Looking to Mohali

Ok. It’s a World Cup semi final against Pakistan. It’s not f’n war! It’s not about history or Prime Ministers or soldiers or bureaucrats.

Having said that, it’s a WORLD CUP SEMI FINAL. Against PAKISTAN.

Some points that I don’t quite know why I am trying to make:

1. To self: it’s going to be tense. Deal with it.


2. To team and fate: PLEASE, please bat first.


3. Talk rationally. Or emotionally. Or both. But don’t joke. Nothing’s funny on Wednesday, I can tell you that right now. No, not even Munaf Patel.


4. I understand that booing is part of sport. I don’t agree with it but I accept it. I cringed a few times when Ponting was booed. But that was Ricky. To Mohali: Please don’t boo the Big Green Men on Wednesday. That will not be cool.


5. I can’t watch it in a pub. Scars from 2003 remain. Also, I don’t want to watch it in a pub.


6. Don’t expect ANY work to get done.


7. I am struggling to think about the match. What is at stake and potential after-effects derail any normal thought processes that begin.


8. To Mohali: back the team. Cheer when it’s tough, not only for runs and wickets. Focus on the game.


9. Don’t. Give Up.


10. To everyone: Don’t get tense. Ignore me in point #1.

Indiaaaaah, Indiaa!

Just got back from a live cricket game. That's right, not just any live game.

I'm still a bit spaced.

Whither context

I read, enjoyed and shared on FB a wonderful piece (http://www.cricinfo.com/decadereview2009/content/story/439734.html) looking back at a decade in cricket. Rather personal, parts of it; and much I identified with. I ended spewing some more thoughts on it. Here goes.

I have very little against T20. I might not like it too much given the sheer quantity I am already faced with, but I know that
a) it’s the way the game has evolved, and we cant cling on to romantic ideals of cricket, and
b) it can actually be a fantastically absorbing game- its not as often a dumbing down of the game as a crunching up of the skills into a shorter time frame; with the requirement to hit the ground running, display your skills faster and more intensely. None of these are bad things per se.
Anyway, this is not so much about critiquing T20.

Good Test cricket is a wonderful thing to follow, of course. But for increasingly fewer people, backed by fewer boards (namely not our own), shown by broadcasters struggling to sustain it, sponsored by companies increasingly reluctant to do so. The crucial factor here is the importance given to it by the people who run the game. The number of Tests India has been playing is nothing short of absurd. Test cricket has much the better chance of showcasing two teams fighting for the upper hand, but the chance for it to do so is frighteningly under threat.

I expect to see a more than reasonable contest between two sides/ two players and that is perfectly justifiable demand. What is most unfortunate today is that I can’t expect to see a reasonable contest between bat & ball.

And lastly, what is the most relevant thing for me here (which connects with the title of the article as well) is the utter lack of context. One series segues into the next, bilateral gives way to tri series gives way to T20 gives way to domestic…oh, look there’s a Test match round the corner!
This is the crux of the matter- how much appetite for cricket am I expected to have? How many matches am I expected to watch without having the results and performances blur in my head? And how many fours and sixes and DLF maximums before they become meaningless?
(The answer my friend, is blowin’ in the wind).

Actually at one level I *hope* they become meaningless. I hope people tire of 400 runs in T20 games and 700 in ODIs. I hope people couldn’t be bothered. Maybe that will lead to some sort of shakedown.

But who am I kidding.

madness & immortality

In less than an hour that batting freak from Delhi will walk onto the pitch at the CCI again. He will have the comfort, and weight, of 284 runs behind him. Predictably, fans and observers have gone a bit mental since yesterday evening. The burning question has already become, “Can he break Lara’s record?”. Impossible as it may sound, it is well within the realm of possibility.

About as possible as Sehwag finishing this innings on 284. Or 285. Or 295 (going for a six?). This is someone who might well have inspired the cliché about living, dying and a sharp warrior instrument, had it not existed already. His audacity and our incredulity go hand in hand. With that lies the distinct possibility of his madness leading the way for our disappointment.

In just a little while he will walk on to the field in the hot Mumbai sun to huge expectation, a loving cheer and impending records that could make him almost immortal in cricket lore. At one level, one’s expectation tingles; at another one realizes that what happens almost doesn’t matter. The thing is, he is already unforgettable to history.

getting the rap

I think rap music has a lot to do with it. It makes it sound cool not to conform, and to be violent

Andrew Flintoff, sounding suspiciously like a retired colonel from Tunbridge Wells, on the breakdown of British society

Seriously, Freddie?

gorilla cricket

time for some monkeying around.

cricket porn

This, in an unexpected context, is worth a read in itself:

In most places an ODI pitch looks and behaves much the same as another: it gives up runs as easily as do porn stars their clothes.

Its so true though. All this standardizing of pitches is flattening the variety curve in cricket. It lead a frothing-at-the-mouth Jeremy Coney to recently say- during Sky’s coverage of India’s tour of Kiwi land- that the BCCI was telling all other boards in no uncertain terms to “give us the pitches we like or face the consequences, we will not tour your country!” I recall this, I must admit, only partly accurately, but the tone was at least as agitated and accusatory.

This also reminds me of the time when Indian cricket claimed that in order for it to be competitive at the international level, it needed more pitches at home that encouraged fast bowlers. Sure, but not when those pitches are used for an international game against a country that has come to India dreading those ‘sub-continental dustbowls where the ball turns square!”. I see no reason why the odd pitch in India should not be spitefully spinning, just as the odd pitch in South Africa can menacingly swing (Durban in ’96 anyone?), or the select pitch in Australia is fearfully bouncy. All of these are increasingly unlikely to be found, and it’s a darned pity.

At any rate, the pitches in india are getting frighteningly dead now, with plenty for the batsmen, sometimes a teeny bit for the fast bowlers and often nothing for the spinners; but in too many instances, boredom for the fan.

exploitainment

More on some of what I said in my previous post here:

He also said that, in the future, even the tactical breaks will have a title sponsor of their own. "Just like 'Citi Moment of Success', and 'DLF Maximum Sixes', we plan to introduce sponsored events such as 'TVS Tactical Break', 'Reebok Run-Chase', and 'Dominos Dot-Ball'", said Mr Modi to a stunned audience. When a reporter asked if this didn't amount to rampant commercial exploitation, Mr Modi shot back "You mean 'Coca-cola commercial exploitation'. If you fail to mention the sponsor's name, I will hit you with a 'Lays Lawsuit'".

I like.

Inevitable initial IPL ramble-1

Some disparate ramblings on the IPL. These could or could not continue through the tournament :

I loved Day 1. All the brash, confident, super talented young cricketers were shown a lesson or two by the oldies. The lessons were in many things, ranging from simplicity, technique and focus to style, class and sheer genius. Here’s to more of all of that!

Shane Warne. Thank you. It was so worth staying up. Virat Kohli, you cocky little twat.

I just wish they could show me more of Lalit Modi. After all, the brilliant businessman has transformed cricket and given me so much to look (forward) to. I should get to see more of him before the match, at the toss, in between overs, everywhere. Please?

Its been 2 days and I already am sick of the DLF Maximums and the Citi Moments of Success(es?). Some of the commentators are falling over themselves to make sure they say it immediately after a six or wicket, often needing to overlap their colleague's reactions in order to do so. I have already heard “that’s a Citi moment of success if ever there was one” at least three times. I have also heard Ravi Shastri (oh where would we be without him) inadvertently call a DLF Maximum (a six) a Citi Moment of Success instead. There is no success in six, Ravi.

They’re picking a shortlist of 50 young things to be Miss Bollywood South Africa or something (the winner will have a "shot at Bollywood"). But hey, there's no reality show around this?! No heart breaking back stories, touching dreams, tearful exits and loving parents? Bah, you guys, you missed a trick there! I thought you knew all there is to know about milking cricket.

Sitting here I wish I could see Mandira Bedi & Co. Am missing out, I am.

Something good from the BCCI

I’d have to say this is a good thing, and typically the kind that goes under the radar. If the money is used well and for the purposes it is set out for, some credit is due to the BCCI and Messr Pawar & co.

The BCCI and Sports Ministry have together set up a corpus of Rs 800 million
under the National Sports Development Fund (NSDF). The BCCI has contributed Rs
500 million, while the Sports Ministry has invested Rs 300 million for the same.
The fund is to be utilized to assist India’s medal prospects in boxing, archery,
swimming, judo and wrestling in their training and participation in different
international events, and procure equipment for them.

where now?

Eras pass. Successors are anointed. Crowns are won and crowns are shattered. Belief withers away.

Last night, all of this might have happened. Indeed, some of it began earlier, even a year ago. But something else happened too. My heart broke.
It knew it was at odds with my head, which favoured the irrepressible force of nature; that fierce, incomparable athlete who is terrible and beautiful to behold. Rafa would win. Yet it was also a heart that suddenly filled with hope and expectancy as I witnessed, almost impossibly it seemed, another titanic struggle.

Federer’s game has always been about the grace and fluidity, and seeming effortless nonchalance. It’s a quality that sometimes is put in the shade by a more energetic, brutal, muscled style. Yesterday his grace was intact, for the most part; but hidden beneath that veneer of elegance was a vacuum. I could see the edge, his edge, only fleetingly. He grappled with it, trying to hold on to it. Clutching it and riding it to take the match into a fifth set, when finally it appeared like his desperate hold had strangled it. Squeezed out of it, and him, the struggling belief that had somehow managed to carry him this far.

It is this Belief that seems surely and almost tragically small now, dwarfed by the oppressive visage of his nemesis. A few times in the past year has it been said that something small and deadly has entered this superhero’s psyche- the insidious tentacle of doubt. Yesterday it slowly clawed into his soul. By the final act, whatever had brought him thus far was gone, gouged out. The reaching darkness inside of him pointed to the glowing Kryptonite across the court- “He is, and you can’t be. He will, and you can’t. He glows, you burn. There is nothing you can do.”

Later, he wept. The implacable façade, the beautiful control, it all crumbled. He shed tears for an evaporated dream. But who knows, it seemed also like he wept in despair. He wept to see his self belief wither. He wept in frustration, and maybe even fear- unacknowledged, unsettling, unknown- where now?

all-round nothing

I might never have seen it this way, but here’s a good piece. What would seem like an Aussies habit of having cricketing all-rounders, is but a crusade of finding or concocting them. They just have to glance at the player patterns of a team like India (heck, most teams in world cricket), to see that genuine all-rounders at number 6 in test squads are hardly to be expected, their rare existences to be cherished.

Gilchrist has spoilt the Australian team structure- all the while he was around, they could afford to have a slightly sub par batsman who could bowl, in the name of an all rounder. From the recent tryouts, I do believe Shane Watson (injury permitting) shows the most likelihood of filling that gap- to some extent. But the most pertinent argument made in this article is the one about squandering potentially superlative batting careers such as Hodge and David Hussey, in the almost unreal search for a true all rounder.

double edged sword

Two Australian domestic games this week will trial a double-sided bat, in an effort to make easier the reverse sweep or reverse flick shot that has become increasingly in fashion. I also think, being even moderately successful, this will give the shot a certain legitimacy or a final seal of ‘approval’. Not all the voices of disagreement over KP’s switch hitting have died down, and I for one am still not entirely convinced. While there is no doubt that it takes considerable skill, its hard to see how it does not offer the batsman an advantage. Warner’s quote in the above link is a bit odd. He says that the new bat will offer no significant advantage to the batsman, while in the same breath noting that it gives him a few extra seconds. Extra seconds, not an advantage for a batsman?

please, Channel 9

So fine, I can see that Mitchell Johnson is quite good with the bat (for a No.9). Sure, he shows some orthodox technique and plays some classical strokes, even a few big hits. Fine, there is promise for the future. But for Chrissake, Channel 9 commentators, could you please not go on and on about Mitchell Johnson the batsman and how he might one day score a Test hundred?! I’ve had enough a couple of tests ago, but you refuse to stop. I almost would prefer you reverted to some Australia centric self-absorbed chat.