Filling cricket cv’s with much more than IPL

It was a dream debut for Suresh Raina. 

He toiled for over 250 balls to get his maiden test ton, on a flat wicket against Sri Lanka in the summer of 2010. With this he joined an elite class of cricketers who had gone past a hundred in their very first innings of a test match, much like another middle-order southpaw, Sourav Ganguly. That summer was special for Dhoni and Co. as they recorded a series win over the Lankas after quite some time, much unlike an out-of-favour Yuvraj Singh. The Punjab da puttar was having a difficult phase, lacking the temperament for the longer version, critics claimed. How stark was his comparison to Raina, who himself was going to suffer from indifferent form in the same format. 

The selectors had pondered over the coveted number ‘6’ position in the Indian batting middle-order ever since the retirement of former captain Ganguly. Now back in 2008, Dada was forced to concede into hanging his boots after a fair share of pressure and a genuine show of disrespect towards him. Quoting India’s most successful test captain, “Just one last thing lads, before I leave. I just want to say that this is going to be my last series. I've decided to quit. I told my team-mates before coming here. These four Test matches are going to be my last and hopefully we'll go on a winning note.” He was of course mentioning the Border-Gavaskar series of 2008 (which is also noted as the last series of Anil Kumble, and which India famously won 2-0). Well, Dada did end on a high, scoring a century in the series as well earning a deserved winners medal. Dhoni was even august enough to let Ganguly captain the final overs of his last test match. Besides all the ostensible fan-fare, the BCCI’s persistent hanker to breed youngsters was the prime cause of the predicament. The use of the word predicament is no show of fancy vocabulary. The sorry state stands visible to all. No player has averaged 40 in that batting position ever since Dada retired. The Bengalis are very superstitious, and would resort to peevish explanations that its a jinx. “You do bad things, and bad things happen to you,” they would say. Well, I wouldn’t take advice from people who offer fish as ‘prasaad’ (I’m not stereotyping!), but the statistics speak for themselves. Yuvraj had displayed he could bat 5o overs with a superlative knock against Pakistan the previous autumn. Adding to his resume, was his handy left-armers that was quintessential on Indian terrains. He obviously deserved a place in the team and for no reason, Ganguly was the one who had to be scrapped. That was an easy decision, after all he had been dropped before, and the Board was all up for it again. Yuvraj came, hardly saw and definitely didn’t conquer. His might have swash buckled in the shorter versions but Test cricket was not his glass of lassi.

Enter Suresh Raina. Same promise, ironically same result, which was sheer disappointment. Though the team stuck with him for a year or so, the telling scores was a story of “we-told-you-so.” Indeed the game was a great leveller. Well Raina is indeed a very talented batsman, but a talented shorter-version batsman. Some people may ask for more time, but as Sunil Gavaskar  once said, if a batsman wants to pull, he can never duck. He should want to leave the ball more, respect the good deliveries and dispatch the bad ones. With a monumental increase in T20 matches, the original Little Master’s words fade in to bare whispers. T20 requires you to hit everything; short or full, off or leg, and unfortunately, good or bad. It was supposed to be a game dominated by youngsters, but good players, good test players showed that if you could bat for 10 hours, you could definitely bat for 10 overs.

Recently Virat Kohli has been taking giant strides in world cricket. The past two years or so, had laid a platform that has suited him ideally. It was the under-21 World Cup where he was first noticed, the IPL-1 was where he took centre stage and has never looked back since. India has a plethora of genuine batsmen, who time the ball well and can very much fill in the gaps of the Indian batting line-up. There will come a time in the near future where we will desperately need more Kohli’s. Its almost curtain-call for India’s three aging gladiators, and the time has come that they pass on the mantle to the likes of Cheteshwar Pujara or Rohit Sharma. 

What the BCCI has to follow, is that Test matches are a different ball game from the IPL. It is important to recognise talent from this popular, cash-rich format. But the likes of Ganguly, Tendulkar, Dravid and Laxman didn’t have an extravagant stage to highlight their talents, 15-20 years ago. They churned out performances against good bowlers in domestic cricket, and were selected on those grounds. Taking a hat trick, or scoring a meaty century in the IPL shouldn’t be sole criteria for recruitment. If a bowler manages to dig out six yorkers in a T20 game, it isn’t compulsory that he might succeed in the same manner in a test match. A batsmen will just defend all those deliveries and eventually dispatch a bad one to the boundary. 

Selection, rather proper selection, should be the base of Indian cricket as we look forward to a Test World Cup in the coming years. Australia, Pakistan and even England are posting gallant teams that look and play mean cricket. It is no time for us to be meek. But putting a brave team is not the  only answer. A player who can hit a 100 metre six in 20 overs, may get bounced out in Tests. This is fact. If you expect him to duck the next time, that’s fiction, for he will not. We need ideal replacements, and quick. Or else Virat Kohli may end up like a Brian Lara, a batsman capable of distinction in a fairly average team.

About food and friendship

Food has various emotional as well as psychological connections with every one of us. Whenever we have a particular dish or visit a certain restaurant, there’s always some property of the delicacy that we feast on, that helps us remember something. It may be anything at all, a person, place or even an event. We always tell that no matter where we have our food, the best dish will always come from our mothers’ hands, and so it is.  Some foods help us recuperate, helps to find balance during surging times. Foods often bear goods news, and seldom bad. Alexander the Great wanted to uproot every mango tree when he was crossing the fertile plains of the Indus and have them planted in his private orchard in Babylon. It reminded him of victory; sweet, fleshy and rewarding, he said. Apart from what would have been an ecological disaster, the mango would perhaps never have reached the ripeness they possessed in India of course. I wonder how many poor gardeners would have been executed in the pursuit of sweet mangoes. Instead, the rulers of the nearby kingdoms gifted the Macedonian warlord with bucket loads of mangoes. It was a token of friendship as well as a ploy to slow down those wind-like Persian horses in battle if necessary. The latter was just a funny hypothesis, the former proved effective in enhancing Indo-Greek relations. In fact, whenever a Greek scholar roamed the parts of Northern India, it was about mangoes that often enabled him to strike a blissful conversation with locals.  

Picking up from where those scholars left about two millenniums ago, we still use food as a very interesting topic of conversation in our daily lives. We often quibble at home with our grandparents that spinach is actually still green and ugly not matter how many paneer pieces are put in the crockery to decorate it. Similarly, I was able to convince my younger cousin that Popeye’s green “thing” was actually spinach, and that he still couldn’t punch me any harder after he grudgingly had a bowl of it. I would feint pretty well though. Food conversations often lead to friendship too. How many awkward moments of foolishness have we endured, that have perhaps always been eased out with food. All those unpleasant moments of silence with a new room-mate, shattered with the sound of tiffin being opened, only to mesmerise your sense of smell with an every-filling incense of home-cooked food. Or the time you stayed over at your friend’s place, only to see his or her mother preparing a beautiful breakfast as you were about to leave. Those fun-filled moments in college canteens, coloured with the “bread pakodas” or “rajma chawal.”

Food has numerous properties. It is rich in nutrients, good for your health (well some of them at least) and can blossom and idle mind into writing sentimental essay like this one. Well, we need not elaborate its types and candtell you what a carbohydrate was or the benefits of protein. But its special use as a binding agent in situations irrespective or dissimilar to the very taste of food is a property perhaps best exploited by us. Fun dissolves well with spice, sorrow glues appropriately with sweetness, suspense with heat and hysteria with tang. Our tongues only perceive what we eat, our minds decide how it tastes, and our hearts digest the pleasure it provides.

 So, the next time you have home-made cookies stored up at the back of your cupboard, don’t hesitate in distribution. It will of course mean that you may lose a few calories, but will certainly ensure that you gain many more friends. 

Two bells, one chime…

20 years ago, Roger Federer wasn’t the all time leading champion in Grand Slams, neither did he hold the records for most season-ending ATP tour wins or pocketing the highest prize money in the Open era. Instead, the furrow-browed, Swiss-cheese loving 10 year old, spent nearly 7 hours a day in the indoor tennis academy in Basel. He had a tough time getting selected to participate as a “ball-boy” in the ATP tournament held there, but like he puts it now, grinning as he spoke, he outpaced every other kid by a furlong to the gates of the stadium. 

Two decades on ‘Fedex’ is still setting the pace for bookmakers or tennis avid around the world. A win against Roger is considered to be some of the tennis professionals’ career-defying moment. But the champ himself has transformed from the burly young hot-head to a sense of calm and humbleness that is almost mystifying in the world of men’s tennis. Connors, McEnroe, and even Roddick defined Americans in the ‘tennictionary’ as the traditional tantrum throwers, occasionally showering some unfortunate match officials with royal outbursts. McEnroe, for once, even offered money to a line official to get his eye-surgery done. Roddick should have signed a non-negotiable contract with his racquet maker, that ensured durability of his tool; I’m sure Arthur Ashe stadium still has a mark on him near the right base-line! 

Roger Federer is, in plain journalistic words, boring to write about. His game and flair may fill up journals upon journals, re-write coaching manuals or even draw a million hits on a social site. But the person Roger Federer, offers a charming smile laced with his gleaming teeth, as he walks in 15 minutes late to his post match interview. “I’m sorry guys I’m late", he says and the media forgives his straight-away knowing that being held up for charity photos can be the last thing they can complain about. His win-loss ratio is quite stark in comparison, but his win-loss reaction is nearly similar. Same fist pump on every point, same grimace on every unforced error, same tears of joy and sorrow. Neither does he abuse his racquet nor does he scold the officials. He doesn’t throw away the towel in disgust or look towards his contingent in the crowd to yell inaudible chants. He is no con-man or joker off court, nor did he date beautiful Latin singers; he loved his childhood crush and made a family with her. His good deeds far outweigh his bad ones, however meagre they maybe. The Roger Federer Foundation generates ample sums of money, all done for the prosperity of children all over the world. The guy is so humble, he even stays back for pizza after every Basel Open with the ball boys and girls, proudly proclaiming that the slice of ham was once his only winnings out of the tournament! The demise of a certain eminent Tiger from the field of philanthropy has, ironically, aided Federer to reach such heights in human welfare that even though he may lose heart-wrenching semis to a physically superior Serb, he has won hearts all over the world more with his charm than his game. There is no clay, let alone tennis in Sub-Saharan countries you know. 

What is greatness? The question seems to an open cauldron where unique ingredients need to be added to conjure but the perfect potion. It has been proven in history that greatness had a certain, rather unmistakable touch of humbleness to it. We don’t need to scan world encyclopaedias for such instances, when our country itself provides testimony. Mahatma Gandhi preached ‘ahimsa’ and freed two nations. R.N. Tagore scripted perhaps the most beautiful anthem ever. Amitabh Bachchan hosting a T.V. show and opening arms to commoners, Sachin ever so graceful when he looks to the heavens to thank the Almighty; these are all instances of humble greatness. These people weren’t a Macedonian warlord set to conquer the world, who commanded people call him great. 

Federer maybe two different people, the artist and the observer, but his heart beats for the one sole purpose, same motto. Every win, a tournament or a mind perhaps gives him the same amount of happiness. He has won the world in the past decade, what can he lose now? My blog is just a minute snow flake in this shower of appreciative snowfall on the shoulders of perhaps the best we will ever see. I’m proud and happy just knowing the fact that I’m lucky enough to see him play and write about it. 

Roger Federer: two bells, ringing the same soothing chime.

PROLOGUE

 What was lacking was intensity. I realized it from the beginning. 

It was a strange galactic feeling of triumph and sweet victory, a victory I had longed for ages. My enemy was standing at the very same place where he had started all this a long time back. It felt eons ago. But now he was there, all alone, cornered, dying. I loathed his every move earlier, his every meek decision, and I was proud that I had tricked him, him of all people. The great Master himself, the Supreme Commander, the All Forgiving, The Leader, my father. Yes, my own father, I tricked him to achieve my greatest goal, the summit that only I had dreamed of conquering. No other mortal was as bold or gallant enough than Ramdir’s own son, so had the High Priest for seed. But he remained silent in ascertaining which of his two sons. I was thrust this destiny by my own family, even though they knew the consequences that lay ahead. They knew that if I grew vary of what I was to gain from this venture, I would cross all barriers to attain it, be it murder or, as I always thought of it, sacrifice. It was a sacrifice indeed, one so terrible that only God himself could commit and be forgiven, and if that is what was required, if it was necessary to act like God Himself, then I would willingly do it for the greater boon that was to be gained.

 

But this victory tasted as sweet as it was bitter. I got it as I wanted, all perfectly done, but now at this precarious position I was having a change of heart. Why? Was it pity? Was it love? Or was it simply not the end he had imagined? It was cold, cold as a plunge in frigid water. I looked at the old man, the man I looked up to all these years, idolising, patronising, even worshipping, and I looked at the burning stacks of wood onto which he was about to jump. The person whom I loved so dearly was going to die, and I was responsible for it, I alone. 

I continued to gape at that weak figure, growing even weaker as he trotted close to the burning amber, and it was then that he turned and looked up at me. Tears made runnels down his pale, hollow cheeks as he stared at me through those piercing eyes, and as those drops made for the floor, I followed them, for I could no longer look into his eyes. It took me a while to summon all my energy to look up again and I saw a concerned look on the person standing beside my father, and by the looks of it, he knew that I was going to change my decision. He knew that even after all the hatred and jealously, loved still prevailed in me, love for the person to whose head he had pulled a gun. I marvelled at the crossroad in which I found myself, and it was a situation that I had always dreamt of. I was dreaming of it the previous night too, and on waking the next morning I promised myself never to think of it again. I would not listen to my heart; I assured myself and my colleagues, for it was weak and fell prey to emotions far too easily. There was no place for weaknesses in this endeavour none at all. Any loose step could have lead to cataclysmic results that would fail my purpose. But that man, harassing my father, knew that I was going to have feelings like these, for it was I, myself, who had warned him. I had foreseen these events and knew the outcome, but as of this moment, I wanted the future to change. 

I gave a dire look to the man downstairs and a meek look of helpless to my father. I knew it was too late, and Fate itself could not prevent him from dying. I closed my eyes and for the first time in ten years, I prayed. I prayed like a man begging for water. I opened my eyes and quite strangely, found myself in a situation quite similar to the one twenty years ago. The irony of life was such that it had to end, and we still call it death, forgetting that it was through life, and only life that death is achieved. And so it shall be, I thought as I signalled my apprentice to make the final move.

Turn and bounce: The Pakistan fixing tale.

29th August, 2010: The now-defunct “News of the World” news agency published allegations that three members of the Pakistan cricket squad touring England that summer had been approached by a bookie, who paid them hefty amounts of money to bowl certain “deliveries” at certain stages of the match. Mohammad Amir, an evolving youth in Darwin’s world of cricket, was accused along with his opening partner Mohammad Asif of bowling no-balls during the exact stages of the match. The third member of the trio, the team’s newly appointed captain, Salman Butt, (riding high on his endeavours in his debut series as captain against Australia) politely refuted the claims in the press conference that followed the day’s play. “I have no knowledge of the claims", he explained, “The Pakistan team has always been a recipient of ridicule. I’m surprised it has gone so far this time”.

Pakistan lost the test match, the fourth of the series, by a mammoth innings and 225 runs. The management looked into the allegations and decided to drop the three from the remaining tour, consisting of two T20 matches and five ODIs.

Now, as revelling the controversy might be, it is, however, very necessary to recall the events of the entire match, not just for the sake of judgement but also to highlight the contrasting features of the game – the astonishing “ups” and the disgraceful “downs”.

26th August, 2010: Having already lost the series, Salman Butt rightly elected to bowl on a pitch that had a bit of moisture as well as a tinge of green. His bowling attack consisted of a potent mixture of fresh blood and wily, experienced seam. Mohammad Asif was fresh out of his drugs ban, and two new faces in the Pakistani bowling line up were creating headlines, specially Mohammad Amir. Just 17 then, The Guardian touted him as the next best thing since Akram. However a soggy outfield, lashed with overnight rain, meant a delayed start for the players and early lunch. Play started post-lunch, and Amir bowled as Ian Botham pointed out, a fairly “indiscipline” no-ball. Asif, too, gave away an useless run when he stepped over “massively”, on the sixth delivery in the tenth over. Pretty usual it seemed. Strauss was cleaned up by an in-swinging peach from Asif, but the light was offered to the batsmen after just 12.3 overs, prematurely ending the day’s play.

27th & 28th August : England resumed play and Mohammad Amir carried on his good form that summer, zooming through a meek English defence, with Cook, Pietersen, Collingwood and England’s new star migrant, Morgan, all becoming scape goats to the swinging southpaw, the last three falling for nought. England 5 for 47 runs and in a heap of trouble. Prior stuck out nearly 2 and a half hours, facing over a 100 deliveries for his hard earned 22, and a critical 50 run stand with another RSA batsman, Trott, before he edged out to Amir. Swann came in, saw the weather, had a chat with the umpire and was sent for an early tea by Amir. He fell to a first ball duck. England were now staring at the barrel at 7 for 102 and for once, Butt was controlling proceedings in the series. In walked Stuart Broad, with all of his father’s height (and a bit more perhaps) and was only a novice with the bat then, having just scored one test match fifty. What followed was a partnership that redefined tail-end batting, as well as the record books, dwarfing (ironically) a sixteen-year old Pakistan feat, in which Wasim Akram and Saqlain Mushtaq put on 313 for the 8th wicket against a listless Zimbabwean attack, where Akram made a record 257 n.o. hitting 12 sixes in the process, a feat that hasn’t been eclipsed as yet.

Trott and Broad put on a gigantic 332 run partnership, batting for nearly 95 overs and deep into day three, to sway the game away from Pakistan. Both scored hundreds as England finished with 446 on the board. Amir did, however, claim a six-wicket haul. They then, skittled out Pakistan for a meagre and embarrassing 74 runs, and 41/4 at the close of the third day’s play.

29th August: England rounded off an emphatic innings victory by clearing out the Pakistan batting stronghold for just over a hundred runs. Stuart Broad claimed the Man of the Match medal for his heroics with the bat while, Mohammad Amir claimed the Man of the Series (Pakistan) title for his 19 wickets. 

What followed was no less than perhaps a nightmare for the teenager who hadn’t even received his driving license. The tabloid broke the news of the scam and the trio was banned effectively, after being judged on later findings. Wisden magazine had named Mohammad Amir in its issue of the top five cricketers for the summer. They changed their cover as soon as the story leaked, and for the first time published a “four-man” cover-story. Natwest nearly stripped Amir of his medal, but allowed it later on.

It was a test match that had it all; brilliant bowling, pathetic batting, heroes were born, villains emerged and a talismanic bowler was stained at the hands of the very man he trusted, his captain. Pakistan has always been touted as the controversial child of international cricket. Now that its corrupt scope has reached out to further avenues, we are left with a question: How do we see it as a cricket fanatic? For every time a Pakistani cricketer puts his hand into his pockets, you wonder whether he might actually be tampering the ball. On one hand the decision reached by the British court will serve as a reminder that the game will never tolerate corruption, but it also shows us that every player is not an Indian or an English cricketer, who enjoys superstar-dome and is well paid. ICC should be patted for its action as well as pin-pointed for for not allowing a fair and reasonable cap on the salary of players for the matches they represent their country in.

Moreover, it is our duty as spectators to choose the right conclusion. For me, Pakistan still remains the epitome of fast bowlers. The land of the Sultans of swing, the Handsome Pathan or the feisty Miandad, will never stop producing proud sporting moments for itself as well as for cricket. It is the current crop of players who are responsible for setting perfect examples for the brooding youngsters back home. It is rightly said that if India produces a Tendulkar-esque to smash it all over the park, Pakistan will definitely produce an Akram, trying to clean him up!  

The twist and turn of this team is surely turbulent, but I’m sure it will be well defended. After all, it has to be proven, specifically, within the 22 yards.