Gilchrist bats for Oz

Oz universities, that is. Against the backdrop of continued ruckus over a spate of incidents of assault on Indian students in Australia, Adam Gilchrist sends us this press release:

“For the past two years I have been representing the University of Wollongong in Australia as its ambassador with Indian students and alumni as well as helping to promote business investment in the University’s new Innovation Campus Business Park.

“Wollongong is a place that is very multicultural and welcoming to a wide range of international students including Indian students. And I believe Wollongong is representative of Australia’s openness to international students in general,” Gilchrist said.

“I have spent time on the University of Wollongong campus walking around and meeting Indian students – all of them loved studying and living in Wollongong. I believe it’s a great option for international students.”

He highlighted the fact that the University of Wollongong itself had no reported attacks against Indian students and overall this was the situation at most other Australian universities.

“In cricket, Australia and India have enjoyed a long history of great sportsmanship and camaraderie — I personally still love touring India –and I think this reflects the scene overall between India and Australia,” Gilchrist said.

MSD redux

The Indian captain says he has no intention of batting at three throughout the World Cup. Amen!

Spin and other turns

Call it a consequence of growing up watching five great spinners — Bedi, Prasanna, Chandrasekhar and Venkat at the national and state levels, and VV Kumar at the state level: I like spin in its classical form.

Flat, full, quick

The silken approach, the side on action, the high arm, the tantalizing flight and drift of the ball in the air, the sudden descent, the turn as the ball grips the surface, the sight of a batsman with hands and feet and bat and head all in perfect position being made to look silly as the ball lands an inch short of where he expected it to, and turns in a direction and to a degree he did not anticipate — that tantalizing spectacle is something I can used to be able to watch all day, where the sight of a fast bowler sprinting in and slinging them down palls after the first hour or so.

It didn’t matter whether the spinner was left arm or right arm — the mechanics of the craft, and the appeal of the practitioner, all owed to that classicism.

And then there is now.

The other day, I watched Johan Botha bowl. His over, in terms of speed in kmph, went 87/76/89/76/88/75. None of those balls turned, or landed on a different length — the sole variation was the increase and decrease in speed.

Yesterday, I watched Harbhajan Singh bowl. Bajji bowls around the 85k mark, occasionally upping it into the 90s; only rarely does he slow it down and give the ball air. Arre yaar, yeh flight ke peeche kyon pade ho thum log, aasman mein ball phekne mein kaun si badi baath hai?, he asked Faisal Shariff and me once, during a visit to the Rediff office.

Check out the pic to the right: His arm is at full extension and the only place left to go is down; the ball is still in his grip. The release is clearly calculated to send the ball flat, quick through the air, and on close to good length.

Spinner in flight

And then Pragyan Ojha came on [again, check that trajectory immediately after release] — and with him, memories of the classical spinners I grew up on came back to mind. It’s all there — the lazy approach, the high arm, the pivot off the front foot, the revs on the ball, the tantalizing progress down the track at speeds of around 71-75k, a heart large enough to challenge the batsman to come after him, even in a format where it is guaranteed that the batsman will have a go… Such joy! [Ojha evokes nostalgia also in Makarand Waingankar, late of KKR and its talent development arm].

Speaking of joys, here’s Andy Zaltzman. Sample clip:

The only possible conclusion from this is that the Ashes are all but in Andrew Strauss’s back pocket already.

Arguably, I might be reading too much into it. But for those looking for omens of an England victory (in the absence of overwhelming scientific evidence pointing that way), in 2005 the Australians suffered a Twenty20 humiliation, losing to England by 100 runs, and went on to lose the Ashes.

Therefore, an England win is surely written in the stars. Admittedly, there are innumerable stars in the sky, and, if you squint hard enough, you can convince yourself almost anything is written in them.

The only possible conclusion from this is that the Ashes are all but in Andrew Strauss’s back pocket already.

Arguably, I might be reading too much into it. But for those looking for omens of an England victory (in the absence of overwhelming scientific evidence pointing that way), in 2005 the Australians suffered a Twenty20 humiliation, losing to England by 100 runs, and went on to lose the Ashes.

Therefore, an England win is surely written in the stars. Admittedly, there are innumerable stars in the sky, and, if you squint hard enough, you can convince yourself almost anything is written in them.

I’ve been ambivalent about l’affaire Andrew Symonds; Mike Atherton appears to share that ambivalence in his latest column in the Times. His opening gambit:

I am an alcoholic. At least I had to sign a form saying I was. Twice, actually. The first time was when England toured Pakistan during the 1996 World Cup, the second when we went to the same country five years later. To get a drink in the bar at the Pearl Continental in Peshawar (tragically obliterated on Tuesday by a bomb) I had to sign a form admitting to alcoholism. So did everyone else who wanted a drink. A team full of alcoholics. No wonder we were no good.

Reminds me of my friend, journalist turned film maker Mahesh [Mahesh Nair, actually, but like rock stars and suchlike, he preferred to be known just by his first name] who when we were working together for Indian Post once did a brilliant feature on drinking. His premise: He wanted to be able to drink legally — and for that you need an official permit.

His story walked the reader through the incredible bureaucracy and the miles of red tape that needed to be coped with before you actually sit down to fill out the form. And it ended with that image: him sitting down with the form — printed solely in English — and a pen.

The first question on it, he says, was: Sharaabi ka naam:

He swallowed the angst of being a self-admitted sharaabi, and filled in the name. Then came question number two:

Sharaabi ka baap ka naam:

At which point he gave up, figuring he couldn’t foist that reflected taint on his poor sainted father.

The gray area beyond the boundary

The first ball of the 17th over: Ramnaresh Sarwan gets his bat under a tossed up delivery from Ajanta Mendis and smashes it high and hard. At the long on boundary, Angelo Mathews timed a little jump, got both hands to the ball, realized that if he made the catch he would land on the rope or outside it, and tossed the ball high in the air.

Landing on the wrong side of the rope, Mathews waited till the ball was coming down, leapt high, and with a tennis style swat with his right palm, hit the ball back up in the air and across the ropes into the field of play. Recovering, he ran back onto the field, collected the ball and fired in the return as the batsmen completed their third run.

It took an eternity, and more replays than I bothered to count, before the umpires declared that a ‘three’, and not the score recently known as the DLF Maximum.

I didn’t mind the endless replays much — there was much to admire in that moment, most especially the incredible — and sustained — presence of mind that Mathews displayed, first in getting rid of the catch before it was completed, then in going airborne on the wrong side of the line so his feet wouldn’t be touching the ground when he palmed the ball back into play.

An expert panel of Harsha Bhogle, Anil Kumble and Ian Chappell spent considerable time on the incident, and on the question of whether the umpires were justified in calling that a three and not a six. Harsha’s question: What then if the fielder stands outside the ropes, waits for the airborne ball to cross the rope, palms it back over the rope, runs onto the field of play and completes the catch?

Admittedly a gray area — and it is always fun when in a sport some act shines a light on a gray area in even seemingly airtight rules.

I don’t have the answers, but on balance I’m with Anil, who said the key to the Mathews save was that his first contact with the ball was inside the field of play. From that point on, at no time was any part of his body touching the ground outside play when he was in contact with the ball — and so, Anil argued, the umpires’ decision was correct.

Sounds logical to me; what does the hive mind think?

Update: The MCC has confirmed that Mathews’ fielding effort is legal. The bit that floats my boat?:

“The MCC Laws sub-committee had recently discussed fielding such as this and felt that such brilliant and quick-thinking acts should not be outlawed,” Stephenson said. “MCC is happy with the Law as it is written and occurrences such as the one yesterday, while extremely rare, are good for the game of cricket as a whole. It is also pleasing that two of the committee’s members were involved in making the correct decision on the field of play.”

Bhimsen: Episode 50

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After 12 years of deprivation and a year spent in the soiled black robes of a palace cook, it felt good to have maids waking me up in the morning with hot water for my bath and fresh, clean silk robes to change into.

We had been installed in the palace of King Virat, who insisted that till our future course of action was decided, we would remain in Matsya as his guests. I thought it proper to let him know that I had killed Keechaka.

He took the news with surprising calm – in fact, I thought I even detected a sense of relief. “Keechaka was a hedonist, the bane of my life but he was my wife’s brother, there was little I could do,” he told me. “With him in charge, my army has had neither proper training nor a good leader. The men are loyal, and fierce fighters, but they need someone like you to teach them the arts and strategies of war. Now that you no longer need to hide who you are, it will please me if you could take charge of the army.”

We were seated in the king’s main audience chamber, waiting for Krishna, Yudhishtira and the others. The talk, once they took their places, revolved around whether the Kauravas had managed to uncover our identity before the stipulated period of exile was over. Would we need to start the whole twelve plus one cycle all over again?

“Don’t worry,” Krishna assured us. “I did all these calculations even before I left Dwaraka. You started your exile on the eighth day of the Sarvadhari Shravana’s dark phase of the moon,and your 13^th year ended on the 7^th day of the dark phase of the Plava Shravan – the night before the Kauravas attacked Matsya and were defeated by Arjuna.”

I had no idea what he was talking about, and I didn’t care much either. Even if we had been discovered before the end of our stipulated period, there was no way I would willingly accept another cycle of exile. Yudhishtira could talk of dharma all he liked, but I was done hiding and running – here on, it would be war, for revenge and to recover what was rightfully ours. And I knew that if it came to that, Arjuna, and my two youngest brothers would be with me – and that is all I needed anyway.

The court astrologer confirmed that Krishna was right. “Duryodhana can argue that according to the solar calendar, he uncovered your identity one day before the 13^th year ended – but it is the lunar calendar that we follow across the land, and Bhisma and the other acharyas will have done their own calculations, and they will know we are right,” he told the king.

At the king’s behest, Matsya celebrated the return from exile of the Pandavas. Our own celebrations were enhanced by an unexpected marriage proposal – and that was Krishna’s doing.

“King Virat has been a good friend to the Pandavas,” he told the five of us that evening. “We need to bind him to our side, and there is no better way than through marriage. I’ve seen Princess Uttara – she is beautiful, and just the right age to be married.”

Arjuna caught my eye and smiled – I should say smirked. He seemed sure that he was about to add one more to his collection of beauties.

“Uttara will be just right for Abhimanyu,” Krishna said, pretending not to notice Arjuna’s smile. “He will be here soon; I have already sent word to Dwaraka. He has grown into a fine young man – and without exaggeration, I can say that in the arts of war he is more skilled than his father, and both his uncles. You,” he said, addressing Arjuna directly, “were Uttara’s guru; itwould be inappropriate for you to then accept her as your wife.”

Two days later, Drupada and Dhristadyumna arrived from Panchala. Yudhishtira, Krishna, Virat and Drupada immersed themselves in their discussions; Dhristadyumna joined Satyaki and me in working with the Matsya army, teaching them the arts of moving into the various formations, shifting at a signal from one formation to the other, and similar skills they were deficient in.

In these 13 years, Dhristadyumna had grown into the most impressive warrior I have ever seen – in physical stature he was my equal, and in all but hand to hand combat and wrestling, the young man was clearly my superior.

“They are thinking of sending a messenger to the Kauravas, asking that they give you half the kingdom as your share,” Dhristadyumna told us the next morning. “It’s a waste of time – Duryodhana will never give up an inch of the territory he has cheated you out of, but my father thinks this is the right thing to do.”

Yudhishtira too believed that peaceful means had to be tried first. “War is always the last option,” he told us that afternoon, when we met for a meal. “And besides, we have no certainty of victory in a war where the opposing forces are led by Bhisma, Drona and Kripa.”

Draupadi seemed about to say something, but Dhristadyumna beat her to it. “Not going to war is even less of an option,” he told my brother, not bothering to hide his disgust. “Everyone knows how you were treated. Even if you established another kingdom someplace, not one of the kings of this land will respect you if you do not face the Kauravas on the battlefield.

“And as for those gurus – this war will not be won by them,” the Panchala prince said. “This war is our generation’s, and we are the ones who will win it – Bhima and Satyaki and Arjuna and I.”

Yudhishtira did not contest the assertion, but next day an envoy set out for Hastinapura with a message to Dhritarashtra from Drupada. “Messengers will go from here, they will come from there – these things have to be done, so no one can say tomorrow that the Pandavas did not explore all the options,” Drupada told me, taking me aside as I was heading off after the usual morning conclave.

“But that does not mean that your preparations must wait. I have sent a messenger to Panchala; within days, a contingent of our most seasoned troops will be here, and they will help you and my son train the Matsya army.”

Drupada had aged in these last 13 years – but he was still unmistakably regal, his authority unchallenged even by the Yadavas who deferred to him, while King Virat almost seemed a guest in his own palace, content to let Drupada do all the talking and even installing him on a throne placed next to his own.

When the messenger returned, we all gathered in the audience chamber. This was a professional – such men don’t just carry messages, they act it out, infusing their words with all the authority of the sender.

“I went to Hastinapura and was received by King Dhritarashtra in the great hall,” he told us. “This is what I told them, as coming from King Drupada:

“O Dhritarashtra, you know that you and Pandu are sons of the same father; your respective sons merit an equal share in the kingdom. And yet, you and your sons have systematically cheated the Pandavas out of what is rightfully theirs. You fobbed them off with wasteland; when they built a kingdom on it, you cheated them out of it with a crooked game of dice. In their name I ask – no, I demand – that you give the Pandavas their due, if you wish to avoid a conflagration that will consume your tribe.”

Reverting to his normal tone, the messenger said, “As soon as I finished my words, the venerable Bhisma said you were right, and advised Dhritarashtra to offer you half the kingdom. But uproar then broke out; Karna shouted the loudest and with the Kauravas backing him, refused to permit Bhisma to speak. Finally, Dhritarashtra said he would send his reply in a few days; I was given food, and silk robes, and a purse of a hundred gold coins, and told to return.”

It was a week before the messenger from Hastinapura arrived – and it proved to be none other than Sanjaya, Dhritarashtra’s ‘eyes’ and his closest confidante. Virat welcomed him and had his retainers take him to a private chamber so he could rest after his journey. Sanjaya joined us for the evening meal, but it was in the audience chamber the next morning that he officially delivered his message.

“O Drupada,” Sanjaya said, speaking as Dhritarashtra’s voice, in the manner of skilled messengers, “my brother Pandu’s children are my own, and I am happy beyond measure that they have survived their exile and are under your protection, and that of King Virat.

“I have no quarrel with you, Drupada. It is not to you but to my son Yudhishtira – for he is, and he knows he is, my eldest son – that I now speak. He knows that he lost all he had in a game of dice he voluntarily played; he was given the choice to accept defeat and withdraw with all his possessions intact – it was his decision to stake all, and having staked it all and lost it all, he knows no longer has the right to claim any part of it. He is the embodiment of dharma, of all that is right and good, and he will know this better than anyone.

“The forces of Drupada and Virat and Dwaraka and others, led by Bhima and Arjuna and Krishna and Dhristadyumna, can never be defeated. But equally, a war against the forces of Hastinapura and our friends, led by Bhisma and Drona and Kripa and Karna and my second son Duryodhana will be disastrous for anyone who dares oppose them.

“My son Yudhishtira, I ask that you be patient, that you be tolerant, that you adhere to the principles of dharma that you have held dear all your life. I ask, my son, that you do nothing that will pave the way for the destruction of our tribe.”

That was the message Sanjaya delivered in a ringing voice that reverberated around the audience hall – and at the end of it all, I had no idea what our situation was. Had Dhritarashtra accepted our demand for half the kingdom, or no? Was he counseling patience while he worked out the details?

“The message is simple enough,” Dhristadyumna, seated beside me, said. “The old king is completely in the control of Duryodhana and his evil genius, Karna. They have no intention of giving you anything, of giving up anything they tricked you out of. Didn’t you hear – Sanjaya said, in Dhritarashtra’s words, that the Pandavas lost in a fair game and now have no right to claim anything.”

Affecting the courtly manners he could assume at will, Yudhishtira thanked Sanjaya for his message and asked about the wellbeing of the king, and valiyamma Gandhari and our cousins. “We will discuss your message, and give you our answer tomorrow,” Yudhishtira told Sanjaya, signaling to a retainer to guide him to his quarters.

A tinkle of anklets distracted me. I turned around, and saw that Draupadi had slipped into the audience chamber through a side door. She must have heard all that had transpired. Catching my eye, she looked at me long and hard, then abruptly turned and walked away.

I was not conscious of having come to my feet. “There is no need to wait,” I heard my voice say. “We have nothing to discuss, our answer is simply this: Prepare for war, we come to claim what is ours by right, and to be avenged for all the wrongs that have been done to us.”

Sanjaya stopped in his tracks; the hall fell silent. I felt the heat of Yudishtira’s stare, and I knew my brother would be angry. I had breached protocol; I had given an answer that was not mine to give, but his.

For once, I did not care for protocol, for my brother’s anger, or even for what Drupada, Virat and Krishna thought of me. I had given my answer – and as far as I was concerned, it was final.

It would be war – and even the gods wouldn’t be able to keep our cousins safe from me.

Number three

When MS Dhoni comes in at three or four in ODIs he serves a purpose in context of the nature of the game, especially since he took over the captaincy and eschewed the whirlwind style of his early days. 50 over games are very rarely about hitting every ball you possibly can to the fence or beyond; strokemakers need someone with a cool head and an eye on the overall position to guide them at one end.

I am not so sure the same ploy works in T20s, though. Dhoni has batted at three just twice if memory serves; on both occasions, his tenure at the crease has coincided with a slowing down of the run rate that could potentially have been fatal.

It is not just about how Dhoni bats — openers by and large tend to check that first careless rapture of strokeplay once the power plays are done, and look to take singles and build on that early start. Dhoni at three, thus, gives India two batsmen looking to rotate strike or, in context of the T20 format, no batsman looking to keep the tempo up.

The greater length of an ODI requires that there be a judicious mix of aggression and cautious anchoring; in T20s, a batsman looking mostly to work singles around can end up using overs that are better employed by the regular strokemakers.

Dhoni at three works even less in a lineup where you have the likes of Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina and Yusuf Pathan sitting in the hut. All are incandescent strokeplayers; all of them could use extended time in the middle. As it happens, though, the likes of Yuvraj [who bailed India out in its first game of the World Cup with some feverish late order hitting] and Raina [who has been in electric form at three and four in the IPL] are now forced to come in towards the end of the innings, with no option but to swipe at everything in a bid to get the run rate back on track.

I’d far rather see Raina in at three and Yuvraj at four, while Dhoni bats at five or six depending on whether there is a need for caution — in which case he comes in — or berserk aggression — in which case he sends Yusuf out, saving himself to bat with the lower order in the unlikely event there is a mass collapse.

Unlike South Africa during the IPL, England has thus far proved conducive to big scores, and there seems no likelihood that this will change going into the Super Eights. A batting strategy that optimizes the array of freeflowing batsmen in the side looks the best option, at least IMHO.

Equally, I am not personally convinced about this new ploy of opening with Irfan Pathan and bowling Ishant in the middle overs. Irfan has shown glimpses of his ability to swing the ball away or straighten them back in — but they have been just glimpses, and in between those ‘look I still have the knack’ deliveries, his reduced pace and penchant for occasionally pitching short means opposing batsmen looking to maximize the powerplays are faced with a bowler they can take liberties against.

The tactic seems to be, open with Irfan and if he gets creamed, get Ishant to do damage control. The thing though is, Irfan is more likely than not to get creamed, especially as the competition heats up in the Eights and India faces teams packed with big-hitting openers. A far more sensible ploy seems, IMHO, to bring back the opening combination of Ishant and Zaheer, who have over time developed a knack of bowling well as a unit, with Irfan being held back to use the softer ball outside of the PPs.

One noticeable aspect of yesterday’s game is that Zak is  back — in more ways than one. His rhythm is good again; he has been able to bend the ball both ways seemingly at will, and the ball with which he took out Jeremy Bray shows that his thinking cap is firmly back on his head. In his first over, he pitched one up to Bray on off; spotted an intent to charge and swung one away outside off and away from the batsman’s reach; pitched another on length and cut it back in off the seam — and then swung a touch wide on the crease to get the angle in to off, increased his length by just that fraction, and used angle, marginal inward movement off the seam and a yard of extra pace to go through Bray’s defences and make a mess of the stumps.

It is when he is feeling good about himself that Zak works on batsmen, bowling a succession of deliveries as part of a plan with a predetermined outcome. It is also when he is feeling confident that he takes over from MSD the job of handling his fellow seamers — and that too was in evidence yesterday, as he took up station at mid on and talked Irfan and Ishant through their overs.

For Zak, who opted out of the first edition of the World Cup, to get into that zone just as the competition enters a key phase is likely the best news for the team, the ideal make-weight to the loss of Viru Sehwag.

Outside of this, yesterday’s game was a dud, with nothing much to recommend it outside of the jingoistic pleasure of watching India play — so enough of that. In passing, here’s Zak on his comeback.