…is that there will be little or no updates. Planning to procure a crate of beer, head over to the house just leased, and spend the next two days unpacking, putting stuff away, and converting four walls and a door into a home. You guys be good — see you back here Monday.
Tom Moody has no problems with Yuvraj. He wants Yuvraj’s batting to come to the fore. The team wants Yuvraj to concentrate on his batting. The management at Kings XI wants Yuvraj to, well, step aside.
Long story short, Yuvraj is no longer captain of Kings XI; Kumar Sangakkara will play that role in the third edition of IPL.
In other words, the Kings XI management has made de jure what was hitherto de facto — it is no secret that throughout the second edition, Sangakkara acted as captain, with ex officio help from Mahela Jayawardene, while Yuvraj Singh chewed gum in the outfield.
Not all that long ago, Yuvraj was being spoken of as a potential to wear the captain’s armband at the national level. Sic transit gloria, and all that.
Not that I’ve settled down sufficiently, yet, to find too much time for quality browsing, but still…
Two must read articles on writing: the first by William Zinser, is the transcript of a talk he gave to incoming international students at Columbia University. For those new to the name, Zinser is a one time feature writer who took to teaching the art and craft of journalism, and whose book On Writing Well is a must-have on the bookshelf of any journo, or indeed anyone who wants to write with clarity and precision.
The second, which I discovered via @zigzackly through @amitvarma on Twitter, s this piece in The Atlantic on the art of writing short.
Amit also generously provides the wtf news of this or any other day this week: A Bhopal politician has ‘warned’ shopkeepers in his fiefdom against the display of lingerie in their shop windows. Mannequins, he mandates, must be demurely clad in saris at all times.
If the customer wants underthings, it is presumably okay to raise the sari –discreetly, and with a chaperone present — to display those wares. Seriously, when did we convert our political system into an assembly line for the manufacture of idiots? More to the point, what impression does this politico have of those who elected him, that he believes such a ukase is necessary?
After some deserved strictures on how India went about its business in the recent triangular ODI series, Harsha Bhogle spends some time mining the batting riches being thrown up in recent times.
Every time I see Manish Pandey, I see another dimension to him. Opening in the IPL, playing solidly in the middle order in the Ranji Trophy, and at all times being brilliant in the field. I am going to enjoy the next few years watching Kohli, Raina, Sharma, Pandey and Cheteshwar Pujara. Throw into that list Murali Vijay, Ajinkya Rahane and Shikhar Dhawan and, if you like to see good batting, you have reason to smile.
In fact, while on this topic, how about this A side to tour South Africa, Australia and, in a few months, England. Vijay, Rahane, Sharma, Kohli, Pujara, Pandey, Wriddhiman Saha, Mithun, Ashok Dinda, Sudeep Tyagi, Iqbal Abdulla, Piyush Chawla, Aushik Srinivas, and Irfan Pathan as captain. In fact, many years ago we used to have an Indian Colts team led by a certain senior player; it would be beautiful for these young men if Rahul Dravid could be persuaded to lead this team once in a while, for they can have no better teacher in the modern game than him.
The idea of bringing all these talents into an A team, and scheduling tours to the top nations, is perfectly timed [and for the nth time, I find myself wondering why such ideas seem to occur to the likes of Harsha, but never, ever, to the honchos 'running' Indian cricket].
A major problem for the youngsters is lack of opportunities at the highest level. This is when they are fizzing with talent, self-confidence, and the fearlessness of the young. It is also the time when they look around and realize they have very few, if any, opportunities to break into the topmost tier.
Sehwag and Gambhir at numbers 1 and 2; Rahul Dravid at 3, Sachin at 4, VVS at 5 and MS Dhoni at 6 currently command the batting slots at the Test level — and if you are a talented youngster looking to make a case for yourself, you find the jury has returned its verdict even before you’ve had a chance to speak: SRT, RD and VVS will, you realize, be around for a while yet, so no matter how eloquently you let your talent speak for itself, there is just no way you can crash that middle order. Worse, from the young one’s point of view, you also do not know when opportunities will open up.
So you wait, motivating yourself for the occasional big domestic game, and mostly marking time on flat batting tracks against dispirited bowling line ups — and with every passing day, you lose a bit of that effervescence that is the hallmark of the talented young.
Upshot: by the time you are roped into the team, you’ve lost the buzz [sometimes, and Ambati Rayudu is merely one case in point, you lose your way entirely during that seemingly endless waiting period] that made you noticed in the first place — and you then have fans and the media wondering what they saw in you in the first place.
The antidote to all of this is exactly what Harsha suggested — bring these young kids together into an A team and schedule as many games, against as many quality opponents, as possible throughout the year. Playing home and away against the likes of Australia, England, South Africa etc will keep their buzz going, help hone their talents and prepare them for national duty — and I suspect, given the batting and bowling riches contained in that list, that their games will be followed as keenly as those of the national team [more keenly, if said national team is playing Sri Lanka again].
In passing, I wonder if Harsha sometimes feels the way I do just now: you write some 200-300 words that you think makes sense, and just as you put the final period in place, you realize the whole effort is wasted — because none of this is even remotely on the radar of those in charge of the game.
This year’s Ranji final turned out to be one of those games where, the minute the result was known, you felt sorry for the team that had lost.
Fair result overall: Bombay won more of the crucial sessions and showed the ice-in-the-veins quality that separates champion sides from the rest; Karnataka in contrast stuffed up on key sessions when things were going in its favor, took control only to surrender it again, and when push came to shove, the collective nerve just didn’t hold.
On a helpful pitch, bowlers on both sides produced scintillating spells — but at the end of it all, the man you felt sorry for was young Manish Pandey. Faced with the task of scoring a record number of runs to upset the champions, the Karnataka batsmen came to the crease intent on survival; the ‘game plan’ seemed structured on the lines of if we hang around out there long enough, the runs will come and the target will be reached.
Bad move, on a wicket that afforded considerable assistance to bowlers of all types. Manish alone appeared to have figured out that you have to actively pursue a target, and he alone had the skill — phenomenal skill, really — and the nerve to play his game his way.
The one image that will remain after all others — outstanding deliveries, some scarcely credible fielding efforts, and even Manish’s silken stroke-making — are forgotten is something I saw on the TV screen earlier today. The camera swept across a full house at the Glades, then panned out and across to long lines of spectators outside the gates, queuing up to get in.
That one image gives the lie to what we are constantly told — that in this country there isn’t enough interest in domestic tournaments featuring unknown names; that the only time crowds will come is when the superstars turn out for international duty.
Clearly, that is not true. Clearly, it is not about who is playing. At least, it is not entirely about who is playing as much as it is about the expectation of witnessing some great cricket.
If our domestic competition hasn’t drawn crowds, the fault then is not with the lack of marquee value of participating players as it is with an administration, national and local, that has neither the will nor the inclination to provide the sort of conditions that can make for gripping contests.
In recent times, the BCCI has repeatedly revised its domestic structure. Maybe it is time now to revise its mindset; to instruct its curators to prepare good wickets; to spend some energy publicizing its domestic calendar as opposed to hyping the next dozen India-Sri Lanka games; to build a buzz around the domestic circuit and to give spectators a reason to turn out.
Build it, and they will come. As they did here, while an ‘Idea Cup’ went largely unwatched.
One final regret: Zaheer Khan was busy with one-day duties — but imagine what this contest could have been, with Dravid turning out for Karnataka and Tendulkar [and even Rohit Sharma -- surely the Indian team could have found someone else to bring out spare bats?] for Bombay.
In passing, check this out [the video I wish I could throw up is a pull young Manish played last evening, off the front foot to a short ball from Agarkar, smashing the ball in the arc between mid wicket and mid off -- tangentially apropos, read Osman Samiuddin on the pull as played by Ponting]. And in watching the video, forget the flying through the air stunt — keep an eye, during the replays, on what the fielder does as soon as he gets the ball in hand while still airborne — the wrist curving down to ensure the ball wouldn’t hit the turf, in the midst of all those acrobatics: awesome!
Aakash Chopra on countering the dew factor:
The thing about dew is, the leather of the ball takes longer to get damp than the seam does. While water takes time to seep into the leather, the seam turns wet as soon as it gets exposed to the outfield. Gripping the ball then becomes tricky. The umpires won’t change the ball on the account of a wet seam. They will wait till the entire ball gets too wet to play with.
Now if only our commentators, who keep waffling on about the ‘dew factor kicking in’, were half as insightful and a tenth as specific…
For spinners, the challenge is in gripping the ball and imparting spin while delivering. It’s like bowling with a bar of wet soap. Maintaining a good hold on the ball is relatively easier for a finger spinner than for a wrist spinner; the latter have less control to begin with, and the wet ball rules out their contribution to a large extent. The finger spinner’s job isn’t easy either, and the attack tends to become one-dimensional. It doesn’t matter whether it’s an offspinner or a left-arm spinner: the ball usually goes straight after pitching. The only difference is the angle from which the ball is bowled.
There’s very little a spinner can do once the ball gets as wet, as it did in Bangladesh. As a spinner, one can only try to make the ball land on the right lengths as much as possible without thinking about too many variations. The only thing, perhaps, is to vary the pace. The wet ball, to a certain extent, allows you to bowl it a little slower or faster.
This series by Aakash, now 19 articles and counting, that looks at the game through the eyes of a player, is outstanding — and will hopefully grow into a book.
