Doppelgänger

It is not often that you read an article and wish you had written it instead. I feel that way after reading this article by Sidin Vadukut. While the example he uses is not one that I am familiar with, the sentiments are the same. And he is funny, too!

Over the last 14 or so years Srinath has been single-handedly responsible for my wasting hundreds of precious man-hours watching the last few overs of cricket matches half-hoping India will grab victory from the jaws of unavoidable defeat.

Or that some form of power cut, rain, sandstorm or DDCA ingenuity will call off a match at the last possible moment before defeat and Duckworth-Lewis.

These desperation scenarios often call on India to score 60 runs in the last four overs, with Sreesanth being the only regulation batsman left. Or they involve opponents needing 10 runs with three overs and seven wickets to spare.

Your local cricket cynic - and this is a compulsory vacancy in offices - has already laughed off India's chances in that whiny, irritating voice. Publicly you laugh along with him and say things like "Traitors! Can only act in ads!" or "One billion people and you pick Joginder?!" or "Buy them all some Musli Power, I say!"

But that is an act. A ruse. For public consumption.

In reality, deep inside, you want to gently call the cynic to one corner and redecorate the conference-room wall with his face.

I spent some time trying to figure out if there was any such seminal event that made me think that the Indian team could pull it out against all odds. Many candidates come to mind, primarily the '83 World Cup and Kapil Dev's 175* or when India defended a total of 125 in Sharjah against Pakistan and won by a whopping 38 runs, thoroughly ruining a 6 for 14 performance by Imran Khan. But none of them really stick in the mind. What does stick are the ones that got away, the defining one being Javed Miandad and that six. Even that one I remember for two factoids that have withered away from public memory with time. One, it was the first time India lost to Pakistan in Sharjah and two, Miandad's 116* was the first century ever scored at Sharjah. That was a momentum-changing event of seismic proportions. (Also, the ball before Miandad hit a six, India messed up an easy run-out that would have ended the game. See the video to see what I mean.

But no, that did not make me think that no match was lost until the final note had been rung (to mix metaphors). For the past few minutes I have been sitting and mulling this. Through the '80's, my feeling that the Indian team would pull it out was rooted more in hope than belief. Then I came to Chicago and watched Michael Jordan play. MJ was many things - a selfish team-mate who shared the ball when it suited his means, an egotistical ballhog, a boorish sourpuss whose good looks and cultivated media image glossed over his personal faults - but he had one trait above all else - a dislike for defeat that veered into the realm of psychosis. With the game on the line he may have been as nervous as anyone else but he did not show it. All the fans in the stands, all the viewers on TV, the opposing team, the coaches, his teammates, all of them knew that he would take the game-deciding shot. And he did. And he did it often enough to fill an entire decade's worth of film roll. The aura of the fellow was such that the ones he missed are used as defining moments that show how great the fellow was because he came back and wiped them from memory.

Being in Chicago, I got carried away in the MJ wave and watched every game I could. Take LeBron James and Kobe Bryant today, mix them up, and you will not get the level of awe that MJ conjured. I used to think Miandad was the under-pressure guy to admire. To mis-quote Denzel Washington, Miandad ain't got nothing on MJ. When MJ hit the championship-winning shot to finish his legendary career, it was the perfect way to remember the man. (I never watched him or followed him in a Washington Wizard uniform so as far as I am concerned that never happened).

In the 90's and beyond as I heard about the Indian team (this was before CricInfo and live Internet streaming, boys and girls) choking away and ruining whatever chance Sachin Tendulkar had of leading a team to victory in his pomp, I wondered when the Indian team would come across the likes of MJ. MJ was paramount and unparalleled (in my esteem anyway) for a definition of a clutch player.

And then came Tiger Woods. It's funny how the unraveling of his life has diminished the man in the eyes of many, but on the golf course he dominated people like Mike Tyson in his prime, without laying a single punch. And he did not do this by blowing away the competition on good days. He did this by wrecking their hopes irrespective of how he was playing. I thought MJ was the quintessential pressure player until I saw Tiger Woods, especially circa 1999-2001. Even today, I feel TW is the best clutch player I have ever seen. It is an indictment of the man (and a great window into his soul) that most of the occasions when Tiger comes up short on a golf course are in team events such as the Ryder Cup or the President's Cup. When it comes to playing for himself, more often than not Tiger Woods makes the putt he needs to make. His career achievements are staggering and he is far from being done. Today he is the butt of jokes (and very rightly so) but once he steps on the golf course again, I can bet you a lot of money he will have a focus that will scare his opponents even more.

The greatest closer I have ever seen in sports is Tiger Woods. And he's the main reason I believe that no match is lost unless the last wicket falls or the last run is scored, whether it's the Indian team or the one I play on.

Here's one example from last year.



For me, here's the defining moment where there was never a doubt in my mind the fellow would find a way to get the ball in the hole. When it happened the overwhelming feeling was, "Yup, I knew it was going to happen."

Never. A. Doubt.

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.

My pages are numbered

As many of you know, I like to read. Books, magazines, newspapers, coupons, posters, billboards, brochures, and (in the absence of anything else to read) notices on walls. Of this lot, books take up the most time and it is only rarely that I can read a whole book in one sitting. In the past few years only books by Rowling and Child have moved me such that I read the book in one sitting. Over the years, I have been gifted numerous bookmarks by friends and relatives. But I rarely use these bookmarks for I have my own, possibly unique, way of remembering what page I stopped at the last time I put down the book.

It is simple really, and it merges my book-reading with my first love - cricket. The page numbers remind me of some score made in the past by some batsman or team. All I have to do is remember which player (or team) and the events associated with it. Sometime, I find it hard to remember a number so I associate that number with the nearest one to it of significance, in the process finding another number that fits the difference between the two.

Some memorable numbers for me are:
22 - the number of centuries by Azharuddin in Tests.
38 - K. Srikanth's score, the highest by a batsman, in the '83 Prudential Cup final.
45 - the score that Sehwag seems to lose his concentration at most frequently in ODI's (any number in the 40's would do, really!).
51 - VVS Laxman's score on Test debut versus South Africa.
58 - the number of 50's by Azhar in ODI's, a record when he "retired".
83 - for 1983 and Kapil's Devils.
87 - the number most feared by the Aussies (13 short of a 100).
93 - score made by Azhar in his first ODI outside India (in Australia).
99 - 101 short of a double century (a nod to AV).
100 - naturally!
114 - GR Viswanath's match-winning score in the Melbourne Test of 1981.
123 - K Srikkanth's highest score in Tests and ODIs.
130 - Sehwag's highest score in an underachieving ODI career, so far.
135 - Number of Graeme Hick's first-class centuries. This changes with time!137 - GR Viswanath's score on Test debut (with 25 fours!).
140 - Laxman's score against Zimbabwe, the aftermath of which changed Indian cricket.
148 - Laxman's score in THAT Adelaide Test match.
158 - Kevin Pietersen's favourite score, it seems.
163 - Kapil Dev's highest Test score.
175 - what else, Kapil Dev, Tunbridge Wells - 1983.
178 - Laxman (and Tendulkar) ruin Steve Waugh's memories of his final Test match.
183 - Highest score ever made in the second innings of an ODI (and, of course, 1983).
186 - Sachin Tendulkar's highest ODI score.
194 - Dravid's declaration with Tendulkar at this score causes a furore.
195 - Sehwag's Melbourne massacre.
201 - Jason Gillespie's highest score in his LAST Test - the best by a nightwatchman.
204 - Adam Gilchrist's highest Test score - the fastest 200 at that time.
222 - GR Viswanath's highest score in Tests.
227 - Vinod Kambli's highest score. So much promise...
233 - Rahul Dravid's magnum opus in Adelaide.
236 - Sunil Gavaskar's highest score - now surpassed by 5 Indian batsmen.
239 - Sourav Ganguly's highest score and first double hundred.
241 - Tendulkar's lesson in self-denial at Sydney (scroll down the page to the run-scoring chart) .
242 - Ricky Ponting's effort at Adelaide (the highest score in a losing cause).
248 - Tendulkar's highest score in Tests (and shockingly, in first-class cricket, too).
254 - Sehwag's third-highest score.
267 - Aravinda de Silva's highest score (overshadowed by 299).
270 - Rahul Dravid's highest score.
274 - Zaheer Abbas - the highest score outside the Indian subcontinent by an Asian player.
281 - really...do you even have to ask?
299 - Martin Crowe chokes (as AV would say, he has to score 299 runs all over again just to get to 300).
309 - Virender Sehwag breaks a barrier - for the first time.
310 - John Edrich's highest score - most boundaries (52 fours, 5 sixes) in a Test innings.
317 - Chris Gayle shows that he is not always a mindless biffer of the cricket ball.
319 - Virender Sehwag is at it again!
333 - Graham Gooch thrashes India at Lords.
334 - Mark Taylor and Don Bradman are inexorably linked forever.
340 - Sanath Jayasuriya lays down a marker.
353 - the higher of VVS Laxman's two first-class triple centuries.
365 - Sir Garfield Sobers's first century was his biggest one.
375 - Brian Lara, part I.
380 - Matty Hayden rightly surmises that people will not remember who the opposition was.
400 - Brian Lara - the sequel.
405 - Graeme Hick, my hero, announces himself to the world with a 6 to get to 405 (check out the next highest score in the entire match).
443 - BB Nimbalkar's tryst with glory was cut short by petulant opponents.
452 - the highest score in the storied career of the Don.
499 - Hanif Mohammad falls short, and then achieves, cricketing immortality.
501 - Brain Lara completes his trilogy.

One score and five years ago

The Prudential Cup winning team from 1983 had their moment in the sun, 25 years after the historic day, by appearing on TV in an interview conducted by Rajdeep Sardesai (click here for a transcript of the interview).

Ayaz Memon, describes his memories of the brilliant day when he got to witness that knock from the World Cup.

Jamie Alter visits Tunbridge Wells, the site of Kapil Dev's heroics, 25 years after the match took place.

The Fall of the Legends

India played its first One Day International in 1974. At the start of the 1983 World Cup, in 9 years, India had participated in just 40 (yes, forty) ODI's, winning just 12 of them. In the 25 years since then, India has played 645 ODI's and counting!

What happened in 1983? Well, on June 25th, Kapil Dev raised the Prudential Cup! Everyone who watched that match (and the number of people who did watch that match surprisingly increases every year) remembers what they were doing when India won the World Cup. That event changed how much cricket would be played in the future, resulting in the World Cup leaving the shores of England and migrating to the Indian sub-continent.

So why has the BCCI not actively tom-tomed that event this past year? When you can have silver jubilee celebrations for the most mundane things, why did the BCCI pass up such a golden opportunity to rake in some more money through the sale of memoribilia and memories? Ah, you see, the answer lies in the fact that Kapil Dev, today, is persona non grata as far as the BCCI is considered because of his active involvement with the ICL. The BCCI is willing to cut its nose in order to spite its face as long as it means not recognizing the ICL.

Here's an analogy. How would you feel if, in 25 years, the BCCI pretends as if MS Dhoni does not exist and that the Twenty20 World Cup win did not occur?

The passing of the torch

For years, Kapil Dev has held a unique distinction - of being the only person to hold the world record for wickets in both limited overs (ODI) matches and Tests. Today, Sachin Tendulkar made an entire nation come to its feet by matching Kapil's feat in terms of centuries made in both forms of the game. (There are some well-compiled profiles and articles about his achievement on Cricinfo).

The self-proclaimed "child of the one-day age" is now the greatest accumulator of 100-plus scores in Tests (35 and counting), to go with the 38 he has in ODI's.

On the same ground in Delhi where Sunil Gavaskar had equaled Sir Donald Bradman's century mark, Sachin eclipsed one of his childhood heroes. Gavaskar's century was a frenetic affair, smashing fours almost at will and reaching his century off just 90 balls, a type of innings one imagines Tendulkar usually conjures. And ironically, Tendulkar's century was one that could have been manufactured by Gavaskar - 177 balls of studied determination, defending ball after ball, waiting for the bowlers to change their line and length to his demands.

For a long time one complaint I had against Tendulkar was that while he had the hunger to score centuries, he did not seem to have the temperament to make it a huge one. Someday, somewhere, a key was been turned in his mind, and a lock opened. In the past few years this has changed as evidenced by his scores the last 5 times he has crossed a 100 - 193, 176, 241 not out, 194 not out, 248 not out.

What is better than starting the day batting on zero? Starting the day batting on 100! Tendulkar gets to do that tomorrow. I look forward to watching this one unfold.