100th 100
March 18, 2012 Leave a comment
After all, even a trivial pursuit can have a closure! Well done Sachin. Enjoy the moment as much as you can.
(Note: Too bad the Indian bowlers let you down. )
In Trivial Pursuit…
January 6, 2012 Leave a comment
As I type this post, I am being told by several people who seem to care so much about this record that it has been 302 days since Sachin Tendulkar hit his last century in any form of cricket. I have to confess that this record that Sachin has been made to chase has been bothering me as well, even though at the outset I consider this as the most ridiculous statistical record in Cricket you can think of. So to me this is as irrelevant as trying to cross 10000 total miles (or some such number) by driving a car and a bike combined over a period of time. Yes, there is some sense of accomplishment. But trivial. Because driving a car and riding a bike mean totally different things.
Yet, here we are.
What I can’t figure out is why this man is chasing his 100th century in test matches? Why did he opt out of the ODI series against WI when he had all the ammunition he needed to score a 100 because he would have opened the batting? And his record in scoring centuries as an opener is spectacular.
Of course, I love his batting. Who doesn’t? But I am neither a fan of Sachin to the point that I appreciate everything he does on & off the field nor a critic that I do the exact opposite by calling him a selfish player (which seems to be the most common accusation). So I feel I have a fair view in presenting my armchair punditry.
The biggest ailment in Sachin Tendulkar’s batting since he scored his last century on March 12, 2011 vs South Africa (Nagpur) is his mental state. Contrary to what all his admirers think that he is doing a really fantastic job of carrying the expectations of the entire nation on his shoulders without much of a mental strain, he actually has been carrying a big monkey around his shoulders for the last 300 odd days because is a human being. He is not “God” (of course – I mean God in a traditional sense..not in a Higgs Boson sense). Beyond this 100 100s monkey, every time he has gone out to play for India in a game, I am sure he goes through enormous amount of pressure & mental stress that none of us will ever know of. By dehumanizing him, the Tendulkar fans have only made it more difficult for him to be what he really is.
Notwithstanding the superlative form he has been in since his last hundred, especially if you look at the series of 60s, 70s and 80s he has made, I can’t help but conclude that this monkey that he has been made to carry is taking its toll. Even though he has come out positive in most of the above knocks when he started off the innings, he had invariably gone on the defensive mode once he crossed 60 runs or so. This is a problem. Sachin Tendulkar shouldn’t think he has to score a 100 which makes him cautious once he inches closer to the mark. It is all easier said than done. But then that is what armchair punditry is about right?
I hope he works on this aspect of his game. Of course he can never get rid off the monkey till he actually gets rid off it by scoring a 100. In the meantime, at least he should tell himself that the monkey is harmless and it doesn’t do much other than just sit on his shoulders. If he can somehow tell himself that, may be..may be..he will not go defensive after he crosses 60 runs.
Having said that, in all honesty, I don’t think he is going to score his 100th 100 in Australia in the test series. I will be glad if I am proven wrong. His best chances were against WI in India. Now he has got to wait for another home series and more importantly, he should be willing to play the 50 over format games to increase his chances.
As the little master continues his trivial pursuit, so do we..
A week that was a riot
August 13, 2011 Leave a comment
An imminent whitewash is lingering and if the first 3 tests were any indication, the average Indian cricket fan must be really waiting for the Oval test match to be over with as soon as possible. Not that a win or a loss is going to change anything in Indian cricket in near future but the wounded souls can at least relax knowing the fact that the worst is over. Many pundits have painted all forms of media red with their valuable thoughts on what they think is really wrong with this Indian team. So I am not even going there. For even if I try, I won’t be able to get it to a shade remotely close to red.
At the end of this series, I will just accumulate what I think are all the positive aspects that came out of it and publish it as a blog post so that the millions of readers who flock my blog can look at the ‘glass is half full’ side of the story and not just the ‘glass is half empty’ side of the story.
This blog post, though is triggered by what is happening in England, has got nothing to do with the India-England cricket series, (which too can be termed as a riot of sorts from a certain perspective), but has got to do with the recent riots that plagued the streets of England for 4-5 nights. Yes, it even made Cameron cut short his vacation. I am no expert on the socio economic issues that plague England, nor do many of you who simply went out of your way to condone the rioters or banish the rioters as soon as the news spread out through twitter and facebook like a smoldering blackberry fire. And I am no expert either to offer a short term or a longterm solution. My observations and reactions I feel are not knee-jerk ones but more pragmatic, considering the context and also considering all strata of the society affected. Before I offer my views and reactions, please do read this wonderful post on the riots by Russell Brand, who of late has been surprising me with his extremely passionate and brilliant penmanship (Amy Winehouse tribute was a class post as well).
For a far left leaning individual like me who takes a very liberal stance on both economic and social issues, I have been tortured with this constant debate of socialism vs. capitalism. So I do very well understand the larger issues of this downtrodden part of this English society to the extent that I am mature enough to admit that it is mostly (not entirely) the system that continues to widen the divide between the rich and the poor and that it needs a trim. This is the longterm solution that experts have to stress upon the leaders of the state and more importantly the politicians of the state to start working on ‘from yesterday’. So, without going into the details of what I think could be done to fix the system or help these sections of the society through the system, I am simply going to express my views on all concerned parties specifically in the context of what happened in the past week.
- This is not a racial issue as some riot sympathizers have made it out to be. Read more about Mark Duggan and how it happened whatever happened. I am not going to explain it here..If anyone is thinks it is, then needless to say, they are making an assumption and they are naturally biased.
- The police officers involved with Mark Duggan’s death know the truth and no one else does. This is neither to defend the police officers nor to point fingers at them. But if I had to be commanding that team that day when they had to deal with Duggan, there were several scenarios that I would have possibly thought of before taking on Duggan, even if it was a self-defense situation and my or my team’s life was in danger. For all those who want to find fault with everything police does, I have nothing to say to you as you just don’t believe in authority of any kind or law enforcement of any kind. If you don’t believe law enforcement is one of the basic necessities of a democratic society, then we can’t even have a discussion.
- Unfortunately, the riot itself as it turned out, had nothing to with Duggan, whose family met with the police team in a much more peaceful manner and a less violent manner. So my main grudge on the rioters starts here.
- Even for a moment, if I assume that these directionless youth (I don’t want to generally call everyone a yob although everyone of them who damaged other’s property or looted other’s property fit the bill perfectly according to me) were waiting for a reason to raise against the system, then I am sort of lost as to whatever happened to that real cause. If any of you listened to or talked to any of these looters or rioters, majority of them (not a single one of them I read about or heard talked about the real cause) really had no idea what they were doing except they thought it would be nice to wear an expensive pair of shoes or have a big screen television or a Blu-Ray DVD player. They were basically opportunistic hooligans – No other way to describe their deplorable acts. Some of the elders from these neighborhoods, who were either parents of these young looters or family members, who although fell short of condoning the riots and looting, tried to express the real cause. But their voice had no meaning in the larger context of general hooliganism that was bringing everyday lives of many thousands to a halt.
- To everyone, including members of the very same downtrodden part of the society, what happened caused (and will continue to do so as a consequence) innumerable problems. Again, as a liberal, I would be the first one to raise my voice for prejudices and such. But this looting was plain wrong..Here is a black woman who very clearly belongs to this strata of the society sharing my reasoning in the below video clip.
- The looting more than the actual riots that I was disgusted with. Majority of those who were affected (and will continue to be affected as the state cleans up the mess and starts paying people who lost properties) belongs to hardworking middle class society. They are the ones who keep the cycle of the system well oiled. They are the ones who pay bulk of the taxes and they are the ones who can bring a country’s economy up or down. When they are affected, you know what the consequences are.
- Violence is simply not a way to protest. If you believe it is, then there is no difference between the rioters and looters and certain other sections of the global society who resort to killing others in the name of religion. A society becomes dysfunctional and it invites authoritarian style governing when such things happen, which really will make the already oppressed strata of the society suffer more.
- The police on night 1 were caught in their own doing. They clearly didn’t expect this kind of violence..and looting of this scale. They were trying to soft pedal this issue possibly because of a fear of a racial outbreak of violence and partly because of their messy involvement with the Duggan case. They were trying to play a self-defensive role of a person who feels guilty.. Unfortunately, that backfired on them.
- Anti-rioters – Pretty amazed at how a section of the society got together to start protecting their neighborhoods (in one case it even cost 3 lives). This was also a case of people power. If people can get together to loot and kill others’ properties and others respectively, then this just proved that people can get together to counter the same.
- Finally, the politicians who showed up in the last minute after most damage was done and sparked a debate only with only one thing in mind. The next election. Less said about them, the better.
- The media outlets, by and large (at least the ones I follow) were pretty neutral about the coverage. They covered both sides..Barring a few idiotic and senseless questions (like the video below), I have to say they are giving a fair share of attention to the real problem and the real cause. I am confident that if at all it means anything, this is a healthy thing to have come out of the situation and I hope more experts will join in the debate and push the leaders & politicians alike to start working on a longterm solution.
As Russell Brand rightly concludes, let us not make the mistake of sweeping away or cleaning up the real problem as we sweep away or clean up the mess caused by these riots and looting. And let us also not make the mistake of condoning the rioters and looters because this will only breed a highly disrespectful society leading to an authoritarian political system or totalitarianism, neither of which will lead to a healthy development of mankind, if history is any indication.
An Ode to a Ten year old…
April 5, 2011 2 Comments
The onlookers weren’t that many. But those who were there (4 or 5 to be precise) could only watch the proceedings from the terrace of a neighborhood alley. The pitch was 22 ft. long alright but was hardly wide enough and to make it even more challenging, there were 12 ft. high walls on both sides of the pitch.If you can imagine a net practice wicket that is only 3 ft. wide, with nets replaced by walls – that was the pitch and in fact, the entire playing field extended only 30 ft. past the bowler’s end in a linear fashion. Past that 30 ft. boundary line, there was a busy road with vehicles bustling past in their full glory.
3 teams. 2 players in each team. The youngest player was 10 years old while the oldest was 13 years old. And the three teams were competing for the first time in a round robin format for a coveted trophy. “The world cup”..Yes – The world cup – so called not only because cricket was the world for the 10 year old boy, but also because of the fact that this was June, 1983. The 10 year old boy besides organizing this tournament, also pushed the other five into taking part in this tournament being played in his house and even taught them the basics of the game. The tournament was dappled by many a hitch and also by the possessive arrogance of this 10 year old, who wanted his team to win and in the process couldn’t digest a verdict that went against his team. Eventually, the cup – a trophy made of clay and decorated with color paper strips, was shattered into pieces by the same 10 year old boy (who had spent almost a week making that trophy and also preparing for this tournament with so much anticipation) in the middle of the pitch while the other 5 boys watched in horror & the onlookers twitched their lips in despair.
A day later, India beat West Indies at the Lord’s to win the 3rd Prudential World Cup.
While in Bombay, another 10 year old boy experienced and celebrated the feat of Kapil’s Devils probably in a much different way compared to how this 10 year old boy did on June 25, 1983. This 10 year old, the one who broke that clay trophy just the day before, on June 24, 1983, was glued to his Murphy transistor and was on top of the world when Mohinder Amarnath trapped Michael Holding LBW.
Yes, for someone who grew up in a neighborhood that was cricket illiterate and had only his mom, to share his enthusiasm with, he somehow knew this was a big occasion. He knew what Kapil Dev had managed to achieve along with his brilliant team may have been a fluke but was not going to be easy to repeat. Somehow, he knew it was magical beyond words and he could sense that which was beyond his age or maturity, specially given his surroundings.
Twenty Eight years later, as I sit and try to recollect those moments during the 1983 world cup when I as a ten year old boy – be it the one when India were down 17/5 when I turned off the radio in disappointment and also in quite the nervousness about my then hero Kapil walking in..only to find out an hour later from my cousin that Kirmani & Kapil were still going strong, or be it the moment when there was a power cut in the house and I had no choice but to crawl to a corner of the house with the radio on my right ear, where the reception was at its best, to hear Balwinder Singh getting the first wicket or be it the moment when I saw that picture of Greenidge letting the ball go with his bat in the air as Sandhu’s crazy inswinger crashed into the off stump the next morning in “The Hindu” and trying to compare it with how I had imagined that fall of the wicket when I listened to it on radio the previous night…
I can still feel the same emotion. Tears are almost ready to flow. Somehow, I can control them now. There were a few things in common between that 10 year old from Bombay and me.
We both love cricket. Of course. We both started playing cricket at an early age. Both of us dreamt of playing for India. There were a few differences. He is Sachin Tendulkar and he grew up in Bombay. I am not Sachin Tendulkar and I didn’t grow up in Bombay. So I would never know if my talent was anywhere close to 50% of what Sachin’s is, because I gave up serious cricket after 17, which was when he got to play for India. When I was 17, playing my last league game, I didn’t know what my career was going to be, but knew very well that it wasn’t going to be Cricket. I was not disappointed because it was the most pragmatic decision anyone from a middle class family in a southern Tamil Nadu town could take, however talented one was. But I have followed Sachin’s career more closely than many of you have and I can relate to his career much more than many of you, the so called Sachin fans can ever claim to because of the simple reason that I see him as what I could have been in my alternate life.
I have to say that the memories of the 1992 world cup , which was Sachin’s first world cup are not vivid. Yes, I followed the tournament but on college campus with a bunch of friends. I was even the sports secretary of my hostel and organized a fantasy world cup pool with fictitious money. Before every match, I would issue odds and people were allowed to bet. In spite of all that, I only remember a few good knocks of Sachin’s and Azhar’s & Pakistan’s victory eventually. From 1992 onwards, Sachin has featured in every world cup and has never managed to hold the coveted trophy.
Till April 2, 2011.
The intensity of Dhoni’s eyes as he hit that six of Kulasekara said it all. The determination, the focus and most importantly his nonchalant confidence in himself. And then it started happening. As I saw Sachin in the dressing room hugging some of his team mates, I was lost in the moment and my emotions took the better of me. The next 60 minutes or so cannot be described in words. My son who is not 10 yet, saw me cherish India becoming World Champions again after 28 years. He joined me in the celebration for a few minutes as I hugged him & high-fived him. He may never realize the importance of that moment till he grows older assuming he still follows cricket. But, the victory lap with Sachin on Yusuf Pathan’s and Kohli’s/Raina’s shoulders, followed by Virat Kohli’s now famous tribute to the master “He has carried the burden of the nation for 21 years and it is time we carry him on our shoulders..”and every other bit of celebration that followed – they all mattered to me. They all mattered to me a lot. I struggled hard to control my tears. I couldn’t speak..I couldn’t frame a sentence with more than 2 words when my wife asked me a question. I was choking.
That’s when I realized how much cricket still means to me. To be specific, how much Indian cricket still means to me and how easily it can make me that ten year old boy again, who was ready to burn his hair in a candle flame only to get the radio close to his ear in the right position to listen to live BBC commentary.
And to think what this would mean to the Bombay boy who was also 10 years old in 1983, just like me, to have come this far and actually hold the world cup trophy and kiss it……
I choke.
How to Prepare yourself for a big cricket match…
March 26, 2011 2 Comments
42nd match – Random collection of thoughts
March 21, 2011 1 Comment
Watching a not so consequential ODI cricket match on a Sunday has its own benefits, especially in a web 2.0 world. You tend to have a lot of time to express your thoughts into a vacuum called twitter, where a few may pick those up and a few may miss them, but you get the satisfaction that you have said what’s in your mind at that moment. In many ways, these momentary thoughts (tweets) are uncorrupted by what happens next and hence not influenced or biased. They are how exactly you feel at a given point of time. Even if you are trying to add a humorous or a creative twist to your tweet, it still is based on that moment, unlike a blog post where you have the opportunity to collect all your ideas about a particular incident or topic & present your conclusive view in a much more balanced way.
This blog post, is an attempt to present a somewhat humorous side of the Ind vs. WI (played on March 20 at Chepauk, Chennai) match’s proceedings through some tweets from my timeline (sorry if I don’t give individual credits to the people who actually tweeted them - because I am not doing a cut and paste but trying to jot down from my memory)..
Most of these tweets were from rameshsrivats & jhunjhunwala while some were from me & vamseekamana.
- Some teams are born powerplay. Some teams achieve powerplay. Some teams have powerplay thrust upon them. (On India’s batting batting power play being taken at the 46th over)
- Munaf Fielding Rule for all batsmen playing against India: If you hit the ball towards Munaf you should run n+1 runs where n=no. of runs you would run when Munaf is not the fielder. Exception: When Munaf is bowling, remember n->-1
- If Muralitharan can turn the bowl even on Moon, then Munaf Patel can bowl wides even on Moon’s surface..
- Well played West Indies. It is nice to have friends like you in the opposition (after the loss)
- West Indian Collapso (as the WI batsmen began to collapse)
- Darren Sammy is going to kill himself. Getting run out by Munaf is the ultimate humiliation for a Batsman..(after Sammy got run out in Munaf’s bowling)
- Ravi Shastri is a software and not a human being (On Shastri’s cliched and predictable commentary)
- Somebody get a wire because Shastri is about to have a feeling that this match is about to go down to it (again on Shastri’s cliched commentary)
- I hate you Ravi Rampaul. May people throw Uday Chopra DVDs at you (On Ravi Rampaul’s wicket taking spree)
- I hate you Ravi Rampaul. May you get acting lessons from Arjun Rampal (On Ravi Rampaul’s wicket taking spree)
- Sreesanth’s exclusion from team is just because of election code of conduct in Kerala (based on a comment from Shashi Tharoor)
- The Chennai people are bored.With this match, they expected a Rajnikanth film. So far it has unfolded like an Uday Chopra film (when India was going at a slow pace with Yuvraj/Kohli and Dhoni were batting)
- Shastri : So Dhoni, how has the World Cup campaign been so far? | Dhoni : Well off course.
- Today is a big day. India vs. “What Columbus thought was India” (before the match)
- “Simon Taufel” – Anagram – “Fault is on me” (after Simon Taufel failed to call for a TV umpire review on what looked like a clear run out)
- Chennai fans. Leave now. Else Autokkaarans will charge you triple rate (after the last WI wicket fell)
- In a live demonstration of The Law of Unintended Consequences, Aswhin is making Harbhajan look ordinary (on Ashwin’s & HBS bowling)
- Pollard gone. Well done White Dog (when Pollard got out a few moments after a white dog was spotted by the sight screen)
- I think Ponting would prefer to go to Mirpur for QF given his TV history in Ahmedabad
ODI Cricket need not be a batsman’s game..Introducing a Twist!!
March 4, 2011 2 Comments
I am not a cricket buff. At least not anymore. Or so I would think before the start of every major tournament and I did the same till about a month ago before the world cup kicked off. But then, who can resist the temptation of watching hapless bowlers getting mercilessly plundered by flat, bounce less, tepid and dry pitches match after match (Leaving Afridi and Malinga aside)? This compounded with the fact that I have managed to free myself of any high pressure & deadline demanding responsibilities at work, has helped me to keep track of all the batsmen who are having a great time, all the other batsmen who are cursing their luck for not having a great time and all the bowlers who are ready to hang their boots after this world cup.
This world cup has become a “runshed” of sorts. My memory, quite involuntarily takes me back to the 1983 world cup. Probably because that was the first world cup which I followed with a wide understanding of what cricket is all about, while maniacally supporting a team & a few players – like a true cricket buff in spite of the tournament being played in England and in spite of the absoluteness of no TV coverage where I was then. For me, it was a novel idea to begin with, to even follow a cricket game that gets over in a day, for all I knew till then was Test cricket which for some reason brought a certain kind of joy every time I opened the Sports page on “The Hindu” and saw that the team batting had managed to get all out in 2-3 days. With the 1983 world cup format, each team had to bowl 60 overs. Which meant, the batting team had a little more time to settle down before going on an onslaught. There were people like Richards, Kapil Dev, Botham, Patil, etc. who could clear the field with much ease. Still, a team scoring over 220 or 230 runs or at a run rate of 4.0 was considered insane. I may recall only a couple of matches where teams scored over 300 (at a run rate of over 5.0). Given that kind of exposure or initiation to limited overs cricket, I can’t help but acknowledge that things have changed quite a bit.
The past couple of days I have been waking up with a guilty feeling. And that feeling lasts probably a couple of minutes. And it has got to do with the fact I missed watching all the 63 balls that Kevin J O’Brien played – LIVE. When a team is chasing a mammoth 327 runs in 50 overs, it is not often a cricket buff sits at home to watch the chase live – specially on a work day and definitely not when the team chasing is Ireland. So, there I was following the score online and at some point intuitively switched to watching the game live online..That point was when KJO had just crossed his 50. The way Ireland went about chasing a score like that and the way most of these pitches have been designed in general throughout the world cup makes me believe that this format of 50 over game is continuing to make bowlers more and more irrelevant in a very insulting way, especially if it is played in the Indian sub-continent.
Malinga and Afridi may have been the exception so far in my books. As they have done consistently well by bowling mostly unplayable balls and getting wickets when needed. But then there are a few more matches to go and time will tell how good they continue to be for the rest of the tournament.
If this trend continues, may be in a couple of decades, teams will be selected based only on batsmen. That brings me to the main purpose of this blog post.
I hereby propose a new twist to how teams should be selected and played for ODI games (and even for T20 games). Each side picks a Batting team, a Bowling team and a Fielding team.
May be a 7-7-2 mix. Or a 7-6-3 mix. Or even a 6-6-4 mix.
Remember the basic rules of cricket remains the same. 11 players on the field – Get 10 batsmen out to bundle out the opposition – etc.
Now let me try to outline how this format would work very briefly by taking the 7-7-2 mix as an example.
- Batting team can bat only 11 of their batsmen to play for 10 wickets.
- They have to play off all their 7 batsmen (not necessarily as the first 7 batsmen) in addition to playing 4 from the remaining 11.
- They don’t have to decide at the beginning of their innings (but can if they want to) who their batting 11 is going to be but they can’t leave room for any mistakes.
- Bowling/Fielding team has to come into the field with 11 players. This can be any 11 from the mix.
- Bowling captain can choose from any of the 16 players to bowl. But the 7 bowlers in the Bowling team has to bowl at least one over before an 8th bowler can be brought into attack.
- The 2 fielders picked as part of the fielding team has to be in the field all the time unless injured.
Ok. So do you get the general picture?
With that background, here is a chart I put together for what could have been India’s line-up in their first game against Bangladesh in Dhaka and what would have been the score (of course all from my imagination) had they played this way.
Possible Indian Line-up under the new format
Imaginary Scorecard (under the new format - Batting XI and Bowling/Fielding XI)
May be I am onto something. Time to patent this…
Mr. Cool
April 26, 2010 3 Comments
Well, for someone who was anti-IPL (the format and the way it was promoted) in season 1, I have to confess that the entertainment value of this format sucked me right into it during IPL 3. I bought the package and watched almost all the matches either live or their highlights, later on. And don’t know why (!!), I was rooting for CSK with RCB and DC as my no. 2 and no. 3 favorite teams. The only reason DC wasn’t no. 2 in my list was because of the fact that the team was overly dependent on non-Indian players…Actually, non-Deccan players to be precise. T Suman clicked in a couple of matches but that was after my list was finalized.
I will say it once again – T-20 is a format where there is hardly any predictability possible (with some amount of rationalization). Yes. There are good players, there are average players and then there are dismal players. But it all depends on how much time they get either with their bats or with the ball to prove their mettle.
Am glad for CSK for 2 reasons:
1) MSD proved that he is the coolest captain around. Can’t give enough examples on how his captaincy won games for the team..The fielding changes in the final – to move Raina to deep mid-wicked for Tiwary and then to move Haydos to a straight mid-off position for Pollard were brilliant, to point a few.
2) The franchise owner (India Cements) unlike all the other owners is the only owner in the league that has a real investment for the game of cricket. Tamil Nadu cricket scene has seen India Cements for almost 5 decades…and their dedication & commitment to the game cannot be termed in financial terms alone. So, I am glad such a franchise is getting the reward for believing in the game & the team out of true passion.
For now, Mr. Cool – MSD deserves a pat on his back. Not to miss out the newer stars from Chennai – Vijay, Ashwin, Badri…They all had a great tournament. Bollinger & Murali did their heroics and Raina has turned out to be a match winner! Well done, men in yellow..!
