Tears on my pillow

On September 2nd, at a press conference in England, Graeme Hick announced his retirement from first-class cricket at the ripe young age of 42. For the past few years I have been dreading this moment. It was inevitable but with each passing year, my hopes were kept alive just that bit longer. Not any more.

I first remember taking note of Graeme Hick when he scored THAT monumental 405 not out for Worcestershire. The next highest score in the match was 56, and unlike most other matches that feature such big scores, this one produced a victory for Worcestershire. I liked the fact that he hit a six when on 399 and did not mind the declaration that came. In fact, at that time, he did not even know that the record was 499 or else he may have gone on to that, too! I followed him closely over the years and have revelled in the milestones he has crossed along the way; 136 first class centuries, 178 overall, and still counting...albeit for just a couple more weeks. Over 64,000 runs in all forms of the game and 1,007 catches, second all-time for any non-wicket-keeper in the history of the game. Very impressively, as of today, only one batsman has scored more Twenty20 centuries and no other Englishman has hit more sixes! It is rumoured that he will join the ICL once his playing days are totally done. In a bittersweet way I shall look forward to watching him live for the first time since 1993 when I had the pleasure of following his first Test century, a gorgeous 178 at Wankhade Stadium.

As the greatest run accumulator of the past quarter century puts his bat away , the eulogy's on his cricketing career come gushing in to appease me for a few more days.

Andrew Miller on CricInfo, pens a fine piece on a fine gentleman.

The scars of his England experience have long since healed, and the Hick who heads for retirement is a man who knows he gave his all for the sport - and the club - that he loved. Quite what he leaves behind him, however, is another matter entirely. Perhaps his very longevity has perpetuated the era that he helped to define, but without his totemic presence in the first-class averages, there's suddenly a void that may never be adequately filled.

Derek Pringle shared the England dressing room with Hick and has some insight into why the first-class giant failed at the Test level. He ends with this epitaph.

...the disappointments at international level have been counter-balanced by longevity and success in the county game. History tends to mythologise those who burn bright and brief, but it is built by those who stick around and no one has done that in the modern era longer than Hick.

David Foot reminisces about the day Hick scored one of his defining innings - 405 not out - and searches for pointers to explain, yes, yet again, why Hick could not translate his first-class success to the Test level.

An old article by Andrew Miller on the enigmatic Mr. Hick is worth reading again.

And finally, George Dobell, gives a Worcestershire person's perspective on what Hick has meant to the folks at New Road.

One more hero of mine quietly goes away...

Drive by shooting

Another trip taken recently was to the Simmons Conservation Park and Wildlife Safari where I took these photographs:

A gang of elk cools down.


A grand bison nonchalantly watches us go by.


Can you spot the odd one out in this herd of bison?


"What are you doing on my property?", the pelican seems to be asking.


Look closely, it is the extremely rare and hard to find white-tailed deer.

Welcome to the jungle

These photos were taken during a recent tip to the Omaha Zoo:

This is, currently, my favourite animal in the world - the Leafy Sea Dragon.


The feet of a gorilla...it is quite spooky how it resembles a human's foot.


Predators in captivity tend to live longer than usual due to the excellent medical benefits package and lack of competition.


And what would a trip to the zoo be without a look at the underside of a jellyfish?


A peacock and peahen demonstrate the principle of sexual selection, while not caring a wee bit for how close this human got to them.


Dressed for dinner...


Malayan tapirs indulge in a zoo-bound animal's typical pastime.


Are you talking to me?

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.

I ask that of all my prey

When the Indo-Sri Lanka series began I had expected Ajantha Mendis's influence to diminish as the series progressed. At the end of the series and a resounding 26 wickets later, Mendis put paid to my prediction.

While his strike-rate (wickets per ball) diminished, his influence on the psyche of the Indian batsmen stayed put. Every batsman, bar Ganguly, had periods of time where it appeared they had sorted him out, but except for Sehwag none of them sustained it throughout their innings. Gambhir played him the best, followed by Sehwag, Tendulkar and Laxman. Dravid was completely clueless in the first two Tests, finally seeming to come to terms with the spinner in the last Test before succumbing (for the 4th time) to the carrom ball. Laxman got set in every innings of the series but got out everytime bar the final innings (5 times in all) to the carrom ball.

Here is how the Indian batsmen fared against Mendis (culled from a statistical analysis of the series on CricInfo).

Interestingly, the openers - Gambhir and Sehwag - (along with Laxman) were the ones who did best against him, and they were part of the ODI squad that collapsed in the finals of the Asia Cup!!

As a comparison, here is how Muralitharan was negotiated by the Indians. Laxman played him the best in the entire series and it is reflected in the stats.
Mendis showed that he has the tools to be a major force for years to come. His captain appears to know how to use him and, hopefully, he is able to keep the spinner's skills from diminishing. The presence of Murali as a mentor will, no doubt, help. When Sri Lanka next challenge Australia, it will be a true test of wills. Having observed Mendis closely, I expect him to do well against them, too.

Test cricket has found a new bowler to peg its hat on and it is splendid for the game. May he have a very successful career. I know I will be watching closely. Michel Aterton, former England skipper and a fast-rising columnist, certainly has his eye on him.

P.S. The flip side of the coin - India's middle order - appears more fragile than it ever has. The writing is on the wall. Unfortunately, the wrong persons are going to read it and exit the scene. When Australia comes around for a 4 Test series in September, it may even be a blessing that their premier bowlers are fast bowlers.

Aching beauty

From the MH-MK blog (which, unfortunately for the casual reader, is an invitation-only blog) comes this photograph of a spectacular sunset, taken by MK. The beautiful picture speaks for itself.

See-sawing around Sehwag

The second Test match has become a bit schizophrenic in nature. When Sehwag is at the crease, the bowlers are merely hopeful while he plots his next run. When he is at the non-striker's end, all the doubts and demons in the minds of the batsmen come out to prey on their confidence. Murali and Mendis were completely ineffective against Sehwag. Gambhir and Laxman also played them with a measure of certainty but lost their wicket to balls they should have negotiated quite easily. But once the breakthrough was made, and Laxman departed, Mendis came to the fore. The rest of the Indian batsmen succumbed to him without having a clue about which way his deliveries would turn. Based upon these performances it is quite apparent that Sri Lanka should be able to run through many tails in the years to come. And when Lasith Malinga comes back, they will only get more potent. Watch out Australia!

Sehwag turned down two singles when on 199 in an attempt to shield Ishant Sharma from the strike. Those two singles will probably do a lot more, in my mind, for his stature than the massive centuries he has been piling up in the last 5 years.

The Sri Lankan innings began in a blaze of boundaries and it looked like they would run away with the game until Harbhajan got a fortuitous wicket against the run of play. Once Harbhajan got that wicket, he was suddenly transformed into a close rendition of the Bhajji of old. Could his troubles of late have merely been an issue of confidence? It will take more than just one good spell to convince me of that. After all, he has been sliding by with numerous bad spells of late, to have the slate wiped clean by one spell. With 4 wickets in the last session he clawed the game back towards India, albeit slightly.

Mahela Jayawardane, currently on the verge of another half-century, holds the key to the match. I agree with Sanjay Manjrekar's assesment on CricInfo radio, on the current state of this match:

SM: I see India slightly ahead at this stage. Mahela Jayawardene is obviously the key and if Sri Lanka get close to India's first-innings score, they will be the favourites purely because of the batting form the Indians have shown. Most of India's batsmen have been out of form and only one or two have shown some semblance of form. Sehwag, obviously, but he is in a different league. Gautam Gambhir has shown some confidence and to a lesser degree VVS Laxman.

If Sri Lanka are bundled out with more than 50-75 runs, then India are still in the game. But if Sri Lanka get very close, then they will be the fancied team. At this stage today, at the end of day two, India have a slight advantage.

I will be traveling the next couple of days so my blogging and cricket-watching will be severely hampered. The last time I was unable to follow an India Test match on its third and fourth days because I was traveling, I missed Laxman's career-changing moment. What will the outcome be this time?

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.)

Day 1 - A tale of two sides

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.

The first day of the second Test match between India and Sri Lanka featured two divergent sessions of play separated by a 3 hour rain delay. At the end of the day, Sri Lanka came out slightly ahead. It is not often you can say that about a team that gives up 151 runs in the pre-lunch session of the first day of a Test without taking a wicket!

The day began with Kulasekara looking like he could take a wicket with at least one ball per over, while Chaminda Vaas did nothing but throw more meat for the vultures circling his career. Kulasekara should have had Gambhir when a routine catch to first slip became a difficult one with the wicket-keeper flying across like Superman and disturbing Sangakkara's concentration in the process. Gambhir used the chance wisely, walking down the wicket (Hayden-style) to Vaas and tacking both spinners with ease. At the other end Sehwag began in a quiet fashion. He still managed to canter along at almost a run a ball but there was a definite submissiveness to his batting for the first 10 overs.

In the 11th over Ajantha Mendis came on and Sehwag was transformed. Reading all of Mendis's variations off the pitch, as opposed to out of his hand, Sehwag's lack of footwork worked to his advantage as he rarely found his feet in a tangle. Six overs from Mendis bled 37 runs as Sehwag and Gambhir, in a seemingly pre-determined fashion, took to Mendis's flighted ones. Determined to show that they did not discriminate against the type of bowler, the Delhi duo also took Murali to the tune of 32 runs in his 6 overs.

At lunch, India were 151 for no loss. Sehwag was on 91 (yes, 91) and Gambhir on 50.

As I eagerly waited for the post-lunch session to begin I watched the dark clouds roll in on-screen and a heavy downpour began soon after. Many hours later the players came back on the field. Sehwag spent a scant 5 balls getting to his 100, smoting Vaas for a six and then a fearsome straight boundary. A 100 off just 87 balls on the first day of a Test! (Much more on him later).

In the very next over, Mendis made the breakthrough Sri Lanka wanted, trapping Gambhir plumb in front of the stumps. Even a challenge could not save Gambhir and he had to go.

The door had been nudged ajar and Vaas and Mendis flung it open in the next three overs. Dravid came in, scratched around without looking comfortable at all, and was snared by Mendis yet again. Tendulkar hit the first ball for four, took a single off the next, and perished off the third, missing an in-ducker from Vaas. Five balls later Ganguly guided a Vaas delivery towards first slip and the keeper, showing that his earlier lapse had not dented his confidence, flew across to take a one-handed grab while parallel to the ground. 167 for no loss was now 178 for 4 and the Sri Lankans had come roaring (pun intended) back!!

Murali and Mendis then subjected Laxman to a searching examination, while Sehwag merrily continued batting on, almost as if he was playing a different pitch and facing a different set of bowlers altogether. No further damage was inflicted as bad light brought an early end to the day's proceedings with India at 214 for 4, having frittered away the pre-lunch stranglehold on the game.

No prizes for guessing where I will be when the action resumes later today.

Frog in a well

Trans-Pacific phone call, circa 2004, Caller 1 is in the North-east United States. Caller 2 is in South-east Australia.

Caller 1: "Have you been watching the Olympics?
Caller 2: "Yes, everyday."
Caller 1: "I am getting tired of constantly hearing about one athlete, as if he is the only one participating in the Games".
Caller 2: "I know. I am sick of it, too."
Caller 1: "I am beginning to OD on Michael Phelps. Everytime I turn on the TV it is Michael Phelps-this, Michael Phelps-that."
Caller 2: "Huh? Who is Michael Phelps? Over here the only person who seems to exist is Ian Thorpe. Everyday it is Ian Thorpe-this, Ian Thorpe-that!"
Caller 1: "Huh? Who is Ian Thorpe? Haven't you heard about Phelps?"
Caller 2: "No. Haven't you heard about Thorpe?"
Caller 1: "No. Michael Phelps is trying to win 8 gold medals. Haven't they talked about that in Australia?"
Caller 2: "No, not really. Ian Thorpe is trying to win the 100-200-400 freestyle trifecta. Haven't you heard of that?"
Caller 1: "No!"

And on and on it went...

During the 2004 Summer Olympics, Michael Phelps's quest for 8 gold medals occupied the interest of the news media in the US. The impression I got was that his name was on everyone's lips around the world. Now I know better.

This year, the swimmer, still just 23 years of age, is aiming for 8 gold medals once again. Can he do it? Eric Adleson tries to go behind the quest and demonstrates how hard it really is going to be for Phelps. And if he does win 8 golds, the real question will be - will the rest of the world even know he achieved that feat?

Marshall law

The first college football game that I actively followed was the WVU-Marshall season opener in 1997. That game featured a whole bunch of future NFL-ers including Randy Moss. WVU's game plan was to shut the lanky receiver down but only succeeded in slowing him in a hard-fought 42-31 win. A few years later I watched Randy play for Minnesota against Detroit at Ford Field. He had put on a few pounds of muscle and the blinding speed was still there, but only when he chose to turn on the after-burners, that is.

Last year, he migrated to New England and had an enormous impact on a Patriots team that was about 30 seconds from having an undefeated season. For years, Randy has been a headline away from controversy. So it comes as a pleasant surprise when a reporter takes the time to explore the man behind the number. It is a surprisingly touching story of a man who knows his roots and is hell-bent on maintaining them, no matter what anyone else thinks.

(The article is in 4 pages, so click through them).

Billions of bilious blue blistering barnacles!

The cinematic "dream team" of Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson are putting their heads together to bring one of the world's most-beloved comic books to the big screen. I am not too thrilled about the motion-capture technology they want to use, but I shall reserve my judgement till I see the final product.

I wonder which three of Tintin's 23 adventures are going to be adapted for the silver screen. Any thoughts or guesses?

Over-oiling

Do you know the various ways in which your driving can influence your fuel bill? Go through this slide show/questionnaire to see what you can do to improve the fuel-efficiency of your automobile.

(Hint: To save time, simply go through the odd-numbered slides...1,3,5,7, etc.)

The bigger they are...

Far from learning the lessons of the first innings debacle, the famed Indian middle order went AWOL in the second innings in the face of some fantastic spin bowling by the Sri Lankans.

Once again, the two standout performers for the Indians were Tendulkar and Laxman, but this time only up to a point. Laxman was playing very well, reaching 21 with three fours when one splendid over from Mendis did him in. Two carrom balls were spun across the defensive prod. Those were just the set-up balls. The next one was on the same line, only this time it spun into Laxman, whose hurried backfoot prod was of no avail, the ball crashing into his back leg in front of the stumps. The fact that Mendis got him out twice in the Test match with similar deliveries should put a frown on his face. However, 77 high-quality runs in 144 balls showed that he deserves to be promoted to #3 while Dravid sorts out the glitches in his batting. Tendulkar looked serene while at the crease, picking up both spinners quite easily, but Murali's relentless accuracy and line of attack got to Sachin. A fuller ball on the leg-stump enticed a sweep that he missed completey, but on the follow-through the ball hit the back of the bat and lobbed to backward short-leg where Dilshan took a great catch.

After the first innings I had predicted that only two results were possible - a Sri Lanka win or a draw. Once Tendulkar and Laxman got out, it was a matter of time before the Sri Lankans ran through the rest of the line-up and a draw went out of the window. Compared to the first innings, the Indians tried a more aggressive approach in dealing with Mendis and Murali but it seemed more out of hope than knowledge of what the ball was going to do. Batsman after batsman played for the ball to spin one way and it went the other way.

A few years ago I had felt that getting this batting line-up all out twice in a Test match for less than 250 would not be possible. When they come to the crease, the TV screen gets filled up with amazing numbers - the number of Tests that have played, the number of runs they have scored, their career batting averages, the highest scores thay have made, etc. But all that is candy floss from the past. The future starts now.

More than Mendis, the Indians have to worry about Murali. With his round-the-wicket approach to the batsman he has increased his options of taking wickets and when the most lethal bowler in Test history does that, it is time to sit up and take notice. Getting to a 1000 Test wickets is going to simply be a matter of time for the Kandy-Man.

I can hardly wait for the next Test match to begin and the battle to resume. Fun times lie ahead. Too bad this is only a 3 Test series.

Trees in a forest

The hype before the India-Sri Lanka Test series was the potential battle between Ajantha Mendis and the "Big Four". I believe that, as the series progresses, Ajantha's threat will diminish once these batsmen get used to his bag of tricks. So it was with great interest I stayed up into the wee hours of the morning to watch Mendis bowl.

Before that transpired I got to see India's spinners - Harbhajan Singh and Anil Kumble - toil away on a seemingly innocuous pitch. We have all known that Kumble is not a big turner of the ball and he unfurled his bag of tricks but on a pitch where the ball was not bouncing too high, he was negated for the most part. The interesting aspect was watching Harbhajan bowl.

In his autobiography, John Wright talks about the fizz and bounce in Harbhajan's bowling when he first saw him. I don't see that any more. Instead I see a guy content to fire the ball in as fast as he can, afraid of giving up runs in the quest for wickets, and overly reliant on the doosra. His career graph is beginning to resemble that of Saqlain Mushtaq, another spinner who started with a bang, developed the doosra, became the first-choice spinner in ODI's, lost his loop and whose over-reliance on the doosra had Sehwag licking his chops at Multan.

However, the extent of Harbhajan's decline did not become evident to me until I saw Muralitharan at work on the very-same pitch. Ah! So that's how a bowler uses the doosra. It helps that Murali has an abnormal wrist that enables him to twirl that ball even more viciously but what was more revealing was his preferred line of attack. He bowled round the wicket to the right-handers and over the wicket to the left-handers, snaring both lefties in the process. His command over angles is incredible and even if a batsmen gets boundaries (Tendulkar, Ganguly, and Laxman had their share) it does not seem to impact the next ball. Harbhajan would do well to lock himself up in a room and watch Murali bowl all day. While the Indians (and the gushing, breathless commentators) were focussing on Mendis, Murali delivered a masterclass as if to remind people that he had a 735 wicket headstart on Mendis and everyone should remember that.

Mendis was impressive and troubled all the batsmen. But his command was not complete. Of the lot, Tendulkar played him very well, except for one leading edge. Before we wax poetic about that ball, do remember that every batsman struggles against every bowler for a ball or two no matter how benign the conditions. Tendulkar was very, very impressive. Aggressive in both defence and offence, he was playing very serenely, with a very impassive countenance, when he read the doosra from Murali but did not withdraw his bat quickly enough. The ball hit the bottom of the rising bat and was dragged onto the stumps. He looked in ominous touch and, if recent history is any indication, the runs will flow.

However, I am worried about Dravid and, to a lesser extent, Ganguly. Ganguly was reprieved by the third umpire on a challenged review - the call was 50-50 so the benefit went to him, and on another occasion was totally plumb LBW but the ball then deflected off his bat and the Sri Lankans did not even register an appeal. On both occasions, Mendis was the bowler. However, the worrisome part was the shocking way in which Dravid chose to play Mendis. Preferring to read him off the pitch, Dravid played Mendis exclusively on the backfoot and paid the price when his angled bat missed the ball to gift Mendis a very memorable and well-deserved maiden Test wicket.

Of the "Big Four" I anticipate that Dravid will be the first to hang up his boots. In the last three series since he relinqished captaincy, his batting has looked haunted and there is no rhythm or flow to it. He is a hollow shell of the guy who almost single-handedly ruined Steve Waugh's farewell series. The footwork is forced and he seems to be batting more from memory than anything else. Hopefully, this is just a slump and he will be back to his best very soon.

Finally, a word on Virender Sehwag. I love the guy's batting, and his attitude. The only Indian batsman who plays the ball on its merit got out because he did not play one that way. The ball was a bouncer, with a deep square-leg for the mistimed hook, but it was about a couple of feet outside the off-stump. It cried to either to be left alone or upper-cut to third man. He chose the wrong option and perished on a top-edged hook bringing a soft end to a thundering cameo.

The match is interestingly poised with only two possible results - a Sri Lanka win or a draw. Two days to go, with an extra half-hour each day, for India to survive. South Africa did this successfully in the recent Lord's Test match. But they did not have to contend with a magician and his apprentice.

Interesting times are ahead and sleepless nights beckon.

Skirting to victory

The Omaha Cricket Club recently conducted a tennis ball Twenty20 tournament. The finals pitted the hosts, OCC, against the local tennis ball giants of Omaha - Citadel XI. The following is a report of the match. If you do not understand some of the references, let it slide. If you do understand some of them, don't fret over it if it bothers you, as the account is being written (for the most part) with my tongue firmly in my cheek. As always, in the interests of privacy, actual names are being shielded.

In the aftermath of the finals, many interested folks who were not present at the ground last Sunday have asked us about the outcome of the game. The deathly silence on our part should have given it away. Citadel XI won the match, but not necessarily, the game. You'll understand what I mean...read on.

We won the toss...let me rephrase - S_____"Lucky Tosser" A_____ won the toss. By the way, here is an aside...a knock knock joke for everyone. It is partly in Hindi so ask someone for a translation if you do not understand.

Knock, knock
Who's there?
Agarwal
Agarwal who?
Agar wall nahi hota, to ghar kaise hota.

Anyway, I digress. After LT (see above) won the toss, Camelot was convened, i.e. all the members of the OCC were summoned by King Arthur (S_____ M_____) and Lancelot (B_____ K_____) to discuss what to do (not with the coin; I am sure LT pocketed the quarter used for the coin toss when no one was looking). The round-table discussion yielded many an opinion, the most confusing one coming from F_____ "Kamikaze" O_____, who said that we should look to finish the match by 1:30pm, surely unhelpful advice as no one quite knew what to say for about 10 seconds.

King Arthur decided to bat first, no doubt influenced by the gloomy England-like conditions, and an affliction of Dravid-itis (in reference to the erstwhile Indian captain who insisted on batting first every time he won the toss, even in bowler-friendly conditions, simply because he wanted to ensure that we "got used" to playing in adverse conditions). However, Kamikaze O_____ and C.S. "Long emails" M_____ were selected to be the first lambs to the slaughter, i.e. the opening batsmen.

Kamikaze and Long Emails walked in to thundering applause ... from the opposition who licked their lips in anticipation, like Heath Ledger in "The Dark Knight". (You HAVE to watch that movie, by the way, before it becomes so hyped that it will be popular to say that you have NOT watched it).

Swinging the ball with unerring accuracy and able to extract prodigious lift the opening bowlers of Citadel tested every sinew and nerve that the openers could muster. Sadly, the reality was more benign than that. The tennis ball comes out of the hand at a tremendous speed and even as it travels in the air it loses momentum faster than Brittney Spears's career. Once it hits the ground, it stops for a eternity, pondering the meaning of life, before it resumes its journey towards the stumps. For the OCC bowlers, for some unfathomable reason, the ball behaves in a less erratic fashion, but never mind that.

In two overs of blistering pace, the openers were back in the confines of the shed. After 5 overs OCC was positively motoring along at a rollicking pace that would put Chris Tavaré to shame - 2.4 runs per over. Having now reduced the game to effectively a 15 over contest, OCC got down to the business end of things. Platitudes like "losing wickets at regular intervals" can be freely interespersed in the text now, and before long King Arthur was looking for anyone in the team who was not out. But before that stage was reached, S_____ M_____ running like a hare being chased by a hound between the wickets gave JJ "Night Owl" T_____ admirable support. The score moved along well. Night Owl hit a splendid four through covers, slammed a six over square-leg, and was making amends for his brain freeze of the previous day, until he got out for 41 brilliant runs. B_____ "Lancelot" K_____ went in and used the strong breeze to hit a huge six over square-leg. But where was the challenge in that? True to his nickname, he targeted the wind and hit a lovely 8 iron - it went up in the air, said hello to the gale-force wind, and then dropped as rapidly as a meatball sandwich is by a temple priest. Unfortunately, the fielder at long-on was not a devout Hindu and had no compunctions about grabbing the treat. Riotously joyous celebrations ensued in the Citadel group hug.

But they had not reckoned with Arthur's ultimate secret weapon - "Rajanikath" M_____. Yesterday M_____ was informed about the ICL ad where the batsman stops the ball in mid-air and asks the crowd where they want it. Thus inspired, Rajani M_____ lit a cigarette with his bare palm (ask LT how it is done or watch this video), and slammed the ball like it was a repeat offender in prison, sending it to places it had not gone before (but would go many a time when Citadel batted). In the twinkling of an eye the score surged past Abraham Lincoln (four score and seven = 87), Half-Nelson (111), K. Srikkanth's personal highest (123), twelve squared (you can calculate this yourself), before finally settling at a seemingly mammoth 156. M_____ remained not out at the same score as Night Owl, as he did not want to overshadow the stellar performance of his teammate.

The mood in the OCC huddle was upbeat, so much so that the team did some stretching exercises while the rest of the audience watched in bemusement as LT proved to be more flexible and graceful than Kamikaze, whose idea of stretching involves opening his mouth as wide as he can to yawn. Suitably limbered up, OCC had another huddle (yes, King Arthur is big on huddles) and took the field with great enthusiasm. The first over by Lancelot (B_____) yielded one run - a wide to start proceedings - and Citadel was under the cosh. The next over by Night Owl (JJ) produced several near-misses - a six and two fours being among the more memorable ones as the batsmen nearly missed hitting sixes off every ball. The one time the ball reached a fielder it settled into Lancelot's hands like a new-born baby in a mother's hands. Unfortunately for OCC, Lancelot suffered the same fate as the villain in Lagaan, giving up a six because he was outside the boundary. Along the way, Lancelot got a ball to jag back into the nether regions of the opener. The person most affected by this was the dude farthest from the action - Kamikaze O_____ fielding at long-on. Memories of getting his jewels nearly restructured by the innocuous-looking tennis ball in an earlier match has put the terror of everything holy into Kamikaze, who trembles in abject fear any time the ball comes even within 12 inches of you-know-where.

A couple of overs later Citadel's captain and opener, S_____ lofted a ball that reached the 30 yard circle at mid-off but the swirling catch was spilled. For some vague reason, S_____ was heard muttering, "Son, you just dropped the World Cup." Considering that this was just the OCC tennis ball Twenty20, it seemed a tad too grandiose for a few of us to stomach. In Lancelot's next over high-jinks erupted. That deserves it own paragraph. To tide you over while you wait for the next paragraph to begin, enjoy this clip of THAT moment when Herschelle Gibbs let something slip through his fingers.

Lancelot bowled a ball that was wide of the stumps, S_____ swung towards the general vicinity of R____'s corner (named for the spot in the woods where R_____ has deposited numerous cricket balls). Unfortunately for S_____, he edged the ball which was grabbed with alacrity by Rajani M_____, behind the stumps. Up went the umpire's finger and OCC was delirious with pleasure. Until...the batsman protested that he had missed the ball, threw his bat, and asked the square-leg umpire for his opinion. The square-leg umpire claimed that while he had heard a nick he did not observe any deflection, so he "consulted" with the main umpire, and the decision was reversed. I could probably write a thesis (some would say I already am) about how erroneous this whole slate of events was from the perspective of the umpires but that is girst for a different mill. (Law 27.5 of the Laws of Cricket clearly states that the leg-umpire's jurisdiction is restricted to addressing hitwicket, stumped, and run-out decisions.)

Five minutes of verbal jousting ensued and eventually the batsman picked up his bat and resumed his innings. Two balls later, S_____ began his carnage - depositing Lancelot beyond the practice nets. Shoulders began drooping as every swing of the vengeful blade sent the ball soaring further and further beyond the fence. Long Emails had to go to the doctor later that evening for the whiplash injuries he suffered every time he followed the trajectory of the ball over his head while fielding at the deep sqaure-leg boundary. Eventually the other opener was cleaned up by someone on OCC - it is academic who the bowler was because that catch by Kamikaze will linger on in my memory for years to come. A fiercely hit square-cut (some apologists will claim it was more of a gentle swipe, but this is my story so pay attention to MY words) was taken by Kamikazee as it reached its apogee. The astounding reflexes and anticipation shown by Origanti were a sight to behold. Luckily for us, we have exclusive video footage of that catch.

Oh, by the way, when the first wicket fell the score was 146. No, that is not a typo. Here's the amazing conincidence...remember how OCC scored 12 runs in their first 5 overs? Well, believe it or not, the mirror image came up when Citadel batted - they needed 12 runs in the last 5 overs to finish the macth. If this isn't a sign that the end of the world is near, I don't know what is.

With one run to win, OCC had the last laugh (a small one, more like a stifled giggle, but it counts) when S_____ flicked a ball straight to the fine-leg fielder (and yes, he does have fine legs, I am told by reliable OCC sources Night Owl and Lancelot) to get out for a vengeful 92, inclusive of 11 sixes. OCC then harbored visions of pulling off a tie. After all, Citadel had just 3.3 overs left, and only 8 wickets in hand to get that one run, so theroetically it was possible. It was also possible for Kamikaze to escape a beating from his wife, but these are all dreams. Needless to say, in the end what we expected happened - Kamikaze got thoroughly beaten up by his wife and, oh yes, by the way, Citadel got the one run they needed to win the championship. Here's footage of the Citadel supporters enjoying the moment of victory.

So, there you have it. A detailed account of the final of the OCC Twenty20 tennis ball tournament. We will be lucky if we can get the same quality of enjoyment when we conduct the MidWest Twenty20 tournament in August. One can only hope that Kamikaze's divorce will be finalized by then so he can devote his entire attention towards running that tournament. After all, he does know a Chinese reataurant that makes the best chicken fried rice, ever!

The riddle

Ichiro Suzuki, the only player in Major League Baseball who has his first name on his jersey, is an enigma. In spite of being the most successful, and most followed, Japanese import to the US sports scene, very little is known about his private dealings. Bruce Jenkins of the San Francisco Chronicle attempts to demystify the growing legend of Ichiro.

Huh?

I am speechless...

Yuvraj (Singh)'s mother Shabnam on the right girl for her son:
"I don't want someone who throws tantrums or is very high-flying for him... She should know the basics of cooking, especially Indian vegetarian food. Considering he travels so often, she should also be able to pack well and take care of his clothes.

Guns blazing

Last weekend, in the PCA League, two matches featured some astonishing hitting.

In the first match, the Blitzers hunted down a mammoth total put up by the Strikers. (Not that it quite works that way, but remember that these are 25 over matches, so if you extrapolate the scores to that of a regulation 50 over match...).

In the second match, my former team, WVUCC, managed to make mockery of a substantial total put up by the (then) league-leading PittPunters.

(In the scorecard, each player's name is a hyperlink that will take you to his stats for this and other seasons).

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.

The spectre of Bonds

I came across this quote in CricInfo today:

It's like WD40, it's like oiling your joints. You should have tried it yourself, Gus. You could have had a few more years and played in the IPL!
England's captain, Michael Vaughan, shares his knee-lubricating technique with Angus Fraser
Jul 9, 2008

Hmm, it isn't "flaxseed oil" by any chance, is it? Is Michael Vaughan on the verge of cricket's next big scandal? Maybe he ought to read up on Barry Bonds and what happened to him.

Bonds told a U.S. grand jury that he used undetectable steroids known as "the cream" and "the clear," which he received from personal trainer Greg Anderson during the 2003 season. According to Bonds, the trainer told him the substances were the nutritional supplement flaxseed oil and a pain-relieving balm for the player's arthritis.

No pain, no gain

Tiger Woods recently won the US Open on one leg. Almost anyone remotely following the world of sports in the US would have heard about it. Thomas Boswell of the Washington Post, digs deeper into the Tiger mystique and tries to understand what makes the man.

(Note: The article is two pages long).

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.

A man apart

Rahul Dravid opens up on cricket and other topics to Anand Vasu.

Hacking at the jungle

"What the IPL did was to debunk some myths and the biggest of them all was about the infallibility of the Australian coaches. The franchise owners are not fools and unless they have an inferiority complex they will soon be issuing pink notices to most if not all these freeloaders masquerading as consultants or cricket officers or some such fancy designations."

Sunil Gavaskar
Jun 16, 2008

Not-so-surprisingly, Sunil Gavaskar managed to make his feelings clear about the money that was spent on Aussie "coaches" in the IPL. For a long time he has been anti-Australian in his diatribes and this particular one did not surprise me one bit. Delving deeper into the target of the attack reveals just who is the subject of Sunny's ire.

Here are the Australian-born coaches in the IPL:
Delhi - Greg Shipperd (reached semi-finals)
Punjab - Tom Moody (reached semi-finals)
Rajasthan - Shane Warne (winners of the IPL league)
Kolkata - John Buchanan

It is patently obvious who Sunny hates so much. I wonder if he even thought about the words he wrote (highlighted in bold in the comment above) before he submitted his article. I have great respect for Gavaskar as a cricketer but not much for the commentator or the writer. A few more uninformed comments like this and I will not be in the minority.

Gavaskar prides himself on calling a spade a spade. If so, why does he not come out in the open and declare that his grudge is against Buchanan. But no, this is not the way he operates. He makes bold statements but does not give the entire information. Some time back he said that some players in the Indian team abused John Wright. He brought this to light long after Wright had ceased to be the coach. Having done that, he stayed mum about who the players actually were. What was the point of raising that issue then? Either he should have named the players or kept quiet about the whole thing.

If trees had voices and you could hear them scream, would you be as callous about cutting them down? Yes, you would be if they screamed all the time and for no good reason. There's a lesson in there for Sunil Gavaskar.

Image is everything

Not many of us would have heard of Tarsem. A fewer still would have even seen the first movie he directed - The Cell. I saw the movie after reading the glowing review by Roger Ebert and came away fascinated by a visually stunning movie that had deeper levels than that of a normal psychological thriller.

After a long hiatus he is back with his second movie - The Fall. Roger Ebert spoke to the director and tried to figure out how Tarsem managed to generate all the fantastic images in the movie without any help from computers. Ebert has nothing but praise for the movie and calls it one of the best films of 2008.

Tarsem's "The Fall" is a mad folly, an extravagant visual orgy, a free-fall from reality into uncharted realms. Surely it is one of the wildest indulgences a director has ever granted himself. Tarsem, for two decades a leading director of music videos and TV commercials, spent millions of his own money to finance "The Fall," filmed it for four years in 28 countries and has made a movie that you might want to see for no other reason than because it exists. There will never be another like it.

"The Fall" is so audacious that when Variety calls it a "vanity project," you can only admire the man vain enough to make it. It tells a simple story with vast romantic images so stunning I had to check twice, three times, to be sure the film actually claims to have absolutely no computer-generated imagery. None? What about the Labyrinth of Despair, with no exit? The intersecting walls of zig-zagging staircases? The man who emerges from the burning tree?

A father's words

I am a regular reader of Amitabh Bachchan's blog. Yes, the actor has a blog (much, much, much more on that later). In the blog he is quite open about events in his past (not ALL events, but many) and what shaped him to be the man he is today. On Day 49 (he blogs daily) he had a great nugget to share about a particular interaction he had with his father Harivansh Rai Bachchan, the famous poet. I am providing an excerpt of the incident below. At the end of the interaction is a great poem, the perfect response from a father to his frustrated son.

The avenues and opportunities open to the youth today in an economically liberated India was absent in the late 50’s and early 60’s.

After graduation what ? Where to find a job ? What job ? How ? When ?

And the idealism and debate and the coffee house banter soon converts itself to anger.

The anger of not knowing what to do with ourselves.

You look for answers. You turn to those that may have them. You become followers of others’ wisdom; or seeming wisdom. You become vulnerable and porous. And on one ‘enlightened’ moment you get the answer from a fellow sufferer.

‘Why were we brought into this world ?’, a voice arose, ‘to suffer ?’

That’s it !

That’s the fault. We should never have been brought into this world.

Judgement passed.

Angered, frustrated, strengthened and armed with unreasonable thought, I walked into my father’s study one evening and for the first time in my life, with choked emotion, raised my voice at him and screamed -

“Why did you give birth to me ?” “Aapne hamme paida kyun kiya ?”

My father, immersed as he always was in his writing, looked up at me with some initial surprise and then settled down to a more understanding posture and remained so for almost eternity.

No one spoke. Not him. Not me. Not a sound.

Just the measured clicking of the time piece on his desk – and my un-measured breathing !

When nothing came across from parent quarter, I turned and left.

It was an uncomfortable night for me.

The next morning my father walked into my room, woke me up and handed me a sheet of paper and left. I opened it. It was a poem he had written overnight – titled - ‘Nayi Leek’ - the new generation - the new beginning -
Pulled and torn by the strains of life and living
My sons ask me
“Why did you give birth to us ?”
And I do not possess an answer to this
That even my father did not ask me before giving birth to me,
Nor my father asked his father before producing him
Nor my grandfather did ask his father before bringing him.

The trials and tribulations of life and living
Were there before
And are there now too, perhaps more
And shall be there tomorrow, even greater.
Why don’t you make a new beginning, a new thinking,
Ask your sons before giving birth to them !

Trivial pursuit

From the "Ask Steven" column in CricInfo, comes this nugget...

Is "c Marsh b Lillee" still the most frequent scorecard entry in Tests? asked Mitchell Brooks from Brisbane

That particular dismissal occurred 95 times in Test matches, which remains the record for a bowler-fielder combination. Next come "c Gilchrist b McGrath" [90] and "c Gilchrist b Lee" [81], just ahead of the first non-Australian pairing, "c Boucher b Pollock" [79]. The leading double act that doesn't involve a wicketkeeper is "c Mahela Jayawardene b Muralitharan", of which there have been 66 instances in Tests to date. For a full list, click here. The most-common Test dismissal is actually "bowled Muralitharan" (158), closely followed by "lbw b Kumble" (152).

Underappreciated and overburdened

In spite of all the problems that the West Indies are having of late, in the cricketing arena one player has emerged unscathed from the rubble and enhanced his reputation even further - Shivnarine Chanderpaul. For a long time he belong to the Fleming-Dravid school of batsmanship, scoring 50's, staying at the crease for long periods of time, but only occasionally crossing 100. Rahul Dravid has ventured out of this league, though in the past year he seems to be coming back to the fold. Similarly, Chanderpaul, in the final third of his career is proving to his detractors that style (ahem, Lara) is not everything. Peter Roebuck discusses this determined fighter who, more often than not, is left to plough a lone furrow for the Windies.

Altogether he has played eight Tests in the last 12 months, and has collected 1635 runs in the three formats at an average of 86.05. Along the way he has added six centuries to his tally. Nor has he punished mugs. Besides the Australians, these runs have been scored against England and South Africa in their own backyards. It is a mighty achievement.

It happened one summer

M. Night Shyamalan's latest offering, The Happening, has been severely panned by critics and is not doing as well at the box office as he would have probably hoped. I have not seen the movie (I am not good at handling gory images and there are quite a few such scenes in this movie) but I was curious to know how Roger Ebert felt about the movie. Here's the gist of what he had to say.

What I admire about "The Happening" is that its pace and substance allowed me to examine such thoughts, and to ask how I might respond to a wake-up call from nature. Shyamalan allows his characters space and time as they look within themselves. Those they meet on the way are such as they might indeed plausibly meet. Even the TV and radio news is done correctly, as convenient cliches about terrorism give way to bewilderment and apprehension.

I suspect I'll be in the minority in praising this film. It will be described as empty, uneventful, meandering. But for some, it will weave a spell. It is a parable, yes, but it is also simply the story of these people and how their lives and existence have suddenly become problematic. We depend on such a superstructure to maintain us that one or two alterations could leave us stranded and wandering through a field, if we are that lucky.

Where he walks...

The authors that engage me with their books change with time and taste. In the past couple of years I have been a big fan of Lee Child. Not too many people would have read his books as they are categorized as contemporary thrillers (actions, violence, guns, fights, etc). But the reason I read them is that I identify a lot with the main protagonist - Jack Reacher.

When I first discovered the books, I fell in love with them so much that I immediately bought all the books in the series. Recently, the 12th book in the series titled Nothing to lose was released. For a few hours it was fun to be back in Reacher's world. To promote the book, Child has been giving various interviews and is on a book singing tour. The New York Times had a nice piece on the author and his books. Also, here's NYT's review of Nothing to lose.

I have an awful lot to say about Reacher but, for now, I choose to say nothing (sorry, that's an inside joke that Reacher fans will get). Send me an email if you want to know more about him.

Not-so-average Joe

As the years go by, my respect and liking for Graeme Hick keeps increasing. Even in the twilight of his career he is the prize wicket to take when playing Worcestershire. (A little bit about him can be found on the Different Shades of Green blog).

Christopher Martin-Jenkins wrote a nice piece about the man who, if he plays a couple of years, could become the most prolific run-getter in the entire history of cricket.

His 40,624 first-class runs have been scored at an average of 52, which speaks unequivocally of his class, especially as Worcester pitches have by no means always been batsman friendly. If he were to keep going for another two seasons he could surpass (Graham) Gooch's record aggregate in all cricket of 65,928 runs. Before today's Friends Provident Trophy match he had 63,054, including his Twenty20 runs, more than Jack Hobbs's 61,237, the first-class record still, compiled before limited-overs games started.

Note: As of July 8th, 2008, Hick has accumulated 63,822 runs in all forms of the game.

Left field

The Indian Test team for the Sri Lankan tour has been announced. Thankfully Yuvraj Singh can go and rest his torn knee (maybe even get the surgery that it no doubt requires).

The question that most people seem to have is whether this Indian line-up will be able to tackle the Ajantha Mendis. The difference between the ODI squad and the Test side is that the following batting line-up - Sehwag, Gambhir, Dravid, Tendulkar, Laxman, Ganguly - is better equipped to play spinners (please ask Shane Warne for references) . For now, I do not see Mendis extending his grip over the Indians too long. The first Test will be the one where he makes the most impact.

One bowler who has an outside shot at playing this series is Pragyan Ojha, considered by many to be the best left-arm spinner in the country. I just hope he does not suffer the same fate as the last Indian left-arm spinner to make his Test debut in Sri Lanka. Nilesh Kulkarni took a wicket with his first ball in Test cricket, and then did not take another for the next 70 overs of that innings as Sri Lanka piled on the misery to the tune of 952 for 6 declared!.

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?

Saying it like it might be

Osman Samiuddin discusses one of the ramifications of the IPL - the alarming decline of standards in the commentary booth.

What, someone joked during the IPL, is the difference between those dancing by the boundary downstairs and those in the commentary box upstairs? Only that those downstairs have nicer curves.

This is what it had come to. The brief for the men in the box was narrow - to make sure only one message got out: come what may, the IPL was God, Lalit Modi was Moses, and there wasn't a rest of it. To speak was to hype, but only if it came with the right sponsor. Each six was a "DLF maximum", each critical point in the game a "Citi moment of success". Ravi Shastri, Arun Lal, Ramiz Raja, Sunil Gavaskar and the rest didn't call matches, they sold brands, blindly promoting the IPL (and anything else that came their way).

One reason being touted for the breatheless plugging of the IPL is that with the action happening so fast, there isn't much time for the commentators to discuss strategy. Strange how that logic does not seem to apply to the players when they goof up, does it?

Mother tongue

When I call my parents in India, I usually do so in the daytime (nightime in India). For years and years, after the general introductory chit-chat, the topic of discussion has usually turned to books recently read, internet sites recently visited, and occasionally, TV shows being watched.

Then came the IPL...

Say what you will about the IPL (and I can say a lot of things against it) it changed the way TV was watched in millions of households in India for 45 days. My mother would tell me about feats that batsmen had performed, wickets that bowlers had taken, catches that fielders had snared, required run-rates, chances of making semi-finals, strategies that should be adopted, and even the fact that the cheerleaders in the ICL were superior to the IPL - everything was up for discussion!! The Deccan Chargers laid an egg but it did not matter to my parents who had a blast with the tournament.

But before Lalit Modi sprains his neck patting himself on his back, here's the catch. My parents were EVEN MORE excited about the ICL, to an extent because the Hyderabad Heroes were winning it all, but mainly because they cared more about these players, because of their pariah status. Alfred Absolem took 7 wickets in just four overs for the Heroes, but like the fictional Bhuvan, his feat may forever be consigned to the scrap heap, to be conveneintly forgotten in time.

So the winner here is not the IPL - it is Twenty20 cricket. Consuming just 3 hours (when the captains stick to the prescribed over-rates, that is) in the evening, it is the perfect length and compresses a lot of action in that time. What's not to like about a format that encourages interest in the game? Well, the proverb about the goose that lays the golden egg comes to mind.

Lalit Modi is already touting the idea of having two IPL seasons in one year. He will do well to read up on some economics, especially the Law of Diminishing Returns.

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 woods were lovely, dark, and deep

I undertook a 2,850 mile road trip that took almost two weeks to complete. It would have been much shorter had it not been for a long detour I had to take due to weather-related events.

Being in the car, on the road, watching the miles drift away is as close as I get to feeling totally free and relaxed. For most people, driving is a necessary evil. For me it is a release. Especially long drives on the Interstate. I have to take another fairly long drive again in a couple of weeks. I am looking forward to it...

Hopefully, by that time the Mississippi will have receeded a bit.

Virtual tour

After a long hiatus, I am back to blogging, so I shall start by taking you through some of the stories that have caught my fancy in the past few weeks.

1) Greg Maddux was in pursuit of win number 350, which he has managed but has not won a game since then. David Pinto breaks down Maddux's feat into smaller numbers and finds that Mad Dog's achievement is more astounding the deeper you dig into it.

2) While many others were following the launch of the 20-20 league, I was following the progress of Graeme Hick. Typical Hick results so far...3 catches each in both innings, blasting a century with 15 fours, while setting up a total for the other team to chase. May he churn those runs all season.....135 centuries and counting. By the way, if he continues in this vein for another two years, he will become the most prolific run-scorer in the entire history of cricket. No joke. (More on that in another blog post later on).

3) In the time since I started watching cricket on TV, only two fast bowlers have evoked fear in me (for the plight of the batsmen, mostly Indian) - Imran Khan and Malcolm Marshall. Imran Khan terrorised the Indians to the tune of 42 wickets in the 1982 series, ensuring that GR Viswanath's career came to an abrupt end. Malcolm Marshall then took revenge for the loss of the World Cup by scaring everyone in the Indian team in the 1984 series, going on to become one of the most feared fast bowler the game has ever seen. On what would have been his 50th birthday,Pat Symes writes a moving piece on the man with the angular run-up who left us long before we had a chance to properly say goodbye. Somewhere among the clouds, I can still see him shining the new ball and coming in to bowl. I hope the angels facing him have good protective gear...

4) No player - past or present - moved me as much as Mohammad Azharuddin did. It helped that I watched him start his career along with my grandfather. Dadu did not praise players easily, but when he saw Azhar score 8 runs (yes, 8 runs) in a rain-affected day on Test debut he told me to watch out for the lad. 15 minutes of watching Azhar bat were enough for him to find out what took me years to figure out - Azhar seemed to have some extra time to play the ball. Not surprisingly, super-fast bowling reduced that reaction time and made him jumpy. People forget that when his career ended abruptly, he was the world record holder for most 50's and most runs in ODI's. Also, he is one of a select few batsmen who have scored centuries in their first and last Test. Rohit Brijnath wrote a pretty good piece on Azhar examining the enigma that Azhar was and still is.

5) The 1983 World Cup did as much for cricket in India as the 2007 Twenty20 World Cup triumph did for the BCCI's coffers. Indians did not care for One Day Internationals back then. Yes, India was one of the last countries to play one day internationals and it took a World Cup triumph to change the face of the game. Notice any parallels with Twenty20? June 25th, 2008, marks the 25th anniversary of that tumultuous day in England when Kapil Dev's team successfully defended a total of 183 runs in 60 (yes, sixty) overs. With the cash registers still ringing in their heads from the IPL, the BCCI honchos have decided that the 1983 World Cup team is old news and not worthy of honouring. Funny, since the Under-19 World Cup winning team was treated to a ticker-tape parade and given money that could run a small nation for a few days.

6) As a cricketer of very limited skills, one area where I was able to hold my own (until age and fading eyesight came into play) was as a fielder. I wish I had been able to read these interesting fielding tips by Trevor Penney, a very successful fielding coach.

7) Along with Greg Maddux my favourite baseball player is Frank Thomas. On his 40th birthday ESPN.com came up with a list of 40 things to cheer about the man nicknamed the Big Hurt.