Memories and Associations

It was that time in class XII - India playing South Africa at the Eden Gardens - lunch break at the Electrical Maintenance - a barely working transistor , just about time to get into the practicals and suddenly Javagal Srinath picks up two wickets in two balls. The chance of a hattrick and the practicals just about to start -oh the torture! We huddled around the transistor - kept the practicals waiting and heard a huge shout from the commentator as the ball travelled to Saurav in the slips. We cheered - the hattrick under our belt - and rushed into the practicals only later to find that Dada had picked the ball first bounce.

Then there was that outstanding series where India beat Australia in an epic test series - the series where Laxman became Very Very Special. It was the first year of engineering. The same transistor. The final day and a chance of a victory - remote but yet a chance, the half flight of the sixth floor and 4 heads huddled around the transistor. Sachin bowling and picking three wickets, Bhajji playing like never before or after. The shouts of pure delight when the last wicket was had and the admonishing Mechanics professor who gave us our marching orders. Ah the bliss of having seen India to victory!

And then when we played New Zealand and it was 29th October 1999 - a day for Joshi Sir's Chemistry Classes and tests followed by Perreira Sir's Mathematics Classes - but also the first day of a test match with Sachin in great form and nervous in the 90s - Hitting two airy shots - catches which should have been taken but were dropped by Adam Parore to let Sachin get his 100. Signs were ominous - with my birthday following up and luck behind him, it was the moment for SRT to notch up his first ever international double ton. And so he did on 30th October - a birthday gift

Or that series where the Nagpur groundsman sold his nationality to the Aussies. A dead rubber in Mumbai on a minefield. Sachin and VVS played brilliant knocks to setup a meagre target of 108 for the Aussies. But there was the APplication EXercise (APEX) project to be submitted to the most fearsome of all IIMB Profs - Rambo and chasing 108 - Murali Karthik weaved magic - 25/3 and a rush from the Computer Centre to the Rec Room to watch the match. While the Apex waited, Murali and the pitch exploded to win the match. Aah the joy of watching India pull off a miracle!

Or that time with the Class X exams approaching and an exam the next day, trying to study and ignore the India Pakistan match at Dhaka. Pakistan putting up 314 to win for us and Sachin hitting an attacking 41 before holing out to Afridi, getting into a room with the door closed to try and concentrate on the match and still try to catch glimpses of it from time to time from the crack in the door. To see Robin Singh stride out at no.3 and hit a 81, to see Dada play a resolute 124 and then to sit in front of the TV and see Azhar and Dada refuse to leave the field for Bad Light. And finally to have Hrishikesh Kanitkar play the boundary in the last over (which won him a place in the squad for 20 matches)

Its funny how many mundane moments of life seem interesting simply because the associations we make for them with other exciting moments. Calvin in a dialogue with Hobbes once commented "I have this homework to do but i really want to go play outside. I know that doing my homework is important for me in the long run but playing outside will give me joy in the short run!" Cut to the next scene with Calvin on his sledge outside with Hobbes saying "But in the really long run, I know what will make better memories!"

Cricket has that ability of throwing up those moments which will make better memories!

Swagger Cricket

Legends say that the West Indian teams of yore played cricket that made you love the game - that they used to stride to the ground with a swagger, an air full of confidence - not arrogance but simple honest confidence that they were the best and indeed they were!

Legends talk about how the crowd used to be one with the game - dance and rum and chanting and the calypsos. Why wouldnt they be one with the game? After all the legends also spoke about tall lanky dangerous pacemen who could shatter you with their mere speed, about bowlers who never spoke a word but a cocked eyebrow was enough to send shivers through spines, about batsmen who could hit 189 in the company of a no.11, about batsmen who were so elegant that they drew comparisons to feline beasts, of bowlers who could run through lineups even with a fractured wrist.

But mainly the legends spoke about how this set of talented individuals gelled together as a team and well and truly enjoyed their game. The word swagger keeps swelling these legends.

However when one has started watching the game with the Windies in terminal decline, with cricket as a sport dwindling in popularity in the Carribeans - it always has been extremely difficult to associate with these legends. Its difficult to see why the Windies were everyone's favourite team inspite of being champions. Or how they were everyone's favourite team after their own.

Till the Champions League - till Trinidad and Tobago raised the question as to HOW and WHY the Windies could be in such terminal decline inspite of such beautiful and boundless talent available with them in just one set of islands! How can a team which has access to players who play such attractive and fearless cricket, a bunch of cricketers so in sync with each other and so openly and completely enjoying their game and playing with complete pride- lead to the West Indies being so pathetic?

The T&T team has given me a glimpse of what the West Indies heydays would have been like. To have a Richards and a Haynes and a Greenidge blasting away and a Marshall and a Garner and a Holding bowling those fearsome spells - oooh this T & T team has offered trailers of what could have been.

And yet one can only wonder and marvel at how a great giant of a team has self destructed to go from top of the pile to near bottom. But till such wonders cease - I will be supporting the fearless and attractive cricket that perhaps only Carribean cricket can bring to the table

We retain the right...

... to use, abuse and generally humiliate you! You are after all our favourite whipping boy. We give two hoots to the fact that you have been our most dependable batsman - nay check that - you have been our most dependable player but we really dont care about that

So you have kept wickets so that we could play an additional batsman because at that point of time we really did not have anyone worth their salt who could do both - wear the wicketkeeping gloves and hold the bat the right way. Yes yes - you could have refused and played as a pure batsman (its not as if our batting cupboard was overflowing with talent to replace you as a batsman) but you put the team interests over your own and manfully donned the gloves to help build a killer team. But really its you who were crazy enough not to be selfish - you cant hold that to us !

Yes you batted at all positions in the squad - heck you even opened the batting, you even played the role of a fantastic one day finisher, you have played the sheet anchor role, you have played well on any surface - but really its your fault that you could change the image we hold of you - that of a stodgy blocker. So what if you have really finished off most innings with elan? So what if you were the most dependable and proficient chaser of a total? It is undeniably your FAULT for having created that impression of yourself in the first place! Surely - you cant hold THAT against us ?

Yes you have batted at 0/1 most of your life, you have even opened the test innings because there was no one else willing to put their hand up. It has to be your fault for not going with the flow and ignoring the team needs. What kind of moron time and again volunteers to put himself in peril just for the team cause? How are we to blame if you are a glutton for self-punishment? Surely - you cant hold THAT against us?

Yes we dropped you unceremoniously from the OD squad because we imagined we had a bunch of youngsters better than you. So what if we had only played them on flat batting friendly 'Even-Munaf-Can-Hit-A-Fifty-Here' kind of pitches ? They were the youth and they look so dashing! And even when they get out they look so elegant - unlike you! You stupid stodgy blocker who hits every ball to the fielder! What? You say you were more effective! Hah - yet again its your fault for being effective over being stylish and generally in the news! Who told you to peacefully get married and be a family man? If you were to have affairs with filmstars maybe you would have been more interesting! Surely you can't hold that against us - CAN YOU?

And yes so we goofed up by trusting the youth too much - they couldnt really handle the short ones. So when we went off to difficult pitches, we called you back. Like the dumb glutton for abuse you are - you promptly decided to come back and bail out the team and play the short balls on bad pitches. Yeah Yeah you did a reasonable job there but hah now we are back on flat pitches! We dont need no help from you no more! We are back on the 'Even-Munaf-Can-Hit-A-Fifty-Here' pitches and you can keep your boring effective batting to yourself!

You Sir - have done everything the team could have asked of you! You have led by example. You have taken the tab for the team at every possible opportunity. And yet you are a fool for having done all of this for a bunch of people who couldnt have cared less. For having sacrificed yourself and having expected nothing in return.

Rahul 'The Wall' Dravid - you have banged yourself against a stone wall hoping that the stone wall would yield. It never will.

Farewell !

That sinking feeling

It is said that if a batsman goes out thinking that he cant play so and so bowler - come what may he wont be able to play him. If he believes that maybe he will edge the ball that moves away - he will.

And he gets into this state of mind when he repeatedly keeps getting out to that one bowler or repeatedly falls to the same ball or the same shot

And so begins a downward spiral - a lack of belief and hence a lack of confidence and maybe subconsciously even a lower expectation from one self.

He can try to force himself out of it by going all out aggressive - but one then cant be sure if steps out once too often. In the attempt to dominate he might well miss the line of the ball completely and get out leading to further demoralisation.

He might decide to spend time in the middle - getting his basics right - trying to solve one thing at a time, iron out those minor creases but then he realises that he has to score. The runrate is just building up all the time and unless he hits out NOW his improved technique might just not help.

So what does he do? What does he do? How does he snap out of the downward spiral? Where does it all end?

T20 is exciting when ...

... the bowlers dominate the batsmen. What joy to see low scoring thrillers!

Also South Africa is proving to be an inspired choice for a location. With the pitches supporting the bowlers - it is clear that the fly-by-night lesser skilled batsmen are not going to make the cut.

Which means that we get to watch real talent fight real battles out there. It also means that the Jaffers and Chopras of the world have a right to play their trade in the IPL. It will also mean that teams will actually relook their batting lineups and go in with one anchor and one hitter kind of a lineup.

The thing with the last IPL was that the batsmen started on top and the bowlers had to learn new tricks to keep the scoring down. In this case - the learning curve is all for the batsmen and hence the old experienced hands are going to be the ones most succesful.

Cheers to the new IPL ~ its like a Hamam. Everybody has a chance here

The IPL and the stock market

While there will always be many ways to make money in the IPL - one of the long term solutions is investments. Not investments in shares but investments in players.

The way to make big money is to contract players cheap - make them successful, have them capture the public imagination and then sell them at much higher rates.

It makes for an interesting conundrum for any team then! You need to have established stars to get audiences riveted to your team, to ensure that you have fans and to ensure that you win matches. And yet these stars dont come cheap. So you need to get a mix of stars, good steady known players and then the unknown guys - young talented but with no pedigree to show that they can really shine. These are the ones you take your chances on.

Ofcourse as was shown in the case of Hyderabad last year - even buying the best players on paper can get you to bottom place. However the IPL mandates that you balance your portfolio well. For every Sachin and Sanath that you buy - you need a Nayar and a Rahane and equally you need the mix of Dhavals and Rajes. The Sachin and Sanaths will win matches alongside Nayars and Rahanes being the supports while the Dhavals and Rajes will come out of nowhere to make a name for themselves.

The Sachins and Sanaths are high short term returns - they win matches and are attractive to sponsors and hence get immediate money. They also sell the shirts. They would however also be the depreciating assets - resale value would be lower than the buying price for sure
!
The Nayars and the Rahanes are possibly the known future stars - the ones that come inexpensive and can weigh in with their performances. The Dhavals and the Rajes are the ones who come at prices tending to zero - can make a name for themselves and get sold for astronomical prices. These are the logn term investments. High Risk if they dont fire as even one really bad over in a T20 can have the match lost - as to make these guys future stars and marketable - they have to be played in a fair smattering of matches.

So one has to be a strong scout and spot the ones with the talent and get them in - take your chances and play them even if it means one can lose the match. Because if you nurture and market that talent well - you have a big fat profit on your hands.

The strategy is also very useful when it comes to players on the brink of national selection - say for eg Shaun Marsh last year. If he were to be sold - there would be some buying to be done.

So the long term profits depend on who one picks to be the future star. They could perhaps pick a trick or two from The Rajasthan Royals. Buy low - sell high - they have it made!

A cycle of life

Most parents strive to provide their kids with all that they missed out on. In doing so they make some sacrifices and bear some pain but in the end its all good and they end up happy if their kids get what they were aiming for.

Similarly when the parents get older, most good kids take care of their parents. The parents on the other hand try their best to pull their own weight and be no liability and enjoy all that their kids are providing them with.

So then lets classify Sachin, Rahul, VVS as the elders/parents of the Indian team and Gambhir, Dhoni, Zak et al as the young kids of the family.

Sachin and Dravid have perhaps had the most frustrating of times in their prime. 20/2 would more often than not be the scoreline they would see when they came together and then both would play to save our asses. They did it on numerous occasions but rarely had the bowling to back them up. And when they failed we failed. However they soldiered on - rising way above the mediocrity around them - taking those overseas losses one after the other on their chins. Hearing them be called chokers but yet carry on. They had to - after all they were upholding the standards for performance for an entire country. These were the guys who would spawn the next generation of Indian batsmen - who would have taken to the sport having fallen in love with the superlative batting. Or if someone idolized Kumble, superlative bowling.

Their efforts were almost like the provident fund being deducted every month - an investment for the future. The hope was that it would pay off sometime. That they would inspire those few cricketers who would turn and become world beaters.

They came forth. A Gambhir who showed that he can bat like a Geoff Boycott to save a test or play an attacking game like his own self to setup a victory. That he can take on the fast guys or stride down the ground to those pie-chuckers. An Ishant Sharma who can in one fierce spell of fast bowling scythe down Australian skippers and others to create breakthroughs. Or a reborn Zak who with accurate and experienced bowling crash through any batting side.

That the big guys like Sachin and Rahul and VVS were deprived in their early days means that now is the time for redemption. Its time for the kids to pay back the seniors for their efforts and investments. With test wins outside the subcontinent - anywhere, everywhere against anyone and everyone.

And make no mistake - not only are the seniors carrying their weight - they are worth their weight in gold. Playing gem like innings which win matches.

And series wins outside - just like the one in New Zealand - are just reward for everyone - irrespective of age, experience of seniority. Because its the cycle of life. As you sow so shall you reap.

The opening batsman

Traditionally the opening batsman was likened to a dam - someone who holds the water long enough for the others to prosper. He would take the shine off the ball and hold fort in difficult conditions. His vigil would ensure that the dangerous bowlers would be blunted when fresh and fairly tired when the new batsmen eventually came out to bat.

Fairly similar to a college or even a corporate scenario when there are some n people to be reviewed by the boss for their performance. The first man in has a job to do and perform a duty to the rest of his/her colleagues (yeah the man in this case can be interpreted as man/woman). The opener here has to bear the brunt of a fresh boss bowling the unplayable short deliveries, the zippers that you have no clue about, the ones that have you playing for the in-coming delivery but go out instead. He has to ensure that he consumes time and in general drains out the enthusiasm from the boss. So when the others come in to play - its already a placid pitch as they know what questions to expect and are generally prepared plus fatigue would have already set in for the ever-questioning-boss.

Invariably the opener who gets out early exposing the middle order to a boss on rampage partly ensures that everyone has a torrid time. A bad opener can ruin the team's fortunes.

Lately however there has been another breed of openers. The ones who choose not to defend but aim to get to their 100 before the crowd has even settled into their seats. I ofcourse have the likes of Sehwag and Hayden in my mind as I write this. They pulverise the bowlers and generally put them on the backfoot so that they dont have much enthu left for the day even when there is new guy at the crease. Also given that this opener has put on runs so fast on the board - it lets the remaining guys bat without pressure and get their collective eyes in.

Yes - there is an analogy coming up here too. Just imagine a presenter in the review who instead of getting hammered by the boss - suddenly starts questioning his boss about stuff that has gone wrong, about all the support promised but not given. Someone answering everything aggressively - maybe even putting the boss in a good mood with all the forthcoming answers - Oh yes that eases up the pitch too.

Then there is that utility of the opener to put up the first runs on the board - to break the ice. Its the opener who has to break the awkward silence and get things going.

So here is a tribute to all good openers - Be the Akash Chopra variety or the Sehwag. Whether they get a ton in half an hour or half a run in an hour - they play the most unique and difficult role in cricket and otherwise.

The components

Talent is what you are born with, the ability to get that bat hit the ball in time, the ability to turn around that arm and see the ball reach with some pace down the 22 yards. The ability to middle it and the ability to turn it. Talent is bestowed.

Technique is what your hardwork builds onto your talent. The long hours spent as a kid with your unrelenting coach. Hours and hours of hitting a ball hanging in a sock right in the middle. Hours of putting that front foot forward and keeping that head steady. Recursive strides to the pitch to get that high arm action, the numerous efforts to roll that wrist over - to land the ball on the proverbial penny.

Experience is knowing what to do when. Experience is also telling the rookies what to do when. Experience is the instinct that life gives you after years of run-ins

Temperament is the ability of doing what needs to be done under pressure. Over and over again. And again.

Flair is the ability to make people forgive you for the lack of all the above.

Form is the resultant effectiveness when either all the above desert you or all the above align with you.

Luck is what precludes any of the above.

A Happy Place

Scrubs is a fantastic sitcom which narrates itself through the thoughts of a funny guy named JD. JD usually has a vivid imagination and uses that to drift off very often. Given that he is a doctor in a hospital with the entire sitcom based around the hospital – its obvious that they deal with the morbid topic of death in a light yet sensitive manner. Now doctors as they are wont to – discuss patients on the death bed and they usually have a good inkling about when someone is about to leave for heavenly/hellish abode. And then they say that the only thing that can be done is to put the patient into a happy place. Jd – with his imagination thought of putting the patients in a room with clouds and lots of balloons – making them happy.

When so many legends of the Indian Team are about to leave the team – running their last few laps, one really hopes that they too are in a happy place before they leave. Firstly one hopes that the player gets to leave on his own terms and not because some fat failed ex-cricketer thinks its time for retribution. And then that the last sign off is memorable. We saw Dada go – announcing himself our before the start of the test series and then going on to hit one of the best centuries he has ever hit at Mohali. You call that leaving on a high. Kumble – knowing when it was time to go – when wickets were not forthcoming at the Kotla of all places. He quit on the last day of the test and came out to bowl with an injured finger. You call that leaving with dignity. The happy place is indeed that feeling of success or dignified pride just before you leave, with your head high.

We as a cricketing nation have been spoiled. If the Aussies has “If Lillee don’t get you, Thommo will”, we have now for almost a decade been lulled to believe that middle orders are routinely built with the quality of Dravid, Sachin, VVS and Dada with the opening of Sehwag thrown in for spicy garnishing. We have come to exect a Sachin-Rahul partnership to save us from 20/2 or the old firm of Rahul and VVS to laugh off a huge deficit and build up yet another of their triple hundred partnerships. And then to have Sachin blasting away where others fade into oblivion or to have a gritty Dada to fight off critics and the shortpitched ball to wrest away initiative from battle hardened Aussies.

We have been lulled into the belief that its our right to expect this quality – to be 4 down and have quality like VVS and Dada there at the crease. To have concentration and determination good enough to score on a cloudy day on a damp green pitch in Headingley and lead us to victory. Or to ground out a 240 odd at Sydney – while being in the worst possible form.Or to have some elegant shots to turn around a tough situation into a dominating one.

We should be grateful and hope that we ourselves get a chance to be in a happy place when they all leave the ground for good. Instead we seem to be in a hurry to see the back of champs like Dravid and VVS and the blasphemy of it all – even Sachin. Forgive us oh father in heaven for we know not what we seek. We seek a happy place for stalwarts while risking ourselves into a middle-order fresh and no where close to the quality as dictated by the Fab Four.

Its time we were genuinely scared of seeing a lineup that reads Gambhir, Sehwag, Sharma, Pujara, Badri, Yuvraj, Dhoni.. A middle order without the stamp of genuine world class.

Perhaps its our way of soothing ourselves into believing that we wont miss them – that we go round asking for their heads. That we believe that the pretenders are yet ready so that when they are gone we will have convinced ourselves that we did not really need them anyway.

One gone and three to go. 2-3 years at best by which time they will all be gone and only be names rich with history. Till then lets strive to enjoy every little drop of water in the oasis. It promises to be a long desert once the departure is all complete.