Please stand by

The mood amongst the entire Indian cricketing fraternity was upbeat following the historic win in Chennai. If there was anything that stood out like a sore thumb in the otherwise festive mood was the form of Rahul Dravid.

Quite a few heated remarks were exchanged today the spot at which Rahul should bat in the next test after his dismal performance in the last few innings.
Some even questioned his position in the side.

The reasoning was based on the fact that his confidence is as low as it can possibly get, some of the safest hands dropping sitters, he should just call it a day and so on...

I have always maintained that not only Rahul but any player in such a position should continue to take the responsibility in the side, if he is in it, to bat at 3 in this case while most were of the opinion that he should swap his place with VVS at no.5.

I may stand out my opinion about where Rahul should bat cos in an interview, even Sunil Gavaskar endorsed the other view.

My only objective if I were influential would be to just let him be! That the best and the most you can do for a great player like himself.

No. 3 is not new to him. He has been thinking like a no.3 for the last 10 years. Thats where he has got thousands of those runs and I bear the faith that he will emerge victorious once again . Moving him from this position will add to the mental burden that is at the moment quite unbearable by itself.

When players go through a bad patch a lot of doubt in their own ability creeps in. Decisions like getting him to bat lower down the order will reinforce such doubts. Will make him ask those questions to himself again, much more louder, at a time when all he should be doing is not give more than due importance to a bad form.
As they say, form is temporary, class permanent!
Dravid redefines class.

Being on the wrong side of age, the ghost of retirement starts to loom large in the mind which certainly does not help when the team sends out signals which may not appear encouraging.

The team has virtually every other aspect of the game working in its favour. So, this is a time when the team can stand by the wall which once stood so resolutely for it. No, I do not endorse taking a known liability overboard but all I mean to say, is give him his due. His fair chance.

I have immense faith in the spirit of a sportsman... the spirit of a champion.

Just let him be will be my prayer for him.

Is it deference?

Deference to one's elders is a trait that binds Indian society but weakens its sporting teams, for rare is the man who has the courage to upset the pecking order - Andrew Miller

In the recent past there have been a lot if instances where the school of thought abiding by the above have raised a concern and demanded for the head of the senior players, not always unjustified.

All generalizations are bad, including this one.

What I mean to say is that the only way to handle situations like this and that is on a case to case basis.

I can not refute the fact that Indian sporting teams have been hurt by the prolonging of the careers of its senior sportsmen on more than one occasion. And, whenever this has happened, it has been due to the fact that the seniors have not been able to come to the terms with the fact that their time has come.

So, when I say that the seniors have on numerous occasions hurt our sporting teams, this is the only aspect of the above quote that I agree with. Where I begin to differ in my opinion is with the cause of the problem.

Players in India have an inappropriate prolonging of their careers for reasons apart from just deference. Youngsters in India as SRK said in one of his interviews that youngsters have very little respect for reputation and even lesser baggage of history. They are gutsy! They are raring to go! They want to conquer the world! And…they know they can.

When players become stars, they are elevated to the level of being demi – Gods in our country. They get the adulation like none other. So, when their time does come, it becomes very difficult for them to accept it, come to terms with it.

We do understand that the senior players get in the experience that no youngster can. But at the end of the day, you need to be able to contribute in one department – performance which has no substitution!

Through a long career, players often go through a phase where they have no competition and are a certainty in the side. Suddenly when their aura begins to dim and they see young blood keeping them on their toes, they are no longer in the mental and physical shape to take on the competition. So, to avoid such a situation, senior players often do not provide the encouragement to the youngsters and thus serve their vested interest. There have been stories of a senior fast bowler advising Srinath to bowl short. This he believes wasted the early half of his career and prolonged the senior’s.

There have been situations where in the senior players have been involved with practicing politics just to keep their own place in the side. This is exactly what caused the rift between Ganguly and Greggie. There was no doubt that Ganguly was going through a real long unacceptable lean patch while there were players on the brink of selection.

There are other instances when senior players have been performing and more than justifying their position in the side as well as providing the much required inputs to the lesser experienced juniors. Seniors like these can never hurt any sporting side, in fact they are an asset!

Also, India is not a Pakistan where a boy is literally picked from the streets to represent the country, but we have had very successful debuts of players in their late teens who have come in and done really well for themselves and the country and on most occasions, ousted a senior cricketer.

Seniors have to move on and juniors have to take their place, but the transition has to be smooth and not knee-jerk.

Summing it up, seniors have hurt the sporting teams of our country but it is not deference to blame for it, it’s the seniors themselves and there can be no generalization!

Nothing has changed

“Cleared of any charges of racism. Fined 50% of match fee for abusive behaviour.”
This is the outcome of the much awaited Harbajan Singh hearing.
On the face of it, it appears fair. On second thoughts it is not. It is more of a diplomatic stand taken by the ICC to salvage the series and the image of the ACB.

Australians are known to play the game exactly the same way as they have accused the Indians of in this series. It’s a case of one finding the taste of ones own medicine bitter.

Throughout this tour, they have been exposed to aspects of the game that they are not used to. Firstly, a solid fight back by the opponent. I do not know when was the last time a side kept them in the field for five sessions and that too, in Australia. They never loose at Perth. They were also found vulnerable under pressure.
What did not change is the arrogance. Their Aussie arrogance which is unjustified in any case and with a side like the one they possess currently, even more so.

They never expected the stand that BCCI took and the push back they received was unexpected.

The manner in which Mike Procter handled the issue initially was in fact in the same mould as the way the Australians played cricket and the way beings like Darrel Hair carried out his umpiring time and again, the Slater incident with Dravid, the McGrath-Sarwan incident.
How can these people ever accuse any one else of racism or abusive behaviour??? The appeal itself is as bizarre as anything I have heard.

ICC and ACB could not possibly allow the tour to be called of as that would mean strained relations with the very rich BCCI. I always believed that what the ICC will do is find a middle path wherein the BCCI feels satisfied and the ACB’s face is saved as well. The ICC has done exactly that!

Talking of the hearing, there was so evidence what so ever apart from the players there. So one should actually question the basis of the accusation which the BCCI did. In my opinion it was imperative for the ICC to revoke the ban and the charge.

The question we need to ask here is that, what is the basis of the 50% match fee fine in the name of abusive behaviour??? Doesn’t the absence of circumstantial evidence hold true here as well? Doesn’t this charge mean that Bajji is still guilty? In my opinion, it does and so I question why the BCCI has accepted this decision and not the earlier one. In my opinion, there is no difference.

BCCI has always questioned the basis and the ethical foundation of the charge. Levying of any charge on Bajji means that there was in the first place a basis for the original charge.

In my opinion, nothing has changed. This verdict is as bad as it was. What Australia has also managed in the process of the “negotiation” is to get the name of Brad Hogg out of the mess.

I am extremely saddened by the nonsense we put up with in spite of being The BCCI. The only reason I can think of for this is the sponsors. They are the ones who give BCCI the muscle and they are the ones who would loose most if the series was called off.
Hence I believe, the stand.

In the process, we have exposed our weakness, which we all believed was our biggest strength. I will not be surprised if this lays down an unpleasant precedent for tournaments to come.

Oval and (flat-) Out

Giving due credit to the Indian batsmen, the Adelaide track seems to have nothing much in it for the bowlers. I believe this is the rationale which justifies the inclusion on the fifth bowler in the Indian line up.
Kumble has been spot on with his reading of the pitch on almost all occasions and looks like he has got it spot on this itme as well.

As an Australian supporter, I would have counted on the WACA test to go Australia’s way. Assuming that the two teams shared the honours in the first two tests, the series would be poised at 2-1 in favour of Australia if not 3-0 before the final test. (I would have expected India to not win more than one of the first three tests due to the inexperience in the bowling attack.)

It is in the interest of the hosts to secure the series rather than go for an all out win and give a chance to India to end up with 2-2. The Australians seemed to have taken this play-safe approach and presented India with a batting track.

Australia, a few tours back, would have made a fast bouncy track to do India in but the choice of a flat track displays the respect that they have for the Indian batting. Perth test outcome has yet again proved the might of the Indian batsmen and hence the approach.

Ricky Ponting is going through a phase where in he has to look for happenings to save face and India squaring the series would not do him much good. If India manages to square the series, they would turn back and claim that if the Sydney test mishap hadn’t occurred, who knows the series would have ended 2-1 in favour of India.

In my opinion India missed a trick when batsmen like VVS and Ganguly departed early. If either of them would have stuck around a bit longer, we may have been able to declare at least one session earlier giving our bowlers a bit more time to get 20 wickets.

So, honestly I do not expect a result in this match unless any side crumples under pressure which both have done a few times in the series.

End of an ERA

I believe we are in the midst of by far the most eventful tour that we have seen for quite some time now, both on the field and off it. Proceedings have been nothing less than dramatic.

The last entrant to the already large list of events was the announcement of the one day squad for the series down under. Rahul Dravid wasn’t called back and Sourav Ganguly was axed.

The last time this happened there was a state wide furor in West Bengal and the matter very surprisingly became a talking point in the national parliament! Not surprising as the representatives of the people do not miss a single opportunity to extract political mileage. Ganguly was indeed going through a long lean patch at that time and hence the exclusion seemed justified then.

The manner in which the Prince of Calcutta fought his way back into the side deserves a huge applause. It is not easy to start all over again, prove yourself at the domestic level and stage a come back. The number of rising young stars added to his problem.

The story has been quite different since then. In the last few ODI series, Ganguly and Sachin have been the main stay of the Indian batting with occasional contributions from Yuvraj and Dhoni.
So, the big question, “How justified is the exclusion this time???”

If one looks dispassionately at the decision, yes he has been making runs with quite a bit of consistency. No taking credit away from him. But we also need to understand the one day game has changed with the advent of youngsters. It has not only become faster but has become more aggressive. No doubt that Ganguly can bat and deliver the goods even now and for quite some time to come, there are other aspects about him which I believe have supported the axe.

He is at best an ordinary fielder. We saw how in the test series, the Australian batsmen would push for the second every time the ball went to Ganguly and Ishant Sharma. This phenomenon will be more pronounced in the shorter format of the game.

One more important factor has been his running between the wickets. He may not make it to the list of the most forgettable runners between the wickets but is at max presentable. This is more prominent when he has younger legs at the other end.

Sehwag has announced his return with a few cameos and has inspired confidence and displayed form and has added to Sourav's worries. He in my opinion is a sure inclusion in the team and Sachin’s opening partner for some time to come.

To sum it up, what happened to VVS a couple of years back, has happened to Rahul and now to Sourav.

This I believe marks of the end of an era that saw India’s most prolific opening pair celebrate cricket.

The only thing I regret is the Colonnel’s press statement indicating that Sourav has at most a year of cricket left in him and he has to look beyond and also the timing of the announcement. It could have been done more tastefully. What we least need at this point is the morale of certain key members go down in a test as crucial as this one. Not only because we have a chance to square the series and then believe that the series result could have been different but for the Sydney mishap but also for the fact that the Aussies are injured lions now and they are very dangerous when like.

An acid "Test" ahead

The Indo Pak test series has concluded with a fairly expected outcome.
Pakistan with its fitness and management problems did not look like a side that could challenge the might of the Indians at home. The sublime form of the Indian run machines only added to their problems.

The Indian performances with the willow were outstanding going purely by the numbers. But on some thought the conditions come to the fore. Slow and low wickets where wickets were seldom earned by the bowler and often lost by the batsman. In my opinion, the Indian batting performed better than the tourists because Indian batsmen just made fewer mistakes. New kids knocking on the doors of the selectors only added to their resolve and to our problem of plenty.
Bottom line…take this performance with a pinch of salt.

When we head south-eastwards soon, everything is going to change. The pitches will have the capacity to assist a side to claim twenty wickets. Will have the bite for the seamers initially and the spinners later.

The Australian’s also have a few reasons to come hard at the Indians. The aggressive treatment they received on their tour here is just one of them. India has for quite some time now fancied their chances at challenging the Australian might and came very close to achieving it during their last tour there.

Injuries are the biggest worry for the Indians this time round. The biggest blow in my opinion is Shreesanth. He does get carried away and has a few attitude issues but if channelized, can be a force to recon with. He has a good out-swinger, decent pace and a temperament that needs to be worked upon. All in all a valuable package.

India needs to find a regular opening partner for Wasim Jaffer. The selectors have this in mind and hence Akash Chopra finds his way into the probables. I believe Sehwag can do a decent job well but I doubt whether he will make it.

The best thing about this side is that most of its playing eleven have toured Australia at least twice earlier and this experience is invaluable.

Should be an exciting series ahead.

After NCA, its the Siri Fort Sports Complex

I attended the nets with Sapient's Gurgaon cricket team for the first time last saturday. The address of the location read, Siri Fort Sports Complex, New Delhi. It didn’t sound very impressive on the first read to be honest.

The ease with which I could find the directions to the place made me think twice. When the car entered the complex, it reminded me one of those posh residential complexes of the government or semi government organizations like RCF, BPCL, etc.

As we drove in, the complex began to grow on me. The first thing you notice as soon as you enter is a sign board at a crossroads with multiple arms, each bearing the name of a sport and pointing in the direction where the facility for it was located.
That was a huge signboard. It listed everything from badminton to cricket and a golf range too.

There was also an indoor stadium which looked pretty modern from the outside.

I asked for the cricket facility. I followed the direction. It was a small lane next to the sports shop, fairly unnoticeable and not at all prominent. As I walked on, after about 15 meters a HUGE cricket field presented itself. It was lush green. I have not seen so much grass cover even at the Wankhede.
The pavilion was not an elaborate structure but a barrack just like soccer, or like the one we see in the Twenty20.

At one corner of the field, way outside the boundary were the practice pitches. The nets were very spacious and well erected. There were turf pitches and matted ones. Four of each kind.

At the nets I surprisingly had a long stint which got my back a bit sore. This was surprising because I was attending their nets for the first time and one usually doesnt get such treatment. I was very lucky.

After the nets I took a small tour of the complex and each facility was top class… the Olympic size swimming pool was extremely inviting. So were the air conditioned wooden badminton courts. The synthetic tennis courts. I can go on and on and on…
I later learnt that this was the site of the 2010 Common wealth games. I was like, no wonder!

I was in awe when I played at the National Cricket academy’s facility at Chinnaswamy Stadium Bangalore. This was as good. A better facility than the NCA but, the NCA is more significant for a cricketer and hence was more special. A different feeling all together.

One similarity though. I wish I would have clicked a snap of myself at these prestigious venues. iIdid'nt at NCA. I didnt click one here as well.

But some things as special stay pretty fresh in the mind for ever. You donot need snaps to keep them alive.
I hope they do...