soft?

Its amazing, the kind of things that capture the public imagination. Who would have thought some extremely dull sounding sweets for children would become the crux, the symbol and the persistent undercurrent of a Test match, and indeed a series? I mean, they were jelly beans for chrissake. They did not win one team the match nor lose it for the other. The irritated and upset one bowler, but they were not pivotal. And they were definitely not insulting. Heck, not even too much in bad taste- at least one can assume that considering how many the England players were consuming.
The evidence of this match makes it a bad blooded series? Come on! There’s been far worse, and far dirtier stuff. One sane voice I have read is, surprisingly, from Mr Bell.

And while Sreesanth has disgraced himself in more ways than one, a call to ban him on the evidence of the beamer is really a bit much. Athers can be quite insightful, but also sometimes a bit stuffy. In this case, I think- without putting too fine a point on it- you can really stuff it. How do you call for all bowlers to be banned after sending down beamers – “whether intentional or not” ? Whats with all the molly coddling players these days? They can hear anything remotely nasty, can take sweets lying on the pitch without getting upset, get shaken by a beamer? I admit it was one heck of a nasty delivery, but take a look at Viv Richards and Sunny Gavaskar playing the bowlers they did with a cap on, and taker a moment to go on about this.

ps- its been 3.5 months here. sheesh.

more lessons on fandom

Anyone saw this banner at the ground yesterday, held by one of those cherishing, and much cherished; lovable, and loving fans of the Indian team?

"Last warning to Team India: Reach Barbados or stay forever in Trinidad."

Who are you, and who are you to issue a 'warning', and why should you, with such a mature viewpoint, even matter? But that's just me, and I don't matter either- I'm just another insignificant fan. Might I make a teeny weeny request though? Could said invaluable 'supporter' kindly find his abode in some obscure part of the world, thank you. Much obliged.

the past, England and some pointlessness

I am all for people expressing their opinions freely.

Yet my first reaction after reading Dileep Premachandran’s latest, was one of disappointment. I always look forward to his pieces, more so the non-reporting kind- opinion pieces or features. This one just left me flat, asking no one in particular- “er, what exactly was the point of this?”.

Sure, there was some reminiscing- which can be pleasing- and lots of honesty, which is welcome. But really, it said little to me besides suggesting that Dileep is holding on to his dislike for the England team and English cricketers for all the wrong reasons. One foot stuck in the past, clinging on to the monotony of Aussie dominance for support, in a time when both that past and the monotony are unwanted.

See, the thing is this- I actually get this concept of ‘anyone but England’. I felt it for years as well, but because of the colonial hangover- not in me but what I saw reflected in some English cricketers. And mostly because they were a boring team, with little charisma for someone who was just finding the joys of cricket and passion in it. Or so I saw it.
But I don’t cling on to it, because I would like to believe I have let this current team start to show me that good, hard, fun cricket overrides any childhood prejudices or perceptions. I don’t cling on to it just because its there.

And oh, I don’t think he’s being racist, not at all. But the point is valid- how would he, or any Indian, react to a similar article from an Englishman? I am, unfortunately, sure there will be defensive reactions, claiming racist bias. So ok, maybe he won’t react thus, and that's fair enough- he needn’t molly-coddle his readers.

I just believe there could have been something in the piece, though, that left us feeling he had moved on a bit, and appreciated the beginning of change in the current bunch- not just on the field, but off it. That he doesn’t seem to acknowledge this at all is what leaves me feeling incomplete; this feeling of having read something uni-dimensional. This is Dileep Premachandran, after all- I really like his writing.

And for the record, I am not now a rabid England supporter, but if they play good cricket and look like they’re enjoying the game and what it has to offer, all it has to offer, I might like them more.

cross posted on Desicritics

understanding and obstructing

So the YogiBear says he can’t say much because he is bound by ICC regulations. He then promptly proceeds to say as much as he could on his dismissal yesterday, and the ‘larger picture’ which he believes it is part of.

I am not even sure whether I should go into this right now, but by writing that article (or crediting it with his name), Inzamam has done the very thing he claims to have advised his boys to not- make an issue of his dismissal. More so because he seems to be bothered as much with his dismissal per se, as with his belief that the Indians have acted in a spirit that does not belonging to the great gentleman’s game.

One gets the impression that his outburst (for this is what it must classify as) is borne more of frustration- after Faisalabad and Peshawar, he seems to be at a loss at understanding the laws of the game he plays. Sorry, Inzy, that’s nobody’s fault but yours. As is the fact that yesterday, you were strolling a couple of feet out of crease when the ball was still in play. Add to that your words questioning the sense of fair play in the opposing captain and his boys, and you’ve just made a hat-trick of goofups in the space of a day.

the past

Reading about cricket seems always to be just round the corner for me. It is not for lack of interest, for I still think of myself as a cricket…well fan. Of the game, then of a team and players. Yet, I would also instinctively not call myself a cricketing illiterate by any stretch, though a fountain of information on it would be a bit much too.
I suppose, if one’s fingers are in pies (such as this blog) that are directly connected to cricket, it also makes sense for one to keep up to date with not only the present but some measure of the past.

How relevant this is for someone who skills lie on the field of play, is quite another thing. We can’t seriously expect a cricketer to be well versed with history, or at least not believe that it is required of him. I must say I was a bit staggered as well with Sehwag’s response. I even ventured to believe that “"No. I don't know anything about them. I haven't heard about them”, could merely mean he wasn’t thinking about Roy and Mankad vis-a vis the partnership he was involved in, but who am I kidding. Harsha Bhogle, for one, believes being scandalised loses out to pragmatism.

I suppose the fact that a leading cricketer is not even aware of a couple of the early heroes of the game in his country could be construed as shameless disregard for heritage. From an Aussie player, for one, I would be truly shocked to see such ignorance. In India though. I think a player’s background plays a huge role. We would expect a Dravid to be well versed with his cricket history- he is, for sure, inspired by it. But a typical Indian team is made up of such a motley bunch- the cultural background, the education, they way they are brought up… all point to unpredictable off-the field profiles of Indian cricketers.

Atherton’s absorbing piece on not bunking history draws this out:

It won't make him a better player, but it gives him a link with both the past and the future; it provides some context and some meaning, so that, long after the bones have stiffened and the eyes have gone, it still matters. He is simply one link in the chain.

I think another part of his piece mixes up the issue though. The tradition of a player number being stitched on to shirts and caps might not be widespread in the cricketing world, but is one that mostly draws approving nods. A sense of history, is what we say it provides. In saying the very England players who displayed a scant knowledge of their cricketing history are the ones who instigated this tradition, he figures that:

By instigating such a custom, today's players show a surreptitious interest in what went before them and, by inference, what will come after them.

For me, this is different from learning about your cricketing past to give context to your present. A player number is just that. It probably gives a sense of existence; a feeling that you are part of a honour-roll of a select few that have represented the country; more a sense of self than an awareness of context; you are a link in the chain, but with an identity.

But that’s just me. If you ask Sehwag about 239, he’ll probably just say it’s a low score for him.

> Vaneisa Baksh, to finish off her longish piece inspired by Lagaan, points young people in the game toward cricket literature. (hat tip: ryan)

Of inevitability and power

Sometime in the near future, you can expect to see a stodgy but articulate chap standing on one leg, hands firmly grasped around a mouldy pillar, its base creaking in crumbling mud. That chap would be ol’ Athers, and the pillar he’ll be so dearly clinging onto will be an illusion borne of an archaic impression of the world order.

At best sharp, precise and handy with his laptop; at worst Michael Atherton has shown glimpses of a perspective still mired in a word I myself am loathe to use- a colonial attitude. If he has his way, we will all be standing with him in that very quagmire. Except, as he himself points out, a lot of the people in the cricketing world are not from that order, and do not believe- indeed, have no reason to- in the need for a continuance of status quo.
It seems pretty obvious to most but the likes of him, that there is no justification for the home seasons, or itineraries, of England and Australia to be sacrosanct, and those of the others pliable accordingly. Nor is there any reason for those with the financial clout to let those without it run the game as they wish.

Yet, for me, this is not about Michael Atherton, nor his diatribe against the BCCI, nor his new-found passion for the ICC. At the end of it all, it calls for little surprise, that the one member that effectively funds this sport, is the one who will call most of the shots. It may not be the best setup, but it is the most inevitable in a sport that is as much about bat and ball as about banks and balance sheets. Romanticism about a sport that uplifts and impassions first and earns people money later, is exactly that- a rose-tinted view that I would be the first to enjoy, but one none of us can realistically expect the world to live by.

What pinches in all of this- in fact, has pinched since well before the doughty former England opener stirred up sub continental indignation- is the way the inevitability of today’s cricket world seems to panning out. The alacrity with which the new BCCI regime has fast-tracked it’s new ideas smacks less of the desire to right any perceived wrongs, and more of a frenzied wish to rake in as much as they can while the cherry is still red. Worse, it reeks of a selfishness that is, if not unexpected, particularly distasteful in its intensity. It would have made sense- for themselves more than anyone else- if the BCCI had, for once, delved into their musty tact-store and used some of that precious commodity. With their obvious economic strength in the game comes the requirement for grounded feet and, dare I say, even some good-heartedness. That they project neither is a sad, disheartening and unnerving truth.
Perhaps they missed out on the Spiderman phenomenon, or they might have listened to old Uncle Parker’s advice. You know- that bit about great power and responsibility…

Meanwhile, Athers would do well to cling on not to that pillar of cricket he is rooting for, but rather to the lip-smacking prospect of new traditions being created, and co-existing with the old ones.

tony-shony

I know I am probably being petty, but isn't there something incongruous in Tony Greig waxing eloquent here. And did the report have to be titled 'Tony Greig sees the future in black and white'? And And I might as well go the whole hog and be unecessarily hyper:

I always took it as a bit of a compliment to cop it from the crowd out here, but
we always went down the light-hearted course. There were no racist overtones

And how would you know, Tony? Racists overtones to a team full of white people? I don't think so.

preparation

Am I wrong, or is this pretty un-Australian? It definitely is not like the Australia I have known/seen for a few years now. What sense could it make for Ponting to defend his captaincy prematurely, even if it could be practise for a week later? It smacks of insecurity to me. Like last week’s issue, this is not about whether he is to blame or not. It is about why he is talking about it to begin with.

And this one seems really garbled to me:

"I said as early as the second Test I probably wasn't as sharp at changing
momentum at different times and being as defensive when I needed to be,"Ponting
said. "You go in on what you think is right at the time. I'm not a great one at
looking back and analysing previous Test matches or previous innings and picking
out what I've done well or what I haven't done well because I actually feel I'm
doing the right things at the right times in the game."

So he says that
a. he knows at one point he wasn’t decisive enough with the field changes.
b. yet he will not look back at tests and analyse what he’s done because he believes he is doing all the things that matter, at the times they are needed.

In other words, he says he is the first to acknowledge he wasn’t sharp enough, but actually he has done everything right, so no looking back required here.

Um…what, again?

Waugh-dada

There is a new section on ESPN’s Sportcenter India called Simson’s corner featuring some (cricket expert)called Charlie Simson. After his analysis of Day 2, he went on to make a big statement. He praised Ganguly’s batting and proposed that he could well be India’s Steve Waugh. Now hang on a minute. It may not be as bizarre as it sounds, nor as true as we would like it to be. In terms of leadership I believe Ganguly’s contribution and place in Indian cricket is exceptional. He has been outstanding in moulding young skills with attitude and heart, and has given the team his backing at all times. There is a confidence and aggression he has brought to the side that was severely lacking and almost unheard of in Indian cricket. In batting skill, though, he is nowhere near Tugga the great. Steve Waugh was the man who you would choose to “bat for your life”. Notwithstanding the fighting abilities that Sauravda has recently displayed (Brisbane, Sri Lanka, England), he is not on the same plane when it comes to sheer obduracy and reliability.