The number 800 gained its own significance on July 22, 2010!! Just for a moment, keep aside all the debates around the legality of Muthiah Muralidharan’s bowling and salute the person for the legacy he is leaving behind. This statistic could be appreciated better when we look at the fact that the next best contemporary spinner does not even have half of what Murali has got. Let’s leave the statistic here and talk a bit more about the cricketer.
For an avid cricket follower, especially from the sub-continent it is very easy to understand the fan following Murali will have in his home country. It is definitely right up there with what Sachin Tendulkar has in India. The expectations that he carried on in his shoulders were enormous. If one adds the constant scrutiny he was under for his bowling action, only a person with abundance of guts could have carried himself thus far. In spite of it, the Murali image that anyone will have is surely that of his expressive eyes when he delivers the ball and the cheerful attitude he displayed with a bat in his hand.
No talk about Murali could be complete without talking about the other two great spinners who were competing with him throughout. One of the reasons why Murali could get so many wickets was the lack of bite in the rest of the Srilankan attack. But imagine the pressure, if you are expected to take 5 wickets in an innings every time you bowl. Shane Warne hardly had to bowl with the pressure of taking wickets all by himself and Kumble at most times at least had one other good bowler to complement his efforts. To put it in short, Murali was to Srilankan bowling (for most of his career) what Brian Lara was to WI batting.
After Srilanka won the World Cup in 1996, there was a desperate need in their cricket to sustain the momentum and move the team forward to the next level. Ranatunga and DeSilva were at the end of their careers and it was around Jayasuriya and Murali that Srilanka built their team. Jayasuriya re-invented himself in the Test arena and Murali was always there to ensure that the job done by batsmen did not go waste. Murali is not yet done with the ODIs, hoping to give one final shot at the World cup next year. Let’s wish him the very best and wait with anticipation if he can end his ODI career in a similar way as his Test career.
-Raghavan
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Sunday, February 28, 2010
India, win the World Cup for him…
This was the thought that first came to my mind when my desktop live scorecard showed 200* against Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar. I do not want to write more about statistics which by now will not be news. The passion and dedication that this “Super man from India” (As Ravi Shashtri yelled from the commentary box when Sachin completed his double ton) has displayed is definitely super human. The manner in which Sachin has enthralled the cricket mad Indian public is way beyond any comparison.
God has been cruel to Sachin in the sense that he has chosen him to represent a team sport rather than an individual sport. It is not practical to expect a match winner to be there till the end in every presented opportunity. Just for that reason one cannot take the credit away from him for the work he has done. It must not be forgotten that the work done thus far was not a cakewalk for that individual. Ricky Ponting’s consistency has had great impact on Aussies dominance but no one can deny how well he had been supplemented in his efforts.
Scoring consistently is entirely in control of the individual but in a team game, that does not always translate into wins. There is no way that a person who has scored 175 out of 350 required for a win be blamed when he got out with run a ball needed to win. Brian Lara has been even less fortunate than Sachin on this count. The wait for a French Open grand slam title was an agonizing one for Roger Federer for 4 years but to his credit, he seized the opportunity presented to him last year. The fact to be noted here is, he just did things that were in his control with remarkable consistency. Unfortunately for Sachin, team wins belittles his numbers.
If there is one man who deserves to be a part of a World Cup winning team now, it is Sachin. He almost did it single-handedly on two occasions, only to see the team just not supplement him as desired. So, MSD and his men have a good opportunity to give a fitting tribute to the man who has served Indian cricket for more than 2 decades now.
-Raghavan
God has been cruel to Sachin in the sense that he has chosen him to represent a team sport rather than an individual sport. It is not practical to expect a match winner to be there till the end in every presented opportunity. Just for that reason one cannot take the credit away from him for the work he has done. It must not be forgotten that the work done thus far was not a cakewalk for that individual. Ricky Ponting’s consistency has had great impact on Aussies dominance but no one can deny how well he had been supplemented in his efforts.
Scoring consistently is entirely in control of the individual but in a team game, that does not always translate into wins. There is no way that a person who has scored 175 out of 350 required for a win be blamed when he got out with run a ball needed to win. Brian Lara has been even less fortunate than Sachin on this count. The wait for a French Open grand slam title was an agonizing one for Roger Federer for 4 years but to his credit, he seized the opportunity presented to him last year. The fact to be noted here is, he just did things that were in his control with remarkable consistency. Unfortunately for Sachin, team wins belittles his numbers.
If there is one man who deserves to be a part of a World Cup winning team now, it is Sachin. He almost did it single-handedly on two occasions, only to see the team just not supplement him as desired. So, MSD and his men have a good opportunity to give a fitting tribute to the man who has served Indian cricket for more than 2 decades now.
-Raghavan
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
The Aussie Super Sub
Watching Australia clinch the ODI series against India gave me just one pre-dominant thought. Australia might be a team which has lost some genuine match winners, but definitely doesn’t look like a team which has lost its self-belief. The Hyderabad ODI which Aussies won by 3 runs is a true tribute to the Aussie spirit. Even after Sachin got out just when it seemed like he had yet again played a blinder to see India achieve its highest ever ODI run chase, the target was definitely within India’s reach.
The experiment of super sub introduced by ICC some years back could have been a failure but the Aussies seem to possess their own “Super Sub” which very rarely seems to disappoint them. It is the self belief that the Aussies seem to have made as their “Super Sub” that is helping them win close matches. Do not forget that this Australian line up did not have 7 injury hit players who would have otherwise made it to the playing XI. But, their ability to win these close matches has to be attributed to the “Super Sub”
I have grown up in an era which can be safely said as the Australian era in cricket, thanks to certain individuals like Warne, McGrath, Steve Waugh and Ponting. Any other team would have struggled to come to terms with the retirement of so many pure match winners in a short span (West Indies would be able to explain it better). The number of games that Aussies are losing has gone up in the recent times and also the number of games where the opponents run them close has gone up. Still, in big tournaments and big moments of a game, they deliver. It is not individuals with extra-ordinary talent who enable them to achieve this but it is a combination of skill and this “Super sub” which seem to be in-built in the Aussie system.
It would not be hard for any other team to get to the No.1 ranking, but to stay there for at least a considerable amount of time this “Super Sub” has to become an integral part of the team. Anyhow, cricket followers can be happy as an ODI series such as the current India-Australia series will definitely lay to rest the debate about the future of ODIs for quite some time.
-Raghavan
The experiment of super sub introduced by ICC some years back could have been a failure but the Aussies seem to possess their own “Super Sub” which very rarely seems to disappoint them. It is the self belief that the Aussies seem to have made as their “Super Sub” that is helping them win close matches. Do not forget that this Australian line up did not have 7 injury hit players who would have otherwise made it to the playing XI. But, their ability to win these close matches has to be attributed to the “Super Sub”
I have grown up in an era which can be safely said as the Australian era in cricket, thanks to certain individuals like Warne, McGrath, Steve Waugh and Ponting. Any other team would have struggled to come to terms with the retirement of so many pure match winners in a short span (West Indies would be able to explain it better). The number of games that Aussies are losing has gone up in the recent times and also the number of games where the opponents run them close has gone up. Still, in big tournaments and big moments of a game, they deliver. It is not individuals with extra-ordinary talent who enable them to achieve this but it is a combination of skill and this “Super sub” which seem to be in-built in the Aussie system.
It would not be hard for any other team to get to the No.1 ranking, but to stay there for at least a considerable amount of time this “Super Sub” has to become an integral part of the team. Anyhow, cricket followers can be happy as an ODI series such as the current India-Australia series will definitely lay to rest the debate about the future of ODIs for quite some time.
-Raghavan
Sunday, August 23, 2009
The GenNext Team Man
Cricket is a team game. If there is any doubt, just ask a certain B C Lara or S R Tendulkar whose best not always resulted in their team’s win and the individual will always tell that his own success is not quite fulfilling when the team doesn’t win. Having said this, a common cricket follower (especially in Asia) always looks up to his own favourite individual’s contribution. Though we will realize that a certain individual is not the sole reason why we watch the sport for so many years, it is undoubtedly certain personalities who infuse the interest initially. This sport has so many instances where the result of the confrontation between two individuals has determined the result of the match also. India has a long and strong history of hero worship and we are always in the look out of a great leader or a superstar in any field and we sometimes go out of bounds to glorify them.
In this generation of globalization, the corporate world is drilling in the idea of team work in the workplace. What is it I am trying to convey here? Is it importance of Team Work in a game like cricket or the influence of crowd pullers who capture the imagination of the whole lot? Well, I am going back to the idea of hero worship and put my views on a small town boy whom the media introduced to India with a kind of rock star image but who has been able to handle the superstardom quite admirably and showing the world that there is of course a way not to get overawed by the adulation and keep performing. I am talking about the man currently in-charge of the Indian cricket team, Mahendra Singh Dhoni (MSD).
After a prodigy called Sachin Tendulkar burst into international cricket, no player (even the charismatic Saurav Ganguly) has been able to make the transition look so simple, straight forward and smooth. In this generation one could easily relate to a small town boy making it big in his field but doing so in cricket and that too with the kind of media following the game has, it is not always as easy as it is perceived to be. First of all, in India, cricket is the only professional sport where money and infrastructure is available in abundance and so cricketers have the luxury of not having to worry about recognition and other factors which every other sport faces. But what we tend to forget is that sport in general has a very short life time and you need to be at your peak all the time in order to sustain your career. One can very easily lose count on the one-match, one-series, one-year wonders that we see in international cricket.
In cricket, being a player and being a captain are completely different ball games.
That too in countries like India and Pakistan, it is always hard to separate out the two roles and be on the button all the time. This is where MSD has managed to do the balancing act quite remarkably, which great players like Sachin, Dravid or an exceptional captain like Saurav have failed. Statistically speaking, India has won close to 70% of ODIs he has captained and in the same matches his average is close to a staggering 60 (59.7). Though he doesn’t possess an enviable test record as a batsman, he still is India’s best wicket keeper and he seems to know the knack of when exactly to influence the match with his bat (Drawing the Lord’s test in 2007 and playing some crucial knocks against the Aussies in the home series).
The Playing XI
The way he chooses the playing XI gives you an insight on how calculative he is. The VB series that India won in Australia in early 2008 is a clear example of it. To make players of the stature of Rahul Dravid and Saurav Ganguly sit out (just to remind that Yuvraj was looking like a school kid wrongly pitted against big men during the test series and Gambhir was yet to establish himself as an opener) and show the world that the team can win needs lots of conviction and guts. Throughout the VB series, he picked Munaf Patel for games against Srilanka alone (since with his pace and agility on field, he would have surely been a liability against the more agile Aussies). His backing of the under fire Yuvraj and the way he utilized Praveen Kumar in the later stages of the tournament (and boy didn’t he deliver in the finals!!) needs a special mention here.
Replacing the Veterans
By replacing Dravid and Saurav, he first ensured that you have two players, with better agility (much needed in the big Australian grounds), but doubts were there about the primary job of batting where the two veterans were still among the best. One of the problems was solved for MSD by the run-hungry Gambhir but the way he more than covered up for Dravid was outstanding. Covering up for Dravid’s solidity and run accumulation in ODIs takes some doing and MSD made sure that the team not for once missed Dravid. Taking this decision might not have look like a big risk but the scrutiny he would have been under if the plan had not been executed well is an unpleasant one.
I remember after MSD guided India home in an ODI against Srilanka in the last over, Uthappa mentioning to the television channel that Dhoni is the new Dravid of the team. Right from that time, his statistics just about proves that.
Thought Clarity
The way MSD has been able to move into Dravid’s shoes after asking for a team which will allow him to do that (the stroke makers Sehwag, Gambhir, Raina & Yuvraj) speaks a lot about the clarity he had in his mind. There were umpteen numbers of media reports and expert analysis on how he has shed his natural game, but for me what he decided upon was a very simple decision brought about by nothing other than an uncluttered mind. MSD seems to possess not only the habit of learning from his playing experience but an astute observing capability and more importantly turning his observations into very simple and practically executable actions.
The Indian Flavour
What sets MSD apart is not his adaptability or talent (which many other youngsters possess) but the clarity with which he makes decisions and the manner in which he ensures that he and his team execute most of them. The most impressive part of it (especially in India) is that, he is doing these without creating the slightest feeling of revolting against the system here, rather we do not get the feeling that he is revolting because he doesn’t really revolt!!. We all knew how difficult it was for Saurav to build a team of his choice and ironically, he became a victim of his own vision. Here is where MSD scores. He keeps things simple and does it in a way which is natural for Indians. Greg Chappell failed in this as he tried to thrust upon Aussie professionalism into Indians (though with the noblest of intentions) with only the then captain (Dravid) vouching for it.
Playing to the strengths
One more striking aspect of MSD as a player is: playing to his strengths. His thought clarity helps him in this aspect too. He clearly knows his comfort zone and being the captain gives him the liberty to bat where he wants. One is now used to seeing MSD coming out to bat at No.3, but not when a Latish Malinga is bowling his deadly toe crushers with great accuracy. This can even be looked at negatively but I see it in a positive way. He comes in to bat when he feels he will be most effective. The second test against Australia in Mohali last year was a clear example of this. He knew that the pitch was placid and he could take the attack to the opposition. But the striking feature in doing this is that he manages to make all these innings count, in its own way it tilts the balance towards the team. So far, he has done it with good consistency and that reflects in his average.
The 27 year old M.S.Dhoni is the first captain who belongs to the current generation and among the current bunch of cricketers, seems to be the best candidate to lead the team for quite some time. The T20 world cup has been his only failure till now. It will be interesting to see how he handles failures. The shelf life that all captains have is yet to set in, a first sign of how this generation handles pressure and MSD has done well so far. The way he handles the media has also been quite good. It will be interesting to see what is in store for the ‘Captain cool’!!!
-Vijay
In this generation of globalization, the corporate world is drilling in the idea of team work in the workplace. What is it I am trying to convey here? Is it importance of Team Work in a game like cricket or the influence of crowd pullers who capture the imagination of the whole lot? Well, I am going back to the idea of hero worship and put my views on a small town boy whom the media introduced to India with a kind of rock star image but who has been able to handle the superstardom quite admirably and showing the world that there is of course a way not to get overawed by the adulation and keep performing. I am talking about the man currently in-charge of the Indian cricket team, Mahendra Singh Dhoni (MSD).
After a prodigy called Sachin Tendulkar burst into international cricket, no player (even the charismatic Saurav Ganguly) has been able to make the transition look so simple, straight forward and smooth. In this generation one could easily relate to a small town boy making it big in his field but doing so in cricket and that too with the kind of media following the game has, it is not always as easy as it is perceived to be. First of all, in India, cricket is the only professional sport where money and infrastructure is available in abundance and so cricketers have the luxury of not having to worry about recognition and other factors which every other sport faces. But what we tend to forget is that sport in general has a very short life time and you need to be at your peak all the time in order to sustain your career. One can very easily lose count on the one-match, one-series, one-year wonders that we see in international cricket.
In cricket, being a player and being a captain are completely different ball games.
That too in countries like India and Pakistan, it is always hard to separate out the two roles and be on the button all the time. This is where MSD has managed to do the balancing act quite remarkably, which great players like Sachin, Dravid or an exceptional captain like Saurav have failed. Statistically speaking, India has won close to 70% of ODIs he has captained and in the same matches his average is close to a staggering 60 (59.7). Though he doesn’t possess an enviable test record as a batsman, he still is India’s best wicket keeper and he seems to know the knack of when exactly to influence the match with his bat (Drawing the Lord’s test in 2007 and playing some crucial knocks against the Aussies in the home series).
The Playing XI
The way he chooses the playing XI gives you an insight on how calculative he is. The VB series that India won in Australia in early 2008 is a clear example of it. To make players of the stature of Rahul Dravid and Saurav Ganguly sit out (just to remind that Yuvraj was looking like a school kid wrongly pitted against big men during the test series and Gambhir was yet to establish himself as an opener) and show the world that the team can win needs lots of conviction and guts. Throughout the VB series, he picked Munaf Patel for games against Srilanka alone (since with his pace and agility on field, he would have surely been a liability against the more agile Aussies). His backing of the under fire Yuvraj and the way he utilized Praveen Kumar in the later stages of the tournament (and boy didn’t he deliver in the finals!!) needs a special mention here.
Replacing the Veterans
By replacing Dravid and Saurav, he first ensured that you have two players, with better agility (much needed in the big Australian grounds), but doubts were there about the primary job of batting where the two veterans were still among the best. One of the problems was solved for MSD by the run-hungry Gambhir but the way he more than covered up for Dravid was outstanding. Covering up for Dravid’s solidity and run accumulation in ODIs takes some doing and MSD made sure that the team not for once missed Dravid. Taking this decision might not have look like a big risk but the scrutiny he would have been under if the plan had not been executed well is an unpleasant one.
I remember after MSD guided India home in an ODI against Srilanka in the last over, Uthappa mentioning to the television channel that Dhoni is the new Dravid of the team. Right from that time, his statistics just about proves that.
Thought Clarity
The way MSD has been able to move into Dravid’s shoes after asking for a team which will allow him to do that (the stroke makers Sehwag, Gambhir, Raina & Yuvraj) speaks a lot about the clarity he had in his mind. There were umpteen numbers of media reports and expert analysis on how he has shed his natural game, but for me what he decided upon was a very simple decision brought about by nothing other than an uncluttered mind. MSD seems to possess not only the habit of learning from his playing experience but an astute observing capability and more importantly turning his observations into very simple and practically executable actions.
The Indian Flavour
What sets MSD apart is not his adaptability or talent (which many other youngsters possess) but the clarity with which he makes decisions and the manner in which he ensures that he and his team execute most of them. The most impressive part of it (especially in India) is that, he is doing these without creating the slightest feeling of revolting against the system here, rather we do not get the feeling that he is revolting because he doesn’t really revolt!!. We all knew how difficult it was for Saurav to build a team of his choice and ironically, he became a victim of his own vision. Here is where MSD scores. He keeps things simple and does it in a way which is natural for Indians. Greg Chappell failed in this as he tried to thrust upon Aussie professionalism into Indians (though with the noblest of intentions) with only the then captain (Dravid) vouching for it.
Playing to the strengths
One more striking aspect of MSD as a player is: playing to his strengths. His thought clarity helps him in this aspect too. He clearly knows his comfort zone and being the captain gives him the liberty to bat where he wants. One is now used to seeing MSD coming out to bat at No.3, but not when a Latish Malinga is bowling his deadly toe crushers with great accuracy. This can even be looked at negatively but I see it in a positive way. He comes in to bat when he feels he will be most effective. The second test against Australia in Mohali last year was a clear example of this. He knew that the pitch was placid and he could take the attack to the opposition. But the striking feature in doing this is that he manages to make all these innings count, in its own way it tilts the balance towards the team. So far, he has done it with good consistency and that reflects in his average.
The 27 year old M.S.Dhoni is the first captain who belongs to the current generation and among the current bunch of cricketers, seems to be the best candidate to lead the team for quite some time. The T20 world cup has been his only failure till now. It will be interesting to see how he handles failures. The shelf life that all captains have is yet to set in, a first sign of how this generation handles pressure and MSD has done well so far. The way he handles the media has also been quite good. It will be interesting to see what is in store for the ‘Captain cool’!!!
-Vijay
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Test Cricket
Just as the year comes to an end, a real good exhibition of Test Match cricket was in view in the last month of the year. Cricket in India resumed from a disturbing but soothingly small hiatus through the India-England Test series, and three riveting games of Test match cricket were played during this month (in Chennai, Perth and Melbourne). These events gave me a thought of writing an article on Test cricket.
With all the thrills and entertainment that T20 provides to today’s fast paced world within a time frame similar to an Indian movie, there are talks about the future of Test cricket already. Test cricket is in danger only when two unequals try to fight it out but ultimately there is only one team dominating. But doesn’t this happen to any sport? It is definitely a worry when teams like New Zealand and West Indies play like the way they have been for quite some time now and cricket has almost come to a standstill for another team (Pakistan) due to non-cricket reasons. Test cricket playing nations are quite a handful and so it is really important that at least 8 of the 10 teams are highly competitive.
Apart from this worrying recent trend, nothing can fascinate one as much as a good Test cricket match. When one wants to do everything in speed of light in current times, Test cricket is a sort of throwback to the past. But also, Test cricket definitely is changing with time (which is essential for survival). Almost 70% of matches today see close to 300 runs being scored in 90 overs. Thanks largely to Australia which set this as the norm. The entertainment quotient can be less when compared with a One Day or a T20, but a well competed Test match definitely will give greater joy.
Today’s Test cricket has evolved quite beautifully with time. The more corporates and coverage by which the game has fed off, the more result oriented it has become. The game has become much more demanding. Earlier there was a rest day in the midst of a Test, but it is no more present and also the number of matches that are being played now is mind boggling. Test cricket has a good mix of aggression and patience. You can neither have five of the seven batsmen like Rahul Dravid nor like Adam Gilchrist. Just being slow and steady today will not give result.
A lot can be observed from Test cricket. First, one needs quite some patience not only to play but also to watch. People today do not like to see a Neil Mckenzie block the ball for what seems like an eternity, but unless ones sees a bit of that, the flurry of runs that is bound to come at certain point cannot be appreciated. Next is the adaptability factor. A parallel can be drawn here between Indian cricket and India as a country. Today India is considered a hot spot in Information Technology which can primarily be attributed to its adaptability. It is not alone cheap labour that brings work to India but also the way we are able to work with the rest of the world. It is no wonder that the Indian Test cricket side which was considered a really poor traveling side has changed the trend in the recent past. This generation in India adapts well and no good example can be given for that than Mahendra Singh Dhoni.
Test cricket asks one to have high levels of endurance, concentration and consistency. How often have we seen a team lose or win a match just because of one or two bad sessions? Decision making is another very interesting aspect of Test cricket. It is more complex in Test cricket than in One Day cricket or in other popular sports like football, where decisions can be more instinctive. In Test cricket, even a side which is in an advantageous position has a lot of factors to think upon before arriving at a decision. For example, timing of a declaration, taking a new ball and so many other decisions has lot of dependencies to be thought of. In short, the thinking needs to be a good mixture of being instinctive as well as well planned.
That is why Steve Waugh called it ‘mental disintegration’ rather than ‘mental destruction’. It is always not feasible to have the conducive environment and needed resources to be destructive (which is a rather quick phenomenon) but ‘disintegration’ is much slower, more practical and needs much more thought process. Also, cricket being a team game makes it even harder to execute. One can imagine this being done more easily in an individual sport where the thought process is easier to implement. In cricket if one person bowls and keeps up pressure at one end but the bowler at the other end messes it up, the desired result cannot be obtained. Steve Waugh had the luxury of two of the most consistent and gifted exponents of bowling (Warne & Mcgrath) to employ this with huge success.
So, Test cricket shall remain as the defining format of the game and it really helps a cricketer to become better not only in the game but also as a person. Test cricket gives an opportunity to its practitioners to evolve and become better even as it continues to do its primary job (to provide entertainment)
I WISH YOU ALL A WONDERFUL YEAR AHEAD!!!!!
-Raghavan
With all the thrills and entertainment that T20 provides to today’s fast paced world within a time frame similar to an Indian movie, there are talks about the future of Test cricket already. Test cricket is in danger only when two unequals try to fight it out but ultimately there is only one team dominating. But doesn’t this happen to any sport? It is definitely a worry when teams like New Zealand and West Indies play like the way they have been for quite some time now and cricket has almost come to a standstill for another team (Pakistan) due to non-cricket reasons. Test cricket playing nations are quite a handful and so it is really important that at least 8 of the 10 teams are highly competitive.
Apart from this worrying recent trend, nothing can fascinate one as much as a good Test cricket match. When one wants to do everything in speed of light in current times, Test cricket is a sort of throwback to the past. But also, Test cricket definitely is changing with time (which is essential for survival). Almost 70% of matches today see close to 300 runs being scored in 90 overs. Thanks largely to Australia which set this as the norm. The entertainment quotient can be less when compared with a One Day or a T20, but a well competed Test match definitely will give greater joy.
Today’s Test cricket has evolved quite beautifully with time. The more corporates and coverage by which the game has fed off, the more result oriented it has become. The game has become much more demanding. Earlier there was a rest day in the midst of a Test, but it is no more present and also the number of matches that are being played now is mind boggling. Test cricket has a good mix of aggression and patience. You can neither have five of the seven batsmen like Rahul Dravid nor like Adam Gilchrist. Just being slow and steady today will not give result.
A lot can be observed from Test cricket. First, one needs quite some patience not only to play but also to watch. People today do not like to see a Neil Mckenzie block the ball for what seems like an eternity, but unless ones sees a bit of that, the flurry of runs that is bound to come at certain point cannot be appreciated. Next is the adaptability factor. A parallel can be drawn here between Indian cricket and India as a country. Today India is considered a hot spot in Information Technology which can primarily be attributed to its adaptability. It is not alone cheap labour that brings work to India but also the way we are able to work with the rest of the world. It is no wonder that the Indian Test cricket side which was considered a really poor traveling side has changed the trend in the recent past. This generation in India adapts well and no good example can be given for that than Mahendra Singh Dhoni.
Test cricket asks one to have high levels of endurance, concentration and consistency. How often have we seen a team lose or win a match just because of one or two bad sessions? Decision making is another very interesting aspect of Test cricket. It is more complex in Test cricket than in One Day cricket or in other popular sports like football, where decisions can be more instinctive. In Test cricket, even a side which is in an advantageous position has a lot of factors to think upon before arriving at a decision. For example, timing of a declaration, taking a new ball and so many other decisions has lot of dependencies to be thought of. In short, the thinking needs to be a good mixture of being instinctive as well as well planned.
That is why Steve Waugh called it ‘mental disintegration’ rather than ‘mental destruction’. It is always not feasible to have the conducive environment and needed resources to be destructive (which is a rather quick phenomenon) but ‘disintegration’ is much slower, more practical and needs much more thought process. Also, cricket being a team game makes it even harder to execute. One can imagine this being done more easily in an individual sport where the thought process is easier to implement. In cricket if one person bowls and keeps up pressure at one end but the bowler at the other end messes it up, the desired result cannot be obtained. Steve Waugh had the luxury of two of the most consistent and gifted exponents of bowling (Warne & Mcgrath) to employ this with huge success.
So, Test cricket shall remain as the defining format of the game and it really helps a cricketer to become better not only in the game but also as a person. Test cricket gives an opportunity to its practitioners to evolve and become better even as it continues to do its primary job (to provide entertainment)
I WISH YOU ALL A WONDERFUL YEAR AHEAD!!!!!
-Raghavan
Sunday, December 7, 2008
TERRICKET – Terrorism strikes Cricket in India
My worst fears of Terrorism breaching Cricket in India came true over the last one week. It had been threatening to breach in the last few months and I thought it was only a matter of time before it would do it and my thought has now become a reality.
All these years of me watching the Indian cricket I never believed that a team would be reluctant to tour India due to security concerns since we very rarely had any terror related incident close to a cricket match or a cricketer. But that belief of mine took a beating during the inaugural IPL early this year. Blast in Jaipur took place just a couple of days ahead of an IPL match scheduled there and that was when I wondered if it would have any impact on the match or for that matter on the Indian Cricket. The BCCI and IPL administrators somehow managed to get out of the hole then even as a lot of foreign players were also involved apart from the Indian players. Later there were blasts in Bangalore and Ahmedabad, the cities which are actively involved in International Cricket. Luckily for the BCCI and Indian Cricket there was no home series in the vicinity then. Then came the serial blasts in Delhi in mid September. It came at the backdrop of the postponement of the ICC Champions Trophy in Pakistan due to security concerns. I thought that it could have a huge impact, especially because the Australian side was about to land in India for the Test series and also one of the matches was to be played in Delhi. I felt BCCI and the Indian Cricket could not get away. To my surprise, the BCCI managed to convince Cricket Australia to go ahead with the tour and also to play a Test in Delhi as scheduled. To its credit, the BCCI did well to ensure that the Australian series went off well without any security issue. Then the blasts in Guwahati where the 6th ODI was scheduled to take place. But Guwahati is a place where bomb blasts are more common as compared to an international cricket match.
Now the latest terror attack in Mumbai has created fear among the cricketers which the other blasts were only threatening to create. As the television channels and the print media term this terror attack as “Mumbai under Siege” one should say that cricket is also under siege now. This time BCCI had no option but to cancel the remaining two matches of the seven match ODI series against England. On the lighter side one could say that the English players were waiting for an opportunity to fly back after the hammering they got from Dhoni and his boys in the first five matches, but the fact is that the players feel unsafe to stay and play here. If that is the case then their feelings have to be respected. In all the previous terror attacks the victims had been the common middle class people. All those blasts had been in the markets or the malls or the local trains. But now, terror has hit the people at the top level in the society. It is not often that you see the top CEOs and Chairmen running for their lives and that too if it happens in the two of the best hotels in the commercial capital of the country, then no way could one feel safe. Under such circumstances it is not fair to expect the English players, knowing the terrorists are specifically targeting their countrymen, to come here leaving their families behind and play cricket without any sort of fear.
The inaugural Champions League T20 has already been postponed indefinitely and it was only expected considering the facts that it was scheduled to commence in less than a week's time in the city where terrorism was showing its ugliest face and also six of the eight participating teams are foreign teams. However, BCCI did again pull it off by convincing England to return for the Test series. It was very important that the Test series carries on as postponement or cancellation of the series would have been a huge blow for India. Also, if the Test series is not played then it would have set a wrong precedence and the teams would start pulling out regularly. This is precisely the problem that Pakistan is facing. Now the onus is on the BCCI and Indian Government to ensure that any fears regarding safety and security are allayed. With the next World Cup scheduled to be played in the sub continent, the organizers cannot let the terrorists to run the game.
Having said this, we must add that in all probability India will not tour Pakistan early next year. Already some security concerns were raised regarding the tour and now after the events that happened in Mumbai and the deteriorating relations with Pakistan, the tour in all probability would be called off. This cannot be compared with England's concerns as India's tour to Pakistan has a huge political impact more than security concerns. I too personally feel that India should not tour Pakistan in near future.
Cricket is more than a game in India. It is a source of positive energy for millions in the country. It is an outlet to vent out the day to day pressures for a common man as well as a top bureaucrat. It may sound hysterical that cricket gets discussed even in Parliament but for Indians, it is a way by which people tell to themselves that life is normal and purely for this reason, Cricket has to be relieved of this siege. Also, what Mumbai is to Indian Economy, Indian Cricket is to International Cricket where the latter cannot survive without the former. We want both Mumbai and Cricket to retaliate against Terrorism.
I TAKE THIS OPPORTUNITY TO SALUTE AND PAY TRIBUTE TO ALL THE BRAVE COMMANDOS, POLICEMEN AND OTHER PEOPLE WHO LAID THEIR LIVES TO SAVE THE NATION FROM THE CLUTCHES OF THE DEADLY TERRORISTS.
- Vivek & Raghavan
All these years of me watching the Indian cricket I never believed that a team would be reluctant to tour India due to security concerns since we very rarely had any terror related incident close to a cricket match or a cricketer. But that belief of mine took a beating during the inaugural IPL early this year. Blast in Jaipur took place just a couple of days ahead of an IPL match scheduled there and that was when I wondered if it would have any impact on the match or for that matter on the Indian Cricket. The BCCI and IPL administrators somehow managed to get out of the hole then even as a lot of foreign players were also involved apart from the Indian players. Later there were blasts in Bangalore and Ahmedabad, the cities which are actively involved in International Cricket. Luckily for the BCCI and Indian Cricket there was no home series in the vicinity then. Then came the serial blasts in Delhi in mid September. It came at the backdrop of the postponement of the ICC Champions Trophy in Pakistan due to security concerns. I thought that it could have a huge impact, especially because the Australian side was about to land in India for the Test series and also one of the matches was to be played in Delhi. I felt BCCI and the Indian Cricket could not get away. To my surprise, the BCCI managed to convince Cricket Australia to go ahead with the tour and also to play a Test in Delhi as scheduled. To its credit, the BCCI did well to ensure that the Australian series went off well without any security issue. Then the blasts in Guwahati where the 6th ODI was scheduled to take place. But Guwahati is a place where bomb blasts are more common as compared to an international cricket match.
Now the latest terror attack in Mumbai has created fear among the cricketers which the other blasts were only threatening to create. As the television channels and the print media term this terror attack as “Mumbai under Siege” one should say that cricket is also under siege now. This time BCCI had no option but to cancel the remaining two matches of the seven match ODI series against England. On the lighter side one could say that the English players were waiting for an opportunity to fly back after the hammering they got from Dhoni and his boys in the first five matches, but the fact is that the players feel unsafe to stay and play here. If that is the case then their feelings have to be respected. In all the previous terror attacks the victims had been the common middle class people. All those blasts had been in the markets or the malls or the local trains. But now, terror has hit the people at the top level in the society. It is not often that you see the top CEOs and Chairmen running for their lives and that too if it happens in the two of the best hotels in the commercial capital of the country, then no way could one feel safe. Under such circumstances it is not fair to expect the English players, knowing the terrorists are specifically targeting their countrymen, to come here leaving their families behind and play cricket without any sort of fear.
The inaugural Champions League T20 has already been postponed indefinitely and it was only expected considering the facts that it was scheduled to commence in less than a week's time in the city where terrorism was showing its ugliest face and also six of the eight participating teams are foreign teams. However, BCCI did again pull it off by convincing England to return for the Test series. It was very important that the Test series carries on as postponement or cancellation of the series would have been a huge blow for India. Also, if the Test series is not played then it would have set a wrong precedence and the teams would start pulling out regularly. This is precisely the problem that Pakistan is facing. Now the onus is on the BCCI and Indian Government to ensure that any fears regarding safety and security are allayed. With the next World Cup scheduled to be played in the sub continent, the organizers cannot let the terrorists to run the game.
Having said this, we must add that in all probability India will not tour Pakistan early next year. Already some security concerns were raised regarding the tour and now after the events that happened in Mumbai and the deteriorating relations with Pakistan, the tour in all probability would be called off. This cannot be compared with England's concerns as India's tour to Pakistan has a huge political impact more than security concerns. I too personally feel that India should not tour Pakistan in near future.
Cricket is more than a game in India. It is a source of positive energy for millions in the country. It is an outlet to vent out the day to day pressures for a common man as well as a top bureaucrat. It may sound hysterical that cricket gets discussed even in Parliament but for Indians, it is a way by which people tell to themselves that life is normal and purely for this reason, Cricket has to be relieved of this siege. Also, what Mumbai is to Indian Economy, Indian Cricket is to International Cricket where the latter cannot survive without the former. We want both Mumbai and Cricket to retaliate against Terrorism.
I TAKE THIS OPPORTUNITY TO SALUTE AND PAY TRIBUTE TO ALL THE BRAVE COMMANDOS, POLICEMEN AND OTHER PEOPLE WHO LAID THEIR LIVES TO SAVE THE NATION FROM THE CLUTCHES OF THE DEADLY TERRORISTS.
- Vivek & Raghavan
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Why cricket??
Even as our first post told our passion for cricket, I just thought why it’s cricket and not any other game which has caught not only our imagination but also of million others in India? I will try to reason out why it was, is and will be the way it is!!
It definitely didn’t start in the recent past when every other television channel keeps airing programs on cricket. As a kid, this game became infectious to me as my family members used to wake up early in the morning to catch up with some live cricket action. They were more than passionate about it even when live action was just entering into households; of course, this game had a great following much before that. My father and uncles would talk about the Gavaskars and Vishwanaths in same breadth as we talk about Sachin and Dravid now.
At the first place, cricket has till this time been a game which cannot be termed as fast paced (20-20 is still in its nascent stages). Indians definitely cannot be compared to the Europeans or westerners in terms of physique and the fast pace at which they play a sport. Almost every other sport today needs you to be as fast as you can. But with cricket, it is not that mandatory, otherwise a Sourav Ganguly or an Anil Kumble would not have lasted even till this point. If this is the case now, historically, cricket has been much slower where a dive to stop a ball was as rare as seeing roads without traffic in India.
Cricket offers variety, and variety is in itself very “Indian”. Right from food to movies and wherever there is variety Indians get attracted. No other sport can offer so much variety in terms of its individual practitioners as cricket does. Football has different styles in different regions but still the game does not offer differences that a layman can point out easily. In tennis, the maximum one can see is the double handed forehand that Maria Sharapova plays at times. In cricket you can have a Chanderpaul, an Ajanta Mendis and a Paul Adams who provide variety just by their batting stance or bowling action. One can adore Dhoni as much as Sachin though their styles are so different. One cannot distinguish a Roger Federer or a Pete Sampras forehand as much as one can a Dravid or Laxman flick.
Moments of excitement are more in cricket. Football just has a moment of excitement near goal posts and in between those moments, one has to be content with just passes from one side to another. But in cricket, every four or six that is hit, every ball that beats the bat excites you. The beautiful part of it is that one cannot predict when that moment will come. A batsmen struggling for timing can suddenly unleash a huge six and also a bowler can dismiss a batsman in prime form with one delivery. The excitement is available in short bursts for a longer duration in cricket.
In a country like India, where the population is large, cricket has different forms which allows for more opportunities. One could have two different teams for the One Day and Test versions. Michael Bevan struggled and Yuvraj Singh is still struggling to get into the Test side while no one can deny they are two of the most prolific batsmen in the shorter version of the game. This cannot be thought of in any other team sport.
Well, these are some of my perspectives on why cricket was, is and will be the No. 1 sport in India. You can probably add so many other reasons to it and some may beg to differ from my view. You are entitled to do so in the comments!! Keep waiting for the next!!
-Raghavan
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