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

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

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

Joining the BlogWagon...

Wikipedia gave me the below definition for Blog:
(A contraction of the term "Web log") is a Web site, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video - And that is what we precisely intend to do here.

To start off, we intend this to be a dedicated blog to express our views on the wonderful game of "Cricket", which we must admit; we are passionate about, to say the least.

Just as the 1st Test match between India and Australia came to a close at Bangalore, we exchanged our views as we usually do when we see a good cricket match. That’s when our cousin Mukund jokingly commented that we could join any cricket related website to give our analysis. (A much more chaotic situation than the Wall Street crisis could result if everyone who follows cricket decides to do so….)

So we thought, “Why not create a blog?” It’s enough of reading the works of the Harsha Bhogles and Ian Chappels, and it’s an attempt to experience the joy that these people get when writing on cricket.

We were wondering from where we could start writing, as our memories date back to not later than 1989 where we remember a 16 year young boy lofting Abdul Quadir over the ropes. Little did we realize that this young boy would hold the pulse of 1 billion people over the next two decades like no one else. We could recollect many of the best and worst of cricket moments right from the time we woke up early in the morning (3:00 AM) to watch India get butchered by Mark Greatbatch in the World Cup in New Zealand.

Even as I write this, two of the stalwarts (Anil and Sourav) watching whose deeds and talking about whom, a lion’s share of our teenage had passed, have called it a day. The entire country is debating about how MS Dhoni is sure to take Indian cricket to greater heights just when the country’s security and economic situations are reeling under crisis of different kinds and ones that need much more attention.

If that was sarcastic, cricket enjoys such a cult status in India that blasts and stock market crashes causes less ripples to the majority than a century from Sachin or an “I’m quitting” statement from Dada.

We will come up with posts as regularly as cricket hits headlines in India.

-Cricket Columnists Hunt in pairs too…