The strength of the wolf is in the pack

 The Indian cricket team just did the seemingly unthinkable - beat Australia at it's ultimate stronghold, the 'Gabba! And did it in incredible fashion, chasing down 328 runs on Day 5 against the most potent quartet of bowlers in the world, including the top dog - Pat Cummins who is the #1 bowler by a fair distance.

In no particular order, here are some random thoughts that are floating through my head as I think about the match:

1) Speaking of colossal mismatches - nothing summarizes it better than this - at the start of the Test match, the Australians had collectively taken 1033 Test wickets while the Indians had a sum total of 13 (including 2 by Rohit Sharma who is not a bowler any more...though, ironically he did end up bowling in this match).

The famed Australian quartet took 17 wickets in this Test while the unfancied Indian bowlers took all 20 on offer.

2) Poor Tim Paine. For the last two years he has done his best to revamp the image of the Aussie team. All his hard work may have gone in vain because of his "conversation" with R Ashwin during the waning moments of the Sydney Test where he lost his cool. That may end up defining him as much as Kim Hughes is remembered for his teary press conference or Michael Clarke is for his "broken arm" sledge to Jimmy Anderson.

3) T20 cricket has changed the way we approach targets. When 140 plus runs were required in the last session, no one spoke in terms of time but only in terms of overs left. When 50 runs were required in 8 overs with only 5 wickets in hand, it was considered very achievable - a thought that would have resulted in shuttered doors even as recently as a decade ago (see below). It was a tight equation but 26 runs were plundered off the next two overs by Sundar and Pant and, suddenly, the match was gone from Australia's hands for all intents and purposes (except for minor blemishes from Sundar and Thakur that injected some excitement into the proceedings).

4) In 2011, the India cricket team had a golden chance to win a Test match in the West Indies. Chasing 180 to win, they were 94 for 3 when MS Dhoni agreed to a draw with the mandatory 15 overs (in the final hour) about to be bowled. The batsmen who were still not out or in the pavilion? Dravid, Laxman, Kohli, Dhoni and Harbhajan. As it was happening then, I was flabbergasted at how the Indian captain, fresh off a World Cup triumph, gave up the ghost of the chase so easily. I was thinking of that match as the last hour started in Brisbane. 

At Brisbane, at the start of the mandatory 15 over final hour, India needed 69 runs to win

Batting: Pant (51) and Agarwal (9) with Sundar and Thakur after them

At Roseau, in 2011, at the start of the mandatory 15 over final hour, India needed 86 runs to win

Batting: Dravid (34) and Laxman (3) with Kohli, Dhoni, Harbhajan after them

The fear of failure weighed heavily on the 2011 team. Unencumbered by any such pressures, the 2021 team finally released some of the anguish of that failed chase of a decade ago.

5) Rishabh Pant was the first visiting batsman to record scores of 25+ in 10 consecutive innings in Australia (surpassing, among others, Viv Richards who had a streak of 8). He got 23 in the first inning at Brisbane, snapping that streak, but then added 89* in the second inning. His scores across all Tests in Australia read:

25, 28, 36, 30, 39, 33, 159*, 29, and 36, 97, 23, 89* in this series

6) The Indian 4th inning was a tale of two strategies. At one end Pujara scored 56 in 211 balls, typical of a team fighting for a draw and at the other end Gill, Rahane, and Pant scored a combined 202 in 306 balls, symbolizing a team going for the win. Chalk and cheese, black and white, night and day - the beauty of Test cricket is that it can simultaneously accommodate two entirely opposite batting styles. As Harsha Bhogle pointed out in his post-match review after the Sydney Test - Test cricket showed the value of two opposite approaches seeking the same common goal (even there he was referring to Pujara and Pant's approach to the task at hand right at the start of the video). 

7a) At the end of day 4, Indians prayed for rain. And rain is what they got - a rain of runs!

7b) Actually, it DID rain. There were surreal scenes with about 20 overs to go when the ground was bathed in bright sunlight and yet the players were playing in a drizzle from a passing cloud. Maybe the gods felt the need to bless the batsmen as they dreamt the unthinkable.

8) Cummins set a record during the 2019 Ashes series for the most number of wickets in a 5 Test series without a five-for when he took 29 wickets with no five wicket hauls. In this 2020-21 series, Cummins once again led all bowlers with 21 wickets and no five-fors. I do not know if that is a record for a 4 Test series but it has to be up there if it isn't.

But it says something about Cummins: I do not recall him having a defining spell where he blasted away the opposition like Broad or Steyn or even Bumrah seem to have in our memory banks.

9) The man who spent the most time in the middle (after Pujara) seemed to be Nitin Patel, the physio. The number of times he ran onto the field to tend to an injured player almost warrants a sponsorship deal from someone!

10) Over the course of 8 innings (both teams combined), 123 wickets fell on helpful tracks but there were only three 5-for (Pfeiffer in honor of Dean Jones) hauls in the series - two by Josh Hazelwood and one by Mohammad Siraj.

(***PTS messaged me to point out that in the entire series, the number of centuries scored was in the same ratio - Australia had two centurions (Smith, Labuschcagne) while India had just one (Rahane).)

11) In 2018, when India finally breached the Aussie stranglehold we were told that the result would have been different if Steve Smith and David Warner had been there. (And, they did not have Marnus Labuschagne either at that point in time). In this series, they had all of them at various times. In fact, Australia won the Test where Steve Smith contributed only 1 run and lost (or drew) the matches where he scored centuries or fifties. 

I am actually very happy that there were no broken Aussie players or missing players for any reason. There are no excuses left on that front to explain away the losses.

12) The Australian batting line-up was very brittle. Even Labuschagne received numerous lives in all his innings and it could have been much worse for Australia if India's fielding had been as disciplined as its batting or bowling. Even in the first Test at Adelaide, after posting 244, India had Australia reeling at 111 for 7 when Bumrah dropped an easy catch off Paine. The Aussie skipper then counter-attacked (with more luck and lives) and kept the lead down to just 54 runs. The rest is history (36 and all) but think about how the Test may have played out had we gotten them all out for, say, 125 and batted with a lead of 100 plus rather than having to come in the next morning on a fresh day at 9 for 1 and a lead of 63 runs.

13) After the events of the Sydney Test, where tremendous amount of energy was spent in achieving the draw, I was concerned that there would be a let down at Brisbane. I was convinced that if we lost the toss, the Australian batsmen would bat us out of the game. And they were close to doing so - at 200 for 3 (Editor's note: I had previously noted that it was 206 for 2, which was actually the score in the Sydney Test).**. From there onwards, the resilience and fight of the Indian team came to the fore. Getting Australia all out for 369 was a monumental feat. Had they reached 450 or even 400, it would have been devastating.

Actually, Rahane lost all three tosses in the Tests he captained, adding another layer of improbability to the stupendousness of the series win. Time after time, the odds were stacked against the team and they kept overcoming it. All along we had been told that the GOAT (Lyon) would be unleashed in the 4th inning on a wearing wicket while exploiting the footmarks made by Starc. Lyon was more bleat than roar.

14) Fame is fleeting, ephemeral. Success is occasional, failures are more common. The playing 11 at Brisbane will look nothing like the playing 11 in the next Test against England. In my estimation, only Sharma, Gill, Pujara, Rahane, and Pant are certain to play. The other 6 are unlikely to feature since the following will return: Kohli, Bumrah, Sharma, Ashwin...leaving spots for only 2 other players, who may both be spinners. I do not know when Thakur or Saini or Natarajan or Sundar will play again for India. If you think it is unlikely they'll never play again having contributed to this win, think about this:

The miracle of Kolkata 2001 was the last Test match for: Nayan Mongia and Venkatapathy Raju 

The euphoria of victory did not extend their careers. They were replaced by Sameer Dighe and Nilesh Kulkarni (for whom Chennai was the last Test of his career, too).

15) The value of Pujara's self-denial became apparent to me the moment I realized that when Cummins opened the bowling after lunch, he was already into his third spell of the day. And when Hazelwood replaced Cummins, it was his third spell, too. Drip by drip, drop by drop...the miles started piling accruing on those legs and when the second new ball was available the engine was willing but the body was not as sharp.

16) The loss was disastrous for Australia's World Test Championship (WTC) hopes. Here's what needs to happen in order for Australia get to Lord's for the final.

The unexpected series defeat against India has severely dented Australia's chances of making the top two. Their points percentage has dropped to 69.2, and they will need 89 points from the three-Test series against South Africa - which is yet to be confirmed - to go past New Zealand. That can only happen if they win at least two Tests and draw the third, in which case they will get 93 points from the series.

And, since you asked, this is what has to happen for India:

India have moved to the top of the table, with a points percentage of 71.67, with New Zealand currently second. To stay ahead of New Zealand's 70%, they need 80 more points out of 120 in the four-Test home series against England. They can get there with a 2-0 series win; if they lose one Test in that series though, they will need to win three. Given India's home record in the last eight years - 28 wins, one loss in 34 Tests - they should fancy their chances of securing those 80 points.

The WTC has added a new wrinkle to Test series, providing an additional layer of context where the outcome of a series matters not only to the participants but also to other nations, which is a good thing.

17) After the second Test, I had some misgivings about the umpires. I did not doubt their bias or their skill. Rather, I felt that there might be a subliminal tendency of lenience towards the Australians. For example, there were decisions that were given out to an Aussie bowler while a similar appeal from an Indian bowler was turned down (subsequently overturned on DRS appeal). That was my perception and it was reinforced when a few "out" decisions against the Indian batsmen were overturned upon review. 

The fears that I had turned out to be largely baseless and unfounded. I did not sense any such umpiring bias during the fourth Test and was, actually, very impressed with the umpiring of Bruce Oxenford and Paul Wilson. Sure, they had to overturn a decision or two but there was nothing that was egregiously out of place. In fact, considering how tense the match was they were outstanding. I was particularly impressed with Paul Wilson, who seemed very calm and measured in everything he did. I hope he grows in stature and umpires more games.

And I dislike the rule that an umpire cannot stand in games featuring his home team. In this day and age with the scrutiny they go through and the ability to use DRS to overturn decisions, we could keep one umpire at least from the home nation on the ground, I would think.

18) In the long, storied history of Test cricket, never have 20 players been used by an away team during the course of a series. India did that this time, demonstrating the incredible turnover from test to Test, so much so only two players - Rahane and Pujara - played all 4 Tests for India. High turnover is usually associated with teams that lose by huge margins not series winners. Yet another amazing stat in a series filled with bizarre stats and facts.

19) When the series began: 

Ravichandran Ashwin had 365 wickets in 71 Tests. 

Nathan Lyon had 390 in 96 Tests.

The series ended with Ashwin on 377 (12 in 3 Tests) and Lyon on 399 (9 in 4 Tests). 

Ashwin clearly outbowled and outperformed Lyon in the latter's den (pun intended). I am going to make a very bold prediction - Ashwin will reach 400 Test wickets before Lyon reaches 400. You heard it here first!

19) Prior to the Brisbane Test, the general consensus was that the Indian team should stack it's roster with every healthy batsman available and hedge their bets and bat out for a draw. When the team was announced I was surprised to see FOUR fast bowlers and one spinner. FIVE bowlers on a ground that favors bowlers. It took guts to make that call and, in the end, turned out to be an inspired one when Saini pulled up lame. Kudos to the team thinktank for deciding that taking 20 wickets was more important than scoring an additional 50 runs while facing a larger deficit. 

It also put more onus on the batsmen to perform, knowing that there was little to follow as we effectively played with three #11 batsmen. The top order batsmen didn't score as big as they should have but knowing there was nothing behind them probably made Thakur and Sundar value their wicket even more and score all the runs they did. Runs that won us the game, honestly speaking, since it tired out the Aussie bowlers and demoralized them. Further, in the second inning, even when Agarwal got out (more on that below) there wasn't too much panic since we still had Sundar and Thakur to come. Think about that last sentence again. It's a sentiment that would have been improbable to consider at the start of the Test!

20) When Mayank Agarwal was padded up in the pavilion, I was content thinking that we had a competent player should the second new ball need to be played out in Brisbane. His first inning of 38 was very promising until a strange blunder - trying to punch on the up to the second ball after the lunch break, doomed him. I thought he would have learned from that but he did not. One ball after Agarwal survived a DRS review for caught behind he, inexplicably, tried to loft over the in-field and gave a catch to Wade at short cover. The fielder accepted the chance. Ironical since Wade himself had been guilty all series of gifting away his wicket to the Indians! 

If Agarwal had not perished and had survived till the end with Pant, imagine the plaudits that would have followed him. It is good to "play your natural game" but, at times, some context needs to be enforced. 

And, no, I would not have applauded his courage if that drive had gone to the boundary. I know it for a fact because, even as Cummins was running in, I was thinking to myself - play out the over, play out the over, expecting something disastrous to happen.

21) Shubman Gill scored: 45, 35*, 50, 31, 7, 91 - 259 runs @ 51.80 

I watched almost every ball of all his innings. I do not recall him being hit on the body even once. Every other batsman had moments of concern or times when they were flinching and getting hit, including Labuschagne and Smith. I do not know if it my mind blocking it but Gill came out unscathed, I think. He plays beside the ball and his technique will be tested in England or whenever the ball moves in the air but speed did not bother him one bit. Take a look at these highlights (see above/below) and just listen to the sound of the bat hitting the ball - it is hitting the sweet spot more often than not (look at the 1:12 mark as Isa Guha points out, too). And when you hook Starc in front of square leg (at the 2:25 mark, for example) it means you have a lot of time to play the ball. What a player. I hope he stays hungry and grounded and plays for another 15 years. (Touch wood). And if he does that...uff....who knows how many runs he will score.

22) During the first inning of the 4th Test, the broadcaster's shared an amazing bit of information. According to their ball tracking software, Pat Cummins had not bowled a single ball down the leg side in the whole series. In the whole series. Just think about that. To bowl at his level and not stray even once is as much evidence as anyone needs to support his standing as the #1 bowler in the world. What a bowler. Test after Test, inning after inning, spell after spell, over after over, ball after ball, he just ran into and through the wall relentlessly attacking the batsman. If Pujara was the immovable wall, Cummins was the irresistible force. 

23) On his YouTube channel, Ashwin sat down with the fielding coach, R Sridhar, and got him to reveal what happens off the field while the action we know so well unfolds on it. Ravi Shastri comes out looking really good from a tactical and leadership point of view. Many nuggets of information are revealed with a good dose of humor and self-deprecation. 

It's in Tamil but has subtitles if you don't follow the language. Well done, Ashwin.

24) One moment stood out for me from the above video. Sridhar pointed out that, after the dismal batting collapse of 36, the conventional wisdom was that the batting should be strengthened. Instead, the Indian think tank went the other way - strengthened the bowling by making it a 5 bowler attack and relying on Jadeja to replace Virat Kohli. What a masterstroke it proved to be. Simply brilliant. Especially when Yadav pulled up lame in the second inning.

I still think Ravi Shastri is more of a rah-rah guy than a nuts-and-bolts coach but he has, smartly, surrounded himself with very competent coaches in the specialist positions of his support staff. While they take of the nitty-gritty stuff, he is able to macromanage the whole thing in his typical, bombastic way. Kudos to him and his support staff for keeping the players focused on the big picture while not dwelling on the past.

25) BD asked if if I thought Brisbane 2021 trumped Kolkata 2001 as the definitive Test win for an Indian team. This was my response to him: 

On an individual basis, Kolkata 2001 still comes out on top, in my opinion. Considering the context (following on 274 runs behind, playing a team with a streak of 15 straight Test wins, the Final Frontier, and the fact that in the Aussie team there were at least 5 all-time Australian Greats - Warne, McGrath, Gilchrist, Ponting, Waugh and 4 Modern Greats - Hayden, Junior Waugh, Langer. Gillespie and the last 2 - Slater and Kasprowicz - were no mugs by any stretch of imagination) the Kolkata win was more improbable and seminal.

As a whole, this Test series has to be almost the best ever, even factoring in recency bias.

Each Test had its own script and context. No two Tests were similar and all were enthralling.

Every Test, every session was meaningful. No lulls...no periods of boring domination. (The 36 was mesmerizingly bewildering and so out of the blue... it wasn't domination so much as dream-like. It's how Hazelwood would have dreamt bowling a perfect Pfeiffer would be when he was a kid).

26) As Julius Caesar once proclaimed: Veni, Vidi, Vici.

Linked up

1) I do not follow Major League Baseball closely any more. I'd be hard-pressed to name 5 players who are currently active. The first name that comes to mind, though, is Ichiro Suzuki. I recently wondered whether he had retired and came across this haunting, haunting piece about Ichiro - the man who has become the very thing he hated to become as a 3 year old. Very sad.

2) If a tree is falls in a forest but there is no one to hear it does it make a sound? The best bowling analysis EVER in a T20 match happened at Lal Bahadur Stadium in Hyderabad but to the cricketing it world it does not exist. Alfred Absolem took a scarcely believable  7 wickets for 15 runs but his achievement will probably never be acknowledged because it was a played between two teams in the Indian Cricket League (ICL) which was obliterated by the IPL/BCCI within a few years.

3) The only NFL player I actually wanted to watch in person was Randy Moss. I managed to do it once at Ford Field in Detroit. If you want to know why he has great, watch this: EVERY TD of his greater than 40 yards. Mind you, these are only those that were 40 yards or longer....

The curious incident of the dog in the nighttime

So, Sunil Narine's bowling action has been found to be illegal and he has been suspended from further participation until he rectifies it (in some tournaments and not others...but that is grist for another mill).

Sunil Narine in action.
(Click here for photo credit)

I have ALWAYS thought his action was dicey, so I am not surprised. In general, I do not like bowlers who have jerky actions so I am not shedding tears at the recent clampdown on illegal bowling actions.

Here is what is interesting to me in the entire Narine saga: even as various conspiracy theories are floated for the timing of the ban and many folks (including Clive Lloyd) fume about the ban itself, one thing is striking - no one is defending Narine's action as being legal. Not. One. Person.

Everyone is harping on about how he has been allowed to bowl for so long (as if that is reason enough to not suspend him now) and how it is w itch hunt bu why is no one even talking about the elephant in the room - that his action is dodgy.  That to me is more damning than any video evidence.

Raise your hand in protest, Mr. Narine, but be sure you don't bend that elbow when you do so.

Casting stones

Harbhajan Singh is back in the Indian team after a spell on the sidelines.  Once his selection was confirmed he lashed out at his critics telling them that a player should not be judged more than just the number of wickets he takes.  (It's a different matter altogether that Economy Singh has done diddly-squat in the time that he was out of the squad and no sound reason exists for him returning to it).

By the way, about a year ago, the very-same Harbhajan Singh was not beyond throwing around the fact that taking 400-plus Test wickets was justification enough for keeping his place in the Indian team.

Like Gautam Gambhir a few days ago, Harbhajan Singh needs to figure out exactly what it is that he wants to peg his hat on.  Self-reflection of an honest kind is seriously lacking among the current Indian players, it seems.

Harbhajan, read Ricky Ponting's incredibly candid self-assessment and learn something.  Please.

Ponting was trapped lbw three times in four innings in the South African series, twice dismissed for a duck, as Steyn and Vernon Philander made him their batting bunny.
Only a fighting 62 in the second Test saved Ponting's career and the 37-year-old now concedes he had huge technical problems and was almost falling over at the crease, in what were some of the lowest moments of his career.
“There is no doubt it was a lowlight. At that stage we needed me to be getting runs if the team was going to win games,'' Ponting said.
“Whenever you fail it is not just about you, it is feeling like you've let your teammates down.
“It was technical - you don't go from playing the way I was playing to getting hit on the pad as often as I was without something being wrong.
“My pre-ball movements were just a little bit earlier than what they should have been. I was trying to move early to give myself more time but it was actually having a detrimental affect. I was moving too early and locking off and not being able to move again after that.
“It took a long time to break the habit I was in and the cycle I was in.”

The rest is silence

Thank heavens for small mercies.  By defeating Australia and qualifying for the finals, Sri Lanka did the Indian selectors a great favor.  Imagine how embarrassed they would have felt had India made it to the final and Virender Sehwag, who is nursing an injury so severe he cannot play a game two weeks away, would have had to struggle through that very-same injury to play the final.

He who watches out for Indian cricket (Mr. Srinivasan God) must be happy.  It gives his Chennai Super Kings Indian players a chance to rest before the very important IPL Asia Cup.

How SRT and the IPL ruined the Summer of George

(or) The Eternal Lament of the Spoiled Indian Cricket Fan

This was supposed to be the Summer of George. India had just won the World Cup and ahead of me, over the next 9 months, were no less than 14 Test matches, 6 against the West Indies, 4 against England and then the Big Daddy of them all – a 4 Test series against Australia.

On April 3rd, being a fan of Indian cricket was a good occupation to have. Then, two not entirely unrelated things happened that eventually ruined the happy ending.

First came the lure/pressure of the IPL, call it whatever you will. Virender Sehwag was injured but still played in the IPL, nursing his shoulder injury as best as he could. He played 11 games and, tellingly, only when the Daredevils were eliminated did he opt for shoulder surgery, rendering him inactive for the tour of the West Indies.

Sachin Tendulkar played every game (16 in all) in the IPL but felt compelled to seek rest after that from the West Indies series.

Gautam Gambhir got injured in the World Cup but was not totally aware of it until he re-aggravated it in the IPL. However, he continued to play with the injury until the Knight Riders were eliminated, and then rested, missing the tour.

Yuvraj Singh played 14 games but missed the West Indies tour because of a lung infection. All in all, four stalwarts of the the Indian World Cup campaign were rendered hors de combat for the Windies tour. However, I will not apportion any blame on the IPL for that.

Coming on the heels of a long and arduous World Cup campaign, the timing of the IPL was not the best. However, it is revealing that all the major players named in the previous paragraph did not seek “rest” or “treatment” for their ailments during that tournament, instead choosing to forego the West Indies series altogether instead.

I have absolutely no issues with a person choosing to make some more money at the expense of playing “for the country”. They have an obligation to themselves and their families and I am no one to tell them how they should go about maximizing their revenue or what their priorities should be. However, I do have an issue with the consequence of that choice and how it affected the rest of the campaigns over the next 9 months.

The second factor crept up on us during the World Cup, when Sachin Tendulkar was in sublime touch, continuing his rich vein of form of the past few years. He scored a couple of centuries, had a near-miss against Pakistan, failed in the final, but got the ultimate prize – courtesy a ride on the shoulders of his teammates. Somewhere along the way a new beast was unleashed by the media – the quest for the almost-mythical 100th international 100.

It is at that point that some of SRT’s choices become curious, especially in hindsight. By eschewing the Windies tour, SRT ensured that his next international match would be at Lord’s. Ooooooh, how perfect, his handlers (and he himself, maybe) crooned: a century of centuries at the Mecca of cricket. What a perfect setting for the feat. It made great business sense to score that century at Lord’s than, say, at Roseau.

After a fruitless Test series in England, SRT skipped the return ODI series at home. Why risk scoring the 100 in a meaningless ODI on an Indian highway, when Test matches at Kotla, Eden Gardens, and/or Wankhade were yet to come, each carrying an alluring ring for the media and his sponsors? When that did not work, the ODI series against the Windies was skipped since the Boxing Day Test at Melbourne beckoned. Longingly and achingly.

Now, bear with me while I imagine an alternate scenario. (Not a guaranteed scenario but still a very possible one.) SRT goes to the West Indies and scores a century in one of the Test matches (maybe at Kingston). Suddenly the stories go away, the pressure is lifted, none of the remaining Indian players have to field any more questions about whether SRT is feeling the pressure. Viru and Gambhir decide to skip the IPL, get rested during the Windies tour and are ready to play in England, fully healthy. With SRT playing the Windies series, the Indian batting order does not have to be reshuffled, and  since Viru and Gambhir are ready for the England Tests, VVS Laxman can continue to play at #5, and Rahul Dravid does not have to become an opener in England and the batting order is not unsettled. Since the batting order is more settled .... I can’t bear to carry that dream any further. It hurts too much to contemplate what could have been.

Damn you SRT and the IPL!  This was supposed to be the Summer of George. It really was...

Book review: Beyond the Blues

For a few weeks I have working furiously on a personal deadline of writing a book before Christmas rolled around.  Now that the deadline has been done and dusted with I can get back to more important things like living my life again.  (Some will snicker that the deadline was less about Christmas and more about Boxing Day.  Oh, how well they know me!).

Anyway, thinking about books took me back a couple of years to a book that I had read, liked, promised to review but had never gotten around to doing.  So, here it is - my review of Beyond the Blues by Aakash Chopra.  Better late than never.

From September 9th, 2007 to June 5th 2008, Aakash Chopra kept notes of his actions and thoughts in the form of a diary.  Eventually, to the happiness of many of his fans, including me, he went ahead and published them.

The book is filled with an insider's perspective of Indian cricket, from the behind-the-scenes shenanigans in the backrooms of selectorial meetings to the on-field skullduggery that the viewer is unable to pick up on from 90 (or in these days 60) yards away.

It is a compelling book, written from the heart.  The best way to appreciate the book is to read it in its entirety.  Here are some of the nuggets that caught my fancy and should serve to whet your appetite for when you read the book.

On Sachin Tendulkar (p48):

Aakash Chopra had a very pivotal hand in Sachin's classic exercise in self-denial, that face-saving 241* at Sydney in Steve Waugh's final Test in 2004.  In fact, it is safe to say, that Aakash saved SRT's life that day.  He did something that made him "... one of the few people in the world who has given something to the Little Master without taking anything material from him in return."

On a fellow team-mate (p60):

He has definitely mastered the way to score at this level consistently and I wouldn't be surprised if, one day, if he plays enough domestic cricket (given his India commitments), he goes on to break every batting record on the domestic circuit.

Read, rinse, repeat

With all the ruckus over Anil Kumble's perceived (and real?) conflict of interest, it is interesting to note that this is not the first time the press has gone ga-ga over the issue and neither will it be the last time they do.

Earlier in the year, Prem Panicker gave a detailed explanation of all the activities of N. Srinivasan, the current President of the BCCI.

Back in the day, there was a big brouhaha about the corruption of the Jagmohan Dalmiya regime; hosannas were sung when Dalmiya was replaced by Team Sharad Pawar (what irony!), which sought an electoral victory on the plank of introducing transparency (more irony — Pawar and his hand-picked successors have if anything been more devious, their corruption more subterranean, than anything Dalmiya ever did). The Modi regime at the IPL was deemed corrupt; it has since been replaced by the N Srinivasan regime (Chirayu Amin is nominally in-charge of the IPL, but discount that — as must be painfully evident now, all decisions whether they relate to the BCCI or the IPL emanate from the office of India Cements the Board Secretary). Come to think of it, the shuffling of the board bears parallels to the various Cabinet reshuffle exercises at the center, no? Same problem — endemic corruption. Same solution — move the corrupt around the party table, Mad Hatter  style.

Nothing much came of it then, and nothing much will come of it now.  To paraphrase Lord Alfred Tennyson:
For men may come and men may go
But conflicts of interest will go on forever.

Standing on the toes of giants

In 2005, when the Sharad Pawar faction wrested control of the BCCI from Jagmohan Dalmiya, many followers thought that it was a new dawn for cricket in India.  Heck, even the new committee believed in it because they published a vision statement!  Today, reading it makes one wonder whether to laugh or cry.

(Click here for the entire vision statement)

Here are some snippets that should tell you how seriously (not!) they took their own vision.

To make domestic cricket attractive, at least 4 weeks in the month of October be kept free from international cricket.  While finalizing bilateral tours, this Edict is to be kept in mind.

Ahem! In 2011, from October 14-29, India is going to play an ODI series against England.  Clean bowled!

V for vendetta

Most of the time I am simply irritated or bemused by the actions of the BCCI. However, sometimes I get seething mad.  Like now.

For the past few weeks my favorite website, CricInfo, has been all about the IPL, a league that I do not care about and, therefore, do not do anything more than scan the headlines before moving on. One of the headlines I scanned but did not read into was: Virender Sehwag to not play for Northants. Oh well. Whatever.

Today, on CricInfo's surfer page I came across this article by Dileep Premachandran, writing for the Guardian. (All emphases mine).

Launching a thousand ships

From the BCCI blog (no, not that organization) comes a link to some of the ads that MS Dhoni has acted in.

Quite a collection there. My favorite is still the Videocon one with Shah Rukh Khan. The Mind it one is a close second.

Is Masada the Peyton Manning of India?

Collusion via selection

After every announcement of the Indian team by the BCCI's selectorial committee, I wonder about the logic of some of the moves. You think I'd learn my lessons after years and years of pulling at my hair looking for an explanation.

Recently a 16 member squad was announced for a home series against Sri Lanka. The normal course is to pick 14 and, if necessary, fly in replacements. So, why 16?

Let me lean on Prem Panicker to explain. There is so much more than simply naming the 16 best players in the country. No wonder Tendulkar did not want any of it when asked to be captain before Dhoni came in.

a) Panicker explains why there are 16 players in the squad, and also why Murali Vijay is the "back-up batsman" even though S. Badrinath is in the squad, too.

It took Srikkanth and his cohorts to find the perfect solution — increase the team strength to 16, simple; and in doing that, ignore the fact that historically 14 players are picked for home series because in the event of injury, it is easy enough to call up replacements.

So the committee first picked the obvious names. With two additional ‘berths’ created in a fashion that reflects the operations of our railway touts, ‘Cheeka’ managed to fill those spaces with two statemates in M Vijay and Badrinath. The curious aspect is that the announcement specified that Vijay would be the reserve batsman — which makes Badrinath the afterthought.

And that is curious in itself because when the BCCI announced its latest round of central contracts, Badri was one of the biggest gainers, moving two slots up from Category D to B, and seeing his annual guaranteed earnings go up from Rs 15 lakh to Rs 40 lakh.

Leave the question of whether Badri deserves a place in the playing eleven aside for the moment — he is probably playing to his best form just now. The fact remains that neither he, nor his fellow TN player, will ever make it to the starting eleven absent a spate of Australia-like injuries.

If you assume that selection committees have a say in who gets contracts and promotions, the piquant situation here is that a player found worthy of being promoted is an afterthought even in the minds of the same selection committee. And that player — players — will tag along with the team, sitting on the bench sharing gossip, when they would be considerably better off emphasizing their claims in the Ranji Trophy season now on.

The problem with that is, if Cheeka and company don’t pick Badri, they cannot make the case for his continuing to get a central contract. And if Vijay is not picked as the first choice batting replacement, they can’t make a case for him to be included when the next round of contracts is given out.

(...)

Oh and incidentally? The contracts were issued in October 2008. They ended September 30, 2009. The board has thus far not had the time to renew/review the contracts. Hence the imperative for the selectors to pick additional players and push into the ranks those they would like to see retain existing contracts or get fresh ones.

(Associated Press 2009)

b) After announcing the team, the media was not allowed to question the selectorial committe on this odd turn of events. Why? Well, the roots of it were laid years ago...

c) During the dark ages of Indian cricket (mercifully a time when I was unable to follow the team except through CricInfo updates) there was a lot of backroom strategizing going on, culminating in the removal of Tendulkar and the reinstatement of Azharuddin as captain. Prem Panicker reported on that in 1998. It is a fascinating account of the lengths that some folks will go to enforce their agenda. All of this is done in plain sight but without tipping their hand except to the ones closest to the action.

It is no secret that the decision to oust Sachin Tendulkar had its seeds not, as is widely propagated, in his loss of batting form or even in India's plummeting cricketing results. Rather, the seeds were sown as early as March 1997, when the then Indian captain made the unpardonable mistake of telling the press that he was dissatisfied with the way the selection committee went about its business.

He did that during the selection of the team to tour the West Indies. When he asked for an off spinner and the request was turned down, Sachin stormed: "If you are not going to listen to me, then why invite me for these meetings and make a farce of it?". Subsequently, at the end of the meeting, he let it be widely known that he disagreed with the team as selected.

From that point on, Sachin had to go -- simply because this selection committee, which operates on principles other than cricketing logic, could not afford an independent-minded captain who would question their decisions.

Jaundiced eye

Here's how you go about making a fool of yourself and bring into question your journalistic nous.

Case Study: Malcolm Conn of The Australian

Thesis: Poor umpiring is costing the Aussies dearly in the Ashes.

Proof: Rudi Koertzen's inconsistent interpretation of LBW's.

Koertzen's umpiring is not the reason why Australia is 0-1 down in the series.
(...)
But his decisions have been embarrassing. Three of Australia's first four wickets in the second innings at Lord's fell to bad umpiring decisions.

And Koertzen made sure that Johnson's difficult Ashes series would not get any better.

He gave Johnson out leg before wicket to a ball going over the stumps and refused to give Ian Bell out leg before wicket to a delivery which could not have been more out. Just add them to the list of howlers.

Conclusion: The Indian cricket Board (BCCI) is to blame for it because it is the richest Board in the world.

And perhaps just a fraction of the billions India makes from television rights and the player-destroying Indian Premier League could be spent on developing a few decent umpires of its own.

Until then umpires like Rudi Koertzen, once probably the best in the world, will continue on the circuit, and cricket will be poorer for it.

I am not the biggest fan of the BCCI and its shenanigans, but this is a bit too much even for me.

Flogging a horse because it isn't raining in the desert makes more practical sense than this diatribe.

Dancing with the Dev-il

When Kapil Dev retired, he was the world record holder for not only the most Test wickets, but also the most ODI wickets. At that point in time he was also the holder of the second highest score ever made in an ODI. As time goes by, his achievements get bypassed and forgotten, but the enduring memory of his remains that of him lifting the Prudential World Cup in 1983. Thank goodness for small mercies.

For a man who scored over 8,000 international runs, I always felt that he underachieved. I have seen only one other batsman (Sehwag) as unaffected by the quality of the bowling, the state of the match, or the vagaries of personal form. Such was the aura he had when he came to bat.

Gideon Haig, in his inimitable fashion, salutes the legend, now being shunned by the BCCI.

He had the liveliest and least imitable action of all, a skipping, bounding run of gathering energy, and a delivery stride perfectly side-on but exploding at all angles, wrists uncoiling, arms elasticising, eyes afire. Which was part of his significance. No fast bowlers in India? Kapil could have hailed from no other country.

All that stood in the way of Kapil's bowling was his batting, full of generous arcs and fearful cleaves, signed with an exuberant pull shot that featured a chorus-line kick from his crossed front leg.

By the way, my favorite stat concering Kapil is that of the 434 wickets he took in his Test career, 217 were at home and 217 were abroad.

When ants meet sledgehammers

There is a temple in Nebraska which has been very good at fund-raising in the past few years. So much so that it is widely regarded as being the strongest temple, especially in these economically difficult times, by virtue of the monetary clout it possesses.

Last year a small group of individuals in this temple set up a separate prayer group. Some of the members of the temples in the state also joined this prayer group. The main temple did not approve of this move and banned any person belonging to their temple from fraternizing with the new group. The prayer group held steady and began to expand. However, the temple extended its reach by preventing other temples in Nebraska from letting members of this prayer group from attending or participating in any temple-related activity.

Soon, the members of this prayer group were ostracized and when a couple of them tried to organize charity events in the neighboring state of Iowa, the Nebraska temple strong-armed the Iowa temple into preventing these individuals from participating in the activity.

The Nebraska temple then successfully lobbied the main governing body that oversees the functioning of all temples in the country and has officially stopped any member of the prayer group from practicing their faith anywhere else in the entire US. Any temple not complying with this faces severe sanctions and worse.

Do you think this is unfair? If you do, here's the official website of the now-ostracized group.

If you are NOT affected by it, here's the official website of the all-powerful group. You may also want to see the clemency offer that was so magnanimously put forward to the splinter group.

For the record

A few of you have asked me privately about this and I want to go on record:

I will not write about the IPL Season 2, just as I shunned writing about season 1. I shall only do so when they start treating all cricketers the same - whether they belong to the ICL or not.

I cannot believe how long they have been allowed, with the backing of the BCCI, to run roughshod over the right of so many cricketers around the world. Every time a Board steps up and seems to be taking a stand (Sri Lanka and Pakistan come to mind right away) they disappoint me by then cowing down to the pressure exerted by the BCCI.

Shameful.

P.S. And this piece of news simply makes my resolve much stronger.

Cottoning on

Bobilli Vijay Kumar finds that the ghosts of the former regime are still being revisited by the current one.

I have talked about it a couple of times in the past, most recently a few weeks ago.

Chain mail

Here are some of the other cricket-related links that have caught my eye in the recent past:

a) Sharda Ugra profiles the resurgent Zaheer Khan, India's premier pace spearhead. The article is two pages long and is quite a good read.

Away from Indian cricket’s fractious atmosphere of the time, he bowled more than 600 overs in long spells for his 78 wickets, perfecting his art, understanding his options and what to do when.
The county game, says VVS Laxman, “transformed” Zaheer. “He had always looked to bowl quick and take wickets. But county cricket taught him to bowl within himself, when to attack and when to contain.” It is an art that the fast bowler understands as he gets older. When he finds that groove, he goes from struggling apprentice to master, a stage many believe Zaheer is entering now. His best is yet to be.

b) David Leggat describes the preposterous extent to which the BCCI will go to crush the ICL, even extending its tentacles into New Zealand's domestic exhibition games.

You might think that NZC could feel entitled to tell the BCCI that they've done their bit and found a first-class game for their six test players. If the BCCI want to get toey that's their business.

But that won't happen. Spaniels don't tell rottweilers their business.

c) Suresh Menon writes a more generalized piece on the same issue. The BCCI is soon going to reach a point where it antagonizes everyone with its attitude towards the ICL. But the Board officials don't seem to care one bit about it as long as they can crush the aspirations of the ICL.

The board never misses an opportunity to stick it into its counterparts around the world. This is a strange mixture of arrogance and uncertainty; of egotism and diffidence. How much longer before it insists India will not tour a country unless a certain number of Indian victories are written into the contract? Or - the more likely scenario - the rest of the world gets together, tells the Indian board to stuff itself and gives up on the money (India’s trump card) in exchange for self-respect? India argues the rest cannot exist without them, but the reverse is also true: India cannot exist without the rest.
(...)
It would be a pity if, just as the players work themselves into the top position in the world rankings, the board implodes with its own self-importance and India become the pariahs of world cricket.

d) And finally, what does Michael Slater have to do with the success of Slumdog Millionaire? Not much, but he does play a small role...sort of!

Unbuttered bread

It is no secret that the BCCI is not on my list of favorite organizations. But they make it so easy for me to justify my disdain and disregard.

Right now, in grounds all over India the Vijay Hazare Trophy, the BCCI's premier ODI trophy for Ranji teams is being held. But look at the BCCI website. For the life of me I cannot find even a piddly link to it. Except for the 15 or so members of the Indian team slugging it out with New Zealand, the rest of the best cricketers are playing and there's no mention of it on the official website of the organization that is, ahem, organizing it! But you will find a prominent video of Lalit Modi plumping the IPL's second season. Priorities, priorities.

If a tree falls in a forest and there's no one to hear it, does it make any noise?

Well, luckily for cricket fans, the BEST sports website in the world (in my jaundiced opinion) is CricInfo. Check out how detailed CricInfo's coverage of the tournament is.

While on this topic, BRB/AV points out something strange about the tournament itself. Look at the points table at the end of the "league" phase. Here are the top teams in each group with their win-loss record:

• Uttar Pradesh (4-1)
  
• Bengal (4-0)
  
• Delhi (4-1)
  
• Tamil Nadu (5-0)
  
• Mumbai (2-2)
  

Now look at the schedule for the "knockout" stage of the tournament.

Notice something strange? The only team to go 5-0 (Tamil Nadu) is playing a pre-quarterfinal game, while a team with a 2-2 record (Mumbai) gets a bye and goes directly into the quarterfinals! I have looked all over for the rules for deciding which teams get a bye and which do not, but I could not find them anywhere. If someone out there can, please help us out!

(Luckily, Tamil Nadu's pre-quarterfinal match was washed out and they got through to the quarter-finals without breaking a sweat, but why did that even have to happen?).

Finally, at the quarter-final stage, check out the batsman at the #2 spot on the run-scorers list. Why isn't he in the Test squad, at least?

Penny wise, pound foolish

How did the BCCI become the richest cricketing Board in the history of cricket?

• By shrewd investments in the ad-friendly versions of the game
  
• By cutting corners
  
• By caring for the paying public
  

In the words of Meat Loaf, two out of three ain't bad.

We already know how the BCCI has tapped into (and plundered beyond recognition) the Twenty20 cash cow. They came late to the party - incredibly, India had played just ONE T20 game before the World Cup in South Africa - but when they did come, they came hard and fast.

Left behind in the wake has been the paying public, as catering to the television is of paramount importance. However, you'd think that a Board so rich would not worry about cutting corners. But it does and it is shocking how callous it all seems.

Aakash Chopra talks about the state of the game on his blog on CricInfo. In a recent post he mentions the paucity of balls in the first-class matches conducted by the cash-rich entity. Either they are making money by cutting corners...or someone, somewhere, is making a lot of money selling cricket balls.

We are told that the balls are too expensive, and hence we must make do with some other local brand that is white in colour, to get the feel of the white ball. We would be given an odd Kookaburra or two every now and then in the interim. I am struggling to get my head around this decision. Yes the balls are expensive, and must therefore be used sparingly, but definitely not as scarcely. If money is such an issue with the association then how the same association managed (if a newspaper article is to be believed) to spend Rs 40 lakh on buying tracksuits for the cops and another obscene amount (nearly Rs 28 lakh) for an AGM totally stumps me.

Sadly, for all of us concerned, the entity which endorses the product by buying into it - the paying public - is the one being shortchanged.