This past week, during the Ahmedabad Test, Rahul Dravid crossed 11,000 runs and became the fifth highest run scorer in the five-day game. The man who once admitted that “most people want me to get out quickly so they can watch Sachin bat" is the intelligent man’s guide to what a sportsman ought to be, writes Suresh Menon in Tehelka. But Menon also asks the question: Is Dravid the best supporting act in the history of the game or a great player born in the wrong decade?
Today even the die-hard Tendulkar acolyte is willing to wait, for he knows that Dravid getting out early usually spells disaster. At 32 for four against Sri Lanka, not even Sehwag, Tendulkar and Laxman carried back into the pavilion with them all the hopes of a nation. Dravid was still batting, and that was reason enough to go about the normal business of living a life. He did not disappoint, guiding India past 400. While a Sehwag or a Tendulkar cry halt to life in the nation, with fans dropping whatever they are doing to watch the action, Dravid lets life go on. It is as if his countrymen are saying, adapting Robert Browning, ‘Rahul’s at the crease, All’s right with the world.’
The Ahmedabad draw was a sad advertisement for Tests, which many fear is a dying form, not least in India where the concern is even greater given the nature of pitches. For the administrators it seems to be an unwarranted burden and the sooner it dies the better for them, so that they can expand and enlarge their IPL and Champions League events, writes Pradeep Magazine in the Hindustan Times.
Instead of making the fiveday game more viewer-friendly it is a shame that the richest board in the world chooses to roll out a featherbed which will only strengthen the argument of those who say Test cricket has no future. That is why one almost sees the board's complicity in ignoring these vital aspects of the game. They call themselves marketing wizards, but when it comes to Tests, they just treat it like an orphaned child whom no one wants to own.
In Outlook, Rahul Mahajan says pitches like the one that dulled the cricket at Ahmedabad can only also dull the ardour of Test cricket’s aficionados.
After slipping a long way down the pecking order, Ashish Nehra has rallied so impressively that he has become the leader of the pack, writes Peter Roebuck in Sportstar.
At some point Nehra left his dream world, put aside his laziness and decided to apply himself. As much could be gleaned from his efforts in a Ranji Trophy match staged in Delhi. It was a hot day but the beanpole did not flag, rushing to the crease in his energetic way, whirling over his arm and causing all sorts of difficulties. He may resemble a giraffe but with ball in hand he becomes a gazelle.
Kapil Dev has no doubts about Sachin Tendulkar's performances. He knows Tendulkar's record over 20 years is impeccable. But he still feels he is an under-achiever. Read what Kapil has to say in his column for the Asian Age.
When I say all this I mean it as a compliment to his talent and a criticism of his under achievement. I firmly believe that for a batsman of Sachin's talent, he should have made 10 Test double hundreds, a 300 and at least one 400. In the same breath, I would say that I would ideally have liked to see him go from 30 to 50 in three overs and to go from 50 to 80 on any pitch, against any bowling in 5 overs. He may use up another 5 overs to get to 95 and then safely get his century. Here is a man who can hit sixes at ease than anyone else in world cricket but after 50, he usually takes 5 overs to get to 55.
In DNA, Ayaz Memon writes that had it not been for Tendulkar, the match-fixing controversy could have debilitated the game in the Indian subcontinent. It was primarily because of his personal and professional credibility that Indian cricket could emerge from that crisis relatively unaffected.
In the Hindustan Times, Pradeep Magazine says preserving Test cricket would be a real tribute to Tendulkar.
The same paper also carries an image montage of Tendulkar as well as snippets from Navjot Singh Sidhu and Atul Ranade, a very close friend of the man himself.
The Wanderers on December 13, 1992, is vivid for writes Vijay Lokapally. The one-day match over, the Indian team, soundly beaten, was limping back. From the comfort of the press box one saw Tendulkar take off suddenly, chasing a burly South African supporter. That night he would have outpaced the fastest man on earth. He closed in on the prankster and brought him down in a flash. Read more in the Hindu.
Nirmal Shekar believes it is impossible to outgrow Indian sport’s most celebrated boy wonder.
Outlook's Rohit Mahajan says the media, as always and like everyone, wants a piece of him, and Tendulkar knows it's part of the deal, goes through the inquisition with immeasurable patience, trying to ensure that everyone's happy.
In a sport that specialises in the manufacture of instant stars and transient celebrities, Sachin Tendulkar is the real thing, writes Gideon Haigh in the Times of India. Even now, 20 years after his debut, there's always a place of occasion every time he comes to the crease, no matter the game, no matter the place.
In his column for the same paper, Steve Waugh remembers what a tough time he had setting a field for Tendulkar, what with the deafening noise making it impossible to communicate with fielders.
In the Hindustan Times, Anil Kumble notes how it had always been predicted that Tendulkar would be destined for greatness, that he would go on to be the highest runscorer for India, beat every batting record there was to beat, create history. He did all that and more.
In the same paper Sukhwant Basra says that behind the public reserve is an animated man.
Mid-day has reprinted the first print interview with a 13-year-old Tendulkar, as well as recalling the first television interview with Tendulkar, conducted by Hindi film actor Tom Alter at the PJ Hindu Gymkhana in January 1989.
India Today has dedicated an entire section to Tendulkar.
On his blog Doosra Redux, Dileep Premachandran says Tendulkar is India's greatest unifying factor.
Amitabh Bachchan’s oeuvre resonates little with the man in Tamil Nadu’s interior, just as Rajnikanth is little more than an object of curiosity to someone in Punjab. But Chennai or Chandigarh, Guwahati or Cochin, Tendulkar walks out to undiluted acclaim. With the exception of Gandhi, perhaps no other Indian has managed to rally so many behind the flag.
As November 15 comes around, much of the Indian cricketing fraternity and media is recalling their first memories of seeing Saching Tendulkar bat at the international level. On that day Rajdeep Sardesai, now CNN-IBN's editor-in-chief, was glued to the TV watching a 16-year-old Tendulkar with curls and rosy cheeks take on Pakistan’s fast bowlers. Twenty years later, he says, the locks are showing a hint of grey but Tendulkar is still doing what he does best: score runs for India. Read on in the Hindustan Times.
His real achievement is beyond the boundary. We live in an age of instant stardom and mini-celebrities, where fame is an intoxicant that can easily consume the best of us. Sachin, remarkably, has been almost untouched by the fact that he is contemporary India’s biggest icon, arguably bigger than even an Amitabh Bachchan or a Shah Rukh Khan. As Khan revealed in an interview, at a party there was a big noise when Big B entered. Then, Sachin entered the hall and Bachchan was leading the queue to grab hold of the cricket champion!
"We all regard Test cricket as No. 1, compared to one-day and Twenty20 cricket, so the match fees and income from playing Test cricket have to be significantly more than from T20s. Then people will want to play more Tests than other formats," Sachin Tendulkar tells Pradeep Magazine in the Hindustan Times.
Anand Vasu writes in the Hindustan Times that's it's a pity Indian selectors aren't allowed to explain their decisions, because they would have found it virtually impossible to defend the recall of medium-pacer Sreesanth, who has done little of note to return to the national fold.
In 2009, Sreesanth has played nine first-class matches, taking five wickets in an innings only once, for Warwickshire against Yorkshire, and even there he conceded more than six an over. In total he had 24 wickets at 35.58, conceding 854 runs from 232 overs.
On his blog Smoke signals Prem Panicker wonders whether selecting Sreesanth, a player who was given a final warning last month for a series of disciplinary problems, sends the right signal. He also analyses the inclusion of S Badrinath and M Vijay.
On November 15, Sachin Tendulkar will complete 20 years as an international player, having made his Test debut against Pakistan in Karachi in 1989. Pradeep Magazine has interviewed the batsman in the Hindustan Times, which also has other articles about Tendulkar's formative years.
VVS Laxman said his favourite Tendulkar hundreds were the ones at Sharjah in 1998 against Australia in ODIs, and the Cape Town century in 1996-97 for Tests.
Leander Paes, the Indian tennis player, recounts how he and Tendulkar once played more than 30 table tennis matches in Goa in 2000 and how cricket is lucky that Tenulkar picked it as the sport of his choice.
The side aspiring to be the best one-day team in the world has just been jolted - severely. India were up against a depleted Australian side - four injuries before the series, five during it - yet failed to use their home advantage to record victory. The World Cup is just 14 months away, and suddenly India look vulnerable and under-prepared, writes Suresh Menon on Dreamcricket.com.
What is India’s bench strength? Would they have been able to send out half a dozen players as replacement to Australia and return with a series victory? Who is the second best off spinner in the country? Or the sixth best medium pacer?
When Tendulkar first took guard in his country's colours, the Berlin Wall had just fallen, Nelson Mandela was behind bars, Allan Border was captaining Australia and India was a patronised country known for its dust, poverty, timid batsmen and other outdated caricatures, writes Peter Roebuck in the Sydney Morning Herald.
Over the decades it has been Tendulkar's rare combination of mastery and boldness that has delighted connoisseurs and crowds alike. More than any other batsman, even Brian Lara, Tendulkar's batting has provoked gasps of admiration. A single withering drive dispatched along the ground eluding the bowler, placed unerringly between fieldsmen, could provoke wonder even among the oldest hands. A solitary square cut was enough to make a spectator's day. Tendulkar might lose his wicket cheaply but he is incapable of playing an ugly stroke. His defence might have been designed by Christopher Wren. And alongside these muscular orthodoxies could be found ornate flicks through the on-side, glides off his bulky pads that sent tight deliveries dashing on unexpected journeys into the back and beyond. Viv Richards could terrorise an attack with pitiless brutality, Lara could dissect bowlers with surgical and magical strokes, Tendulkar can take an attack apart with towering simplicity.
Sachin Tendulkar's Hyderabad epic brought back memories of the legendary Chennai Test in 1999 against Pakistan, when he fought cramps to take India so close to the finish line. AR Hemant does a forensic analysis of both scorecards and discovers some bizarre and startling parallels. Read on in India Today.
Before Chennai, India had never lost a Test match in which Mongia scored fifty or more (five fifties and a hundred).
Before Hyderabad, India had never lost an ODI in which Raina score fifty or more (11 fifties, two hundreds).
In a piece on Rediff.com which has plenty of theology thrown in, Prem Panicker tries to make sense of the Sachin Tendulkar phenomenon in the wake of the glittering 175 against Australia. After saying Tendulkar is treated like god by Indian fans, Panicker asks of the constant references to the batsman's statistical achievements such as the 17,000-run milestone: "Is 'god' god, if you have to parse his deeds against those of the mortals?"
Here his description of the 175:
It was all there, every single element of the Tendulkar mythos: the majestic certitude of the straight-backed thumps through cover and extra cover; the nonchalant ease of his many waltzes down the wicket to hit straight with slide rule precision; the calm certitude with which he repeatedly split the field and, when it was drawn in tight, carried it; the unparalleled balance of his many whips off hips and pads; the schoolboy cheek of the impossibly late cut; the exuberant energy with which he repeatedly traversed the 22 yard strip for singles taken with the judgment of a Solomon
Tendulkar's endurance remains a source of wonder to Panicker.
What does it say of Tendulkar that having raised the bar to impossible heights in 1998, he is able to effortlessly vault over it 11 years later?
We have for the space of two decades repeatedly witnessed the alchemy of genius effortlessly convert the impossible into the seemingly inevitable.
In his column for the Hindustan Times, Ravi Shastri says Tendulkar will need another special effort if India are to stay alive in this series.
The Harris Shield is an inter-school cricket tournament, which has been held in Mumbai since 1897. It is named after Lord Harris, former England captain and governor of Bombay, and is perhaps best known for the 664-run stand in 1988 that brought Sachin Tendulkar and Vinod Kambli into the limelight. On Wednesday, 12-year-old Sarfaraz Khan blasted 439, the highest individual score ever made in the tournament. The Indian Express' Devendra Pandey looks up others who made their name in the Harris Shield, before fading into obscurity.
In the business paper Mint, Dileep Premachandran marvels at the longevity of Sachin Tendulkar, and writes that its Tendulkar's efforts against the best team over the past two decades, Australia, that make him peerless.
More than cold statistics though, it’s the moments that will endure long after he’s put his bat away for the last time. That final over in the Hero Cup semi-final. The audacious assault on Shane Warne in Chennai. The cold-eyed targeting of Shoaib Akhtar at Centurion, South Africa, in 2003. That match-winning century in Chennai, just a fortnight after the streets in the vicinity of his restaurant in Mumbai had resembled war-torn Beirut.
On his blog Cricket with balls, JRod writes that Tendulkar's glittering 175 made the result of the match almost irrelevant.
He scored over half the runs, passed some unimportant milestone, seemed to be dragging Raina and Jadeja by the neck like kittens, and then eventually went out to a shot that wasn’t even thought of when he started playing.
India didn’t deserve to win, but Sachin did. I wanted him to make 200 and win the game, but he came up short and pretty much no help at all.
KingCricket pens a tribute to Tendulkar on his blog, where he writes that staying at the top for 20 years is the batsman's most jaw-dropping achievement.
You get batsmen who are exceptional when they’re 16. You get batsmen with adamantium wrists. You get batsmen who choose their shots well.
You get cricketers who are fit and dedicated to their sport. You get cricketers who can cope with the downs and who come back stronger. You get get cricketers who can last for 20 years.
Anand Vasu writes in the Hindustan Times about how the IPL and the Twenty20 boom has changed the priorities of the upcoming generation of Indian cricketers.
In two months, some of these teenagers will pick up more cash than the average middle-class professional makes in a career. What's more, with the contract in the bag, they won't have to worry about some cranky selector dropping them or a section of the media calling for a replacement. There will be all the good things in life without any of the pressure, perfect for the individual in the short-term, and a recipe for long-term disaster.
Before the IPL the sole intention of a cricketer's life was breaking into the Indian team. Once that was done, life was a constant struggle to stay in the eleven. In time, the peripherals too care of themselves. This is why Ganguly fought so hard to stay in the picture... It is the fight to stay in the top 1% that makes it worth it.
India's young brigade is drawing flak, but Dileep Premachandran writes in the Guardian that the criticism must be based on their performances, and not based on their flashy lifestyles.
Suresh Menon writes on Dreamcricket that the pressure of bowling dot balls in Twenty20s has reduced the effectiveness of two of India's premier bowlers, Harbhajan Singh and Ishant Sharma. He argues that both of them should be excluded from the game's shortest format to ensure success in ODIs and Tests.
With television sanctifying the dot ball in the bowler’s analysis, it has assumed a disproportionate importance ... When that same tactic is brought into the one-day international, the team suffers because now wicket-taking is important. Nothing slows down the run rate like a wicket or two. The spinner’s role is a more attacking one, especially in the middle overs when batsmen tend to focus on keeping their wickets.
... Part of Ishant Sharma’s recent problem has been a confusion over the approach to the various forms. The answer is clear – he must be kept out of Twenty20 if he is to be a long-term prospect for Tests and one-dayers.
Everything Lalit Modi does makes news. Everything Lalit Modi does divides opinions. Everything Lalit Modi does reverberates around the cricketing world. In a freewheeling interview with Karan Thapar on the news channel CNN-IBN, Modi defends himself against critics, denies the Ranji Trophy has been rendered meaningless, explains why the IPL has revived and rejuvenated cricket, and much more.
Karan Thapar:‘The Hindustan Times’ says: 'What the IPL has done is create a generation of half-baked players with faulty techniques, they strut around as superstars based on their dubious performances in the IPL. They are living in a fool's paradise but they are only fooling themselves.'
Lalit Modi: If they are fooling themselves, they will fall down. You have to understand that we have eight to ten owners out there, who have very little tolerance for somebody not being able to perform. So, they will just replace him and go forward with somebody else. If a person wants to be in the team then he needs to be consistent.
Karan Thapar:So these players are fodder for you. You are building them dreams and then casting them aside.
Lalit Modi: You may call it fodder but for us, it is giving them platform to showcase themselves, be consistent and prove themselves. You call it fodder, but we don't call it fodder. We call it a great stage to play with the world's best.
In the 24 months leading into the World Twenty20 in September 2007, and the 25 months or so thereafter, India played almost the same number of Tests and ODIs, but the latter period includes 17 T20s. In case we all forgot, there were two IPLs and a Champions League in-between. Insane numbers indeed. No wonder some of India's leading players and those from across the world are plagued by injuries, writes Kadambari Murali Wade in the Hindustan Times.
On a final note, here’s another interesting stat that might give the BCCI some pause to think before scheduling more and more T20s — the Indian public has been notoriously fickle when it comes to supporting their team and India, despite popular perception, is not a very good T20 unit.
In the same paper, Atreyo Mukhopadhyay, touches on a crucial point in India's big win at Nagpur, the running between the wickets. Mohammad Kaif talks about the importance of taking singles and how it's enough to deflate the opposition.
In the summer of 2002, when Mohammad Kaif chased down a record 325 against England in the NatWest final at Lord's, it seemed there was no turning back. But overlooked in recent years, he wonders why he never got the chance to make a comeback. Kunal Pradhan of the Sunday Express catches up with the batsman.
In one such chase against Pakistan in 2004, Kaif and Rahul Dravid had a long partnership to take India from 162 for five, to 294 and victory. In the middle of that knock, Kaif played a shot that split his bat in two. After the game, Dravid had the pieces of Kaif's broken bat collected, scribbled a `thank you' note and gifted them to him. The pieces still lie in Kaif's trophy cabinet, along with the five man-of-the-match awards in 125 ODIs.
Given the BCCI’s focuses of attention these days: its sponsorship deals, its Twenty20 opportunities, its IPL money and its plans for elections, it should concentrate some strategy to helping those parts of the country where cricketers have to tackle hardship and hurdles while playing the sport. The explosives-in-the-kit-bag controversy surrounding Jammu & Kashmir cricketer Parvez Rassol is only a case in point, writes Sharda Ugra in her blog on the India Today website.
Cricket has reached a stage where even committed watchers don’t know which teams are playing, when they are playing, who’s playing for whom, and, because they’re playing all the time, why they are playing at all. Rahul Bhattacharya in his column in Mint believes the game has become an embarrassment of riches.
From an average of 12 Tests a year over the last eight years, India was down to three in 2009. There is nothing still confirmed for 2010, which is normal practice with the Indian board, but particularly worrisome in the new age. In March comes IPL 3, thereafter the World Twenty20. Perhaps it is a cunning strategy to prepare audiences for IPL 4, where 94 games are to be stuffed senseless into six weeks. Nausea.
It was unthinkable that a day would come when the urban Indian male would admit he is bored of cricket. But the truth is that the sport is fast losing its charm among its most commercially influential devouts. Akshay Sawai has the lowdown in Open magazine.
What must worry cricket handlers the most, however, is that the age group most coveted by marketers, the urban youth with upper middleclass backgrounds, is more interested in football. The sport was always popular in India. But in the old days, the telecast of international matches was sporadic. Football fever peaked every four years with the World Cup and dissipated once Dino Zoff or Diego Maradona or Lothar Matthaus had hoisted the trophy.
From the mid-90s, however, Indians could enjoy comprehensive coverage of European leagues, all thanks to cable television. The impact has been significant. Today, there are many teenagers who respect Dhoni, but want to be Fernando Torres. Dhoni himself wanted to be a footballer.
In the same magazine, Boria Mazumdar explains how the glory of wearing the India cap is rapidly being eclipsed by the greed for big bucks in slambang leagues.
Since the advent of the IPL and more recently the CLT20, the fundamental difference between Australian and Indian cricket is this growing absence of pride in doing things for the nation. While the baggy green has reverential status in Australia, it represents the best Australia can offer, Indian youngsters find this concept totally alien, wasteful traditional romanticism associated with the cricket of a bygone era. New-age Indian cricket is the fertile playground to earn a fast buck, and more the logos of MNCs on the caps of the new-age Indian youngster, the merrier it is.
Did the Indian selectors value Rahul Dravid on his own merit or was he a stop-gap arrangement? Pradeep Magazine in his column in the Hindustan Times, believes the batsman's non-inclusion for the series against Australia has been grossly unfair.
By picking Rahul Dravid and then dropping him after two tours for no real justifiable reason, the Indian selectors are sending wrong and confused signals to the youngsters, that it is okay to play only in favourable conditions and that you don’t really need to learn how to play elsewhere, writes Harsha Bhogle in the Indian Express.
That is why Suresh Raina had to be number three in South Africa. But if indeed he was assessed and found inadequate, then he must bide his time. The future belongs to him, to Rohit Sharma, to Virat Kohli but for that these young men have to prove that they can play anywhere; like Dravid did, like Laxman and Ganguly did.
Given Lalit Modi's Twenty20 experience, Ajith Pillai in Outlook believes that the IPL chairman can take it to the next level - livening up Indian parliamentary debates, making them more entertaining and ending up generating advertising revenue from them.
Better dress sense: Right now our parliamentarians (in their crumpled khadi whites) look like boring Test players. The new outfits will be bright, colourful, trendy and will look good on TV. Clothes, they say, maketh a man. It also maketh politicians. Incidentally, my dress code has the approval of ex-Rajasthan CM Vasundhararaje although she felt that I have to come up with something more imaginative than saffron bermudas for BJP MPs.
Ayaz Memon is puzzled why Rahul Dravid when a) he has done a decent job in the few opportunities he had, b) none of the other batmsen have done anything particularly spectacular in the previous few months, c) there is a need for a technically strong batsman against a potent Australian pace attack. Read his piece in DNA.
Brought in a few weeks back to shore up the suspect Indian batting against short-pitched bowling, he finds himself bowled neck and crop by a grubber, as it were, and this one bowled by the selectors themselves.
The Cricket Watchers' Journal blog has a list of 'emergencies' Indian cricket has been bailed out of by Dravid.
Robin Singh and Venkatesh Prasad came to know through the media that their stint as fielding and bowling coach of the Indian team was over. "Is it too much to ask that the BCCI follow basic principles of human decency while carrying out that function [sacking their employees]?" asks Prem Panicker writes in his blog Smoke Signals. He also talks about a conversation with Robin Singh in 2003, when Robin was looking for a coaching job with the US cricket association.
He had, Robin said, been coaching [India] U-19 on someone’s say-so. A board official called him up and told him he had the job; he did it. Through that period, he had no formal meeting with anyone in the board, no contract spelling out his duties, no idea who if anyone he was supposed to report to, and certainly no idea what he was going to be paid and when.
And when it was all over, Robin waited. “I thought someone would call, tell me if they were satisfied or not, tell me what I was supposed to do next. No one called — how long am I supposed to wait?” And so he was in the US, shopping for jobs.
Kapil Dev, India captain in 1983 and from 1985-87, recalls his best and worst moments while speaking to Sportstar. From travelling on on a rickety scooter with Ashok Malhotra and Sushil Kapoor to reach far flung grounds, to that unforgettable 1983 World Cup victory to the six that gave a great impetus to the game in Pakistan, Kapil shares his memories on a legendary career.
That glorious day — June 25, 1983 — remains close to my heart the most. There have been some other great deeds too, but nothing to match the feeling of holding the World Cup in my hands. Sometimes I feel it is yet to sink in even today. That day will always be the most important day of my cricket life.
There were Muslim cricketers in the Indian team before him but Mohammad Azharuddin was the one that the community identified with. He became a symbol of hope for Muslims, drawing them into the mainstream, making them believe that talent is recognised and awarded in secular India. Not just in cricket, but in other fields, in jobs, in life, writes Rohit Mahajan in the Outlook magazine.
After him, there was a deluge—Zaheer Khan, Mohammed Kaif, the Pathan brothers, Munaf Patel. Indeed, the Azhar phenomenon helped instil confidence among Muslims, enabling them to brush aside taunts from Hindu chauvinists. It worked equally on non-Muslims—Azhar’s performance undercut the appeal of, say, Bal Thackeray to Hindus susceptible to the Muslims-support-Pakistan rhetoric.
As Sachin Tendulkar completes his 20th year as an international cricketer, India Today's Sharda Ugra sat down with him and discussed his international career, his opinions on the modern game and his hunger and competitiveness for cricket.
Q. How did you succeed against bowling duels where your batting was completely tested? Which would you say were the best of the duels that you handled?
A. I thought in England in 2007 I played that played spell of Ryan Sidebottom. I was not playing any shot. I just played almost close to six-seven maiden overs, I just kept blocking and leaving and kept getting beaten also. He was bowling well and I knew that that was the most important phase of that Test match. I thought that if we see through the spell then the doors are going to open for us and when we can play some shots.
Exactly that is what happened and that set us in a dominating position and after that we had the upperhand and we ended up winning that Test match, the second of the series. That particular patch I can say where I was mentally strong. I got beaten on various occasion. The guy was bowling well, I was smiling at him and I was saying, 'Fine, you still have to get me out.' It was a good challenge. And today I look back and feel yes, I did that job.
Q. It's a surprising incident you've mentioned because people normally think of your attacking batsmanship. Any incident of that kind?
A. You do remember different kind of incidents. Well, probably in Nairobi when we were playing 2000 Champions Trophy. We had won the toss and were batted in overcast conditions against Australia. The wicket was also damp and the way Glen McGrath bowled the first over, I told Sourav, 'Just give me freedom for a couple of overs because I want to do something.' I felt otherwise he's going to come and bowl six-seven overs, four maidens, seven runs and take two-three wickets and, we'll go down slowly but surely. I said to Sourav, 'I'll do something, you just give me freedom' and he said, 'Okay, just go ahead.' I started stepping out and hit McGrath a couple of sixes. He bounced and I hit him, exchanged a few words, disturbed him. I did something different and sort of it worked. I remember that particular match - we won it.
Of the many components of greatness, longevity is one that encompasses all so while Sachin Tendulkar is considered a genius for his stats, records, batting talent and several memorable innings, it is his staggering career of 20 years so far that makes him truly great, writes Harsha Bhogle in the India Today magazine.
It means he has competed against the best in the world across different eras; against grizzly pros when he was a kid and brash, irreverent young men now; he has played on feverishly seaming pitches and on raging turners, on cold, cloudy days and blazingly hot ones; at home surrounded by family and fans and away amidst loneliness; when the body is obeying all commands and when pain and fatigue bring you to your knees. And he hasn't just survived, he's left his imprint on every situation.
The four-page dossier to the Indian team has generated a lot of unwanted attention. But apart from the headline-grabbing sex talk, the part where they use war terminology to make ‘us’ understand our limitations as a sporting nation is as amusing as it should be shocking, writes Pradeep Magazine in the Hindustan Times.
In any case, is being the aggressor and going to war such a good thing that youngsters should feel proud of it? Should they feel embarrassed that their forefathers never attacked any nation? In fact, if anything we feel proud of the fact that India never had any imperial designs and did not loot and plunder other nations? Kirsten and Upton are here to coach and train a cricket team — something they are qualified to do. They should refrain from giving us lessons on our history, culture, religion and race.
From food to sex to self-improvement, India coach Gary Kirsten and mental conditioning expert Paddy Upton, are leaving no stones unturned in making the team the very best in the world. Anand Vasu in the Hindustan Times gets hold of a four-part document compiled by the duo, which was handed out to the team members.
SEX: When young, successful celebrities travel the world, there's bound to be interest from the opposite sex. The subject is little talked about and the approach the article takes makes it perfect for young sportsmen.
It begins with a quote from Tim Noakes, a professor and sports scientist at the University of Cape Town, who said cheekily that sex was not a problem, but being up till 2am, probably having a few drinks at a bar while trying to pick someone up, on the eve of a game, almost always was. Excerpts from `Does sex increase performance?' (The first line incidentally, is "Yes it does, so go ahead and indulge") From a physiological (body) perspective, having sex increases testosterone levels, which causes an increase in strength, energy, aggression and competitiveness.
The Karnataka Premier League seems to drawing big money, but what’s the game? Anil Lulla takes a peek in Open magazine.
The winner gets Rs 8 lakh and runner-up will take home Rs 4 lakh. That’s not even chump change by IPL’s standards. But then, KPL seems to be about giving Bangalore’s builders the flurry of publicity they need just as the local real estate sector grows hot, what with the city’s metro project reshaping land usage patterns along with the rest of the urbanscape.
In an extensive interview with Rediff.com, Harsha Bhogle talks about the lack of quality cricket writing in India, Australia not knowing what to do in situations when they are not winning, the role of ODIs as a bridge between Twenty20s and Tests, and why the IPL is good for Indian cricket.
... the state associations that exist have been fattened on grants. Any system where you are fattened on grants, you will not want to pursue excellence -- which is the bane of all sport in India, and the bane of federations in India.
Hockey, for instance, doesn't take off because hockey sits back and takes money from the government; archery sits back and gets money from the government, so they don't have to become good.
Associations don't have to become good because they sit back and get money from the BCCI. Which is why I was very excited about the franchise structure, where all Indian cricket is franchise-driven.
Currently people say the problem with the Ranji Trophy, for instance, is that no one watches Division 2, no one watches Tripura play, for instance, which is fair comment.
But if you have 15 private franchises, a Mallya, for instance, won't want to come 15th, so he will go around picking the best players for his franchise and so will the others, and suddenly the league becomes competitive, people come to watch, and when the spectators come, it becomes profitable.
An increasing number of Indian politicians are getting involved with cricket. The latest to enter the game's administration is Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, who has been elected president of the Gujarat Cricket Association. Prem Panicker, in his blog Smoke Signals, wonders what it is that prompts Indian politicians to care so much about the development of the game in the country.
Ask the question and the answer you will get is, cricket is important to so many people, it is a religion in this country, it provides amusement to so many of us, so of course it is the politician’s duty to do what he can for the betterment of the sport…
The answer you won’t get is, cricket generates as much money as the top industries do; there is no way I can wiggle into top positions in top industries but heck, I can sneak into cricket administration quite easily, and once there, there is tons of money to be made. By me. For me.
R Jagannathan writes in DNA that one reason politicians enter cricket is because it's an obvious platform for someone to gain wider visibility and acceptance in India.
To be sure, voters do not elect politicians on the basis of their contributions to cricket. But then, Sachin Tendulkar's endorsement alone is not good enough to make me buy the biscuit brand he is promoting. What Sachin does is pull the brand higher up in my purchase consideration set, and this is what Modi may be hoping to achieve by embracing cricket: a higher level of acceptance with the national voter.
Prem Panicker writes in his blog, Smoke signals, that the Player-of-the-Match award in the final of the Compaq Cup should have gone to the curator of the R Premadasa because the nature of the pitch was so influential in deciding the outcome. He says that it was not a Cup-winning performance from India, who were helped by the conditions to overcome Sri Lanka.
India in the field did its utmost to lose the game, and was foiled by prevailing conditions.
The fielders — Yusuf Pathan and Virat Kohli in particular — dropped sitters. MS Dhoni uncharacteristically [uncharacteristically not because he is the best keeper currently playing, but because his glove skills have visibly improved since his entry into international cricket, and he is now a 'safe' keeper] missed a relatively simple stumping off Raina.
The overall standard of ground fielding was ordinary at best, creating such confidence in the opposition that batsmen repeatedly ran singles to short positions on the on and off
Raj Singh Dungarpur, the former BCCI president, died on Saturday aged 73. He had been associated with Indian cricket for nearly 50 years, starting with a 16-year first-class career as a medium-pacer for Rajasthan. He then served as national selector, the Indian team's manager on tours abroad, besides a three-year term as BCCI president. He was the chief of selectors when Mohammad Azharuddin was surprisingly chosen to lead India in 1989, and remained a staunch supporter of Azhar, even when the match-fixing controversy broke. Azhar leads the tributes to Dungarpur, writing in DNA that Dungarpur always treated him like a son.
Rajbhai will always have a special place in my heart. He was one of the two people, the other being Kapil Dev, who stood by me and spoke in my favour when I was going through difficult times. His support meant a lot to me.
Dungarpur was renowned to be a great raconteur, always ready to recount an anecdote or two about a past Indian great. In Mid-Day, Clayton Murzello regrets that Dungarpur didn't write a book on his cricketing experiences. He also recalls being with Dungarpur when new of the Hansie Cronje match-fixing controversy broke.
One cannot forget how anguished he was in Dhaka, 2000 when the Hansie Cronje match fixing controversy broke out. At first, he was not willing to believe it. But as confirmation came through at the coffee shop where we both had a sandwich, you could see how sad he was to see his beloved sport tarnished. He insisted on picking up the tab. "I must pay. Nothing to celebrate, of course," he said.
After he paid the bill, he got chatting to a youngster about cricket. The kid spoke about how he wanted to make it to Lord's one day. And I heard this in the background: "Son, you can stay in my flat in London. It is right opposite Lord's." He had never met the boy before and the goodness of this prince came shining through.
In the Bangalore Mirror, veteran cricket journalist Rajan Bala remembers the manner in which Dungarpur, as team manager, handled the crisis caused by the assassination of Indira Gandhi when India was touring Pakistan in 1984.
Lalit Modi, while being credited for transforming a laidback, and status quo BCCI set-up into a dynamic, functional body, has also created a turmoil of sorts within the board. If the IMG controversy is anything to go by, Pradeep Magazine in the Hindustan Times believes no good can come from the bitter fight involving greed and lust for power and the rules of the game being twisted to suit the needs of the stakeholders.
In Indian cricket, no two state associations have a similar constitution and none match that of the BCCI. Not just a working manual for the smooth functioning of cricket administration, Makarand Waingankar in the Hindu calls for a system which will not let manipulation hamper the growth.
The BCCI Corporate Trophy and other such similar tournaments provide the best opportunity for the Indian fans to decide whether they really care for the game or are obsessed with the few celebrities in the national team. Anand Vasu in his blog on the Hindustan Times website presents a reality check.
For too long, one of Indian cricket’s most important stakeholders – the professional who toils in domestic cricket for no recognition – has been ignored. The Joginder Singhs of the BSNL team and the Avik Choudhurys of India Revenue showcase their skills in domestic cricket day-in and day-out, with no-one but their team-mates, opposition and a handful of journalists in attendance. Now, these men are on television, and perhaps finally the Indian fan will cast a glance in their direction.
When was the last time Irfan Pathan played four ODIs in a row, or bowled his full quota of 10 overs in four consecutive games? By his own admission, it hasn’t happened. In an interview to GS Vivek of the Indian Express, Irfan talks about his technique, his transition from a pure bowler to a batting allrounder and the mistake of consulting too many experts
What I’m saying is, if you allow a bowler to bowl more, you are going to bring his confidence up. I am not blaming anyone, neither the team management nor the selectors, I’m blaming myself. It’s good I’ve got a break from international cricket, the attention will be away from me and I can train hard, play matches, and show what I am really capable of.
The BCCI Corporate Trophy, the board’s initiative to encourage corporate bodies across the country to provide jobs to cricketers, will have a big impact on the development of the game at the grassroots level. That's what WV Raman writes in Sportstar.
The corporate tournament will be seen by some as a breeding ground for the IPL, while some others will see it as their livelihood. It does not matter how the basic objective of this tournament is perceived so long as the fringe cricketers are called upon by the corporates and given appointment letters. Cricketers in the western and northern regions of the country will see a revival of corporate support while the cricketers in the east and south will be delighted that some opportunities are opening up.
A collection of Harsha Bhogle's newspaper columns has just been published (Cricinfo's review here). After attending the book launch, the Hindustan Times' Anand Vasu writes about what is common to Shane Warne and Harsha Bhogle (besides using hair solutions to fight off the effects of middle age).
There has been much debate over whether the pitch at The Oval was designed to help the home side win, a charge long levelled at Indian tracks. Dileep Premachandran writes in the Guardian that there was nothing wrong with The Oval surface, and also points out that Indian pitches aren't the dustbowls they once were.
It might help to work with facts, rather than Ashes-inspired emotion. England finished the opening day on 307 for eight from 85.3 overs. Both sides scored more than 347 in their second innings. The innings of the match was played on the third day by a man making his Test debut. The best spell of the game came from a young pace bowler, but there were wickets too for the spinners, one of them a part-timer. And, most importantly, there was a result, not five days of mind-numbing tedium as seen in the Caribbean earlier this year, with every man jack seemingly capable of scoring a century.
In the era of Tiger Woods, Roger Federer and Sachin Tendulkar, it is the Indian batsman who will come up on top as the best sportsman, writes Sunil Gavaskar in dreamcricket.com.
While both Woods and Federer have millions of fans all over the world, it in no way compares with the millions in India alone who worship the ground Tendulkar walks on and believe that their man can do no wrong. Unlike Woods and Federer whose houses and cars are safe even if they lose in the first round that is not the case for Indian cricketers who have found homes and properties destroyed by an angry crowd after they have not performed upto expectations.
Virender Sehwag has threatened to quit Delhi and move to Haryana because of the interference in selection matters. After ruling out some candidates like Madan Lal and Vivek Razdan, Kadambari Murali-Wade wonders in the Hindustan Times whether there are any other former players in Delhi who can take over the selection panel and bring more credibility to the system.
Then there’s Bishan Singh Bedi, who has had vicious fights with the DDCA establishment over players’ rights and the DDCA will be scared to touch. Tiger Pataudi, who never gets involved, Manoj Prabhakar, who was banned for five years post the mach-fixing scandal, returned as bowling coach and is now coach of Rajasthan. Ajay Sharma, banned for life, Ajay Jadeja, busy with media and golf commitments and Maninder Singh, who has been battling various personal problems.
The Sehwag-Delhi controversy is not isolated to Delhi alone, says Partha Bhaduri in the Times of India. Almost all state associations in India face problems in the administration, as the article breaks down issues facing each cricket body in India.
A prominent domestic player, who has also played for India in the recent past, said: "It's a small example but did you know we also beg for the cheaper SG balls during Ranji training sessions? It's just another way for officials to make some extra money. If the BCCI is doling out Rs 30 crore annually to these bodies, why can't most Ranji teams have proper trainers or physios? Why can't age-group teams have trainers like in Australia?
An unknown Indian fast bowler with no first-class experience was blanketed in hype when he picked up a Rajasthan Royals contract earlier this year. He didn't play a game in the Indian Premier League, but the buzz surrounding Atul Sharma was that he was seriously quick. An Indian men's lifestyle magazine Man's World looks at how biomechanics, a javelin coach and training stints in England, South Africa and the US are helping Sharma get closer to his dream of becoming the world's fastest bowler.
Sharma hasn’t played a single club match for seven years and has never played first-class cricket. Heck, he couldn’t even always find a place in his school side.
So how has this Mumbaikar got to where he is right now, within sight, assuming he doesn’t fall prey to injuries or is found lacking in big match temperament, of a place in the national side? The answer to that is simple: ever since he first took a cricket ball in his hand, Sharma has wanted to bowl fast, faster than anybody else in the world. And as he grew up, this desire became an all-consuming one, an ambition that disregarded the lack of innate ability
Delhi cricket is a world where even those who play well have had to resort to backdoor methods of appeasing those whose approval is a must, writes Pradeep Magazine in the Hindustan Times.
You need not always be a powerful businessman, a politician, a bureaucrat or a cop to push your child into the team, or resort to bribery to have your son play for the state team; you can also get your way by hiring goons to threaten those in power. In this world, nothing is a secret. Every newspaper has, from time to time, published reports of how corrupt the DDCA edifice is.
But this has not stopped the next selection having a large quota for players who have nothing but their parents' CVs to recommend them.
Virender Sehwag’s charges against the Delhi & Districts Cricket Association (DDCA) are well-known and have been endured by its cricketers. Sharda Ugra, in her blog on the India Today website, says that among the frontline cricket associations in India, Delhi is the undisputed and undefeated champion of maladministration, nepotism and corruption.
Down the line, as the players get younger, the stories get worse. Every possible rival to the progeny or distant kin of the sports committee is simply not picked for fear of him outshining Rinku Rishtedaar or Bunty Bhaichaara in the under-16 and under-19s.
Vinod Kambli, who announced his retirement recently, made a great start to his Test career, including back-to-back double centuries in 1993. However, he was unable to handle the fame and adulation that comes the way of the stars of Indian cricket, and faded away rapidly, playing his final Test at the age of 23. He will always be a cautionary tale for upcoming Indian youngsters, say Dileep Premachandran in the Guardian, where he also contrasts Kambli's career graph with that of his contemporary Rahul Dravid.
Rahul Dravid's return to the one-day side is a message not just to Rohit Sharma, the most exciting amongst Gen Next batsmen, but to the entire generation themselves. That if they are to be worthy of their place in an Indian XI, they need to show more proof of intent, to put that place beyond argument. Sharda Ugra in her blog on the India Today website feels the move is imperative if some distant, shining 'future' is to be secured.
John Wright, the former India coach who is now in the running to succeed John Buchanan as Kolkata Knight Riders' coach, is in India with the New Zealand A side. If he signs up with Kolkata, he will be reuniting with Sourav Ganguly, who was the national captain during his five-year stint with India. In an interview with the Hindu, Wright talks about working with Ganguly, impact of Twenty20, the future of Test and more.
Q. Another intrepid batsman, Virender Sehwag, blossomed under you. You believed in his special ability.
A. His success tells you that sometimes trusting your instinct could produce swifter and more accurate results. People talk about his lack of footwork but at the point where the bat makes contact with the ball, he is technically good. He has a still head, shows the full face of the bat, had a solid base. Yes, he got opportunities to open during my time and took off.
The ex-ICL players now have to chance to shine in the mainstream, having been included in the IPL scheme. The players, who have been ignored for almost two years, will be eager to show the world what they are capable of. Harsha Bhogle, in the Indian Express, writes on the positive effects of the return of the ICL cricketers and also comments on the BCCI giving away grant money to organisations like the AIFF.
For those players this represents the opportunity of a lifetime—not just the IPL but all of Indian cricket. A lot of those players will be hungry, eager to cast off the tag of little league players and they would have grown substantially in two years. When doors are shutting on you and when darkness beckons even a sliver of light brings hope. These players have known what it is to contemplate life without cricket and with their lifeline within reach they will swim harder to get there. At any rate they should because you squander life’s lessons at your own peril.
Can you write a book on India-Pakistan cricket without ever having watched a match in Pakistan? India's Minister of State for External Affairs and former diplomat Shashi Tharoor can, and that too without seeming out of depth, writes Clayton Murzello in the Mid-Day.
Tharoor proudly claimed that he wrote about Sachin Tendulkar in the late 1980s in the Club Cricketer magazine in England, after Sunil Gavaskar had talked to him about this young gun who could become a great. Tharoor told a few of us how he wrote that Gavaskar had led very poorly during the home series against David Gower's Englishmen in 1984-85.
The editor of the magazine he was writing decided to amplify things after Tharoor filed in his "tough but fair" piece. The next issue rolled out with the headline: "OUT! Is Gavaskar the worst captain India's ever had?" Naturally, it created a sense of apprehension when he came face to face with Gavaskar. After all, he did not write what the headline said. The name of the author just didn't ring a bell, "it sprang", but Tharoor stressed Gavaskar took it sportingly.
Though indisputably one of the legends of our time, is Sachin Tendulkar a real match-winner? The question indicates there are others far more consistent in winning matches for their countries. Admittedly, not many can beat Tendulkar where consistency is concerned but his contribution to winning matches takes a beating compared to Inzamam-ul- Haq and Ricky Ponting. Makarand Waingankar analyses in the Hindu.
BCCI president Shashank Manohar refused to speculate on the inevitable fallout of the Indian board's non-compliance with the ICC's anti-doping code. It is unlikely that he and his colleagues have not made the calculations on the likely implications, especially with the resolution against the BCCI requiring the consent of the seven ICC members. Vijay Tagore has more in Daily News & Analysis.
Even before the overrated controversy around a reality show, Vinod Kambli and Sachin Tendulkar were drifting apart. Akshay Sawai narrates the moving story of what was once a pure and improbable friendship between a boy from the shanties and a professor’s son, in the latest issue of Open magazine.
True, a bad childhood does not end with childhood. It stays. But there was enough fortune in Vinod Kambli’s adult life for him to break free from the attitudes that an unfortunate child has. Time and again, Vinod began to use his past as an excuse to cross the line.
In this week's Outlook Rohit Mahajan looks at dwindling ticket sales in India and says that in order to save Test cricket in these very commercial times, audiences must be made an interested party.
There’s also politics to countenance—matches are allotted by turn and often, critics say, with prejudice. An official of the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) complains there are few matches in Calcutta, which has always drawn huge crowds for Tests, because the CAB is headed by Jagmohan Dalmiya, who’s daggers drawn with the current BCCI czars. Empty new stadiums, destitute of ambience, can hardly be expected to generate interest in the classic format of the game for those in their early teens.
Indian players are unhappy at a clause that requires them to detail their whereabouts for an hour every day for the next three months to allow random drug testing. And its an issue that has created a buzz in the Indian media. Writing in the Hindustan Times, Pradeep Magazine believes players already have enough on their plates to now be subjected to one more assault, this time on their right to privacy.
Since the International Cricket Council is now a signatory to the WADA rules, it cannot escape by giving this somewhat naïve reasoning to escape the edict. What it could possibly have done is protested and told WADA that it can't force cricketers to be available, even if it is for one hour of the day, for these tests. Since cricket is not immune to protests and where adjusting powerful lobbies even at the expense of breaking rules is not uncommon, this draconian rule can be challenged by a cricketing body even at the peril of being sanctioned by the world Olympic body.
Get set for a new-look Tamil Nadu team this domestic season. A month ago, 13 ICL cricketers were sitting at home with nothing to do and wondering when they would return to playing competitive sport. Having returned to the official fold, all are performing with a vengeance in the competitive Chennai league. Anand Vasu of the Hindustan Times caught up with a few of them.
“I had mixed feelings about how I would be welcomed back,” India cricketer Hemang Badani said. “But I knew that the only thing to do was to score runs. In the last year I have hardly played the longer version, so to bat six hours after being on the field for one-and-a-half days was tiring.”
Disturbed and traumatised at reports that he had slammed his childhood friend on a TV show, Vinod Kambli tells Mid-day's Clayton Murzello of Sachin Tendulkar's reaction and more. Excerpts:
Have you slept well?
Yes (laughs). The first night was bad (after the news came out) because it was unexpected. I am never into any controversy and will certainly not get into anything like this.
The whole case has everyone guessing. Is Vinod Kambli telling the truth in his denial? Did he actually say something against Sachin? Are we being fooled?
I don't think the public will be fooled. People know who I am and I am sure they have heard various people from the cricketing fraternity on television. Many have come out and supported me and I thank them. And yes, there were some who pretended to be my friends, but were actually stabbing me in the back.
Is this a publicity stunt?
I don't need publicity at this stage of my life. I have played for India well enough to be known.
Abhishek Nayar featured in two one-day internationals, both against the West Indies recently, but is yet to register any relevant statistic against his name. He didn’t get to bat in either game, didn’t need to bowl, and wasn’t even involved in a catch or run-out while fielding. With the list of players to have made the Indian squad but not the playing XI being a long one, is Nayar's career heading the same way as that of RB Nimbalkar, Gopal Bose, Devaraj Govindaraj, Padmakar Shivalkar, SS Paul, Gagandeep Singh, Rajesh Powar, Ranadeb Bose, Pankaj Singh and the like? GS Vivek finds out in the Indian Express.
Pradeep Magazine, in the Hindustan Times, feels that picking Dravid for the ODI squad is a step in the wrong direction, especially at a time when the Indian team should look to move forward and plan for the future. Srikkanth has said that the country has a vast reservoir of young talent, perhaps it is time to give them a go instead.
True a Gautam Gambhir or a Rohit Sharma should not take their places in the team for granted. The whole world by now also knows that Suresh Raina has serious shortcomings when the ball climbs to his ribcage, but the return of Dravid, at best, can be a temporary solution. It can’t serve any useful long-term purpose and what Kris Srikkanth’s selection panel has done is take one step backward while trying to move ahead, especially when the same people never tire of reminding us that India has a vast reservoir of young talent. So, why not dip into that and find right answers to genuine problems, instead of recalling a man who himself may be finding it mystifying that he is back in the one-day squad.
Former Indian opener Sunil Gavaskar has turned 60 today. The Hindustan Times' Anand Vasu asks him about the World Cup win in 1983, the walkout in Melbourne in 1981, his relationship with Kapil Dev and more.
When you started, where did the self-belief come from and what made your success possible?
To be honest, I did not have plenty of self-belief when I made my debut
But I was optimistical- ly confident and maybe that helped me. The fact that I was an opening batsman from schooldays helped me enormously in developing a method to combat attacks.The fact that I had to wait so long to play for Mumbai in the Ranji Trophy made me determined, and I think determination and concentration were the key.
In the same paper, Gavaskar's uncle, Madhav Mantri, the former Indian wicketkeeper, remembers Gavaskar's early days - from being mixed up with another baby in the hospital where he was born, to earning his first school cap.
Also read Ayaz Memon's interview of Sunil Gavaskar on cricinfo.com.
Who better to talk about Gavaskar than Sachin Tendulkar? The Master Blaster's close association with Gavaskar goes back to Sachin's school days, and continues to date. Sachin talks about his experiences with Gavaskar in the Hindustan Times.
During our first few meetings, it was one-way traffic as I hardly spoke. For one, I was in awe of him, and then, I wanted to make the most of being privy to the wisdom of Sunil Gavaskar. When our coaches told us to follow a particular routine and we asked why, the reply was:”SMG did this”. He was the ultimate example, and to our coaches and to us, if he did something, then we had to do it as well.
Initially, Gavaskar wanted to be a doctor. He also also mentions that playing in his balcony helped him practice with a straight bat. Read many more interesting facts about Gavaskar in his interview with Lokendra Pratap Sahi in the Telegraph.
And on Cricketweb, Swaranjeet Singh writes that Sunil Gavaskar was just the sort hero Indian cricket fans were craving for.
We were fed up of being the good guys who were happy to come second. Players who had long been playing for their batting averages than for the side ... Players who were always individuals and never members of a 'Team India' that never existed. And finally, players most of who were widely accepted as being uncomfortable (to put it mildly) against the quicker stuff. Sunil Gavaskar circa 1971 changed all that.
Veteran cricket journalist Partab Ramchand writes in Dreamcricket that Indian cricket can be divided into two eras - before Gavaskar and after Gavaskar.
It was Mr Worthington, the Indian school team probables coach, who changed Sunil Gavaskar's game completely in 1966 from a front-on position to side-on in 30 days. That's the been the biggest turning point in the batting maestro's career. Clayton Murzello in Mid-Day gets him to talk on a variety of subjects from sports officialdom to the 1981 Melbourne walkout, on the occassion of his 60th birthday.
One colleague/friend you miss most?
Eknath Solkar for sure. We grew up together as cricketers. We used to ride in buses from the Brabourne Stadium. Ekki would get off at the Hindu Gymkhana while Milind Rege and me used to proceed to Nana Chowk. I really miss Ekki and we had some wonderful times. After nets we used to go out for idli dosa. Often it would be three masala dosas shared by the three of us. Two lassis shared too. And we were always fighting about paying the bus fare. Ekki was such a simple guy but was very confident of himself. I miss 'Kaka' (Ashok) Mankad too and Sardeeman (Dilip Sardesai) but I miss Ekki the most.
Rohit Sharma and Suresh Raina have an abundance of talent, but their perfromances on the field haven't stacked up high enough. In the Indian Express, Harsha Bhogle asks if Sharma and Raina can grow from T20 stars to being consistent in all forms of the game.
It is a call that Rohit Sharma and others like Suresh Raina must take. Do they want to make T20 their universe, exist as a series of short, incandescent bursts, where failure is frequented as often as success? Or do they want to take their extraordinary ability towards other horizons? It is not as easy a decision as it seems for sooner or later they will be confronted by that enemy of ambition — the comfort factor. A sharp fast bowler who makes life uncomfortable can only come at you for 12 balls, or maybe even six (notice how T20 is slowly replacing the word ‘over’). There are always a couple of bowlers you can punish. And forty five minutes is about as long an innings will last.
When did you last take a train ride for the sheer pleasure of the journey? When did you last lie on the grass and stare at the clouds for half a winter’s day? When did you last spend a day at home watching movies back to back? What do these questions have to with cricket, you ask? Samar Halarnkar writes in the Hindustan Times that the world changed before we realised it, that it became flatter, and we started living 24/7/365. And that, in turn, has distracted us from Test cricket.
The purists may fume, and the experts may fulminate, but I believe Test cricket is ready to go the way of the Premier Padmini, the record player and the Bajaj Chetak. Everything that is iconic has a time, an era. After watching the frenetic energy, the raucous fans, the heady mix of modern glamour and cricket and the sheer number of T20 games this year, I am convinced that the era of Test cricket is nearly done.
Piyush Chawla, the Indian legspinner, has enjoyed his stint with Sussex where he won a lot of fans and been hailed as the county's new Mushtaq. Devendra Pandey interviews him in the Indian Express:
The biggest compliment for Chawla came during his game.Ashe started the county stint with six-wickets in an innings, the Sussex fans couldn’t believe their luck. Mushtaq wasn’t just replaced a similar looking short leggie but the new recruit also seemed to have a knack of taking a bagful of wickets. “After that game I heard the fans calling me ‘Pushy’.
The Independent's Brian Viner meets Sachin Tendulkar at a store in Covent Garden outside which fans have packed to get a glimpse of the star just as they would in Mumbai. He asks Tendulkar about coaching plans, the price of fame, the most memorable century and who he fancies in the Ashes.
Perhaps, I venture provocatively, coaching won't come naturally. He wouldn't be the first sporting colossus to struggle to refine in others what to himself has always come instinctively. How easy, for example, does he find it to instruct his young son in the batting arts? He smiles. "He is only nine and he just wants to smash the ball. I encourage him to do that, because above all he should love the sport. If he loves it, the rest will follow. I have not forced him into it. We hardly discussed cricket for the first four or five years of his life, but it seems to be in his heart. It is hard to judge how good he will be. Cricket is not just about physical ability, it is also about mental ability, adapting to different conditions and situations. It is hard to judge the mentality of a boy of nine."
The cricket world, or at least those in India, are scratching their heads over the staging of a four-ODI series in the West Indies at the end of a brutally long season. Partab Ramchand, writing on the Yahoo! website, finds one compelling reason for the series - a chance for India to end the season on a high.
Normally, a lightning four-match ODI series in the West Indies should not be of any particular importance. However, given the backdrop of the debacle in England the series has assumed uncommon significance for the Indian team. Dhoni obviously wants the team to do very well and win the series. It may be only a consolation win coming as it does after the disastrous showing in the World Cup but Indian cricket in the present situation will certainly welcome it.
Cricket is in the midst of a year of seismic changes. Between this summer and the next, the shortest form of the game — Twenty20 — will likely become the dominant product. But with India's early exit from any world tournament is a costly loss to organisers and sponsors. Indian cricket’s sponsors and stakeholders are going to do a rethink, writes Ashok Malik in the Sunday Pioneer.
Already, the IPL authorities are talking of two such tournaments every year — one in India in April, the other overseas, in different countries each year. Where will this leave the world cup? It may see high quality cricket but Indian money will not flow in unless Indian success is assured. That’s the harsh, cynical truth. The point is Indian cricket and the IPL are becoming like English football. The cash, the fans and the frenzy are in the English Premier League, in Manchester United and Arsenal. English clubs are paramount; the England team and its performance in the European Nations Cup or FIFA World Cup is a lesser priority. That’s not always how fans see it. They would love England to win the World Cup every time. Yet, in the absence of that, they’re happy to settle for domestic stars in a domestic league. The sponsors and the very business of sport propel them in that direction. As Dhoni and company come back from their hang-dog T20 world cup campaign, will India too retreat into the League of its own? In 2010, will the IPL dwarf the T20 world cup and, indeed, all international cricket?
Though India have crashed out of the World Twenty20 without a single win, Kunal Pradhan writes in the Indian Express that says the over-the-top criticism of MS Dhoni must stop. In a sarcasm-laden piece, he marvels at how quickly fans forget Dhoni's many successes as both captain and batsman over the past 20 months.
His captaincy has been dissected, his mistakes magnified, his effigies burnt (it sounds like a pretty good job in India, making effigies — income guaranteed, even in times of recession). Not because we enjoy parading on the streets with banners and torches but because our national pride (which, 62 years after independence, rides on which side of a three-run result we finish on) has been hurt.
Defending champions India's lacklustre campaign reminds Dileep Premachandran of the insipid performance of holders Argentina at the 1982 football World Cup and France 20 years later. Read on in the Guardian.
Over at Dreamcricket Suresh Menon says India's early exit may have postponed the date on which Twenty20 takes over from Tests. And in the Wisden Cricketer Lawrence Booth says the IPL isn't to blame for India's failings.
In the Hindu, Makarand Waingankar writes that a delightful outcome of effective strategy management in the T20 format is the emergence and handling of spinners. Taking Pragyan Ojha as an example, both Dhoni and Kirsten have used him as an attacking bowler, primarily to take wickets without being too bothered about leaking the odd boundary.
In Wadekar’s and Hemu Adhikari’s scheme of things, they needed to block one end up with Venkat and attack with Bedi and Chandrashekar. And being a brilliant close in-fielder, Venkataraghavan added value to his presence on the field. Pataudi used Abid Ali and Eknath Solkar in close in fielding positions while picking all three attacking spinners. Both the moves worked well.
In the Indian Express, Deepak Narayanan catches up with the creator of Twenty20, Stuart Robertson, who's been maintaining a low profile of late.
Partab Ramchand, in the Indian Express, profiles the late MJ Gopalan, one of India's few double internationals, on his hundredth birth anniversary. He represented India in cricket and hockey.
In 1936, he was on the horns of a dilemma having to choose between the cricket tour of England and a sure gold medal with the hockey team at the Berlin Olympics. Gopalan decided on the former and with the benefit of hindsight probably made the wrong decision for while India predictably won the gold medal at Berlin the cricket tour was an unhappy one marred by controversies.
Rohit Sharma's 53-ball 80 carried India to an emphatic victory in the much-anticipated warm-up game against Pakistan on Wednesday. Harsha Bhogle writes in the Indian Express that Rohit's performance is the sort that the new breed of Indian cricketer, who emerged in 2004, likes to play. "Fearless, confident, willing to live for the day and for whom a shot was a calculated gamble, not a risk-free effort," is how Bhogle describes the new type of Indian player.
With Sharma, as with Raina and Sehwag and Yuvraj and Gambhir, you sit back and enjoy, not get frustrated because they are not playing the way you want them to. It is a different generation; ideas of restraint and conformity and frugality have long been replaced, having a dark side is not worth a sleepless night, the first ball can be hit over mid-wicket from just behind a good length.
Mohammad Azharuddin, the former Indian captain, has become a Member of Parliament after winning on a Congress ticket. The Indian Express' Kunal Pradhan met him during his campaign in Moradabad in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.
As we started chatting in the next room, away from the local netas who had assembled to help chart out his campaign, it was clear that Azharuddin was seeking more than an election to the lower house of Parliament. It was his last attempt at redemption, at finally putting the match-fixing nightmare behind him by seeking acceptance from the people he had once wowed with his finesse at the crease.
For Sachin Tendulkar fans, here’s an interesting site. CV Williams, an Australian writer, is producing a biography of Tendulkar and will release a new chapter online each week. In this instalment Tendulkar's life as a child is covered.
He was a sweet boy like the others. But one of the outstanding qualities about Sachin has always been his determination during training as well as during a game. Some say he overtrains, to this day. As a boy he would run with more vigour, do more push ups than the other boys, demand that it was his turn to bat more often, hit more runs, and play on more maidans around the district, as his coach ‘Achrekar Sir’ ferried him from maidan to maidan on the back of his scooter on game days. And most likely he had more fun.
What's with MS Dhoni? He is a marvellous wicketkeeper, he bats like a brute, he captains and looks cheerful while doing it. Son of a pump house operator, he is today the world's highest paid cricketer. Wax he born under a special star or is he the luckiest man alive, asks Sanipan Deb in the Open Magazine. Turn to page 17 to read more.
An ongoing debate among former international cricketers and connoisseurs of the game in Mumbai is about the difference in Sunil Gavaskar's and Sachin Tendulkar's style of play. Makarand Waigankar in the Hindu believes it is unfair to conclude that one style is necessarily better than the other, for the craft and technique has to be continually perfected to suit the era and the kind of cricket that is played.
If Gavaskar was a run machine, Tendulkar used the bat like an AK-47. When former Mumbai Test players saw Tendulkar play a Test at 15, they were all convinced that because of his peculiar bottom hand grip he would be sorted out by professional international bowlers. However, Tendulkar was not prepared to be a slave of any technique.
After a great run in New Zealand, India had their first two poor days in Napier when MS Dhoni was forced to sit out of the match due to back spasms, and at a time when John Buchanan is advocating more power to coaches, the inexplicable influence of Dhoni’s captaincy must be reinvigorating for skippers around the world, writes Kunal Pradhan in the Indian Express.
Slowly, evidence is emerging to suggest that somehow the life gets sucked out of the team when Dhoni is not on the field. It’s not about field placements and bowling changes, there’s something more, something intangible, that seems to walk off with him.
And the really strange part is that there aren’t really any obvious signs of his genius when he is marshalling his resources in the middle. There are no famous trump-card decisions to be quoted — nothing like Don Bradman inverting the line-up on a wet pitch, Martin Crowe opening the bowling with a spinner, Clive Lloyd allowing Geoff Boycott to bat on, or Sourav Ganguly making Steve Waugh wait for the toss.
Sufiyan Shaikh is bound for Australia with the Indian Under-19 team as its wicketkeeper, but for a change, he won't be sneaking off without his father's knowledge. When he used to return home from sub-junior matches, his father used to beat him up because he could never understand his son's wish to play the game. However, he has now turned a new leaf. G Krishnan has the full story in the Hindustan Times.
Sufiyan Shaikh will play cricket for India, but he just can't talk to his father about it. Shaikh's journey from the labyrinthine lanes of Crawford Market to wicketkeeper of the India under-19 squad that will tour Australia next month speaks of rare grit and a whole lot of pain.
Former Indian captain Bishan Bedi is typically blunt in his criticism of the IPL, and the BCCI's insistence on holding the Twenty20 event at the same time as the general elections in India. He writes in Outlook:
Terror clouds are hovering over the subcontinent ... But if some are least bothered about the dangers lying ahead, they are the BCCI and its ancillary, the IPL governing council. They're blissfully unaware of terrorists who might lurk in general elections booths as well as in IPL venues.
The BCCI is adamant that both the elections and the IPL can run smoothly with proper distribution of security forces—some wishful thinking that.
Mohammed Azharuddin has become the latest Indian cricketer to join politics, after the likes of Navjot Sidhu and Kirti Azad, though it's not clear whether he will be a candidate in the forthcoming general elections. Another former captain, the iconic Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, was unsuccessful in both his attempts to enter the Lok Sabha, the lower house of Parliament. Lokendra Pratap Sahi in theTelegraph, the Kolkata daily, gets Pataudi to talk politics.
Why do cricketers get attracted to politics?
Usually, they get invited by some party or the other... Their advantage is that they don’t have to introduce themselves from any platform… That way, there’s probably 30 per cent less work to do... If, for example, a relatively unknown person stands for elections, then that person’s entire history has to be repeated at every gathering.
There's still perhaps time for the Cricket Club of India (CCI) to negotiate a fair deal with IPL that will be in the best interests of their world-renowned club and the game of cricket, as well as Mumbai's cricket fanatics for whom there is no greater joy than witnessing a game at the delightful Brabourne Stadium. Khalid Ansari in his column in Mid-Day calls for the ego and arrogance to be cast aside, and wants the club to maintain its democratic view and usher in the younger generation.
D Ranganathan, or Don Rangan, is the subject of V Ramnarayan's latest post on his blog Stumped. If Shane Warne managed to get the best out of young players at the Rajasthan Royals in the IPL last year, Rangan did it year in, year out in Madras while running Nungambakkam Sports Club A in the 1960s.
D Ranganathan—for that is his full name—was a cocky little fellow, all muscle and sinew, very fit, a fiercely combative cricketer quite unlike the gentle Madras stereotype of his time. A competent, workmanlike but always positive opening batsman, he was aggression personified as a wicket keeper, not afraid to stand up to fast bowlers, and capable of the most convincing histrionics while appealing to the umpire. He was also a more than useful medium pacer, a facet of his cricket he never let us forget, resorting as he invariably did to the discarding of his gloves and pads to have a go at the batsman. His supreme confidence usually resulted in the breaking up of a troublesome partnership, enabling Rangan to crow over his success where others had failed. He always had a chip on his shoulder about being ignored as a player by officialdom and running his own club like a prince was his way of challenging the establishment. He not only scored tons of runs and won most of his matches, but made sure these victories were made possible by stellar contributions from other players the official selectors had overlooked. He was an original, not an imitation of some Test cricketer he admired. If there was anyone he hero-worshipped, it had to be Rangan himself. Virtually unbeatable in the lower divisions of the TNCA league, his team was a dark horse capable of toppling the best in the senior division, once it was promoted to that level of combat.
In an interview with Deccan Herald, Indian cricket great Gundappa Viswanath, on his 60th birthday, shares the memories of his century on debut against Australia in Kanpur in 1969, his experience with various roles in Indian cricket following his retirement and some of the issues affecting the game today.
I really enjoyed my playing years. Some people still say that I deserved to complete 100 Tests but I have no regrets. These things happen in cricket. Look at someone like (Mohd) Azharuddin, he got stuck at 99. Imagine how he would be feeling. To be frank, I always expected to come back after I was dropped, but the selectors thought I wasn’t good enough to get my place back in the side. Fair enough. Later, I became a selector and I had to drop a few players. This, I believe, put things in perspective.
Rahul Dravid, speaking to R Kaushik in the same newspaper, feels Viswanath is a role model for any young cricket aspirant from Bangalore.
In Mid-day, Dravid also salutes Viswanath in a special column.
In the Hindu, KC Vijaya Kumar also catches up with Viswanath.
Anil Kumble pays tribute to him in the Times of India. Click here for e-paper link.
Another prominent feature was his exemplary conduct and good nature, which has left a mark on anyone who has interacted with him, on or off the field. He constantly encouraged me during the period I was dropped from the Indian team, and guided me into maintaining self belief and determination. His absolute classy style of batting was a treat to the eye, and reminiscent of an era where lots of high quality Test match cricket took place. In the modern era of abundant limited overs cricket, we may never see the skills of another Vishy flourish, although one has to accept the reality of the changing times.
The HoldingWilley report is a detailed analysis on greatness, in which the thinktank has concluded that Rahul Dravid is India's greatest player. This is HoldingWilley's first country-specific special report and they have stuck to India for starters. Since Test cricket is the highest form of the game, and what players are most judged by, and since it is the only form that links eras, the men who matter decided to base their rankings exercise exclusively on this. ODI cricket therefore has been completely ignored here.
Over the past year, Rahul Dravid has not been in the best of form and though he has learnt a lot from his recent failures never did he think about walking away from the game. In an interview to Nihal Koshie in Daily News & Analysis he confesses that he still loves the game and enjoys playing it, even if it is a match in the Ranji or Duleep Trophy.
'I just try and enjoy it and hopefully I will know that when I am not enjoying it. The thumb rule is as long as I can enjoy... coming to the gym, practising and training... I will keep doing it. Hopefully, I will get to know some day when I am not enjoying it and that will be the time to walk away.'
The mess between the unsanctioned Indian Cricket League and Indian cricket's governing body, the BCCI, continues. Refusing to be snuffed out, the ICL now prepares to breach the BCCI's rigid defences against it, writes Rohit Mahajan in Outlook.
Though the ICL and the BCCI refused to discuss the matter, those familiar with the developments in the ICL camp say the BCCI's tactics are designed to tire them out and discredit Kapil. "For instance, by asking if there were allegations of match-fixing against him and not asking if he was found guilty, they wanted to establish that his credibility is questionable," says an ICL source.
The case of Gujarat offspinner Mohnish Parmar is becoming curiouser and curiouser. It has been three years since doubts were raised by umpires and players regarding his now infamous doosra and yet the BCCI let him play in all the domestic tournaments. He was even picked for India ‘A’, writes Makarand Waingankar in the Hindu.
Parmar who relies more on his doosra than any other variety is not convinced that his action is suspect and that is the real problem. Unlike Laxmipathy Balaji who was convinced that he needed to remodel his action after the back injury if at all he had to get back to competitive cricket, Parmar feels he will lose the doosra if he changes the action.
Players such as Sunil Joshi, Ranadeb Bose and Yere Goud performed consistently in the Ranji season gone by and they deserve to be commended, but that does not serve any purpose when one is looking at the future. Not many new players announced themselves last season, writes WV Raman in the Sportstar.
So, yet another edition of the Ranji Trophy concluded with Mumbai re-emerging champions. The long drawn season produced some outstanding performances but the worrying factor is that not many new players have announced themselves barring a few such as Abhinav Mukund and Dhawal Kulkarni. The bench strength is derived from this premier championship and hence it is of paramount importance that new names crop up and gain attention ...
... The selectors were diligent as they watched the Ranji matches but the lack of quality spinners must be a worrying factor. Pragyan Ojha and Ashwin are the names that crop up in people’s minds but both of them need to improve upon their consistency.
India's new young allrounder Ravindra Jadeja has blazed a glittering trail through domestic cricket, writes Dileep Premachandran in the Guardian.
By the time the Royals romped home, Jadeja had 36 from 25 balls, and though Watson was the star of the show, the two Shanes – Warne being the other – lavished praise on the 19-year-old left-hander. "We identified him as a special talent straight away," said Warne, while Watson was just as complimentary: "He was hitting it wherever he wanted, against bowlers of the quality of Brett Lee." Warne later had the headline writers in a tizzy by referring to Jadeja as a "superstar in the making". Nine months on, the rave reviews don't look as ridiculous.
Virender Sehwag once said the only difference between him and Tendulkar was in their bank balance. But now he says that was said in jest and he can’t be half as good as his idol. In an interview with PTI, Sehwag talks about his admiration for Tendulkar, his face-offs with Shoaib Akhtar and his initial reluctance to blitz his way to a 69-ball 83 in the record chase in Chennai.
It was Tendulkar who guided India to its biggest ever chase on home soil — a target of 387 against England in Chennai — a few weeks ago. But you set up the win on the fourth evening with a blistering 83 off 69 balls. Did you plan that innings?
On the contrary, I didn’t want to hit those fours. I kept telling Gautam (Gambhir) that I wouldn’t hit fours. But they kept bowling short and I kept square-cutting. And they all were fours. Out of the first eight fours, six were from square-cuts. Gautam just told me to bat as I normally do. But I really didn’t want to hit fours on the fourth evening!
Image and injury ensure that there is a high turnover of players in the Indian team. However, it is always more difficult to return to the team after being dropped than to get into it in the first place though sometimes, the image works in favour of the player too. Suresh Menon in his column on Dreamcricket.com believes an ounce of image is worth a pound of performance but not when it works against the player.
Rahul Dravid, now re-established in the team, was luckier than most simply because he was Dravid, and his image was that of a player for whom failure was a stranger.
In the current team, Yuvraj has laboured for long under the weight of his image as a casual player, unable or unwilling to buckle down to serious business. A place in the Test team seldom falls into the lap of a player, and most of those who have got that far are conscious of this. Yet some players pick up such a reputation, and few are able to shake it off.
"Both Gautam and I have a long way to go before becoming the best in the world. We have to be more consistent to get that tag. After all, it’s been less than a year since we are opening consistently for India," Virender Sehwag speaks to Indranil Basu in the Times of India.
Did Gautam Gambhir’s form in 2008 surprise you?
Not at all. I always had tremendous faith in Gautam’s ability to do well at the highest level. It’s not easy for anyone to get big scores from the word go in international cricket. When Gautam started playing international cricket, he was young and learning.
I am glad that he has done what I expected from him. In the absence of a player like Sourav Ganguly, Gautam is doing a perfect job. The best thing about his batting is the way he changes his game according to the situation. If he is playing a Twenty20, he is aggressive and in Tests, he is calm and composed. That augurs well for the team.
G Viswanath, writing in the Hindu, lauds Wasim Jaffer for the manner in which he's led the Mumbai team in the Ranji Trophy, and traces his success as an opening batsman to his formative years as a cricketer in Mumbai's National Cricket Club.
Raised on the turf wickets of the city and in an environment that encouraged the gifted, Jaffer has flourished right from the time he began hitting ball at the Anjuman Islam School nets and in the highly competitive inter-school tournaments.
Once the ambitious right-hander enrolled as member of the National Cricket Club, Cross Maidan, where former India opener Sudhir Naik became his mentor, Jaffer has not looked back.
High scoring encounters on flat tracks where bowlers stand no chance, and high profile matches played a neutral venues that have failed to draw crowds, have adversely affected the Ranji Trophy competition, writes Bobilli Vijay Kumar in the Times of India.
The matches puffed and heaved till the final evening but the verdict was out on the first morning itself: in India, batsmen are kings; everybody else immaterial. Runs were there for the taking and it was just a question of not losing one's patience or interest. Inevitably, the ball cried as the bat danced.
........
It isn't just about the absence of any semblance of competition though: why were the stands littered with ghosts, rather than real people? Why wasn't there any excitement despite the presence of at least a handful of stars?
Sachin Tendulkar airs his opinions on night Tests, the switch-hit, over-rates, world domination and more in an interview with the Hindu.
The switch-hit is an interesting innovation. What’s your take on this controversial stroke?
I don’t really know the leg-before call for the umpire once the batsman changes his stance. If his stance is that of a right-hander, I believe, the umpire should regard him as a right-hander irrespective of whether he changes his stance or not. (Then, he gets up, stands straight facing the imaginary umpire, holding the imaginary bat between his legs). What am I now? Am I a right-hander or a left-hander? The stance is extremely important and the umpire should ask the batsman the question at the start — “Are you a right-hander or a left-hander.” You have various issues here. If I keep three slips for a batsman and then he plays the switch hit, he can claim a no-ball since the rules do not allow more than two fielders behind square on the leg side.
Makarand Waingankar, in the Hindu writes about the Duleep School of Cricket in Porbandar, founded by Kumar Shri Duleepsinhji, and says the facilities are not being utilised to its fullest potential.
The Maharaja, who was the captain of the Indian team that toured England in 1932, had observed that the Indians needed proper practice facilities for fast bowling and playing fast bowling, for the players to excel in international cricket.
Some of the top Indian cricketers visited and benefited from the Duleep School and, going by the documents available, they were all grateful to the Maharaja for making some lovely cement pitches.
If the BCCI can have a tournament named after Duleepsinhji for close to 50 years, surely it can also revive the school which was launched two months before India became independent. It will be a boon to young cricketers from every region. It seems we had more foresight before independence than after it.
Gautam Gambhir, the Indian batsman, tells the Times of India that the years spent on the fringes of the national team have increased his appetite for runs. He also talks about his disappointment over Delhi's early exit from the Ranji Trophy, and demands more accountability from the selectors and officials concerned with the team.
My biggest low in 2008 was to miss the last Test against Australia in Nagpur. I was batting well in that series. It was horrible to see the match from the sideline. When your team is winning, you obviously want to be there with your team-mates.
Sanjib Guha, writing in DNA, looks at the new bunch of Indian batsman who are vying for a place in the Test side.
Only a while back the names of Wasim Jaffer, Mohammad Kaif, S Badrinath, Manoj Tiwary, Rohit Sharma, Suresh Raina and Robin Uthappa were thought of when any of the Fab Five were unavailable.
But in a recent development, another lot comprising Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Ravindra Jadeja, Abhinav Mukund and Murali Vijay have pushed themselves into the limelight.
Watching the Australia-South Africa series has been an education in how much India have lost in recent years as a cricketing nation, writes Suresh Menon on dreamcricket.com.
We may have the better players, more stadiums, infinitely more money and the loudest voice in world cricket but in one are we have regressed. Indian fans have, in recent years, become an embarrassment. It was wonderful to see the Melbourne crowd (around 42,000, which would be large in most stadiums, but filled less than half of MCG) responding to cricket's latest star Jean Paul Duminy.
Today, a visiting cricketer has little chance of being roundly applauded in many of our stadiums. Centuries are received in stunned silence - as if by scoring a hundred, a Ponting or a Hayden has somehow upset the natural order of things. A boundary by a visitor almost passes unnoticed by a crowd which cheers every time an Ishant Sharma plays the forward defensive stroke.
Makarand Waigankar, writing in the Hindu, feels the quality of cricket played in the Ranji Trophy will only improve if some significant changes are introduced. He suggests league matches be played at neutral venues to avoid possible manipulation of pitches in favour of the host team, and that each innings be reduced to 90 overs to make games more competitive.
An ideal solution could be for the league matches to be played at neutral venues too. The BCCI curator’s committee could oversee the preparation of the pitches and we could expect good standard pitches as the onus will then be on the pitch committee.
............
To make the Ranji Trophy more interesting, each innings should be restricted to 90 overs only. A bonus point for number of centuries and five-wicket hauls could make the teams play with more planning and responsibility. And we would get to watch quality cricket.
The BBC's cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew is in no doubt that the tedious last day of the Mohali Test did little to boost the appeal of the longer version of the game. In his final tour blog, he writes:
How sad it is, after such an entertaining six weeks here, that India should have treated this final match with such contempt.
I really hoped that this attitude to Test cricket had died years ago.
It is no wonder that the five-day game is facing a battle for survival in this part of the world if the captain and coach approach it like this, with absolutely no consideration to spectators, sponsors and a huge television audience.
I am faced with a dilemma, caught in a struggle, on the one side of which lies my "responsibility" to the nation and the other to cricket and its followers, writes Pradeep Magazine in the Hindustan Times.
As a citizen of the world, I think India should go to Pakistan to play cricket just as England came here to do the same. It was, as is being said, to prove a point and pass on a message that the best way to defeat the designs of terrorists is to not play into their hands by being terrorised.
As an Indian citizen whose identity is being hijacked by those in power, just as it must be in Pakistan, I may have no choice but to side with those who believe that to punish the wrongdoings of a state you have to punish its people as well.
As 2008 comes to an end, Kadambari Murali Wade in the Hindustan Times has her wishlist for the BCCI and hopes the world's richest cricket body will wake up and address five pressing issues, including better TV production and having a 24-hour helpline for handling player stress.
You talk of transparency and accountability. So we ask you this --- are you really looking closely at what your state associations do with the double digit crores each gets annually as a share of TV rights, etc? Have you checked on the membership clauses, and how many relatives, even the personal staff of a secretary/president of an association, are voting members? Don't you find it strange that certain state units dole out almost monthly salaries in the range of Rs 50,000-100,000 as D.A. to their office-bearers? Or that others have elections after years? Or does nothing matter more than doling out favours for votes?
For, someone who had held the Indian batting together for almost a decade with his steely resolve and watertight technique, to be now considered the weak link in what is emerging as a champion side is, of course, replete with sadness and irony, writes Ayaz Memon in Daily News and Analysis.
Inexplicably, his form started to wane from the series against South Africa in late 2006 just when he looked set to rule, as batsman and captain, for a long time. It is a moot point whether there was not something on that tour which affected him badly mentally, because clearly, Dravid’s poor run of scores since is located more in the mind than in his technique.
Oodles of talent, consummate self-confidence and an insatiable hunger for success have enabled Cheteshwar Pujara score hundreds of Bradmanesque proportions in the Indian domestic season. Having scored 130 and 132 in the Buchi Babu tournament, he followed it up by back-to-back triple hundreds (386 and 309) in the C.K. Nayudu Trophy. Though a double failure followed, against Gujarat in the Ranji Trophy season opener, he came back with three consecutive centuries (302 not out, 189 and 176), and staked his claims for a place in the Test team. Excerpts from an interview to Haresh Pandya in Sportstar.
I don’t believe in comparisons. I don’t think you can have two similar individuals. Though I idolise Dravid, I must say I’ve never tried to imitate him even in my wildest of dreams. It just isn’t possible. He is a great batsman, a living legend. I’m my own man and I always try to be as natural and original as I can.
Business is dwindling across the world, and in hard times, industry duly moves away from play, to focus on the core business, writes Rohit Mahajan in Outlook.
The meltdown came even as IPL team owners were taking stock, glumly accepting that their projections were wide of the mark. The CEO of one of the IPL teams would privately admit, months before the meltdown, that the picture painted to his franchise was rosier than it actually was, that the talk of break-even timelines and monetising opportunities didn't have a strong basis. The downturn has now forced several rethinks and mid-course corrections.
Taking on responsibility is nothing new for Amit Mishra. As India's new legspinner prepares for the two Tests against England, Mishra recounts how cricket managed to transform the fortunes of his family and give them the good life they always dreamt of. GS Vivek of the Indian Express caught up with him in Delhi.
“I have seen life in a one-bedroom flat with four brothers and three sisters sharing space. There were times I used to go for practice without money to even buy a bus ticket. I have seen my brothers and parents struggle to make ends meet. All that made me more determined, it made me sweat extra hours because I knew if I made it big in cricket, I could fulfill my responsibility towards my family."
In the next couple of days, if not sooner, Indian fans will know for sure if England's aborted tour is revived or not; but Bobili Vijay Kumar in the Times of India says by just agreeing to come back to India, to the last man, they have shown that they still have a 'heart' somewhere in there.
Either ways, there is no doubt that the country will turn every stone to make this trip memorable. People, angry people, will surely turn out in huge numbers: and it will not be just to distract themselves from the pain or the fear; they will do so to show their new we-won't-take-cow-dung-anymore attitude.
Not just the annual day out with the family when she was young, the Taj Mahal Hotel also provided the setting for Sharda Ugra's grand plan to interview Imran Khan. In her blog on the India Today website, she checks in to a world of happy memories as she recounts how she used the Taj interviews - seven over two years - to beef up her CV and land her first job as sports reporter.
The Imran Khan interview was sold to the Afternoon Despatch & Courier newspaper for which we got paid Rs 200. This financial windfall was celebrated with a lavish gesture we believed emperors would struggle to match. We ascended the marble steps of the Taj foyer (more jauntily than we had ever done), walked right past our favourite lobby sofas, past what we imagined to be the astonished posse of security and sashayed into the Shamiana.
Greg Baum says in the Age international cricket must resume in India as soon as is decently and sensibly possible.
At a wretched time such as India is now enduring, sport has a role to play. It did after after World War II in England, it did after the tsunami in Sri Lanka and it does now. It was not cricket's fault that the bullets and bombs rained down in Mumbai, but cricket can help to begin the process of soothing and rebuilding. India needs to play cricket now and it needs the world to play with it.
In the Daily Telegraph Iain Payten also looks at the situation in India.
Leonard McDonnell, a freelance writer at the Sydney Morning Herald, asks is it any wonder that Test cricket is dying in today's remote-controlled, fast-paced, multi-channelled age of jump cuts, mouse clicks, and mobile media?
Reports of serious disagreement between Mahendra Singh Dhoni and the selectors during a meeting to pick the team for the fourth and fifth ODIs against England leaked to a newspaper will create an atmosphere of distrust between the captain and the selector in question, writes Sunil Gavaskar in his column on dreamcricket.com.
... make no mistake that selector is already known to Dhoni and he will have warned his teammates about him. It won't be a surprise too if the BCCI removes him at the next meeting because the Board is aware how much of a danger such a selector is to Indian cricket. Sure there will never be unanimity in selection meetings and there will invariably be a difference of opinion especially about choosing the fringe players in the squad. It is for this reason that the argument about the common man having faith in the selectors is important. This is a season where two senior players have already called it quits and there are questions about other seniors being asked. In such a scenario the common man needs to feel confident that those taking the call on the seniors know their onions and are not going to succumb to pressure from anywhere.
On the same website, Suresh Menon explains why there is no point in having televised selection meetings.
... the selection committee comprises five men with one single issue.
There is nothing to prevent the chairman having a working dinner at his house where the nitty gritty of selection is thrashed out, the deals are made so that selectors present a united face at the telecast meetings. In how many places are we to fix cameras to catch the selectors discussing selection?
Steve Waugh, writing in the Daily Telegraph, turns his sights towards Mumbai following the terrorist attacks there this week. India is a place he loves and he feels hurt by the events, but believes cricket has the chance to help the healing.
The game is on the verge of a crisis and clear, concise thinking will be required from the various cricketing bodies to make sure that the correct decisions are made. Time is a great healer but, much like 9/11, life on the subcontinent will never be the same. The need for security will be paramount and this will affect all facets of life.
My gut feeling is that cricket will see an interruption in the short term but business will resume as normal shortly afterwards. The game of cricket in India is a way of life and a symbol of hope and, as such, it has the ability to restore faith and instil confidence.
Rob Smyth argues in the Wisden Cricketer that despite a 50-plus Test average and a mind-boggling strike-rate, Virender Sehwag remains relatively under-appreciated.
Sehwag has been compared to Sachin Tendulkar, with whom he shares a bewitching little mastery, but a more relevant reference point is surely Lara. Like Lara, Sehwag scores monstrous hundreds at breakneck speed; like Lara, his form fluctuates wildly, surely a mark of the truest genius; like Lara, when the mood takes him there is absolutely nothing a bowler can do to avoid being pummeled.
The higher the stakes of a game, the worse is the selection politics. Lack of integrity and commitment, blatant nepotism and corruption are nothing new in Indian cricket’s selection process, writes Makarand Waingankar in the Mumbai Mirror.
I have spent decades in the profession to know how the system works. In 70s the selectors would openly discuss selections with senior journalists. Selectors were open to suggestions. This was never misused. We were told that Ajit Wadekar was given the choice between Abbas Ali Baig and Dilip Sardesai for the West Indies tour of 1971. Wadekar opted for Sardesai who went on to score heavily in the series. What’s wrong if Dhoni had asked for RP Singh to be retained?
In the Mid-Day, Clayton Murzello recounts past incidents in which the captain did not agree with the selectors.
The most riveting of examples in Indian cricket is the Polly Umrigar incident in 1958-59. The captain wanted a batsman for the fourth Test in Chennai against West Indies after the sudden resignation of captain Ghulam Ahmed and the pulling out of star batsman Vijay Manjrekar. Umrigar wanted Mumbai's Manohar Hardikar but the selectors (headed by Lala Amarnath) did not give in and Services batsman AK Sengupta was picked for his one and only Test. It is also believed that then Board president RK Patel sent Jasu Patel, no relation to the BCCI boss but a man from his region. Patel did not play eventually. Umrigar quit as captain in protest overnight and Vinoo Mankad was appointed captain through a discussion behind the toilets of the Corporation Stadium (Chennai) just before the start of the Test.
Gary Kirsten is making a very positive impression as India's coach, winning fans inside and outside of the dressing room. His former team-mate, Daryll Cullinan, writes in his Weekender column that Kirsten hasn't made the same mistakes as India's other foreign coaches and has allowed the players to be themselves.
What Kirsten has also done well is to understand the Indian pecking order, and the way of doing things, which is different from most other countries. On the playing front the captain and convener of selectors are top of the pile.
In fact, selecting is now a full-time and well-paid job for the convener and his fellow selectors. The senior players follow, then the juniors and then lastly the coach and his support staff.
Cheteshwara Pujara was in the news for his two triple-centries in a week during the Under-22 CK Nayudu Trophy last month. He is currently the leading scorer in this season's Ranji Trophy after an unbeaten 302 against Orissa and a 182-ball 189 against Punjab. Sandeep Dwivedi, of the Indian Express, travelled to the Pujara home in Rajkot to discover the story behind the big numbers.
The prospect of buying a new bat didn’t appeal to the father’s pocket. Arvind requested the Cheteshwar’s school to lend his son the team bat. "It was a bit embarrassing for me since they weren’t too forthcoming. But after several requests they relented, and with that borrowed bat Cheteshwar scored his first triple hundred - 306 not out against Baroda," says Arvind before fishing out that old bat - a BDM that the school gifted to Cheteshwar after that.
There are no winners in Indian cricket from the controversy over a selector leaking matters discussed during a confidential meeting to the press, says Anand Vasu in the Hindustan Times. He also wonders what the motive could be for the selector for putting that information in the public domain.
What this incident does is vitiate the atmosphere in the dressing-room. Just how much faith will RP have in (Dhoni), if he could not sway the selectors? Just how much confidence will Irfan have, if he believes the report that his captain threatened to quit when the selectors picked him in place of RP? And you can imagine the sledging when Irfan takes the field.
In the Times of India, Bobilli Vijay Kumar hopes Dhoni has learnt that there are no secrets in Indian cricket and that no meeting, however sacrosanct, remains confidential forever.
Ayaz Memon writes that Dhoni's remarks have raised a more fundamental question: Just how much say should a captain have in the selection of the team? Read on in DNA.
And in Cricketnirvana, G Rajaraman says much of the speculation would have been stifled had BCCI let Srikkanth speak for the selectors and offer some insight into the changes.
Ayaz Memon, in Daily News & Analysis, writes that while there is no credible reason to anticipate any problem over India's tour to Pakistan, the nation's home ministry officials and security experts may think otherwise.
Over half a century, cricket relations between the two countries have waxed and waned — from extreme hostility to unexpected and astonishing bonhomie. Much of that (often misplaced) passion has been sublimated over the past decade and an India-Pakistan match (for various reasons) is not something which can bring the cricket world to a standstill any more. More likely, that would be an India-Australia contest, which of course, is a different story altogether.
Makarand Waigankar believes Yuvraj Singh is the ideal successor of Sourav Ganguly. Read his piece in the Mumbai Mirror.
When in mood, moody players destroy the opponents. When not in mood, they destroy themselves. This is an apt description of Yuvraj Singh. Such players are not slaves of technique. Their technique is a slave of their emotional state. To Yuvraj Singh, the point of impact while playing shot is what matters. Technical gyan doesn’t interest him.
Such players are never consistent. His inconsistency may have prompted Kapil Dev and Dilip Vengsarkar to question his focus on the game but highly temperamental cricketers can’t be expected to stay focussed all the time. Temperamental cricketers expect others to understand them. They need to be handled. They have to be needled at the right time the way Kapil Dev and Vengsarkar did by saying that Yuvi needs to be focussed. This must have really angered him but hasn’t it worked? Chaavi(provocation) as we say in Mumbai cricket.
V Ramnarayan dips into the past to write about his experiences of playing for Hyderabad Blues in foreign lands. He talks about troubling a young David Gower and an inebriated walk with an angry Jaisimha in the middle of the night to nowhere. Read the piece in his blog Stumped.
...my performance under gruelling conditions in Penang against an RAF side, when Jai [Jaisimha] cursed me fluently after I asked to be taken off (the only time in my life), having run out of shirts and trousers, drenched in perspiration as never before or after in my career, and unable to grip the ball, the sweat simply pouring out from every pore in my body. “Stop giving me f---ing excuses! Can’t grip the ball indeed! God save me from bloody sissies!” he said. I had no option but to go on.
My final figures of 30-8-47-8 leading to a thumping win were more than adequate compensation for all the trouble, but even more pleasurable was the praise Jai dished out over a couple of drinks—again for the first time in my life, because cricketers, especially those belonging to the old school, generally don’t believe in praising you to your face.
Cricket is essentially a mental game. It is time the BCCI sets up counselling centres to ensure that talent is not lost, writes Makarand Waingankar in the Hindu.
The famous cases of Bill Edrich in the 50s and the recent cases of Andrew Symonds, Herschelle Gibbs and some of the Indian cricketers indicate that cricket is not as simple a game as it looks from beyond the boundary line.
Fierce competition among the peers and illogical selections at all the levels increase the frustration levels in cricketers. The ones who successfully negotiate the pressure and control the frustration tolerance index tend to perform more consistently. And those who can’t, end up groping in the dark.
Sachin Tendulkar made his Test debut against Pakistan in Karachi 19 years ago on November 15 1989. Click here for an interview with him in the Telegraph.
Everybody wants you around till the 2011 World Cup... Come to think of it, 2009 is already at our doorstep...
I know that... I also know well-wishers have put 2011 as a target for me... However, what I’d like to do is remain fit and enjoy the game... That’s my goal, rather than being available for a particular series or a tournament... I’d rather look at the immediate future and be ready... As is my practice, I wouldn’t like to look too far ahead... You know I look at the next engagement, not an X number of years down the line...
"It [the retirement] has [sunk in]. The first time I probably felt it was when I walked into the Board President’s box in Nagpur. When I watched Sachin and Laxman bat, I guess that’s when it sunk in," Anil Kumble said in an interview with KC Vijaya Kumar in the Sportstar.
In 1990 you had the greats who were in the last days of their careers, and Indian cricket possibly didn’t have consistently good results. We started to do exceptionally well in the 1990s and were unbeatable at home till 2000. Later, when John Wright and Sourav Ganguly took over the team, we started believing that we could win abroad. We didn’t win series overseas on a consistent basis, but at least in every series we toured, we did win matches. Now we are at a stage where we have done well against Australia, the number one team, in the last four series. We have won two and the other two were close. We are heading in the right way. I have done my bit. It is time to move on and the Indian team is in good hands.
Also in the Sportstar, Vijay Lokapally writes that Anil Kumble, Shane Warne and Muttiah Muralitharan can be seen in action in the IPL but Test cricket will miss their wonderful characters.
"When they [Australia] came over, they were not sure about their game plan. They were not the same kind of Australian team that we have seen before, in 2001 and 2004. They were a very beatable side this time. They have always been a beatable side - it is just that they keep on coming back - but this time they never came back, because they did not have the quality of Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath in their bowling attack," Harbhajan Singh told Harish Kotian during an interview on Rediff.
Sourav [Ganguly] was probably the closest captain I have worked with. I have played a lot of cricket under him and he was always open to ideas and gave me the fields I wanted. He gave me the confidence that I will be there in the team and that I should just keep bowling well and taking wickets. He was always there for the youngsters. He backed me when I was nowhere, not even in the team. He brought me back in the team against Australia [in 2001] which proved to be the second coming for me as I took 32 wickets in the series. I will never forget whatever he has done for me. He has been a great supporter and a great friend. He is somebody whom I can look up to and say that you have changed my life.
Till just the other day Amit Mishra would roam around and nobody would give him a second look. Over the past few days he is getting curious glances from people and ‘I know you’ kind of smiles as he moves around New Delhi. Fourteen wickets in three Tests against Australia made him famous, writes Nihal Koshie in DNA.
Cricket-writers have long appropriated the idea that not only does character determine performance. If Sourav Ganguly was insolent, difficult, mercurial, provocative and flawed, Rahul Dravid was well-bred, consistent, a good sport and true. While Dravid would have been perfect captaincy material, Ganguly should have been a disaster as a leader.
However, Mukul Kesavan in his column in the Kolkata daily, the Telegraph believes the reasons for Ganguly’s success and Dravid’s and Tendulkar’s relative failure, have nothing to do with ‘character’; but judgment.
Character determines outcomes; further, particular kinds of character, dictate (or ought to dictate) particular sorts of outcomes. So flamboyant batsmen, however good, do less well in the character stakes than more formally organized, ‘solid’ players. They are likely to be indiscreet in the matter of shot selection, prone to untimely dismissal, less committed to the team interest. Their performances, their careers, turn on the axis of narcissism, of selfishness.
Mickey Arthur, the South African coach, reveals a ten-step guide to succeed in the subcontinent, a task that awaits England in India. South Africa have won series under Arthur in Pakistan and Bangladesh in the past 12 months, and also drew a three-Test contest in India earlier this year.
Two of the ten factors he highlights in the Times:
7 Use your bouncer
Don't be scared to bowl bouncers. It's the seam bowlers' one weapon in India to stop their batters lunging forward all day long and that is why Stephen Harmison is crucial. None of the Indian batsmen pulls, they prefer to cut. You bowl your bouncer to keep the batsman in his crease for your next ball.
10 Play with field settings
We always say that in India “caught cover” is as good as “caught second slip” in our part of the world. Seam bowlers don't like getting wickets caught at cover but they need to change their mindset. Having catchers in front of the wicket is the Indian equivalent of second and third slips.
Any visiting team should be able to outfield India. Whereas Steyn might dive to stop a boundary at fine leg, Ishant Sharma will stick a boot out and it will go for four. India's fielding has improved but they're some way off most teams
Sourav Ganguly insists he's at peace, though eliciting extreme emotions across the spectrum and time zones, particularly in Australia where they both detest and respect him for getting under the skins of their cricketers. In an interview in Outlook the batsman speaks about retirement, disappointment, Greg Chappell and future plans.
When I got picked up in 1996, I realised, when I came back to India, that if I had not done well in that debut Test at the Lord's, I'd never have played cricket for India again. Luckily, I didn't know that during the series. I couldn't have played cricket like that, nobody can play like that. You need to give everybody a fair opportunity, let them play with peace in mind if they are to perform
Shades of the great Sir Don Bradman in Sourav Ganguly's last innings in Test cricket? Ayaz Memon in his column in Daily News & Analysis believes both batsman must have been overcome with emotion while going out to bat in their last match. He writes that, in an oblique sort of way, retirement is also a reminder of mortality, whatever the record or degree of greatness, and heightens the sense of loss.
Indeed, his batting prowess has been obscured by his hugely successful captaincy. In the Indian context, take away Sunil Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid, Viru Sehwag and Vijay Merchant — who would rate among the top 50 batsmen in cricket history — and Ganguly’s value purely as a batsman becomes telling.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni's friends reminisce about his years before becoming the renowned cricketer he is today. His days as a ticket-collector on the Kharagpur railway platform and the khep khela tennis-ball matches he excelled in, are just some of the many snippets of his formative years as national cricketer that his friends discuss with Rith Basu of the Kolkata-based Telegraph.
“He rode the bike with us, played with us, ate with us, spoke our language…We fought amongst ourselves and then made up. And then suddenly he makes it big in no time, like a fairy tale. We never imagined he had it in him,” says Soma, who used to keep wickets to Dhoni’s bowling for the para team, Durga Sporting. Yes, Dhoni also bowled then. “He used to bowl pretty fast. When he bowled with a leather ball, it even swung,” adds Soma.
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“Once, after he received the man-of-the-match trophy from Bengal spinner Shiv Sagar Singh at the tournament finals in Panskura in 2002, Mahi was asked to say something. But he just told the organiser apologetically: “Mujhe bolna nahin ata (I can’t make a speech).” This same guy is so articulate now. His speech is so polished. It’s like magic,” says Sinha.
Another farewell piece, this time from Sachin Tendulkar, as he looks back at the moments shared with Anil Kumble and Sourav Ganguly. The absence of both players will be felt in the dressing room as India will find itself without two of its most distinguished cricketers. In his piece in India Today Tendulkar provides a few snippets.
If something was happening, I would give the ball to Anil. If nothing was happening, I would give the ball to Anil. If you needed to contain runs, you give the ball to Anil. If you needed to attack, you give the ball to Anil. India will miss him every day and at all times.
When I’m asked about my most memorable moment with Sourav, there have been many but one that stays with me for some reason is flooding his room with water during our under-15 days. He had been sleeping and when he got up he had no idea what was going on. I don’t think I will ever forget the sight of his face. Of course, I’d made sure all his bats and pads were safely off the ground first, so no one could say I wasn’t considerate.
With Rahul Dravid's slump continuing, Rajan Bala, writing in the Bangalore Mirror, makes the case for VVS Laxman to take the pivotal No. 3 batting slot.
One would not be surprised if Dravid is going through conflicting thoughts and one of these might well be that the man, whom he began with, Ganguly, has already called it a day. Then Anil Kumble has gone, so Indian cricket is clearly going through a process of rebuilding. Is he a part of this process?
In a freewheeling interview with Sharda Ugra in the weekly India Today, Anil Kumble talks about his toughest days in cricket, how Adelaide 2003 was a turning point, and what drove him to bowl despite a fractured jaw in Antigua in 2002.
Here's Kumble's take on aggression in the field:
It's a simple line: if what you are going to do in the name of aggression is going to harm the team's interests, then don't do it no matter what. That's all.
V Ramnarayan writes in his blog Stumped about Mumtaz Hussain, the Hyderabad spinner, who once cleaned up Sunil Gavaskar.
One famous victim was Sunil Gavaskar of Bombay University in 1970. He describes in his autobiographical 'Sunny Days' how he shouted to his partner Ramesh Nagdev that he had learnt to read Mumtaz, only to be completely fooled by one that looked like a perfect Chinaman but went the other way ... There was a brief moment in cricket history when fame and fortune flirted with Mumtaz Hussain, teasing him and cheating him in the end. He had just completed taking 48 wickets for the season in Rohinton Baria, a record until then, and had been included in the Board President's team to play against the touring West Indies led by Gary Sobers. The other left arm spinner in the squad answered to the name of Bishan Singh Bedi, a young bowler of immense promise. The chairman of selectors was former Test off spinner and captain Ghulam Ahmed, intent on being seen to be scrupulously fair as a selector. When it came to a choice between Bedi and Mumtaz, the local boy naturally lost out, or so the story goes.
In a two-part interview with Pradeep Magazine in the Hindustan Times, Sourav Ganguly reveals that during Australia's visit to India in 2001, the players realised the best way to tackle them was to be aggressive. He says the players like Anil Kumble, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and him made a conscious effort to win overseas. To read the two parts, click here and here.
In his blog Stumped, V Ramnarayan writes on TE Srinivasan, another popular character from yesteryears. TE, a stylish attacking batsman, played one Test and two ODIs for India.
Even today, at cricket conversations, people ask me if it is true that TE told Gavaskar during the Australia-New Zealand tour what was wrong with his (Sunil’s) backlift, and if that is what cost him (TE) his career! I find it difficult to believe that even TE was capable of such effrontery or that it could have made any difference to Sunil Gavaskar’s attitude to his cricket. Of course, another story that has done the rounds since that tour, is even more spectacularly funny: that of TE landing in Australia and informing the press, ‘Tell Dennis Lillee TE has arrived!’
Whether either of these stories is true or not, I can confirm that TE successfully riled another Australian fast bowler Rodney Hogg by confronting him on the lawns of a hotel in Hyderabad during a tour game and begging him ‘to please stop bowling flipping off spinners.”
After the furore caused by Adam Gilchrist's suggestion that Sachin Tendulkar's evidence during the Harbhajan Singh hearing after the Sydney Test was a "joke", Suresh Menon tries to analyse in Tehelka, "why any suggestion of impropriety (on Tendulkar's part) is taken as a personal insult — and, by extension, a national insult".
He also elaborates why he thinks Tendulkar is the greatest all-round batsman in the history of the game.
Bradman and Tendulkar have much in common, the most significant being that they were the repository of all knowledge of the batsmanship of their time... You could go to Sourav Ganguly for the cover drive, VVS Laxman for the on-drive, Rahul Dravid for the square cut, Kevin Pietersen for the lofted drive and so on. Or you could get them all under one roof, as it were, with Tendulkar.
The retirement of India's former captain Sourav Ganguly will see cricket lose one of its most controversial characters, says David Hopps on the Guardian website.
Ganguly was that rare thing: an upper-class streetfighter. He was an autocrat, not averse to chicanery to protect his power, but grant him the power and he was an avid proclaimant of India's cricketing emergence. Tendulkar made his point by weight of runs; Ganguly galvanised India in whatever way he chose, a symbol of a brash, emerging economic power. No Indian Test captain has been more successful.
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How many effigies have been burned during Ganguly's career? So many that he must be the only cricketer who can be measured in his negative effect on global warming. They must have hacked down a forest for Chappell. Others to suffer were a chief Indian selector, Kiran More, his one-time protector, and the former BCCI president, Jagmohan Dalmiya, who to much mirth he claimed had played politics with his career (both were masters at it), and any number of ICC match referees.
But Ganguly, the prince of Bengal, brought pride to an Indian region not famed for its cricketers. His extra-cover drive was a thing of beauty, his lash over gully as crafty as a batsman could get, and his skittishness against the short ball absorbing. He captained India with a vigour and authority that allowed Tendulkar to free himself from virtually unbearable pressure and concentrate on making runs.
Writing in his column in Mumbai Mirror, Makarand Waigankar dwells on the treatement meted out to the former Indian senior players. He says, "Anil Kumble and Sourav Ganguly are fortunate that they were allowed to quit on their terms. International cricket is ruthless. No great cricketer has been spared when he stopped performing. And the truth is often harsher than such senior cricketers can digest."
... there was the incident of Mohinder Amarnath landing at Chandigarh in 1988 as one of the selectors had left a message with his father Lala that Mohinder should be there to attend the selection committee meeting as the new captain of the Indian team. But it was Vengsarkar who was asked by the BCCI secretary Ranbir Singh Mahendra to attend the selection committee meeting. The moment Amarnath realised Vengsarkar would be leading, he barged into the press box and created a ruckus. Understandably, he was hurt.
There was also this incident when Bishan Singh Bedi was disciplined and dropped for the first Test against the West Indies in 1974 for granting a human interest interview to a London based TV channel. Later in 1979 at Kolkata against Alvin Kallicharan’s West Indies team he was dropped for bowling badly and wasn’t picked again.
It's a wonderful contrast. While Anil Kumble is an undemonstrative, studious captain, Mahendra Singh Dhoni wears his heart on his sleeve and is a complete natural. In his column on Dreamcricket.com, Suresh Menon feels the start of a new chapter was just perfect when Dhoni provided a rare mixture of love and admiration for his predecessor.
...what an incredible sight it was to see Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the captain-designate giving a lift to Anil Kumble, the man he takes over from. If no man is a hero to his valet, no Indian captain has been a hero to his successor, and this unique tribute was testimony both to Kumble's place in the team and the new captain's youthful spontaneity
In the Hindu, Makarand Waingankar points out the obvious flaws in the Ranji Trophy fixtures this season, which does not allow enough time for players to rest in-between matches. With the Champions League set to be played in December, the BCCI has squeezed in the Ranji matches without worrying about the teams. On the topic of selection, he feels India's new paid selection committee got a few things wrong in the Challenger Trophy.
Some of the associations have admitted that protesting against the schedule will not have any effect as the BCCI is giving priority to the Champions League. While studying the schedule, one observes that Maharashtra, after its match against Uttar Pradesh at Kanpur, is expected to be at Vadodara in the next two days. But with no air travel facility available at Kanpur and due to the flight schedules at Lucknow, Maharashtra would have to wait for a day to reach Vadodara, just a day before the match.
V Ramnarayan writes in his blog Stumped a lovely story involving Vijay Manjrekar, Raj Singh Dungarpur and Pataudi's stage-managed dacoity.
... Palace servants disguised as dacoits came rushing to where the young Karnataka players Viswanath and Chandrasekhar were in the woods after a gunshot was heard and announced that Prasanna had been killed. The youngsters burst into tears, believing the yarn). According to Durrani, Vijay Manjrekar, retired from Test cricket, and an officer in Air India then, handed over his watch to one of the "dacoits" and told him that was all he possessed. “Please let me go, I'm ...
Picture this. The biggest run machine of our age poised to take guard against one of the fastest bowlers the world's ever known. A contest between two teams that have gone toe-to-toe for the best part of a decade, in a rivalry that has seen everything from remarkable comebacks and hat-tricks to allegations of racism and boorishness. Pencil in, too, a partisan crowd packed to the rafters, baying for blood as the visitors' premier bowler sprints in off his Mercedes-smooth run-up.
Sadly, one part of the picture was sorely missing on the first day of the India-Australia Test at the Feroz Shah Kotla, blogs Dileep Premachandran on the Guardian website.
The crowd roared and the Indian tricolour waved, but vast swathes of green, blue, red and orange seats were empty, shimmering brightly in the afternoon sun. If you needed a statement about Test cricket's health, you couldn't have got a more damning one. Only about 20,000 had braved the trek past the many security checks to get inside a stadium that now seats 45,000. Many might have been in bad shape after the Diwali revelries the night before, but in a city of millions you certainly expected better for a match-up that is now Test cricket's heavyweight clash.
Writing in his blog Stumped, V Ramnarayan reflects on the unfulfilled talent of Saad Bin Jung, who as a 16-year old hit a fearless hundred against Malcolm Marshall and Vanburn Holder.
Part of the blame must lie with him, because he perhaps got carried away by all his early success and began to focus less on cricket than the trappings going with it. The administration too was perhaps unhelpful; and uncaring, and instead of nurturing an unusual talent, came down heavily on him when he did not toe the line. An extremely promising career got cut even before establishing itself.
Cheteshwar Pujara made headlines by scoring back-to-back triple-centuries - 386 and 306 - in the CK Nayadu Under-22 tournament. Gautam Sheth interviewed him in DNA.
You have made big scores from a very young age…
I started playing cricket at the age of 8. My father, an ex-Ranji player, has been my coach. So I got personal attention from the beginning. I have made the most of it, I guess.
Did the fact that your father also played cricket influence you?
Honestly, I was never sure if I wanted to be a cricketer. I was never forced to become one. But like most of the kids in our country, I was also in love with this game. Before I was 10, I made up my mind that I wanted to play cricket.
Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir are made for each other as openers and they complement each other well, writes Vijay Lokapally in the Hindu.
What makes them click? “Our trust,” says Sehwag. “Our understanding,” emphasises Gambhir. Gambhir adores Sehwag. “He is so helpful, so caring. He is a legend. Look at his achievements and look at his humility. He always gives more importance to what I do,” says Gambhir. “He is a tremendously talented cricketer. I have seen him grow and I know what he is capable of. I expect much, much more than what he has offered thus far,” Sehwag chips in.
India is the real deal and Mohali was no fluke, says Darren Berry in the Sunday Age.
Sourav Ganguly has done well to claw his way back into the team after a bitter falling out under the Greg Chappell regime. Ganguly may not be popular in Australia, but he is treated like a prince in India, loved and respected by the masses. He has announced that this is his last series and I wouldn't be surprised if V. V. S Laxman is heading down the same path. Rahul Dravid and the master, Sachin Tendulkar, are rapidly approaching the end as well. India must stagger their departures to avoid a mass exodus.
The frightening thing for world cricket is that India has some super talent - with both bat and ball - waiting in the wings. Make no mistake, the Board of Control for Cricket in India is the most powerful body in world cricket and its introduction of the hugely successful Indian Premier League earlier this year was a masterstroke. Not only was it a monumental financial windfall but, even more importantly, it exposed and unearthed young talent, albeit in the Twenty20 version of the game.
The India-Australia test series will be the last time fans will ever see the Fab Four on song together, and a farewell tour is best when so devastatingly beautiful, even in heartbreak. Raja Sen in his column on Rediff.com pays a Beatle-esque tribute.
Sourav Ganguly slots himself -- rather debatably, as always -- in as John Lennon. Clearly the narcissist of the bunch, he's responsible for tremendously offside lyrics and the uncanny ability to constantly surprise everyone involved.
G.S.Vivek in the Indian Express believes it was the Indian fast bowlers’ ability to get the ball to reverse swing as early as the eighth over of the innings in Mohali that caught the Australians totally unawares.
On Wednesday, a day after the match ended, sources in the Indian team revealed that they had indeed managed to master a new brand of reverse swing in which, rather than waiting for the ball to scruff up naturally with passage of time and overs, the Indians managed to create that condition early. And all this, they stressed, was done perfectly within the rules of the game.
With Ishant Sharma and Zaheer Khan putting in stellar performances for India against Australia in the ongoing Test series, it seems India's reborn pace attack is benefitting from the legacy of the MRF Pace Foundation in Chennai. Dileep Premachandran in the Guardian talks about at how the Chennai rubber factory has given Indian pace its bounce as well as looking back at India's legendary fast men.
It just makes you wonder how much Srinath might have achieved if his career hadn't been such a stop-start one, if he'd played more than 67 Tests in 11 seasons. How might he have done with a John Wright or Gary Kirsten as coach, and in an environment where pace bowlers are cherished, rather than viewed as clods to take the shine off the new ball?
Sachin Tendulkar has been able to address us all, and yet engage individually with each of us and the most rewarding thing was watching his transformation from good to great. S. Ram Mahesh in the Sportstar narrates his own experience.
I had taken to Sachin Tendulkar rather early — immediately after his first Test innings in fact — and the appearance on the scene of a rival had filled my juvenile mind with insecurity, anger, and loathing. Strong emotions in one so young, but Kambli had proved an immense threat. Not only had he outscored Tendulkar, 346 to 329, at school, he had, in next to no time, lashed his way to two Test double-centuries while Tendulkar’s personal best stood at 165.
When a callow teenager wields the willow like a mature batsman, people sit up and watch. This is exactly what happened when Sachin Tendulkar first put bat to ball in a Test match. Click here to read the editorial on Tendulkar in the Telegraph.
There are no solecisms in his [Tendulkar's] batting. The head is held still. The bat comes down straight. When playing forward, his left foot is always to the pitch of the ball, and there is no gap between bad and pad. When playing back, he goes right back, with the right foot across. The errors are rare and minimal.
Sourav Ganguly's 16th Test century produced a different reaction to Sachin Tendulkar's passing of Brian Lara's record, writes Sharda Ugra in her blog on the India Today website. Unlike the acknowledgement of the very superior use of a very superior gift, Ganguly's ton would have seen a grudging, amused regard for the man who would not be crushed. She says doubt is perhaps the theme that surrounds Ganguly's career, apart from the adulation of fans in Bengal.
Doubt around his ability to deserve a place in the team to start with, to really hack it in international cricket when he got there, to return as a Test batsman after being dropped, to face top quality fast bowling, to play the pull shot with any conviction, to lead India with any success, to recover from the most brutal public ridicule heaped on an Indian sportsperson in recent times, to return to the team with any confidence, to script his own farewell, to bring to his own career the finesse he brought to a cover drive.
India rides a tide of emotion every time its chosen one enters the arena. A power has been put in Tendulkar's hands that could easily be misused, writes Peter Roebuck in the Age. He pay tribute to the Indian batsman as he closes in on becoming the leading Test run-scorer.
Tendulkar has uplifted lives. He has not railed against colonialism and has instead inspired his countrymen by deed alone. Supporters cherish his introductory masterpieces — daring and almost cheeky — his hundreds scored in adversity, notably in Birmingham and Melbourne, and his later more restrained efforts.
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Tendulkar stands above his contemporaries. For all his fortitude, Steve Waugh was in a lower league, and never imagined otherwise. Brian Lara was dazzling but also destructive. At his best, the Trinidadian was supreme but he toyed with his talent. Vanity and selfishness lingered too long in his character. Viv Richards was explosive but also erratic. Brilliant in his 20s, he did not age as well as the Indian.
Ideally the Indians with three good medium pacers in the side should be going in for a pitch that will have true bounce and carry on the first two days, but the management is obsessed with the theory that two spinners should take a majority of wickets. The irony is that these two spinners of late are more effective in away series than at home, writes Makarand Waingankar in the Hindu.
Inderjit Singh Bindra, the ICC’s principal advisor and former chief of the BCCI, writes of how the Indian board has evolved from its pre-2005 phase, when it was governed by an “antiquated constitution penned by cronies from princely states to please their masters”, to the powerful body that it has become today. Read his article in the Hindustan Times.
At that point, three years ago, we were horrified to learn that the BCCI was an object of ridicule at the ICC. The then ICC chief embarrassed us by saying the Board needed total restructuring and professionalism. He pointed out how unresponsive the Board was to communications from the ICC despite the CEO's public admonitions. Though we defended the Board and its officials, we knew change was needed. I'm glad that's happened.
The blog Smoke Signals runs an open letter to Sourav Ganguly. It starts off by addressing Ganguly's denying comments attributed to him in a Bengali daily (which deal with his omission from the Indian team and the inclusion of several team-mates) and ends wondering if he is upset because Mahendra Singh Dhoni's record as captain is better than his was at this stage of their respective careers.
This adage, that ‘everything is possible in Indian cricket’ was a sad truism until you took over. I thought you would take pride in having changed that, in having forged a team, and brought some consistency to team selection and planning. To hear you use that truism is particularly disheartening.
A lot of players have come and disappeared in Indian cricket, often times when they shouldn’t have. The fact that you weren’t one of them doesn’t mean that the problem does not exist. All because the player who replaced you is now not in the national team and is in the ICL, doesn’t say anything about your situation.
Michael Atherton, writing in the Times, feels the unpredictable nature of Pakistan cricket and the Indian cricketing establishment's resistance to change have made coaching enormously difficult in the two countries.
Pybus could not cope with the irrationality and the uncertainty of Pakistan cricket. Using an unfortunate analogy, given the present situation, he said this of his time there: “They have an amazing capacity to ambush themselves ... you're always sitting there waiting for someone to lob a hand grenade and waiting for it to go off. You can never plan with such a team because you don't know what is happening tomorrow.” Dismissed twice, Pybus urged Pakistan to take a more scientific - meaning Western - approach to their cricket.
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India presents different problems, in so much as it is not the unpredictability that challenges a coach, but the lack of it. Chappell wanted to modernise Indian ways and challenge what he saw as a cosy club of ageing, unathletic stars. But anyone who wants to challenge the status quo must remember that it is the players in India who call the shots. Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly are icons, wealthy and revered beyond measure, and used to playing on their terms or not at all.
The launch of the official BCCI website - aiming, its backers claim, to be the most popular cricket site in the world - has attracted comment from the Guardian in their media blog.
So far it looks rather less like a website devoted to cricket than to the BCCI. Top story yesterday was "Lalit Modi bags TV award", the IPL commissioner having won a coveted CNBC Awaaz Consumer Award - well, someone must covet them. Top comment piece was "In Praise of Sharad Pawar", a 1,685-word paean about the outgoing BCCI boss, "a statesman who is clear of thought, dispassionate and above all a true team leader" by his BCCI colleague IS Bindra.
This venture bears close watching, for the BCCI is offering not just a web portal but to exercise a significant degree of control over the coverage of cricket in India, to the exclusion of its established rival Cricinfo. They are moving fast: a Google search for "BCCI" still directs you to the old BCCI site which looks like it was banged together in an hour by a teenage slacker between puffs on a bong.
So far, though, there is little to allay suspicions that India's hegemonic pretensions in international cricket are less about the game than about the aggrandisement of its political and media elite. And as we are finding elsewhere, no hubris fails to find its nemesis.
Steve Waugh, in the Hindustan Times, shares his confusion over the BCCI selection committee’s handling of Sourav Ganguly’s selection, and writes that no player has been groomed to replace him after his retirement
There is no clarity as to why Sourav was dropped from the Irani Cup side and how he was selected thereafter. However, this has been in keeping with the way the selectors have gone back and forth on the Ganguly issue. Hopefully they will not have to pay for their indecision, because even though the elegant left-hander has made his announcement, nobody has been groomed and readied to take his place.
Sharda Ugra, writing in India Today, feels the BCCI is responsible for the controversy over the ‘voluntary retirement scheme’ issue that has clouded India’s build-up to the Australian series.
Here is why this issue is being handled most unjustly and unevenly: The players front up to questions about their retirements in front of cameras and mikes with varying degrees of composure and then go about the business of playing for India. The masterminds of the ‘scheme’ neither have to respond to public questioning nor do they bat, bowl or, perish the thought, field. They remain hidden, comfortable in the anonymity of being friendly sources to the more gullible among media watchdogs.
Quite often in his career, Sourav Ganguly has been seen as the scapegoat in India's failures and the latest instance was the forgettable Test series in Sri Lanka. Pradeep Magazine in the Hindustan Times writes that the last fortnight, Ganguly found it difficult to sleep, wondering again and again, why he was invariably the first player to be targeted.
The sound of bat whacking ball would have Chandidas Ganguly waking up with a start in the middle of the night, only to find son Sourav batting in the drawing room with the domestic help bowling to him. “My son has gone mad,” the father would say and tell his wife to get her son to realise that there is life beyond cricket as well. But his mother never had the heart to tell her son that it was all over and “he could never make it back to the Indian team”.
In the Telegraph, the former Indian batsman Arun Lal pays tribute to Ganguly and feels his decision to quit was very well timed and couldn’t have been delayed any further.
While I didn’t think much of the shirt waving spectacle, he did bring the much-needed aggression and a will to win into the side. His leadership inculcated that focus of how everything should revolve around achieving victory and in that endeavour he backed the right horses and for the right reasons.
In Daily News and Analysis, Ayaz Memon appreciates the timing of Ganguly's decision and looks back at his successful captaincy career. Though he may not be in the same league as Dravid, Laxman and Tendulkar as far as his Test batting record goes, his contribution as a captain and motivator would put him above the three.
Ganguly showed remarkable chutzpah and ambition to build a team that would win accolades everywhere for its skills and attitude. He succeeded in infusing a sense of pride and purpose that finished off the fatalism which had always dogged sport in this country.
Kunal Pradhan, in the Indian Express, writes that no Indian cricketer has gone through all the gamut of emotions as often and as publicly as Ganguly.
The second season of the Indian Premier League is to start in April 2009, a good seven months away, so it is hard to understand the need for the Deccan Chargers to announce that VVS Laxman was stripped of the captaincy and it was going to be Adam Gilchrist who will now lead the Chargers. India is due to play the world champions Australia in a Test series in a few days' time and this kind of demoralising news was certainly not what was wanted, writes Sunil Gavaskar in Mid-Day.
While comparing sporting icons to rock stars, Ayaz Memon says time runs out on sportspersons much quicker, a challenge facing India's veterans at the moment. He writes in the DNA:
For the professional sportsperson, however, life can be cruel. Success on the field of play is time-bound, and when the skills start fading, so does their perceived value. They have a sell-by date which is so ambiguous that they themselves are not sure when this has arrived. It is then that they are caught in the maelstrom of self-doubt and the whims and fancies of critics, selectors and even the public, as Ganguly will be experiencing every day now.
For instance, using forty as the benchmark, we find that there have been 102 players who have played a Test match at this age. Five of these were Indians — Vijay Merchant, C K Nayudu, C Ramaswami, RJ Jamshedji and Vinoo Mankad (who was 41 years, 305 days when he played against the West Indies at Delhi in 1959).
The oldest player ever was Wilfred Rhodes, who was 52 years and 165 days when he played against the West Indies in 1930. While the last over-40 to have played a Test was England’s Alec Stewart in September 2003 (against South Africa), it is significant to note that 78 of these 102 played before 1960, which many historians reckon is the year when the ‘modern’ game is reckoned to have begun.
Rohit Mahajan, in Outlook, writes that Lalit Modi, the "fiendishly efficient" IPL boss, has his influence pared down.
Modi, says Mahajan, does not gel with new BCCI president Shashank Manohar and, against expectations, was not made chairman of the marketing committee. Modi will also now have to share power with former BCCI secretary Niranjan Shah in the IPL's governing council.
Then Mahajan asks aloud: has Modi soared so high so quickly, Icarus-like, that his wings have been singed?
Peter Roebuck, writing in the Hindu, feels that phasing out the old guard is a difficult process, particularly in the case of the current Indian middle order. But there comes a time, he writes, when an “outfit impresses more on paper than on the field”, and tough decisions become imperative.
Sooner or later, though, no matter how finely it has been carried, the flame must be handed to another generation. If that time has not already past then it is fast approaching. Not that age is the only consideration, but it cannot entirely be ignored. Nor can the balance of the team. It is not sensible to allow a side to grow old together. A time is reached when such an outfit impresses more on paper than on the field.
When the five [India's seniors] finally exit, they should with dignity, informed in advance about their imminent sacking as a tribute to their long service, but not given extra opportunities because we want to be nice to them. They haven’t needed the Indian cricket establishment’s charity over the last decade, and they definitely don’t need its pity, writes Kunal Pradhan in the Indian Express.
Meanwhile, Makarand Waigankar, writing in the Hindu, thinks the BCCI selection committee’s decisions defy logic.
One would never know in Indian cricket why a cricketer of repute is dropped by one committee and then selected again by the new committee. It completely depends on the whims and fancies of the different selectors and not any governing principles. This has happened too frequently to make us believe that the selection committees do have any criteria or policies at all.
Chetan Narula, writing in Dreamcricket.com, feels the BCCI has many questions to answer. The timing of the selection committee’s changeover, the lack of transparency on the part of selectors, or Ganguly’s inclusion in the first two Tests for the Australian series, Narula writes, are all elements of yet another “comedy of errors” on the part of the Indian board.
The BCCI has played out to be the perfect stage, hosting such an emphatic display of yet another comedy of errors. The whole saga of moving on from the debacle in Sri Lanka has given birth to a host of questions, all reeking of confusion in the ranks of the Board ahead of the most important Test series in some time for Indian cricket. Of course, no answers are forthcoming, as always!
Harsha Bhogle, writing in the Indian Express criticises the idea of a VRS scheme for India's senior cricketers. He's also worried that the Indian media are more obsessed with reporting what happens off the field rather than on it.
If, as in the current situation, you have players who have done very well for a long time and a call has to be taken on their future, the selectors first make up their mind and then have a dignified conversation with the player concerned. The non-negotiable here is the selector’s decision. You cannot sign a deal with a player for four games, for example, and keep him in the side if he doesn’t score a run in the first three and drop him if he makes a double hundred in the fourth ...
... Let’s return then to where we began, to the VRS story. If there is no such scheme should it be flashed in the media? Indian cricket, or indeed anything to do with public life, will always spawn conspiracy theories. But a news channel, by its very nomenclature, tells the ‘news’. It doesn’t gossip, it cannot clothe conspiracy theories in holier garbs because once it does so it no longer has the moral right to claim to be the “news”. It worries me as well that more and more young men and women are getting obsessed with reporting what happens off the field rather than on it.
TE Srinivasan, the former Tamil Nadu batsman who played one Test for India on its tour to New Zealand in 1980-81, is fighting a malignant brain tumour with great courage. His wife Mala Srinivasan has been with him throughout this ordeal. Clayton Murzello from Mid Day meets them.
When MiD DAY visited Srinivasan at his sister's home in Churchgate last week, we expected to see a pitiful sight, but to our pleasant surprise, Srinivasan walked into the living room with a smile on his face, dressed in a t'shirt and a track pant all set for his evening walk down Marine Drive.
A few months ago, says his pillar-of-strength wife Mala, he couldn't move or talk normally. So what's been doing the trick? Chemotherapy yes, love and good care certainly, but more than anything else, the grit displayed not only by the cancer-afflicted former batsman, but also Mala.
Ashish Magotra, writing in the Mumbai Mirror, feels the BCCI’s new selectors - the first set to be paid - have done nothing different compared to their predecessors as they head into their first meeting.
For selectors, who are going to get paid 25 lakhs a year, they need to much more than just a ‘basic’ idea of what they are getting into.
In no way does the mode of preparation of these new selectors differ from their predecessors. In fact, if anything, they have watched even lesser cricket, so how do we trust their selectorial instincts?
Dilip Vengsarkar's two-year tenure as the BCCI's chairman of selectors included a first-round exit in the World Cup, wins in the Twenty20 World Cup, ODI series in Australia and Sri Lanka and more. Mid-Day's Clayton Murzello interviews Vengsarkar on the various decisions taken by his committee.
Rahul, Sourav and Sehwag are top-class players and have served the game splendidly over the years. However, as selectors we have to look at the larger interest of Indian cricket at all times. Besides, with so much international cricket being played these days, as well as injuries to key players, we have to look to the future and to the bench strength to take us ahead. The competition for slots too brings out the best in players. Whenever we picked somebody, we backed him to the hilt. At the same time, if somebody was dropped, we didn't ignore him but made sure that he was monitored; never neglected.
As Indian cricket bids adieu to a powerful old panel, it would be interesting to see if the new one steers in a dawn or if it will take us back to days of infighting and power-struggles at every turn, writes Bobilli Vijay in the Times of India.
Will we see more innovations or have we already reached the dead end? Luckily, the first signs have been positive: the transfer of power has been smooth, swift and sweet; the acrimony of the last three years was also swept aside and Sharad Pawar and Jagmohan Dalmiya even smiled at each other, even as older foes cheered on. We, of course, don’t know if it is just the ominous lull before a storm; we can’t even say if Dalmiya will really be forgiven for his trespasses or if the all-out attacks against him will be forgotten quickly enough. Indeed, it is not yet clear if a new power-equation is already emerging... to clip Lalit Modi’s wings.
In 2004, the Mumbai-based Mid Day ran a story on the ramshackle offices the BCCI operated out of. The paper's sports editor Clayton Murzello revisits the BCCI's headquarters and finds that India's richest sporting body now has a plush, modern office. He now wants the BCCI to build a state-of-the-art rehabilitation centre to help players recuperate from injuries.
With the new panel of Indian selectors to be announced shortly, the Times of India's Vinay Nayudu, looks at some of the big decisions the current set of selectors, headed by Dilip Vengsarkar, have taken.
Amid much celebration in the Indian media on the first anniversary of their team’s World Twenty20 triumph, Daily News and Analysis' Ayaz Memon feels it is time for a reality check, for India’s performances in Test and ODI cricket over the past year have been a mixed bag.
In that context, I find that Indian cricket has not really taken off to the extent the T20 triumph promised. In saying this, I am obviously not referring to the quantum of money made by the BCCI or the phenomenal clout it currently enjoys internationally, but about performance on the field.
Despite scoring loads of runs in the past few seasons, a breakthrough to the national side was not forthcoming for S Badrinath. He feels the IPL has helped shed his image as a one-dimensional player and that interacting with Michael Hussey, another man who made his international debut late, helped a great deal. Read more in G Unnikrishnan's interview in the Deccan Herald
Dhoni's presence at the other end was very helpful for me while I made my debut ... Dhoni is calm and composed underall match situations. His attitude rubs on to you on the field, and puts you at ease. It prompts you to play fearless cricket.
A year on from India's victory in the final of the inaugural ICC World Twenty20 in Johannesburg, Mahendra Singh Dhoni tells the Times of India that it was the biggest moment of his career.
On the big stage of the World Cup final, the team rose to the occasion. Again it was the biggest India-Pakistan match ever simply because it was the World Cup final and we finished winners. Late in the night, I spoke to my parents and some friends and I was told that, at one of the famous squares in Ranchi, there were over 50,000 people celebrating. So, in a way, I had an idea of what it meant to the entire country.
Meanwhile, Joginder Sharma, one of India’s heroes in the Twenty20 World Cup, who bowled that nerve-wracking last over in the final against Pakistan, has “slid steadily back into the shadows”. His Haryana teammates, however, are confident he’ll make a comeback. Subhash Rajta from the Hindustan Times talks to them.
"He has already achieved what few would have dared to even dream, if put in his place," said Joginder's friend, alluding to Sharma's modest financial background. "To begin with, he didn't even have the support of his parents, leave alone anything else. But he kept going, believing in himself and his abilities," he said. "So someone who has been through a phase where he had little support and facilities to fall back on, being away from the limelight is something that would not bother him," he said.
The Indian board is scheduled to hold its Annual General Body meeting in the next few days and elections will be held to pick new office bearers. Sharad Pawar ends his term as the BCCI president and the Mid-Day's Clayton Murzello reviews his three years at Indian cricket's top post.
It appears that the game is better run now than it was when Jagmohan Dalmiya called the shots. There are certainly more people working in the cricket board than in 2004. The executive secretary role has made way for a Chief Administrative Officer. There's a Media Relations Officer, Games Development Officer and a person in charge of logistics at the Wankhede Stadium's Cricket Centre, a heavenly structure as compared to the office at Brabourne Stadium's North Stand. So, in terms of personnel, the Board has stepped it up. There's no Indian on the list of elite umpires and the fact that Australian Simon Taufel just grabbed his fifth Best Umpire award from the ICC in as many years proves that cricket umpiring is in trouble. The BCCI, meanwhile, have tied up with Cricket Australia who send their experts to train Indian umpires...
... The BCCI is blockading the spreading of the game through a medium which is fast increasing making other forms of journalism look redundant. By the way, the BCCI has yet to launch its website unbelievable. Even Bangladesh, the latest entrant to the Test fold has one. A politician in today's world surely understands the value of the internet and not having a website is absurd.
Neither logic nor common sense have anything to do with BCCI’s campaign against ICL, writes Suveen K Sinha in the Business Standard. He says Sri Lanka Cricket's recent step to lift the bans on ICL players would have come as a jolt to the Indian board.
In the process, they [Sri Lanka Cricket] have also stood up for logic and common sense, neither of which has anything to do with BCCI’s campaign against ICL. The Indian board’s Indian Premier League and ICL are played on exactly the same format. ICL was the first to offer dozens of cricketers, who had reconciled to the humdrum and wilderness of domestic cricket, the opportunity to earn a decent livelihood and be part of a properly televised event. The fact that many of them took the opportunity is no reason to ban them. After all, BCCI had not offered them any better alternative.
BCCI’s lack of opposition to the Stanford 20/20 jamboree, which promises to make individual players richer by up to a million dollars, betrays the deep-seated lack of clarity in the Indian board. Stanford is an oil billionaire who has spotted opportunity in 20/20 cricket; Subhash Chandra, who is behind ICL, made his money in media and packaging. What are the criteria on the basis of which ICL is anathema and Stanford is not? Both ICL and Stanford’s tournament, just as BCCI’s own IPL, are about the game of cricket.
In the DNA, Ayaz Memon says Arjuna Ranatunga has fired a salvo that could gather momentum in the days to come, and more national boards could reconsider their stance on ICL players.
Cricket’s sheer length and complexity makes it one of the most tele-friendly games on the planet, writes Boria Majumdar in the Financial Express. He says that cricket's rise in India is connected with the television boom in the country.
Television created conditions for cricket to become a central component of new notions of national identity and consumer spectacle. The advent of satellite television pushed this linkage further and the advent of ESPN in 1993 contributed much to making cricket into India’s secular national pastime. When television capitalists searched for ‘national’ public in their quest to create a ‘national’ market, they ended up with cricket as the lowest denominator of Indian-ness. Satellite television is a cultural arena where the idea of India is debated and fought for every day and its focus on cricket since the 1990s has reinforced the centrality of cricket as a pan-Indian marker of ‘Indian-ness’. This is a two-way process and world cricket itself has been transformed by the massive infusion of capital from Indian television. The enormous money that television has generated for cricket has also transformed India into the spiritual and financial heart of the global cricket industry a process that needs to be applauded by every Indian sports fan.
In an interview to the Times of India, Gautam Gambhir says being left out of the India's squad for the 2007 World Cup in West Indies was the lowest point of his career. He tells Indranil Basu that he doesn't alter his approach too much while opening the batting batting in the different forms of the game.
My basic game is to attack than play for survival. I play according to the situation and the merit of the ball. I go with the same frame of mind - to give a good start to my team.
These are the best of times for the coach of the India cricket team. Anand Vasu in this article in the Hindustan Times does a check on the salaries of Kirsten and other people in the comfort zone.
Kirsten is also the highest paid member of the coaching establishment, at $30,000 per month (net of taxes) and with medical insurance, accommodation and local transport in Bangalore thrown in.
When he's not with the Indian team the coach gets an allowance of Rs 1050 a day.
In his column in the Times of India, Bobili Vijay Kumar believes the seniors in the team should go out on a high, rather than as the ill-tempered old man in the neighbourhood.
The answers are not easy: nobody wants a good movie to end; everybody wants to enjoy the ride for as long as possible. Maybe, the thrill of stepping out on to the field and competing with the best, even as the mass of television viewers are glued in, is unmatchable.
In his first interview since he was ignored for the Irani Trophy, Sourav Ganguly tells the Indian Express that he's not even thinking about quitting.
“I know I’m not going to get picked or dropped because of how many runs I score or don’t score in this tournament. I’m not trying to make any statements, I just want to play. I tried to get into Buchi Babu and the Tamil Nadu league but there were no invitational teams allowed for those tournaments. You had to be a registered player with the state. So, I called Mr IS Bindra and asked about this tournament, and he arranged places for me and Ranadeb Bose in a team."
Ganguly doesn’t even remember the full-form of the LIC (Leaders in Cricket) Club he’ll be representing. But that’s not important.
In the Times of India, Vinay Nayudu finds out what members of the Indian team have been doing in a rare enforced break from international cricket.
In his column for the Indian Express, Harsha Bhogle writes that a very substantial part of the future of the game lies in franchise-driven cricket. Down to its bare essentials, he feels, the driving force of world markets is supply and demand.
Many fear that embracing change will cripple Cricket as we now know it. I fear not embracing change will take all options away from us. By changing today we can control the flow of the game, by letting it gush around, we will invite change upon us. Indeed, we are seeing change everywhere. Climate is getting out of control (last winter, Mumbai was cold and we didn’t even know what that meant!) and as the crash in the financial markets tells us, even pillars can crumble, history is forced to bow to the present if we are not careful. Why, people are getting obsolete along with technology and those hugely gifted with traditional skills are finding life difficult in the commercial world. There is a lesson there.
Irfan Pathan reflects upon his match-winning performances in the World Twenty20 final and the third Test against Australia at Perth. Despite being excluded from the Irani Trophy squad, he is happy about still being in the “scheme of things” representing India A, and feels he has some way to go before developing into a good all-rounder. Chandresh Narayanan from Cricketnirvana.com interviews him.
At the end of the day, here is a guy called Irfan Pathan who has taken nearly 250 international wickets at the age of 23. Once I finish my career I won't be answerable. Initially some said that I will go on to take 300 wickets but after few failures they said I will never make it to the big league. Slowly, I am reaching 150 wickets in ODIs and I have already 100 Test scalps in my kitty. I have scored over 1000 runs in both forms of the game. I have achieved pretty much
In a couple of months, Yuvraj Singh will be 27 years old. For a cricketer, that is a good age to be, writes Suresh Menon in his column on dreamcricket.com.
But at an age when Yuvraj should have been pushing for the India captaincy, it is all beginning to unravel for him. After five years and 23 Tests, he does not find a place in the Rest of India team for the Irani Trophy. With both the veterans and youngsters fighting for the middle order slots in the Indian team, Yuvraj seems to have been squeezed out. Neither senior enough to be protected, nor young enough to be given another chance.
Sadly, in our country, once a player makes it to the highest level going back to school is seen as demeaning, Menon says.
Like the girl in the nursery rhyme, when he is good, Yuvraj is very good, but when he is bad he is horrid. That he is talented, there is no doubt. But sometimes talent can be a curse. Talent alone cannot see a player through. Perhaps this is where the cricket board comes in. Player rehabilitation is not about looking after players following retirement. Those playing and struggling need guidance too. The Board has not known how to handle those who do not fall into a pattern. The Vinod Kamblis, for example, were lost to the game for being different.
Six cricketers from Bangladesh have joined the Indian Cricket League (ICL) and I think there is a message in it for the cricketing world, says Sandeep Patil in his column on cricketnext.com.
At the ICL we have always maintained that the intention has been to help needy cricketers, those cricketers who have not been given a proper stage for them to showcase their talent. We have never tried to prove any point to the International Cricket Council or the Board of Control for Cricket in India but have only extended a helping hand to cricketers in need.
Patil, who coaches the Mumbai Champs in the ICL, said it's high time the ICC and the BCCI took notice of it.
We lauded the Indian Premier League when it did well in its inaugural edition. After all, the IPL was also cricket but we have never sought any reactions from the IPL or the BCCI or the ICC. History, however, will document the fact that the IPL was born out of the immensely successful ICL. The initiative of launching this form of entertainment in cricket will always be credited to the ICL.
Also, do read our new ICL blog: Alternate Reality - Hemang Badani's diary.
Racked by injuries and threatened by the rise of younger pace bowlers, Zaheer Khan has been through a lot in his eight years of international cricket. Outlook magazine's Rohit Mahajan finds out how far he has come along, as Zaheer closes in on his 30th birthday.
When he leaps high in the air and lands on his left foot, Zaheer uncorks a potentially rebellious storm in his body. His left foot experiences pressure equalling six times his body weight; a force ten times his weight rages through his pelvic joints when he flings his shoulders to release the ball from his left hand. He's painfully aware of, and resigned to, the affinity between fast bowling and injuries. "When you bowl fast, you know you are going to get injured at some point of time," Zaheer told Outlook. "You know that you have to sometimes play through pain, sometimes stay away from the game and work hard to get back."
Zaheer has had to do that quite a bit, right from his early days in top-flight cricket. Since he made his debut as a 22-year-old against Bangladesh in November 2000, India have played 88 Tests. Zaheer has missed 32 of them, mostly due to injuries. Heartbreakingly, he's broken down at the edge of historic opportunities. On the 2003 tour of Australia, after taking five wickets in the first innings of the first Test, he pulled a hamstring while bowling in the second and had negligible influence in the only other Test he played, losing the chance to bowl on pitches deemed a fast bowler's paradise. A year later, on the Pakistan tour, he was out again after the first Test—this time with a pulled hamstring muscle.
Dinesh Karthik, the Indian wicketkeeper, who is part of the India A squad for the A Team Triangular series, is trying to make his way back in to the national side after a disappointing tour of Sri Lanka. He talks to Indian Express' Devendra Pandey on what went wrong and what he plans for the future.
Is it because of lack of runs that you can't concentrate on your keeping or is it the other way round?
I don’t think there is any relation between wicketkeeping and batting. When I keep wickets I only concentrate on my collection and when I bat, the focus is entirely on playing a long innings and scoring runs.
Your keeping came under the scanner in the Sri Lanka Test series.
I agree and I also know that people might have different opinions over that but you can’t stop them. I realise that I failed to keep well against Kumble on a couple of occasions but such things happen.
Writing in his blog Stumped, V Ramnarayan offers more memories of playing in the Moin-ud-Dowla tournament.
The work pressure at the office was high and I had been smoking quite a bit. So it was that I trudged reluctantly to the Hyderabad nets on a wet afternoon long after the scheduled start of practice. I had a bad cough and cold, and told my captain Abbas Ali Baig I was unfit for the game on the morrow. It had been raining and the practice wickets were wet, so Abbas was having a knock outside the nets with a young marker throwing a few balls at him. “Come and bowl,” he ordered me, and I obliged, still in my working clothes. After some ten minutes, he said to me with finality, “Nothing wrong with you. Sleep well tonight and come back in the morning. You are playing.”
India has tasted success since Mahendra Singh Dhoni took over as captain of India's Twenty20 and one-day sides a year ago. Dhoni's batting too has matured and he has shown an abiltiy to change his game according to the match situation. His achievements fetched him the prestigious Khel Ratna award last month and now the ICC ODI Player of the Year. Anand Vasu writes in the Hindustan Times that it's only a matter of time before Dhoni gets the biggest prize - Test captaincy.
The role he is playing with the bat, floating up and down the order, and being the backbone of the batting, whether against pace and swing Down Under, or Ajantha Mendis in Sri Lanka, shows how well he is reading the flow of a one-day match. You would understand if a cerebral Dravid or a charismatic Ganguly won such an award for leadership. That it has gone to a street-smart wicketkeeper from Ranchi is a testament to the success Dhoni has brought to the Indian team
After flopping to Ajantha Mendis and Co in the series against Sri Lanka, the pressure is on several of India's old guard in the middle-order. With Sourav Ganguly potentially the first to get the sack, Harsha Bhogle writes in the Indian Express that the selectors should be upfront about what their objectives and reasons for any changes in the side are, and not hide behind undignified, anonymous leaks.
So, either the selectors must state that they are going to give youngsters a break but that they would like Ganguly to keep playing so that if he is in form and the youngsters aren’t they could go back to him. Alternately, they should make it clear to him that with Kaif, Rohit Sharma and Badrinath in the wings, and the enigmatic Yuvraj around, he is officially the first of the old guard to be asked to say goodbye.
He also ponders how the out-of-form Rahul Dravid will deal with the challenge of retaining his place.
The current mantra in Indian cricket seems to be "if you want to win, go for young legs, fresh blood and ‘aggro'", writes Sharda Ugra in her blog on the India Today website. However, she wonders if youngsters in the future will want to take up Test cricket, the longer form of the game, given the riches on offer in the shorter formats.
Call this the IPL effect or the fact that limited-overs cricket is just so much more instant: instant cricket, instant fame, instant wealth. With the advent of T20 and the IPL, there is now more than one route to the top of the heap in the game and that route is a short cut. No grinding out batting or bowling epics over four-day games in two-tonga towns in front of an audience of bored tonga-drivers and their horses.
Before Dhoni arrived, Virender Sehwag was the last cult figure thrown up by Indian cricket, impacting both forms of the game. Dhoni’s career with India is almost a template for how India’s best players will rise to the top of their games in the future. He has gone from India rookie to captain in four seasons, his influence rising in the last 12 months, all because of performances in ODIs and T20s. He was even given the country’s highest sporting award, only the second cricketer to receive it after Sachin Tendulkar. To every aspiring Indian cricketer, the benefits and rewards of limited-overs cricket must seem limitless.
Gary Kirsten must beware lest he go down the Greg Chappell route. His predecessor as Team India’s foreign coach was guilty of taking the long-term view, maybe forgetting that, as the wise man said, in the long term we are all dead, writes R Mohan in the Asian Age. He says:
If he were to take on the national captaincy in all forms of the game, Dhoni would have to give up his habit of skipping Test series as he did in Sri Lanka most recently. The timing of the change would depend on when and whether he would feel comfortable with so many of the seniors around. Dhoni has done well with his young side but Tests are a different proposition.
V Ramnarayan dips into nostalgia as he writes about playing in the Moin-ud-Dowla Gold Cup in the 1970s. Moin-ud-Dowla used to be the premier tournament in India outside of Test matches. Read it in his blog Stumped.
... Krishnamurti took one look at my footwear and burst out in a volley of abuse. “Have you taken leave of your senses?” he said to me. “Are you a G Division player, wearing these cheap Bata shoes only rickshawallahs wear? Do you look like someone about to play for an international XI in Moin-ud-Dowla?” ... And Pataudi soon asked me to bowl to him in the nets, where, in my eagerness to impress, I gave him a torrid time on an unplayable drying wicket, a very unprofessional thing to do to a batsman looking for some practice. 'Tiger' was sporting enough not to mind my immature exhibition; he in fact went so far as to tell Habib I was a match winner.
Don't expect Sourav Ganguly to throw in the towel now. The man has made nearly as many comebacks as Muhammad Ali did, emerging stronger each time. But whisper it softly that at 36, the entrance may no longer be ajar, writes Dileep Premachandran in the Guardian.
The shocking surrender in Sri Lanka, where only Laxman managed more than 200 runs in the middle order, might have hastened Ganguly's exit, but there's little doubt that previous performances have been considered while shortlisting those capable of tackling the Australian juggernaut. In that regard, Laxman and Tendulkar are fireproof.
Sourav should choose when he retires, and why should it be now? Kunal Pradhan in the Indian Express believes that if this is the end of Ganguly’s international career, it was too abrupt.
It seemed he would now, at least, get a chance to call it quits when he felt like it, with a proper dialogue with the board and the selectors, walking with his bat held high as he took off the helmet to reveal the maroon bandanna that protects his slowly receding hairline at the crease.
The exclusions of Yuvraj Singh and Rohit Sharma from the Rest of India squad for the Irani Trophy does not augur well for Indian cricket and seems to be a bigger issue than Ganguly's omission, writes Taus Rizvi in Daily News & Analysis.
The two most talented youngsters in the country seem to have lost way at a time when the Indian cricket is exploring ways to gradually phase out the seniors and bring in youngsters. The loss of form of Yuvraj Singh and Rohit Sharma, in that sense, is a setback to Indian cricket.
In his column on Dreamcricket, Suresh Menon makes the case for Anil Kumble to be given a long stint as Test captain. Menon argues that Kumble has brought a rare combination of toughness and dignity to the difficult task of leading the side and that he remains a key bowler for India.
While young cricketers need to be given a chance to succeed, veterans must be given a chance to fail. Kumble hasn't failed and you cannot bring in a new captain just because he is younger and has signed more endorsements. I doubt if Dhoni himself is hankering after the job, but with friends like Kirsten, he does not need too many enemies.
Sourav Ganguly's exclusion from the Rest of India squad for the Irani Trophy is being seen a sign of phasing out India's aging middle-order. Ayaz Memon wonders whether Ganguly still has the mental strength to stage yet another fightback and regain his place in the team. He writes in the Mumbai-based Daily News & Analysis:
... does he have the physical wherewithal to back up his mind, if indeed it remains as strong as earlier? Three years of constant battle, so to speak - of trying to convince selectors, warding off the threat of juniors, fighting off frustration - can take its toll.
When you are in your mid-20s, like say Yuvraj Singh and Rohit Sharma who have also been sidelined because of poor form in Sri Lanka, such crises can be tackled more easily because the ambition to achieve is alive and kicking and time is not such a big constraint; in the mid-30s, self-doubt and a sense of futility can begin to dominate because the end in any case seems so much nearer.
Amrit Mathur, the former India media manager in his column in the Hindustan Times talks about the vice-captaincy curse: players who are carefully groomed for the top job don't quite make it, somebody else jumps the queue.
Of late, vice captains have been tossed around, changed from series to series. Apparently, for the selectors, naming a vice-captain is a gift that can both be handed out and then reclaimed, according to their convenience.
So long as an Indian bowler’s action is not criticised internationally, faults can be continued to be swept under the carpet writes Makarand Waigankar in the Hindu. A case in point, Gujarat offspinner Mohnish Parmar, who is currently playing for the India A side against Australia A. Shades of Ian Meckiff?
Last year in one of the Ranji Trophy matches, one umpire who was in the ICC panel warned the Gujarat team that he would no-ball Parmar if he bowled. Parmar was dropped. With this history, the Board ought to have closed the chapter, but the selectors seem to be keen on getting him in the side to win matches.
Anand Philar recounts the stories of Sadanand Viswanath and Shavir Tarapore, who were the umpires in the Australia A v India A game in Bangalore. Read it on Sify.com.
... But on his return home from Australia, Vishy’s cricketing graph nosedived. He had problems with some of the seniors in the Karnataka team and his inability to focus more on cricket rather than a life of pleasure, also contributed to his premature exit from the National scene. I vividly remember the many hours I spent with Vishy trying to console him as he opened up to me with dressing room tales and also his off-the-field problems. He was reduced to a nervous wreck, shunned by friends. It took him over a decade to get his life back on track as he took to coaching and then umpiring.
Also, do read the Cricinfo piece on the fall and the rise of Sadanand Viswanath.
The angry young days of Vishy are over," he says as dusk descends on the Chinnaswamy Stadium. "It has been some rollercoaster ride but it's about finding peace now. I have made my share of mistakes (but) I managed to step out of the whirlpool. Fame does funny things. The adoration from the fans is indescribable. You have to be there to understand it. One should go out on a high and leave the public lingering with a happy memory.
Being in the A side does recognise the fact that one is good, but it also poses a challenge: Is one good enough, asks Shriniwas Rao, in the Indian Express.
Over the years, many cricketers have passed through this stage and they speak about how maintaining a positive attitude is a tall ask during this ‘so-close-yet-so-far’ phase. Ambati Rayudu got the India A break when he was 17 and, considering his rapid rise from the ranks, he thought making the senior team was an eventuality waiting to happen. Soon, the harsh reality about the packed Indian middle-order dawned on him. “There were no vacancies in the senior team. Even someone like VVS Laxman had been left out of the World Cup squad. That is the time when it can get a little frustrating. I’ve been with the India A squad on six occasions and each time that frustration has only increased. With every tour I hope things might turn for the better, but it doesn’t happen,” he says. Such was his state of mind that Rayudu joined the rebel Indian Cricket League (ICL) and that meant saying a final goodbye to the dreams of wearing an India cap.
Partab Ramchand favours the Indian board's move to make the selector's post a paid one but says it still remains a thankless job. He writes in his column on dreamcricket.com:
Do selectors ever receive praise? Oh, I suppose so in a grudging sort of way. But they are more remembered for their foibles rather than any bold choices or hunches that come off. Does anyone remember the selector who pushed 19-year-old Dilip Vengsarkar into the national squad on the basis of one dashing century against Bedi and Prasanna in the Irani Trophy game in 1975? Does anyone remember the selector who had the foresight to pick the relatively unknown Bedi, then only 20, on the basis of one good performance for the Board President's XI against West Indies in 1966? It was under the chairmanship of this much-maligned selector that both Chandrasekhar and Venkatraghavan were first given their India caps when they were still teenagers. Does anyone recall the selector who boldly gave the reigns of captaincy to the young Nawab of Pataudi, then all of 20 years of age, to lead the Board President's XI side against the visiting MCC in 1961? Does anyone recall the chairmen of the selection committees who picked the two most successful one-day teams in Indian cricket history - the 1983 World Cup and the 1985 World Championship of Cricket?
In his blog on the Guardian website, Dileep Premachandran looks at Australia A's tour to India and says it's unlike other similar contests, with many players in with a chance to make it the to the face-off between the senior sides later in the year.
A team games not involving Hannibal, BA Baracus, Murdock and Face tend to be pretty mundane affairs. Fans weaned on a steady diet of international cricket tend to treat them as a Premier League supporter does a League One game, and the players themselves are motivated by different things. For the young and ambitious teenager, it's a chance to press his claim to be the next Tendulkar, Ponting or Wasim. These days though, with U-19 games and tournaments so common, many of these tyros take the escalator straight to the top, ignoring the A team staircase altogether. For most on the wrong side of 25, unless you're an Australian with the initials MEKH, the A team call-up is usually a sop, a reward for steady domestic performances for those who lack the X-factor that separates the merely good from the exceptional.
The Indian Express' Devendra Pandey catches up with Amit Mishra, the legspinner who is trying to gain an entry into India's Test side.
These days, hope is once again visible in his eyes as he gets ready to face Australia A in a three-day match starting on Wednesday. That’s why he can afford to joke about his perennial presence outside the door of the Indian dressing room. “I’m a veteran in the India A side now,” says the 25-year-old with a grin. Mishra’s mood symbolises the atmosphere at the India A practice session. This is the time of wishful thinking for the anxious fringe players of Indian cricket. “I have a gut feeling that if I perform against Australia A, I’ll have a chance to be in the Test team,” Mishra says.
In his column for cricketnirvana.com, South Africa's coach Mickey Arthur gushes at India's success in the one-dayers in Sri Lanka and believes the strategy of having separate Test and ODI squads has put them on the right track to the 2011 World Cup. Her also dwells on England's rise, the problems with his own one-day team, and dispels the myth that his players chickened out of touring Pakistan.
Like all sportsmen we don't believe it is worth endangering our lives in order to compete but we are not qualified to make judgements on security issues which is why we leave that to the experts. Personally I feel extremely sorry for Pakistan's fans and cricketers that they will now miss out on seeing the best cricketers in the world.
In his column for the Hindu, Makarand Waingankar questions the Maharashtra Cricket Association's move to draft in two foreign players, who are not even regulars for their respective countries, at the expense of local players who are bound to get demoralised by this. On the issue of player earnings, he says the IPL riches only count for an elite few in India and it's high time corporates in cities other than Chennai, start employing cricketers.
The least the BCCI could do is have an inter-corporate tournament at the state level so that not only will employment opportunities for cricketers be generated, but also state associations will be prevented from ruining the cricketers’ careers.
In the Hindu, S Dinakar asks experts how one would counter a mystery spinner.
Former Mumbai cricketer and noted coach Vasu Paranjpe is of the opinion that going forward early and playing the ball late could be an answer. Here the batsman’s trigger movement takes him five to six inches forward as the bowler is about to deliver. The head — still and steady — and shoulder move forward. The elbow comes back towards the body.
In the Sportstar, WV Raman writes that selection will remain subjective, and as such there will be different interpretations when a player is either selected or dropped. But what causes rancour is when selectors adopt a policy of different yardsticks for different players.
Players such as Manoj Tiwary and Rohit Sharma were selected in a hurry based on their scores in domestic cricket, but Badrinath was stonewalled for almost three years. I am not suggesting that Tiwary and Sharma are not good enough, but it was incomprehensible as to why Badrinath had to wait for such a long time to get into the Indian team. My stance would have been the same even if the player at the receiving end happened to be from any other part of the country. But for this serendipitous opportunity, Badrinath was in danger of losing out totally as he is a bit longer in the tooth than his competitors for a middle-order slot.
The BCCI is genuinely keen to improve the [selection] system. When that's the intent, independent selection process of the candidate will plug the loopholes in the system. Zonal selection might create a terrible mess, writes Makarand Waingankar in the Mumbai Mirror.
Instead of zones recommending the nominees, the ideal way is to appoint a high power committee of Pataudi, Gavaskar, Vengsarkar and Shastri to interview candidates. Each zone can recommend five candidates. Interview 25 candidates for two days and zero in on five national selectors. Gundappa Vishwanath, Chetan Chauhan, Milind Rege who have been associated with the game even after retirement, should be some of the names for BCCI to consider.
Amit Varma, in his column on NDTV.com, says the downhill curve has set in on the careers of Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman and Anil Kumble. He also picks out the tendency of Indian selectors to first blood talent in the shorter versions of game, and wonders how a player can make the Test team while not being good enough for ODIs.
My happiest memories of watching cricket have come when those five gents have been at their best; those memories are now being tarnished by their struggles to hang on to their places in the side. It is time to think ahead.
Cricketers' careers, the way I see it, resemble a bell curve. In the early phase, through school and college and the early years of first-class cricket, there is a constant upswing and a steady learning curve. Then they get used to international cricket, and settle at more or less a plateau that represents them at their best, with minor ups and down for form. Then their ability begins to decline, and they start going downhill again. There is no way back up from there
While not hiding his dislike for Twenty20 cricket, terming it "absolute rubbish", Bishan Bedi, the former Indian captain, gives his opinion to India Journal on present-day cricket, including the flow of big money into the game and the new system of reviewing the on-field umpires' decision.
Bedi, often hailed as the game's greatest left-arm spinner, played down his role in India's famed spin quartet.
“Chandra and Prasanna were the champions, Venkataraghavan was most competitive, I was just a cog in the wheel and was selected only because I was a left hander.”
Three decades ago, a tour of Pakistan spelt the end of the then Fabulous Four of Indian cricket, writes Suresh Menon in his column on dreamcricket.com.
The famed Indian quartet of spinners, Bishan Bedi, Erapally Prasanna, Bhagwat Chandrasekhar and Srinivas Venkatraghavan ceased to be a force in international cricket, although their careers went on for a bit longer. Zaheer Abbas mainly, and other Pakistani batsmen helped to push over the edge one of the finest combinations of spinners the game had ever seen. Only weeks earlier they had nearly helped India win in Australia, a series they ultimately lost 2-3.
...
The recent reversals against Sri Lanka may or may not see the end of another Fabulous Four, the middle order which finished with an average of around 20, and without a single century. Ajantha Mendis seems to have done to the batsmen what Zaheer Abbas did to the bowlers all those years ago. It is possible that years from now we will point to this series when we talk about the decline of India's finest middle order. Tendulkar, Dravid, Ganguly and Laxman were made to look ordinary by Muralitharan and Mendis who claimed 47 wickets between them at 20.1.
The new selection committee that will meet to pick the [Indian] squad for Australia’s tour in October-November will have to weigh short-term goals against long-term targets, writes S Ram Mahesh in the Hindu.
For that they must ask themselves if each of the four is likely to succeed consistently in this period — if the tour of Sri Lanka was an aberration, not a portent — and how best to renew the middle-order, so the eventual transition is, as far as possible, painless. First, the tour of Sri Lanka. Was the batting failure entirely a function of the particular — the combination of Muttiah Muralitharan and Ajantha Mendis — or was it a sign of decline of physical and mental skill with age and wear?
The most disappointing of performances in a sea of mediocrity that the middle-order wallowed in was Tendulkar's, writes R Kaushik in the Deccan Herald.
In the Hindustan Times, Anand Vasu comes out with his report card on individual players. Not surprisingly, Tendulkar languishes close to the bottom of the pile.
Makarand Waingankar, in the Mumbai Mirror, says the review system has highlighted a few flaws in batting technique.
It was the angle of downswing and position of the front shoulder pointing towards cover as opposed to mid off or straighter which was restricting the bat from coming in front of the pad and that created a problem most of the time. Rahul Dravid seems to have figured it out in the last Test but it was too late.
There is a growing tendency among batsmen to use pads when not sure of a length and run for a leg-bye. Why should that be allowed when a batsman is beaten while attempting to play? Why should leg-bye runs be added to the batting side? The rule of leg-bye has to be knocked off. But the review system is good for the game especially for bowlers.
The stated aim of the referral process was to eliminate obvious mistakes. Towards that end, it achieved its objective. It was the less cut-and-dry, more subjective, decision-making — particularly with regard to leg before wicket — that raised more questions than threw up answers. Read more in the Deccan Herald.
Rahul Dravid went past Sunil Gavaskar's once world-record aggregate of 10,122 runs, though there was barely a mention of it with all the attention on Sachin Tendulkar eclipsing Brian Lara's tally. Suresh Menon compares Dravid's record with Gavaskar's in dreamcricket.com
He has played fewer Tests than Gavaskar, averages three runs per innings higher, and averages nearly 72 in 40 Indian victories (Gavaskar averaged 44 in the 23 wins he was involved with). Had it not been for the phenomenon called Sachin Tendulkar, the media would have been indulging in the Gavaskar versus Dravid debates.
Amrit Mathur, in the Hindustan Times, criticises those who write off cricketers only to be proved wrong soon enough.
When we know cricket is fundamentally uncertain, like the weather, why do people still put their front foot out and make bold predictions?
So called experts freely express an opinion, only for cricket to bite back and prove them horribly wrong. If sport teaches humility and modesty, because a slump inevitably accompanies success, cricket is a crash course in keeping one’s mouth shut. Not many, though, show restraint, and the temptation to swing their bat or shoot in the dark is too strong to resist.
He picks out Geoff Boycott for special mention.
After the dismissal in the previous Test (caught at square-leg, fetching a short ball from outside off ) Geoff Boycott said Sehwag was a talented but brainless cricketer. Now, after Galle, this distasteful remark only establishes that the England opener has no connect with intelligence or decency.
The Indian Express's Sandeep Dwivedi writes about Harbhajan Singh's comeback, which was capped by his ten-wicket haul in Galle.
Anand Vasu, in the Hindustan Times, analyses the lack of depth in Sri Lanka's pace department.
The Hindustan Times' Pradeep Magazine pays tribute to Ashok Mankad, the former India allrounder who died on Friday aged 61.
He was a thickset man with a ponderous gait, leaving you in little doubt that he would be slow on his feet. Engage him in a conversation, no matter what the topic, and you knew he was a thinker. Myriad thoughts would cross his mind in a flash and the man himself was not averse to putting them in words with a kind of lucidity seen rarely in sportsmen.
Had he done justice to what he promised as a teenager, he could have ended his career not only among India's better known batsmen, but also a shrewd and wise leader of men.
In an interview to S Dinakar in the Hindu, Dav Whatmore reveals an interesting strategy he used with the victorious India Under-19 team before the final of the World Cup earlier this year in Malaysia.
“We set the clock forward to the next day. We visualise the next day. It is action time. We are in the final. We make some costly errors. The opposition catches up towards the end. We eventually lose the final.”
Whatmore continues, “Then we set the clock to the present time. I ask the boys how bad would it feel to come so close and then lose? To see the other captain holding the trophy, the media rushing to the other team for interviews. I then ask the boys whether they would like to go through the losing feeling.”
The BCCI's decision to bar Indian cricketers from even remotely associating with those who have participated in the Indian Cricket League is not just ludicrous but repressive, writes Ayaz Memon in DNA. However, the BCCI finds itself in a prickly situation regarding Sachin Tendulkar's association with Lashings. Would it have the guts to censure such an iconic figure?
The logic in this is not just cock-eyed in a funny, ha-ha sort of way, but unacceptably exploitative. The BCCI has sought to override common sense — and even common legality — with a mix of threat and emotional blackmail. Few players will obviously immediately dare take the BCCI to task for this, but even fewer will be happy at being choked in this manner, which means a confrontation could be building up in the near future.
In the Indian Express, Kunal Pradhan feels that the ICL could be scrapped sooner rather than later, considering the way the cricket world has shoved it to the corner.
It’s funny that Packer, a businessman who we now celebrate as a visionary, got money, clout and recognition for threatening to split world cricket. But Chandra, another businessmen whose idea will end up having as deep an impact as Packer’s, is getting nothing. Even his players are now kicking themselves for putting their professional careers in jeopardy.
The BCCI is refusing to allow its contracted players from repesenting English counties with ICL staff and Harsha Bhogle, in the Indian Express, wonders if the board's tough stance is world cricket’s new apartheid.
I can go so far as to understand one body not picking players who have played for another set-up. But not to take the field in the company of those that have played the ICL, in a third country, seems cruel and unfair. Even at the height of South Africa’s isolation, Bishan Bedi bowled to Barry Richards in county cricket, Sunil Gavaskar batted with Graeme Pollock in a world eleven and nobody raised a hue and cry over it.
Also read the paper's editorial on the BCCI's "unbridled intimidation" of the ICL .
With cricket having gone far too commercial to take a break, Mahendra Singh Dhoni's honesty in deciding to skip the Sri Lanka Tests needs to be respected, writes Makarand Waingankar in the Hindu. He lists examples in the past when previous captains like Tiger Pataudi and Sunil Gavaskar drew a lot of flack for opting out of tours.
Dhoni certainly has built his image through the electronic media. His utterances are measured with honesty and purpose. His demeanour presents the character of a true team man willing to do anything for the team. It’s when one has this image, reasoning for any act is accepted without murmur.
However, Amrit Mathur in the Hindustan Times wonders if Dhoni's honesty could lead to a wrong perception in the eyes of the Indian public.
There are some in the Board who are okay with players choosing what to play and what not to. Others, driven by a sense of outrage at this insensitivity towards the country, will wait for an opportunity to pounce on him. To them, the issue is not about a tired player wanting a rest but one of power. In this game, the rules say the ones in authority choose who plays when and where and not, as Dhoni has done, the other way round.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni was given permission by the Indian board to opt out of the Sri Lanka Tests starting this month. In the Hindustan Times Sunil Gavaskar remembers the time in the late 70s when as captain his request for a West Indies tour to be postponed by a week was flatly refused by the BCCI. When he announced his decision to opt out of the tour and step down as captain, there was a furore and plenty of criticism.
I approached the then-BCCI president and asked if the departure to the Caribbean could be delayed. The president flatly refused after I explained the reasons. Instead he said there were 5000 players waiting to play for India.
One can continue analysing the wisdom of Mahendra Singh Dhoni's decision to pull-out of the Sri Lanka Tests, but in the larger context, it's hard to find fault with him, writes Pradeep Magazine in the Hindustan Times. That the BCCI continues to cram the schedules with meaningless tournaments speaks of their arrogance and that only denies the public the chance to watch players play to their optimum potential.
Is there any point in making an effort if the pursuit of excellence takes away the joy and celebration of living? Watching listless, tired Indian faces running around the field in searing heat and humidity during the Asia Cup in Pakistan could not have been too enjoyable for the spectators.
Nari Contractor,who played Jack Iverson in 1953, believes Ajantha Mendis is similar to Iverson who could bowl off-break, leg-break and googlies without a change of action.But Contractor believes the Indian batsmen could have done much better than what they did in the Asia Cup final.Read his thoughts in the Mumbai Mirror.
Jasu Patel pocketed nine wickets for 69 against Australia. How long did he play?” he fumes. “Yuvraj Singh and Rohit Sharma were undone by Mendis’ pace. Had they played him off the front foot they would have negotiated him easily.”
Makarand Waingankar, in the Hindu, feels local coaches should be given their due.
The argument of the associations inviting the foreign coaches is that they have the experience to get the desired results whereas the qualified Indian coaches get too technical for the comfort of the players. More than the technicalities, it’s the strategy which helps you get runs and wickets, and that’s something these foreign coaches are good at. At least that is what is projected.
Getting foreign coaches who have not performed to replace proven coaches like Chandrakant Pandit and Vijay Dahiya is a dangerous trend. If qualified Indian coaches are not wanted, the NCA should immediately stop all the coaching courses. It’s a waste of time and money to train someone and then fail to utilise their expertise.
Anil Kumble says he was surprised how the Indian batsmen played Ajantha Mendis. Read his piece in the Hindustan Times.
When you're struggling to pick a bowler out of his hand, the usual thing is to play him off the wicket. What was surprising was that many Indian batsmen did not pick his length early enough. The safest option, when you're not quite sure which way the ball will turn, is to play straight and some of our batsmen made the mistake of playing across the line and paid the price.
Bishen Singh Bedi, the former India player, is very impressed with the new mystery bowler. Read his thoughts in the Times of India.
It's wrong to say Mendis is totally unorthodox. His grip is freaky, yes, but his run-up (a busy, shuffling gait), delivery stride and follow-through are technically very sound. Also, his biggest strength now, the straighter one which is closer to a flipper than a top-spinner, is possible only because he bowls with the shoulder, and has a perfect long-arm release. It's incredibly impressive and correct. He doesn't resort to the laxity in the ICC's elbow flexion rules for effect. He's a delight, the first person after Sachin Tendulkar I would pay to watch
."
Laxmi Ratan Shukla, the Bengal and Kolkata Knight Riders player, tells Indian Express' GS Vivek that he didn't have any problem facing Ajantha Mendis.
“I was very curious and wanted to play him in the nets very next day. When he bowled to me, I played defensively to his first two balls. Because I had heard a lot about him, I focused a lot more on his hand when he was releasing the ball. Next thing I knew, I could easily tell which one was going to cut out and which was going to zip in. He tried all his variations, but I was picking the straighter one as well,” he says.
Shukla’s effort in the nets allowed his team mates to play him freely as well, something that helped shed that ‘mysterious player’ tag. So much so that despite joining the Knight Riders as a mid-season signing to shore up their ‘foreign player’ resources following the departure of Ricky Ponting, Brad Hodge, Brendan McCullum, as also injuries to Chris Gayle and later, Shoaib Akhtar, Mendis still only got to play in a single game.
"There are some captains who remain captains, and there are some who grow into the role of a leader," writes Imran Khan in the Hindustan Times. "Dhoni belongs to the latter category. I was impressed that he has started coming up the order, playing sensibly rather than explosively, and is able to set an example for his team to emulate."
Anil Kumble was also "impressed by the manner in which Mahendra Singh Dhoni has used himself in a floating position up and down the order".
Also in the Hindustan Times, Kumble says: "Bowlers have to be assigned clear roles and if someone’s job is to take wickets, then the captain needs to back him even if he goes for runs. On these pitches, you can’t succeed if all five bowlers are just looking to restrict the batsmen. You have to find a couple of bowlers who can pick up wickets. In times like this strategy becomes very important, because taking wickets is the only way to keep the run-rate down."
"The last few months have seen an amazing churn. With the selectors moving beyond Dravid and Ganguly, the new generation has steadily changed, both, the team's look and outlook," writes Bobilli Vijay Kumar in the Times of India. "The most significant development, though, has been the coming together of Sehwag and Gambhir."
India has been mourning the death of Field Marshall Manekshaw, the hero of the 1971 Bangladesh war. Writing in Mid-Day, Yajurvindra Singh, the former Indian batsman, remembers the day when members of the national side met him.
Bhagwat Chandrasekhar was one member of our team the Field Marshal was very keen to meet. He wanted to shake his hand to recognize his big-hearted feats for India. His hawk-like eyes instantly focused on Chandra and a quick march had him at hand-shaking distance.
At the heart of our game lies the contest between bat and ball and when that is imperiled, the game is imperiled, writes Harsha Bhogle in the Indian Express with regard to the Kevin Pietersen switch-hitting controversy.
For 20 years, the MRF Pace Academy has been shaping uncut stones into fast bowling gems. But the future looks uncertain after the BCCI cut off all links with the home of fast bowling in India. The Indian Express' Sandeep Dwivedi travels to Chennai to find out how they’re dealing with the snub.
With or without the stars, it’s business as usual at the MRF Pace Foundation. There is certainly a feeling of hurt about the BCCI snub, but S Senthilnathan, who took over from Sekar, puts fears about the institution losing its relevance to rest. “This institution came into existence 20 years back with the intention of producing fast bowlers. And it will continue to do so. If we can train players who will make it to the Indian team, that’s all we want. That’s our only aim,” he says. It’s quite clear that his posture isn’t aggressive as he repeatedly refers to the BCCI as the parent body. “In case they want us to help them in the future, we will welcome the move with open arms,” says Senthil, with a grin this time.
It was 25 years ago that India won the World Cup at Lord's and the team of '83 has planned a get-together at the Long Room to celebrate the triumph. In the Hindustan Times Sunil Gavaskar recounts how the idea of a Long Room party came to him:
Last year at the ICC chief executives committee meeting, I was leaving the venue that is next to the Long Room and found a table-plan for that evening's charity dinner. Going through the list, I found there were some famous names who were to attend the dinner and as I checked the dates, it was, thankfully, in June, when India won the World Cup 24 years earlier. It struck me that it would be fantastic to celebrate the silver jubilee of that fantastic win with a dinner at the Long Room.
Kapil Dev relives some of his memories of that day in an interview with the Kolkata-based Telegraph.
I’d been somewhat upset on seeing a significant amount of grass on the Lord’s wicket... Out of disgust, I even told some of my teammates that the conditions just weren’t fair... The state of the wicket also put paid to all the planning we’d done the previous day. .. Soon enough, though, I realised that we had to make the best of the conditions... We didn’t have a choice... Then, with the ball swinging like nobody’s business, we felt we’d definitely be in with more than a shout that afternoon. We had a ball, as it turned out.
R Mohan writes of the rivalry that existed between Kapil and Gavaskar in the Asian Age.
More stuff in the Hindu. V. V. Subrahmanyam writes on the relationship between the two stars.
“Come on, Sunil, it’s time you score runs”. That’s exactly the then captain and India’s greatest all-rounder ever Kapil Dev did in the 1983 World Cup edition to Gavaskar. Then the retort: “Come on, maan, if you feel I am not good enough to play, drop me as you have done in the league matches.” A visibly startled Kapil was taken aback by the reaction but fortunately England captain Bob Willis slipped into the dressing room to invite Kapil to come out for toss to save further embarrassing moments for these two cricketing greats.
In 1983, Indians were not pleased with me at all, writes David Frith in DNA. I had written in Wisden Cricket Monthly that unless India knuckled down to the one-day game it might be better if they withdrew from future World Cups.
So I sat in the press-box at Lord’s, with a glass of red wine at hand, and devoured the offending words, risking poisoning by newsprint but glad nonetheless to cleanse my soul. I was actually genuinely delighted for India, and began to realise that probably my words had been penned in the hope that they would now take their task seriously. Why else would I have attempted to do a discreet banghra of my own in the hotel foyer? The pleasant tailpiece to all this came with a letter from my correspondent: he referred to me now as “a gentleman and a sportsman”. He had not even expected his first letter to be published. He even apologised for the intemperate tone of some of his words, and invited me to join him for a drink if ever I was in New York. I still hope that day may come. A decent drink is hopelessly spoiled when mixed with printed paper.
Also read Cricinfo's full coverage of the World Cup win.
Harsha Bhogle, in his column in the Indian Express, writes about his memories of India's historic triumph in the 1983 World Cup.
And, as I read through an amateur analysis I had made for the Deccan Chronicle on the 4th of June, 1983, I discover that Kim Hughes had labelled India the dark horses. The fan in me had tried to make out a case for India to qualify for the semi-final and, the day after the article had appeared, an elderly man laughed at my youthful optimism. “Semi-final, ha!” he said as if I had suggested that the left might go along with the nuclear deal.
Rajdeep Sardesai of CNN-IBN catches up with the legends of that victory.
Sandeep Patil: When we started the tour and room partners were assigned, I was lucky but my room partner was so unlucky to have me as a room partner. Fortunately or unfortunately it was Sunil Gavaskar, who shared the room with me. That was the reason why Gavaskar did not score runs. I kept him awake, I kept him out and I don't know how and where he used to spend time. I clearly remember me bombarding him with questions. In fact, I asked him if would be able to even see the balls of West Indians. He asked me what do you mean by 'the balls of the West Indians?' I told him the cricket balls that will be bowled by Marshall. I had not faced West Indians then and Sunil told me that you have faced Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thompson; you will be able to see the balls. I saw the ball and I hit a six.
Since stepping down from captaincy nine months ago, Rahul Dravid has lost his place in the one-day side, led the Bangalore Royal Challengers to second-last place in the IPL, had mud slung at him by franchise owner Vijay Mallya and reached the landmark of 10,000 Test runs. He talks to Hindustan Times' Anand Vasu about captaincy, IPL, being a father and possible retirement.
"I have played unbroken, missing only one game in my Test career. You have to be fit and scoring consistently, or you'll get dropped at some stage - the fact that I have been able to do that is important, not so much the number itself. But it is nice to be in the company of some players you really respect and admire."
Meanwhile in the Outlook Rohit Mahajan lists out the impact of India's World Cup win in 1983.
That win at Lord's redefined the country's aspirations and expectations; it imparted a new meaning to the term 'professional cricketer'; and it took cricket to the masses as never before. Some would even make bold to say India acquired the elements of 'soft power' in the summer of 1983, long before it even began to be counted among the emerging global powers.
Twenty-five years since Kapil Dev's momentous innings at Tunbridge Wells, Ayaz Memon still reckons it as the best ODI knock he's ever seen. He writes in the DNA:
Time neither dulled its appeal or dimmed its impact. A whopping 940 ODI hundreds have been scored yet, many of them forgettable, only a few memorable, with this knock (at least in my reckoning) at the apex. It’s not that better batsmen than Kapil have not been seen, or some other innings were not better crafted, but I believe no other innings had had quite the same effect. Kapil was to redefine not only the destiny of the 1983 World Cup, but also Indian cricket. This was not just another batting exploit, it was a catharsis. The game would just not be the same again.
Amit Karmarkar looks back at the knock in the Times of India. Cricinfo's Jamie Alter visited the Nevill Ground, read more here.
India have won the first two matches of the tri-series in Bangladesh and Harsha Bhogle is excited by the pool of 20-25 players that selectors now have the luxury to pick from. He writes in the Indian Express:
Happily, there is competition for every spot and that means players will have to be on their toes; a quality that Indian cricket has not always been blessed with. Piyush Chawla is making the most of Harbhajan’s absence and Sehwag and Gambhir could raise questions on how much Tendulkar will be missed. At the moment though, this is an excellent fair-weather batting side and on tracks responsive to quality seam and swing bowling, the top order still needs to prove it can do without Tendulkar.
Despite having been embroiled in many controversies; the man who still is a folklore hero, has not lost his bearings. Twenty five years after leading India to a heady World Cup triumph Kapil Dev chats with the Hindustan Times' Pradeep Magazine on the cricket establishment, the IPL and more.
Kapil is nothing if not pragmatic and his run-ins with the board are well documented. But he does not care and believes that a time will come after a decade or so when the players' voice will become powerful. And he thinks it has to do with the players getting richer and richer. “When I started playing, I could see that the earlier generation was frustrated. So, probably was mine, but once the money comes in and the players are no longer dependent on the largesse of the Board for making a living, a change will take place.”
The cricketers who won India's first World Cup in 1983 should be lauded not ignored by the BCCI, writes Dileep Premachandran in the Guardian.
As things stand, the month of June, monsoon time in the south, will witness four six-a-side games featuring the squad of 1983. Soon after that, there will be a dinner in Dubai, following which the Long Room at Lord's will host the big bash on the 25th. "Let them do whatever they're doing," said Ratnakar Shetty, the BCCI's chief administrative officer. "We haven't got any invitation from them or any intimation."
This, mind you, is the same board that spared no expense in arranging ticker-tape parades and handing out Goodyear-blimp-sized cheques after India's triumphs in the T20 and Under-19 World Cups, insignificant baubles next to a trophy lifted by the likes of Clive Lloyd, Allan Border, Imran, Steve Waugh and a certain Kapil Dev Nikhanj.
"The cricketers who won India's first World Cup in 1983 should be lauded not ignored by the BCCI," writes Dileep Premachandran in the Guardian blog.
Over the past few months, Kapil, Madan Lal (who dismissed Viv Richards in the final) and Balwinder Sandhu (that inswinger to Gordon Greenidge) have been treated like the untouchables were in the pre-Gandhi days because of their involvement in the Indian Cricket League, the so-called rebel league. The ICL was the first to come up with the idea of city-based franchises, but is now in danger of being run out of town by the infinitely more powerful and rich IPL. By taking on the BCCI, whose attitude to cricket seems to be little different from that of the mafia to a protection racket, all those involved with the ICL have become pariahs. Sadly, that includes talented young players who might otherwise have thrived in the IPL.
... Strange indeed are the ways of Indian cricket. A nation's real cricket culture can be gauged from the way it treats its heroes.
Tehelka's Nisha Susan meets Kunal Deshmukh, the director of Jannat (Heaven), a Bollywood film which revolves around the life of a bookie.
Deshmukh’s two passions, movies and cricket are predictable choices for a young Indian. But at 26, Deshmukh has been able to bring both these passions together. Relatively new in the business, he has been an assistant director to the equally youthful Mohit Suri in three films. Jannat, his debut film, which releases on May 16 in India and premieres in Lahore, explores scandals from the cricketing world and readily lends itself to a Mahesh Bhatt banner. Emraan Hashmi plays Arjun, a small-time bookie who is propelled by love and greed into the higher echelons of match-fixing. One strand of the story is also a fictionalised account of cricket coach Bob Woolmer’s death.
Deshmukh says, “I have been cricket-obsessed all my life. When the Azhar story got out, my heart broke. I couldn’t bear to remember the Titan series and how much I had loved Kumble and Srinath in it.” Deshmukh, who is an advocate of legalised cricket betting, originally intended to make a movie that was steeped in betting lore. “Left to me I would have had no love story in the script at all. But Bhattsaab insisted and I decided to sound out the idea with my friends and family. I came reluctantly to the conclusion that most people wouldn’t be able to understand or want to understand the nitty-gritty of match-fixing.”
With his IPL success, Rohit Sharma has jumped the queue to take the tag of Indian cricket’s ‘next big thing’. Sandeep Dwivedi, writing in the Indian Express, profiles a youngster who has retained his grace in this slam-bang format.
Also read Rohit's interview to the same paper, where he says: ‘People don’t remember you for the number of innings but for the number of years you played’.
VVS Laxman has wowed fans across the globe, not least in Australia, with his wristy elegance and sweetly-timed jabs and cuts. And despite his struggles in the Twenty20 format, fans in Hyderabad are buzzing to get a glimpse of their hero, finds out K Shriniwas Rao of the Indian Express.
Today, the fever of Twenty20 has gripped Hyderabad. Both the Indian Cricket League (ICL) and the Indian Premier League (IPL) have seen fans queuing up at the stadiums. Players such as Shahid Afridi, Adam Gilchrist, Andrew Symonds and Herschelle Gibbs have been recruited as ‘locals’.
And yet, it is VVS Laxman who happens to be cheered the loudest. The Deccan Chargers website has seen some anti-Laxman messages, but not once has the right-hander been booed at the ground — even as his team lost three matches at home and he’s struggled to come to terms with this extremely short format.
“He’s not one for masala cricket. We’re sure he’s playing here because he is Hyderabad’s biggest name in cricket,” says a fan at the Rajiv Gandhi International stadium.
"Sumit Khatri is only a fringe-local featuring on the Rajasthan Royals’ extended roster of 25 and the only chinaman bowler in the IPL," writes Shivani Naik in the Indian Express. "But his oddity may be lost, especially since Khatri might not see any real action in the tournament. Even some cricket websites have slotted the left-armer as right medium-pacer or off-break bowler."
At 20, Khatri has survived the biggest storm for a chinaman spinner. That of retaining his bowling-style, which comes with copious cautionary notes, equal in length to a chinaman’s definition. Predominantly a batsman in his seven years at Sawai Mansingh Stadium’s RCC nets, Khatri was called aside one day by the late Hanumant Singh three years ago. His left wrist had twisted a couple of deliveries prodigiously from off to leg, during what Khatri calls a “faltoo, time-pass practice session”, and Hanumant was impressed.
Though he thinks the series ended with a fair result, Jacques Kallis is keen not to play in Kanpur for a third time. It was a gamble, he writes in the Hindu, to order such a poor wicket and it could have easily backfired.
I am a traditionalist when it comes to pitches and I believe that the surface for a Test match should have something for everybody. Some pace and movement for the quick bowlers, good batting conditions in the middle and then help for the spinners on the last two days.
Like India, we have been pretty dominant at home and have lost a series only to Australia on our own turf. But we have also been competitive away from home beating everyone (apart from Australia!) at some point.
India should be aiming for the No. 1 spot, too, but they will need to improve on ‘good’ pitches.
Neil Manthorp can't wait to leave Kanpur as well. He writes in supercricket website:
If the Proteas could be accused of leaving with indecent haste, think again. Given the fact that nobody in the world of cricket was thinking of a three day finish when the third day began, not a single bag was packed nor extras bill paid. Yet the home side were on a bus pulling out of the city within an hour of returning to the hotel. The best Goolam Raja could manage for Graeme Smith and the boys was a 6.00am departure the following morning. Is Kanpur really that bad? Yes.
The Indian team and media can't stand coming here and actively encouraged the South African media and players to highlight how unacceptable it is as an international venue and to lodge formal complaints, where applicable.
Paddy Upton, India’s mental-conditioning coach, writes for Moneyweb.co.za website to explain how he and Gary Kirsten adapt to supporting India when they are both South African.
And what does it feel like to be planning and putting our every effort into beating our home country? The truth, for both of us, is that with every part of us we want and are willing India to win. The disappointment of defeat at the hands of the South Africans in the last Test burned us as much as it did the Indians.
South Africa's bowling coach Vincent Barnes is not worried about the brownish Kanpur pitch, writes Sandeep Dwivedi in the Indian Express.
Since South Africa’s tour to India followed their trip to Pakistan and Bangladesh, Vincent Barnes has a ‘been there, seen it and done it too’ expression on his face as he takes a look at the Green Park track. He speaks about the pitch in Dhaka during the Bangladesh tour and how his team’s fear proved unfounded. “We first thought the pitch was certain to break in the first couple of days. It actually lasted for five. The same thing happened in Chittagong as well,” he says, highlighting how modern-day tourists to the subcontinent aren’t that fussy about the dust bowls they encounter.
However, Anand Vasu writes in the Hindustan Times that the players were surprised at the state of the pitch.
Mickey Arthur, the South African coach, who had made it out to the middle a little before his team, was not particularly impressed by what he saw and actually had a chat to [Graeme] Smith, asking him to take a deep breath and relax, warning him not to be too perturbed by what he saw.
This week extracts from the new Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack, published today, are running in The Times. In the latest one, Ramachandra Guha looks at Mahatma Gandhi’s role in the development of India's game.
An Indian journalist met an old classmate of Gandhi's, who remembered a “dashing cricketer” who “evinced a keen interest in the game as a school student”. If these oral testimonies are reliable, Gandhi spun a cricket ball long before he spun khadi, the hand-woven cloth he argued should be worn by all Indians in preference to machine-made textiles.
The thought is appealing, even if the evidence of the printed record runs in the other direction. In his autobiography, which deals extensively with his childhood and schooldays, Gandhi does not mention cricket.
Cricket barely touched Gandhi, yet, by virtue of who he was and what he did, he had a substantial impact on cricket in India. As I argued in A Corner of a Foreign Field, the Mahatma's teachings profoundly influenced the way the game was played and perceived.
After the featherbed in Chennai and the lively pitch in Ahmedabad, on which India were shot out for 76 in the first session, the Kanpur wicket will undoubtedly be under scrutiny ahead of the third Test between India and South Africa. Sandeep Dwivedi spoke to Chotelal, the groundsman at Green Park, in the Indian Express.
“In 1983, I prepared a green pitch for the India vs West Indies game and the consequences weren’t great,” Chotelal says. It was the game in which Malcolm Marshall’s fiery bouncer saw Sunil Gavaskar’s bat falling from his hands and India suffering an innings defeat. What followed was brickbats and Chotelal’s shelved his green experiment for good.
Then in 1996, Sachin Tendulkar led India against South Africa in the final game of the series in a do-or-draw scenario. A wiser Chotelal rolled out a brownish carpet with myriad designs on it. India’s big win had then coach Madan Lal appreciating the groundsman with a Rs 25,000 award. “Even Tendulkar was quite happy. He met me after the game and was so happy that he gave me all the money that he had in his pocket,” says Chotelal.
Alex Parker, in the Johannesburg's Times, writes that the Indian team is famous for being a collection of monstrous egos sloshing about in great vats of self-importance.
"The Indian team and it's administrators appear to be very close to a state of disarray," writes Neil Manthorp on Supercricket.co.za. "They might want to think about seeking an answer to an important question before they finalise the XI for Kanpur. Who actually wants to play Test cricket."
If India take a few gambles in Kanpur to try and square the series, it might mean their playing three spinners and just one full-time seamer to share the new ball with Sourav Ganguly. This plan, Jacques Kallis thinks, could backfire for three reasons. He writes in the Hindu:
Firstly, South Africa really isn’t that bad against spin as our record over the last five or six years shows. Secondly, I believe the new ball is still the best way to take wickets and, with respect to Sourav, he isn’t a great threat. And thirdly, if the pitch is dry and uneven, then Dale Steyn, Makhaya Ntini and Morne Morkel will be just as dangerous as Anil and Harbhajan.
In the Hindustan Times, Mark Boucher writes that India missed Sachin Tendulkar in Ahmedabad.
As a country India has begun to achieve a lot and grow in confidence so it is no longer appropriate for the cricketers to lose focus after every famous victory, writes Peter Roebuck in the Hindu.
Nothing in India’s performances after the triumph in the World Twenty20 or after taking the one-day spoils in Australia suggests that the cricket culture is strong enough to sustain success. On the contrary, India immediately looked flabby. It is not entirely the players’ fault. Locals seem to relish awards. Pictures of people shaking hands are widely featured in the newspapers. It is well intended. No-one wants India to be a boring place full of people talking about property prices. But when joy turns into delirium it becomes corrosive.
After Virender Sehwag plundered his second Test triple-century, Jaideep Varma argues in holdingwilley.com that Sehwag is the most under-rated cricketer in the world. Only one batsman in the modern age, Adam Gilchrist, has numbers to match Sehwag's eye-popping strike-rate of 77 allied with the astounding average of 53. Varma contends that Sehwag has already done enough to be considered an all-time great and that he is a shoo-in for a spot among the top five Indian Test batsmen of all time.
Sehwag’s uncluttered and simple see-ball-will-hammer approach has been more than just effective. It has a brought a different way of looking at the game, because before him, no one in the history of the game has had as much success doing this. If cricket was film, fiction or music, Sehwag would be a genre of his own.
Former Test batsman and current Tamil Nadu coach WV Raman recalls the days when, even as an Under-19 batsman, Rahul Dravid showed an aptitude for correct technique and a stomach for a fight. He writes in the Hindu:
The young skipper was crowded but his ability to smother the spin with solid defence indicated that he had the stomach for a fight. The taunts from the close-in fielders were ignored and he went on to bat out the overs without allowing the bullying to ruffle him. A word of appreciation from me at the end of the innings was acknowledged with a measured smile and softly uttered thanks.
RK Pachauri, the chairperson of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (which shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore), and an active cricketer in his spare time, praises Virender Sehwag for his epic 319 in the first Test in Chennai. His opinion piece in the Indian Express has more.
Virender Sehwag’s strength stems from his feeling of self-belief. He obviously has unwavering faith in himself and his brand of cricket. All the while he was going through a drought of runs, several critics called him irresponsible in getting out to extravagant shots. But Sehwag never deviated from his extravagant style and reliance on aggressive stroke play every time he took the crease, irrespective of the situation the team was facing.
He continues…
The Chepauk performance should help rebuild Sehwag’s self-confidence and restore his belief in his own talents. Of all the outstanding batsmen who have performed at the international level with such elan in recent years, he displays the most uncanny coordination between limbs and eyes.
Elsewhere, Graham Gooch talks to the Telegraph about Sehwag's innings, and his own triple-hundred, the 333 against India at Lord's in 1990.
Ramachandra Guha, writing in the Telegraph, compares the three different forms of cricket to alcoholic beverages, and makes it amply clear which form he prefers.
In my opinion, Test cricket may be compared to the finest Scotch, 50-overs a side to Indian-made foreign liquor, and Twenty20 to the local hooch. The addict who cannot have the first or the second will make do with the last.
He continues ...
But proper cricket can only be Test cricket. Spread out over five days, the game unfolds as in an epic drama. No restrictions are placed on anyone. The bowler can bowl 40 overs at a stretch; the batsman plays on until he gets out. Even the fielder has greater opportunities to display his wares. He can (as in limited-overs cricket) dive to his left at cover point to stop a boundary; and he can also (unlike in limited-overs cricket) dive to his right to take a low catch at short leg. In this long, leisurely, civilized form of the game, a villain is allowed to redeem himself, a hero to reveal his flaws, a team to show reserves of character one could have scarcely thought it possessed. As with the finest Scotch, one savours every sip; and yet, as with the finest Scotch, the whole is infinitely greater than the parts
Virender Sehwag's unbeaten 309 is now the fastest triple-hundred ever. His captain, Anil Kumble, while writing in his column in the Hindu, hopes that Sehwag goes beyond Brian Lara's record 400.
It’s a great opportunity to get Test cricket’s highest score, and he knows he can’t really get a better opportunity to do it. We have some special records, but it would be absolutely great to see an Indian on top of that list as well.
I’m glad Sehwag’s back to doing what he does so well. He’s definitely a match-winner for me.
I’m really happy after backing him for the Australia series. I’m also really happy for him, the way he’s come back to the Test squad after a year. He showed a lot of character in Adelaide, even if he was a bit subdued.
By the way, he wanted a bat from me if he scored a double. I don’t know why. So, at the end of the third day, I told him, you get your 400, I’ll give you two. I gladly will.
Writing in his blog at Espnstar.com, R Mohan explores the attitude of Indian skippers to home Tests.
Pitch preparation was badly hit by all the rain around. Even so, I got the distinct impression that curator Kannan Parthasarathy was acting under instructions from either Team India or BCCI who were merely passing on the desire of the team.
'Pacha' kept the pitch very dry, which means he simply did not prepare the pitch as he normally would have. He may have been seized by the fear that if he prepared the wicket with regular watering it would be the typically hard Chepauk pitch at the start of play.
There is more than a suggestion in all this that Team India would have been happy to avoid a showdown with Dale Steyn, the South African quick who is making waves with his swing to the extent of becoming the man of the series in three successive series for South Africa. Any moisture in the pitch would have aided lateral movement of the new ball and India simply wished to avoid this.
It was exactly ten years ago that Harbhajan Singh made his Test debut against Australia in Bangalore. Harish Kotian spoke to Harbhajan in an interview on Rediff.com.
At the start I was afraid to share a room with a player like [Navjot] Sidhu, whom I always admired. I was thinking of what I would talk him [about], how I would talk to him and all that. When I reached the room and met him, he congratulated me on making it to the international stage. He told me not to be under any pressure and just play as if it were another Ranji Trophy match. 'Just continue bowling the same way; there is no difference in the way one bowls in international matches. Just try and do the best you can, but don't get overawed by the atmosphere in the ground. Once the match starts, you won't realise how the five days of the Test match go,' he said.
The Madrasas of the Muslim-dominated Mau-Azamgarh belt in eastern Uttar Pradesh have traditionally frowned upon cricket, but the recent success of one of their alumni [India under-19 spinner Iqbal Abdulla] has given the sport some legitimacy in the religious schools," Sunita Aron writes in the Hindustan Times.
This rural belt may not have produced any remarkable sportsmen, but its barren fields are dotted with scrawny children wielding the willow and tossing tennis balls. A little known fact is that Mukhtar Ansari, an imprisoned mafia don from Mau, is such a cricket buff that he has converted part of the compound of the Jaunpur jail — where he is lodged — into a makeshift cricket ground, and has taught many inmates how to bat and bowl. But despite the ‘Iqbal effect’ on youngsters in the religious schools, Madni was keen on explaining why his school did not encourage cricket. “We do encourage sports that help boys build their bodies,” he said.
"It’s been quite amazing how India have shaped up under [Anil] Kumble, a man many believed would be a stopgap measure till [Mahendra Singh ]Dhoni was handed over the reins of the Test captaincy too, more sooner than later, writes Kadambari Murali in the Hindustan Times.
He [Kumble] just smiles when asked how it feels to suddenly be dubbed the best thing to have happened to Indian cricket in the eventide of an illustrious career. The irony wasn’t lost on him. “I’ve always done things the way I thought they should’ve been done, accepted whatever’s come my way. I never went after the captaincy but when it did come, it was an honour. I’ve always believed that life should be taken as it comes, you need to plan and do the things you can as best as possible, not worry about things you cannot control.”
In the Independent Online, Iqbal Khan interviews Gary Kirsten, the former South African opener, and discusses his new role as India's coach.
India's new cricket coach is chauffeur-driven each day to where he wants to go and is quickly getting used to simple things like when the department stores open and being mobbed by people who want his autograph.
Kirsten says he will manage fine during the upcoming series against South Africa.
"I'll feel a bit weird being in the opposite camp when we face South Africa in my first hurdle as coach. But I suppose I'll get over it. I won't let emotions get in my way."
Writing in the Indian Express, GS Vivek says the Ranji Trophy replica handed out to winning teams is bit of a joke.
... At no place did it mention either the name of the winning team, the season, or even the tournament. All it had in terms of legend was the manufacturers’ nameplate. And, just so you don’t forget, the word ‘Silver’ was engraved at the base like a hologram of authenticity. But to top it all, the quality of craftsmanship was such that the figure of the bearded man taking a batting stance — Ranjitsinhji, after whom the tournament is named — that wobbled at the time of presentation has already fallen off.
In a free wheeling chat with Hindustan Times' Subhash Rajta, IS Bindra talks about his role as Principal Advisor to the new ICC President.
On BCCI's alleged domination: We have never had any intention to rule to international cricket. In fact we have fought hard to bring in democratic polity in the ICC. Earlier, a president of the MCC, a club, used to be the president of the ICC and Australia and England had the veto powers. We fought for equality and managed to bring in democratic polity when Colin Cowdrey became the first elected ICC president in 1994. In that light, BCCI just can't be party to any domination, including it's own. But we will certainly use our financial clout to promote and popularise the game. We want to be the engine of growth for the game and that's exactly what we are doing through IPL.
Irfan Pathan talks to K Shriniwas Rao of the Indian Express about his time away the national squad and the lessons learnt from the experience.
A lot of things [changed]. I’ve come out stronger from everything that happened. Even at the worst of times, at the back of my mind I knew that things would change for the better. I felt I would soon make a good comeback, and that’s what happened eventually. But I’ve learnt a lot about myself in the process. Time can teach you a lot of things — be it cricket or your personal life. You come to know who your friends are and, interestingly, this is the phase when you realise that you don’t have too many friends.
Harsha Bhogle writes in the Indian Express about his concern for the future of Indian spin after Anil Kumble, and whether the hype and glamour of the celebrities associated with the IPL will detract from the cricket.
Meanwhile, I am starting to get a little concerned, for the first time, about the IPL. Everyday there is a new report about a film star being signed up to do something and everybody seems to be worried about the entertainment around the IPL games. I must be seeing it wrong because I thought the Twenty20 format itself was entertainment. The one thing that the ICC World T-20 taught me was that nothing, absolutely nothing, could compete with the thrill of the cricketing contest. Now I get the feeling that people are trying to stage a variety entertainment show where the cricket match is but one of the components.
Whether IPL is a boon or bane to Indian cricket remains to be seen when it begins, but one thing is absolutely certain that young Indian cricketers will manipulate all possible loopholes in the system to make it to the under-19 or the under-22 , writes Makarand Waingankar in the Mumbai Mirror.
By banning the ICL cricketers from participating in tournaments and stopping the pensions of former cricketers, the BCCI could face a legal confrontation to match the same between the English board and World Series Cricket in 1978, writes Makarand Waingankar in the Hindu.
The ICL-IPL tussle has sidelined the issue concerning the cricketers’ livelihood. During the Insole-Greig case hearing, one of the main questions that Justice Slade asked was how could the cricket boards deprive the professional cricketers from earning their livelihood.
In his judgment he agreed that though respective boards had acted in the best interests of the game, he felt, legally a professional cricketer is entitled to make as much living as any professional in other fields.
Shantanu Guha Ray goes to Mahendra Singh Dhoni's hometown of Ranchi to try uncover the reasons behind Dhoni's rise to the top despite hailing from a small town and not having either formal training or a godfather to push his case. He writes in Tehelka:
In a world of desperate image-building, it’s important that Dhoni doesn’t care. The core value he brings to the job is level-headedness — the clear sense of reality that helps a small town boy prioritise life. This means he has the ability to treat cricket as a game, not as religion. This means it makes him unafraid to take his chances, to run the impossible risk and win the impossible gambit.
He retraces Dhoni's progress from the initial interest in football to the current standing as a cricket icon whose fans "buy garlands and worship — in the absence of the man himself — his bikes". He also compares Dhoni's captaincy with that of his two immediate predecessors.
In Dhoni’s ability to walk the middle ground lies the essential metaphor of his personality: character is fortune. Saurav Ganguly wore the cloak of captaincy with the arrogance of a Caesar, the mantle falling easily on his stylish shoulders. Rahul Dravid, on the other hand, wore the coveted badge almost like a crown of thorns, as if acting out a middle class mindset in which success or failure are the only parameters that define ability ... In Dhoni's worldview, playing is more important than winning, and winning is more important than verbal duels.
"How was [Mahendra singh Dhoni] Dhoni from Ranchi spotted? Neither Greg Chappell nor Dean Jones know the way to Ranchi. Like many others, they too don’t know the process that has helped these district boys make an impact on Indian cricket," writes Makarand Waingankar in the Mumbai Mirror.
In 2001, as the consultant of the Karnataka State Cricket Association, I had introduced the system of Talent Resource Development Wing (TRDW). The success of this concept made the then President of the BCCI Jagmohan Dalmiya form a Talent Resource Development Wing for unearthing the talent in India. The job description of the TRDOs was to assess the talent in a prescribed form and feed the data into specially developed software for it to get analysed. The talent-assessment system of the TRDW convinced the selectors that there was enough talent to choose from. Today the majority of players who are in the Indian team are the product of the TRDW.
"Right from my first tour to Australia in 1991, it has been tough, but fantastic. It was challenging for a 17-18 year-old youngster. The hundred at Perth in 1991 changed me as a player and I felt I had arrived in international cricket," Sachin Tendulkar told G Viswanath in an interview in the Hindu.
Clayton Murzello also interviewed Tendulkar in the Mid-Day.
Zaheer Khan is back in India after undergoing rehabilitation for his heel injury at the Centre of Sports Medicine in Johannesburg. In an interview with G.S. Vivek of the Indian Express, he says that he will wait on his fitness instead of rushing his return.
The important thing is to take your time to recover and not rush back. You have to be not just 100 per cent, but 120 or even 200 per cent fit when you return to action. I don’t want to have any doubts running in my mind when I am playing an international game because it’s a pressure game and you cannot let your team down.
Personally, I would like to play some domestic games or even club games to be sure about myself. That’s what the doctors also said, you need to build it up, because you lose a lot of strength in the area of injury and one has to get it back slowly and not injure other muscles.
The startling figures paid for the star players at the IPL auction stands testimony to the power of the new Indian market, writes Mike Marquesee in theHindu.
Before plunging head first into IPL-mania, cricket fans should consider the down side in the comparison with the English Premier League, which has become widely associated with venality and dishonesty, on and off the field. There have been extensive allegations of bribery and corruption, many highlighting dubious trade-offs between agents and managers. The newspapers are full of the pathetic misbehaviour of over-paid, under-educated 20-year old football stars, and the public is not amused. The danger is that the IPL will emulate the worst of English football, and not only in its paper thin culture of instant celebrity.
The IPL isn't the only league drawing foreign players. Two decades after touring apartheid South Africa, John Embury is at it again, coaching in the unofficial Twenty20 league in India and dreaming of a global inter-city event, writes Will Buckley in the London-based Observer.
Also read an interview with Shane Bond, another ICL recruit, in the Indian Express.
Indian cricket teams have owned this belief before, but never held onto it, because their commitment to excellence, and each other, was fickle, writes Rohit Brijnath in the BBC website.
These fellows wear the insolent bravery of youth and a cloak of effrontery, though at times they needed to clutch at the experienced hand of Tendulkar. Australian cricket is somewhat a faded photocopy of itself, but beating them at home required from the Indians substantial commitment to the cause and each other and they found it. Opportunity knocked and was tackled to the ground by the Indians.
Iqbal Abdulla, the India under-19 left-arm spinner, was entrusted with taking the World Cup from Bangalore to the BCCI headquarters in Mumbai. He stored it in his kitchen, worried about it getting stolen. Read more in the Indian Express.
Anand Vasu looks back at the under-19 Indian players who were involved in the World Cup in 2000 and tracks their progress. Read the piece in the Hindustan Times.
Meanwhile Mid-Day has the story of how 80 college kids (who had not even heard of U-19) were hired by event management company to cheer the U-19 champions.
Bishan Singh Bedi is not enamored with the Under-19 boys. Read it here.
'All said and done, their (juniors') on-field behaviour was deplorable. Don't confuse this kind of behaviour with aggression; it was absolutely terrible and atrocious. 'There was no finesse, no grace. When you are winning, you should be graceful. It was herd mentality ... And a few of the players did not look under 19 years of age; faces of under-19 boys look different.
Bedi has also expressed unhappiness over Harbhajan's behaviour in Australia.
Harbhajan is setting a bad example. Matthew Hayden was perhaps right when he said what he said. After all cricket did not originate in villages; it has a long history and tradition.
'Agent-sharks and youngsters with 'attitood' have queered the pitch for India's promising cricketers,' writes Dileep Premachandran in his Guardian blog.
It was a mundane party in the middle of another nondescript one-day series, and the conversation was inanity itself. A young man who had played for India for a couple of seasons was part of our group, and speaking shyly about his chances of playing in the final that weekend. Out of nowhere, his agent stepped in and caught his eye. "I've got two girls arranged at an apartment," he said, oblivious of the fact that there were at least four others listening in. The player's face went pale, and he was quiet for a good few seconds. "Come on, let's go," said the agent. The player was hardly the picture of enthusiasm, and pointing to his India blazer, he said: "I can't come wearing this."
The agent just laughed. "Don't worry, I've got a change of clothes for you in the car," he said. And that was that. Within five minutes, the two of them had left. The player did little of note in a final that India lost miserably, and it's fair to say that his on-off career has hardly scaled any great heights in the half-decade since he was whisked off into the night.
Sanjay Manjrekar lists Tendulkar's statistics when chasing and wonders why "no one wants to talk about Sachin's failures." Read the piece in the Times of India.
In the last 51 One-day internationals, Tendulkar’s batting average when he bats first is 62.10 in 24 innings. In contrast when he bats second, it’s 26.00 in 27 innings. After a brilliant Test series, it’s not so much his form in this One-day series that is the concern but his contribution, at that crucial opening position when India is set bigger targets to chase. If you look at it, it’s a simple batting issue that the maestro along with the team management should professionally address.
But with Tendulkar, it’s like the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about.
Asking Tendulkar to bat down the order could help India do better, writes Peter Roebuck in Mumbai-basedMid-Day.
Whereas most batsmen move their back foot across their stumps and into line, he gives himself room to play off-side strokes by leaving his right leg in its original perch. That makes him vulnerable to break-backers.
As a result, Tendulkar has been dismissed clean bowled and leg before a remarkable number of times. Often he finds himself forced to play across the ball. His front leg obstructs his bat and causes him to miss deliveries darting back. In his pomp he could adjust his shot and flick the ball away with a late roll of the wrist reminiscent of Viv Richards. But his peak has passed.
Former Indian captain Suni Gavaskar also feels it's time the team changed the batting order.
... which would mean having Gambhir open with Sehwag and Uthappa at three with Tendulkar at four What this will do is protect Tendulkar and Sharma from the moving ball. Dhoni has shown been bold to send Pathan at three and if he shows the same attitude, India may well be able to get a batting order that actually bats deep rather than just being strong on paper.
The Indian Premier League has been shopping for players; India’s cricketers have been shopping for clothes. Sydney’s Daily Telegraph is impressed by their spending habits.
Sachin Tendulkar, Harbhajan Singh and Yuvraj Singh turned heads on trendy Oxford St when they walked into the Ed Hardy store in Paddington. In the end, the men, who play Australia on Sunday at the SCG, left with a whopping bill of A$9120.
Long tresses, spiked hair, ear studs, shaved chests - ever since the Indian Under-19 cricketers in Malaysia heard their matches would be shown live on TV back home, they've gone into overdrive enhancing their appearances. Sandeep Dwivedi of the Indian Express catches up with the fashion-conscious cricketers.
Just before a batsman is about to go onto the field, he gets a few last-minute instructions from a teammate. Along with the usual ‘stay cool, play your natural game,’ there is a small bit of advice delivered in half-jest. “And don’t forget to take off your helmet when you complete your 50. How else can everyone at home see your new hairstyle?” he sniggers.
It’s a travesty that a bowler reported for chucking is sent to the NCA, gets cleared and returns, only to be reported again, writes Makarand Waingankar in the Hindu.
There have been more than a dozen bowlers reported for suspect action and though one of them, Mohnish Parmar, is an offspinner from Gujarat, he has been picked for the Duleep Trophy final in place of classical offie Ramesh Powar.
On the eve of the Under-19 World Cup in Malaysia, the Indian Express' Sandeep Dwivedi speaks to India’s coach Dav Whatmore about the days ahead.
Also read Dwivedi's profiles of four relative unknowns in the Indian squad.
It's quite unusual for India’s ODI captain MS Dhoni to say "Baap re" in response to some stunning strokeplay. But that's exactly what happened last season at Eden Gardens when Jharkhand was pitted against Bengal in a T20 game. As a number of Tiwary ‘big ones’ disappeared into the stands and fielders were nursing blisters in their palms, Jharkhand was celebrating the spotting of Dhoni II.
One of India's U-19 stars, Ishant Sharma, is now making a big impact in the world stage. Read Rohit Mahajan's profile in the Outlook magazine.
Yuvraj Singh’s life sketch at the moment is incomplete, writes Pradeep Magazine in the Hindustan Times. Whether on completion it will remind people of a genius who lived life on his own terms or of a man who frittered away God’s benedictions, no one knows.
The images of film star Deepika Padukone failing to get a chance to applaud her friend’s stroke play from the galleries did nothing to douse these rumours and as the tour is now almost coming to an end, the man who everyone believed would be the king, has lost his crown even before he could wear it.
Christopher Martin-Jenkins has serious reservations about the future of cricket now that Twenty20 is growing and growing. The game, he says in the Times, is at once “a commercial phenomenon and a Frankenstein’s monster”:
A new chief executive for the ICC is being chosen this week and when he starts work in July his first tasks will be first to retain control of the Frankenstein in Bombay and then to restrain the monster so that it does not unbalance the game irrevocably. We want Flintoff's first loyalty to be to England, not the Mumbai Maulers.
But if you missed it a few days ago, in the same paper Shane Warne has nothing but praise for the IPL, not least because of the promotional benefits that can accrue – hair promotion products, anyone?
In the Guardian, Lawrence Booth considers what conclusions, if any, can be drawn from England’s Twenty20 win against New Zealand on Tuesday.
Jack Simmons, the new ECB chairman, makes his feelings clear on Kolpaks in county cricket, as analysed by David Hopps in the same paper.
India Today's Sharda Ugra analyses the money flow of the Indian Premier League.
Media planners are wondering how it will all add up. Divya Radhakrishnan, vice-president, The Media Edge, India, the media planning arm of Rediffusion DY&R, says, “If we do the math backwards and divide the monies paid by advertising time, Sony should be selling a 10-second slot at Rs 3 lakh (US$ 7500), which is twice that of an India ODI series.” The figure of $1 billion touted by IPL, say industry watchers, is something of an optical illusion driven by Lalit Modi’s desire to match ICC’s billion-dollar deal with ESPN-Star Sports (ESS).
In the Indian Express, K Shriniwas Rao profiles the franchise owners of the IPL.
Cities have teams, and teams have owners. Can club culture take root in cricket and rake in the dough? Outlook's Arindam Mukherjee investigates.
Can the IPL be the first success story among city-based sports leagues in India? The Economic Times looks for the answer.
The Business Standard also takes a look at the business potential of BCCI's new venture.
Peter Roebuck, writing in the Hindu, says Mahendra Singh Dhoni faces many a challenge in leading a young side. He believes Dhoni can put it across to his team-mates to look forward to the challenge of playing Test cricket.
Barely worth his place in the Test side after patchy form with the bat, he must prove that he understands Test cricket is paramount, fifty over cricket is next and twenty over matches are a light-hearted romp that ought not to define a cricketer or his community. Otherwise recent victories in the shorter versions of the game will do more harm than good.
India cricket faces a formidable threat to its production line of players and Dhoni is the man best placed to keep things in check.
In Tehelka, Dileep Premachandran says Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly should have been accorded a dignified exit from ODIs.
The decent thing to do, if the captain and selectors were of one mind, would have been to give them farewell games at home against Pakistan, rather than send them home midway through a tour that both consider cricket’s pinnacle. There could yet be a long kiss goodnight against South Africa in April, but that might be almost insulting after indicating to them that they’re no longer considered good enough to take on the best two teams in the world — Australia and Sri Lanka.
Dhoni may one day be a great captain. But you can’t help but think that he’s flunked his first big test. Words from him, a team-mate, would have meant a whole lot more than insincere ramblings from selectors. Instead, two of Indian cricket’s finest sons have been left to look back in anger. Or sorrow.
Dileep Premachandran, in the Sydney Morning Herald, says the BCCI has become sport's biggest juggernaut, and points out that though a few other sporting entities may generate revenue on the same scale, they don't have the political muscle that can subvert a game. He highlights the need for a statesman like Mahatma Gandhi in Indian cricket.
Many Indians are discomfited by the board's greed and naked displays of strength but there's also a new, prosperous brigade that takes perverse pride in sticking it to the old world. The voices of reason look at the lack of facilities in small towns, ramshackle stadia and haphazard itineraries and wonder where all the money goes. Those that burn effigies and parade donkeys on the street couldn't care less.
Nearly a century ago, MK Gandhi returned from South Africa to lead a motley crew of princely states into the modern world. He did so with humility, common sense and an unshakeable belief that truth would prevail. Indian cricket awaits a similar statesman.
In the Daily Telegraph, Garry Linnell writes that we should get used to the fact that the BCCI are the new masters of world cricket.
Pradeep Magazine says India should use its clout to correct the issues plaguing the sport, instead of only reacting when there's trouble. He writes in the Hindustan Times:
India, now for most, is a country for which the business of sport and not the sport itself is the most important business. It is a dangerous sign and the sooner India tries to dispel this notion, the better it will be for its image and for world cricket.
On the topic of India's over-the-top reactions to the events in Australia, Harsha Bhogle, in the Sydney Morning Herald, explains that it has a lot to do with the change in attitude of the average Indian over the decades.
Since I was a little child, my abiding memory is of visiting journalists and cricketers coming to India and making fun of us.We were a country finding our feet, we were not confident, we seethed within but we accepted. The new generation in India is not as accepting, they are prouder, more confident, more successful. Those bottled-up feelings are bubbling through.
The Daily Telegraph reveals that Ricky Ponting made the decision to agree to have Harbhajan Singh's racial abuse charge downgraded after a series of secret meetings with lawyers during the Test match in Adelaide.
"Just fix it then," Ponting is understood to have said when emotions flared. As Symonds came to terms with the judgment, it's believed he said: "I can't believe this is happening."
The Australian has acquired the full text of Justice John Hansen's decision in Harbhajan Singh's appeal.
Australian newspapers are full of reaction to the outcome of the Harbhajan Singh affair, in The Age it is reported that the Australian cricketers are furious that Harbhajan Singh has escaped suspension.
"The thing that pisses us off is that it shows how much power India has," said a contracted Australian player, who refused to be named. "The Aussie guys aren't going to make it (the accusation) up. The players are frustrated because this shows how much influence India has, because of the wealth they generate. Money talks.
In the Sydney Morning Herald, Alex Brown says, "in matters directly involving the Indians, don't expect an impartial outcome. Both the BCCI and the ICC have shown their hand in that regard during the past month."
In the Australian Peter Lalor writes, "India, the team that bleated about the spirit of cricket after being beaten in Sydney, has again held a gun to the game's head and had its demands met."
Adelaide Now's Geoff Roach tracks the day's events.
An air of anxiety began to stir among them as the start of play drew nigh without any sign of the principal players. That soon turned to frustration when it was learned the Australian participants had performed their own version of an Indian rope trick by driving into an underground car park and entering the building via a basement lift.
Fearing the same would happen with the Indian party, most camera operators surged 80m east to the car park entrance – only to have to sprint frantically back as a black BMW disgorged Harbhajan and team manager Chetan Chauhan outside the front at 10.50am.
The Australian sports radio stations too are abuzz with listeners calling in to air their opinions. Click here to listen to a few stations.
It’s not just inside Australia comment that the result of the Harbhajan hearing has attracted comment. In The Times, Christopher Martin-Jenkins is less than complimentary about the BCCI’s role.
One understands, of course, the particular sensitivity of matters pertaining to race, but either the BCCI, like all other national representative bodies, accepts the rules of the ICC and, in this case, the procedures that everyone has agreed, whatever the outcome, or there is potential anarchy.
It would not be a good thing if it were to become the expected outcome of every appeal that, whenever a nation's pride is ruffled, oil will be poured on troubled waters. Every case has to be judged on its merits.
Also in The Times Patrick Kidd writes that both teams should move on.
1) If they felt that he had done nothing wrong, India were right to fight this to clear his name. They should now refrain from gloating or complaining about being picked on and get on with the cricket.
2) If Australia thought they had heard a racial slur, they were right to complain. They should now accept that they were mistaken, not complain about the verdict and get on with the cricket.
Prem Panicker, writing in rediff.com, wonders whether in the light of the judgement ICC would take any action on Mike Procter.
Is it fair to say that Procter brought the game into disrepute by delivering a contentious verdict where there was—according to the ICC’s own man—no evidence to underpin such a judgment? And if that is a fair assessment of the performance of the match referee, is it fair to ask what, if anything, the ICC does, what processes it has, to monitor its own officials, to pull them up, to ensure optimum performance?
In the Sunday Telegraph, Michael Atherton says that the Indian Premier League and Twenty20 cricket is poised to take over, so you better get used to it.
It was said after the Ashes victory of 2005 that cricket was the new football; well, the IPL is cricket's version of football's Premier League, and the consequences, in terms of the finances and structure of the world game, are likely to be far-reaching.
But Atherton warns that rather than complement the traditional game, the new formats and new cash might well swamp it.
Further down the line, English county cricket may find itself threatened and the ECB, by sanctioning the IPL, may not so much have kept the barbarians at the gates, as let them through the front door. If the franchise model expands, as is the hope in India, then there will be a limit to how far a market can serve two masters. Even in India, a much bigger market for cricket, there will be a potential conflict between the new and the old. No prizes for guessing where a young, hip Calcuttan businessman will want to spend his company's dosh - and it's not with the antiquated Bengal Cricket Association. Shah Rukh Khan's Kolkata Red Chillies has far more appeal.
With franchise owners having staked megabucks on the IPL, the Times of India's Indranil Basu crunches the numbers to find out whether the IPL model makes business sense.
With the IPL selling the media rights and the rights to own the eight franchises at eye-popping rates, the Economic Times analyses the revenues and expenses of the Indian board and the franchises.
The total inflow for the Board from sale of TV rights and bid money is about $133 million each year for next 10 years.
...
The Board will also make money from sale of title rights to the IPL, T-shirts of teams, a certain number of in-stadia boards at each venue and a portion of income from various other sources.
Meanwhile, the Business Standard finds that most franchisees are confident that they will break even between the second and fifth year.
Industry experts say that a gap of $3-4 million can be adjusted as a company’s advertising budget, because of the high mileage the corporate gets through its ownership.
"The best thing that the national selectors did was drop the two seniors [Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly] from the ODI squad," writes Makarand Waingankar in the Mumbai Mirror. "It requires courage of conviction. Knowing fully well that regional-minded observers will ignite controversy for dropping Ganguly and Dravid, the chairman of the selection committee Dilip Vengsarkar stamped his authority."
Seventeen years into his Test career, instead of a slow wind down towards retirement, Anil Kumble is going from strength to strength. From his appointment as Test captain to his sparkling form with the ball, and now joining the exclusive 600-wicket club. Anand Vasu profiles India's bowling champion in Tehelka.
When you speak to people about Kumble certain words keep coming up. Commitment, discipline, hard work, introvert, perseverance. These are a nightmare for someone trying to conjure up an image of the person behind the steely glare, because their meaning is so well known but so rarely adhered to. Yet with Kumble there are enough instances, if the way a person plays his cricket is an accurate reflection of his personality, to highlight each of these traits.
In his blog on cricketnext.com, Nishant Arora questions the quiet response of the BCCI.
Gentlemen, please spare some time from controlling cricket (as your abbreviation suggests that you do) and take a look at Kumble's achievements.
A silver salver five minutes before a Test match is sometimes not enough. A grand gesture is what this grand cricketer deserves.
"Anil Kumble is a titan and he is still quiet and thank god for that. And he is a substantial man. If he doesn’t feature very prominently in the Republic Day Honours List, he may not feel bad but India should, says Harsha Bhogle in the Indian Express.
The Deccan Herald's R Kaushik says that Kumble's handling of the aftermath of the Sydney Test was statesman-like and that Ricky Ponting should take a leaf out of Kumble's captaincy book.
In DNA, Gautam Sheth wonders whether Kumble would top a list of unsung heroes in cricket.
There's a siege at the hotel. A gun is pointed at the baby's head.
No, its not a line from a crime novel, but rather from Peter Lalor's piece in today's Australian. Lalor feels India have ridden roughshod over the ICC and the notion the game must go on. He also taken an interesting look at the Steve Bucknor issue.
Indian cricket is twitching and hasn’t been sleeping. It’s been up all night on the phone, talking across time zones. It needs to be treated with respect and taken seriously.
The Indians are deadly serious on this one.
Cricket needs to examine the Indians’ grievances, but it’s not easy. Trying to work out what the problem is here is akin to a game of Where’s Wally?
The initial fallout to the shenanigans at the SCG has started with Peter Roebuck firing the first shots. In his Sydney Morning Herald column he argues that India were robbed and that no sensible person would take satisfaction at Australia’s win.
It was a match that will have been relished only by rabid nationalists and others for whom victory and vengeance are the sole reasons for playing sport. Truth to tell, the last day was as bad as the first. It was a rotten contest that singularly failed to elevate the spirit.
Until another shocking decision was made by a 61-year-old umpire, reliable in his time but past his prime, the fifth day of this unattractive contest was offering plenty of tension to put alongside the memorable hundreds contributed by capable batsmen on both sides. Thereafter they might as well have drawn stumps, as all interest had been removed. Once justice and fair play have been ejected there is no point in playing the game.
India went in to the first Test with virtually no preparation, their one warm-up match against Victoria rained out for the most part. Kadambari Murali writes Hindustan Times that the lack of bounce is easier to adjust to than extra bounce. She goes on to dissect the Test:
Teams like Australia feed on their opposition’s frailties and they did just that by thoroughly exploiting India’s lack of athleticism. Every time the ball went to a relatively poor fielder, they would scamper for a single. It not only got a player off the strike and kept the board ticking, it also put extra pressure on the bowler.
Every time the ball went to the deep, they took three, two for the distance the ball had travelled and one for the weak arm. By doing so, and without hitting boundaries, they managed to maintain a healthy run rate despite losing wickets.
S Ram Mahesh praises Australia's wholesome performance in his match report in the Hindu.
Rahul Dravid opened for India after nearly two years and spent over one and a half hours for his five runs. Dravid was in terrific form in India's previous tour to Australia and a philosophical Peter Roebuck says cricket defies conquest. A batsman may feel supreme one day and a duffer the next. Regardless of past performances, a batsman walks onto the field without a run to his name, takes guard with failure beckoning and 11 men at his throat. It is not a journey to be undertaken lightly. He writes in the Sydney Morning Herald:
From the outset, Dravid looked vulnerable. He thought only about survival. Frozen at the crease, he did not think about singles to rotate the strike and ease the pressure. India can bat and bowl but are a long way behind their opponents in the basics of the game.
Also read Siddhartha Vaidyanathan's analysis of Dravid's poor form over the last year and a half on Cricinfo.
The story of Sourav Ganguly's career is one with so many twists and turns that a scriptwriter can make a living off it. He has had the knack of embarrassing his critics time and again and those who were convinced he wouldn't reach the landmark of 100 Tests would be looking elsewhere at the moment. Pradeep Magazine pays a tribute to Ganguly in the Hindustan Times
All international captains, be it a Nasser Hussain or a Steve Waugh, found to their dismay that they were dealing with a man who had the knack of getting under their skin and inspiring his team to perform above themselves. Not since the days of the Nawab of Pataudi had there been a leader who rallied his troops behind him. All that mattered for Ganguly was the skill of the player and not which region or state he belonged to
"India have no reason to be afraid," writes Peter Roebuck in the Hindu.
The Indians will have noticed that Sri Lanka’s only top-class batsmen scored hundreds in their recent series and will feel that the deed can be done. Last time around India conquered fear in the first Test. Melbourne awaits a similar display of fortitude. If India arises on Boxing Day then anything is possible.
Rain ruined India's only warm-up game against Victoria ahead of the first Test and Anil Kumble wrote in the Hindu that "in an ideal situation, we [India] should have had two lead-up games".
In fact, the whole purpose of my missing out on this game was to have a good look at the fast bowlers. I have not seen Pankaj Singh in the middle before and also wanted to have a look at the young Ishant, RP Singh, who is returning from an injury, and Irfan Pathan, who is making a comeback. Now I can’t do that.
In the Indian Express, Harsha Bhogle criticises the BCCI for its scheduling which hardly allows any time for the Indians to acclimatise in Australia, and hence making the formidable task of beating Australia on their home turf even harder.
These (the Indian cricketers) are not artists from the circus for whom life inside the big tent doesn’t change much from Melbourne to Delhi. Or baseball or basketball players or Formula One drivers for that matter. These are players who have to make significant adjustments to their game; more like a driver shifting from concrete to gravel.
Bhogle also questions the need to rejig much of the batting order to accomodate Yuvraj Singh at No. 6. He is also hopeful that Virender Sehwag will open the innings, leaving the rest of the middle-order undisturbed.
The India - Pakistan Tests fell short on entertainment value due to the lifeless pitches for the second and third Tests which weren't result-oriented. Makarand Waingankar in the Hindu talks about the pressing issue of the standard of pitches in India, something which has been felt in the domestic game as well.
It is high time the work of the members of the Pitches and Grounds Committee was monitored. What is the point of having them tour the zones if the associations continue to doctor pitches? The problem of doctoring the pitches would be solved if there was a penalty of one point for bad pitches.
Sachin Tendulkar landed with the Indians to a rock star welcome in Melbourne. The Age’s Chloe Saltau briefly caught up with Tendulkar, the man of few words.
Asked whether he felt the age of India's star batsmen would be a factor in the coming series, Tendulkar smiled and said: "No, not really."
Did he regard this as India's best chance to defeat Australia at home, an achievement no team has managed since the West Indies in 1992-93? "We have come here to play good cricket and with good results, so hopefully we will," he said. "We have come here in good shape and we are looking forward to this tour."
A couple of days after Shane Warne's gigantic sign-on fee for the Indian Premier League was announced, Sharda Ugra takes a tongue-in-cheek look at the creativity that the Twenty20 tournament will spawn. Tired with franchise names like "Tigers" and "Cobras", she suggests some titles, including "The Kolkata Protestors" (industrial action or cricket balls, it's all about the strike rate) and "The Hyderabad Leftovers" (from all that remains after the ICL sweep).
India Today's Sharda Ugra recounts a meeting with Sourav Ganguly last year, when his sangfroid about what needed to be done seemed misplaced.
Tea was drunk and the usual gee-up things that are said to cricketers in strife were said, including the wish that he go out and score “several” centuries. The word seemed to surprise Ganguly. “Several?” he echoed with an arch smile ...
Anil Kumble defends his decision to declare when he did on the final day of the Bangalore Test and says things would have been planned differently if it had been known the weather would get cloudy and prompt a bad-light situation. He writes in the Hindu:
It could have been 2-0 and that would’ve been nicer, but a series win is a series win, especially ahead of an all-important tour like Australia.
He also expresses concern over the increasing amount of international cricket being played today:
See the way international cricket is paced now: There is only three days between games, of which one is spent travelling, one practising and just one resting, you really don’t have enough time to celebrate the moment, nor brood over what you’ve lost.
In the same paper, Peter Roebuck criticises the declaration as "the margin of victory was reduced by timidity." He writes:
Striking the right balance, between attack and defence, counts amongst the hardest tasks facing any new captain. Moreover India was playing a local derby with an occasionally hostile neighbour.
Nevertheless Kumble erred on the side of caution and must change his outlook in Australia. It’s hard enough to get on top Down Under and the opportunity is not to be spurned. Any team that takes a dominant position against the Australians must resist the temptation to consolidate.
The [Indian] selectors had one opener and had to conjure three and whichever way you look at it, Sehwag’s selection is about desperation, not inspiration, writes Harsha Bhogle in the Indian Express.
If you are 18 and you are reading this, strap those pads on, walk out behind the fielders and take guard against the new ball. And if you are 18, tall and strong, back yourself and bowl quick. And once you realize you can force people onto the back foot and have them hopping and fending, don’t cut your pace and stroll in.
Ian Chappell provides a few thoughts in Mid-Day, saying defensive batting by a richly talented line-up could be India’s biggest threat to their ambition this summer.
Meanwhile Pradeep Magazine writes in the Hindustan Times. "These are reasons enough to rejoice and to look forward to the tour of Australia with hope and expectation. But somehow the last day of the Bangalore Test rankles."
S Dinakar, writing in the Hindu, doffs his hat to Sourav Ganguly.
Ganguly’s commitment shone through in his bowling. Despite the tour of Australia looming, he ran in hard and stretched every sinew. Not for a moment was he concerned about picking up an injury while performing what was only an occasional job.
Also check out G Unnikrishnan's interview with Misbah-ul-Haq, Pakistan's new crisis man, in Deccan Herald.
Gujarat is in the middle of state elections where controversial chief minister Narendra Modi's party is contesting the Congress party, but today there was an uproar of a different kind. India's squad for the tour of Australia doesn't have the name of Parthiv Patel in it, and fans of the in-form wicketkeeper-batsman don't like it one bit.
"Gujarat's cricketers are being treated like untouchables. He is in great form and performing so well in domestic cricket. But, no matter what he does, nationally he's ignored," says a fuming convenor of Parthiv Fan Club, Devang Bhatt.
"Selections are a sham. If performance in domestic cricket is a criterion, Virender Sehwag wouldn't have made the mark. He has nothing to show even in Ranji this year. Parthiv, by that standard would have been easily in," says a dejected Vijay Patel, Parthiv's Ranji Trophy coach.
In the Hindustan Times, Rajasthan fast bowler Pankaj Singh, rewarded for some impressive domestic and India A performances with a ticket to Australia, says he almost gave up cricket when he was not selected for Oudh University after good performances for his college.
Young Pankaj, who called his first national call-up "a blessing from God and from my mamma," told the Indian Express that advice from Javagal Srinath during his stint at the MRF Pace Academy in 2002-03 helped him on his cricketing journey.
Over in Mid-Day, Sanjjeev Samyal caught up with Yousuf Sale Mohammad Motorwala, the man who convinced Anil Kumble, all those years ago, to give up medium-pace for legspin.
R Kaushik, while hailing Ganguly's innings, remembers the contribution of Greg Chappell. Read his piece in the Deccan Herald.
In some distant corner, one man will feel truly vindicated. The much-maligned Greg Chappell can allow himself a quiet chuckle or three, because every international run flowing off Gangulys willow is a victory of sorts for the former Indian coach.
Sandeep Dwivedi, of the Indian Express, spoke to Bengal’s Ranji Trophy trainer Chinmoy Roy who worked with Sourav Ganguly before the Pakistan series.
“He came to me a week before the Pakistan series and told me to restart the same regime that we did when he was out of the team. He said that he had a point to prove. I could see the same intensity in his eyes that he showed when he wanted to make a comeback. He didn’t want people questioning his fitness or fielding,” recalls Roy.
With the Bengal Ranji team too training at the Eden, Ganguly became Roy’s star pupil once again. “Half-an-hour of running around the field, ten sprints of 100 m, running through the ladder and several other drills on field were part of daily routine. This was followed by gym work, where the focus was on the abdomen and back,” he says.
Lokendra Pratap Sahi, of the Telegraph, spoke to Ganguly at the end of the first day.
On his unbeaten 125
Because of the conditions, it’s one of the better ones... As the wicket here is different from the Eden, I suppose this hundred has been technically better... The Eden one will, of course, be very special — but for different reasons (first in his hometown)... This is going to be special as, at one stage, we were four down for next to nothing. That too in a Test with the series still undecided.
On Yuvraj Singh’s hundred
Fantastic... He wasn’t getting opportunities and, when he did, made the most... It’s not for me to comment on matters of selection, but I do feel Yuvraj should be a regular in the Test XI.
Ramachandra Guha, writing in the Hindu, is relieved that Anil Kumble has been given an opportunity to captain India in Tests and also discusses how Kumble has managed what even fellow legspinner Shane Warne had failed to do: score a Test century and captain his country.
When Anil Kumble scored that unlikely hundred at Lord’s, even he did not entertain thoughts of Test captaincy. His fellow townsman Rahul Dravid was firmly in command. However, at the end of the English summer, Dravid unexpectedly resigned. The selectors then approached Sachin Tendulkar and apparently got his consent to step in as leader. On second thoughts, Sachin turned down the job, and — after thinking long and hard — the post was offered by the selectors to Kumble instead ...
... The case of Anil Kumble and the Indian captaincy is one of justice delayed but not, in the end, denied. Since India entered Test cricket in 1932, no man has worn the India cap with more pride than Kumble. No man has won more Test matches for his country. As cricketer and human being this leg-spinner from Bangalore is right out of the top drawer. His reward has come six or eight years too late — but perhaps we should be thankful that it has come at all
In the Sunday Age, Chloe Saltau pays tribute to Sachin Tendulkar ahead of what will almost certainly be his last tour of Australia.
For almost four hours this teenager with the serene face, brought up on low, slow Indian wickets, had defied four bristling Australian pacemen on the fastest, bounciest pitch in the world with a mixture of grace and power his opponents found hard to fathom in one so young. Merv Hughes cracked open a beer and turned to his captain, Allan Border: "This little prick's going to get more runs than you, AB." Almost 16 years later, Sachin Tendulkar not only has more runs than the prolific Border, and fewer only than West Indian Brian Lara, but is about to come full circle by touring Australia for the last time. At 34, he is perhaps the summer's greatest drawcard.
Will Swanton, writing in the Sun-Herald, looks at India's fitness concerns and wonders whether they will be able to handle the rigours of a four-Test tour of Australia.
"It doesn’t matter whether or not the chairman of selectors writes a column. It does matter if we play boring Test matches. So where then do the priorities lie? I have been asked to be on a radio programme and a television show about the [Dilip] Vengsarkar issue but nobody has asked why we are playing cricket on slow, low, pedestrian pitches," says Harsha Bhogle in the Indian Express.
We don’t have to worry about a coach, about a permanent manager, about a cricket calendar, about unhappy captains, about systems for selectors to work within. Or about pitches and bright cricket. In three weeks we play a Test in Melbourne on what is bound to be a fresh, bouncy pitch. India will need three seamers in the playing eleven. Today, we cannot find two to pick in the first fifteen. But the most important thing about the selection committee meeting is not that. It is about whether or not the chairman of selectors will attend. Really!
Dilip Vengsarkar, India's chairman of selectors, seems right now to be the Abhimanyu of Indian cricket, finding himself in the chakravyuha with no way to leave unscathed, writes Makarand Waingankar in the Mumbai Mirror.
The open letter that Vengsarkar mailed to Sharad Pawar will not help sort out problems if that was his intention. The letter shows the working style of the BCCI Secretary Niranjan Shah in poor light, though he is not inefficient as he is made out to be. Convening the meeting of the selection committee is not the only function the BCCI Secretary has. He is virtually running the BCCI show and he is an honorary worker. That is never taken into consideration.
Sharda Ugra writes in India Today that it's time that India got over the diaries Gary Kirsten wrote on South Africa's visit in 1996.
If he takes up the job, Kirsten may discover that India has changed since 1996, but that's not the point. He is being asked to come to India to coach its cricket team, not to do tourism promotion. The point is that people--yes, even cricketers--grow up and Kirsten by all accounts, did. As his career wound down, the left-hander was known as a quiet, thoughtful man, generous of his opponents, who both respected and liked him. That incriminating diary... hell, that's bygones. Or it should be.
Writing in The Times, Shane Warne flags that Twenty20 will hit India, the game’s largest market, in a big way over the months ahead. The ICL starts today, although Warne has joined the official IPL – “there are lots of capital letters in those sentences” he admits - but Pandora’s Box has been opened, and Warne does not approve of the possible action against those playing in the ICL.
Both leagues give wonderful opportunities to professional cricketers and I think it is right that players should have the freedom to play in whichever of them they wish to. Although the ICL is yet to be given official blessing, I hope that players are not penalised or banned from other competitions.
Cricketers have to earn a living and the bills do not stop coming through the letterbox at the end of a season. It is wrong that honest men … with good reputations may be punished for simply accepting very good offers to ply their trade. The ICL has been described as a breakaway and a rebel league, yet comparisons to World Series Cricket in the late-Seventies do not stand up.
It will be interesting to see how the ICL works, whether the crowds give their support and how the facilities stand up. But, however popular it proves, I cannot imagine a big split in the game.
The Hindu’s special correspondent caught up with Suresh Shastri, a member of the ICC’s international panel of umpires.
When he made his international debut as an umpire in the match against Zimbabwe at Pune in 1993, Shastri knew the task was going to be tough. “Those days we would get just one match in one year,” he remembered. From 1993 to 1998, he stood in a mere four matches. Since last November, when he returned to the international panel, Shastri has officiated in 15 one-dayers and two Tests.
Umpiring is a challenge and Shastri has learnt to live with the pressures. “You can’t imagine the decibel of the noise when you stand in the middle. It is very difficult to concentrate,” he confesses. But his ‘pranayam’ helps Shastri bear the pressure and his good work on the field has earned him respect from the players, with Sachin Tendulkar leading the list.
India's fielding coach Robin Singh has sent a report to the BCCI assessing the players' fielding skills after the five one-day internationals against Pakistan. You can read it here.
Sachin Tendulkar: Needs to improve on his agility and work on his fitness. Sourav Ganguly: Has to improve on his fitness, agility and anticipation. Robin Uthappa: Was below his normal fielding standards; should work on his fitness, agility and throwing from the deep.
"One of the key requests, conditions if you please, of former South Africa opener Gary Kirsten has been the appointment of a "mental conditioning coach" for the Indian team," writes Chandresh Narayanan in the Times of India.
Kirsten confirmed to TOI that he has recommended the appointment of Paddy Upton, also a former fitness trainer with tthe South African team between 1994-1998. Upton now works as a mental conditioning coach at Kirsten's cricket academy in Cape Town and is also his business partner in a venture called "Performance Zone". "It is not yet finalised, but I have told the BCCI that Paddy could add value to the side," said Kirsten.
Also, click here to read Jacques Kallis talking about how Upton helped him improve.
The Times of India's Sumit Mukherjee calls for the inclusion of Yuvraj Singh and Rahul Dravid in both the Test and ODI teams.
We have a situation where there is a traffic jam in the Indian batting with 'brand new cars' jostling for space with a few 'old models' that should have long been scrapped. The problem with Indian cricket selectors is that they have always suffered from a delusion that they have an obligation to please everyone.
In trying to do so, they invariably end up upsetting everyone including the team's balance. They also tend to approach their job from the wrong end. Over the years, selectors have tended to pick or drop a player and then sought to justify their deed when all they ever need to do is pick the best and shut out the rest.
If dropping Dravid from the ODIs reflected their confused state of mind, keeping an in-form Yuvraj out of the Test XI betrayed complete bankruptcy of thought. VVS Laxman's polished unbeaten 72 in the Kotla Test against Pakistan may have Dilip Vengsarkar and his colleagues nodding in approval, but that still leaves Yuvraj boxed in as far as Test cricket
The ABC documentary Guru Greg, on Greg Chappell's controversial tenure as India coach, is finally out. The producers of the show, Stu McCarney and Matthew Duffy, share their observations during the filming. Read the full piece on news.com.au
"We approached him and said we were interested in telling the story, the experience he was going through. Judy wasn't always there and we could see a change in Greg when she'd arrive. She provides a lot of support to Greg on the road and she has a difficult job because cricket is so all consuming and it's hard for us to fully understand that."
India-Pakistan series still has staggering appeal, writes Nagraj Gollapudi in the Observer.
The most happy are the sponsors, advertisers and marketing personnel who are always busy devising ways and means to sell the 'package'. This time it has arrived on their doorstep without them having to do the hard sell. Having an India-Pakistan series during the peak season for advertisers - from Diwali to Christmas and New Year - was definitely a boom time.
Siddhartha Mishra looks back at the 18 years of Sachin Tendulkar's international career and writes in the Times of India that Tendulkar hasn't necessarily changed his nature. Rather, he has grown into it empowered by the Zen-like wisdom that comparison with his own self has brought.
That is the charm of his story: that the subtext is more significant than the actual result. And the subtext reads: for a person who has the temerity to fail as much as he has the audacity to seek greatness, the illusion of performance is never incongruous to the pattern of his development.
Greg Chappell is in Jaipur as the head coach of the Rajasthan Cricket Academy, the brainchild of Rajasthan Cricket Association president and influential BCCI vice-president Lalit Modi. Prem Panicker finds out what Chappell's plans for the academy are. Read the interview here.
Rediff.com also looks at some of the uncoventional exercises Chappell and Ian Frazer have prescribed for Rajasthan's young hopefuls.
"What you get in a gym are social muscles, the kind that looks good on a beach, or in a T-shirt, but are valueless on the sports field. What you really need are functional muscles, the sort that builds you up for what you do on the cricket field, and this circuit is one of the steps to getting there."
For instance, Chappell points out, when you run over the uneven ground, and then jump into a pit that is a good seven feet deep, you are working out the "back chain muscles" of the leg - the ones that, beginning with the glutes, go down the back of your thighs, the knee, the calves, all the way down to the sole of your foot.
It is these muscles that take tremendous strain when playing.
And Chappell finds time to take a swipe at his former employers - the BCCI - in an interview to Vijay Tagore in the Daily News & Analysis.
Unlike the BCCI, my present employer Lalit is very committed and passionate about the academy and I’m happy to be giving six months of an year for three years.
He went on to say:
It’s difficult to work under the BCCI which was not willing to change for its own compulsive reasons.
Yuvraj Singh is the world's best limited-overs player, says Ayaz Memon in the Daily News & Analysis. He thinks that Anil Kumble's first dilemma as captain will be to decide whether Yuvraj has a place in the Test side.
... it is his daring strokeplay and strong finishing which marks Yuvraj out as exceptional.
Add to this his outstanding fielding and useful left-arm spin and you have a multi-faceted match-winner. But is he good enough, Kumble will be asking himself (and a few others surely), to break into the Indian Test team which has Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman at numbers 5 and 6?
Harsha Bhogle asks the embarrassing question at espnstar.com.
I guess the pecking order at the moment is Zaheer Khan, RP Singh and Sreesanth. But it is a pretty tiny list. Who is India's no. 4 seamer? And, since we must ask embarrassing questions, who is no. 5? Irfan Pathan might give the impression of a renaissance and more than anyone else I wish that were true. He is bowling well in one-day cricket but you can be a good one-day bowler without really threatening to take wickets all the time. The in-swing surfaces occasionally but his best ball is the slow cutter and that is not the best weapon in a test match.
Simon Briggs writing in The Daily Telegraph reports that the launch of the Indian Cricket League was not the slick affair that had been expected and it raised concerns about what is to come.
The competence of the ICL was immediately put in doubt as their first statement left off the names of the six team captains - Law, Brian Lara, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Craig McMillan, Chris Cairns and Marvan Atapattu.
As the ICL have held up Lara and Inzamam as their star attractions since the project was first unveiled, this embarrassing omission suggested that the tournament, due to start on Nov 30 at a ground near Chandigarh in northern India, is unlikely to proceed without a few hitches.
Malcolm Conn, writing in the Australian, reveals that Greg Chappell, in a documentary, had said that the Indian board had covered up an incident involving a fan who assaulted him after breaching team security.
In the documentary, Guru Greg, to be shown on ABC television next week, the former Australia captain makes it clear that he believes he was attacked because he was a foreigner.
"I got hit on the side of the head and my immediate reaction was 'he's broken my jaw'," Chappell said after he was hit and pushed as the Indian team arrived in Bhubaneswar, in the eastern state of Orissa, to play a one-day international against the West Indies in January this year."
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In an other article, Conn writes on Chappell's unsuccessful attempt to change Indian cricket.
Now coach of a new academy set up by the Rajasthan Cricket Association, Chappell offers an often frank and unflattering assessment of the amateur and bureaucratic Board of Control for Cricket in India which is sure to prompt yet more outrage from officials more efficient at blame shifting than forward thinking. Indian demi-gods such as Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly are painted as ageing, selfish cricketers more interested in personal success than team triumph
John Inverdale, writing in The Daily Telegraph, says that the Indian Cricket League has restored the word “rebel” to the cricket world after a 30-year absence. And he thinks that the ICL might have a chance of succeeding.
Bit by bit, one or two well-known players are signing up for the league, and while, as things stand, it doesn't have the international game quaking in its boots, at the same time it is firing a warning shot across the International Cricket Council's bows, and they ignore it at their peril.
Inverdale makes the point that other wealthy individuals will be looking on with more than passing interest and the game’s bosses cannot rest on their laurels.
This after all, is a sport that contrived, despite all the business acumen that has come into cricket in recent years, to organise possibly the least impressive World Cup ever staged. It's almost impossible to imagine - actually it is impossible to imagine - a football World Cup bombing in Brazil, or a Rugby World Cup failing in New Zealand. Well the ICC took cricket's equivalent to the West Indies and made it a laughing stock.
The ICL could turn out to be a complete catastrophe, with the rug pulled from under its feet by a unified front from all the main Test-playing countries. It could equally, in a cricket-mad nation, be setting the standard for taking the sport to a new level.
Scyld Berry writing in The Daily Telegraph is of the opinion that the Indian Cricket League is set to fail, and much of the blame lies with Kapil Dev whose “great sense of timing has deserted him”.
Around 50 cricketers are milling around Chennai this weekend wondering what, if anything, is going to happen. ICL's signings include some great has-beens … but the majority are young Indian players whom nobody has heard of, and who have signed away their careers in official cricket after being promised 20 to 40 lakh rupees (£25,000-£50,000) for a three-year contract.
They have got one ground to play on, at Panchkula outside Chandigarh. What the teams are, and when they will play, has not yet been displayed on the website of the Indian Cricket League. Only one thing is certain: the terrible timing of this breakaway tournament.
Hailing the appointment of Anil Kumble as India's Test captain in the Australian, Mike Coward feels the 37-year-old could speak up for the five-day game.
Kumble has an abiding affection for Test cricket and no doubt will have even a greater spring in his step now he has retired from the arduous limited-overs game. Indeed, this is the first time India has had different captains for the one-day and Test match cricket.
It is to be hoped that Kumble, and Ponting and Jayawardene for that matter, will use their position of privilege and speak loudly and often about the joys of Test match cricket and what the pure game means to the world's elite players.
Kumble enjoys probably the most exalted place in the dressing room along with Tendulkar. There is very little about this game that he has not seen or experienced. His voice commands attention and respect, from seniors and juniors alike. His body of work is so spectacular that it brooks no nonsense.
Read Kumble's thoughts on captaincy in the Kolkata-based Telegraph.
"Sachin Tendulkar’s refusal to take on the responsibility of captaining India has left me shocked and disappointed," writes Gundappa Viswanath in the Hindu.
The obvious question now is, if not Sachin who. The very fact that the selectors opted for Sachin in the first place is an indicator that they, perhaps, think that Mahendra Dhoni is not ready yet. If that is the case, they should not look beyond Anil Kumble, who unlike the other possible candidate Sourav Ganguly, has retired from ODIs, thus ensuring there will no real clash with Dhoni’s current responsibilities.
In an interview with Mint, a finanicial daily, Lalit Modi, the Indian board vice-president, discusses the revenue generated by the BCCI, telecast rights, the Indian Premier League and much more.
Modi says:
In a typical ODI, we make close to $8.5 million broadcasting revenue, and our rate is Rs45 [to the dollar], not Rs40. Contracts are based on exchange rate on that date. Then there is Sahara [which is the team sponsor] revenue, Nike [apparel sponsor] revenue... comes to a million dollars per day per match. Ground sponsorship revenue is between $1.6 million and $1.7 million per day.
"It will be encouraging to see the Pakistanis walk on to the field in some of the great cities of India. All divisions are artificial, a question of geography or colour or gender or faith and the other prejudices that set men apart," writes Peter Roebuck in the Hindu.
You could argue that Rahul Dravid need be treated no differently from anyone else and that if he doesn’t score enough runs he should be left out like anyone else. The problem with that theory is that seeks to treat proven match-winners like young hopefuls, writes Harsha Bhogle in the Indian Express.
All good teams back their players when they are down. It is easy to back a man when he is scoring runs, the strength of a unit is seen when it rallies around someone who isn’t. Indian cricket needed to back Dravid, to give him confidence.
Rahul Dravid will play for Karnataka against Mumbai but Anil Kumble says he would have preferred to see him play for India instead, says Nihal Koshie in Daily News and Analysis.
Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan finds Shoaib Akhtar the most exciting character among the star cast involved in the forthcoming blockbuster India-Pakistan series, says Sanjjeev K Samyal in Mid-Day.
The perception that far too much of Indian cricket is about the individual has been proved again by Rahul Dravid's dropping. Rahul Bhattacharya in the Hindustan Times, writes that Dravid should be allowed the latitude of fallibility. And sooner or later he will be back, not because he is a saint, because he is that even rarer thing in Indian sport: a champion.
Sportspersons touch followers in a way that is unique. You watch them in strife and in glory, in unremarkable situations and dramatic ones, exposed always, unfolding slowly - most slowly and revealingly in cricket. Soon you let them into your life, consider them somebody you know well. That - the assumption of intimacy - becomes a premise that is in fact more accurately a reflection of how you see the world. And in the case of Dravid the verdict is unanimous: we see him as a saint.
In these times of celebrity journalism, exclusive stories and the need to give more than the competitors, the job of a reporter is not to be envied, writes Pradeep Magazine in the Hindustan Times. Magazine feels the reporter is now forced to unearth more "inside" information, and that that may indeed compromise his or her integrity. The sooner they find the middle path, if there exists one, the better.
Sandipan Deb examines why Rahul Dravid gave up the job of India captain and hopes Dravid's enforced absence from the side will help him get back to his best. Read the full piece in the Indian Express
But the batting masterclass that he thought he would be able to reach again now that the captaincy was off his back has not yet opened its doors to him.
But who knows, perhaps getting dropped for a few games will be the best thing that has happened to Dravid in a long time. It gives him time to relax, and get his mind back in order. For there is nothing wrong with Rahul Dravid except inside his mind. He needs a holiday and he’s got one.
In the Times of India, Bobilli Vijay Kumar wonders whether Dravid has become a victim of his own image.
Being left out from the team has also got Dravid thinking about the weight of his bat, reports the Sunday Express.
The GenNext of Indian cricket is coming from lesser-known places which makes their struggle to stardom all the more a difficult road, writes Chandresh Narayanan in the Times of India.
While Uttar Pradesh is turning out to be the big talent supplier, there are others like Mumbai left-arm spinner Iqbal Abdullah who have had to move out of this state to be noticed. Born in Azamgarh, Abdullah was spotted by his current coach, Mumbai-based Naushad Khan, in a club match.
Also read the story behind Praveen Kumar, the allrounder called up to the Indian one-day squad in the Indian Express and Cricinfo.
India’s bowling coach Venkatesh Prasad unveils his blueprint for the hectic season ahead. And yes, he says, there is scope for a lot of improvement. Read his interview with Sandeep Dwivedi in the Indian Express.
"We have been trying various variations at the nets. There is the slower bowl and the bouncer besides the stock ball of every bowler. Various bowlers are trying different variations. Like RP Singh is developing a off-spinner and a leg-spinner. Zaheer has a great off-spinner. Irfan has shown great variety as he alters the line and length and uses the slower ball to great effect. Sreesanth has two kinds of slower balls: one is a leg-spinner and the other is released from back of the hand."
Kadambari Murali disagrees with the decision in Hindustan Times.
When India are struggling, he is pushed up the order; when India are doing well he is pushed down the order. He is replaced now with Karthik, who was not played when Ganguly was rested. What is the message being sent out?
In the same paper, Pradeep Magazine writes on the enigmatic side to Dravid, and how a person known for his impressive communication skills failed to control the disparate egos of his own team and the Ganguly-Chappell spat.
He had worked hard to cultivate the image of "Nice Man" in a world dominated by intrigue, skulduggery, backstabbing and all the negatives that can be ascribed to an establishment where cricket is seen as a ticket to fame and money. He had to take decisions. He had to deal with a coach whose brusque methods were making his players insecure & frustrated & he had to do what he liked doing, batting and making runs.
Where was Sachin Tendulkar on this day 20 years ago? Read Clayton Murzello's Mid-Day story to find out.
Today, the MCA and BCCI will felicitate Tendulkar for becoming the first Indian in international cricket to figure in 400 plus ODIs. [But] October 17 will surely never be forgotten by international cricket’s greatest run accumulator.
Dhananjay Roy, of the Mumbai Mirror, meets up with Perry Cross, a Australian fan who has come to see the last ODI. Perry was rendered immobile neck down while playing a rugby union game as a 19-year-old in 1994 but refused to give up.
Daily News and Analysis' Taus Rizvi speaks to a Wankhede groundsman who has seen Sunny, Sachin and Rohit Sharma play at Wankhede.
Amid all then discussion on racism in cricket, Rediff's Prem Pannicker feels all this on-field natter has very little impact on the actual game:
Someone needs to take Sreesanth aside and point out to him that since he has enough empirical evidence to quantify what makes for really bad bowling, maybe it is time he shut up and bent his energies to determining what really good bowling is all about; plumping the depths of bad behavior out of a spirit of scientific curiosity is not what he is being paid to do.
Also read Rohit Brijnath's piece in the Hindu. If India has chosen confrontation as a tactic, he says, then it isn’t working.
Golfer Stephen Ames suggested Tiger Woods’ swing was erratic last year before their world matchplay showdown, and Tiger’s response was a brutal seven birdies in the first nine holes.
When a young player mistakenly sledged Michael Jordan, his coach frantically pulled him off court but it was too late, and Jordan, inflamed, put on a show. Tendulkar is almost never sledged because his response is quietly savage.
Partab Ramchand has his thoughts in the sify website.
"In any relationship breakdown, nobody is right 100 per cent, and nobody is wrong 100 per cent," Greg Chappell tells Ajay S Shankar in the Indian Express.
“Movement needs change. The Ashok chakra is about movement and change, it’s the centre of your national flag. It’s perfectly apt for the flag, it’s perfectly apt for what we are trying to do here. We need these kids to move on, move forward, and to do that, you need change. That’s what the wheel is about,” he says, unusually animated now, his hands cutting huge arcs in the air, inside his office at the stadium, amidst a pile of practice cones, plastic ropes, cricket bats, bastketballs, stumps, posters and CDs.
"India must rethink its fifty-over team," says Peter Roebuck in the Hindu. "At present the side is trapped midway between the Test line-up and the T20 outfit. Trying to combine the experience of the established Test batsmen and the dash of the twenty-over fellows has not worked."
The time has come to thank the senior players for services rendered and to tell them that hereafter they will be considered only for Test matches. No longer can India afford to give away thirty runs a game with poor fielding and slow running between wickets. Dhoni, Sreesanth and company are not the problem. They are the solution, and with a little help from Sachin and, yes, Sehwag, the future must be built around them.
Rahul Dravid has been going through a lean patch with the bat after he relinquished the captaincy. Amit Gupta, of the Mumbai Mirror, seeks the former India coach Anshuman Gaekwad's views on the issue.
“His body language is very cold. The aggression is missing and he has gone even more quiet. The only reason I see is that he has been sort of sidelined from the team. He is being shunted in the batting order ..."
Indians revere victory more and love sports less. Their loyalties shift with success. It was once hockey; it is cricket now, says Prafull Goradia in the Pioneer.
Check out S Anand's encounter with Joginder Sharma in Tehelka magazine.
In his column in indiainteracts.com R Mohan talks of Indian captaincy being a poisoned chalice.
A cricketer at the helm must feel a Middle East peace broker stands a better chance of succeeding in bringing factions together in the West Bank. It can be an exasperating experience just to handle the destabilisation process that begins the moment a new captain gets through his honeymoon period with his team, the media and the bigwigs of the BCCI.
Newpostindia reports that Australian actor cum producer Brendan Cowell is heading for India to make a feature film about the funny side of cricket. Meanwhile the Screen magazine talks of a South African film crew set to land in Mumbai to shoot the final schedule of Hansie, the movie.
Dilip Vengsarkar's public criticism of the Indian team in the middle of a tough series against Australia has not gone down too well. Here's what Pradeep Magazine has written on it in the Hindustan Times.
The chairman of the selection committee, Dilip Vengsarkar, reacts like a TV anchor and not like someone who should know and be more responsible in what he says. Almost every second day we have Vengsarkar in an ‘exclusive’ interview berating his team.
Magazine also bemoans the Indian fans' fickle nature and hopes the contributions of the experienced trio of Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly won't be forgotten in the hysteria of the World Twenty20 victory.
Rohit Brijnath, writing in the Hindu, elaborates on the art of stumping, with specific reference to Mahendra Singh Dhoni's stumping of Ricky Ponting in the fourth ODI in Chandigarh. He also highlights the importance of skill in sport.
Stumping is an elaborate, high-speed composition, a sort of symphony of movement, where Dhoni was bending, rising, collecting, watching Ponting making a decision, his hands responding, so alert and quick that it would have earned him instant membership in any union of pickpockets.
Sport is so cluttered these days, the air so thick with allegation and controversy (in the middle of the series the Indian chairman of selectors and team manager are fencing), that skill tends to get lost, or somewhat under-appreciated. The craft of the athlete apparently is not news, it doesn’t sell. In cricket, we add runs, divide them, mark out averages, list strike rates, but these days we mostly forget how these runs are made.
Tendulkar is back, which is news to some, although wiser heads never believed he went away, writes Peter Lalor in the Australian.
Granted, the greatest god in the Indian cricket pantheon was looking perilously mortal as late as the first 15 overs of yesterday's match, but Tendulkar, like Steve Waugh before him, has delighted in proving the critics wrong.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni took charge of a team with three former captains, Mohammad Azharuddin, India's former captain, had more, writes Sandeep Dwivedi in Indian Express:
To understand the team mechanics and dressing room atmosphere of the present team, one spoke to several coaches and players who were part of the last significant power shift in Indian cricket — the men who saw closely the new-captain-on-the-block Azhar’s Daddy’s Army. While there was a consensus that Dhoni isn’t as naive as Azhar, at the same they all agreed that it isn’t easy for a captain to keep the flock together and assert himself when those around him include commoners who were kings once.
In the same newspaper former Pakistan captain Rashid Latif, who led a team of five former skippers, tells Dhoni to take bold decisions.
Meanwhile Peter Roebuck, writing in the Natal Witness, compares India's on-field attitude to South Africa's.
Australia will not be subdued by sound or fury, writes Peter Roebuck in the Hindu:
Sreesanth and Harbhajan need to think again about how to handle success and how to play against the Australians, and could start by observing the widespread affection shown down under towards proven champions like Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Anil Kumble. Has any of them ever displayed anything except unshakeable resolve?
Meanwhile Rohit Brijnath writes in BBC Sport on the perils of aggression:
India are not going to beat, or impress, or scare Australia by behaving in an aggressive manner but by playing in an aggressive manner. Not by tough talk, but by putting six balls in the right place; not taking a step towards the opposition, but by taking singles constantly; not by a shoulder bump, but by fielding sharply.
Cricketers struggling with form must have a door to knock on, writes Harsha Bhogle in the Indian Express
If the BCCI can create franchises for its Twenty20 competition, why can’t it do the same with the Ranji Trophy teams? A market driven operation, more often than not, creates a meritocracy; the good get rewarded better and they are not at the mercy of insensitive associations that do not need to be good to be rich. There are terrible stories of players being promised one thing and delivered another floating around.
Meanwhile Dileep Premachandran writes in the Guardian that the breeding-grounds of Indian cricket have moved from the cities to the country, where power-hitting is put before technique.
Alex Brown, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, looks at the contradictions of India’s Sreesanth.
Eccentric, forthright and always unpredictable, a conversation with India's newest fast bowling star is every bit as interesting as a match in which he is playing. Incite on the field. Insight off it.
"I am a child," Sreesanth said, responding to Andrew Symonds's recent criticisms. "They are all legends. It is a dream come true to play against Ricky Ponting or Matthew Hayden. I am a child of the game, I am still learning. I am sure most of them went through things when they were inexperienced like me. Hopefully I learn faster."
Steve Waugh hopes Sreesanth doesn't go over the top - read his thoughts in the Courier-Mail - while the Age's Chloe Saltau says the bowler's antics in the second ODI gave Australia the moral high ground.
Nirmal Shekar, writing in the Hindu, terms Sreesanth's behaviour in the ODIs against Australia as "boorish and boring". He feels that unlike Sreesanth, champions such as Roger Federer and Pete Sampras knew it was not possible to be charged up during an entire match and knew exactly when to psych themselves up.
Akshay Sawai of the Hindustan Times advises Sreesanth to calm down and wants him to realise that he is a role model for impressionable youngsters.
Sreesanth's antics in the second one-dayer at Kochi have brought forth reactions:
The Times of India's Joseph Hoover feels it's time Sreesanth curbed his aggression.
As if this act of brutishness was not enough, Sree again crudely remonstrated, after accepting a return catch from Symonds. Celebration is one thing, behaving disrespectfully is another. Perhaps, Sree wouldn’t care. Playing in front of his home crowd, could have pumped him up. Also, the Aussies, who are masters at sledging, could have baited him, but Sree had no business to do what he did.
He has had his match fees docked, been spoken to by the umpires, but does not seem to have learnt his lesson. He is so much the better paceman when his mind and body are in harmony. Once Sreesanth loses his cool, he is not the same force as a bowler.
The Melbourne-based Age headlined the match report 'Sreesanth takes on Australia' while the Australian newspaper came down hard on the bowler with 'Sreesanth disturbs the peace'.
R Kaushik, though, makes a pertinent point in Deccan Herald:
The fact of the matter is that holier-than-thou is an easy cloak to wear. As Gilchrist showed when, having seen on the giant screen that umpire Shastri had made a wrong no-ball against James Hopes, he charged down the pitch to forcefully make his point. Determined, of course, to keep the spirit of cricket going.
Come Wednesday and Yuvraj Singh will complete seven years as a big league-cricketer. The Telegraph's Lokendra Pratap Sahi speaks to him on the journey:
Now everybody is calling me 'Mr Six' ... It’s nice to have such a label, but the way out is not to treat the high expectations as added pressure ... I’ve got to respond to situations, not expectations ... Of course, I’m aware of the need to be consistent.
Also check out Prafull Goradia's piece in the Daily Pioneer where he says Twenty20, a logical evolution of cricket, is a fielder's game.
Kochi too seems equally frantic to receive the rare cricket star from this football country, writes Sandeep Dwivedi in the Indian Express.
The jovial Eranakulum Cricket Association president KP Satish makes an interesting observation about the blooming of a cricket star in the football fertile land. “Sreesanth is like chicken biryani in a brahmin restaurant,” he says as he points to the changing cricket scene in the state.
The Hindustan Times' Akshay Sawai meets those behind Sreesanth's rise.
While Sreesanth jets around the cricketing world making those theatrical appeals to the umpire, his people back home make pleas to the great umpire up above. Said Dr Joshi Dev, his neighbour who had accompanied his parents to the temple on Sunday, “We had a big puja here before the World Cup in the West Indies. India did not even reach the second round then. But our prayers have been answered now.”
Leading Indian news magazines have celebrated India's Twenty20 triumph.
The stunning victory in South Africa was no fluke. Dhoni’s men beat the world’s best teams on their way to the Cup, writes Shantanu Guha Ray in Tehelka magazine.
In the same publication S Anand feels that no other sport is as advertiser-friendly as cricket.
Where does the faster format leave Sachin, Sourav or Rahul, asks Alam Srinivas in Outlookwhile R Rajaraman, in the same magazine, wonders how Twenty20 is going to change Indian cricket.
The Week's Neeru Bhatia hails the heroes while providing a few snippets from behind the scenes:
Ahead of the semi-final match against Australia, team masseur Ramesh Mane, or kaka as he is fondly called, told Robin Uthappa, while giving him a rub down, to ignore all calls on his mobile phone and just focus on his game. But the Dude-as the Bangalore batsman is nicknamed-smiled and told him, "Kaka, tenshun lene ka nahin, dene ka hai (Don't feel tense. Pass the tension to the opponents)."
Saad Bin Jung, writing in the Asian Age, condemns the treatment meted out to former cricketers who had come to watch the first ODI between India and Australia in Bangalore.
The secretary of the Karnataka State Cricket Association is a former Test player with most members of the organising team having played some form of cricket or the other. Yet when I arrived in the stadium I saw two former Test players Syed Abid Ali and the greatest off-spinner that India has produced, EAS Prasanna without a place to sit.
Not a single person was bothered if they had family with them.
No one cared for their comfort. Does an international game give the organisers so much self importance that they forget their basic etiquettes to senior players? This disrespect and abuse of our senior cricketers has to stop. After all it is our seniors who carry the wisdom of cricket with them, irrespective of whether they are with the BCCI or the Indian Cricket League.
Peter Roebuck believes Anil Kumble would make a good Test captain for India. He writes in the Hindu:
As a cricketer, Kumble has surpassed expectations. It might be the same as a tactician and leader. On the rare occasions this unsmiling tweaker has directed operations he has shown the sort of flexibility and aggression supposedly absent in contemplative types.
But then Kumble merely resembles a librarian. At heart he is a lion. And he can still roar, continues to take wickets and has even scored his first Test century, an innings that reminded observers that he had started as a batsman.
Munaf Patel, not picked in the Twenty20 side and dropped from the one-day team, is hurt by the constant questioning of his fitness and lack of intensity. He asks why others are being asked questions about him when he is in the best position to answer them. Ajay S Shankar interviews him in the Sunday Express:
My family, my parents, two sisters, we used to survive on Rs 1000 a month. And for people like me, there are only two ways to reach there — Bollywood or cricket. But after earning a lot of money, you feel a bit numb about it, inside. That’s when you realise that what’s really important is your izzat, the respect. You don’t get that with money, any amount of money. Cricket has given me the money, and the respect. But now, with all this talk of lack of fitness and intensity, it’s a question of my izzat. And that’s really hurting.”
On being asked about his injuries and dip in form, Munaf turns defensive:
... 17 months since debut, goals? “Shall I say 500 wickets? It will be good for your headline. I am just trying to work hard, leave me alone.” Seven Tests, 25 wickets, but only one Test this year, comeback? “Dekho, if you perform, take wickets, nobody can stop you.” Fourteen ODIs in the first six months, just 11 games in the last 10 months, McGrath action? “Woh sab mera problem hai. This is not your problem.”
It seems filmmakers have spotted potential in Sreesanth, known for his on-field antics and drama. PTI reports a director in Kerala who wants to make his first film starring Sreesanth alongside popular Malayalam filmstar Mamooty.
Abu said Sreesanth's role would be more than just a cameo.
"It will not be a guest role, but certainly an important role, which will have its influence on the story," he asserted.
Times of India's Joseph Hoover comes down hard on Rahul Dravid's decision to resign from the Indian captaincy.
He is known to be an astute cricketer, a fine judge of the line of the ball, shouldering arms to deliveries which are a shade outside off stump. He is a good timer of the ball and is known to be careful about everything he does and says. But he timed his resignation poorly. It probably must rank as one of the most dastardly getaways in Indian cricket.
Rahul Bhattacharya offers his thoughts in the Tehelka magazine.
Slowly the job would have eroded Dravid. Captaincy unwittingly compels you to focus on things you may not really want to. For instance, he cared very much for what appeared in the media and this was a mistake. It was apparent to see that his impatience with the press had been growing.
Yusuf Pathan has always been in the shadow of his younger brother, Irfan. But life has changed after he made his debut in India's triumph over Pakistan in the final of the World Twenty20. The Hindu’s KC Vijaya Kumar caught up with Yusuf in Baroda.
“Before I was known only here,” Yusuf said and pointed out to the fans and officials assembled at the Reliance Cricket Stadium, his home ground, here on Friday. “And now everyone knows me, yes in that sense things have changed forever.”
Lokendra Pratap Sahi interviews Ricky Ponting on the upcoming one-dayers against India and talks to Sourav Ganguly on India's Twenty20 win in the Kolkata-based Telegraph.
And Hindustan Times' Kamal Siddiqi finds out what the sentiments are in Pakistan after the team's loss to India in the World Twenty20 final.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni's remark: “A lot of players are coming up from small towns and they are mentally and physically tougher than those from cities" got Mid-Day's Anand Naik thinking if it was indeed true that players emerging from smaller towns had the ability to face adversity better than those from cities. He spoke to psychologists, coaches and BCC Talent Research officials for answers.
“In cities, there are a lot of options," said Dr BP Bam, a renowned sports psychologist. "So if one meets with a problem, he has an option to do something else. But in a small town, one will have to fight the problem because of lack of options. During this process, he becomes much more stronger and realises that he can achieve a lot by not giving up,” Bam added.
The first leg with captaincy has been more or less smooth for Mahendra Singh Dhoni. But how when things are not as rosy, how will he manage defeat, criticism and dressing-room grumbles, asks Rohit Brijnath in the Hindu.
Dhoni has earned his million love letters, and a period where India should suspend judgement and let him grow. He had better be as tough as he looks for the BCCI’s job is simply to make his harder. Giving one crore to Yuvraj Singh for hitting six shots, however beautiful, is not just vulgar in a poor country, it is a celebration of individualism when Indian captains are valiantly trying to sell the idea of ‘team’.
In the Hindustan Times Pradeep Magazine celebrates the arrival of youth and a new fearless India.
Irfan Pathan talks to Kadambari Murali, of the Hindustan Times, about his comeback and about winning the ICC World Twenty20.
It was an amazingly happy experience. He is energetic, positive, always there for you. We relaxed under him, with him, told ourselves that finally, this was just a game. We continually promised ourselves that we would give 100 per cent every time, there was no substitute for that, yet, we refused to let the pressure of situation get to us. We enjoyed ourselves, each other and at the end of the day, that showed.
Is it tougher playing Pakistan and being a Muslim, and one from Gujarat? I’m asking this against the backdrop of Shoaib Malik’s remarks, however inadvertent…
Is winning the World Twenty20 more than just a sporting achievement? According to Ashok Malik,of the Pioneer, nations sometimes use sporting achievement to write a letter to the world and hidden in the on-field performance is a code for the dynamics of the society it represents.
It has become a bit of a cliché to describe the cricket team as an emblem of 'changing India'. Yet change cannot be measured without its inevitable corollary, comparison - what is one changing from?
If the T20 triumph (and triumphalism) does indeed represent the 'new' India, it would be useful to put it beside the success in the Prudential World Cup in 1983 and the failure only earlier this year in the conventional limited-overs (Fifty50) World Cup. It is also important to place all three teams - phenomena, really - against the contextual backdrop: The panorama of Indian society and political economy
.
While in 1983, Malik writes, the high point of the Indian team's triumphant return was being invited for tea with the prime minister but in 2007 congratulatory messages from the PM were insignificant.
The Prime Minister's congratulatory messages are hardly worthy of page one. Neither did anybody expect Mr Rahul Gandhi's appointment as Congress general secretary to displace Irfan Pathan's two-wicket over from news channel specials.
R Kaushik reviews India's World Twenty20 campaign in the Deccan Herald.
If the Class of '83 will forever be remembered as Kapil's Devils, then the band of '07 will go down in history as Dhoni's Daredevils.
And in the financial daily Mint, Amit Varma insists cricket has enough drama in its DNA to be enthralling in any span of time.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni led India to an unexpected victory at the inaugural ICC World Twenty20, but now he has tougher tasks ahead - negotiating 12 ODIs against Australia and Pakistan.
G Rajaraman writes in Outlook magazine that Dhoni's candour masks a rush of kinetics.
Dhoni realises that leading Team India is going to be one of the most challenging jobs in world cricket. "Yes, I think it is. It seriously is, I am telling you," he says. To be sure, along with startling reflexes and wrists of supple steel that defies coaching-book proprieties, the 26-year-old brings a native sense of humour that will help him in the teeth of the storms and the stresses that go with the job.
Meanwhile the Twenty20 triumph has convinced Makarand Waingankar that Dhoni is a born leader and should now be appointed Indian captain for all forms of cricket. He writes in the Hindu
Indian cricket was gradually getting into the mode of cricket of the ’60s and ’70s when a player could be hidden on the field.
No longer will such players dream of playing the game. It was ‘a run saved is run scored’. But from now on, it will be ‘a boundary saved, a run scored’.
"How Rahul Dravid managed to lead and keep his head above water is probably one of the best instances of man management ever exhibited in the history of the game," writes Rajan Bala in the Week.
Before he became captain, I had asked him how badly he wanted it. He told me: "Let it be clear I have not told you. But I want it very badly. Then the kingmaker is in Kolkata." This was a reference to Jagmohan Dalmiya. Now the kingmaker is in Mumbai and that, too, a government bigwig. He wants Tendulkar as captain. And so does the chairman of the selection committee. So Rahul decided he had better go as it would not take much to relieve him of the responsibility. That he had a relatively poor run of scores in England enabled him to trot out the excuse that he needs to concentrate on his batting.
Ask him and he would tell you off the record that he was feeling hemmed in. He was never able to assert himself and would have had a tough time fitting V.V.S. Laxman into the Test playing eleven against the claims of Yuvraj Singh. The fact is Laxman always deserved to bat higher than Ganguly, but that was quite impossible for Rahul to ensure. No specialist batsman likes to regularly partner the tail and thank heavens there was Dhoni at number seven to make it worthwhile.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni is now India's one-day captain and Rohit Brijnath, writing in the Hindu, feels Dhoni must be protected while taking on this high-pressure job.
The BCCI must give the captain a media officer to act as a buffer. India’s media is massive, and no different from say English football where informed reporters work alongside less salubrious souls, but it can overpower a captain. A wise, organised team manager (as opposed to fellows who sight-see) eases tensions, he affords the captain more time and space. A smart coach does the homework, runs practices, deflects criticism. These are the very basic protections.
Meanwhile, the Times of India's Avijit Ghosh profiles the increasing prevalence of small-town cricketers.
Dhoni's rise isn't just about the invisible geographical jostling between small-town India and the metros. It is also about the shifting equation of classes. Even in the past cricketers from underprivileged backgrounds, notably Eknath Solkar, have played for India.
But the son of a pump operator becoming India's captain perhaps explains why the game continues to attract millions across the country: for all its flaws, cricket remains a forceful avenue of social mobility where compared to nepotism-driven Bollywood, the chances of finding a platform to perform and succeed is far better.
Makarand Waingankar, writing in the Hindu, looks back at some of the controversial captaincy-related incidents in Indian cricket.
The captaincy of the Indian cricket team is a jigsaw puzzle. It is also a facet that is guaranteed to create suspense and debate.
Hardly had Ajit Wadekar returned home, he was besieged by waiting journalists for his comments as he had dethroned captain Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi for the West Indies tour of 1971. He was too shocked to react.
Earlier in the 1958-59 home series against the West Indies, it was a merry-go-round when four captains were appointed for a five-Test match series.
Of the four, Polly Umrigar quit on the morning of the Madras Test when he received a telegram from Ratibhai Patel, the then president of the BCCI, asking him to play off-spinner Jasu Patel instead of opening batsman AK Sengupta, who was Umrigar’s choice, as the team needed a batsman. Eventually Sengupta played, but Vinoo Mankad led the team.
This was a fair time for Rahul Dravid to resign as the captain, feels Rohit Brijnath. In a BBC column, he says the off-field strains of captaincy reduced Dravid's enjoyment of the game.
Surrounded by his team, or in the dressing room, Dravid found the ultimate contentment, but like most Indian captains it is the off-field demands/politics/chaos that wearies the mind and greys the hair. Leading India ages men before their time. In some ways, ironically, perhaps a thoughtful man was guilty of taking his job too seriously.
He also says that the new captain shouldn't be one of the old hands but a youngster.
Sehwag, Dhoni, Yuvraj and Kaif have not convinced us completely of their Test qualifications in recent times, yet one of these men must lead, slip, fall, learn. India cannot go backwards and rely again on its older men. They have done enough.
The seventh ODI at Lord's may have been Sachin Tendulkar's final international appearance in England. The Guardian's Vic Marks looks back at the last two months and believes Tendulkar's mortality has been evident through the tour.
He has been mildly heroic on this tour without playing one of his monumental innings. In the Tests he batted like a mortal, grafting away, eking out his runs slowly and for the team. He fielded at first slip rather than patrolling the third man boundary, which used to be his custom.
He has been more fluent in the one-day series, his stroke-play more impish. Yesterday, he had the audacity to back away to the leg side against Flintoff before twice scything the ball over cover fieldsmen. Yet, even in this shorter form of the game, his mortality has been all too evident, not from the way he has batted but due to the onset of cramp to his fingers or legs. His body is starting to rebel.
But David Gower sees no reason why Tendulkar should retire from one-day cricket. He writes in the Times:
Some batsmen find it hard to change their method as the years progress. The realistic among them acknowledge that there are new ways one has to learn to make runs when one’s youthful vigour has departed.
That innings [at Trent Bridge] was enough to convince me that Tendulkar has it within him to continue for a while yet, even though we should not expect to see him back here in 2011, when India tour next.
Harsha Bhogle analyses India's poor fielding in the Indian Express
So why have we come to this stage? Because we have always looked upon fielding as an additional degree not as basic education. Not everyone can be a Jonty, or a Ponting or a Symonds or a Collingwood. But if you want to be an economist you must know mathematics, if you want to be an athlete you must know a fair bit about food and diets. That is why I believe, and I remember saying this five years ago, that coaches at India’s hyped but ineffective academies must take most of the blame. If a 17-year-old isn’t told that without being a fine fielder he is compromising on his future, then the teacher is no good. Neither is the student but sometimes you need to be shown what you cannot see.
After an indifferent Test series, Sreesanth is not in the Indian ODI side playing a seven-match series in England, but he's not short on confidence. Back home in Kochi, Sreesanth says he has a point to prove again, in South Africa, with the Twenty20 side. Read his interview in the Indian Express.
In his column for the same newspaper, Harsha Bhogle says that the Indian board (BCCI) may be forced to look at the reality of Indian cricket in the eye rather than offer it a bored, distracted glance. A good Indian Cricket League (ICL) debut will be good for Indian cricket and best for the BCCI, he feels.
All sport has to be about three things. Revenues and therefore, profits; the players; and the spectators. Normally, in a good competitive environment, the first of those should derive from the second and the third.
If the players are well prepared and play good cricket, the spectators and viewers come in and revenues rise. But in a monopoly, you don’t have to worry too much about players and spectators; just as Indian Airlines didn’t need to worry too much about passengers. But if the ICL does reasonably well, and provides the players and the spectators with an option, the BCCI will be forced to think about them; like Indian Airlines had to with the arrival of private carriers.
Rahul Dravid has escaped a grilling over India's defeat in the first ODI against England as his cricket board faces the threat of a breakaway league at home, writes David Hopps in the Guardian. India's one-day squad cannot remain entirely immune from what is happening back at home, says Hopps, and that England, after their victory at the Rose Bowl, should now properly be regarded as favourites to take the seven-match series.
Nandan Kamath, the director of an advisory firm for sports persons, believes that the competition from the ICL will be good for Indian cricket. D Murali interviews him in the Hindu.
Stating that the BCCI was a completely independent “society” registered under the Societies Registration Act, the majority judgment of the Supreme Court held the organisation not to be “state” under Article 12 of the Indian Constitution. The flipside of this decision is that the BCCI’s practices do not enjoy the immunity from anti-monopoly, competition and restrictive trade practices laws that all state functionaries do. As a result, the BCCI’s actions would be subject to the general competition laws of the land.
Which means the recent reactions of BCCI can be questioned?
That’s right. The player and service provider bans, discriminatory denial of access to stadia and revocation of benefits could be challenged in a court of law by aggrieved parties based on legal principles such as unreasonable restraint of trade, unfair competition and the “essential facilities” doctrine.
The bosses at the ICL meanwhile have a rather unusual problem in their hands. A Bangalore-based entrepreneur seems to have stolen their thunder with a website to rival their own and are looking at all possibilities, including the legal route, to vacate him. Read the piece in the Indian Express.
What’s bothering ICL officials now is not just the fact that it’s Ramesh’s site that first pops up when you type and search Indian Cricket League on Google — apparently, many ICL fans, including some prospective cricketers, have already lost their way on the wrong site, sending queries to the wrong address.
"I would have done the same," says Ganguly in an interview to Debasish Datta in the Mid-day.
You have to judge what was more important — to win the Test or to ensure that we were winning the series. We needed to confirm the series win. You do not get such opportunities every day. It took us 21 years and that’s a pretty long time.
Meanwhile in the Independent, Ganguly talks about his comeback.
"You have to take it in your stride. I could have hung up my boots, said I'd captained for a long time and it's time to do something else, but it's a question of personal satisfaction. I wanted to see if I was good enough to play again. What's past is past and I'm back. Greg has gone back to Australia. I hope he's having a good time."
It's the issue that everyone's been talking about. Here's what the papers had to say.
Lokendra Pratap Sahi lets rip in the Kolkata-based Telegraph:
The safety-first-and-last types would’ve approved, but few others. More than anything else, Rahul Dravid’s decision to not enforce the follow-on at the Brit Oval has given England the chance to save the third and final npower Test. It also enhanced his image as a captain reluctant to be aggressive. Reluctant to set a bold agenda. Barring one or two, others would’ve blindly gone for the kill if they had the luxury of a 319-run lead.
Bobilli Vijay Kumar, of the Times of India, supports Dravid:
The sanguine ones clearly saw the reasons behind the move: India were on the verge of a Test series win in England after 20 years. Why squander it? The more impulsive ones, however, were aghast.
For the second time in the series Sachin Tendulkar fell within sight of a century and appears destined to end what is likely to be is final series in England without a hundred. His 82 was a tough, grinding innings but served India's purpose well. In The Guardian Steve James says there were still plenty of glimpses of vintage Tendulkar and we should enjoy them while we can.
From the two balls previous to his demise he had hit boundaries which carried sufficient grace, precision and command to remind us of Tendulkar in his pomp. For a moment the grind of before - and the fortune of Matt Prior's drop with the Indian on 20 on Thursday - disappeared and the clock ticked back to a time when Tendulkar always batted with such authority and verve.
Zaheer Khan’s performance at Trent Bridge showed that he finally may be the spearhead India needs. His numbers since his return in South Africa are instructive, writes S Ram Mahesh in the Sportstar.
The problem lies in the incentives of BCCI officials, which are aligned only towards their own continuance in power, writes Amit Varma in the Mint
Even if the ICL doesn’t succeed, it is clear that BCCI feels threatened by it, and it shows the way to others. That is good for us—and good for cricket.
With Sachin Tendulkar likely to play his last Test match in England, at The Oval, Derek Pringle spares a thought for a player who may well have upstaged him at the very beginning - Vinod Kambli. Kambli's story, particularly when placed beside that of his childhood friend, is a modern tale of how quickly sport's shining paths can lead to a dead end once the small details are ignored.
In the team meeting beforehand, one of England's pace bowlers had piped up that he could get him out with an orange. When Kambli reached 200 in front of an ecstatic home crowd in Mumbai, Robin Smith turned to the bowler in question and said - "don't you think it's time you pulled out that bloody orange."
Writing in the Indian Express, Harsha Bhogle expresses surprise at some of the names selected for the ODIs in England and for the Twenty20 World Championship.
I am surprised by the reappearance of Irfan Pathan and Munaf Patel. I have been a huge fan of Pathan but you have to ask yourself if he has done enough to suggest he is on the path back. I am sure he would have been happier himself smashing the door down rather than hanging around and wondering if he should knock. So too with Munaf who must think that a place in the Indian team is as easy as becoming President of India. Maybe he is indeed fit, maybe he is indeed bowling well, maybe he is even bowling quick, but maybe the testing ground should have been elsewhere. And remember we are not talking about the likes of a Sourav Ganguly here, and even he had to wait longer. We are talking Munaf Patel; we don’t know enough and in fact, we don’t always like what we know.
Huw Richards points out in the International Herald Tribune that Zaheer Khan is only the fourth left-arm fast bowler (excluding Garry Sobers) to take 150 Test wickets. He is surprised that the sport has not seen more of Zaheer’s ilk.
It is hard to see why the left-arm quick bowler should be such a rarity. In any adversarial sport there are advantages to being a minority. Southpaw boxers, left-arm baseball pitchers like Tom Glavine of the New York Mets - who is seeking his 300th victory - and left-handed tennis players like John McEnroe and Martina Navratilova all present their opponents distinctive problems. For a cricket team rotating four or five bowlers, there are great advantages to having one or two who test batsmen from a different angle.
With Zaheer, RP Singh, and till recently Irfan Pathan and Ashish Nehra, India have had a fair share of southpaws in their bowling attack. Richards explains:
They were at the perfect, impressionable age to admire and wish to emulate another left-handed cricketer. Wasim's final legacy to cricket may be across a disputed border in another country.
The Hindu's S Ram Mahesh applauds the manner in which every one of England’s top seven batsmen has been scouted, softened, probed, and picked up by two Indian left-arm fast bowlers. Zaheer Khan and RP Singh, with their ability to swing the ball both ways, have picked up 25 wickets between them in the two Tests, but the hard work behind swinging it has largely gone unnoticed, the writer feels.
Disguise is everything. Neither changes his action or slants his wrist noticeably: for the batsmen looking for cues, few, if any, appear. Zaheer, at times, drags his fingers down the inside of the ball for the outswinger to the right-hander, but it’s done so fast, it’s barely detectable.
Sachin Tendulkar’s innings in Trent Bridge was stirring, writes Rohit Brijnath, in the Hindu. He feels that the image of Tendulkar in his pomp in the mid-nineties has been replaced by that of the more limited, workmanlike Tendulkar of today in the mind of the cricket public.
Has Tendulkar ‘not’ taken the pressure? Have these 18 years of staying sane and performing as a nation howls for runs been just, you know, a stroll in a Bandra park? Was all that rescuing of India, all those forgotten years ago, when opponents used to say, openly, “Get Tendu out and India’s shoulders droop”, no big deal? Damn, he ate a pressure for breakfast Tiger Woods would have choked on.
The Nottingham Test has been played against a backdrop of sledging and other less-than-impressive behaviour from both sides. England’s rather purile use of jelly beans to try to get under Zaheer Khan’s skin was the most reported example, but that’s the tip of the iceburg. In The Daily Telegraph, Simon Briggs says both teams are to blame.
India used to be a deferential sort of team, and a soft touch on foreign soil. But that was before the arrival of Sourav Ganguly, the man with the thickest skin in cricket. He turned them into a more streetwise, self-confident crew, and in this series they have stood up to England's bullying tactics and then replied in kind.
The jelly bean incident is in danger of distracting attention from the real issue - the gracelessness of both sides' conduct. A little edge is a good thing in sport: it shows everyone is committed to the fray. But when sledging becomes systematic, and bowlers insist on finishing each follow-through with a piercing stare, the whole process is subject to the law of diminishing returns. It just gives an impression of pettiness and angst, and that is not going to attract any extra converts to what should be a beautiful game.
InThe GuardianLawrence Booth slams Sreesanth’s behaviour – which cost him 50% of his match fee when he shoulder barged Michael Vaughan – and the beamer to Kevin Pietersen.
It was equally possible to apply a less-than-charitable interpretation of the huge no-ball delivered by Sreesanth as he went around the wicket to Collingwood late in the day. To overstep by at least two feet could suggest malicious intent. "It felt like quite a quick ball, that one," Collingwood said. "I know which one you meant." Did he think Sreesanth meant it? "I'm not too sure. You'd have to ask him."
Chris Foy in The Daily Mail is less restained about Sreesanth.
There is an air of madness around the young seamer. He is evidently a few sandwiches short of the full picnic, as was illustrated by his impromptu, mid-pitch break-dance after hitting South Africa’s Andre Nel for a six. But the malice in him appears slightly forced — all part of the act. When Vaughan reached his century, Sreesanth applauded enthusiastically.
But he adds that England’s antics – and they have been at the forefront of the sledging, with verbose wicketkeeper Matt Prior leading the charge – have done them no good.
The aggression with which England approached this match has been a consistent policy all season, ever since Vaughan returned to the helm. It is one that earned them plaudits when they won the Ashes two summers ago but which many observers thought was lacking when they succumbed so meekly in Australia last winter. The question is: have they now gone too far?
England’s players may have found the scattering of jelly beans in Zaheer Khan’s crease amusing but not many others did, including Zaheer who responded in the best way (no, not by brandishing his bat at Kevin Pietersen, for once possibly the innocent party) but by taking five second-innings wickets. InThe Daily Telegraph, Martin Johnson said the prank was “not worth a bean” and he didn’t have much time for all the verbals either.
With all this sledging going on, maybe a toboggan would be a more suitable England crest than three lions, but whenever they do locate a new fielding coach, let's hope he can come up with something a bit less juvenile than planting a jelly bean on the pitch. Now we know why batsmen do all that prodding. They're trying to flatten out all those sugary sweets.
It's schoolboy stuff, it really is. Tee hee, what a wizard jape. Jelly and blancmange will doubtless be on the menu at England's end-of-season dinner, and if England lose this match, Michael Vaughan's worried expression at the press conference will have less to do with the result than wondering whether someone might have planted a whoopee cushion on his chair.
Sachin Tendulkar seems less convincing in defence and his recent dismissals stem from a long-standing flaw in his game, writes Peter Roebuck in The Hindu.
Throughout his career Tendulkar has batted this way, and sometimes he has suffered. Few batsmen of his class have been dismissed LBW and clean bowled as often. Obviously Tendulkar is aware of the problem. The idea that great sportsmen remain instinctive is fanciful. Apparently he believes that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. Doubtless, too, he is reluctant to tinker with a tried and trusted game.
As the second Test between India and England gets underway on a potential turner at Trent Bridge, Ian Bell articulates in his Guardian column the unique challenges Anil Kumble poses to batsmen. Has there been a more underrated, understated champion?
The last time we played a Test in Nottingham we were picked to pieces by a little wizard called Muttiah Muralitharan. I didn't play in that game but now there's another world-class spinner in the opposition ranks and I've done as much work as possible to prepare for him. The strange thing about India's Anil Kumble is that he never quite seems to get the recognition he deserves. When people think about the best spin bowlers of the last 15 years they always come up with Murali and Shane Warne but Kumble has taken more than 550 Test wickets. It is pretty mind-blowing really.
India's pedestrian performance with the ball on the first day at Lord's has come in for plenty of flak. Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Simon Hughes bemoans the lack of spinners, and wonders if it's the result of too much coaching.
There is an intolerance of maverick slow bowlers, who are obviously regarded as an expensive luxury. The tender loving care that all spinners need is scant and unique idiosyncracies are smoothed out. Reliability is valued above sleight of hand. The obsession with quick bowlers - symbolised by the Dennis Lillee foundation in Madras - may be denying India traditional raw material.
Patrick Kidd writes in The Times his view that Rahul Dravid is better than Sachin Tendulkar.
Tomorrow, Dravid will walk out for the toss as captain and, blasphemous though it may be to the ears of Sachin Tendulkar’s millions of fans, the most valuable batsman in the team. In fact, although the howls of protest from Bombay will be deafening, Dravid has regularly proved to be Tendulkar’s better, in Test cricket anyway.
For all that he has achieved in the game,Tendulkar has yet to put his name on the honour's board at Lord's. Will he manage to overcome the ageing process, various niggles and questions about his ability to play the short ball and his form generally, and right that wrong this time? See what Mike Selvey has to say about it in The Guardian.
Yet for all his stellar status there have always been question marks attached to Tendulkar, anomalies of a kind that ought not to dog a batsman of this calibre. His big innings, it is said, all too often count for little in a team context, mostly coming in matches that are ultimately drawn or lost.
Meanwhile, Simon Hughes at The Daily Telegraph duly looks back at a stupendous career, but asks questions of Tendulkar's future here.
Now 34, and in his 19th season on the international stage, can he quell the rumblings of general decline and steer India to their first Test series win in England for 20 years, or will this be the Little Master's quiet swansong?
'Dravid comes as one part of a mouth-watering middle-order that includes Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman. But Michael Atherton writes in The Sunday Telegraph that this time around there are more question marks than usual against some of his colleagues.
Tendulkar has been bedevilled by injuries to his elbow and shoulder, three of his last four Test hundreds have come against Bangladesh and, more than that, he looks a little careworn and slower at the crease.
.. suspicion remains that Ganguly is past his best. Like Tendulkar, he has become something of a bottom-feeder, scoring recent Test hundreds against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh.
Laxman has never scored a Test hundred against England, his average against them eight notches below his overall. Accordingly, English audiences have never been quite able to understand what all the fuss is about.
Sachin Tendulkar has had no more noted admirer than Bradman himself, but are the Little Master’s powers on the wane? Simon Wilde investigates in The Times.
There have been signs in recent Test appearances against the stronger teams, including during the home series with England last year, that he is less comfortable than he used to be with fast, short-pitched bowling.
Tendulkar’s response to such charges is interesting. He rejects them, but does so in the shortest, tersest terms; he simply refuses to discuss the matter. It is as though he doesn’t want even to countenance talk of shortcomings in his game, possibly because he feels it might erode his self-belief, perhaps because he fears it might contain an element of truth. Asked about his recent scores in Test cricket, which look fairly meagre without the boost of easy runs against Bangladesh, he says: “I think it’s probably the way people have looked at things. I think I’ve done reasonably well. Maybe the expectations are too high and unrealistic at times.”
Is he aware that some pundits believe he is uncomfortable against the bouncer? No comment. What does he say to those who claim he does not play enough matchwinning innings in Test matches? Again, no comment.
Kapil Dev tells Will Buckley, of The Observer, how India lost the fear of winning as they prepare for Lord's.
It [1983 World Cup triumph] definitely changed Indian cricket,' Kapil says. 'People started believing. It is hard to have belief when you are not winning anything. Cricket was the one game where we started winning. Sports is not our forte. If there was a gold medal at the Olympics for doctors, engineers, scientists, we'd pick it up every time. Our country is based on education and the middle-class education is very high. Sport is by the way. Whereas if you look at Europe, Australia and America, sport is very important. For us it is important to have three meals a day and then you can concentrate on the sports.'
India's tour of England will provide the final opportunity for many of their stars to finally achieve a Test series win in England, writes Angus Fraser in The Independent.
The arrival of Tendulkar, Dravid, Ganguly, and VVS Laxman - Sehwag is out of form and not on tour - even if they are all getting on a bit, should provide spectators with a series to savour. On what will undoubtedly be a final tour of England for each of them, victory for the first time since 1986 would help to alleviate some of the frustrations of the past decade.
"The most memorable image of perhaps the most brilliant era of Indian cricket," says Rahul Bhattacharya in The Guardian, "is of a half-naked man on a handsome terracotta balcony. He is waving a shirt above his head, a tangle of gold and amulets are heaving across his chest, and all the while rather forcefully wishing somebody what looks a lot like "luck"."
In India Ganguly has an unmatched knack for dividing public opinion, but in England it is quite unanimous: the image is of a character so impossibly wealthy and spoilt that it is ultimately amusing. A classic instance is the story of him instructing Michael Atherton to run off for a sweater for him, an account so far from the actual event that Atherton himself dismissed it as apocryphal.
Michael Ferreira, the former world billiards champion, says DilIp Sardesai's heroics sowed the seeds for Sourav Ganguly's assertion of the Indian identity, in The Times of India.
The developments in the West Indies, took us all by surprise. If memory serves me right, Dilip scored a double century - (212, was it?) - in the first Test and then followed it up with another in the second. He did with such resolute batting, showing no fear.
Ferreira, reflecting on a team that suddenly went on from wanting to draw matches to winning them, feels it’s all to do with one’s mentality.
In the earlier days of Fred Truman of England, we Indians, I guess, suffered from a gora complex. Instinctively, we'd bow down to the gora. Nineteen seventy one, changed all that. I remember once speaking to Ravi Shastri and he told me how in his time, they weren't afraid to give the white cricketer a mouthful, asking him to f*** off to the dressing room once they got his wicket.
Now Ravi came from over a decade from Dilip's, and much later, Sourav Ganguly did his bit in asserting the Indian identity and putting the white cricketer in his place, but I guess it all began off from 1971. And, from Sardesai, purely by the words of his deeds much like a Kapil Dev in 1983.
Ajay S Shankar of the The Sunday Express follows Irfan Pathan’s progress as he goes back to the basics.
Pathan finally sought the help of Dennis Lillee and the MRF Pace Academy, the place where he was groomed initially.
Lillee says,
“Irfan called us up in May, after the World Cup. He had been out of touch for over a year-and-a-half, we had been waiting, wondering why it took so long. Well, he has come back to where he had started. He has accepted that he needs some help and I welcomed him with open arms.”
The Australian legend rubbished former India coach Greg Chappell's suggestion that Pathan needed work on mind as well as body.
“When you are not bowling well, obviously your mind gets cluttered but that wasn’t the cause, that was the effect. When you coach, you should stick to coaching about what you know.”
TA Sekar, the director of the MRF Pace Academy, explains the re-education process:
“We made him walk up to the bowling crease first, then jog, without holding the ball. Imagine, an India player bowling without the ball! With the ball, the mind is always worried about bowling good length, hitting the stumps, outswing, inswing, everything. Without the ball, your thoughts become more focused on your action.”
Cricket today provides India a feel-good space, where nearly all differences can be overcome. The assertion of an Indian ‘identity’, the expression of cultural nationalism or the feeling of a common emotion – these are no longer confined to the stadium and post-match activities. For instance, a poll conducted a few years back found that more than 50 percent of India’s youth would prefer to live in another country. However, as journalist Sandipan Deb has observed: “Even when they do go away to some other country, they have a live cricket scorecard open surreptitiously on their computer monitors throughout their working day, and they turn out in daunting numbers at the stadium whenever India’s playing in their adopted country.” The global Indian wants simultaneously to escape his country and to embrace it. Clearly, cricket is no longer a mere ‘national’ obsession.
Is he back to his best? Is he out of the lean patch? Pradeep Kumar, of Times of India, finds out.
Everything is going well. I working on on my routines well. My fitness level is high. I am bowling well and even played a game in which I bowled 17 overs. I am feeling very positive now. I cannot say anything more now. I'm waiting for things to happen. I just need to be patient.
Also, read Kadambari Murali on the same issue at the Hindustan Times.
What did you work on?
Two-three things. I was hurrying into things. Lower body to upper body coordination with my side-on action wasn't quite okay. With Sekhar, we worked for two days, and he was pretty happy, we gradually built it up. I also had to work on my right arm, which I wasn't using much. For every bowler, the non-bowling arm is very important for guidance, that was missing a bit.
The superstar lifestyle, Mumbai….did it all get to you?
Dilip Sardesai, the former Indian Test cricketer, has passed away. He will be best remembered for his role in the twin triumphs in 1971 against the West Indies and England.
Harsha Bhogle, the noted commentator, writes his obituary inThe Indian Express
We were young and impressionable in 1971. Field Marshal Manekshaw and Jagjit Singh Aurora became heroes but there were three others that became unforgettable. B S Chandrasekhar, Sunil Gavaskar and Dilip Sardesai. We had to listen to the news in the morning to find out what had happened in the West Indies while we slept and invariably Sardesai had scored runs. It was Sardesai and Solkar after the top order had gone and now both are dead. It takes time for that to sink in.
No longer can Indian touring teams be regarded as pushovers on bouncy tracks. The last few years count amongst India’s finest, says Peter Roebuck in The Hindu.
Certainly the past has not been without its glories but the side did not always travel well and often lacked depth; nor was wrangling always suppressed in the name of the common weal. Although always popular and attractive, Indian sides were inclined to disappoint. Sooner or later they had to lose their charm. In that regard, Gavaskar was ahead of his time. He did not merely want to win. He craved success, saw it as a means for personal and national salvation. Now a different tale is told. Robustness counts amongst the qualities detected in the teams led by Ganguly and Dravid.
The Indian team management's SOS call to Ranadeb Bose, Arjun Yadav, Ishant Sharma and Rakesh Patel is not the first such instance of players being drafted in the last minute in an emergency during an England tour. Back in 1986, Rajasthan pacer Pradeep Sunderam, playing league cricket in London was called up as an emergency replacement for the Headingley Test but never made it. Why? Because he was apparently untraceable, much to his dismay. Stranger things have happened in Indian cricket, writes Sanjjeev Samyal in Mid-Day.
“There were nine days between the two matches. And Raj Singh Dungarpur, who was the team manager, even had my residence numbers. They could have called up my home (in Mumbai) and got my number in England.”
Familiar themes recur as India prepare to take on England in England: opening conundrums, lack of pace, general travel-sickness and pondering over the form of Sachin Tendulkar. On the shoulders of a familiar man, writes Scyld Berry in The Sunday Telegraph, lie their hopes for away success. Welcome Rahul Dravid.
The man who has turned the tide has been Rahul Dravid, an urbane south Indian who has played for Kent and Scotland and become a cricketer of the world as well as India's captain. Modest, too, he is not one to behave like a film star. Last Friday in Belfast I asked him about India's away record and his reply was perfectly correct in what he said, but even more remarkable in what was unsaid.
The Times of India reports of a two-page letter written by the BCCI to the members of the touring party to Ireland and England. The contents appear to be straight out of a Bollywood tearjerker:
"Indian cricket is passing through a difficult phase after our poor showing in the World Cup, and along with the BCCI, the players have also gone through some tough time."
The usual advice (or warning) is not forgotten:
"You are representing the country where all actions of yours will be closely followed and we have to impress upon all the members of the squad to be disciplined, at times, both on and off the field. Please ensure that all the talks in the dressing room and in team meetings is confidential and always respect this."
Murali Kartik, plying his trade for Middlesex this season, tells The Indian Express that Monty Panesar's ability to the English audience spellbound has been very special, and that the chats they've had have been centered around spin bowling. But despite the recognition he himself gets in a foreign land, Kartik longs for adulation back home in India.
After 14 years, Chandigarh's Sector-16 Stadium is likely to host its first one-day international when Australia tour India for a seven-match series later this year. Shalini Gupta has the lowdown in The Indian Express.
"Gavaskar's bete noire Bishan Singh Bedi says the 58-year-old wants to be the ultimate god of Indian cricket, thinks of himself as bigger than the game," writes G Rajaraman in scathing piece at OutlookIndia.
Bedi guffaws when you ask him how Gavaskar has contributed to Indian cricket. "I had a lot of time for his batting but never as a thought leader. You tell me what his contribution has been. He is destructive, there is nothing positive"
While commenting on the Ford fiasco, Harsha Bhogle also brings up other concerns in his column in the Indian Express.
India's captain has asked for three games before the first Test in Australia, a perfectly valid request since India have always struggled with the bounce when they go there after having played in our conditions just before. Instead, the captain has been told by the secretary that,
being professionals, they should be able to adjust with the one they have been provided.
I am flabbergasted. If I was Rahul Dravid I would have bowed and said "excuse me sir, I play for India. Whose side are you on?" I suspect Dravid is trying harder to win in Australia than the secretary! India are in Australia for more than seventy days and it is difficult to keep the intensity up for so long (talking of which, how come Australia don't come to India for seventy days?). If they lose the first Test, it will be a very very long tour.
Harsha Bhogle talks about the significance of the Afro-Asia Cup for Virender Sehwag and Harbhajan Singh in The Indian Express. Bhogle, who is covering the tournament for ESPN-Star, makes a keen observation on Sehwag:
With most batsmen, it is the shots they play that determine whether or not they are in form. The back foot punch from Tendulkar, the flick wide of mid-on for Dravid, the cover drive and the pull for Ganguly. But with Sehwag it is what he doesn’t do that gives a better clue. When Sehwag is not reaching out to balls wide off his stumps with his feet firmly planted on leg stump, you feel optimistic.
He goes on:
That is why I was quite excited seeing him play the initial overs in Bangalore. His left foot was forward and moving towards the ball, often he left it alone, and his best shots were played from close to the body.
With India still to announce their new coach after shortlisting Graham Ford and John Emburey, Rajan Bala, writing in The Deccan Chronicle, questions the methodology used by the BCCI, seeking the player's views on who they want. He says that this is a reflection of the less than desirable state of affairs prevailing in the game in the country.
The Indian team with a Sri Lankan coach when Sri Lanka does not have one at the moment does make curious reading. Yes, it can happen when players choose the coach.
The Hindu's Vijay Lokapally believes that contracts to Venkatesh Prasad and Robin Singh, India's respective bowling and fielding coaches for the recent tour to Bangladesh, would help them concentrate on their jobs better.
Malcolm Conn writes in The Australian that there is some doubt over whether ESPN Star Sports has signed a contract with the ICC yet, with regulatory changes in India muddying the waters.
This would be a crushing blow for the game's governing body and its ten Test-playing countries, including Australia, which could expect tens of millions of dollars over the life of the agreement.
Conn also speaks to one of ESPN Star Sports’s competitors about the situation in India.
Harish Thawani, head of rival company, Nimbus Communications, which paid an amazing $US612 million for the rights to cricket in India, said there had been dramatic changes in the country, where broadcast rights were now worth substantially less. "There has been a lot of talk on the streets that there has been some alarm in the minds of rights holders," Thawani said. “I can confirm on our own behalf, given the fairly dramatic regulatory changes that have taken place in India of late, I think it's a matter of concern for all sports broadcasters and agencies as to what cricket rights are going to be worth."
Sandeep Patil was one of the first names television channels put out as the one who could take over after Greg Chappell resigned as India's coach. However, his name has not been talked about among the candidates since. Clayton Murzello spoke to him in the Mid-Day.
Patil became India's coach in 1996. His term lasted six months. A few weeks ago, a board official said Patil was replaced by Madan Lal because of a player revolt. “I am in touch with many players in the Indian team," said Patil. "They call me and I call them. I don’t make calls to congratulate them on their centuries and five-wicket hauls. I call them when they are down.
In The Australian, Malcolm Conn says that John Howard’s offer to pay any fine levied by the ICC should Australia refuse to tour Zimbabwe is not the solution:
A government ban would solve all of CA's problems but with it would come a Pandora's box. Should there also be a ban on touring Pakistan next year, given it is a military dictatorship? Should Australia ban its Olympic team from competing in Beijing given China's human rights record?
But he also has a go at the game itself:
The fundamental problem is that the Zimbabwean crisis proves how rotten world cricket administration is at the top.
In its broadest, philosophical sense cricket's weeping sore is a continuation of the fight against colonialism which takes deeply held loyalties to the ICC, regardless of the consequences.
During the dark days of white supremacist rule in South Africa and Zimbabwe, India was a strong ally of the freedom fighters in southern Africa.
Only last month, that nexus was graphically highlighted again when India walked away from an agreement with Australia to play three one-day matches in Ireland next month.
India will now play South Africa in a meaningless match worth millions in television rights. Why? Because Australia is supporting England chairman David Morgan to take over as president of the ICC as part of the proper rotation of the position. South Africa decided to support Indian board chief Sharad Pawar, a government minister.
In an interview to CNN-IBN, Pawar said companies which sign on a large number of cricketers for endorsements try and use undue influence to keep them in the team. Read the extracts in the Hindustan Times.
We had received a complaint that a player's contract had a clause that said, more incentives for more time he spent at the crease. It’s an unofficial complaint and if found to be correct, the system needs to be strengthened. So I have asked the players to submit copies of their old contract.
But it seems you are targeting the players and preventing them from doing ads.
Well, there is one more issue. If eight or nine players sign a contract with XYZ company, the companies always want the players to be in the team. It is not an official complaint but on the surface it looks like one. There is a feeling like this amongst the younger players.
The World Cup might be about to finish, and Malcolm Speed is engaged in a positive-spin initiative that would make Alastair Campbell glow with pride, but the all-out assaults on the way it has been run continue unabated. In The Daily Telegraph, Michael Henderson warms to the task, explaining why there will be a rare sell-out for the final:
Embarrassed by their mismanagement of the World Cup, which has not posted a 'house full' notice until now, the International Cricket Council have rounded up corporate guests from every nook and cranny, and distributed tickets to anybody sound of mind and body who will have them.
This has been the worst tournament imaginable; short of spectators and memorable games, it has also been far too long.
The ICC have had to 'paper the house' time and again because the tickets have been prohibitively expensive for the locals. In St Lucia on Wednesday, more than 6,000 tickets were given away so that television viewers would not see a half-empty ground for the Australia-South Africa semi-final. Also, those grounds have been zealously policed by killjoys instructed to ban anything and everything that is not officially endorsed by the sponsors.
So a competition that was supposed to reflect the best of the Caribbean has been nothing less than a disaster for this part of the world, whose peoples have given so much to the game.
And Henderson, who can never be accused of courting the popular vote, then turns his attention elsewhere:
Neither Pakistan nor India advanced to the not-so-super Super Eights, and, no matter how many tears were shed by the ICC accountants, and the tournament's propagandists, that wasn't a bad thing. Far from it. There are too many cocky people in the sub-continent, particularly India, who think that the future belongs to them because they have attained such commercial clout. As Greg Chappell, their outgoing coach, reminded them on his departure, it's no use trying to match Australia on the field if your organisation off it resembles that of Zimbabwe.
A malicious whisper campaign is on against Sourav Ganguly, and it is time someone put a stop to it, reports Kadambari Murali in the Hindustan Times.
... these reports, part of a whisper campaign over the past month to oust Ganguly, have referred to his taking 129 balls to make 66 against Bangladesh, and implied that he took the time for purely selfish reasons. There is unattributed talk within the cricketing fraternity that these reasons are to do with some vague clause in an endorsement contract he has, that allegedly fetches him more money for more minutes spent at the crease.
Yet, not one so-called BCCI “source” has had the guts to come out and say this publicly, or display a copy of this “contract”. If someone has proof, then why not show it and put an end to all the gossip and take action against the player? If no one does, then be fair to a man who has a staggering 10,000-plus runs in one-day international cricket, at a very high average of 41.37. It is a stupendous record.
The most anticipated team selections in the history of all international tours to Bangladesh was bound to raise a few questions, with a few seniors being 'rested', while the form of those being retained haven't been exemplary either. Pradeep Magazine, writing in Hindustan Times, picks out a few bizarre decisions, such as the non-appointment of a vice captain. Read the full piece here.
What has saved Sehwag is his great match-winning hundred against a team like Bermuda and what has not saved Sourav Ganguly his place in the team is his six half centuries in the nine ODIs innings he has played after his comeback to international cricket.
Greg Chappell's lack of success with the Indian cricket team has come as no surprise to the Australian cricket fraternity. He is admired greatly for his wonderful, graceful and successful batting and I feel he was one of the greatest slip ...
Former Indian fast bowler Javagal Srinath hails the appointment of Venkatesh Prasad, his former new-ball partner, as India's bowling coach. Writing in Hindustan Times, Srinath hopes Prasad will be given time to grow into the role, one that will be crucial to India's prospect in the coming years.
The Indian board took a firm stance when it decided to limit player endorsements to three each but then relaxed its grip a bit when it agreed to P Sainath, a writer normally associated with social issues and not cricket, believes the watering down of the board's earlier decision is due to the power of corporate rage. He writes in The Hindu:
Even the most experienced and strong-minded cannot evade the effects of endorsement raj. So imagine a 21- or 22-year-old caught up in this. A kid who has been blazing away at the best bowlers in the world without fear of failure. Once the endorsement web closes in and you have crores riding on your next performance, it's different. That too when you've had a couple of bad outings. With what freedom will you play that next innings? Will you play safe or with spirit?
There are no more boundaries in cricket. There's only Corporate X's Fantastic Fours, Business Y's Super Sixes and Company Z's Magic Moments. Not to forget some other concern's Sizzling Catches. As this whole culture takes root, the successful player drowns in sponsor money. The distinction between cricket player and product peddler blurs in more ways than one. Logos and uniforms proclaim who owns the players and it's not the country.
Indian selectors brush off the rumours that high-profile seniors are dropped for Bangladesh's tour, reports Kadambari Murali.
“I am shocked and appalled by what I saw and read,” said one selector. “How can
unnamed board sources be quoted saying Ganguly and Tendulkar and the others will be dropped? On what cricketing grounds can we drop someone like Zaheer Khan? If the BCCI has disciplinary issues with any of them, that is something it has to take a call on. If it doesn’t, we can pick whoever we want to. Who told that mysterious official whatever he has said, and what locus standi has anyone but the selection committee have to decide on selections?”
Meanwhile, Rudi Webster, the psychologist, is of the opinion that Greg Chappell should have stayed for a couple more years. Click here to read the interview by Sandeep Dwivedi in the Indian Express.
Kris Srikkanth rewinds to 1989 when he was the captain and to the sordid events just before the tour of Pakistan.
For long, the issue of graded payments had been uneasily hanging in the air. Senior cricketers were insisting that this be implemented ... Raj Singh Dungarpur, the then powerful chairman of selectors, who was staying in the same hotel (Taj Palace in Delhi), called me to his room. He told me in no uncertain terms that if I abandoned my senior colleagues, he would give me a brand-new team, a second XI of sorts made up totally of youngsters, for the Pakistan tour. He said I would have the BCCI’s complete backing.
The BCCI working committee meeting held last week threw up some pretty drastic changes; the Indian board took a number of good decisions and made some right noises.
Some measures look attractive, but will they yield results, asks Makarand Waingankar in The Hindu.
And in the Indian Express, Anil Kumble says that outgoing coach Greg Chappell's principles were...pretty basic...in terms of what what he wanted from the team.
Elsewhere, news filters in that Suresh Raina is giving a post-surgery rehab programme the look-over. Kolkata's The Telegraphsays Raina told them that he recently had an operation on his left leg and it’s unlikely that he'll be available for the trip to Bangladesh. Hmmm.
"Trapped in a circle of fire, the Indian board was of course expected to come out shooting; but nobody really imagined that it would do this: end up shooting at its own feet. It has virtually declared war against the players and the sponsors and advertisers who have clearly made deep inroads into the system," says Bobilli Vijay Kumar in The Times of India.
"First, there was disaster. And now, we seem headed for a calamity. Typical of an effete polity whose only agenda is to survive and wreck everything around them, the Indian Board’s reaction to the World Cup disaster puts even logic to shame," says Pradeep Magazine in The Hindustan Times.
What beats me is that the same coach whose team did not even enter the top eight of the World Cup has been rewarded with one of the most important jobs in Indian cricket. He is being offered the job of grooming and guiding youngsters at the National Cricket Academy. If Greg Chappell is thought to be so good, then why remove him as coach of the team in the first place?
Greg Chappell spoke to Sumit Mukherjee and said that coaching India was "a huge learning experience" for him. He goes on to say a lot more, click here for the full interview on indiatimes.com.
If you want to be like Australia, you can't run your cricket like Zimbabwe. The BCCI must adopt, may be, a 10-year plan, spelling out the aims and objectives and go about attaining those goals in a professional manner. Any half-measures or cosmetic changes at this stage would be like putting band-aid on cancer.
He also calls Suresh Raina "a complete package".
I asked Brian [Lara] what he thought of Raina. Brian just said: 'Anyone who can play like that off his back foot has to be special'. In Malaysia, a couple of Australians, including John Buchanan and their fielding coach Mike Young had asked me 'Gregy, where did you find this guy?"
Since the coach cannot play for the players, he can only be pulled up for strategy. The Indians did not play well against Bangladesh; when the players under-perform, even an excellent strategy will not help. I would say that it is harsh to blame Chappell for India's exit.
The Indian board is meeting to discuss the team's World Cup debacle, appointment of a new coach, probably even a new captain and the way forward for Indian cricket. Here is a round-up of what the Indian newspapers are mulling over ahead of the meeting.
In The HinduBarry Richards, the former South African player and currently a cricket commentator, advocates the need for a local coach.
The Indian Express tries to get down to what exactly went wrong with India's World Cup plans.
The real story of India’s World Cup disaster does not begin with that initial fumble against Bangladesh, or the embarrassing surrender to Sri Lanka. By the time India reached the West Indies on March 1, the wheels had already come loose, threatening to fall off any time.
Indian cricket faces a multitude of unanswered questions after their World Cup exit and Greg Chappell's resignation and Harsha Bhogle in The Indian Express says what India now needs is a benevolent dictator, a person who "is not beholden to it and who is committed to it".
There are immediate issues to be decided. The coach, the captain and therefore, the future of many senior players. There are reports to be discussed and the perpetrators of leaks have to be identified and put on television as villains. And someone has to ask: why are the nine players, including, presumably, Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly, so worked up? What does an admirable person like Rahul Dravid has to say? And most important; even if the manner of delivery of the coach’s message was unpalatable, was the message wrong?
Ajit Wadekar, the former Indian captain, welcomed Chappell’s resignation. “It’s good that he has put in his papers, because it wasn’t a happy thing happening anyway in the Indian squad,” Wadekar told The Indian Express. “How can anybody even talk of a player of Sachin Tendulkar’s capability like that? This was a man, a legend, who has lived and breathed cricket virtually since he was born, and you call him a part of a ‘mafia’? Even terming the seniors as mafia wasn’t the right thing to do. “I am glad the Chappell chapter has ended.”
If Chappell had indeed used ‘friends’ in the media to get the news out before it could be discussed in the appropriate forum, then that does not talk highly of his methods. Right from the moment he took over the reins of Indian cricket, he has resorted to a policy of divide and rule. It may have worked in the ouster of Sourav. Maybe, he is trying his hand again now. Another area where Chappell has been found wanting is in not understanding his role with Indian cricket. He is not a Messiah to clean the system. He is a paid professional whose job was to ensure the Indian team won matches. Sadly, that never happened.
The Pandora's box keeps throwing up more allegations and blame games. Sample this from Times of India. TOI reports that Sachin Tendulkar's deep anguish at his and other senior players' attitude being questioned by coach was shared by a number of senior players.
... If only Sourav (Ganguly) had heeded the warnings (about not hiring Chappell as coach) of several Australian players, including the highly-respected Steve Waugh, Indian cricket would have been saved of this 'tamasha'," he added with obvious bitterness at the nasty turn that Indian cricket has taken in the aftermath of the World Cup flop.
A respected Indian cricketer choked with emotion as he went on to recall Chappell's 'high-handedness.' "In life, we have our share of good and bad experiences but, to be honest, I have not come across anyone like him before. He has made life hell for all of us. It's definitely the worst experience of my cricketing career."
Meanwhile, The Hindu, reports that three former BCCI Presidents believe player-agent nexus regarding endorsements is ruining Indian cricket.
Elaborating on the typical modus operandi of an agent, the former official said, "he charges 30 per cent commission on total contract. He enrols a senior player, who has a say in selection and then ropes in other players (for advertisement) and shares his 30 per cent with the concerned senior player in exchange for the inclusion of the other players named by him (agent) in the team."'
Michael Atherton writes in The Sunday Telegraph that some of the greatest players of the modern era – including Inzamam-ul-Haq, Glenn McGrath and Anil Kumble - came to the Caribbean in the knowledge that this would be their last hurrah - in the short form of the game at least. But one, Sachin Tendulkar, has not said anything about his future … so far.
The runs have dried up. The man with more one-day international runs than any other … found himself impotent to prevent his team's demise. He seemed a peripheral figure, scoring seven and nought in the two defeats that condemned his team to early departure. In truth, Tendulkar's decline has been in evidence for a while, even to his normally adoring public. His dismissal in his last Test match in Mumbai against England provoked a round of boos, and recently in a Times of India poll 92 per cent of respondents felt Tendulkar should quit.
For whatever reason - fatigue, injuries, the goldfish bowl that is Indian cricket - the joy of playing has not been in evidence in Tendulkar's batting for some time. He is careworn, not carefree.
But Atherton points out that while his powers may be on the wane, there are many commercial interests that may delay his decision to bow out.
The truth is that Tendulkar has been marketed as a brand for some time, advertising many of the biggest commercial names in India. There are many interested parties who are keen to see Tendulkar wearing India's colours for a while yet.
The months prior to India's World Cup campaign and the days after have witnessed extremities in emotions among the Indian public, including obscene displays of hatred towards the same players fans once worshipped. But is it justified? Is it fair to blame the sponsors and the players themselves who endorse products? Vir Sanghvi has a valid point by saying that perhaps it's time for all frenzied Indian fans to take a long, hard look at themselves and accept their gullibility instead of being so unforgiving to the cricketers.
It wasn't that we didn't love cricket in 1983. It just wasn't as big a business then. Andso, there was nothing like the 2007 hysteria those days. The unrealistic optimism surrounding our optimism this year was largely a creation of marketers who wanted to exploit our gullibility to flog their products.
A lot of people are taking potshots at the Indian team following their World Cup debacle. Greg Chappell's future is the debate of endless newspapers, television channels and tabloids. Rahul Dravid's credibility as captain has been questioned. Irate fans have stoned houses and burnt effigies. Javagal Srinath, writing in the Hindustan Times, just questions what is best for Chappell.
Should he, given an opportunity, continue and try to implement his 'processes', or should he leave in a dignified manner? If he quits, the next question would be, who should replace Greg? India's premature exit has opened up a Pandora's Box.
R Kaushik writes in the Deccan Herald about a set of individuals who failed to play as a team.
The distinct lack of cricketing communication between those that have been around for a decade and more, and those who are just cutting their teeth in international cricket left the latter confused and a little disillusioned. The wealth of knowledge and experience gained through hours of battle remained unshared, and that has always been one of the great tragedies of Indian cricket.
Meanwhile, in the Daily News and Analysis, Kumar Shyam writes an open letter to board president Sharad Pawar.
Mid-Day's Khalid Ansari sees only one solution: Windows of the mind must be opened to let in refreshing winds of change. Heads MUST roll at the BCCI, its selection committee, coaching staff and in the team itself.
The knives are out after India's debacle in the World Cup. The critics are having a field day.
Pradeep Magazine, writing in the Hindustan Times, says tough questions need to be asked.
Why has a team that was once being thought of rivalling Australia (in Tests) as the best in the world, disintegrated into one that is disjointed, filled with insecure players ill at ease and suspicious of each other.
Things like scribes being sent text messages or emails about players (and it getting back to them), haven't helped. Many, from players to officials, blame Chappell for this insecurity, saying his "divisive methods" made almost every senior distance himself from the team's collective vision. A stage was reached this month when some alleged the coach had told them that Tendulkar was "more interested in becoming captain" and Ganguly was "aloof and disinterested".
Ashok Malik, of the Pioneer, believes sweeping changes need to be made.
This world cup was supposed to be the grand farewell of Indian cricket's "Greatest Generation"; instead it became the whimpering valediction. Retirement beckons, and well before the 2011 world cup in the subcontinent.
Kunal Pradhan reckons the " laptop vision has failed miserably and ... it’s about time India rejected the process and its architects."
In The Daily Telegraph, Peter Foster looks at the bookmakers who still stalk cricket, seven years after the ICC set about rooting corruption out of the game.
From the back-streets of Karachi and Mumbai to the gleaming towers of Hong Kong and Dubai, cricket's bookmaking underworld is still operating. Chief among those nations are the sub-continental rivals of India and Pakistan where, despite betting on cricket being illegal, millions of pounds regularly change hands over a single game. Annually, the profits can be counted in billions.
But the nature of gambling has changed, forced to adapt from the brash efforts to influence entire teams to a far more subtle approach.
It makes grim reading. In the same paper, Simon Hughes gives a first-hand report from the subcontinent.
On a trip to Pakistan some years ago, I stopped by an anonymous club match one afternoon. Two batsmen were slowly playing themselves in. After one apparently featureless over, a gaggle of spectators suddenly engaged in an unseemly scuffle. When some time had elapsed and peace was restored, I ventured over to investigate what had happened. It emerged that one man had bet another the over would be a maiden. When a leg-bye was run off the last ball of the over, they couldn't agree who had won the wager (despite the extra it still constituted a maiden) and fists flew.
No, we're not talking about a particular player, rather these gold and diamond-encrusted cricket balls. Yours for a snip at £35,000 each:
Each ball is comprised of 295.6g of yellow gold and is studded with 5,728 natural diamonds with a total weight of 31.5 carats. The lady weighing this one up is Bollywood actress Mahima Chaudhary.
Reportedly, two will be presented to India's best player of the World Cup and their "best interim player", whatever that means. Blingtastic.
Sourav Ganguly spoke to NDTV's Prannoy Roy at the Eden Gardens before he left for the Caribbean. The interview will be telecast on the NDTV channel at 8pm on Saturday.
I do enjoy captaincy. I see it as a great honour and privilege and I have enjoyed it. I have enjoyed everything that comes with it. I think you accept that there will be tough days as a captain. Not everyone is going to suddenly become the sort of good boy and then turn into a sort of whipping boy at some stage.
"It was almost predictable that with the team settled in the West Indies, momentum on its side after recent wins, Dilip Vengsarkar, inadvertently you think, lobs a hand grenade into the calm about Sehwag's selection," writes Rohit Brijnath in The Hindu.
Can Pakistan mount a serious challenge? Pakistan, despite the doubters, has a sniff. This is a team of extremes. A united Pakistani side plays with passion. If dissension sets in, the team can crumble.
'Our love for the game is deep and passionate. Our love for the game is fickle and superficial. Which is it?' Amit Varma ponders over the issue at Mint.
Chandrahas Choudhury believes that the themes in Indian cricket writing aren’t as diverse as the game’s fan following. He picks three books which "bring out its many layers".
Yuvraj Singh speaks to Times of India's Indranil Basu on his return from injury and World Cup preperations:
Even though I played a couple of club level matches, I could only test my fitness level in my first comeback game for India. Then again, in Kolkata, I had a slight niggle in my back and I went for a routine check-up. Fortunately, the scan report was okay. Now, I am completely fit.
Meanwhile Irfan Pathan, who's fitness is also in question, was confident of being completely fit before the World Cup. Read his interview with Press Trust of Indiahere.
Harsha Bhogle reckons that now it is up to Sehwag to respond to the backing of his skipper by displaying his attitude.
"India’s selectors have ... allowed Dravid his instinct and his comfort level. Now it is up to Sehwag to respond by displaying his attitude. He may not always have control over his form but his attitude is his own. And he has been around long enough to know that in cricket, as in all sport and indeed in life, attitude always trounces ability.
Calling the coach at 6.30 and offering a dismissive reply for not turning up is a symptom of a much deeper illness. As I have said many, many times, a lot of our young cricketers need benevolent, but firm, elder brothers who will gently pull them away from the lure of the simple and the dangerous."
R Mohan pitches in on the Dravid v manager issue in the Deccan Chronicle.
The fact is any skipper would have been annoyed at the kind of exposes of team matters by officials wishing to be in the spotlight. Funnily enough, the report was leaked to the media and the BCCI sought an explanation from the captain for his outburst instead of finding out how the matter came to be splashed in the media.
Considering how only three people could have had access to that report before it reached the president, it would seem a simple enough investigation could have been carried out about where the leak occurred. For, after all, who but the writer of the report, the board secretary and the executive secretary could have had a copy of the manager’s tour report?
He has not matured into a man married to politics and electioneering in a way an aspiring, full-time politician would have. Sidhu still stands on the peripheries, playing to the gallery, importing elements from the world of showbiz and firing up the political imagination with tidbits conceived for the Laughter Challenge show. Sidhu has retained his impulsive nature, is a shade impetuous and can, sometimes, be very unpredictable. These are not traits of an experienced, street-smart politician. ... But the BJP believes in him.
Nandakumar Marar, in the Sportstar, charts the fall and the rise of Mumbai in Ranji Trophy this year.
Mumbai conceded first innings lead to Bengal, was forced to follow-on for the first time and returned home scarred and empty-handed from Eden Gardens. Punjab and Hyderabad proved to be tough opposition, too, leaving the title-holder staring at relegation in the Super League.
For the two new people at the helm, Praveen Amre (debut season as Ranji coach) and captain Amol Muzumdar (given charge for the first time for a full season) the turnaround after the trauma was what mattered. "People may have wondered what was wrong with Mumbai cricket at one stage, three games and no points," recollected Amre, about those nightmarish days. "This was a special team which then won five matches outright in a row. There were areas of concern, but the selectors backed the players who responded superbly."
Reactions have come in from cricketers and media on the Indian squad for the World Cup. We sample a few here.
Ravi Shastri reckons it is a good pick and warns India to be ready for changing tracks. However, he believes Ramesh Powar has been extremely unlucky.
It is easy to get riled by his weight or his supposed indifference to fitness drills, but his ability to take wickets is beyond doubt. He is the kind of bowler who can get you the wickets in the middle overs. His variety and loop entice batsmen who, anyway, are uncomfortable playing him defensively. He brings them out of their comfort zone, which is the essence of a good bowler.
Bobilli Vijay Kumar, of Times of India, believes fielding is the Achilles heel of India.
The outfield will be manned by heavy legs and weak arms. Tendulkar, Agarkar, Pathan and, to an extent, Harbhajan Singh are effective without really being sensational. But almost all the others will have to be hidden in dark corners or used as scarecrows. At least the catching has improved, thanks to hours and months of hard work.
The reason why these 15 have been picked is simple: We left things till too late because we kept tom-tomming ridiculous policies, and now the selectors were trapped into picking the side that played the last ODI, even if the team lost rather insipidly in Rajkot on Sunday ... But if India actually manage to do well in the World Cup, it will be because of some stunning individual performances. It will not be a victory of the system, the so-called process has already been dismantled — now we’re making the ‘best of our limited resources’.
K Shrinivas Rao, of the Indian Express, reflects on the curious case of 2 stars - VVS Laxman and Ajit Agarkar. He spoke to the two on their contribution over the years.
February 2007 is a good time to be Manoj Tiwary, Bengal's bright-young-thing this season. Things got even better when he was called up to join the Indian squad as cover for the first ODI at Kolkata thanks to a spate of injuries. The news of his selection wasn't short of drama and utter confusion.
He was asked to report at the team hotel, but on arrival was told that there was no room earmarked in his name. As Manoj waited anxiously in the lobby, the excitement in his eyes was not to be missed. The 21-year-old then spoke to Mukherjee who asked him to come to the Eden. He was told that he would stay at home and report straight to the ground.
Even if we decide to farewell Chappell that would be half the job; deciding on his replacement would complete it. What did we like about John Wright, Chappell, Wadekar, what does this particular team need, let's sketch a profile of the man we're looking for, then go find him.
Meanwhile the Hindustan Times'KR Guruprasad chats with VVS Laxman about his World Cup dreams being all but over.
Definitely, playing the World Cup has always been on top of my wishlist since I have never participated in one. Having played both forms of cricket at the international level for so many years, not getting the opportunity to play in a World Cup can be quite disappointing. How do you react to statements that your batting style does not suit the one-dayers?
In the Indian ExpressSandeep Dwivedi tells the story of India's most charismatic duo — of Ganguly’s amazing mental strength and Tendulkar’s ever-youthful mind in an injury-ridden aging body.
GS Vivek writes in the Indian Express about how ill-treated seniors in the Delhi side are ready to pack bags and migrate to other states.
According to sources close to the team, the impending exodus from the Delhi team will leave the side starved of ‘star’ value. Though star Indian opener and Delhi skipper Virender Sehwag wasn’t available for comment, there are strong hints that the Haryana Cricket Association has approached him and that the offer is still open.
Dilip Vengsarkar, the chairman of selectors, talks to Chandresh Narayanan, of Times of India, about bench strength, lack of quality spinners, Ranji Trophy format and more.
Irfan Pathan, in an exclusive interview with K Shriniwas Rao, talks about his worries and on his recovery process adding that the rest has done him a world of good.
Cricket aside, coming back home and getting to spend time with my parents, my brother, sister and close friends was the best thing to happen. Staying at home, eating food with my family the way we usually do, driving through the lanes of Baroda, catching up with friends, I enjoyed all that.
The Hindustan Times' Varun Gupta meets Yashpal Singh, the torchbearer for Services, one of the weakest teams in India's domestic circuit.
There is an infectious, almost naïve enthusiasm in Yashpal’s answers, one that is rare in the commercial world of today's cricket. Until now, he has kept going on a combination of adrenaline and hope, illuminating the dim world of the Plate Division.
Most of the Indian players attended the celebrations of Tamil Nadu Cricket Association completing 75 years on January 26. As a Tamil Nadu player, Laxmipathy Balaji was also present. Sandeep Dwivedi writes in The Indian Express of his new cell-phone ring tone, why he doesn't sign autographs anymore and his career-threatening injury.
Balaji's famous toothy smile is there, his thick mop of hair still needs to be regimented regularly but a stress fracture of the back means he has to be in casuals and sit behind the Men in Blue.
Watching the just healed pacers Zaheer Khan and Ajit Agarkar sitting in the front row and remembering the missing faces of Irfan Pathan, Munaf Patel and Ashish Nehra, it seemed Balaji's ring tone was more like the signature tune of the fitness-fragile India pace department.
As the row over claims of racism on TV show Big Brother subside, the Hindustan Times reports that in India TV advertisements for the current India-West Indies one-day series have provoked protests from people who claim they suggest that Indians are racist towards West Indians.
Ad guru and theatre personality Alyque Padamsee told HT "the ads were disgusting … they certainly encourage racism. It is the ultimate in gadhagiri (idiocy). Just because I love my country’s cricket team does not mean I should hate every West Indian.
It is only a Twenty20 match played by a bunch of unknowns, in front of a handful of spectators. But one of those spectators is Indian legend Kapil Dev, another is the ex-Indian batsman Sanjay Manjrekar, and they have the power to eventually grant one of the players involved a full professional contract with Leicestershire CCC.
And far from having had her fill of reality TV at the hands of Jade Goody, the Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty is being lined up as a presenter for the UK version
India needs Virender Sehwag fit and firing at the World Cup, says R Mohan, in the Deccan Chronicle, and believes Sehwag could do with some 'mind training'.
Virender Sehwag needs a ‘brain trainer’ more than ever. A few things may be wrong with his game, but then there were always a few things wrong about his basics. It’s his mind that has strayed from the game now, making batting seem like a trip to a house of horrors. He never knows what will turn up at which turn, although such gargoyles may be more in the mind.
Mid-day's Clayton Murzello catches up with Saeed Hattea , a fast bowler who played two seasons for Mumbai before shifting to England.
Hatteea’s cricketing saga is fascinating. He studied at St Mary’s here before completing his schooling in London. He played for the English schoolboys in the late 1960s. In 1969, he returned to India and discovered that Vijay Merchant, then chairman of national selectors, was looking for him.
India is back from an exacting tour and they don’t even have sufficient time to rest as they hit the final stretch to the World Cup. Greg Chappell speaks to Mumbai Mirror on the preparations.
We may have to play players like Sachin or Sehwag in the middle order. We cannot throw in a new player in the team before the World Cup. Because team that does well in the World Cup will certainly have experienced players.
To keep faith in Sehwag ahead of the World Cup was a team priority," writes R Mohan in the Deccan Chronicle
However unfair it may appear to a makeshift opener thrust into a specialist’s job. Team India have been on that path many times before. Only on this occasion, it was a strategy born of pragmatism. In Kaarthik, they had a man willing to put up his hand, even as Wasim Jaffer made himself completely at home on a pitch that suits his batting to a T. He may not be the dashing opener who can put his act together on a hostile terrain.
Sunil Gavaskar, in his column, tries to investigate the reasons behind Irfan Pathan's spectacular decline as a Test bowler since his hat-trick at Karachi earlier this year. He also commends Dilip Vengsarkar's decision to send Irfan back to India to regain his form in domestic cricket. Read the full piece in The Hindustan Times.
Irfan, on his first tour to Australia in 2003-04, had his jaw hanging open when he spotted his hero Wasim Akram at breakfast in the hotel where the team and the TV crew were staying, and he wasted no time in approaching the great man through another teammate to talk about swing bowling and all the tricks needed to get batsmen out
The seam position as Sreesanth releases the ball is one of the best I have seen, writes Barry Richards while analysing India's performance in the Wanderers Test.
The positives from this victory are many, but one that stands out is the brilliance of S Sreesanth writes Harsha Bhogle in the Indian Express.
History will point to Sourav Ganguly as India's most successful Test captain — at this point in time. History will also acknowledge that Dravid, often ill-advisedly referred to as 'too soft,' has stacked up milestones that will make many an Indian skipper turn green with envy.
Mukul Kesavan, writing in the Kolkata-based Telegraph, feels India's won partly because of the team they selected.
Sreesanth's dance would go on, if not already, to become the motif of this series and his career. R Mohan, writing in The Deccan Chronicle, believes the jig showed the spirit behind the historic win.
Sreesanth’s riposte to the chest-thumping, batsman-baiting antics of Andre Nel was pure drama. It was as if the fast bowler had decided to put into dance form the Indian team’s angst and their desperation to leave the dark past behind and move on into the sunshine
The third day of the Ranji Trophy match between Delhi and Karnataka was one which saw an 18-year old set a fine example of mental strength. Virat Kohli lost his father the night before, but put the tragedy behind him and scored a courageous 90 and his 152-run stand with Puneet Bisht lifted Delhi out of dire straits.
The team saluted his gesture and gave him a standing ovation when he returned, in tears, but composed enough to hide his pain from the eyes of the public
Following one of Andre Nel's spectacular bursts of sledging against Sreesanth, on the third day at Johannesburg, he replied in similarly emphatic fashion...and just check out that celebration.
Do India need a bowling coach? Urgently, writes K Shriniwas Rao in The Indian Express, adding that Ian Frazer, India's assistant coach who's bowled just four first-class balls, isn't the answer:
Batsmen doubling as bowling consultants, experienced bowlers playing mentors, the troubled pacer Irfan Pathan picking on the brains of any former pace bowler who strolls to the India nets and Munaf Patel’s desperation to chat with Glenn McGrath all point to one thing: the inadequacy of the coaching staff to provide a support system to the bowlers.
I would say that it is not precisely bad bowling but lack of direction that is getting them so unsettled. India have to accept that they don’t have an Akram or a McGrath and they have to make do with what they have. For that, precisely, they need somebody who can help them in retaining the focus time and again.
Sourav Ganguly marked his return to the scheme of Indian Test cricket with a fine 83 against Rest of South Africa at Potchefstroom. Though the top order came a cropper against quick, seaming pace attack and Irfan Pathan hit his maiden first-class century, Ganguly was the focus across the dailies.
In the Hindustan Times, Kadambari Murali admits the pleasure of watching Ganguly show " a disbelieving world just what cussed self-belief can do". The glamourous shots were there, she notes , and the man exuded a calm, composed nature while batting - despite being clanged on the head by the impressive Morne Morkel.
The Hindu's S Dinakar analyses Ganguly's innings and notes an unmistakable solidity about his ways at the crease:
The left-hander played close to his body, revealed sound judgment in the corridor. He firmly got behind the line of the ball, was poised in, both, defence and offence.
He has changed his stance. Earlier he was leaning too heavily on his front leg. Now, he is more upright, more balanced. His body weight better distributed, his footwork against the pacemen has improved.
In Ganguly's backyard, The Telegraphpraised the manner in which he "overcame the adverse situation bravely after yet another top-order failure against the pace attack had left India tottering at the brink".
Click here for Cricinfo's coverage of Ganguly's comeback
In The Times of India, Rajeev Shukla, a member of parliament as well as being chairman of the BCCI’s media committee, argues that politicians should not wade into discussion and arguments about cricket.
Nobody can deny MPs the right to speak and express their opinion on any issue. But they should be careful in taking up issues they have little knowledge or concern for.
If one does not understand an issue, there is no point commenting on it. Criticising the Indian cricket coach for the sake of it or to merely ride popular sentiment, is not a healthy expression. General criticism is fine, but exhortations to recall the coach and captain or hurling abuses at them is not just unsavoury, but also demoralising for the players.
The team chosen for Tests against South Africa reflects the diminishment of authority of Greg Chappell and Rahul Dravid in selection, writes Ayaz Memon in Daily News and Analysis.
Meanwhile Pradeep Magazine from the Hindustan Timesprofiles Greg Chappell, the man who was initially hailed as Indian cricket's messiah but is now slammed.
Also read Bob Simpson's column in Sportstar where he says the Indian selectors and Greg Chappell seem to be trying to change Indian cricket to fit in with their theory of how the game, and in particular one-day cricket, should be played.
Unfortunately these days, many one-day teams are filled up with so-called all-rounders who can do a little of both batting and bowling. But the truth is that they don't have the major criterion for all-rounders — that is to be able to hold their position in the team as either a batsman or a bowler.
It is in its utter simplicity that cricket attracts and bewilders in equal measure, writes Harsha Bhogle in The Indian Express.
We cannot view Ganguly, as we cannot VVS Laxman, as this shining knight charging out with sword in hand to take on six hundred of the opposition. And some in his camp! Ganguly’s return can neither be a media event nor can we look upon it through the eyes of romantic scriptwriters.
Meanwhile R Kaushik, writing in the Deccan Herald, feels that Ganguly's recall and Laxman's elevation indicate a victory for the old guard.
The Pioneer's Ashok Malik concurs, adding that the changes will considerably weaken the position of the Indian coach, Greg Chappell.
Virender Sehwag continues to confound the pundits and frustrate the layman by flitting between the ordinary and the unacceptable, writes R Kaushik in the Deccan Herald.
Meanwhile the Times of India writes on how certain sections of the team were particularly displeased that Sehwag withdrew from the Durban game at virtually the last second.
Sehwag was ready and willing to play in the first match at Johannesburg despite the stitches on his finger. So his decision to pull out just three days later has raised more than a few eyebrows.
India are in serious trouble, and it's going to take more than Sachin's magic to turn things around for them, writes Barry Richards in The Hindu.
The players seem almost resigned to the fact that it is all too tough, and appear to be waiting for easier pickups later in the year. No one, not even Sachin, has that competitive aura, that defiant glare that can put bowlers on the back foot. Senior players are your core strength when the going gets tough and you need, as a unit, to be committed to working together to blunt South Africa's arsenal.
I just saw from those few balls he [Irfan Pathan] bowled to me that his wrist wasn't in a good position. If I was the bowler, I would want to know why. If the wrist is not in a good position, I would go from his wrist down to his feet, his run-up, his action.
In the same paper, Harsha Bhogle writes India’s batsmen are showing the same aptitude to batting in South Africa as a newborn would to walking.
Meanwhile the Daily News and Analysis speaks to former South African offspinner Pat Symcox, who gives Rahul Dravid's men not a chance in this series.
There are 40-odd team meetings left for Rahul Dravid to revitalise his team. If, as is rumoured, Dravid is viewed as closer to Chappell than to his team, then that needs immediate rectification, writes Rohit Brijnath in Sportstar
There are approximately 15 matches left to get our quick bowlers to figure line and length is not as complicated as Fermat's last theorem. Overreaction gets us nowhere, but India's public is entitled to its team at least knowing the basics. Furthermore, is there something in the Penal Code we are unaware of which forbids bowling coaches? If Australia can have one, humbly so can we.
Also read Peter Roebuck's piece in the same magazine where he says, India lacks a core of respected elders able to carry the team along through hell and high water.
Seven first-timers make India’s tour party to South Africa relatively inexperienced. As the team flies out for a full tour to the African continent tomorrow after five years, The Sunday Express gets in touch with the old boys’ union for some last-minute advice.
Ben Dorries and Robert Craddock, writing in The Courier-Mail, report Malcolm Speed wanted to save Darrell Hair from the axe.
The Courier-Mail has learnt that ICC chief executive Malcolm Speed strongly lobbied for Hair to remain on the elite umpires panel in Friday's ICC board meeting in Mumbai but was howled down by the board members. Speed does not have a vote on the ten-member executive board which voted 7-3 to sack Hair after heavy pressure from the Asian bloc countries.
In a comment piece Craddock says “we’ve been whispering it for years but now it's official – the Asian nations run cricket”.
Whether it be chasing the rights to host a World Cup, getting officials in important positions or getting rid of an umpire, the Asian bloc gets what it wants. England and Australian officials may luxuriate in holding the oldest, most famous series of all but when it comes to power broking they are no longer the kings.
In The Age Trevor Marshallsea writes no international umpire will ever take a stand again after Hair’s treatment.
Scyld Berry in The Sunday Telegraph reflects on the ICC’s decision to ban Hair from standing in any international matches between now and the expiry of his contract in 2008, saying that he had “been hung out to dry”.
Wasim Jaffer's call-up to the Indian side for the one-day leg of the upcoming South African tour - he was a shoo-in for the Test squad - has surprised more than a few people, and then some. If India needed another opener, and a bit of a dasher, Gautam Gambhir was the man, and if a calmer presence was considered, it had to be VVS Laxman, feels Harsha Bhogle.
In his column for the Indian Express, Bhogle opines that character, rather than agility, is the need of the hour given that India’s batting is in the doldrums. Laxman's experience of South African conditions should have been a simple factor for inclusion, but unfortunately sheer batting class did not come at the top of the criteria list.
India’s options at No 3 now seem to be Kaif, Raina, Dhoni, Mongia or Pathan, given that team philosophy is to bat Dravid at No 4. But mere names do not options make and I don’t think India can look beyond Mongia or Kaif, especially since Dhoni is untested in those conditions and the team management is comfortable with his finishing skills later in the order. I get the feeling that India want to see flatter pitches in South Africa. And I get the feeling that South Africa know that!
The local officialdom in Munaf Patel's home state of Gujarat has put the lanky fast bowler in a spot at times.
Now, as he gets ready for Thursday’s Champions Trophy game against West Indies at Motera — his first in his home state — fellow players and local officials walked down memory lane with the star, who was once their own but has now drifted away.
Rajeev Desai, Munaf's Under-22 coach, recalls: “I always thought he would play for India. People say he was raw initially but he was a finished product. His run-up was flawless, if you talk about pace, it was higher then.”
A few old friends recall Munaf's initial spells - some even teased him, saying he would never play for India - but all's well that ends well. And, thankfully, today's professional Munaf is no different from the amateur of those early days.
The Indian board's decision to take on the ICC could split the cricket world, warns Mike Coward in The Australian. Launching a scathing attack on the BCCI, he says it has become "drunk with power", and its "behaviour is becoming increasingly reckless and potentially destructive".
Indeed, no longer can it be taken for granted that the international cricket family will be together after what is bound to be one of the most rancorous meetings in the ICC's 97-year history in Mumbai on November 3 and 4. If the puffed-up, cashed-up Indian powerbrokers reckon they can prosper without Australia and England they may just opt to leave the fold.
InThe Daily Telegraph Simon Hughes underlines how poor England are at the one-day game but also flags that for all its money and mouth, the Indian board has issues it needs to address.
Events in Jaipur emphasised the perversity of Indian cricket and the predictability of England's. Having secured over £500 million in sponsorship and TV rights, the Indian cricket board is the richest in the world, but yesterday's one- day international was played on a diabolical pitch which would have disgraced the poorest village.
Sending out their lavishly remunerated superstars to play on that was like racing a £2.5 million Formula 1 car round the North Circular. With bald tyres. This folly was compounded by the premature launch of a massive fireworks display just as the meticulous, ever-reliable Rahul Dravid took guard. Utterly distracted by the commotion, his innings lasted three balls.
“I was playing for BPCL in Udaipur on Monday. I finished that game, drove 250 kms myself to reach Ahmedabad and from there took a train here [Mumbai, to play the practice game against South Africa]. Tonight, I take the train back to Ahmedabad and drive to Udaipur to join my BPCL teammates again.’’
Was this the most satisfying day of his cricketing career? “Could be. But I didn’t remember to collect a stump as a souvenir
Scyld Berry in The Sunday Telegraph warns that the Indian board wants it all and, what’s more, it has the financial clout to be able to gobble it up. The article followed the recent revelation that the Indian board has expressed their interest in buying the ICC’s broadcasting rights to ICC events for the next eight years.
As such a move would be unprecedented in the history of cricket, the implications of India owning the broadcasting rights to ICC events are impossible to specify exactly. The main events in the cricket calendar over the next eight years – notably the World Cups of 2011 and 2015, the Champions Trophy tournaments and the new Twenty20 World Championships – have already been decided. But conflicts of interest and issues of governance would be bound to arise as, in effect, a limb would be taking over control of the body.
At present, in the Champions Trophy, the arbitrary, last-minute way that Indian officials can act is being illustrated. Two days before the tournament began, one of the main venues, Mohali on the outskirts of Chandigarh, announced that it would refuse to host all five of its matches if compensation for any losses was not paid by the ICC. And the 'king of Mohali', the president of the Punjab Cricket Association, is Inderjit Singh Bindra, India's joint representative on the ICC.
Only a faint-hearted captain might hand his coach the reins of the team, and all evidence of Dravid is to the contrary, writes Rohit Brijnath, in the Sportstar.
Fact is, of course, that neither experimentation, nor order shuffling, is the cause of India's recent woes. Merely that lately the batting has had more cracks in it than a Bush argument. In their last 10 innings, India's batsmen, from Dravid (105, 11, 0, 15, 18, 9*, 26, 6, 0, 7) to Raina (6, 7*, 27, 26, 7, 2, 34, 1*, 11, 26) to Dhoni (3, 59, 18, 2, 15, 46*, 14, 2, 18, 23) to Yuvraj (4, 63*, 7, 24, 12, 93, 52, 26, 0, 0) to Sehwag (73, 22, 12, 97, 11, 95, 9, 8, 10) to Pathan (46, 1*, 26, 7*, 1, 14, 1, 8, 64, 0), have been edgy.
Apart from the strains of leading the side through a critical phase, there is pressure on Rahul Dravid to deliver as a batsman, writes S Dinakar in the same magazine.
Frank Tyson believes Sachin Tendulkar should examine Don Bradman's post-WW II figures and take inspiration from them.
At the moment Tendulkar is at a comparable stage of his international career as Bradman found himself on the Australian tour of England in 1948. At this juncture "the Don" was 40 — eight calendar years older than the Little Mumbai Master. But in terms of playing experience, both men were on a par. Bradman lost eight years of cricket to the Second World War; Each suffered injury: Bradman to a gym accident as an Army Physical Education Instructor and Tendulkar to his lingering tennis elbow.
A failiure in his first Challenger Series outing doesn't necessarily mean the end of the road for Sourav Ganguly. Makarand Waingankar in The Hindu feels that Ganguly can take inspiration from Dilip Vengsarkar, the chairman of selectors, and Mohinder Amarnath, both of whom defied the odds and made successful comebacks.
Destiny is irreversible. Yet ambitious people hope to reverse it. To a participant in sports, all that matters is top quality consistent performance
Mukul Kesavan, with some witty analysis the Indian team's recent one-day methods:
Pathan and Dhoni have played in pretty much every position from the opening slot to the tail-end of the team. Dravid has moved from the middle order to opening the batting. The move mightn’t have worked but the important thing is not the result but Dravid’s attitude, his willingness to commit himself to the total process.
Also, check out Javagal Srinath's take on events, where he feels the criteria for coach selection must be reassessed.
When it comes to bowling and its nuances, neither Chappell nor his devoted assistant has a clue. Nothing reflects this more than the fact that over 10 fast bowlers have been "experimented" with in the last year. And still the team does not seem to be in any position to name our best three bowlers.
The Challenger Trophy in Chennai will see a host of youngsters making their debut on the big scene. In the Kolkata-based daily Telegraph, Mohandas Menon gives a brief summary of their careers.
Ashish Nehra speaks to GS Vivek about his return from injury and challenges that lie ahead:
I have been India’s best bowler for two seasons, I have been consistent in all the series that I have played and I am still India’s fastest bowler. I have experience on my side and I have done well, especially in the death overs, so if the selectors think I am back to my best, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t get my place back. It’s another thing if the selectors don’t want me, in that case I am happy playing for Delhi.
While Rahul Dravid has been nominated for four ICC awards - cricketer of the year, captain of the year, Test and ODI player of the year - the Indian media have raised questions about Mahendra Singh Dhoni's conspicious absence among the 17 nominees for ODI player of the year.
In fact only two players - Yuvraj Singh and Michael Hussey of Australia - have an average better than Dhoni in the period under consideration, says The Times of India. Dhoni had accumulated 1170 runs from 36 ODIs at an average of 55.71 in the last one year starting August 1. Among his notable performances was the scintillating 183 he scored against Sri Lanka in Jaipur. It is the highest score by any wicketkeeper in ODIs.
"At least on two counts, Dhoni should have made the cut," writes GS Vivek in The Indian Express. "Going by the numbers, Dhoni deserved a place. And if match situation was the criteria, it’s no secret that he has bailed out India on a number of occasions over the last season. In fact, Dhoni has been the key in India morphing into world record chasers last season."
A tour to the subcontinent involves anticipating dry-as-dust pitches and noise pollution that would scandalise the EC. Rosalie Birch would however want to go a step further and broaden her palette as well to prepare for the England women’s team’s forthcoming tour of India for the quadrangular world series. Towards this end the chillies she gamely chewed on was obviously more than she could swallow though her primitive tastes was equally evident in what she wrote in her online diary.
Commenting on the recently-concluded series against India’s women’s side, Birch trotted out more clichés about curries and hot food in one column that an entire series of It Ain’t Half Hot Mum.
“We found it hilarious how the Indians added their own curry paste and pickles because they found the food too mild … but our players will not be laughing when their mouths are burning up in India.”
Wonder which universe Birch is living in? The ECB should make it mandatory to have its cricketers savour the delights of London’s Curry Mile, if only for the likes of Birch to sample how cumin combines with parsley and Rose Mary overlays cardamom to make curry something much more than just a masala-mix.
At 16, Santosh Yadav was Hyderabad's brightest prospect. He made his Ranji Trophy debut against Andhra Pradesh in 1995-96 but since then things went horribly wrong because he developed an addiction to alcohol. Now 26, Santosh is hoping to make a comeback and has been on the wagon for a year. Read Santosh Yadav's story in The Times of India.
In The Times, former Wisden editor Tim de Lisle highlights the fact that cricket's international merry-go-round is not only hard on the players, it's also pretty environmentally unfriendly. He recalled that while editing Wisden Cricket Monthly a few years ago, he commissioned an investigation into the mileage of top players:
"We named the first winner — Australia's Ian Healy, who had done, from memory, about 70,000 miles. Within a few years, the winner (by then Stephen Fleming, of New Zealand) was doing 100,000 miles. International cricket’s total emissions, for a relatively small sport, must be colossal."
He then points out that the English county circuit is strewn with sponsored cars flying up and down the country's motorways. And then there is Asia.
"Open an Indian magazine and the chances are you will see Sachin Tendulkar sharing a little of his personal cachet with a motorbike. And administrators in the subcontinent still think it’s OK to give the man of the match a bike or even a car. Not even the umpires are immune. Fly Emirates, say their shirts, which is demeaning to them and damaging to the planet."
If Munaf Patel could do it, so can Ishwar Choudhury. Also hailing from a village in Gujarat, the young fast bowler's selection for the Under-19 squad against Pakistan is a reward for his toil, overcoming financial hurdles and other difficulties. K Muralidharan of The Indian Express charts his rise.
Sent to Gandhinagar by his father—a debt-ridden farmer—to nurse his flailing academic when he was 12, this tall strapping lad’s cricket instincts drew him closer to the game at the Sports Authority of India.
Harbhajan Singh takes pride in the fact that he has mastered a craft which is by no means easy in the modern game. In an interview to S Dinakar of The Hindu, Harbhajan firmly believes that he is at a stage where he needn't listen to experts.
Harbhajan Singh still carries that maroon wallet. It's battered and torn, but it stays with him, reminding him of his humble beginning, his roots
In a freewheeling interview to The Indian Express Harbhajan Singh tells Ajay S Shankar about the journey so far and his dream to become India captain.
I always stick with what I feel is right, what I feel is the truth. The effect, later on, may be bad for me, as it has happened a lot of times. And I know there’s a lot of lies going around these days, and there are many times when you are cheated. But that’s the way I have grown up, that’s the way I was taught to be. To speak the truth, stand with the truth.
