They speak...I learn...or not

I have watched a few of the matches in the World Cup; bits and pieces of about 50% of them; major bits of about 25% and all the India matches except the second inning of the most recent game against Ireland.

From listening to the commentators this is what I have learned or realized:

Shane Warne: According to him - the best way to win a game at any point in time is to bowl a spinner, preferably a leg-spinner. Leg-spinners, no matter how filthy their bowling, are the best wicket-taking options in the world. Bar none. A pitch is magnificent no matter how many runs it leads to. Awwww.....is a new word that we should all learn to use in our daily lives.

Sunil Gavaskar: If a batsman is near a milestone, our man will sniff it out in a heartbeat. You can tell a lot about his mentality from the way he appreciates milestones, game situation be damned. Also, he has a curious habit of making a joke, explaining it, and then repeating the joke again for emphasis just in case we had forgotten it.

Sanjay Manjrekar: I actually like the guy and the insight he brings in each of his stints. He picks up a hatke point of view. Unfortunately, he will then spend the next 15 minutes beating it into the ground by repeatedly pointing it out. Glenn Maxwell was at the crease in a recent match en route to his first ODI century. Manjrekar stated early on that Maxwell is an atypical batsman in that he does not play the ball or the bowler but instead frames his batting based on the type of field being set. Brilliant point. And then, for the rest of the session this lesson was drummed into our senses with each Maxwell hit. I was hoping for further insight into how captains could counter that strategy or bowlers could plan and make Maxwell hit into areas he is less comfortable (or would take more risks) hitting to. I am still waiting for that.

Kiwi commentators:All the Kiwi commentators have been excellent so far. Treating the game with respect, discussing strategy, pointing out the good (and bad) things players are doing, and staying quiet when needed and letting the crowd shots tell the story at times. (Luckily I have not heard Danny Morrison so far).

Channel 9 commentators: Back-slapping, inside-joke telling, laughing out loud once-every-minute, Aussie propaganda stumping.  All of these are what I have (unfortunately) come to expect from them. They are rah-rah boys of the worst kind. They often don't even know who the opposing players are and sometimes will (shockingly) admit it. How can they not research the 22 players on the field before beginning their stint? How can the producers of the show let them get away with displaying such ignorance?

Mark Taylor: Special mention - he hasn't met a non-Aussie name that he hasn't mangled. I cannot fathom how he neither cares nor tries to pronounce players names correctly. That is just rude and inconsiderate and unbecoming of someone who, at times, has insightful things to say, especially related to strategy and game plans.

Rameez Raja: Like Ravi Shastri, he has about 10 stock phrases that he uses in varying patterns. Has not done much research for years and it feels as if the only cricket he watches or follows is the little bit he sees when he is commentating.

There are others, plenty of them. If you are interested shoot me their names and I will tell you what I think of them.

When when became if and then became when

In my head, I have written and re-written this piece multiple times.  I cannot do any more editing.  What follows is exactly what I feel about Sachin Tendulkar's 100th 100.  If the thoughts are jumbled and disorganized it is because that's how they are in my head.

CricInfo's headline at the end of the Indian inning today was: Tendulkar's 100th century takes India to 289.  (Or something similar).  In my mind it actually was - Tendulkar's 100th century restricts India to 289.

Why, oh why, could he have not done this in the tour of West Indies, which he skipped?  Why, oh why?!!  For the want of a nail, a kingdom was lost.

For all his posturing about not caring about the milestone, it was blatantly obvious that he did.  If you believe him, then I own a statue of a lady in New York that I want to sell to you.

I woke up at 3am with a "premonition".  If India was batting, this was the day.  I am an unabashed admirer of VVS Laxman, but I am a fan of SRT when he bats like was born to bat.  For brief periods today, that SRT came to the fore.  When he did, I smiled.

I have a feeling we are going to see a couple more years of SRT.  No reason why he cannot continue playing.  He is still among the best batsmen in the world.  With no clauses.

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.

Never die wondering

Seven years ago, the man said he would do it.  Today, he did it.  The "he" is Virender Sehwag, the "it" is a double century.  In an ODI.  Which he achieved with 6 overs to spare.

Last night I was very tired and went to bed very early and slept a dreamless sleep till about 2:55am, when I woke up and was instantly as wide awake as I was going to be.  Call it premonition, call it luck, call it what you will - I turned on the PC and saw that India had won the toss (again!  Take lessons, MSD) and was going to bat.

For years, I played in a local league with a batsman whose appetite for gargantuan scores was seemingly limitless, except that he kept getting out.  We always wondered how much Sohail Chaudhry would score if he lasted the entire 25 overs.  And then one day we found out.  I have always had the same feeling about Sehwag.  He still hasn't ever batted for the entire 50 overs but on the day he does, I am pretty sure he will score more than the 219 runs he scored today.  What a player!

The sign of a truly great man is that he leaves room for improvement even when he accomplishes the unthinkable.  By not batting the entire 50 overs, Sehwag has left the door open for a few more dreams.

In parting, of all the comments I heard/read so far today, the best of them all was by someone named Jim Morrison on CricInfo's (outstanding) ball-by-ball coverage.  Reacting to Sehwag's double, he wrote:

"So, Sachin now holds the record for the SLOWEST double century in ODIs!"

Priceless!

Surf's up: Random musings - 5

Trolling through the web I often come across things that I file away for future (posting) reference. Here are some of the ones that still seem interesting enough to pass on to you.

a)  The shirts worn by the Australian Test cricket players has new design, probably to help them sweat less or something like that.  All I know is that it makes it seem like they are wearing sports bras under their shits.  Not a good look for them.  Fail!

AFP via CricInfo 2010

b)  Of late, soundbites from MS Dhoni have started to take on a fairly simplistic note, probably mindful of his ever-burgeoning public image.  But there was a time, not so long ago, when the man would speak from his heart and speak eloquently enough about his life.  Here's an interview from 2008, a few months after he had become India captain and well before he became the media-created behemoth he is today.

c)  While on MSD, have you ever seen a batsman "walk" for an LBW.  Take a look at MSD's reaction from about the 1:50 mark of this video.  Who knew that in a few years from then, he'd be captaining Murali to IPL (cough) glory.

 

d)  I was directed to the video in the previous point from the subject of this musing.  For those of us who cannot stand the television coverage of today (aptly described as a bunch of commercials interrupted by a few seconds of cricket), our best recourse to "watching" a game remains online text portals such as CricInfo's outstanding ball-by-ball commentary.  Another frequently visited website is The Guardian's Over By Over (OBO).  To whet your appetite, here's an OBO of the 2011 World Cup final between Sri Lanka and India.  Almost as good as some of my match day analyses.  *sigh*

A corner of a familiar playing field

Two Americans watched India play Pakistan in the 2011 World Cup and came up with a fabulously interesting and hilarious diary of the day's action. Very revealing and surprisingly insightful, too.

Some samples:

We are further told it's a perfect day for cricket, though we are not told what a perfect day for cricket is. Looks kind of sunny. Sunny is usually good for sports.

Stretching arms towards perfection

(This is a very long post. Disjointed and unorganized. It is a post 28 years in the making but I did not realize it till I sat down to actually write it. I can remember every little detail about the 2nd of April, 2011 like it was (day before) yesterday but just not in sequence! My reminisces about the day are also like that. I nearly deleted this post because of its rambling nature until I was convinced that I should publish it nevertheless because there are people who want to read what I write!)

...Oh My God! I think I may have just cost India the World Cup. How could I be so stupid?! It is 3:10am and I am driving east on Maple Street approaching the 204th street intersection. The light is red and I tell myself, if it stays red India loses, if it turns green India wins. It turns green! Phew! But not satisfied with dodging that bullet, I decide that if the light stays green until it is no longer visible in my rearview mirror then victory is assured. Oh no...oh no...oh no... Phew! I can no longer see it but then I reach 168th street and turn left. Oh dear, I can see the traffic light to the left in the distance, still green but how long can it hold on? Idiot!! How could I be so stupid?!!

Miracle of miracles, it stays green the whole time! India is going to win! After that - Never. A. Doubt. Honestly, God promise.

Not the real deal

Coming up, very soon, a post on what I did on the 2nd day of April in the year 2011. Apart from the usual nonsense - get up, take a shower, drive around for a few minutes, etc., - I did catch a cricket match. I have been writing and writing and am still not done but I know my loyal followers (all 4 of them, I think) are waiting eagerly (one hopes)!

This post is just to say, "Have patience, my friend. A post is on its way." In it I shall reference, among other things, Rabindranath Tagore, OBO ("What's that?," you say? You'll just have to wait), Clint Eastwood, Keyser Söze, Saturn (the planet not the car), Lord of the Rings, Teddy (not Roosevelt but my dog), Doordarshan Samachar, 28 runs in 104 80 balls, Helen of Troy, and VVS Laxman (but, of course).

Until then, feast on this iconic image of the shot heard around the world:

(Getty Images 2011, via CricInfo)

Thoughts before the Final

It is finally upon us - a cricket final in Mumbai, featuring an Indian team.

Here are some last-minute thoughts on the off-chance that an Indian player reads it and passes along the message to MS Dhoni.

a) Virender Sehwag promised to bat 50 overs. Now would be a good time for him to remember the promise. If he bats 50 overs, the game is almost certainly out of Sri Lanka's reach.

b) Sachin Tendulkar is going to score his 100th international century in the Final. Not for nothing has he accumulated no less than 26 international scores in the 90's. A few years ago in Cuttack, Dinesh Karthik went ballistic with SRT eying a century, stranding him on 96 not out against the Sri Lankans. Now I know for sure that Dinesh did not strand the Master, it was part of a Grand Plan.

While on that, can we stop calling SRT a "Little" Master? He has gone beyond the Little stage by now, I would like to think.

c) In Masada, I trust. I had a dream vision that Masada and SRT were at the crease as the winning runs were scored. That means...

d) Masada needs to lose the toss. I have more faith in the batting chasing down a total than the bowling defending a total. Invariably, because of the great start that Sehwag provides the commentators place a curse on the Indian team by talking about projected scores in excess of 350, only to have the natural course of events bring it down to the 260-280 range which feels like a letdown when, in fact, it should feel like a great total.

e) Ravi Shastri: I know it is the final of a World Cup. You need not scream yourself hoarse reminding us of it. We know that you will be feeling the following things:

• It does not get any bigger than this.
• It's anybody's game.
• The atmosphere is electric.
• What the batting team needs is a good partnership.
• What the bowling team needs is a couple of quick wickets
• (or, if it is late in the inning) a couple of good overs.

Actually, why don't you just click on this link for more.

f) While their careers have overlapped for almost 19 years, I was shocked to read that SRT has faced only 91 balls in ODIs and 366 balls in Tests from Muttiah Muralitharan. What?!! here's hoping for 59 more (and someone else's wicket off the 60th one for Murali).

There are many more thoughts but considering how incoherent the previous ones have been, I should just shut up and write only after my nerves have settled.

By this time tomorrow.....

Running Diary: India-South Africa World Cup match

A pivotal scheduled clash between two of the strongest teams in the World Cup is at hand. Rather than do a running diary after every over, I shall write frequently, as and when thoughts come to mind during the telecast. Pardon the typos. After all, even the best of batsmen edge the ball during the best of innings.

2:55am: Further signs that the world in indeed going to end in 2012 - India goes into a cricket match at home with fewer specialist spinners than South Africa. India adopts the horses for courses strategy and takes just Harbhajan (Economy) Singh into the game. Of course, the course we are preparing for is a South African one. I hope Yuvraj Singh takes a few wickets. After all, Economy has been told by his captain to not worry about wickets as long as he contains the scoring.

By the way, just as it is not uncommon for my students to develop those 24-hour flus on the day of an exam, now that South Africa have made the quarter-final, leg-spinner Imran Tahir has a fractured thumb on his non-bowling hand that will take 10 days to heal. Just enough time to miss out on the rest of the league games but not too long that he will miss any of the knock-out games. Along the way, it surprised no one (and I predicted this would happen before the World Cup in an email to a friend) Tahir picks up the injury on the eve of the match against India.

The lone and level sands...

Thanks to the replay feature of WillowTV I witnessed one of the most nerveless inning I have ever seen during a run chase. Other batsmen took the glory but watching Mahmudullah calmly farm the strike and play out the good deliveries, showing no sign of panic in spite of Bangladesh's precarious position, was a sight for sore eyes. There is always room for a calm head in a tense chase. Cricket may increasingly advertise its slam-bang nature, but the wins are set up by the pillars, not the wall hangings.

I have followed Mahmudullah quite closely since his Test debut a couple of years ago. (Yes, I do watch all kinds of Test cricket - including Bangladesh!) I wasn't surprised when he scored a century under pressure in New Zealand last year and it is not surprising that his 21 in 42 balls with the team 8 wickets down proved to be the fulcrum that Shafiul Islam used to pry open a win from a tenacious English team.

Unfortunately, in a few days, folks will have moved on. Someone looking at the scorecard in a few years will simply focus on the contribution of Iqbal and Kayes and Islam. Everyone else will forget his contribution, but I shall always cherish this inning from Mahmudullah. Long may he serve the game of cricket.

Spin it to win it

I had originally intended to give the India-Ireland match a miss until I was asked to take a peek at Kevin O'Brien. (More specifically, his heroics against England a few days ago). I am glad I stayed up all night and watched cricket, including the England-South Africa game (until I switched over to the India game with Amla and de Villiers cruising towards a regulation win).

Some things that stood out for me:

The quietest World Cup ever

“We lay aside letters never to read them again, and at last we destroy them out of discretion, and so disappears the most beautiful, the most immediate breath of life, irrecoverable for ourselves and for others.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The cricket World Cup has started and folks who know nothing about the sport ask me how it is going. The reality is that so far I have watched only one full inning - India's inning against England.

I have just not been able to get my head wrapped around a schedule that features games for teams once every 5-7 days. CricInfo has been doing a good job of giving me the news without the need to see replays or highlights on WillowTV.

Can I force myself to stay up and watch the Indian team play this weekend (I had to look it up to even know whom they played)? I'm not really sure.

What I do know is this:

As the world turns

While I have been missing from this blog, a lot has happened and at the same time nothing much has happened:

The Indian ODI cricket team is coasting along while 4 of the players who will walk in blindfolded into the team - SRT, GG, Plaha, and ZAK - are nursing their wounds or, in the case of the Golden One - enjoying a vacation with his family. So, with only 7/11ths of the team in play (and even among the 7 folks like Yuvraj are living off of potential than performance), the Indian team is displaying the schizophrenic nature that is typical of teams that are about average, which is what the ODI team is.

By the way, losing just before the World Cup is good for the Indian team. Trust me. If you don't, think 2003.

Roger Federer comes into the Fall of 2010 in an eerily similar state to where he was in 2008 - Rafael Nadal had just completed the summer double - he had been losing to everyone and their grandmother and his tennis obituary was printed and posted. In 2008, he mowed down Andy Murray to win the title. Will 2010 be a similar story? If it happens, what will people remember of 2010 - that Federer lost his stranglehold on Wimbledon and appeared mortal or that he won as many Grand Slams in this year as Nadal did?

A new batch of students have come to my College and the excitement on campus is one that I have not felt in a few years. There's a buzz in the air and classes have been a lot of fun so far, even when on the first day the computer refused to cooperate and I resorted to the old-fashioned style of lecturing.

After an inauspicious start to the cricket season (our team was bundled out for 83 in the first match), we have now won 6 of the last 8 games and are beginning to resemble the juggernaut that we were expected to be based on our dominance of the past two years. Strangely, though, it has coincided with a series of single-digit scores by me even as my wicket-keeping has improved by leaps and bounds, especially down the leg-side. As long as we win, I can deal with that, I think.

After weeks of resembling a tropical island, it has finally stopped thunderstorming and raining in Nebraska. However, the temperature has also started dropping to more manageable proportions. Maybe there's a connection between the two. Who knows which butterflies are not flapping their wings in Nicaragua to cause this to happen?!

Will we ever go back to such innocent times again, where two characters could cavort this way and no one raised eyebrows, least of all their girlfriends?

Slash and burn

Of all the tributes pouring in for Sachin Tendulkar after the 200* he scored in an ODI, the best is this one from Sambit Bal, the editor of CricInfo.

Fine wine

Approximately a year ago, I saw Sachin Tendulkar retire hurt at a personal score of 163 at the end of 45 overs in an ODI in New Zealand.  The way he was batting that day a double century was easily in sight, especially with the short boundaries in Christchurch. A few months later he surpassed that with a 175 at Hyderabad that was as emphatic as any of his innings. Crossing 150 is a rare enough feat in ODI's, doing it so many times in a career is phenomenal. Today, SRT finally crossed the rubicon, getting to the 200 run landmark that he richly deserves to be the first to get to, just as Brian Lara thoroughly deserves to be remembered as the first man to a Test 400.

There will be talk about how it was a flat pitch and the runs were there for the taking. Well, this was the 2,962nd ODI played and a batsman finally reached 200. I don't care how flat the pitch was, this was special. What made it even more special was that the team goal was not sacrificed at the altar of a personal record. (He did set the record for most 4's in a single ODI inning).

Lies of the third kind

Recently, in the comments section of a post on Sachin Tendulkar, BRB/AV said:
"The one thing missing in this is you forgot to mention the fact that, in every series, ST (Sachin tendulkar) does the same. One innings for the people to say "Cricket's GOD" but rest will be similar to P.Kumar or for the fact much similar to Nehra."

So is it true that Tendulkar produces one memorable innings and then rides on it for a while? I looked at the data from all the series that India has played since MS Dhoni became captain. For each of the top 5 batsmen currently in the Indian team, I deducted their highest score in the series and then saw how they fared in the remaining ones.

If BRB/AV's thesis holds true, then the rest of the batsman should far outperform Tendulkar in the common matches. With the help of the Statsguru function on CricInfo and some Microsoft Excel formatting, I came up with the following numbers (click on the image for more clarity):

Apart from being outdistanced by MS Dhoni, which is not a surprise to anyone who has followed the fortunes of the Indian squad, Tendlkar holds his own and, if anything, has done better than his compatriots. And some of the innings that have been removed from the dataset for Tendulkar are two centuries in the finals of a tournament (Compaq Cup in Sri Lanka and Commonwealth Bank Series in Australia), 163* in New Zealand, and THAT 175 in Hyderabad. By the way, the last 6 times that Tendulkar has scored a century in the final of an ODI, India has won the tournament, including 3 in the last 2 years. Just saying.

So BRB/AV, the ball is in your court. Without those "Cricket's God" innings, Tendulkar is still doing as well or better than his teammates. What else does he need to do to prove his worth to you?

P.S. Also note how incredibly consistent MS Dhoni has been. Removing his best innings still leaves behind an impressively consistent run of scores in every series he has played.

Ominous portents

When the India-Australia ODI series began, India's was on the verge of becoming the #1 ranked team in the world. With each passing game, Australia made it more interesting (and supposedly easier) for the takeover to occur, losing players to injury faster than one could say Venkatesh Prasad. Yet, at the end of the series, the scoreline read 4-2 in favor of the Aussies.

Bill Simmons often talks about being afraid of teams who play the "no-respect, no-chance" card. Australia was in the perfect situation - if they lost, no one would blame them, but if they won all sorts of kudos would follow. The Indians were in the no-win situation - if they won, it would come affixed with an asterisk, and if they lost.....well, we all know where that would go.

Before you slot this post into the latter category, I'd like to step back and offer some perspective:
In March 2008, India beat Australia in Australia with a team that featured the following players - Uthappa, Tendulkar, Gambhir, Yuvraj, Rohit S, MS Dhoni, Praveen K, Irfan P, Ishant S, Harbhajan, P. Chawla.

In October 2009, India lost to Australia in India with a team that featured the following players - Sehwag, Tendulkar, Gambhir, Yuvraj, Raina, MS Dhoni, Praveen K, Ishant S, Harbhajan, M Patel, A Nehra.

The common players: Tendulkar, Gambhir, Yuvraj, Dhoni, Praveen K, Harbhajan S, Ishant S.

The 4 different players - Raina, Nehra, Patel, and Sehwag.

By common consensus:

• Sehwag is an upgrade over Uthappa
• Nehra is an upgrade over Pathan
• Raina is an upgrade over Rohit Sharma
• Patel is inferior to Chawla in fielding and batting and even-stevens in bowling.

Australia, on the other hand, had Gilchrist, Hayden, Ponting, Clarke, Hussey, Symonds, Lee, Johnson, Hopes, Hogg, and Bracken in 2008. Clearly a superior team to the one that played in the recent series. Since they played so many replacements in 2009 I shall not list them all here.

So what is the difference? Palpably it was a drastic drop in the fielding standards. In the current Indian team only Raina is capable of excellent fielding. There are a few safe ones (Tendulkar and Gambhir come readily to mind) while the rest are well-below where they can or should be. There was a time when Yuvraj prowled point like nobody's business. Now he is favoring an injured knee, and it takes all he can to simply stop the ball at mid-off.

(CricInfo 2009)

Patel and Nehra are ridiculously inept. When they bowl they do not even try to come back to the wicket to back-up and glower if there is a mis-fielding. I have been observing Nehra for years now and he has not improved at all in either batting or fielding. Munaf Patel looks so lethargic, simply looking at him will make a batsman contemplate a single.

Overall, the attitude of the players was a strange one. In the 6th ODI, India struggled at the start, then Dhoni and Jadeja slowly (some might say a little too slowly) nurtured the score along, and then Praveen Kumar took off. With 15 balls to go, the score was at 170 for 8, Praveen Kumar was at 54 in 51 balls, and Nehra swung wildly and lost his stumps. Munaf Patel was fortunate to not get out next ball, stepping away from the stumps, but rather than learn from this, he simply repeated the error and the stumps went for a walk. Just like that 170 all out with 12 balls still to go, and Praveen Kumar still on 54 not out.

What were the thinking?! I am not sure anyone knows. And that epitomized the Indian team's attitude about the series. I am glad they did not win the series on the basis of Sachin's solitary gem. It would have papered over the cracks.

At least now the selectors can think long and hard at the team selection and come up with some viable solutions. But then they announced the Test squad to play Sri Lanka and all hopes I had of a thoughtful selection for any upcoming ODI series was squashed (more on that in my next post).

MS Dhoni will not be lifting the 2011 World Cup unless the following changes occur:

• One-skill players (Patel, Nehra in particular) are jettisoned or they pick up half-decent secondary skills.
• Sachin Tendulkar stops paying attention to milestones and bats without pre-determining what he will do to the ball before it is bowled. (And if he claims otherwise, then he is a liar).
• Harbhajan Singh is not automatically penciled in as the #1 spinner. In my estimate, he is behind Ojha, Mishra, and Jadeja in the current Indian setup. As DSC/BF pointed out once, Harbhajan is the classic bully - all over a team if he senses they are weaker than him, but bowling flatter and on the leg-stump , afraid to have his analysis ruined, if he plays a good team.
• Virender Sehwag lasts longer than 30 runs or 15 minutes.

Here is a comparison of the performance of two batsmen in the series:
Batsman A: 14 (29) Batsman B: 34 (46)
Batsman A: 4 (8) Batsman B: 124 (107)
Batsman A: 32 (47) Batsman B: 71* (95)
Batsman A: 40 (68) Batsman B: 26 (46)
Batsman A: 175 (141) Batsman B: 6 (15)
Batsman A: 10 (23) Batsman B: 24 (77)

Of course, anyone who followed the series knows who the two batsmen are. All the talk has been about this Indian team resembling the one from the 90's - Tendulkar standing alone while the deck burns around him. Unfortunately, in my opinion, the reality is that apart from the 175 in Hyderabad, Tendulkar had a very average series. His first 4 innings were labored ones, with the looming 17,000 mark preying on his mind, costing the team dearly.

Here's Prem Panicker's take on this and I was thinking this even as I was following along (bold text for emphasis is mine):

The fourth game in the series, November 2 at Chandigarh, was the seminal moment of the series. India was 2-1 up and looking to take the definitive lead. A brilliant bowling performance backed by fielding that was un-Indian in its athleticism restricted Australia to 249. India's target, on a wicket where the batting conditions were perfect, was 250 to win off 300 balls -- a 50-run differential in the team's favour. Opener Virender Sehwag skewed the arithmetic even further with 30 off 19 balls, reducing the target to 220 off 281 deliveries. India lost by 24 runs and allowed Australia to level the series -- and the key stat that jumps out at you is this: Sachin Tendulkar 40 off 68 -- an innings that contained six fours, but also 50 dot balls. In other words, Sachin's inexplicably stodgy knock single-handedly wiped out the advantage India had taken into the chase.

(...)

Tendulkar started the series needing 137 runs to achieve the statistical landmark of 17,000 runs. Even the most ardent fan will concede that the milestone a largely pointless one from a team point of view, and a largely superfluous one for an individual who, by reason of achievement and longevity both, 'breaks' some record or other each time he walks out to bat -- had, for the course of the first four games, become a millstone around the batsman's neck, forcing him into an ultra-defensive mode that militated against the larger requirements of the team he was part of.

(...)

Move on, now, to November 5 and the Rajiv Gandhi Stadium at Uppal, Hyderabad where an adrenalin-fuelled batting performance by Australia left India facing an unlikely, almost impossible, target.

India needed to get 351 in 300 balls; Tendulkar needed 7 runs to attain his personal milestone. For 16 deliveries, the master batsman pushed, poked and prodded until finally, off the last ball of the fifth over, a clip off the pads through square leg produced three runs that took him past his target. It was only then, with the mind freed of personal ambition, that he felt himself free to turn his attention to the team's requirement..

Another blogger, Greatbong, has similar views on the ODI performance and points out some that I have not picked on specifically.

In the end, what gets our collective goat is that this team is capable of much better efforts but for a myriad reasons, some stated but many unstated, just does not seem to be putting its best foot forward of late.

At this rate, only a freakish brilliant ephemeral performance by the squad will bring the World Cup to India.

Are you watching, Bhajji?

It is so nice to see an off-spinner bowl such probing lines outside the off-stump and keep the batsmen constantly guessing during the finals of a tournament. Too bad it is Nathan Hauritz and not Harbhajan Singh doing the wheeling and dealing.

Truly, a reputation is not worth its weight in gold. Harbhajan has been too defensive when bowling to a top-flight batting line-up to be a shoe-in as the first spinner in ODI's in the past couple of years.

Old wine, meet new bottle

In 2006, Greg Chappell and Rahul Dravid were at the helm of Indian cricket. The Indian team was gearing up for a run at the upcoming 2007 World Cup. There was a great deal of hue and cry over the fact that India did not have a settled #3 batsman.

On February 12th, 2006, on my blog I wrote:

The IndianOil Cup in Sri Lanka was the first time Rahul Dravid was made the captain for an entire series, under the aegis of Greg Chappell. Since that time the following players have batted at #3 - Mohammad Kaif, Irfan Pathan, MS Dhoni, JP Yadav, Yuvraj Singh, Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, SK Raina, and VVS Laxman.

The criticism that was being leveled at that time was that the oh-so-easily-insecure batsmen were unsure who was batting where, and that it was ruining the player's confidence. In searching for a method behind the seeming madness, I thought I found one.

I searched for a pattern and I think I am beginning to see one. The Indian think-tank (Chappell, Dravid and Tendulkar) appear to have broken up the batsmen into two categories - the accelerators (Sehwag, Yuvraj, Pathan, Dhoni) and the anchors (Tendulkar, Dravid, Kaif). These 7 form the central core of their batting lineup.

The manipulation of the batting line-up is based on pairing an accelerator with an anchor as much as possible. Which role-players will go in to bat depends upon the state of the match:

The generic formula: Sehwag and Tendulkar will open. Sehwag's mandate is to accelerate, while Tendulkar's is to consolidate. If Sehwag gets out early - either Pathan or Yuvraj or Dhoni will go in. If Tendulkar gets out first - either Kaif or Dravid will go in.

The plan did not quite work out in the World Cup because of factors not completely in their control.

Unfortunately for the think-tank, the worst possible thing happened. Sehwag's ODI form hit rock bottom and, soon, Pathan joined him there. Yuvraj Singh hit a purple patch of form and India rode the crest of his, Dhoni's, and (for some time) Pathan's feats to the tune of 18 straight successful chases (oh, how easily the media forgets this astounding feat).

But then Yuvraj, a vital cog in the scheme, was rendered hors de combat, and Raina/Mongia could not fill his void. Eventually the scheme was adjusted to try to fit the personnel available and this coincided with the clamouring for all experimentation to stop. (Ironically, this is the time when they needed to experiment the most to find the pieces to replace the cogs that had begun to malfunction).

The end result was that Chappell was eased out, Dravid eventually resigned, and serendipitously, India discovered that MS Dhoni was a brilliant captain, in spite of a total lack of experience in that role.

Fast forward to today. Once again, the Indian batting line-up is in a flux. Stop the presses!! Sidharth Monga (there he is once more!) picks up the thesis, as if it is a new concept, again.

So who is India's No. 3 for ODIs? Gautam Gambhir? Only when Sachin Tendulkar plays. But wait a minute, didn't Mahendra Singh Dhoni feature at one-down in the Napier ODI with Tendulkar opening with Virender Sehwag? Gambhir didn't even get to bat then.

Suresh Raina would be a close guess, but he has done it only five times out of his past 11 matches, and on 15 occasions during his 61-match career.

How about Yuvraj Singh? Not really, having batted at No. 3 14 times in his 228 games. But he can make a surprise appearance every now and then.

Dhoni attempts to clarify this (seemingly) bewildering state of affairs when he says:

Dhoni took the uncertainty game one step ahead after India won the previous match. That involved the roles the different batsmen were supposed to play. One of the keys is for one batsman to provide stability from one end so that the likes of Sehwag, Yuvraj, Raina and Yusuf can play their natural game.

"We have Sachin, Gautam and lower down the order, myself, who can do this job," Dhoni said. "But in between we change that also, so the opposition can't really be sure that the batsmen will play their innings in a certain way. At times he is given the responsibility to play aggressive cricket too, because the opposition keeps thinking he will look to take the innings through."

Hmmm, sounds familiar, doesn't it? Before we get too ahead of ourselves we must let some old demons rise up one more time.

But there is a fine line between a clever, better shuffle and a muddle. If the ploy surprises the opposition, it must also leave the batsmen themselves a touch unsure. By the time the captain-coach combine of Rahul Dravid and Greg Chappell was done, a major criticism was that with so many shuffles no batsman was certain of what his role in the side was.

My take has always been simple. If the captain (and coach) of the team clearly explains to each player what the overall strategy is and how their play fits in the big scheme of things, I don't see anyone having problems with that. The only concern (and this is a big one) is that the selectors need to be aware of this before they take a knee-jerk approach and discard someone for a lean spell while simply following team orders. It has happened before (most noticeably with Aakash Chopra in the recent past) and nothing convinces me that it will not happen in the near future. 

I just hope that the 2011 World Cup does not get sacrificed at the altar of public perception, like the 2007 edition was.