My dear Neo Sports

I must congratulate you on achieving the seemingly impossible: you have managed to make me watch cricket on Doordarshan.

Not because the national broadcaster has suddenly transformed into something rich and strange – not a chance. The images still look like they came out wrong in the color wash, and the Hindi commentators continue to provide spontaneous, if largely unintentional, amusement.

I discovered Doordarshan largely by accident. At some point during Sunday’s ODI at Guwahati, I went to get a cup of tea and came back to find an ad break that stretched interminably. I wondered why: Had drinks been called for? Or did a wicket fall? Was the batsman fiddling with the sightscreen?

I didn’t have a clue. My restless fingers accidentally hit the ‘guide’ button on the remote, and right up top on the list I saw that DD was showing the game. I hopped over – and found that a new batsman was taking strike. So I was right. A wicket had fallen; there were some replays to show where the ball had pitched and where Hawkeye thought it would hit; a new batsman had walked in – and you did not in your wisdom think I’d be remotely interested in any of these things.

Instead, when a ball from Bollinger hit MS Dhoni on the pad, you waited only long enough to see the umpire begin to raise his hand, and you promptly switched to an ad the tag line of which was ‘Dhak Dhak Go!’. Don’t get me wrong – I am truly appreciative of the sense of humor implicit in that choice of advertisement.

But India was on the skids at the time; Dhoni seemed to be digging in to try and author a turnaround and I really wanted to see if that was a fair decision, whether the wicket had fallen because of the bowler’s skill, the batsman’s inability, or the umpire’s idiocy. Instead, I learnt that some form of automobile lubricant is now available in a 90 ml packing and that it costs Shah Rukh Khan only Rs 7 per sachet to keep his good looks.

At that point I switched to DD, and learnt that the ball had landed within the stumps, but was going straight on, which meant that it was possibly missing off stump, which meant that Dhoni’s attempt at revival had been cut short by the umpire.

All of this may not be as important as the fact that lubricants come in 90 ml packages and some brand of skin bleach now costs only seven bucks a go – but what to say, there is no accounting for tastes, and mine run to the cricket, not to being fair and handsome [No point, no, when you reach an age where chance-met lovelies call you ‘uncle’?].

Don’t get me wrong – I know why you have to be quick on the trigger; I appreciate why you squeeze advertisements in at any and all moments when ball and bat are not in close proximity. After all, if you pay Rs 2400 crore to the BCCI, the only way you are going to make it back is by selling as many ad spots as you possibly can, and then cutting every conceivable corner to rack up the play count.

I had hoped that things would change once your four-year contract ended, but I see that you have this cozy deal with the BCCI whereby you have the option of renewing your contract without going through the tedious formalities of a competitive tender.

But see, all that is your problem. Mine is that I want to see as much of the cricket as I possibly can.

Adios.

Sachin redux

During the first four games of the India-Australia one day series, there were murmurs both here and elsewhere relating to Sachin’s game, his form, and his continued existence. Then 175 happened — and the pendulum, not for the first time in Sachin’s storied career, swung to the other extreme.

It is against this backdrop that I find some at least of the comments on my Sachin post, The God of Big Things, mildly amusing — comments that suggest this blog is not worth following any more being among the milder ones, while others suggest I am guilty of ‘criminal journalism’, which is worse than the yellow variety. [On this, I'll just say that I appreciate those who have attempted to argue their case with facts and figures; not so much, those who believe the best response to something they don't like is ad hominem attacks and random name calling].

The irony is that had I written that piece after the fourth game, the reactions would not have been so extreme — and that supports my thesis that our worldview in this instance is etched in black and white, with no shadings of gray, no room for nuance.

What mystifies me is the tendency to see that piece not as an attempt to parse a player’s current form, batting mindset and best-use case but as an unprincipled attack on an icon.

Some years ago, columnist and friend Arvind Lavakare felt impelled to write the definitive anti-Tendulkar article. I responded.

Reading that response now, I believe every word I wrote then was true. Then. Just as whatever I wrote the other day is true — or, since ‘true’ is perhaps not the right word in situations that admit of no one single truth — it is a true representation of what I think, now. When writing, there’s two possible ways I can go: either play to the gallery, or write what I truly feel, think. All things considered, I think I’ll stick with the latter.

Three articles written in the wake of Sachin’s 175 should serve, for those who need it, as antidote to my ‘criminality’. The first is by my friend Soumya Bhattacharya of the Hindustan Times. In passing Soumya, who wrote arguably the first ‘fanboy’ book on Indian cricket, is on the verge of publishing his second book on a game he loves with a passion — as I have these past months discovered over several impassioned discussions when we meet below the office building we both share for a smoke and tea.

In his HT oped Saturday, Soumya says:

It all happened so swiftly, and with such unabated fury, that it seemed as though we were watching the highlights of an innings rather than the innings itself in real time. It was giddying; it was delirium-inducing.

In a way, though, we were watching the highlights. We were watching the highlights of what Tendulkar has offered us over the past two decades. Remember Sharjah? Remember Centurion? Remember Perth? It was like a photo album — as much homage as delighted remembrance.

We crib too much about not winning, about letting a victory slip, but we seem to lose sight of the fact that two decades ago, when Tendulkar began his career, we were rather too used to losing. Winning was more of an aberration.

…

In the end, however heartbreaking, it was appropriate that India lost. Because it allows some of us, after all this, to wonder. Thirty-two of Tendulkar’s 45 ODI hundreds have led to India winning. Why, oh, why, could this not be the 33rd? Why did he leave the last three batsmen to get 19 runs off 17 balls? He does so much, but will anything he ever does be enough for us?

If Tendulkar knows the answer, he won’t tell. But for cricket fans shambling towards middle age, he represents a tricky paradox. He was the first hero I had who was younger than I was. With the unfettered, nerveless boldness of his batting, he made us revisit and redefine our notion of hero worship. Now, 20 years on, Tendulkar is caught in a trap of his own making. We still want him to be like the boy we grew so devoted to. And when he can’t be (because things have changed, and he, with them) we grow wistful and nostalgic. Stuck in a moment, as Bono said, and you can’t get out of it.

Against the backdrop of an imminent anniversary in Sachin’s career, Peter Roebuck writes a fanboy’s tribute. Of the many quotable bits, this perhaps best describes the game that has contributed to Sachin’s longevity:

In part he has lasted so long because there has been so little inner strain. It’s hard to think of a player remotely comparable who has spent so little energy conquering himself. Throughout he has been able to concentrate on overcoming his opponents.

But it has not only been about runs. Along the way Tendulkar has provided an unsurpassed blend of the sublime and the precise. In him, the technical and the natural sit side by side, friends not enemies, allies deep in conversation.

Ian Chappell writes against the backdrop of another kind of ‘anniversary’. When the history of our times is written, ‘Desert Storm’ will refer to the First Gulf War August 1990-January/February 1991. In the minds of Indians, however, ‘Desert Storm’ is inextricably linked with memories of this game [and this sequel].

Chappell reviews the 175 against that backdrop. As with Roebuck’s piece, much is worth quoting; I’ll use just one clip as sampler:

In recent times Tendulkar’s batting has gained a mortal quality. He often has to battle and graft for runs, like a 40-average batsman. The fact that even in that mode he still churns out centuries, like a press printing 10-rupee notes, is a testament to his greatness. However, occasionally all the magic returns and on that day he can light up a cricket ground, the way he did in Hyderabad. The cover drive flows, the flick off the pads races to the boundary and the short-of-a-length delivery is punched off the back foot, while fieldsmen are left grasping at fresh air.

In batting maturity Tendulkar resorts to more deft deflections and little glides to third man but they are as much about resting tiring muscles at the non-striker’s end as any concession to the bowlers’ ability. He’s also moved with the times and is now more likely to upper-cut a short-pitched delivery rather than employ the hook shot. He even indulges in the premeditated shovel shot over the short fine-leg fielder’s head. It was one of those that ended his epic innings in Hyderabad, just short of him achieving deity and a thrilling Indian victory.

 

Done and dusted

There seems little enough to say about a series in which India, buzzing with the recently discovered ambition of topping the one day table, lost to an Australia missing an entire eleven. Ricky Ponting wasn’t exaggerating — well okay, maybe just a little bit — when he said the series win ranks among the really special moments he has been part of. The money quote:

“India is a hard place to come and win and this victory means a lot, especially when you haven’t got all your players to pick from. It makes it even harder when players are getting off planes and turning up and playing. No one’s shirking and no one’s whining, we have just got on with it and tried to do the best that we could.”

If the Australian effort in this series classically defines ‘collective effort’, the Indian performance has been the reverse. And again, MS Dhoni nails the problem:

“We haven’t backed the opportunities that we have got. A majority of the batsmen haven’t contributed at the same time,” Dhoni said. “In the games where our top order didn’t perform, our middle order also didn’t bat well. In the end we have lost the series. We have done well in patches in this series but we haven’t grabbed the opportunities.”

Bingo. There have been some individual performances of note and, from Sachin Tendulkar, one for the ages. But through this series, the team has consistently failed to perform as a unit. If Australia proved to be greater than the sum of its parts, India got its arithmetic wrong and somehow managed, in most games, to be less.

There’s one more game to go before Australia leaves and India turns its attention to a Sri Lankan team seeking to conquer its ‘Final Frontier’ [now where have we heard that before?]. Post mortems [including here] will likely proliferate after the final game of the series; so also calls for the head of this, that or the other player.

The problem for India’s captain and the team management, I suspect, lie elsewhere. A year and a half ago, the Dhoni-led team had one of its finest moments, when it defeated Australia 3-2. Australia then had Gilchrist and Hayden at the top, followed by Ponting, Clarke, Symonds and Hussey; and Lee, Johnson, Bracken and Stuart Clark leading the bowling. The batting lineup India fielded then read Sehwag, Tendulkar, Gambhir, Yuvraj, Rohit Sharma and MS Dhoni. Raina for Rohit is the only change, and that argues a remarkably settled team.

That team won games it wasn’t supposed to; this one has lost at least two games it should have won. And that is the question the team management will have to find answers for, right quick: If the personnel has remained largely unaltered, what then has changed? On that tour and indeed for the most part of Dhoni’s captaincy, we celebrated the new-found ‘team ethos’ — so what caused an erosion of that quality?

It is this question I’d love to see answered, when the post mortem reports are filed at the end of this series. While waiting for those, appreciate your thoughts.

The god of large things

I intended, once the personal rush had subsided, to come back here and do a piece on thoughts during, and in the wake of, Sachin Tendulkar’s solo show yesterday.

I ended up having to write a full-fledged piece for India Abroad, the paper I help edit and produce, and for Rediff.com [text version here].

Read also, a Dileep Premachandran piece that predates that knock; this one appeared in Mint yesterday morning.

Perhaps we in India can’t really fathom the full extent of the adoration and expectation that he has had to deal with in that time. Matthew Hayden, another batting colossus of our age, gave voice to what many outsiders feel when he wrote: “His life seems to be a stillness in a frantic world and I admire his mental strength. When Tendulkar goes out to bat, it’s beyond chaos—it is a frantic appeal by a nation to one man.”

Over and, for the week, out — will be back here Monday, and for Sunday’s game, occasionally on Twitter.

Last men standing

Australia have no business being 2-2 in this series. Seven first-choice men out, followed by two of their replacements (Moises Henriques being the latest).

That pretty much sums up today’s game  — and the problem for India not just in this game, but through this series.

The team has taken pride in the knowledge that it has been the only international outfit to consistently push Australia to the limit and beyond, in Tests and ODIs, during Australia’s period of unquestioned hegemony. On the back of that record, and given Australia’s problems fielding eleven fit men, this series should have been lopsided — a 4-0 result heading into the fifth game. And yet, India finds itself even stevens, mostly through its own faults: in the first game, the team was a boundary hit from winning; in the fourth, it bowled and fielded above par to restrict Australia to 249, went into the chase with a 50 balls-to-runs differential in its favor, saw Sehwag rewrite that equation to a 61 differential, and still contrived to lose. All this, despite Australia fielding what started as a second string team and, by now, has become an exercise in stretching the notion of ‘bench strength’ to the limit.

If India wins, it will have only done what is expected of a team aspiring for top of the table status against an opposition cruelly hit by injury; if India loses — and that too at home — against this opposition, its pretensions to supremacy will be badly exposed.

It would be an amazing effort to win, says Ponting in classic understatement; elsewhere in his comments is the clue to Australia’s hopes.

“And we haven’t played our best. With our batting we probably left 30-40 runs out there the other night so, hopefully, that all clicks tomorrow, and if it does we know we’ll be well in the contest again.”

Given the ragtag nature of its bowling attack, it is with the bat that Australia has to win against an Indian attack that started the series shaky, but has grown progressively more assured with each game. If batting is Australia’s strength, it is proving equally to be India’s weakness: both its losses were attributable to poor negotiation of the chase.

With Gautam Gambhir likely to come back into the playing eleven, India solves one of its problems. Virat Kohli is talented and has done well at the sub-international level, but looks less than the finished article at the highest grade [and this against an attack that is under strength]. Part of the blame rests on the team management’s decision to bat him at number three — to take a raw youngster and ask him to occupy the slot, and fulfill the role, a Ricky Ponting performs for Australia is clearly preposterous; even more so when you have a Suresh Raina, who has been groomed for the number three role, batting at six.

My argument for why Sachin needs to bat at three has been made earlier and nothing I’ve seen since causes me to change that opinion. IMHO, India needs to go in with Sehwag, Gambhir, Sachin and Yuvraj in that order, with Dhoni and Raina picking positions five or six depending on the state of the game.

The management’s signals to Ravindra Jadeja are equally mixed. From a batsman who can bowl a few tight overs, he appears to have been reduced to a bowler from whom ten overs, and a couple of wickets, are expected; where batting goes, he seems to be viewed as somewhere between Harbhajan Singh above him, and Praveen Kumar below. That’s a travesty — if in fact Jadeja has been picked for his bowling and the management believes his batting is incidental, the team might as well go the whole hog and pick a real bowler in Amit Mishra.

The other change India will have to make, IMHO, is in its concept of the chase: it will need to move beyond its mindset of gentle progress in the middle overs and learn to run from the front — more so as a depleted bowling attack is especially vulnerable during that middle phase.

Personally, the only point of interest in today’s game is to see how the team processes whatever it has learnt from the first four games, and how it fine-tunes its game. The result is largely inconsequential: if India wins, it is no more than the situation warrants; if it loses against a second string Australian team, then all this talk of team composition and strategy is moot anyway.

PS: Aakash Chopra’s piece is on bowling well in T20s — but most of it is equally applicable to the 50-over format.

Madness, method

Matches are being won and lost; old names and new have begun jostling for attention in the domestic season; Australia continues its bid to create an Injured XI that can challenge its Remaining XI for world champion status; Ireland wants to add to the numbers at the top of the ICC table  — in other words, a quiet day at the cricket.

Likewise on this blog — yesterday was more blogging than I wanted to handle; today is after this post a no-blog day. Need the mental space to make sense out of a few things; see you back here tomorrow.

In passing, an Aakash Chopra article for your consideration: on the mechanics of playing T20.