Monday, October 22, 2012

Fear...

As a kid, you probably climbed walls and trees, wondered not what would happen if you fell. Till someone told you. Fear.

You probably jumped  over water poodles measuring some feet. But would refuse to do it if it was the same distance over  a valley. Fear.

Cricket - two tailenders would gloriously strike the ball in a given up chase, bring the team close to victory and then give up striking in favor of pottering, losing it all in the end. Fear.

Standing up a height, feet tied up in a bungee rope, looking down at a deep pool - the worst that could happen is a deep dive. And yet having looked down, those feet refuse to move. Fear.

Standing in a pub, eying that sweet girl - who probably gave you a half smile, hesitating, focusing on that drink instead and eventually leaving as you came - alone. Fear

In most cases, that invisible leash of fear holds us back, preventing us from doing what we most want to do - even though the adverse impact of it all is higher imagined than real. The fear of losing it all - like that bit in Batman Begins, plays itself up when the Scarecrow fires his chemicals - making itself bigger and bigger leaving you to take the chicken route.

Most often, the material loss in case of failure is almost negligible, it is the perceived loss of your  own image, a social face if i may say so - that counts heavy in that final moments, when you look down the bungee platform, gulp down, shake that head mildly and walk away - forgetting the greatest truth of them all, the failure to risk failure in following what you really wanted to do - is the failure of the biggest kind.

Three friends of mine. Very different people. Yet they abandoned their fear and set sail.

One quit his job of 5 years and will spend his savings literally exploring the world with an itinerary so fancy that Phileas Fogg would be jealous. The risk? In real terms none. He comes back a year later and will find himself a job that will pay him in similar payscales as now. The payoff? Experiences to last a lifetime and who knows a living to be made by narrating those experiences.

The other two - a couple. Wanted to travel for a time as short as 3 months. The guy's company refused him a sabbatical, the girl's has no problem. So our hero quit - went off for 3 months and hunted for a job when back. The risk? None in real terms. The Payoff - See above

With no risk whatsoever in real terms - these are still sterling examples of people who went beyond. Because our own internal inhibitions hold us back, we see what these guys did as risks - but in reality they are just rational ways to live the one life we have.

And hence when i hear stories - that throw all perceived caution to the wind, it is inspiring - leading me to the hope that someday i will muster the courage myself to snap that invisible leash and go out exploring, jumping, experimenting - doing whatever i see fit - because i want to do it and not because it must be done.

As Calvin said in his last appearance

Thursday, March 08, 2012

Rahul Dravid

The greatest players have defining moments for the career, defining innings that headline their body of work. Lara's 153, Sachin's sandstorms, Ponting's WC hundred, Gavaskar's double to fashion a 404 chase

Dravid has several innings that could contend to be the defining inning. But simply an inning - even though it be of the highest quality possible like Adelaide or Headingley or Kolkatta or even Jamaica - cannot begin to describe Rahul Dravid the player.

For me Rahul's greatness lay not only in his batsmanship - it lay in the fact that he gave it his all, all the time. His defining moment is not in the fact that he had emotional tears in his eyes as he hit the winning runs at Adelaide in the second inning after a monumental double ton in the first. Its not in the fact that he weathered treacherous batting conditions to set up a victory at Headingley. Its in the fact that he thought not twice before donning the gloves for his team or to open the innings when he could have refused.

And hence my defining moment for Dravid is the English series. Lone man standing. Keeping Wickets in Test Match. Opening Batting because we refused to carry backup openers. Carrying his bat through an inning and stepping out to open the inning again, following on.

The numbers will speak enough both about his greatness as a test batsman and even as an ODI batsman. But what the numbers will miss is how much more than batsmanship he brought to the team. What the numbers will miss is the fact that he along with Ganguly and Sachin brought tremendous credibility to the Indian team during the fixing scandal.

The finest no.3 we have known. The man who grind it out for the team cause. The man who re-introduced us to the joys of perseverance. The man who showed that hardwork could never go out of fashion.

For all the years and for being the main reason for us having a spine outside of India, thank you Dravid. We have not thanked you enough only because we rolled in the luxury of having you not as the best of your generation but the second best. We will realise the whole and true value of your batsmanship painfully through your absence.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

The Inflection Points

In any trend sheet - things dont just happen. There is always an inflection point - the one thing that seems to trigger off the long trend.

Indian cricket - briefly - rose to great heights. World No.1 in Test Cricket and World Cup Champions. On the back of the ability to fight and fight really hard at that. The fighting spirit was inculcated by Wright and Ganguly no doubt - but the inflection point for the eventual rise to no.1 and champions was Perth.

The events in Sydney had left the team pissed and hurt. They responded in Perth. The fastest pitch, the one pitch where India should have had no chance. They fought hard - typified by Ishant's spell to Punter. The spell that defined the match. What stood out however was not the fact that Ishant had bowled 6 fire-breathing overs to Ricky but the fact that when Sehwag suggested that he bowl one more and Kumble asked "Ek Aur Karega" - inspite of being justified to feel tired and let someone else take up the cudgels, Ishant replied "Haan Karunga". And that "ek aur" delivered the wicket of one of the best players of the short ball in Australia. That team was willing to run itself to the ground to win. Because they fought hard.

And lets make no mistake - the rise to no.1 was not just because we played a fair bit at home - it was because we fought hard outside home. The World Cup saw the same fight and the refusal to give up and thus was the Cup won.

But attitudes change. And that change shows. In West Indies, the World no.1 team refused to chase 86 in 15 overs with 7 wickets in hand and called for a tame draw. It matters not that they might not have won it even if they went for it - but the not trying was a crime. It signalled the start of a flagging intent.

The inflection point for the decline however - was in an ironical life coming full circle style - centred around Ishant Sharma again. We were at Lords - we were under pressure. In the second Inning before lunch Ishant had picked up 3 wickets and was firing hard.There was a chance to blow away England and make a match out of it. There was great amount of interest in how India would fight back after lunch. Ishant should have had the ball in his hand raring to go.

Instead Raina started the session with his slow spinners. The man who after a hard long spell had said yes to "ek aur karega" had now after a 45 minute break refused to attack citing tiredness.

And there in lies the story of a lost spine. The Indian team so willing to fight had in their minds clearly given up long back. If no1 and the World Cup was a direct result of a fighting spirit, 8-0 is a fair and just result of the lack of that very fighting spirit.

Monday, January 23, 2012

Indian Cricket (2001 - 2011), We will miss you

It was 2001 and I was in the first year of my engineering. In my 19 years of existence on the earth, I had been a cricket follower and supporter for as long as I could remember. I remember excitedly waking up to the sound of a TV hearing the words "Kapil Dev" and "97" mentioned in the same breath - and thinking WOW Kapil was on 97, only to discover that the full sentence meant that Kapil was at the crease but India was 97/7.

It was the 90s and that was how life was. India would struggle abroad, India would struggle against quality opposition. And we would take solace in some brilliant individual performances - mostly by Sachin - but also by Azhar, Kumble nd the likes of Jadeja/Robin Singh.

With 1996 arrived a new set of batsmen but the results were yet to show. 1999 we got hammered 3-0 in Australia - predicted not by Glenn McGrath but by the Board Secretary. But it was to be the start of something. VVS had a 167 to show and a group of great young players had been hurt enough. Because by the time that season died out on us, we had a new captain. We got a new coach. And between them Ganguly and Wright laid down the foundations for our best ever years of cricket. The foundation was laid for our best ever generation of players to lay down new benchmarks.

2001 - April 2011 is when Indian Cricket arrived. For someone who woke up to a 97/7 - this golden era was everything one could dream of. It began - as it should have - against the Aussies who were on a 16 match roll. It happened as it should have with our captain setting down the tone for eyeball to eyeball confrontation. When for the first time Aussie arrogance was answered in kind. When for the first time following on two Indian batsmen refused to give up. I remember the headline in the Times of India saying "3 Days 403 runs 14 wickets, 1 day 335 runs No wickets"

It was the start of defiance. It was the start of belief. It was the start of an era.

We reached the WC finals in 2003, We won a Natwest final chasing 326, We beat Pakistan in Pakistan,, We drew in West Indies, We won in West Indies, We won series in England, We won matches in Australia and South Africa. We won at Perth. We kept losing first tests - we kept coming back to even the series. We showed gumption time and again - for the first time ever in this golden period. We won a World Cup - every match when we were down, we fought back. Fight back was the DNA of this team. And this DNA led us to that WC win and a climb to no.1 in the rankings.

The Achilles heel in this entire fight was that it was the same set of players doing the winning. Unlike the Aussie great teams - there was not a seamless structure where if a new player came in, he would settle down with the same ease. And that finally showed. A great batting lineup was exposed in England and crushed in Australia.

When that ball slipped through Dravid's gate for an umpteenth time, when Laxman started facing 30 balls without a boundary for a fluent start, when Sachin started getting out while looking sublime, when Sehwag's patience also could not convert into anything substantial, when Gambhir's grit only meant getting the edge - it was the end of an era.

The denouement might have been sad. The end was a tragedy - for this set of greats knew they had failed themselves of their greatest chance to be recorded in history as conquerors. They will now go, having lost their best chance of a glorious exit. But let that not take away from what has been tremendous time of our cricket following life.

For 2001 - 2011, Thank you. It will take time to rebuild and I am willing to wake up to some more 97/7 as long as there is the promise of another such era. But till then its these memories to cherish