Last Update: The smiling assassin

Okay, I swear I am done with articles about VVS Laxman and just in time, too, as the next Test is starting in about 24 hours. (See the Last Update below for the latest update).

Last Update: Finally, Harsha Bhogle weighs in on a fellow Hyderabadi. Many years ago, Harsha wrote the only authorized biography of Mohammad Azharuddin. Maybe someday soon he will write one about VVS Laxman. Until then, we'll have to catch snippets of Harsha's views on Laxman through his articles on CricInfo. Here's his latest offering.

For a major part of his career he has batted at No. 6. It means the tail is a stone's throw away. It means the boundary riders are out for him, offering him the single to attack the rest. It means he stays not-out more often; once every sixth innings almost, compared to about one in 10 for Tendulkar and one in nine for Dravid. You might argue it boosts his average but the innings rarely go as far as they might have gone. Hence, only 16 centuries. Hence, too, the change in batting style; from a free-stroking player to someone who must guard his wicket and prolong the innings. Number six is a difficult position to bat in if you are a batsman who doesn't bowl because your numbers rarely look as good as those of the men who precede you.

Down in Australia, they think we are daft but we have never bestowed on him the stature we have with Tendulkar, Dravid, Ganguly, and more lately with Sehwag.

That is why he has had to walk the selection tightrope far too often for a player of his ability. That is why many believe he has been underrated. Down in Australia they think we are daft, but we have never bestowed on him the stature we have on Tendulkar, Dravid, Ganguly, and more lately Sehwag. And so, every time there was a new kid on the block, the attention shifted towards Laxman. And yet in the last two years (from January 1, 2009, to be precise), he has scored a century every four Tests and averages 80.

Update: Two more articles on Laxman's role in the Mohali Test have come up that need mentioning. (There will be one last update tomorrow when Harsha Bhogle's column on CricInfo comes up, too).

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.

Trolling for cricket

a) Of the many articles written to commemorate Sachin Tendulkar's service to Indian cricket (20 years and counting, in case you did not know), I like this one by Rahul Bhattacharya the best. Admiring the man without being overly gushing, it stands out for the little gems that are thrown about here and there. Gems such as these:

Memory obscures telling details in the dizzying rise thereafter. Everybody remembers the 326 not out in the 664-run gig with Kambli. Few remember the 346 not out in the following game, the trophy final. Everyone knows the centuries on debut in the Ranji Trophy and Irani Trophy at 15 and 16. Few know that he got them in the face of a collapse in the first instance and virtually out of partners in the second. Everyone knows his nose was bloodied by Waqar Younis in that first Test series, upon which he waved away assistance. Few remember that he struck the next ball for four.

This was Tendulkar five years after he'd first handled a cricket ball.

b) Suresh Menon positively raves about Rahul Dravid here but does so in a manner that makes it a must-read for anyone who likes sports journalism. It is a qualitative and quantitative description of the highest order.

To be defined by what he has missed has sometimes been Dravid’s fate. When he made 180 in a Test match, he was upstaged by a man who made 281; that innings by VVS Laxman is rated as the best by an Indian batsman. When Dravid made his then highest one-day score of 145, Sourav Ganguly made 183 in the same innings; when he topped that by making 153 against New Zealand, Sachin Tendulkar made an unbeaten 186. Is Rahul Dravid the best supporting act in the history of the game or a great player born in the wrong decade?

He is the best supporting act in the history of the game (a world record 78 century partnerships in Tests) and a great player (over 10,000 runs in both forms of the game). It is tempting to conclude that he was born in the wrong decade, forcing him to play in the shadow of Sachin Tendulkar, but that hardly matters to the man who is in competition with no one but himself, and who was secure enough to say at one time, “Most people want me to get out quickly so they can watch Sachin bat.”

c) Virender Sehwag is the subject of a simple statistical study by CricInfo who provide a list of all the partnerships he has been involved in as a Test player. Not surprisingly, Rahul Dravid is his companion at the top, though it is a matter of time before his position is usurped.

(Just for kicks, here are Rahul Dravid's partnership stats for his career).

d) Sambit Bal, the Editor of CricInfo, is also a fine writer when he does put his thoughts to paper. Here, he reflects on a gripping Test encounter at Dunedin between Pakistan and New Zealand, reaffirming why the long form of the game is unparalleled for all the different types of scenarios it can throw up in just one match. He finishes with a thought I can empathize with:

The experience of watching cricket on TV in India has grown progressively worse. One of the joys of the Dunedin Test was the cleanness of the TV feed. You could watch the bowler start an over, and indeed end it; no creepy-crawlies invaded the screen while the game was on; and between overs you could watch the captain change the field. Also, somehow it felt like the commentators spoke only as much as they needed to. In India, enduring cricket on television has itself become a test of loyalty.
(...)
Test cricket needs an avenger. It needs men with vision and a sense of mission. It needs ownership and drive. Now, someone needs to convert Lalit Modi.

e) Reading this article sent shivers down my spine at the thought that it might be true. S Aga speculates that the third Test between India and Sri Lanka may have been the last time SRT, Dravid, and VVS Laxman batted together in a home Test match.

Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman have played 183 home Tests between them, scoring 13,665 runs and 37 centuries. They also have a combined age of 107 and, with few countries actually adhering to the Future Tours Programme, there might be no home Tests before the World Cup in 2011. Next year's series against South Africa will feature only ODIs and it's hard to see much enthusiasm on the part of the BCCI for a tour by New Zealand just three months before the first ball is bowled at the World Cup.

(Subsequently, there have been rumors that South Africa may play a couple of Tests so there may still be some time left for this triumvirate).

f) If the Indian Test team bats at an average of over 4 runs per over for an innings, an essential element is that it features a blitz by Virender Sehwag. When Sehwag is on song (and it happens too often in Tests to be a fluke) the overall picture of the game looks rosy from an Indian point of view. But if you dig deeper, his batting actually masks a big deficiency of the middle-order, namely the inability to grind the hapless bowlers into the dust. Here are a couple of articles on that theme. First, an older one by Rahul Bhattacharya that goes deeper into this than anyone before.

Since Australia are the benchmark - and in batting the Indians ought to be meeting them eye-to-eye - it is instructive to note that when Matthew Hayden makes a score (fifty or more, for the purpose of this exercise), those who follow him score marginally faster than they would do had he fallen cheaply (at a rate of 3.79 against 3.75, from September 2001 onwards). When Sehwag scores fifty or more, however, the rest of the Indian line-up make their runs discernibly slower (2.96 against 3.15, in matches where Sehwag has opened) than they otherwise would. So where Australia are taking a man's success and building on it, feeding off it - the cornerstone of their cricket in general - India are using it, bizarrely, as an occasion to play inside their abilities.

Some of India's recent post-Sehwag dawdles make damning reading. At the MCG last season, when Sehwag was fourth man out, having made 195, the run-rate plummeted by 1.75 points (or 157 runs per day). At Kanpur against South Africa this season, when he was second out, having scored 164, it dropped by 1.52 (137 runs per day). At Kolkata in the following Test it fell by 1.02 (92 runs per day) after he was gone for 88. And at Mohali most recently against Pakistan it dipped by 1.46 (131 runs per day). Of the above matches India could only win the Kolkata Test. And there too South Africa, had they shown more resolve in the second innings, could have made India regret the tardiness, as the Pakistanis did at Mohali.

About 4 years later here's Prem Panicker on his blog collating some of the best pieces written on Viru by some very good cricket writers. Read the entire post, if you will, for links to some fine pieces of writing.

g) And just to show that he is not just a fan of Rahul Dravid, Suresh Menon unloads about Virender Sehwag.

VIRENDER SEHWAG’S batting is a reminder that there are no absolute standards in sport. “They told me in the dressing room that I was hitting good balls to the boundary,” he said after his neartriple century in the Mumbai Test, “but actually I was hitting only the bad balls.” The combination of innocence and ruthlessness, of self-doubt and self-awareness is unique.
(...)
HIS ROLE in the rise of India to the No. 1 spot in Test cricket has been fundamental. In the last 25 Tests (eight series), he has scored more runs than anybody else (2,093 in 20 Tests) as India beat Pakistan, drew against South Africa, beat Australia, England, New Zealand and Sri Lanka (they lost in Australia and Sri Lanka).

As Sehwag went berserk against Sri Lanka to the tune of 293 runs, there were many spectators with stories of their own to share.(By the way, I did not know that Sehwag was the vice-captain of the current Indian team. With MS Dhoni getting suspended for a couple of ODIs Viru should be back at the helm again. It will be interesting to see how he juggles the middle-order, sans Dhoni).

h) Even as the current edition begins to reach for the #1 spot in Tests and ODIs (getting there is not enough, staying there is more important IMHO), Indian cricket's next generation readies itself. Here's a handy guide to the players who will represent India in the Under-19 World Cup in a few weeks. Which of these names will be hawking televisions and toothpastes when not playing cricket in the years to come? Your guess is as good as mine. I will try to keep up with their progress and if I spot anything I will be sure to pass it along to you.

i) I have a fun comparison for you. Here are the stats for two Test players currently representing their country.
Player A: 48 Tests, 87 innings, 3509 runs, HS 160, average 42.79, 9 hundreds, 20 fifties, 44 catches.
Player B: 49 Tests, 88 innings, 3144 runs, HS 199, average 39.79, 8 hundreds, 21 fifties, 45 catches.

Not much to choose from between the two, is there? Both were lauded as the future of their countries' hopes but have been treated very differently by the media. Player A is the proverbial golden child, handled with cotton gloves as his mistakes are glossed over, his potential constantly brought up, and is likely to captain his country very soon, while player B is on the verge of having his career stalled because of a perception that he has not done enough with his chances. How would you react if you were either player?

(Update: CricInfo's Andrew McGlashan seems to have picked up on this and talks about it in his latest column.)

There is a lot more to this than plain numbers but you can see how players' livelihoods are really at stake when the media decides to lay tags on them.

(By the way Player A is Alastair Cook and Player B is Ian Bell)

j) Take a look at the first two items on sports page from December 8th, 2003. The seeds for so many different things were sown on that day that it boggles the mind to play a game of what-if based on "what if Sourav Ganguly had not succeeded that day?".

k) Finally, just for kicks, here's VVS Laxman.

(Reuters 2003)

Catching on

It took some time coming, but Rahul Dravid finally managed to snare catch number 182 to cross Mark Waugh on the all-time list for most catches by a fielder. And once the pressure was off, he picked up #183 soon after.

He is being hailed as India's best slip fielder but I wouldn't go that far. I can think of two or three others who were just as safe or reliable but there is no denying that to a spinner he is brilliant. Sambit Bal got lucky and was able to celebrate this achievement when it happened.

Huw Richards of the New York Times put together an informative article while avoiding a lot of the hyperbolic comments that usually accompany world records. In fact, of all the articles that discuss this achievement, this one is the best I read for the even note it maintains. A lot like Dravid, dare I say?

That Dravid’s feat will occasion less excitement than Sachin Tendulkar’s achievement in becoming the highest-scoring test batsman says something about the status of fielding in relation to other cricketing skills. While it is one of the game’s oldest clichés that “catches win matches,” the fielding statistics that are recorded are extremely limited.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Test cricket has taken a couple of body blows in the recent past with some absolutely shoddy pitch preparation. In a quest to make a Test match last 5 days, thereby ensuring that TV revenue is not impacted, curators around the world have been preparing the flattest of pitches. It has been raining runs and a century no longer seems to be a big enough score for a batsman. But the ICC does not care for the viewer's interests, it appears. Sambit Bal takes up this train of thought on his editor's blog on CricInfo.

Of course, lessons are unlikely to be learnt from cricket's latest debacles. That's simply because it is unlikely there will be any repercussions. Unlike players, cricket administrators are rarely held to account. Giles Clarke, who was confirmed the ECB's chairman amidst calls for his resignation over his board's dalliance with Allen Stanford, claimed blithely to have received 9000 emails urging him to stay on and save English cricket. Twelve days after a Test was abandoned in Antigua because the custodians of a cricket stadium could not tell a beach from a playing field, the executive committee of the ICC came to the perceptive conclusion that "the responsibility for ensuring the delivery of a venue fit for the purpose of international cricket rested with the host Member board".

Move over, Roebuck and Bhogle, I think I have found a cricket writer whose style I like even more than yours! And, luckily, he has started his own blog on CricInfo. About time, I say.

Last words

2008 is in the books and who better than Sambit Bal to give a comprehensive review of the happenings across the playing fields and beyond. The review is in two pieces - part 1 here, and part 2 here.

Here's his take on MS Dhoni, the golden boy whose captaincy is still in the honeymoon phase. His first hiccup was in not pursuing a 2-0 verdict against England, but that was completely overshadowed by his so-far successful reign as the skipper.

India are lucky to have found Dhoni to take them through a crucial hour of transition. He has shades of Sourav Ganguly's leadership qualities, and on the evidence of his few matches in charge, greater tactical nous. Most of all, he seems immune to the media, which as Rahul Dravid and Anil Kumble found, often poses a much greater challenge to Indian captains than opponents on the field. So far, admittedly, he is yet to taste the kind of press that drove Dravid and Kumble to distraction, and he has maintained an aloof, and in fact slightly amused, air about media criticism.

As captain he doesn't seem burdened by precedents or shackled by the fear of consequences. There is a method to his tactics, but he has allowed himself to be guided by his instincts. In some ways he is an old-school captain, not given to over-theorising or over-reliance on the laptop, and guided instead by a cricketer's reading of situations. As a result, his decision-making has come across as uncomplicated and uncluttered. He also seems to possess that intangible thing that all successful captains need: luck.

There will be days when his plans misfire and luck deserts him. That will be his true test. Last year was one in which he could do no wrong. Still, all signs suggest he will be all right.

While on skippers, a man who went from hero to zero (or worse) in the blink of an eye has spent many years on the outside. But, luckily, it appears that the (perceived) sins of the father are not hampering the progress of the sons. Mohammad Azharuddin's older son is being recruited by the IPL. Here's hoping he cares a niche for himself and outdoes his father on the field. Also, the younger son has been spotted, too, and if anything, is a bigger chip off the old block than his elder brother.

Finally, Aakash Chopra was recently shown the door by the BCCI, effectively ending any hope he had of playing for India again. He has gone back to blogging for CricInfo but here and there you can glimpse the pain he feels from not getting a chance to represent the country again.

Now that we're home and with our families, we must make the most of it as we really don't know what the future has in store for us. Though, personally, I wouldn't mind staying away on New Year's Eve with the Indian team once again.

His first book, Beyond the Blues, is releasing this week and I am looking forward to owning a copy soon.

It takes a village-r

India chased down a daunting total to win the first Test against England. The win was engineered by the trigger-happy Virender Sehwag. MS Dhoni admitted as much in the post-match interview when he said that had Sehwag not fired, India would have played for a draw. Yet, the rest of the fine folks who report on the game seem to think that the entire team shared Sehwag's will to win. I hope I am wrong in thinking so, but there is only one uncluttered mind in the Indian dressing room and he plunders his runs from the opener's spot.

(Incidentally, South Africa is in a similar predicament in their Test against Australia but they do not seem to have the belief that they can win).

Here are some of the items caught my eye in the aftermath of the famous win in Chennai.
a) Sambit Bal, fast becoming one of my favorite cricket writers, thinks that the only team that believed it could win, did so.

b) Sachin Tendulkar's history of disappearing in the crunch was put to the test and this time he came through for what may end up being the signature century of his glittering career. Afterwards, he spoke about the moment and what it meant to him and millions of other folks.

c) The Englishmen were left to look for slender positives from the game. Simply showing up to play has to considered a win for them.

d) Sanjay Manjrekar provides the Indian viewpoint, as only he can.

e) The elephant in the room that no one wanted to talk about was not the failure of Rahul Dravid to score any runs, but rather the failure of the premier spinner on either side to fair well on a pitch that should have supported them immensely. The boy named Mudhsuden is the one that copped the most flak, but the person who deserved more criticism for his non-show was the Turbanator, Harbhajan Singh. Michael Atherton brings this up in his match review.

After England's defeat, the spotlight has been trained on Monty Panesar, but before he is condemned to the gallows in the rush to promote Adil Rashid, it might be instructive to compare him with India's spinners. Harbhajan has played 73 Test matches to Panesar's 34 and he has taken 193 more wickets than Panesar. He was also in the groove, having played a Test series against Australia and a one-day series against England. Panesar, bedevilled by bad luck and his non-selection in England's one-day team, had not twitched his index finger competitively for the best part of four months.

Even though Harbhajan was in form, bowling at a ground he knows well and at batsmen short of match practice, he made little impression. I am not entirely sure that Harbhajan is the bowler he used to be, now that an overextended use of the doosra - the ball that spins to the off - has affected his ability to drift and spin his stock ball, the off spinner. Nevertheless, England, and Andrew Strauss in particular, played him superbly well.

f) Peter Roebuck, who is more engrossed in the Australia-South Africa, does find the time to talk about the Chennai Test in his distinctive style.

Judging from their responses to his vivid innings, England had not previously seen Virender Sehwag at his most audacious. Bear in mind that 12 months ago he had lost his place in the side. Australians, on the other hand, are well aware of his powers. Now he caused such disarray in the opposing ranks that in a trice fieldsmen were running hither and thither, most of them ever further from the bat. Yet Sehwag is no mere thrasher. Rather, he is an intelligent and consistent batsman who has managed to remain instinctive and creative. It is a most unusual combination. He is not remotely as barmy as he seems. Although he was removed before stumps, he had given the Indian innings its momentum and caused a furrowing of brows in the England camp.

g) To me, the best of them all was this extensive piece by Prem Panicker who, when his mind is focused on cricket, still cranks out well-thought out pieces that should be circulated to the cricket teams he dissects so well.

In the second innings, the team starts strong, but then two determined batsmen take the game away with controlled performances. At close on the third day the opposition is 247 ahead with seven wickets in hand; at lunch on day four that lead has been stretched to 319, seven still remaining in the hut.

Even occasional followers of Indian cricket will effortlessly recall dozens of such instances; they will recall, too, the inevitable denouement: India falls back on ‘defence’, which in context means spreading the field out and protecting the boundaries [‘They won’t mind the singles too much, it is the boundaries that will hurt’, commentators invariably say at such moments]. The result: the lead mounts, the home team’s hangdog air of oh shoot, we stuffed this up, let’s somehow get the misery over and done with, tomorrow is another day and another Test becomes more pronounced, and fans give up the ghost and go off to see if they can get tickets to Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi.

Not this time. For the second time in four Tests as captain, MS Dhoni employs his own version of active defence, packing one side of the field with placements aimed to make a monumental struggle out of every single taken. The bowlers all read from the same page, unwaveringly bowling the lines scripted by the think tank and operating with the fields set. The result – momentum snatched away [23 overs, 57 runs, 5 wickets] at just that precise point in the game when, in earlier times, the opposition tended to run berserk and bat India entirely out of the game.

And then the final, most welcome change: The team and its coach talk not of “saving the game” and “taking it session by session and seeing where we are” but of winning the game. Its buccaneer in residence then walks out to play an innings that would have attracted comment in a one-day situation, and was downright implausible in context of a Test match.

h) Finally, as the 5th day was playing out, Prem Panicker blogged about it, leading off with a brilliant treatise on the man who could be the king of them all if he (Sehwag) is able to duplicate the feats of the first half of his career. He provides a lesson from the past to shed some light on cricket's last gunslinger.

To call Sehwag’s batting “instinctive” – that is, an atavistic response to a situation that is not based on thought or prior experience and do not depend on prior learning – is to call it wrong: Sehwag’s secret is not that he does not think, but that he has cleared the clutter and reduced thought to its barest, most necessary essentials.

In his connection, I always think of one particular example – and it relates to when England came touring under Nasser Hussain. Sehwag, then batting low down the order, was sitting in the dressing room, fretting at the sight of his senior colleagues “tackling” Ashley Giles’ round the wicket, wide of leg stump line with their pads, butts and other parts of the anatomy.

In course of an eruption of profanity of which saala is the only quotable word, Sehwag blasted his mates and, in précis, said wait till I get out there, I’ll teach that &#%%$ a lesson.

Sure enough, his chance came. He greeted Giles with a murderous mow that almost decapitated short square leg, followed it up with a clinical reverse sweep, ran down the wicket to loft him over midwicket, charged down again to hit inside out over extra cover – and in the space of three overs, forced Hussain to take Giles out of the attack.

That was not “instinctive”, as the dictionary defines “instinct”. Rather, it was the result of Sehwag reducing the game to its essence: There was, he realized, no percentage in standing there watching the balls go by. Nor, given that line, was there the danger of his getting out bowled or leg before. That left “caught” – and reduced it to a straight contest between a bowler clearly unsure of his ability to effectively bowl the more attacking lines, against a batsman confident of his own mastery of the grammar of batsmanship.

Cricket, cricket, cricket....

This post shall cover some last thoughts on India's historic 2-0 win over Australia, and other articles found while trolling through the web. After this, I shall blog on topics other than cricket (until the next Test series against England next month), I promise.

1) After India drew the first Test match, I was mad at the defensive mindset of the Indians. Back then I had written:

India are the home team, with 5 batsmen who have scored about 40,000 Test runs, with two spinners who have taken more than 900 Test wickets, and three fielders who have collectively taken over 370 catches. The Aussies have one batsman who has scored more than 10,000 runs, another great who has over 6,000 runs. One bowler who has taken more than 100 wickets (Lee has 291), and their lone spinner making his debut. And we are celebrating the fact that we drew the first Test? Seriously, those that are afraid to win are indeed condemned to repeatedly fai

It took a change in captaincy (forced by injury to Kumble) to inject some sense into the team. The Australian team that dominated the world for almost two decades is NOT this motley collection of individuals who came to India. Once the Indians figured this out, they took on a new persona and charged to a series victory. The Fab Four have lots of "experience" but that experience comes with a price - they have tasted lots of defeats, too. When things start to go wrong, they seem to remember those bad days and forget to play their normal, natural, wonderful game. The worst offender, by a country mile, is Sachin Tendulkar. For a batsman who has played so long, he has the deer in the headlights look way too many times. The sad part is that he drags the rest of the team down with him. Luckily, the new breed (dare I say New Age cricketer?) is immune to Tendulkar's fraidy-cat routine. MS Dhoni made a 50+ score in the 4 innings of the two Tests he captained, leading from the front. His attitude rubbed off onto the rest and India won a Test series that, in hindsight, was theirs to win all along. A 2-0 result should not surprise you. The Australians did not take 20 Indian wickets until the last Test, and even when they did, the Indians put on 736 total runs. Pshaw! If the Aussies did not have Michael Hussey in the middle order, they'd have caved to a worse fate than they did. The real test for the Indians will be when they are favored to win, as will be the case henceforth.

2) A couple of post-series analyses from CricInfo:
First up, the Australians are found wanting in most categories.

Secondly, most of the Indians come out well, except for some surprising names at the bottom of the list.

Sambit Bal sums up the series and its implications, rightly contending that India won more because the Australian standards have dipped and not so much because the Indian standards have gone up.

The battle between two Test giants was played in front of empty stands and the BCCI has to shoulder a large part of the blame. In their haste to make money they ignore the most basic needs - that of the spectators. Chasing after the T20 golden goose has seriously compromised their stance on promoting cricket.

3) The first great to retire was Kumble. Ganguly announced his retirement earlier, but did not retire till later. A week into the retirement, Sharda Ugra found Anil to be at peace with the decision and in a happy frame of mind. A few days later, in Nagpur, he gave a really wonderful speech, thanking his teammates individually, that must be read in its entirety.

4) Sourav Ganguly left on a high, captaining the Indian side for a few overs thanks to a wonderful gesture by MS Dhoni. Along the way, he had the satisfaction of helping beat the Aussies in the very city where the first seeds of discontent with his captaincy were sown. A full circle provided proper closure to his career - one in which he underachieved in the Test arena, made his mark in the ODI stage, and brilliantly overachieved in the captaincy stakes (more for the attitude he brought than just the wins). The tributes have been pouring in and CricInfo does a good job of rounding up some of them here, saving me some time.

Some others that deserve a separate mention are:

Peter Roebuck takes his time and tries to decipher what made him so revered in India.

Sachin Tendulkar talks in depth about his feelings for Ganguly and Kumble.

VVS Laxman talks about Ganguly in an older interview.

Finally, Harsha Bhogle comes out with his assessment of Ganguly's contributions to Indian cricket.

5) At the end of the Nagpur Test, Ricky Ponting came under heavy fire from the media for his seemingly inexplicable decision to let India off the hook on Day 4. Rather than accept that he may have erred in judgment, he has taken the moral high ground and is being supported by his coach. I guess if you repeat something often enough, people will think it is the truth. Finding articles that slam his captaincy are dime a dozen these days, so I;ll let you troll through the web for those on your own. Instead, I shall direct your attention to this nicely written piece by Gideon Haigh where he believes that Ponting deserves a modicum of sympathy from us.

The Nagpur Test was also MS Dhoni's first Test as a full-time captain and he led from the front, and impressed everyone with his acumen. Chloe Saltu admires MS Dhoni for having the guts to be his own man and not back down from criticism for a defensive 8-1 field placement.

Suresh Menon is a lot more effusive in his praises and reaches into the past to find comparisons.

Not surprisingly, some reporter tracked down Dhoni's childhood friends and found out that he has not changed much since then. The article is nice as it provides a lot of insight and background to the BMOC of Indian cricket.

Peter Roebuck is at the top of his game, a fine return to form after a few insipid articles, with this extended description of MS Dhoni.

6) Considering how cliched and, even worse, how predictable the cricket commentary on TV was, re-reading Amit Verma's observations made me realize that I am not alone in my low regard for some of them.

7) And if you are still reading this, here's a treat for VVS Laxman fans:
a) An interview with the Times of India on the eve of his 100th Test match, one that was doubly special because India beat the Aussies in it.

b) Rajan Bala goes back in time and compares Laxman to ML Jaisimha and MA Azharuddin.

c) VVS Laxman lists his top 6 innings. Note how three of them are 50's, and are integral to an Indian victory.

d) Finally, Gautam Gambhir looks to VVS Laxman for a final seal of approval.

"VVS Laxman told me in Sri Lanka that my biggest challenge will be playing against Australia and I need to pass that test. I met him in Nagpur and asked him if did clear that test, he told me, 'you have not only passed the test but passed it with a distinction.' I don't think I need any more approvals from anyone."

Echo

A few days ago, I made a case for Aakash Chopra to be included in the Indian side, for the time being as the heir apparent for Dravid's place. In that piece, I also touched about the inexperience of some of the potential replacements. Sambit Bal, the erudite editor of CricInfo, discusses many of the same points, though the focal point of his thesis is the search for a replacement for Ganguly, not Dravid.

Aakash Chopra has done everything possible in the last season to win back his place in the team. He has stacked up the runs, and got them big (1339 runs at 60.86, with five centuries). It always seemed a bit abrupt when he was dropped after three failures, and he was a bit unfortunate not to be picked for the last tour to Australia. He has started the season well, and batted confidently and positively till a good ball from Munaf Patal accounted for him in the Irani Cup. If a call were to be made on who the six batsmen most likely to succeed against Australia are, Chopra can't be far away.

Catching up

While I was away from the blogsphere these were some of the articles that caught my eye.

a) Who is (statistically) the greatest all-rounder in the history of Test cricket? The answer is someone who has very quietly put together a very formidable career. Get this: he is the only man to have scored over 9,000 runs, taken more than 200 wickets, and snagged at least 100 catches in BOTH Tests and ODI's.

b) Jamie Alter describes Virender Sehwag's approach to the Sri Lankan bowlers, especially Mendis, en route to a coruscating double century in the second Test against Sri Lanka. A must read.

c) Yuvraj Singh really has nice parents. After hearing from his mother, it is now the father's turn to talk about his son. Of particular interest is this snippet (I will let the comment speak for itself)...

Yograj doesn’t sound too happy with all the pampering that Yuvi has got from his mother Shabnam. He emphatically states, “A mother can give birth and maintain a house. But she can never show the right path to the child. It’s a man’s job. I have ruled my family with an iron hand.”

d) Two fellows - Graeme Hick and Mark Ramprakash - who made their debut in the same Test, underachieved at the highest level, and then forged a formidable career in the English County scene are linked forever as members of one of cricket's most exclusive clubs - the hundred 100's club. Simon Hattenstone pays glowing tribute to the ageless warriors.

e) In all the years of Test cricket, only 9 times has a batsman batted more than 1,000 minutes in Tests without being dismissed. Astonishingly, one man has done it on 4 different occasions, the latest being earlier this year. I will give you a dozen chances to guess who that might be, but I can bet that only a few of you will get it right. Not surprisingly, this dude also gives among the most boring interviews around, filled with banal observations and very little insight into the way he really thinks. Or maybe that's the secret of his success - he is really a very simple person!

f) Dileep Premachandran wrote about the declining fortunes of the Indian middle order after they failed miserably in the first innings of the Third Test match. After the series was done, he expanded on his thoughts and discussed the state of India's cricketing cupboard.

g) One of my favourite cricket-writers is Peter Roebuck. While it is probably too soon in his career for such fawning pieces to be written about him, it voices many of my sentiments.

h) And finally, Sambit Bal reviews the process of challenging an umpire's decision that was unveiled during the just-concluded Indo-Sri Lanka series. A tentative thumb's up is his final verdict, with the emphasis on the word tentative.

It was meant to get rid of obvious umpiring mistakes - the kind in the Sydney Test that threatened to derail India's tour of Australia - but it has ended up ruling on marginal calls.

The sophisticated slogger

"The best way to know how [Sehwag's] mind works is to sit next to him in the players' balcony when India are batting. Every few minutes he will clutch his head and yell, 'Chauka gaya' [missed out on a four] or 'Chakka gaya' ... That's how he thinks, in fours and sixes."
- Sourav Ganguly on Virender Sehwag.

Waching Sehwag bat is like watching an action movie where you do not know if the hero will survive or die. You find yourself on the edge of your seat as the thrills keep coming at a fast pace and, at the back of your mind, you know that if the hero dies, he is going to take a few bad guys with him. Last night, Sehwag gave another demonstration of his stupendous ability to hit a cricket ball. Here's the tale of the Indian innings:

Gambhir: 56 in 103 balls
Dravid: 2 in 7 balls
Tendulkar: 5 in 3 balls
Ganguly: 0 in 5 balls
Laxman: 13 in 28 balls

Contrast that with Sehwag - 128 in 122 balls, with 19 fours and 2 sixes. He is still batting but the beauty of the guy is that you never know what he will do tomorrow. (previous history does provide a very good indication of what he will do but that is neither here nor there). To think that at around this time last year he was out of the reckoning for a place in the Test squad!

A few months ago Sambit Bal wrote a brilliant piece on Sehwag. I think it merits a repeat reading - here is the article once again.

(Previous posts of mine on Sehwag here, and here.)

And so it ends...

When the IPL began in India I had decided not to follow it (reasons detailed here).

CricInfo decided that the game of cricket was far superior to the (not-so) hidden agendas of the BCCI head honchos and covered the event as best as it could. Their motivation, as eloquently described by Sambit Bal, the editor, can be summed up in this paragraph from the article:

We will live with the restrictions. You may keep us out of cricket grounds, but you can't take cricket out of us. Boycotting the IPL is not an option for us. Our commitment to cover cricket is absolute, as is our obligation to you. We are not blind to the significance of the IPL, which could be a seminal event in cricket, for better or worse. We will try to bring you every game with the same rigour and depth you have come to expect from us. Please bear with us if some matters like photographs are beyond us.

No one is bigger than the game. Administrators will come and go, but as long as cricket is around, Cricinfo will be here to cover it. That's a promise.

I did not follow the IPL for most of its duration, except to read about it in articles by columnists that I follow regularly (notably Peter Roebuck and Harsha Bhogle). One article that caught my attention was by Michael Atherton, the erstwhile captain of England. He touched upon the potential connection between Major League Baseball and the IPL.

Are Rajasthan Royals the Oakland A's of cricket? Devotees of excellent sporting literature will need no introduction to Moneyball, a terrific yarn about how the A's, a relatively low-budget baseball team ($41million - about £22million - to spend on players counts as low budget in American sport), consistently outperformed their more illustrious and wealthier rivals by dint of the unorthodox coaching methods of Billy Beane, their general manager.

Having read Moneyball, I can see where Atherton was going with this article. But the Rajasthan Royals differ from the Oakland A's in one BIG way - they won the championship. For all the success that Billy Beane has had over the years, maximizing the talents of his lowly-paid team, he has not been able to continue the success into the playoffs. In the playoffs, possibly because the "stars" are more immune to the increased pressure, the big guns win it all. Occasionally, a smaller-market team pulls it off, but rarely does that team sustain its success.

A lot of credit will go towards Shane Warne (it will get increasingly romanticized with time) as it must, but had they lost the final (which they barely won off the last ball, mind you) then the highest-paid player in the league - MS Dhoni - would have walked off with the crown.

There is, indeed, a fine line between being the GOAT and the goat.

The straight-forward maverick

Adding onto my previous post on Virender Sehwag, here is one of my favourite writers, Sambit Bal, giving us his take on what makes Sehwag so unique.

I wonder what Bradman would have thought of Sehwag's uncluttered batting technique...

Spring cleaning

Spring is in the air, and closets are being swept out! Over the past few months, while trolling the web, I picked up articles that I thought were very interesting or informative. The following links will give you an idea of what I do when I am not watching the riveting action on the screen.

1) Sanjay Bangar describes the role played by the 12th man in a squad. Methinks that some of the things they have to do is really menial and degrading, for want of a better word.

2) Paras Mhambrey gives us a very revealing inside look of the dressing rooms, a view that very few people get to see.

3) R. Ashwin talks about cricket as a professional sport in India and how it compares to Australia.

4) Anand Vasu interviews Sourav Ganguly. Like Anand, I have changed my opinion about Ganguly, too, having written him off as a Test player not too long ago.

5) When the umpires for the India-Australia 2007-08 Test series were announced, DSC and I had had a long discussion about the persons chosen and I remember agonizing over the choice of Steve Bucknor. Unfortunately, I never put it down in writing so I can't really claim the "I-told-you-so" high ground, though I did feel he was going to be responsible for a ruckus even then. Amit Verma, in his own way, talks about Bucknor and what can be done to assist fellows like him and prevent them from destroying matches.

6) Of all the fluff pieces that came out after Anil Kumble crossed the 600 Test wicket threshold, this article by Anand Vasu was the best one I read.

7) Another fine writer, Sambit Bal, interviews Anil Kumble after the dust has settled on the India-Australia Test series.

8) Peter Roebuck, in his inimitable style, pays tribute to Adam Gilchrist - one of my favourite cricketers ever. Strange to think that a guy younger than me has retired from his profession, while I am just starting in mine!

9) And while on Peter Roebuck, here is an article he wrote in 1991 predicting the 7 players who represented the future of Australian cricket. Pretty prescient of him, I must say.

10) You say potatoes, I say potatoes. Here are two contrasting views that were gleaned from the same basic interview that MS Dhoni gave to the press. The Aussie view highlights how Dhoni promises to keep on sledging, while the Indian view is that Dhoni is criticizing the Aussies for their sledging. You say tomatoes, I say tomatoes.

11) I judge a batsman's true worth not by the runs he scores or the average he maintains (though those are useful indicators) but by the partnerships he is involved in. A very revealing statistical study by CricInfo separates the show ponies from the real players. Note how many 100+ and 50+ partnerships Rahul Dravid has been involved in!

12) Peter Roebuck once again. In my estimate, he is one of the top 3 or 4 cricket-writers in the world. He gives his views on the rising fortunes of Indian cricket.

13) The richest cricketing Board in the world, the BCCI, has a very pathetic, non-functional excuse for a website. Compare that with the excellent offerings of the rebel Indian Cricket League. Shameful. It can't be that hard to set one up. Even MS Dhoni, that boy from Ranchi, has his own official website. What about the Indian Premier League, you say? Well, here's their official website - better but it still leaves a lot to be desired. Just for fun, click on the tab for the Tournament rules. The players have been bought, (ahem) auctioned, but there are no rules in place, it appears, on what to do with them or what they will do!!

14) While writers outside India (and some within) have been slamming the IPL, and all the money that is being flouted, Amit Verma tells us why the IPL is a good thing. I just wish (hope? pray? beg?) that the IPL honchos leave the ICL players alone rather than continue with their current efforts to treat them like pariahs. After all, there are a limited number of players who can play in the IPL. Why not let the ICL be a source of income or an avenue for the fringe players to display their talents? I think the IPL and the ICL can coexist, but it will never happen as long as the current set of administrators rules the roost in the BCCI and the ICL. There is too much pride at stake now, and too much mud that has been slung.

15) Mukul Kesavan bemoans that something Sachin Tendulkar said recently may have been an indication that Test cricket is dying. I don't share his pessimistic view but I am concerned, nevertheless. Give me the attritional swings of fortune during a Test match over the slam-bang, whim-wham, of an ODI or T20, any day of the week and then twice on Sunday.

16) Siddhartha Vaidyanathan explores the schedule of cricket's busiest player and wonders when the body will give in to the strain. Watching Dhoni collect the ball with one hand during the 2nd final of the VB Series was very disconcerting. Judging from the "appearances" he is making on a daily basis, ranging from hectic visits to temples to opening motorbike stores, I wonder if he is really getting the rest he needs before the series against South Africa.

16) And finally, in his own words, Daniel Vettori describes the only time he ever asked for an autograph from a cricketer. It is not who you think it would be. It is very revealing that in a testimonial match for Sir Richard Hadlee, he took someone else's autograph!

Being prepared is half the battle

On the cricket team I "coached" we had a very good batsman (AM) who had one major flaw. When he was the non-striker he would not take a start. Consequently, he would be in his crease even after the batsman had played a shot and, more often than not, watch where the ball was going before taking off for a run. It took a lot of goading on my part before he changed his ways.

Naturally, towards the end of the season, in a crucial game he was run out when a straight drive by the batsman ricocheted off the bowler's arm onto the stumps with him too far out of the crease! Nevertheless, in exchange for that one freak dismissal, AM was able to score umpteen runs for the team and finished the season as our leading run-scorer.

Chasing after the ball, running quickly even when you pop up an easy catch so in the very least you cross-over, throwing to the keeper every time you get the ball, running after the ball in pairs just in case the first person fumbles, running the first run hard when the ball rolls towards the fielders in the deep - these are all some of the attributes of our team. And it paid huge dividends in our matches. (More on that in the next few days, I promise).

When a team of rank amateurs like us know these fundamental things, why is it so hard for a team of professionals like the Indian cricket team to understand them? Next time you watch the Indian team look out for how often the fielders in the deep wait for the ball to come to them as opposed to charging forward to meet it closer to the 30-yard circle. By charging forward they achieve two things - the tired batsman cannot simply amble across for a single, and the throw the fielder has to make is shortened, therefore he can throw it to either end, if necessary. Another example - Sourav Ganguly at the non-strikers end is a lesson is how not to back up. He stands with his bat inside the crease even after the ball has been delivered. The number of runs he could have scored would have been greater if only he ran with more purpose when the ball is hit because he would have been on strike a lot more.

There are many other similar things that come to mind, but Sambit Bal does a better job of talking about it here, while providing reasons for a 4-2 defeat that could easily have been 3-3, or even 2-4, in India's favour.

Constricting passages

On the 4th day of the Indo-SA Test match I watched the worst display of batting I have ever seen by any one individual. And the shocker was the identity of the individual -Sachin Tendulkar. His innings was so gutless, defenceless, and irresponsible, that I am still fuming about it a good 24 hours later.

(For more specific details about his (mis)-deeds read this piece by Sambit Bal, the editor of Cricinfo, who feels the same way I do about Tendulkar's second innings farce).

I cannot fathom what the man was trying to achieve. He was facing a debutant and went into a defenceless shell that would not have been acceptable in any era of Test cricket. The man reputed to have given Shane Warne nightmares was not even trying to do anything about the way Paul Harris was bowling, except to occasionally try that paddle sweep of his. Batting as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders he pottered around for a long time and in the end he did not just give the initiative back to the South Africans. He literally threw it back into their laps - gift-wrapped and all.

Rahul Dravid was batting with him and I hold him just as responsible for the display as he did nothing whatsoever to change Sachin's mindset (or at least did not appear to be trying). How can these two batsmen, who are widely regarded as two of the best batsmen in the world, come up with such a spineless display?

For a few weeks, as the failures have been piling up, I have been supporting Tendulkar, even as AV kept giving me examples of the times when the man has choked in the limelight. And that is the best word I can think of to explain his batting yesterday - he choked. When the pressure built up and it was time to take action he simply froze. Like a deer on the road at night when confronted by an oncoming vehicle.

Halfway across the world I stay awake at night watching the Indian team play. I am not the only one. We deserved a lot better than this. Regular readers of my blog will know that I am an advocate of attacking the bowling as the best form of defence. I do not see how defending our way has helped us either here in the third Test or in the second Test. And when I say attack - I do not mean that every ball should be slammed into the hoardings. Instead it means that you approach each ball looking to score runs and only defend (or leave it) if it is not bad enough to do so. As Kumar Sangakkara says, being positive does not mean you have to hit every ball.

This is not the first time Tendulkar has done this either. At Bangalore, against the Pakistanis, he hung around for 140 minutes, scoring just 16 runs and India went on to lose that Test match, too. Not having learnt his lesson from Bangalore he proceeded to give us an encore performance that has rattled me enough to contemplate not wasting my time any more when he is at the crease. For weeks, I have been egging him along to score more runs, more centuries, even as Ponting is rapidly gaining ground. Now I do not care any more. If anything, he deserves to have his record be eclipsed soon. It is time for him to decide how he wants to be remembered in the waning days of his career - as a man who who stamped his authority on the game or as one who let the bowler dictate the situation to him. A few more such innings from him and he will be dropped, much like GR Viswanath was dropped after the disastrous tour of Pakistan in 1982, never to get a a whiff of the playing field again.

To sell a few copies more

Stoking fires where even embers do not exist appears to be the way to sell news stories these days.

Sanjay Manjrekar, in his capacity as a member of the media, wrote an article wherein he wondered whether Tendulkar's recent dip in fortunes had to do with his fear of failing. The criticism leveled at Manjrekar for writing this was appalling, to say the least. Rather than questioning his statements, most of the critics attacked the man and mocked his authority to raise the issue.

Similarly John Wright, in his soon-to-be-released autobiography, raised a few pertinent points about the policies and motives of some of the selectors of the Indian cricket team. Not surprisingly, he has raised the ire of quite a few folks. Though, in the case of Ashok Malhotra, the lady doth protest too much, methinks.

Sambit Bal wrote a must-read article that puts all this hoopla into the right perspective and shows us what this is all about - the need to create controversy where none exists simply because bland statements do not generate revenue these days.