extra cover, would probably leave him awestruck. Dravid has the record for the maximum number of 100 partnerships, and it is my theory that a lot of it has to do with the way he bats.

I also felt Dravid was a lucky cricketer. His 233 in Adelaide was backed up by the most unlikely bowling performance from Ajit Agarkar, when he scored 180 at Calcutta in that partnership with VVS, Harbhajan Singh and Sachin Tendulkar bowled the Aussies out in the last session, Kumble won India the Calcutta test against Pakistan, after Dravid had scored hundreds in both innings ( and Dinesh Karthik's 93 too).

In contrast, Tendulkar has often been a tragic hero. An epic 100 at Madras against Pakistan was wasted by India's spineless lower order, when the 4 of them couldn't muster 15 runs between them, and many of his best innings have been lone hands. We have lost more matches than we have won when Sachin has scored a hundred.

As captain, Dravid was probably a disappointment. I thought he would bring his obviously immense cricketing acumen to the captaincy, and his start in one day cricket was encouraging. He was the only captain who knew how to use power plays and super subs- and he was willing to be adaptable - The one day series against Pakistan was won 4-1 without a single over of spin being bowled, for instance.

Funnily though, I have always felt that the conventional wisdom of Dravid's captaincy was completely off the mark. We have often heard that Dravid was a 'weak and defensive' captain. I felt it was his endeavour to be strong and aggressive that actually cost India. Would Saurav Ganguly really have declared when Sachin was on 194? Would a defensive captain have gone in with a 5 man bowling attack and put the England in at Bombay when all India needed was a draw? What about that audacious attempt to steal the Nagpur Test against England at the end? I felt Dravid's biggest failure as a captain was not being able to figure out when to be defensive.

And finally Rahul Dravid, the man. There is so much speculation and guessing we do based on things we see on the field, but you often hear the words 'A perfect gentleman' said about Dravid. I will only go by what I have heard directly, and a couple of things come to mind. Firstly his practice at the end of every series to specifically thank the opposing captains and team, for either their hospitality (or their visit as the case may be), and secondly his reaction to how he felt about being dropped from the one day side early in his career. In an interview with Rajdeep Sardesai he said "A lot of people did come and say to me that I deserved to be in the side, but I knew that I had to improve my all round game."

Unfortunately in inane diatribes about 'New India' , we seem to feel that innate decency conflicts with the willingness to win and determination. Ask the bowlers who tried to get Dravid out in his pomp, whether his was a soft wicket. He may not have been much of a sledger, but the bowlers knew that they were in for a hard grind when Dravid was around.

Dravid will not end his career with the record for the maximum matches, runs, centuries or even catches. His departure will be quiet, overshadowed by Saurav Ganguly and the exultation following the series win. People in Bangalore have never stopped trains or burnt effigies in his support. He may still have the contractual obligation to tolerate the idiosyncrasies of Vijay Mallaya and Ray Jennings. However, he will leave the game as India's greatest match winner with the bat and conclusively proved that good guys don't necessarily finish last.

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Twenty20 or Tests?

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November 4, 2008

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A new formula for Test cricket

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October 30, 2008

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How much is too much?

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October 27, 2008

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A bowler's Powerplay?

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Music to a cricket fan's ears

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October 24, 2008

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Sachin v Gilly

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Saint KP

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Australia's 'Fab Four'

AB was probably the most singled-minded of them all, probably based on the fact he played during Australia's lowest ebb and then worked his hardest to get the team back to the top. Ponting and Waugh have been in charge during Australia's dominance in the last eight years or so. But they inherited a team that had already claimed the top spot. The man who set that chain of events off was Mark Taylor, close to, if not already, Australia's greatest test captain.

Taylor inherited a strong team from Allan Border that had established itself well and then set the wheels in motion to make that squad invincible. During his time Warne and McGrath came of age, players such as Steve Waugh came into their prime, and they churned out talent at a time that could have enabled two strong Australian teams to run around.

Taylor was the most balanced captain of the four. He was bright, energetic, generous and highly diplomatic. At the same time he could also be utterly ruthless without being downright cruel. He was immensely respected for his courage and tenacity, and tactically he was not merely astute, but can be considered one of the finest visionaries of his time.

Taylor did what no Australian skipper had done since Ian Chappell in 1972-73 and toppled the West Indies in the West Indies, thus establishing themselves as the undoubted world champions, a position they still hold. He is held is such high regard by those he led that they consider him the finest captain they have played under. Such a credit is not to be taken lightly in Australia's golden era, but it could go to no better player than the lad from Wagga Wagga.

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October 21, 2008

Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

A test for spectators

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October 20, 2008

Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

Indians not into fielding

Men grow slower as they become older. If they are Indian, they tend to grow complacent as well. It is probably something to do with the Indian cricket culture. As a junior cricketer, you are made the sacrificial lamb fielding at forward short leg. So when you have grown and secured a place in the side, you do the same to others. Which is why we see no Indian matching Justin Langer's skills at that position, even at the age of 36. Apart from Dravid (1st slip), Laxman (2nd slip) and Azhar (point for ODIs), I don't remember many Indians developing indispensable fielding specialties. By the time they are good at short leg, they have grown senior enough to move out of that position and a new rookie has to start the learning process all over.

A long-given excuse for the below standards fielding of Indians is the lack of lush green fields for kids learning their skills. But I think the Indian setup is now rich enough to afford all these facilities for people who want to maintain their standards, if not for those who are still developing the art. And that is precisely my point about Jonty. He started at level extra-ordinary with the first ever Man of the Match for fielding effort alone and remained the best fielder in the world for over a decade.

The passion that keeps Tendulkar's batting or Anil Kumble's bowling going - even after two decades - is what is lacking in the psyche of Indian fielders. An incident before I conclude will illustrate this.

It was the 3rd morning of the Mohali test, Michael Hussey and Shane Watson were batting against the inspired duo of Zaheer and Ishant. Zaheer is getting some healthy reverse swing and shape back into Hussey, who is desperate to get the pad out of harm's way and push it to the offside and to hand the strike over to Watson. Dhoni and Zaheer work out a 'short point' position precisely to stop Hussey getting that single. After tapping one of the balls straight to the man, Hussey manages to get the next one under him and steal a run from under the nose of Sehwag, who is a tad too heavy to bend down in time to prevent it.

If I were Zaheer, I would have emptied my glossary of expletives on Sehwag. No such thing happened. And that's because Indians don't care much for fielding.

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October 19, 2008

Posted by Cricinfo at in Indian cricket

Shame on you Mohali

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October 16, 2008

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Nothing 'rebel' about it

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October 11, 2008

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ICL for world peace

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October 9, 2008

Posted by Cricinfo at in Indian cricket

A final swing of the pendulum

Things started looking up at the 1997 Sahara Cup: Pakistan hammered 4-1, and the Man of the Series, quite emphatically, was one Sourav Chandidas Ganguly. I was suddenly more interested in cricket than I ever was, and things finally came to a head a few months later at the Independence Cup: the 3rd Final, a World-record run chase, last-ball finish (almost), Sourav Ganguly and Robin Singh valiant and victorious, and I was hooked onto this wonderful game for life.

I can still remember jumping around, pumping my fists sans fingernails, and wishing I hadn't watched the match alone. From then on I started paying more attention to the game, the beauty of good batting and bowling, Test cricket, and teams other than Pakistan. My regard for Sourav grew, though more thanks to his now-legendary captaincy than as a player. It peaked at the 2003 World Cup where India fluffed the chance to have the holy trinity of Indian batting forever cement their names on cricket's greatest prize.

Then things started to go wrong, reaching their nadir with the Chappell email fiasco. The picture painted of Ganguly was disgusting, exacerbated both its familiarity (thanks to Indian politicians and Government jobsworths: it was too easy to think of Ganguly sitting back and smirking 'Yeh mera raj hain'), and by the sense of betrayal it engendered: here was a man who had let power get to his head, and put himself above the team, the country and the game. I never thought I could forgive him.

As he performed his comeback, I started giving way, but grudgingly. The aura of selfishness, and the perception that he was playing for himself and not the team never went away. His sudden announcement has changed all that. Yes, this could all be murkier than we will ever know, but this very act betrays a magnanimity I didn't think he was capable of. The last Indian cricketing icon to leave the team was Kapil Dev, and he had overstayed his welcome massively. I'm glad Sourav isn't emulating him or that ex-head of his home state, Jyoti Basu. His legacy deserved the class of him knowing when his time was up. Adios Dada.

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October 8, 2008

Posted by Cricinfo at in Indian cricket

The 'I' in Ganguly

He had to wait more than six years to make his golden comeback. Lesser mortals would have fallen by the wayside. Even in his comeback test match there were whisperings that he was only there because of Dalmiya. Contrast this to Tendulkar who made his debut at an age younger than Ganguly but was always treated with care. Contrast this to Dravid who was under less pressure than Ganguly when he made his test debut. And this to me has been the hallmark of Ganguly's career. He took great pride in proving people wrong.

For those who said he was there in 1996 at Lord's not because of his ability, two centuries and a 90 were the answer. For those who said he could not score against quality bowling, his century in the first Test down under in 2003/04 was the answer. For those who said he was finished after he was stripped of the captaincy, his umpteenth comeback was the answer. And therein lies an inspirational story to budding cricketers. If you have a strong enough mind and will to succeed you will.

Pete Sampras once said "For so long people have just taken what I do for granted. It is not easy to do year-in, year-out". Yes and for so long we have taken Ganguly for granted. There will be questions asked as to whether he had an agreement in place with the selectors for bidding adieu. But I am more interested in watching Ganguly play for one last time. And this time I wont utter a word even if he gets out to a short ball. I will enjoy it one last time.

Comments (6)

September 29, 2008

Posted by Cricinfo at in Pakistan cricket

UAE, Vanuatu or subcontinent?

Second, are the costs incurred by the PCB for shifting these matches outside the country passed on to their reluctant guests? These countries do after all have an obligation to play a certain number of matches with Pakistan, and if they decide not to despite getting official clearance from the global governing body, shouldn't they foot the bill for forcing the event to be hosted elsewhere, just as they should if they outright cancel?

But the point I am most interested in is best summarized in a hypothetical scenario; Let us assume New Zealand has suddenly acquired a reputation for attacks on people of Asian origin. The four subcontinental teams decide not to tour New Zealand, landing a crippling blow on New Zealand cricket's income. Imagine if Vanuatu, which is experiencing a financial boom and has an operational stadium with one more on the way, now has an associate level cricket team. How many of you honestly think Cricket New Zealand would consider relocating to Vanuatu until conditions in New Zealand improve, or that such a suggestion would even be entertained? I also guess what I mean to ask is, would NZC go that far to "host" these few nations? Perhaps they would if they were fighting for the survival of the game in their country. Perhaps they wouldn't if the Asian boards had to pay compensation for every canceled series. I don't know.

The question remains that if a country is unable to host cricket matches, should it seek a temporary suspension until an environment of normalcy returns? Some might argue that this would kill the game in that country forever, so perhaps we can only sit back and admire the fact that despite these extremely trying times, the passion that Pakistanis have for the game is forcing them to seek an alternative "home" venue. Again some might argue that the PCB is forced to turn to this option due to financial obligations. But no matter who you are the one point that is indisputable is that the situation becomes infinitely more complex when it is not all, but only some countries that cannot tour.

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September 28, 2008

Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

Cricket on drugs

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UAE, Pakistan

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September 21, 2008

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Ready. Fire. Aim.

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September 20, 2008

Posted by Cricinfo at in Bangla cricket

Return of the Great Dictator

For something as challenging to the game as tampering the condition of the ball or making a racist remark against an opponent, a ten year ban was not handed by the governing body of the game. But, challenge to the authority of the individuals who run the game and a sledgehammer comes down and crushes those who play the game. The BCCI does not like the ICL, which is understandable. Nobody likes competition. But it is the insecure who would want it killed.

Champions, on the other hand try to rise above it. By arm twisting the ICC to crack the whip on ICL and instruct all the members of ICC to shun the ICL, the individuals who represent BCCI won. Unfortunately, the game lost. Cricketers can now be punished for playing the game and desiring to compete against the best. The Ten players who have been banned by BCB did not bring disrepute to the game. They merely wanted to play it. They have a lesson to learn - The desire to play the game is not important. It is important to play the game for the individuals in BCB and the BCCI.

The desire to play the game alongside some of the best international players can now cost the dream of representing your country. If you dream of scoring big, be sure you represent the right bunch of individuals. Big scores are not important if they came on a game you played for another set of individuals, Mr.Habibul Bashar.

Some things are more important than the game and the score with the administrators is definitely one of them. Your scores when you played for the nation hardly matters when they want to settle scores with you. Welcome to the new scoreboard of the game. A few individuals are more important than this game.

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September 11, 2008

Posted by Cricinfo at in Extras

Let there be flight

Perhaps some credit should be given to the Australians for the aggressive and positive manner in which they have played spinners in different parts of the world in the last few years, most prominent performances against quality spin bowling being the Test series wins on their last tours to India and Sri Lanka. If Hayden does not pick Mendis' first delivery, if the tempting contest takes place, I am willing to bet my writing hand that he sweeps every ball after that. The sweep, or slog-sweep in most Australian batsmen's case, is their way of putting off a spinner off his line and length, and it was a great surprise that Indian batting line-up did not use the sweep shot often enough against Murali and Mendes on their recent tour.

Coming back to the use of variations, there are, however, exceptions such as Daniel Vettori, who have made exemplary use of variations, and has in fact styled his variations to suit his own bowling style and bowling action. He experiments with his pace well, his exceedingly slower off-breaks ensuring the batsman plants his front foot forward much before the ball pitches, and often failing to adjust to exceptional turn thereafter. He has never really been heralded as a leading spinner in the world, but if your life depends on getting a wicket and not concede many runs in the process, he would definitely make a favorable choice.

The exponential increase in one-day cricket, and now 20-20, can be attributed much of the blame for robbing a lot of spinners of their confidence to throw the ball up, and the somewhat deliberate shortening of ground diameter on most grounds in IPL sets a dangerous precedent. Spinners are in fact being paid hefty sums for bowling 24 flat and quick deliveries in the 20-20 format. The purist's worst nightmare. As an average ever-optimistic Indian cricket fan, I can only hope that the Australian tour this October is not a seal on this fact, and a stain on the yet untarnished memories of match-winning spells by Kumble and Harbhajan, which seems like an eternity ago. Let there be flight.

Comments (4)

September 8, 2008

Posted by Cricinfo at in Australian Cricket

There is only one Don

Bradman the man was vastly different from the cricketer idolised as an Australian hero during the Depression era. He was regarded knowledgeable but aloof, a shrewd businessman but ham-fisted with money. He was a practising mason and had a long history of grievances with Catholics Bill O' Reilly, Jack Fingleton, 'Chuck' Fleetwood-Smith, and Stan McCabe. O' Reilly and Fingleton were probably his biggest foes. The trio never got on. Although they had immense respect for each other on the field, that was the end of it. The pair laughed the Don back to the pavilion on the occasion of his final test innings, when he was bowled second ball by Eric Hollies for a duck, and they constantly criticised each other over their roles in the team.

He has also been singled out by influential Australia skipper Ian Chappell as one of the prime reasons for World Series Cricket, claiming in a documentary that Bradman 'treated board money as if it was his own money' during a boom time for cricket in the 70's. As an administrator, Bradman was wise but refused to budge on money. He was also regarded as somewhat old-fashioned. Still, Bradman was regarded as the all-knowing doyen of Australian cricket and was often sought after for advice, made all the more harder in his later years when he became a recluse in his home in Adelaide. He always responded to letters with fond affection though, and was polite and helpful for young cricketers seeking advice, whether life or cricket related.

In terms of the greatest batsmen ever, what makes Bradman stand out is not just the fact that he was far ahead of his contemporaries, but he overwhelms all that follow him. It was a common trait to call an exciting young batsman in Australia 'the new Bradman' (Norm O' Neill and Doug Walters suffered this comparison) and it was often a kiss of death. He is justifiably, in terms of figures, ability and influence, at the top of the batting tree in cricket, with his nearest rivals being Sachin Tendulkar (A man Bradman once considered similar to himself), Viv Richards, Brian Lara, and Wally Hammond. There can be no other player quite like Sir Donald George Bradman.

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September 4, 2008

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Make 'Bradmanesque' a word

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September 3, 2008

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A rare sextet

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Why Kumar doesn't worship the Don

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Remember, it's only a game

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September 2, 2008

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Change format of ODIs

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August 26, 2008

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Boundary for advertisers

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August 22, 2008

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Test cricket is 'total cricket'

Then, too, there is the fact that Test matches are played over four innings, which means, again, that the significance of individual contribution is further diluted. The emphasis in Test matches, therefore, is not for one person or two to step up and contribute, but for all the members of the team to stick together and pull in one direction for long enough, with more force, skill and perseverance than the other team.

What does it mean, then, when one talks of match-winning knocks in Test matches? If we were to construct a definition from the words themselves, it would seem that any innings that results in a team winning is a match-winning one. But in that case, every batsman in a Test-match winning team that has had an opportunity to bat can lay claims to having played a match-winning knock. After all, he has played an innings, and his team has won. Clearly, that won't do. So we come back to our question what exactly is a match-winning test innings?

The answer to that is very much a matter of perception. It seems to me that most of the test match innings that we remember as as 'match-winning' are second innings knocks. Consider: Laxman's 281, Lara's 153, Gilchrist's masterclass against Pakistan in his second Test; all of them were undoubtedly great exhibitions of batting, and all of them were played in the second innings.

To be sure, it's not surprising in itself that we come to see second innings centuries as match-winning. Because the second innings immediately precedes victory (or as the case might be, defeat), it seems to us that what transpires in the second innings is in some way more responsible for the eventual result. So understandably, we ascribe importance to the second-innings century: so much so that, in test matches at least, a match-winning knock must be a second innings knock. In all of this, where is the poor first innings?

Surely, if batting in the second innings is harder in some parts of the world, the reverse is also true in some parts? Batting on a first morning at Lords or Headingley is surely as hard as batting at the Wankhede on a fifth day pitch? Also, if closing out a game with runs in the second innings is important, so is setting up the game with runs in the first innings? Some might even argue that if you had to resort to getting runs in the second innings, it means you didn't do enough in the first. It looks to me, then, that in Test matches at least, a 'match-winning' knock holds little or no meaning. Any and all runs your batsmen make, irrespective of when they make it in the first or the second innings, are valuable; and whether your team wins or not is up to your bowlers and fielders.

All runs made by a batsman are equally important in a Test match irrespective of when he makes them, then where is the question of whether a particular batsman has ever played an innings of substance when the team needs it? Is it fair to criticize a batsman for not being match-winning if (like Tendulkar and Lara) he's played most of his career in teams with little or no bowling fire-power? I think not.

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A pointless Olympic dream

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Batsmen having a ball

While the importance of television revenues cannot be overstated, at what price are those revenues going to be earned? Do administrators seriously believe that one-sided run fests make for exciting viewing? Did the matches in the India-Pakistan series of 2005-06 (in which even the flat wickets reduced even the likes of Shoaib Akhtar to trundlers) match even by a fraction the excitement of the ashes series just a few months earlier? Is there anything entertaining in watching an obviously ordinary batsman smashing quality bowlers around on a dead wicket where the contest is ludicrously uneven?

My answer is an emphatic no and I think its about time administrators across the world took the trouble to ask us, the fans, what we'd like to see. The contest between the bat and ball has to be restored, if test cricket is to retain the imagination of future generations and for that, we need a return to livelier and/or quicker pitches that would restore some of the contest between bat and ball. Another suggestion I'd like to make is to restore the old six rule, whereby one had to hit a ball out of the ground to be awarded 6 runs and any shot that cleared the ropes without going out of the ground was awarded 4 runs. With mishits effortlessly sailing over the ropes, restoration of the old rule seems fairly logical... assuming that the long-term health of the game assumes greater importance than short-term financial gains.

Sadly, what constitutes first priority for the powers that be is the biggest question.

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August 18, 2008

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The Road to 2020

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Expert commentators

And then there is the non-cricketer Harsha Bhogle. Thank God , he did not play cricket. How else would we have had his layman's sense of observation and admiration for all things cricket, warts and all. His evolution as a commentator is fascinating. He started out as a cricket presenter, merely a mouthpiece and a show-man whose job it was to tell the millions that he had with him experts and then the camera moves on. But now he is an expert in his own right. He epitomizes the expert in every Indian viewer. Flawed, maybe, but we always have an opinion.

There are plenty more - Sanjay Majrekar, as astute and Tendulkar-loving as ever, Sunil Gavaskar, the Santa Claus (Ho Ho Ho! that's a good shot!), Arun Lal, analyzing whether the toe kissed the boundary line only to find to his dismay that the next over has already been bowled (but the man has a hearty laugh about it every time), Ranjit Fernando, he spawned a hate blog, enough said.

Commentary is as much a part of cricket as batting or bowling is(We, Indians, don't ever consider fielding). The joy of watching cricket is accentuated to a great degree by the right words being said about it. In that regard, the Sky Sports commentary team does a wonderful job. With David Lloyd providing the much needed frivolity and eccentricity (If Nathan Astle can bowl, my behind is a fire-engine), Michael Atherton and David Gower going at each other and Nasser Hussain passionately fighting with Michael Holding over switch-hitting, it was all a delight to watch. Let the commentators keep coming.

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The perfection of imperfection

On the other hand, a sportsman who merely accumulates points or runs chasing a statistical target seems to lose some of the lustre although he may achieve his target. This is why I feel - that the 'fabulous four', Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dravid and Laxman - should chose to retire at a time when they are still playing well, before they are forced into it by frequent failures and the emergence of new talent that is bound to expose their decline in sharper contrast.

I guess this must be in the minds of most people who love these players, but out of respect for the icons, only the most brashly outspoken media may express this thought in public, as of now. But such reticence may not last long. What is the point in achieving a target in bits and pieces when one is only a shadow of what one was in the peak days? The icons do show flashes of brilliance now and then, but these are too few and far in between these days, showing that the decline in their powers is real and representing the irreversible losses associated with age.

If Sachin retires now, people will remember him as the greatest batsman India has produced and also one of the greatest who adorned the game in its history. On the other hand, if he continues to play another 5 tests to get the hundred odd runs that he needs to become the highest run scorer in cricket, it will only be a pain to watch and the target he achieves would even lose some of the gloss it is supposed to have. In any case statistical targets have not much meaning except to the frenzied media with a penchant for the hyperbole and who seek value where there is very little.

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August 14, 2008

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The value of 'third man'

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August 12, 2008

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For the love of numbers

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Practice makes perfect

The Indian team's recent performance in Sri Lanka, as Cricinfo writers and Harsha Bhogle last year have noted, is a testament to the change. In all this, the Indians haven't had time to work on the nuances that take a team from good to great. The effect has rightly then been the opposite, resulting in diminishing returns. This aspect has been even more pronounced, thanks to the dependable referral system introduced during the Test series. It brought to fore the importance of dealing with margin of error. Furthermore, if one sees the number of close decisions that Indian batsmen found themselves going against them, the pattern tells a story. It has happened with us in the past, and there is been only way in sports history to reduce the margin of error: practice!

Less than a year ago, erstwhile captain Rahul Dravid reportedly tried to battle for more time and practice games prior to the Test series in Australia. The 2-1 result against India was an appropriate difference between a team that practices as it plays, and the champions who practice in a way their own. How long has it been since we heard Sachin Tendulkar asking a net bowler to test him on a rough patch outside the leg stump line? We, the spectators and our eleven men, don't perhaps celebrate practice anymore, as much as we cherish the money in the game. Dravid had a point, and it's time we heard the man who has demonstrated its virtues.

The 1992 season in Australia was a tour, exaggerated in some sense. It featured innumerable practice games, including a win over Queensland. We almost won at Sydney before the rains came; we almost did it again in Adelaide but 35-odd runs separated us the team collapsed spectacularly at Perth (to Mike Whitney!!!) The margins of errors remained. The tour produced a pearl in Sachin Tendulkar, it exposed Sanjay Manjrekar's frailty while running between the wickets, and it pushed opener Shastri to get a double hundred that seemed improbable at the start of the tour.

The practice games had given the team at least some grounds for familiarity to identify strengths and failings. It's a direction we need to move back toward if we want to see the friendlier side of the TV review system and our winning ways. Besides, the obsession to practising a craft can reward in a way that money can't.

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August 11, 2008

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Last men standing

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August 2, 2008

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This one's for Sriram Veera

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Memories of '83

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Girls are better than boys

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Taunts and Laughter - A Sledging Encounter

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