Whistle Podu for Boss DK

Dinesh Karthik played a fantastic innings yet again for Daredevils. That chap must surely play all forms of cricket for India. In this context a famous wit twittered that if he could keep wickets he'd be a great keeper batsman. That's the sad and inspiring tale of boss DK. When he was a better keeper and a stable teen bat, a more powerful hitter was sought. When he's added the skills of well-timed power-hitter to remain relevant, his keeping has regressed. But he should play more for India.

Aapadi poda!

Scoreboard - Delhi Daredevils vs Rajasthan Royals

Read More......

What man Cheeka, You left out Mishra...

For Chawla? Man, what were the selectors smoking? Or were the instructions to include at least one member from each participating IPL team?

Did you see Mishra yesterday? Or the day before? Or the day before that? Can you wise men not make out the difference between a Chawla and a proper leg-spinner?

There can no visible logic to explain this kind of selection unless Mishra opted out himself or the selectors were stoned - by instructions.

What man Cheeka...tell us nuh?

Read More......

Karma is such a Bytc...

The other day at Twitter someone tweeted and was promptly retweeted in such a manner that we sitting on a peripheral branch of the tree also got to read the initial tweet. It was a cryptic note which simply said "India is sabotaging English cricket".

Naturally, we were curious. On inspection of the note, one discovered it was tweeted by a writer contracted to an esteemed cricket journal and was in fact underpinned by a tiny URL. We clicked on the tinyurl and found ourselves reading this article at The Wisden Cricketer.

Our instinctual reactions on reading the article, in sequence, were 1) Is that all it takes to earn a dollar (or pound) writing) professionally about cricket? 2) Amazement at yet another evidence of brazen hypocrisy of a few Englishmen and their Institutions, and not surprisingly 3) We appeared to understand every bit of emotion/sentiment behind the anger (ignore the political glove and listen instead to the palpating commercial heart of the said tournament endangered beneath) and the article born out of it.

Before we take up the third point, which is the main, let us briefly finish with the first two. Increasingly, while reading various articles on newspaper portals, dedicated portals to the game, magazine portals etc these days, one finds that professional journalists are not making better effort than us hobbyists. They use the same one-eyed tenor, angry words, armchair philosophy and easy pointing from there, as we we do on our bigoted unprofessional blogs. Heck, with far fewer resources at our command and the handicap of access issues, we end up at least crawling like termites on the web in our research to extract little bits to piece our articles from. The beauty of it all is that you get the halo of an expert and assured eyeballs.

Second - the hypocrisy of a few English institutions and some people is well recorded down the ages. Wars of liberation have been fought all over the world over this aspect of Englishmen. Here was Viru being grinded into SLOGWAG at one end before conversion into an astutely timed and directed "ology" and now this - he is being painted as the saviour of a T20 tournament when he isn't even in the top 10 in LOI rankings. Tests are a different story...but they aren't playing a tournament of test matches are they?... And why in the world would England want to come and watch SLOGWAG play? What difference would one unrated make to a tournament?

How did ECB respond in the cases of English players with NOCs not making it to IPL due to international obligations? Did they pour as much outrage in favour of players participating in IPL or did they pour outrage on Indians as is their wont for trying to "destroy world cricket?"

Now it is "destroying English cricket"!

How will they now twist their previous arguments 180 degrees?

Did we not plead for understanding and fairmindedness even as England (with their cohorts) sloshed back at us to keep in lines directed by them?

Politics are being played and the party being bested in their old old game is bleating most now.

Poliics have been played ever since England stepped out of their limits and into others' borders. Politics have been played since the first cricket bat sailed across the seas from England. So no surprises that politics are being played now too. Like we said above, politics are being played even now and the party being bested in this game is bleating most now.

The beauty of this is now those who gave every argument against our pleas and poked fun at our one-eyedness, continue to poke fun at our one-eyedness but the difference now being that they have assumed the outraged voice.

But this is all distraction...unnecessary distraction.

Coming to the third point, we understand the angst. Let us presume this author (as the representative of his magazine and indirectly speaking for some people in UK) is not one who was the usual English snob with a colonial hangover, actually liked Sehwag and fostered good vibes about IPL. and encouraged cooperation between boards...let us assume that for purposes of discussion and then remove him from the focus of this article...and pick up the issue of NOCs and FTPs and Window.

Why wasn't IPL given a slot? Who stymied it? Who stymied proposals for a more rational FTP? Wouldn't we then have also had an FTP in place? For if we did have a fixed window and an FTP in place, then we might not have signed up for an international series with Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka coinciding with your Pro20 and Sehwag (and the other anti-cricket slogger, Yusuf Pathan)would have been avaialable for play. You can still have Chawla as far as Indians (excluding selectors) are concerned.

However, we feel the angst/pain, for we were pleading till only just a few months ago, even if we have to take it with a pinch of cynicism considering the past history of England, its institutions and Englishmen regarding India, its cricket and their views on these players in particular.

And we come back to NOCs and our debates on the issue of NOCs being simply chits of toilet paper and therefore the need for various boards to have better cooperating mechanisms than this...some kind of minor partnership roles in the others tournament so there is a stake to make things happen, not just for self but for the others too.

Jonathan would recall our discussions on this topic easily...we have many words and posts and comments on this theme tucked away in the archives.

India would also be wise to sort out a finality to many things. Maybe this was required for England and their cohorts to understand the import of their past actions and words, but India should find a way where better business relationships can be forged. Anyway, journos make plenty of eyeball-catching noise and things are not always decided according to that and that noise may not be the most correct. England, along with others, may need to work seriously on the Window, FTP amendments asked for, or introduction of tier system etc as well to avoid such situations that may arise. But first the NOC...needs redefining IMO and India must take the lead in ensuring a fairer process in cricket than that exists.

Read More......

Good Article by Mike Haysman

The one difficult aspect to gauge from afar is what impact the IPL is having in India. As much as you might thoroughly embrace the enjoyment factor from your lounge chair, to be here witnessing it all first hand and being right in the mix is fascinating. To illustrate my point, it is remarkable to think that only about one per cent of the total revenue of the IPL originates from outside India!

Mike Haysman, current commentator at IPL 2010, writes in greater detail about the difficult topic of IPL in his article at SuperCricket.

Worth a read.

Read More......

I still cannot fathom

Why they watch IPL who...

There must be something after all in what they say about human nature that loves to peek first and then crit about it later.

Immoral...utterly immoral of them

Some even formalize this perversion of theirs by pinning the badge of journalism to it.

Somebody find them the button to switch channels or maybe a football or a badminton racquet or a baseball bat or...or anything please so they could step out and play instead of grumping away in front of their laptop screens like full-power sada pon chewers who then spit out their infected peek onto the rest of us.

Yeah, and take with you the cheerleaders that so obsess your minds out of their living daylights....we who watch cricket at IPL can do without them, even if their absence from IPL robs you of your very raison d'être. We'll live and thrive without dolls and dummies even if you cease to have a point to get excited about.


If cheerleaders it isn't then they'll crit against colored clothing, or coverage, or telecast, or the the poor chaps trying to give you a package with their opinions...either give these perverts the mic and ask them to anchor successfully or find them the MUTE button or blacken their screens so they do not HAVE to see.

If all else fails, please find them a pair of white flannels so they can hug onto it and put their thumbs in their ora for security while IPL is going on on TV.

And oh, find them a country and identity please...they simply hate being Indian or having roots which are Indian. Poor chaps are so embarassed we like our saas-bahus, our test cricket, one-day cricket, T20 cricket and IPL cricket, our idli-vada whistle podus, our golgappa daredevils, our paavbhaji MIs, our roshogolla riders etc etc....that they must point like brown sahibs.

Begone HATERZ!

Read More......

The Final Frontier - Chapter 2

The formation of Tough India

Change was also very much part of Indian cricket at the turn of the last century. And it was also unplanned and born out of unpleasant circumstances. The match-fixing scandal ^[1] had shaken the foundations of Indian cricket. The spectator had turned cynical. Every day something new was cropping up. Manoj Prabhakar then went ahead and aired videos of some undercover work he had taken up in spare time. ^[12] The team was in a disarray. Sachin was struggling as captain of India and lost the series in Austraia humiliatingly. Kapil Dev, one of our sporting icons, burst into tears on television and resigned as coach. He was a reluctant coach anyway and left to play golf proclaiming he'd forsaken cricket for good.

One was deeply disappointed with cricket, for Kapil was among the three favorites of mine who were floundering at that time. The third was Azza, a man whom I still consider as one of my favorite players. There was talk about the need for foreign coaches. The topic created groups within Indian cricket already divided along many lines. Sourav Ganguly was appointed captain during this churning. The disillusioned polity of Indian cricket spectatorship saw Ganguly's appointment not as a harbinger of change, a new slate which was to lead to the present, but as another underhand drama of Indian cricket. It was unfortunate and symptomatic of those times. In times to come, Sourav Ganguly would turn out to be a captain with the most significant influence on Indian cricket of all. As transformational as the combo of Bobby Simpson and Alan Border were for Australia at one time....perhaps greater considering the resources he had to work with and the problems that bedevilled Indian cricket.

Also winging towards India and 2001 was John Wright. Following parleys with Rahul Dravid at Kent and later with Sourav Ganguly at Lancashire in 2000, during which he expressed interest to the duo in the job of Indian cricket coach if it came up, Wright was contacted by JY Lele, the then Secratary of BCCI to confirm his interest. An interview followed in India, taken by a panel comprising of AC Muthiah, Late Raj Singh Dungarpur, Late Hanumant Singh Maharajkumar of Banswara, Srinivas Venkataraghavan and JY Lele. The competition comprised of Geoff Marsh, who was the front-runner, Greg Chappell, the legendary Australian batsman, and John Wright, the humble but determined Kiwi among the Kangaroos.

I was the outsider, but at least I had a chance to look at them in the eye and make my case. The BCCI has given me a shot at it. ^[2]

John Wright, in writing that, was alluding to the fact that neither ECB nor NZC gave him the opportunity to personally state his case across the table when he had applied for the jobs of England Coach and NZ Coach respectively before Dravid and Ganguly happened to him in the English county season of 2000. In fact he was left more bitter by the NZC's treatment of him than anybody else's, perhaps because that was his home team.

Further, he was out of the coaching job he had held at Kent over four years till that time. 'No one came back to me and nothing was said', Wright explains, referring to an earlier communication he had initiated with Kent to define his future at the club. Writing about the ermination of his contract at Kent he says

We avoided relegation. The day after the season ended, I was told the club felt it was time for a change, thank-you and goodbye. I'd been hung out to dry and left to confront the very real possibility that the coaching career I'd embarked upon so enthusiastically was already over. This no-man's-land is the coach's natural habitat. You serve at other people's pleasure and sacking the coach is a quick and esy fix for administrators, who may themselves be under pressure and/or want to be seen as proactive, take-charge kind of guys. A player who's been dropped can go out and get 150 for the Seconds, but a sacked coach can't do a damn thing until someone else gives him a job. ^[2]

Change appeared to be the theme all around as the new millenium was enetred and its first year was chewed through. One club's discard would go on be a great cricket loving nation's saviour-in-arms.

In 2000 Ganguly and Dravid were both playing county cricket. Ganguly had been appointed India's captain a few months earlier following the steppng down of Sachin Tendulkar. Plenty was made of it was seen by rivals as a self-promotional step by Dalmiya's group to which Ganguly was considered close. This was also one of the reasons among many, that many people felt Ganguly could get things done in Indian cricket. Dravid was polishing his game in Kent, the very county where Wright was coaching.

John Wright was seriously impressed with Dravid's batting in New Zealand 1998-99

and when the opportunity to sign him arose, we [Kent] grabbed it. Kent has been trying to get him back ever since. That 1996 [1998] Indian team was an imressive outfit. Through my commentary work I met Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar, whom I'd actually played against. I was struck by their courtesy and humility. ^[3]

The courtesy was returned soon enough.

I discovered from Rahul that the senior Indian players were pushing their board to consider bringing in a foeign coach. Ganguly was Lancashire's overseas player that year and we had a chat when we played the. Looking back on it, that chat was the first step in the process. ^[3]

The forces which moulded a new Tough India were moving closer.

As the season progressed, 'These thoughts bubbled away', continues Wright. Towards the end of which, JY Lele contacted him on the phone to confirm his interest in the India coaching job. Lele was by now the Secratary of the BCCI, but he and Wright had interacted during the New Zealand tour of India in 1998 when Lele was the liaison officer for the NZ team. He and John had hit it off well. Wright says about that Secratary JY Lele telephone call 'at that time I didn't appreciate just what a high-powered position that was, and we had a chuckle over our changed circumstance and the way fate had conspired to bring us back in contact'.

Consequence to that call, Wright found himself winging it to India for an interview as an invitee.

This was more like it, being flown out business class for a face-to-face interview. It certainly beat the hell out paying my way up to London, to be told I wasn't worth listening to. ^[4]

Meanwhile, the new Indian captain wasn't going down well with many people, both Indians and non-Indians. For them Ganguly appeared to represent the quintessential parasite. While it is easier to understand such feelings from Indians who have long done away with royalty and have a vibrant and continuing resistance to elitism, it is hard to understand why Englishmen, who are out of habit, so subservient to a decorative royalty in their own country, their peerages, and so completely conscious of the strict social heirarchy in their society had a reason to feel aggrieved about Sourav Ganguly's royal mein.

In "The Wisden Cricketer", reviewers Steve Pittard and John Stern called him as "The imperious Indian—dubbed 'Lord Snooty'". They commented:

"At the crease it was sometimes uncertain whether his partner was a batsman or a batman being dispatched to take his discarded sweater to the pavilion or carry his kit bag. But mutiny was afoot among the lower orders. In one match Ganguly, after reaching his fifty, raised his bat to the home balcony, only to find it deserted. He did not inspire at Glamorgan or Northamptonshire either. At the latter in 2006 he averaged 4.80 from his four first-class appearances."

His Lancashire teammate Andrew Flintoff thought him to be aloof and compared his attitude to that of Prince Charles. ^[5]

The men who started off these rumours were none other than some senior Indian team members whom Sourav Ganguly accompanied on his first tour as a teenager. You see, there is a strict senior-junior culture in the Indian team and juniors were expected to do many things for the seniors. If they didn't or didn't to the satisfaction of some of the more grudge-bearing seniors, the newbie was quite doomed. he'd either be out of the team or be slandered for life. Something like that must have happened with the youngster on that '91-'92 tour of Australia. The image became established, one presumes primarily because firstly this "notoriety" got around and second, there was a fundamental failure to understand the young Indian who came from a different background.

I don't know of any other cricketer who lives like Ganguly: in a mansion, with his entire extended family and a fleet of cars. ^[6]

Steve Waugh went along with the popular feeling amongst most foreigners and some Indians about Sourav and added plenty more to it in his mind. In fact he jotted them down perhaps into a diary for they appeard later in his book.

I saw Sourav as elitist, a bloke who made a few rules for himelf in his exalted position and who thought the world revolved around him. he was constantly bickering over the nature of pitches and trying to influence the groundsmen in India. To me this wasn't too different from match fixing, because captains who try this on are attempting to alter the conditions in collusion with a force that shouldn't be tampering with it. It's a groundsman's job to prepare a pitch to the best of his ability, then hand it over to the players for them to adapt to the conditions. That's why it's called a "Test"; It's supposed to challenge you, not appease your wishes. ^[7]

Steve Waugh's sanctimonious sermons could be ascribed to his disappointment at his carefully planned "mental disintegration" tactics being taken apart to the very nuts and bolts by Sourav Ganguly, who in fact also successfully turned it around on Steve himself. Laments of a bested man aside, it betrays fixed notions and belief in the said convenient word rather than truly knowing.

The players had grown up in a culture of seniors and juniors; it was a subject that came up time and again in newspaper articles and on television. Ganguly and I were one on this: it had to change. He was determined to create a new culture and did an admirable job of making the younger players feel that they belonged. ^[8]

John Wright was stunned by what he saw at his first practice session with the Indian team.

Practice was an unforgettable experience; the first of many. At the training ground the players left thir gear on the bus and ambled over to the nets on the other side of the field where they lounged in cane chairs while waiters served them tea and biscuits. Andrew [Leipus] had briefed me on what to expect, but there had been no mention of tea and biscuits. Or waiters. Or the porters who were now lugging the players' cricket coffins across the field.. ^[9]


...

I filled in the time by starting a list of things that were to going to change. ^[9]

...

The cane chairs were gone the next day and tea soon followed. The players weren't bothered; the resistance came from people who lavished this care and attention on their beloved team. ^[9]

It is possible that Steve Waugh is convinced of some things in his mind and we'll grant him that leeway. But he did suggest Sourav Ganguly was a match fixer of sorts. I am sure that nothing of that sort happens in Australia but let us see what the truth was behind those ideas gleaned by Steve Waugh from the 2001 tour of Australia.

John Wright was on his first real test against the visiting Australians. The just concluded Zimbo series didn't count for he was barely involved with it. To make a bright start to his coaching assignment, John Wright was looking for all the sources of information that he could to some questions he had

Regardless of the opposition, every contest starts with the question: how do you beat them? Geoff Marsh, the former Australian coach who was in India doing consultancy work for the BCCI, was a good source of information; he certainly thought the Aussies were beatable. I believed we had to play on slow, turning wickets that didn't break up,... ^[10]

Obviously Steve Waugh was not given the correct hearsay as regards the pitch matters with which he went on to suggest that Sourav might have indulged in things similar to match-fixing.

But Steve also professes great admiration for the new Indian captain of that time; it wasn't all negative feelings that he harboured for the man who outthought and outguessed him and trashed his carefully laid disintegration plans to conquer The Final frontier in the bargain. (We'll come to that later).

I saw in Sourav a committed individual who wanted to inject some toughness and combativeness into a side that had often tended in the past to roll over and expose the soft underbelly, especially when touring life and certain events took them out of the cosiness of what they knew they could control.^[7]

John Wright tells us about the people he sought out in those early days of reform. One of the persons he sought an opinion from was Ravi Shastri. Wright lists out five crisp points Shastri gave him, the second of which was something like this

We had [have] to start winning away from home; the public would like to see us go for wins even if it meant losing a few. ^[11]

So the mandate was clear, all the five points enumerated by Ravi Shastri were precise, India wanted the coach to change things around with a talented team, and the implied promise was of all co-operation in that task.


In that period of 2000-01, just before the Australian series, Indian cricket was involved in deeply affecting changes. What Steve Waugh could see only upto 2006 (when he published his book) is now finally revealing itself even to the most hardnosed of cynics.

A few others have subsequently had their say on Ganguly

In a single day he can provoke exasperation, infuriation, and congratulations…[Sourav] is a mixture of dashing cricketer, disdainful aristocrat, protesting youth, charming socialiser, glorious leader and fierce competitor.

- Peter Roebuck

[Ganguly's] deft management skills, I know, have also influenced many of us in the corporate world. Saurav has demonstrated very effectively all the qualities of a corporate leader. Saurav has demonstrated how to build and manage a team; how to succeed at home and to replicate that success overseas. Saurav has demonstrated the importance of getting the best resources and talent; motivating them; and to emerge as a serious player in a competitive environment.

- B Muthuraman, Managing Director, Tata Steel, in 2004.

Saurav is an example of an outstanding leader who was willing to take strong, hard stands. He also managed his team well and backed a number of young players… He failed because of a certain situation he could not handle. Every leader succeeds and fails depending on the situation s/he is working under.

- Harsha Bhogle, in 2006

Source ^[13]

From 'glorious leader' through 'outstanding leader' to a complete corporate thoroughbred...there is a reason why people say what they say about this leader of men. His unpopularity amongst a few may be ascribed to various reasons real or imagined, but he, Sourav, was handed a tough task at a difficult time and he achieved that with his vision, guided along by John Wright and the combined cooperation of his team mates and board.

The change has taken almost a decade...so insiduously that the canniest couldn't detect its progress. There wasn't much fanfare about India's persistent transition - in this regard one recalls the publicly proclaimed and much acclaimed Vision 2000 document released by Ranatunga's Sri Lankans following their 1996 World Cup victory, where they aimed to be the top cricketing team by 2000 AD. Ten years since the forces began to come together in the right places, India can rightfully claim to have elevated itself into a highly competitive unit at home and abroad.

But back then there were not many farsighted takers for change. Personally, I think that was good for it kept expectations manageable, every success translated into an energy boost for all concerned and brought back the public to all forms of the game, and importantly it allowed Indian cricket to heal from the match-fixing saga as well as quietly develop a firm spine in the generation of players who grew up into the current Indian team observing this change happening.

The forces were also gelling in a common goal, pupose and mutual understanding. The BCCI allowed change to happen rather than persist with things that encouraged cane chairs, tea and biscuits.


-----
The Final Frontier - Chapter 1
-----

► Chapter 3 in the pipeline.

REFERENCES

1) Mihir Bose, Cricket's darkest chapter, 2001: A game in shame, Wisden Almanack 2001


2) John Wright, John Wright's Indian Summers (Penguin Books India, 2006, ISBN : 9780670999279 ), p. 26.

3) Ibid p. 23.

4) Ibid p.24.

5) Wikipedia, Sourav Ganguly: 2000–2005: Ascension to captaincy and accolades

6) John Wright, John Wright's Indian Summers (Penguin Books India, 2006, ISBN : 9780670999279 ), p. 54.

7) Steve Waugh, Out of my comfort zone (Penguin Books Australia, 2006, ISBN-13: 9780143005742 ), pp 580-581.

8) John Wright, John Wright's Indian Summers (Penguin Books India, 2006, ISBN : 9780670999279 ), p. 39.

9) Ibid pp. 31-32.

10) Ibid p. 47.

11) Ibid p. 33.

12) A cloud over cricket, Frontline, Volume 17 - Issue 12, June 10 - 23, 2000.

13) Sourav Ganguly (A): A Case Study in Leadership (ICMR Case Studies in Business, Management, 2007), p. 1.

Read More......

The Final Frontier - Chapter 1

Arriving at the virtual cricket stadium

March 2001 is a period of time in my life to which I return often in my mind. Perhaps there isn't a single day of my life since, when I haven't revisited that calendar page. For such a fascination (or fatal attraction) with a shred of time to exist in one, that fragment must encapsulate things which are beyond the mere and annual madness of March. Significance is highly subjective - what may be for one may not be to the other - within the broader parameters of common shared experiences, we assign that label as per individual preferences. So it is with March 2001 and I.

Computer and internet happened to me out of a slight sense of shame. Back in 1996-97, one acquired a secondhand system since the son had commenced schooling and it was required as part of his nursery curriculum. The wife (who had a computer in her chamber at her institute) and son looked quite adept in using it. The computer illiterate in me ( yes I belong to a generation where you learnt computers at IITs and not in nursery school, nukkad, or any gali, and I just didn't happen to go to IIT for higher studies ) enjoyed puffy pride at watching the two go about on Windows 95. The kind of pride perhaps many Indians still feel when they see their loved ones educating themselves in what they couldn't learn. Sure enough, like the typical twist in the story with such a theme, it wasn't very long before a stray comment passed by a stray someone in a stray situation hit quick and home to disturb this happy equilibrium wihin the illiterate one. My nature was seized with a determination to learn all I could about usage of computers and anything more that I could. Windows 95 went out and 98 was brought in. Times had changed and upgradation was a sore necessity.

The long and short of the story was that, in 1999, through the Desktop, I discovered that a window to a worldwide web lay at my fingertips, ready to channelize what lay within me into the vastness of mankind. It was a nerve tingling realization...goosepimpling, seductive, addictive...and awaited simply my desire.

My hobbies slipped out from beneath dusty covers and sprang to a new life. My documents of words could now be thrown out of that window and one could watch them flutter all around the world till they could no longer be seen. At times you could see hands reaching out to catch those words. It was a deeply moving experience. I could sketch, I could paint - in someone else's artbook just as easily as I could in mine. Forums and websites peeled away like an Irish reel in my exploration. The repressed poet in me rebelled wildly upon many of them...like a released ghoul...frequently shaming himself miserably upon their tiles. But even the most new-drunk of all greenhorns find their micromoments on the web. They hear that polite applause for the effort from the far corner of their window and it reverberates back to them like an auditorium shattering clapping for an encore...and they encore...the greenhorns go ahead and spread themselves out on the tiles again and again, night after bonus night.

I was one of them too, going through the process of creating pain (pain is a big poetic draw), to experience the various depths of it, and distill from it what one palmed off as ribboned poetry or prose. It is only much later that one realizes that poetry (or prose) born from pain which happens is very different from that extracted from concocted pain. Or joy for that matter. Not everybody can translate living abstract experiences into a genaralized meaningfulness. For most, happening pain can switch off pretences and leave them with nothing - no prose and certainly not any poetry. And so we were in the March of 2001 when distilling from concocted pain or joy appeared to be a nauseating work of perversion. One was distracted by then, fundamentally, with the first set of one's hobbies which sprang to new life...and from the locked trunks had begun to emerge their successors.

Cricket scrapbooks of my youth emerged from their silverywormed graves as succour. By March 2001, I had already begun to lean once more upon them. Their frail pages shouldered my new adventures into the webbed world beyond my windows. This hobby didn't require false creation first to extract from - a vast set of experiences already existed to tap from. One had played this game for what is considered a reasonably 'enough' period of time in my middle-class mindset. More might have been even irresponsibly excessive...even immorally so. Writing with cricket as the theme required no props or actors nor measurement of what sentiments and how much emotion one needed to put into the actors, their roles and the situation they played in. One was familiar with most of what was required in this game...joy, hope, determination, courage, optimism, teamwork, grace, confidence, grit, the rewards of honest toil, sadness, disappontment, despair, coping with them...they were all known very well and didn't require manufacturing...and anyway the actors were pros - they emoted spontaneously without the need for script or direction - one could simply sit back and watch various strands of the story unfold, experience everything actors in this theater wished to convey with great empathy and understanding, and leave it to God to plan the plot for the game...OK, let's change God and make that Media and Mediamen. Yes indeed, writing about cricket on the web was a far more alluring option among my many hobbies. I could be, here, myself - a participatory spectator in the stands - and not another presumptious web writer laid out on the tiles outside where one didn't belong. If things worked out, I could bring all my hobbies in through cricket. After all, weren't they crumbling together in the same worm infested grave? If they could be coffined together, they could also be revived alongside each other, a new spirit with myriad elements that strengthened one another and formed a coherent single hobby.

I left my early web haunts for good in 2001 and returned to cricket - this time, in the avatar of a computer spectator in the virtual stadia of cricket forums. Blogging was yet to happen - the idea of sharing some unresolved thoughts and curiosities with like spectators from other nations was exciting. I never had the chance to share a stadium bench while watching a cricket match with anyone other than a fellow Indian. So it was new and thrilling.

The start of 2001 had also disabused one from manufacturing pain for the sake of it...for anyway it is always waiting around the next corner to crush...and Steve Waugh's Aussies were already here in India by the first turn of that year's calendar page. Its month of March helped one also redicover joy which simply exists all around, among us and within us - in that testingly dark period a joyous poem (only my second cricket poem which I have now also trashed) sprang sponataneously to my typing fingers, all because Laxman chose to play cricket in the company of Dravid for one complete day. Mid-March, life was back on rails again with a new determined engine! Change was inevitable, necessary and happening.

-----
The Final Frontier - Chapter 2
-----

PS: Please do not go looking for any of my poetry under the pseudonym "Soulberry" for none exists under that name which is mine. :) "Soulberry" was a handle created on a whim in 2001 for cricket forum purposes. I now realize there are more Soulberrys than I bargained for and even companies! Ditto with TCWJs - just too many of them as well!

Read More......

Soliloquy

After blogging/forumming earnestly for these many years as I did upon cricket, there comes a time when you know that it doesn't matter at all. At the end of the day, it is just a game and everything around the game is merely chatter and gossip.

As a blogger/forummer, one has experimented with different techniques and methods of writing and things like playing with images, the odd cartoons, the stray poetic turn, book reviews...all with whatever limited ability and command one has upon their requirements.

At different times, at different places on the web, different people have said many things about my efforts.

Some found my articles a tedious exercise in creative writing, others complimented on trying out such a style. When the theme was combat, I tried to instill that in the prose of what I wrote. There were times when I tried out investigative snifferdogism. I tried the bland asexual style of commercial PC reporting too. I employed titillation, anger, courage, hope, determination, despair, disappointment, combativeness...sometimes commonsense too...the odd sentence or two of of humour...all to make what I wrote worth the effort for those who made that to read them.

I am not proficient at the things I did here on this blog...but I tried.

There were times when I believed that negativism and negative styles of writing are most compelling reads...people love to hear that disparaging tinge in sports reporting and chit chat...one can see plenty of it everywhere from newspapers, to books to television...it is in fact one of the more frequently employed styles here...but this style never leaves me with a sense of accomplishment. Invariably I'd ask myself what the purpose was? What is the purpose of maintaining a hobby diary on some interest if negativism were to be the main theme. It isn't a commercial venture and there aren't compulsions to drive a business. I might have thought aloud similarly in the past...Curiously, I found that most responses were only when the tone and tenor of article was suitably disparaging. Some of the nicer things one wrote drowned without comment...so maybe there is some truth in what people like to read after all in sports reporting. But is that what I want to read in my diary the next day? And are the number of responses the yardstick of what I want to say in my diary?

Hagiography is also a difficult art. The line demarcating such methods of writing from slipping into pure unadulterated chamchabaazi is very faint and great skill is required to stay on the right side of it. An even greater skill is required to remain interesting while practising this technique. To help develop my skills I chose two subjects disliked by many generally. No secrets for guessing - Lalit Kumar Modi and Sunil Gavaskar.

It was a challenge to highlight their positive aspects and contributions, against the prevailing and accepted atmosphere associated with them, without appearing at the same time to be an idol worshipper. I am no Harsha Bhogle or Ayaaz Memon or any such...I do not have the expertise they possess..but I tried.

It was a challenge to expose people or biases without appearing to be a hater.

I have tried to understand the game's history..learning it as I read, researched and wrote...and I tried to imagine the future of this game.

My efforts are amateurish and I am sure my foot crossed the lines many times.

Sometimes things came out right, other times they didn't.

I have tried to speak my mind as frankly as possible. I have been wrong many times and have also been correct a few times.

Comments - what does one write? To what degree and to what purpose? Whatever they are, comments shouldn't be a compulsion. Any heat generated must be adsorbed and given up soon.

I am not sure if at the end of all this, this is a diary I'd like to ever open again. But where do I find a diary that I'd like to open and read again? I would not like this to be a diary repeating expected patterns of writing...I'd like it to reflect my thoughts as an individual. Those thoughts may be correct, incorrect, logical or illogical...it must remain my hobby, something I give in to, and not become anything intolerably bigger than that.

Read More......

I also want to be an IPL Chastity Protector

Today, while browsing around on a lazy Sunday, I espied this Guardian.co.uk article titled Cheerleaders shame Indian cricket: The IPL's reliance on foreign cheerleaders reinforces unsavoury Indian stereotypes about sex and women .

I watch IPL on TV only with my mother and son mostly, my plans to be present at the ground having been dashed, and all of us having missed such fleeting knick-knack happenings on the televised version, I was naturally curious about the article.

As I read the brilliant article I felt a strange feeling rise within me - it rose up from somewhere in the region of my toes, up through my body, up to completely seize my mind - I tingled with outrage, and mutiny rang out clear and strong in my mind - Main Bhi IPL Chastity Protector Banoonga! I too shall be the Crowndrum of IPL Chastity!

I too, the aroused voice bellowed from inside me, shall rise and raise my voice from this my humbler platform, for more chastity in our IPL, our movies, our art, our literature, our society...It is such canvas non-art, printed non-literature, non-contextual movie excesses, excesses of fashion and clothing in our society that are the main cause for misguiding our youth and making devils out of them. The pop-art of IPL on the fringes beguiles and misleads.

But I am reminded by the words in that article - "Social conservatism the world over shares a strange mix of sanctimony and prurience, the mingled terror of and obsession with the flesh" - I am no prurient sanctimonious rightwing extreme terrorized by the sight and thought of flesh. I must restrict my ambit to IPL. Like the author, I am also merely bored...in the grown up context...by the gallery gawking of nudist art, the bizarre flesh-filled Indian films, the reams of Page 3 pressables and compressibles thrust upon our society by leading national newspapers daily...the skimpiness of people's choice in dailywear...yes, I am also bored by it all and it is not for me to correct society even if it ruins our young men!

I must select a limited focus as a prospective Chastity Protector...the Crowndrum against IPL's procreative urges ..nah, there is no politics involved, just localizing energies into keeping one act clean - IPL's bad influence on Indian stereotypes, and by extention, they going out of the stadium or from the TV boxes in search of tourists, is of serious concern and must be taken up. The films, the printed papers, the society is not my outlook. Only yesterday night Gangajal (2003) was flowing out of the TV set alongside IPL from a popular channel...not the chaste waters of River Ganga but a bumping and grinding nullah which claims that name.

By the way, let me reiterate...I am not an extreme right-wing zealot...unlike the sterotype, I am a concerned intellectual (yes I do have some brains) of this country and "it is the larger dichotomy suggested by this unfortunate image that I find troubling, that of Indian men ogling mostly white, non-Indian women."(sic)

I am not bothered by what white men or black men ogle at...that's their problem, my bodderation matches the authors...I am concerned Indian men ogle at white non-Indian women. And I'll cross this bridge when it comes - if I find Indian men ogling at Indian women or non-white Indian and non-Indian women.

But I am vexing...zeesh!...needlessly...I cannot sustain a zeal similar to that of the author..he's a special one and I am not so special. I cannot sustain keeping an act clean..I cannot be a great Crowndrum. You see, I cannot afford to offend my loyal male readers. And I just happened to look again at the title of the article which so aroused me - Cheerleaders shame Indian cricket - and there I was all vexing about men ogling and spoling and getting spoilt. It's the cheerleaders silly! As far as my loyal female readers are concerned - all I can say is sorry ma'ams, it's the cheerleaders who are bringing shame and spoiling Indian men. You got to talk to them and probably ask them to wear full gowns.

Let me just go back to watching cricket on TV (the ground is where the ogling cameras are) with my mom and kid. At least there isn't any such noticeable knicker-bockering on TV, and leave the ideologogling to more energetic and able people.

Brilliant article that - for a brief while I was tense with purpose.

Read More......

IPL 2010: Mid-season opining

Frankly, I haven't been able to watch all the matches for one reason ot the other. Neither have I been able to watch those I did in their entirety. Hence the stalling of our coverage.

But from what I saw live, and those one could thanks to the IPL YouTube portal, which allowed one to catch up with missed segments whenever possible, the thing which stands out is fielding, stupendous batting by veterans like Sachin and Kallis, and a better contest between bat and ball.

By and large, the younger generation of players haven't really set the stadia afire with their batting. Maybe SS Tiwary and a few odd knocks here and there. Bowling has begun to get into the tournament after a tentative start by all sides. However, the fielding has been outstanding.

Not that there haven't been bloopers - that's understood in the Indian method of cricket - but players like Suman, Manhas, Yadav, Raina, Manoj Tiwary and a few others, have had good stints in the field. Overseas players too have ben good. Overall, one can say the most significant aspect of this edition of IPL has been better fielding. Unfortunately, most of the good fielding by Indian players have come from either those not in the T20I scheme of things or those who have retired. Ganguly, Dravid...they all had their moments.

Vinay Kumar has come on as the tournament progressed but thee is no joy for me as far as young Indian bowling and batting are concerned.

Coming to the T20 WC squad selection, I will not even pretend to either understand or explain the selection of PP Chawla ahead of Mishra. Amit Mishra is fifth in the bowlers ranking with more wickets and better economy

A Mishra 6 22.0 0 161 7 2/23 23.00 7.31 18.8 0 0
(Delhi Daredevils) [RANK 05 AS ON 27-03-2010]

PP Chawla 6* 22.0 0 168 4 1/20 42.00 7.63 33.0 0 0
(Kings XI Punjab) [RANK 23 AS ON 27-03-2010]


I will also not try to pretend that I understand Rohit Sharma's selection. MK Pandey shaped up better than he. If experience was weighted against MK Pandey and in favour of Sharma, and interests of even zonal spread was also not a criterion, then yes, Robin appears in better cowlashing form than Rohit Sharma. There is otherwise very little to choose between the two.

The selection of P Chawla and Rohit Sharma could well prove inspired and make us shut up eventually, but right now smacks of some kind of trade-off or cronyism operating.

India team for 2010 ICC T20 WC

MS Dhoni (capt & wk), Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina, Yusuf Pathan, Dinesh Karthik, Ravindra Jadeja, Zaheer Khan, Praveen Kumar, Ashish Nehra, Harbhajan Singh, Piyush Chawla, Vinay Kumar, Rohit Sharma


Ganguly Super Catch



ABD Super Catch



Dravid Super Catch

Just found out that all the IPL videos which have the "Embed" option with them are just a facade. The videos do not run when "embedded" for they are blocked. Then why not remove that option? To make fools of fans? One thought IPL was doing a great thing towards dissemination of perticular cricketing moments from IPL. Looks like this one was just an initial publicity stunt to get people hooked onto YouTube+IPL combo. And there we were, thanking IPL for a great vision! Anyway, the links are given and hopefully they will not disallow linking!

Read More......

England vs Bangladesh match keenly poised

England vs Bangladesh 2010, Day Five, Second Test at Shere Bangla National Stadium, Mirpur

Scorecard

Captain Shakib Al Hasan is laying the foundations for an interesting final two sesions to this match which has been see-sawing either way throughout, with a courageous innings with the tail. So much so that English followers are wondering now if Shakib would declare boldly to go where no Bangladeshi has ever gone before - to lure England to go for their clean sweep requiring win and then slip the rug from under them in the process.

Yesterday, on the fourth day, England continued to fight back hard from their disadvantageous position and after Bell left, Bresnan had carried on with Treadwell to take England ultimately to a commanding lead of 77 runs. At one time there was just the slight fear that England might slip to a follow-on, or fall too far behind Bangladesh on the first innings. In that context England did well.

The English bowlers carried forward the efforts of their batsmen, chipping away at Bangladesh, slipping their wings, further reducing their chances to draw or win. It was a stirring fightback. Of course Broad had to 'explain himself' to the umpire Tony Hill towards the end of yesterday.

Brats rule when they can, Brats can escape while they can, someday the supporting throne will crumble and collapse and Brats will all fall down like tons of humpty-dumpties. The comeuppance for boors and brats lies in the game itself.

Coming back to Stuart Broad, he picked up the key wicket of Mushfiqur Rahim. In that context, he bowled well and usefully. That was one good over from Broad in an otherwise insipid performance and tour. Imrul Kayes was unlucky to have the ball be redirected by the lower edge of the thighguard into his stumps.

Broad is an extremely lucky fellow that his promoters have successfully erected a very tall totem of long-term potential og various sorts at which current England selectors kneel and pray. Broad's career is otherwise so interesting that with figures like these, not many would have played as many tests as he has anywhere in the world, unless there was a shortage of bowlers in those lands.

There is a marginal improvement in the figures if we omit the single matches he has been exposed in against violent batting teams like India and Sri Lanka, but even then one has to stretch one's imagination to understand the secret of his continuance. There must be something he can do in terms of cricket to merit such a permanent spot in the ECB structured team? We all know even Mums and Grandmums can bowl the odd good delivery or over, and knock a few runs about if given a bat. But there must be more worth to him than the rest of the world can see - we hope he isn't hidden away from better batting sides to bolster his figures and thereby justify the erected totem.

Shakib is there on 86 but only one wicket remains. At Lunch, the tigerish Bangladesh are 198 runs ahead. Another ten overs should seriously test England's resolve and ability to win at a pace of over 4 rpo in test matches and yet not lose in the chase.

Did anybody think both the matches would go into the fifth day at the start of the series? certainly not many English journalists...an interesting word has crept up into the match-reporting lexicon now...It is now "Cook's young side" instead of England! Voila! Even if England draw (loss is unlikely, a win still likliest), it will not be England but "young side" sent that way east, to explore the nursery.

The only regular grizzlies we see missing from action are Strauss, and Anderson (he may not like it but he is a grizzly by now)..Cook, KP, Bell,Prior, Broad, Collingwood and Swann are all there. Trott and Bresnan have been inducted last season, so they are xpected to be regulars too.

Let's settle down to an interesting session 14 and 15 of this test match. This series has thus far provided 28 sessions of play out of a possible 30. And more than half of those were grimly fought by both teams. TV companies should have made a killing! Unless somebody underestimated Bangladesh of course. I have Neo showing me now, last year it was Ten Sports, if I recall correctly, showing Bangla cricket!

------UPDATE------

England RR 4.75
England won by 9 wickets
Captain Cook 109*

----------------------

England won in a canter. Bangladesh are learning how to stretch it out for a draw or tease out a win from a piquant situation.

It could be easy to berate the entire series, and both teams in the bargain, while it may appear that there is very little change in Bangladesh's fate and attitude, there is the danger of overlooking the pressure to perform rising up from within the team.

If Bangladesh were a totally silly team as some correspondents have called it, how did the matches go into the fifth day? How does that place England then? There is a long way to go for Bangladesh yet, that's obvious, but what some correspondents are still missing is that they are making it harder for teams to win in Bangladesh. It is up to individual inclination how to interpret that.

Read More......

Bell Resonates Best versus Bangladesh

England vs Bangladesh 2010, Day Three, Second Test at Shere Bangla National Stadium, Mirpur

Scorecard

At the moment of typing, England are battling away intrepidly, to be just 63 runs behind Bangladesh's total halfway through Day Three. The batsman who is leading the English resistance to the pressure applied by Bangladesh is none other than their nemesis, Ian Bell. There is an exhausted relief in the commentators' voices now, having been taut for so long with the possibility of England finishing behind Bangladesh in the first innings. Whether that possibility provoked fear or enthusiasm, only the individuals can tell, but the unmistakable result of either, the anticipatory tautness, was distinctly sensed by the listeners. Ian Bell of course had no such tenseness.

This is his stage, his big stage unshadowed by larger-than-life actors, his role towering about all others in his team - England's Saviour From Bangladesh!

When none other can stand up to Bangladesh and score a hundred to rescue his team in strife, you know whom to call - Bell the BanglaBuster. That's what Ian bell did today. That's what has softened the anticipatory edges of commentary to, now, the mellow smoothness of after whisking. England are back again in this match ringing ahead on the inspirational pealing of Ian Bell.

And now he tolls for Bangladesh a grim message - of a significant lead by tonight and more harassment tomorrow.

Bangladesh crowded him, cramped him, no doubt cheeped at him, but nothing could shake the man who had taken upon the responsibility to keep the flag flying. First with Trott and then with Prior and now with Bresnan, Bell is almost singlehandedly forging a grand resistance to Bangladesh which could ultimately topple them like humpty-dumpties from the advantage they once held.

How many times has it been that Bell has been the lone centurion for England? It would be interesting to see details of all such circumstances.

Bangladesh are reliant on spin to achieve their breakthroughs. Mohammad Rafique, their wicket machine, has long retired. Therefore, it still takes just a little bit of grumption to peel away Bangladesh's grip on a team's neck. On top of it, the pitch is doing nothing to assist the B'desi bowlers and none of them are Swanns or any of the English batsmen like their own, to throw away their established hands. The Englishmen are making sure you have to prise them out of their positions on your pitch, once established. You could disallow any of them to settle down and send them back to their hut, but if they get entrenched, they can bat on and on and on. They are built for that. You will need more penetrative power than what slingshots can offer. slingshots have their place in mythology, but you need something else besides that these days. We said as much in previous posts that Bangladesh need at least one piercing new weapon at the front of the attack for spinners to feast upon later.

Only question, will Cooksy declare soon enough to leave space for a chase and prevent B'desis from enjoying the comfort of having to bat for lesser time? From the evidence thus far, he will be merely transmitting such a message if and when it comes.

Read More......

Jalsa Break

Krish Ashok's take on the IPL Twitter world.

In the satirist's own tweet

IPL does Twitter (and Youtube) - http://bit.ly/cYmIU9 from Sify.com (in 2 parts- Please click on "next")

Do click on "Next" and enjoy the break.

The muti-talented Krish Ashok's own blog - Doing Jalsa and Showing Jilpa

Read More......

England need little over 100 runs more to make Bangladesh bat again

And they have seven wickets in hand to do it. Trott is holding up one end, but Bell is on the other.

In What's Bangladesh Up To? we dared not speak about the unspeakable...but it does look like Captain Cook has some motivating to do in addition to all those things a captain has to do.

Critically, England's St.Bernard, Paul Collingwood, is back in the hut without troubling anybody.

Is the match taking a teensy weensy turn for the interesting? Trott and Swann the Batsman, are the remaining thorns in Bangladesh's comfort for tonight.

Watch this match evolve...

England vs Bangladesh 2010, Day Two, Second Test at Shere Bangla National Stadium, Mirpur

Scorecard

Read More......

Pune Pehswas the other Team?

Sahara have won the rights to Pune.

Along with Kochi, Pune joins IPL.

Also, history is beginning to repeat itself in Indian cricket - we now have concentration of franchises in specific areas, like Ranji has always ahd. Maharshtra becomes the first state to have two IPL teams - Mumbai and Pune, two cities about 150-60 kilometers apart.

What if matches are stym....awright...I'll let that be.

Pune cost $370 mills
Kochi cost $330 mills

In fierce bidding with many moves and swivels.

Well, new teams will have a slaice of the entire players pie...so new signing-ups all over again for all players.

Let the poaching commence! Players will be realigned, teams will be reconstituted next year.

Loyalties will be picturesque sand dunes instead of stoic Himalayas.

What'll they call the Puneikars? Pune Patils? Pune Peshwas? Or even Pune Chattrapatis?

Let peace now reign over Maharashtrruh pitches - Mumbai have their Indians and Pune has their...TBA (To Be Announced).

Maybe they'll be Puneyachhi Si(n)has or Puneyachhi Waghas...who knows?

Read More......

Kochi Paddlers for IPL?

Kochi (Cochin) may be one of the new IPL franchisees, if one goes by Mr.Minister's news.

Congratulations to all Kerala cricket lovers on news that 1 of the 2 new IPL teams will be based in Kochi. Cricket will inspire all Keralites

Mr.Minister left it cryptically at that point, leaving us wondering what cricket shall inspire Keralites to?

Achettup must be over the moon! Kochi Paddlers Ahoy!

Will Sreesanth defect now and take over the captaincy and any iconic state that may be created as special effects? Will Sree be King of Kochi now?

Who might be the financial engine behind Kochi's ascent into the IPL firmament?

'Rendezvous Sports World' we are told, whose interest lies in the positive transformation of Kerala inspired by the ideals of Mr.Minister, MP from that state.

What'll they call themselves now - Kochi Steamers? Kochi Paddlers? Kochi Trawlers? Kochi Kokanauts? Kochi Spices? Kochi Tuskers? or Kochi Kashewnuts?

If Kochi is it, then Lakshadweep must also feel some affinity for that's their main portkey to the mainland.

Read More......

What's Bangladesh Up To?

England vs Bangladesh 2010, Day Two, Second Test at Shere Bangla National Stadium, Mirpur

Scorecard

The Tigers are ZooZooing the Englishmen!

Having to work on a Sunday, we have decided to do a new thing today - to 'visualize' the match from Cricinfo's live text commentary and whatever other tools we have at our disposal, and later tally it with the rerun on Neo Sports. We thought we could punch in a few lines too now and then to express our state of mind as the match unfolds.

In continuation with our Nobo Bangladesh theme, in which the Bangaldesh Boyz are looking to co-operate, it appears England have gotten hold of the wrong end of a sleeping tiger - playing with its tail is dangerous as we can all see below.




The tail is growing longer and clattering away like nobody's business, without the slightest consideration for the opposition's guest status.

The B'desi boyz have thrown their hands away but if a couple had stuck on, England, in their quest for an easy all-sweep whitewash series, may have found themselves in a situation such as this



Maybe they still are in such a situation.

Suppose...just suppose...we are witnessing an event unfolding here...where Bangaldesh may draw (honoring my conservatism in such matters, I will not go as far as a win yet ) a test match against a truly worthy opponent - the team that hails from the ancient home of cricket - what would it mean? For both Bangladesh and England?

England might have been taken unawares for not having up-to-date assessment of this new Bangla stir. Maybe everybody needs to learn some about Bangldesh....they may still roll over and die but the'll paw you well, all along the way, with sharp claws. And they might bite ya'll fellas if ignorance continues.



Looks like England will have to score over 600 to win this one...and in a hurry too to leave themselves with enough time to tackle Mushfiqur Rahim and the rest of the tiger tail all over again!

Captain Cook and his men capable of it?

Another option - which might appear farfetched to th Englishmen, may be to declare or get out with a lead just over, hopefully at a decent run rate and leave space for a fourth innings push just in case Bangladesh don't imitate a recently well-fed big cat and are still hungry for more.

Meanwhile, a senior English cricket scribe observes from Bangladesh -

Some of those England field placings reminded me of me at my worst at T----- CC. And that's saying something

Unhapiness abounds. Bangladesh has been an unpleasant surprise in many ways, even if England will end up winning it all. Cricinfo correspondents have employed the term 'robotic' to describe captaincy efforts. Would that be an accurate reading? Is Cook remote-fitted after all?

What England must not do however, is collapse in the heat of it all.

Read More......

Trans-Tasman Trophy 2010 - All about tails and Bollinger

Australia vs New Zealand 2010, Day Three, First Test

Scorecard

I saw the first session of this test match, the only session thus far thanks to this and that.

Bollinger is shaping up to be a nice challenge to world batsmen. By 'challenge' we are speaking purely about cricketing skills.

Vettori must either be a very optimistic man to bat that low as he does despite being the Kiwi batsman in the world, or he simply likes a banged in ball instead of a shinier one to start his resistance with.

It doesn't work very well to have a long tail before you and the shorter one after you...I mean the long front tail could well trip you up...as it does often in the Kiwi case. The better option might be to have a longer tail behind you...that ensures slightly safer mobility and balance. If Vettori has to have to play those innings all the time, then it is better he has enough candles to burn away on the other side.

Either that, or he doesn't mean to play a great role for his team beyond the banner acts. What useful purpose does a 80 or a 70 or even a 100 serve with two or three Morissons batting at the other end? It makes for a great plot for an eventual story...but that eventual never converts into a real story. Please recall how many times it has. Maybe he just like to come on after the chaps ahead of him have taken the shine off the ball. But that point is moot too...Do they last long enough to deshine the ball?

Australia are enjoying a minnow-hunting time - West Indies, Pakistan and now their feathered neighbours. Bollinger, who it must be said shaped up OK on his visit here, has proven that he can easily hunt down the little game and champ them up too...raw. In the process he has added a few points in the Kangaroos' kittybag...you don't get many for felling pigeons...but the change adds up gradually. Australia is being kept on track after their Ashes loss to England. (Still cannot imagine how they lost it?)

Coming back to Bollinger, he is bowling great lines, moving the ball just enough, changing lengths effectively, extracting height when needed and has good pace. Let's hope he remains unexhausted after ploughing through the qualifiers to take on tougher tours! OK...now don't get provoked all...but you got to qualify up if you want to meet Ali in the ring! Like to see a contest...a real contest...with Douggie in the fray.

The follow-on is, well, on, and I am sure Australia will win this game in due course of time. Kiwis don't have a technically correct Mushfiqur Rahim of great unrahimic batting temperament in their ranks to stretch it into the fifth day...they have only Vet, and we know he'll bat last.

Read More......

Give India: the power to change lives

Give India (www.giveindia.org)

"GiveIndia is a donation platform that allows you to support a cause of your choice from about 200 NGOs that have been scrutinised for transparency & credibility.


We do not raise funds for ourselves. We help you donate to these NGOs.


We tell you exactly where your money went and also give you proof of it through the feedback report. We ensure that at least 90% of your contribution reaches the organization you support (as against the average of 60% for the NGO sector)."

-- Give India

There are a number of causes and ways you can be involved with. In their own words.


How we do this -



Internet Giving



Charity Events


Payroll Giving



Client Services



Customized Client Services - Individuals & Foundations



Listing NGOs on GiveIndia



iGive Page



Gift a Donation



The various categories of verified NGOs you may choose to support are these

• Children



• Disabled



• Education



• Elderly



• Employment



• Environment



• Health



• Human Rights



• Women



• Youth

How one can help at Give India -

1. Make a Donation
2. Joining In - via Blogger, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook
3. Spread the Word
4. Volunteer with Give India

Read More......

Peter Roebuck is largely correct in this article

Writing for today's The Hindu, Peter Roebuck has got it right on most counts in his article titled The fizz is gone, Mr.Warne.

I have to agree with his point on there coming a time when the decline is sharper, more well-defined and that decline must come to all.

I also agree that no matter how exciting it is to see good players back in the fray, there is no point in they playing on as mere caricatures of their selves. Damien Martyn's case is also a case in point. We remember him for a style of play practiced by the likes of Mark Waugh, Laxman, Azza, Hooper...elegance is paramount in that alley. However, in T20, that may be pushed back a bit for the benefit of one's team. But one aspect of that hasn't happened with Martyn. The elegance has been pushed back but the benefit hasn't accrued. And why only Martyn, what about Dada? There may be the odd glimpse of greatness from Martyn, Dada and Warney, but it is the alpha marauder's game after all.

I am one of those who always has time for Lara's game. My biggest disappointment has been that the legend hasn't graced Indian soil with one of his trademark innings...at least not in those matches I have managed to witness at different grounds. It's a lingering thirst....but one has to agree with Mr.Roebuck that nothing good can come out of this cricketwise. Lara himself was rumored to have been averse to his involvement as a player, but was more keen in a 'different' role.

You could agree with Roebuck or you may not, about the new franchises not needing a mentor/iconic identity. Well the argument in favour is that a new spectatorship, a new loyalty, needs a set of things to identify with. Name of the city is just one of those things. Lara's presence and his body of work in cricket is a strong identity in itself besides the stayle of his play. By ICL, one was certain his best was gone...but the benefit of doubt must be given to injuries. I see him have a playing role like Glenn McGrath had with Delhi Daredevils. His non-playing role could be anything which I, like you, do not know about.

Roebuck is also tight about IPL being unforgiving to ICL-type retirees influx beyond a point. Performance will count here and is stark. Whether one if a veteran or young, this is a slightly different ball game and there aren't many places to hide in a T20 set up. Since veterans would have also been stars in their heyday, their performances will probably be more contrasting.

Hayden the other night, Sachin a few night before that, Gilly...they have played gems but there will come a time when they may not be up to it. Till such a time we enjoy what more they can give to us.

'Victory will go to the team that looks ahead' says Mr.Roebuck in an astute summarization, the old must pass when it's time is up.

Read More......

The first day of second test reiterates same points

England vs Bangladesh 2010, Day One, Second Test at Shere Bangla National Stadium, Mirpur

Scorecard

► Point number one - Bangladesh have a new urge to push themselves forward as a team in test cricket. Proof - Record their bighest score in one full day's play of test cricket against an experienced team. (I am amenable to correction, for this is a laborious deduction out BD high scores since I haven't discovered how to extract from the stats engine 'max runs by a single team in one day of test match' at Statsguru). 330-8 could well be the maximum they have scored in one day's of cricket in a test match.

► Point number two - Bangladesh lads continue to throw away starts. Proof - Tamim Iqbal, Mahmudullah, Shakib, and we may include Mushfiqur Rahim now in that list.

► Point number three - What would England do without Swann? OK Treadwell picked a couple to help, but where would they have been without Swann on a tour? Broad, Finn, Collingwood and Bresnan didn't look like taking ten Bangladesh wickets, let alone 20 for the match.


Bangladesh are discovering that at home they need not be pushed around at the moment. But they appear to need convincing still for they are still quick to surrender the opposition's head they have in a deadly armlock. Like today, when they had the lion's head in an uncomfortable twist and were looking as if they may pin them on the mat....they let the breeze in...they let the lion breathe...they let the lion wriggle out and pounce back. But they are making it more difficult for teams to escape, even though results do not show.

Tamim Iqbal may have decided that his and his team's best interests are served by Sehwagian tactics - that's a great idea to adopt and bloody attractive too they are, coming from a left hander - but he's got to last the distance like Sehwag does in test matches. That's something he can work on from here. Plus, he must account for different conditions outside Bangladesh and be flexible with his attack in tailoring them in. It will help him and his team immensely to make the next move up from here.

I really do not know what England can achieve with an attack such as this sans Swann. True, they are on the road to an aall-win tour, and have won the first by an innings and this is under control...so yes, you could ask me what the f--- I'm talking about. All I'm saying is the support act for Swann isn't good enough to claim 10 wickets against any other team while touring, unless it is BD, Zimbo (not playin test cricket so heave a sigh) or maybe West Indies. Elements from this crew of extras will figure in play when Anderson returns to join the star, Swann. Looks terribly wobbly outside England, even the Anderson bolstered attack. And when you consider that other teams may not offer regular comfort of allowing England batsmen to score freely and well to assist their bowlers, then England may need to tweak its bowling to suit touring. One better idea could be to stop touring altogether!

I will reserve my views about Treadwell for he needs to play against other teams to be measured up properly and this is just his first test match. I'm sure he can maintain the pressure against all players, for he is an experienced bowler otherwise (88 FC matches before this test). Let's see more of him.

Bangladesh need some pace talent which will settle in to bowl, both with their shoulders and their heads, and then in three years time, they could be pulling off wins at home against poor touring sides. They are on the upswing, at least at home, but still some stuff to be tightened up and areas to be explored. They are giving away too many runs to other sides, so their 350s and 400s make no difference to the match result.

C'mon Nobo Bangladesh!

Read More......

World Food Program - Bloggers Against Hunger: Stop Wastage of Food

The other day on Twitter, World Food Program, whom I follow, sent a message with a link to their Bloggers Against Hunger initiative to create awareness about Hunger and help raise funds for the One Billion people who sleep hungry every day. The emphasis is also on the role of women in easing hunger and the fact that it is they who suffer hunger most in families, either as women or the girl child.

I thought about what aspect could I write about? I could write an article about women and hunger, children and hunger, provide statistics drawn from India and share some experiences which came to me as part of my training and profession. However, I chose to write instead about a stealthy thief - Wastage of Food - which further shortens already meagre resources, and, which in my opinion, is also one of the significant contributors from among a list of causes of worldwide hunger.

Wastage of food is a common problem in India. It takes two main forms - 1) wastage due to poor logistical chain of storage, transportation and distribution, and 2) wastage due to excesses by consumer.

Almost 50,000 crore Rupees worth of food items are lost by India annually due to poor infrastructure and logistical chain. From harvesting methods, through transporting and main storage areas, to retail storage and distribution, there is plenty of wastage. Rodents, fungus, leakage, rotting, parasites, out-of-reach pricing, hoarding...are just some of the causes which lay waste food which could be used to reduce hunger within and outside the country. The Government of India, FCI and CWC are applying themselves in reducing wastage in this manner. I presume many of these factors also operate world wide, and governments and agencies are working to reduce them.

But what about the other reason? Something we are all involved in at different times and is so visible but we are blind to because it so much a part of daily routine.

More than any other situation, the most glaring view of food wastage is seen when you attend any function or where mass meals are served. If you haven't the chance to look at that, look for a much larger bu less glaring wastage - in our own homes. Lift the lid of the garbage can or look at where the dishes are kept for washing to form an idea about how much food is wasted on a daily basis in each home.

The Guardian has an article in their archives which goes this way

Elimination of food waste could lift 1bn out of hunger, say campaigners

Excessive consumption in rich countries 'takes food out of mouths of poor' by inflating food prices on global market

Guardian.co.uk

I shall narrate my own experience with food wastage.

A few years before man landed on the moon and busted many myths, I was still very very young and led an extremely sheltered life with a few priviliges. I wasn't left wanting for anything in that pre-school period of mine. Life was happy, beautiful and there wasn't anything painful to upset it. But something troubled my parents - one a scientist and the other a school teacher.

I had graduated long ago to eating on my own, but what I lacked was a juddgement of the amount of food I needed. I'd always ask for more and end up not eating the extra. I'd be a serious brat if I didn't get that extra, and I do not blame my parents for buying peace with me on a few occasions. At weddings, and Indian weddings back in the sixties lasted the whole five-six days, I'd be worse. Since there wasn't anyone to check me in a group feast, I ended up wasting more food than I ate.

My parents tried many things to help me understand and get rid of this habit of mine. None succeeded.

Then one day, they took me on a long walk. It was a part of Delhi I had never visited before. All around me were hutments, lean-tos and shanties. What we call jhuggis. Kids were everywhere in the narrow smoky lanes. Wood fires burned inside houses, perhaps preparing for the evening meal. I didn't know till a little later, but I wondered what my parents were up to.

Many huts had children crying, their parents at their tether. Feeling uncomfortable I asked them about it. They said that we were here to visit our maid who was ill and she lived in this area. We stopped outside many huts, where pa or ma asked for directions...in that time I had a chance to observe...what struck me was hunger. I saw children wanting more food to eat. If one child had a roti in his hand, another wanted a piece of it.

My parents had brought a carrier along filled with food and finally when we located our maid's hutment, they gave the carrier to her. Since she wasn't well, she wasn't able to cook. It took her a few days to recover and I accompanied my father or mother or both in the evening to deliver the food carrier.

Back home when it was my usual at the table, this time they told me that we couldn't waste food for our maid's family needed it.

That day and there is today, if I am finicky about anything, it is how to avoid wastage of food and unnecessary excess in ordering or serving for oneself. Somehow I understood the message in that form. I couldn't believe I was throwing away into the dustbin what amounted to somebody else's meal.

Later on, during my training and profession, I have and am continually working with people. Most of them are proud people from the lower end of the socio-economic heriarchy. I have worked in different parts of India, from terror-frozen Jammu and Kashmir to Tsunami-struck Andaman and Nicobar Islands. I have travelled from Nagaland and Sikkim in the east to Mumbai on the west. The story of wastage is the same everywhere. I wish we could instead spare what is an excess to us for a child somewhere.

In 1993, we were rushed to the Latur region where a major earthquake had lain waste large tracts of lands and over 75 well populated villages. In the village of Killariwadi alone, about 21,000 out of its 25,000 population were said to have perished. Killari was one of the larger villages and along with nearby villages, is the home for almost the recent political history of Maharshtra. The people who have originated from that region is like a who's who.

The earthquake struck at around 4-4.30 am. By evening same day, we were there with all our supplies airlifted by a convoy of Indian Air Force transports. The world reached there over the next few days - from relief supplies to news organisations.

Everybody who reached there had their focus and their stories to tell. Latur wasn't geared for that kind of emergency and inputs that came flowing in. However, Pravinsinh Pardeshi, the then DC of Latur, along with Army and other central teams managed to set up rescue, triage and treatment systems in place, and did a fair job of it. Then then there was the rehabilitation.

The whole of next day, one was in Killari...complete desolation, rain, and bodies already rotting around you. The aftershocks were continuous and there wasn't any electricity for the poles were all down. Darkness set in quickly in the overcast, raining skies. In the temporary shelters we had helped set up with the Army, were mainly children...often the sole survivors of their families. Teams brought in those rescued from adjacent villages to the the main rehabilitation centre we had set up in the fields outside Killari village. The injured were shifted to the hospital we had set up on the partially contructed premises of a private medical college being built in nearby Latur after initial first aid. Hunger stared at us through the eyes of survivors and children who were still in shock. They would be in shock for quite some time.

I still get feel my skin creeping when I recall that mixture of hunger and shock...the uncomprehending lostness...in the eyes of children we found and brought in from the adjacent villages. They'd be soaking wet, shivering, scared, hungry...some of them hiding curled up somewhere in the debris of their house and families.

Food was essential besides other things. Cooked food was an immediate requirement for the numbers. Milk was a necessity. Latur and Andaman provided to us an immediate reminder of everything that can be wrong with the way we treat our food. The numbers were large in the Latur earthquake, exact statistics are not available with me at the moment, but after seeing nearly 70-80 percent of population in the villages one visited bing wiped out and extrapolating to the number of villages, the figure should be more than a lakh. Families were destroyed, only a bare handful of homes survived in each village.

At the rehabilitation centres set up, mothers made sure their children ate first and then they with the provisions given to them. Getting their life back on track wouldn't be easy and would be a long process. Helping them getting back to their lives or rebuilding new ones would be a continuous process. Haiti, in recent times underwent a similar disaster and on a larger scale. I can clearly visualize what the situuation must be like there.

But it is not only when disaster strikes man in such a manner that one should pay attention to this aspect. Take a walk...go out and look around your neighbourhood as you walk to the local market near your homes...observe the amount of wastage of food that can be easily seen. Go to a local restaurant or dhaba, look at the wastage of food into their drains.

The least we can do is eliminate this problem from our houses and in the environments we can control. It all adds up...make no mistake of that...what you do not waste is a saving..a Food Savings...and that food can be redistributed to those who are in the clutch of hunger.

It is the least we can do to counter imbalanced distribution, overpricing of food, disproportion between cultivation and consumption, and all the evils that bedevil the logistical chain from harvesting to consumer. Not wasting food and using only the amount you require, is equivalent to feeding one other person on a daily basis. Think about it.

Read More......

Oh For Some Equality!

Sample this -

Swann apologises for celebration outburst

"It all happened in the heat of the moment and it certainly wasn't anything malicious," said Swann. "I apologise unreservedly if I did swear - and I know I did - because it's certainly not something I condone. I feel a bit ashamed, because it wasn't meant as a personal slight at him, it was just a release of pent-up emotion.

An English scribe's response to it on Twitter

Swann the winner (and sinner). His apology for shouting at poor Siddique seemed genuine enough though

The scribe shall recognize himself if he ever comes across this blog post and I'll leave the identity bit there. The point is "appears sincere enough" - in four decades of cricket follwoing I have never ever heard that uttered to anyone who isn't an Englishman, Australian or even a Kiwi. Let's forget about the Alan Donalds of South Africa and his ilk who joined international cricket in 1991...they were expected not to be penalized according to the prevailing mood of the time.

The scribe may have gone on to suggest in his actual report that it may have been a tad excessive of Swann, maybe he hasn't, but he's quickly moved on nevertheless, but why isn't the same 'consideration' shown to other cricket players from teams other than I mentioned? When they sincerely aplogize or may not have done anything to start with but only in retaliation to constant provocation of the ugly kind?

We see no such mercy from scribes or match referees when the players are different. Swann esacped of course.

I will NOT show to you any current/recent example of players from other teams being dealt with more harshly by biased ICC match referees for far lesser offences even if they sincerely apologized. You all are all too familiar with the past four-five years of such in cricket. I will instead go back many more years to a man who apologized for his role soon after and also published an apology publicly in an article of his in 1999 but is yet villified to this day because he chose not to surrender meekly and instead expose the bias that exists even today in cricket. Like it or not, 'a kind of peoples' perhaps do not merit like sympathy and undertstanding from scribes, bigoted ICC match referees, and of course 'fans' of the game.

The man I speak about, stressing the important role of ICC Match Referees, said this in a 1999 article of his

The game is better off for it, for arguing with an umpire's decision however horrible and wrong it can be, is not a good sight and is a poor example for budding cricketers watching on TV. Ask me, when I watched the replay of my disappointment over the leg before decision in Melbourne, Australia, in 1980-81, I was ashamed of myself. The walkout that followed was not because of the umpiring decision but because of the comment passed by a couple of Australian fielders when I was on my way to the pavilion. It just added fuel to the fire and made me go over the top and ask my partner to walk off. Fortunately, the manager of the team ensured that Chetan Chauhan did not cross the boundary line but stayed inside it and so the match continued. But for those remarks made by the Australian players, I would have carried on to the dressing room and givent vent to my anger over there, but the provocation was not the decision itself...

Welcome Aboard Refs! (1999) republished in Straight Drive by Sunil Gavaskar: page 125

There is a video of the above incident on YouTube (we have embedded it at the bottom of the post as well), and you can see by the language that there isn't the same degree of forgiveness as shown so immediately and readily by the scribe, match referee and peoples of the gettingawayscotfree players.

What you can also see however from the video is that what Sunny says is correct. He was walking away before some Australian idiots said something nasty to Sunny and then Sunny lost it as a result. Having ICC match referees then wouldn't have made a difference either for they would most certainly have gone nudge-nudge wink-wink with those involved Australian idiots and piled on to Sunny Gavaskar (as they had a ready reason too). Just like the idiotic Broad and Swann and Finn have been let off by the more idiotic ICC match referee in the current instance.

Sunny continues to be villified and not one facting scribe has decided to call a close on it to this day with the same alacrity with which they show sympathy for these fellows.

There is one more instance in this very match which has been aired and forgiven long before the insincere apology of a documented serial offender. The Freak misbehaved once again and is let off once again with a smile and a pat. And now this fellow is so emboldened that he is actually pontificating more than apologising! Take a look at Son of Broad

Broad won't tone down aggression despite apology

"It had been a frustrating morning for us, I rapped the fella on the pad and I knew it was out straight away," said Broad. "But I get on really well with the umpire and I just said 'Rod, sorry about my mishap'. He just laughed it off. I made a mistake and I apologised to him, but he was very light-hearted about it. It had been a tough day and he used his common sense."

"It's a communication thing," he added. "You're always talking to the umpire and if you are getting frustrated and or crossing the line, they can have a word with you and calm it down a little bit. But it's still important to show a presence on the field, as the whole England team does. At the end of the day you are playing for your country, so you are going to have passion and pride out there.

If this isn't one unbalanced freak stalking the cricket fields, then who is?

Derek Pringle speaks up at least -

Bangladesh v England: Stuart Broad escapes fine with umpire apology
Sorry might be the hardest word but not if it stops you getting fined a chunk of your match fee.

There is not one player today stinking up the place as much as this Broad fella...'fella', wasn't that the word used by the apologetic Stuart?

Aggression is not about ranting at opposition and behaving badly, he can learn from Chaminda Vaas or Kapil Dev, it is about keeping the pressure up consistently with your cricketing skills. Who knows, now, seeing that the Broad fellow and Swann got away yet again, Mitch Johnson may feel encouraged to go ahead and head butt players with his helmet on now. Maybe he'll add a Roman spike to the helmet for the fun of it! Maybe he too will apologize later to whoever is bayonated by him. Nobody is asking this Broad fella (and England) to tone down his(their) aggression, but do it by playing better cricket and not resorting to bad behaviour during play. That isn't aggression as the Stuart fella tried to twist the understood it into, such behaviour is plain and simple aggression as is usually understood in law and in analysing criminals or those with anger management diorders.

And what about that noob, Finn? He was chattering away for everyone to see...pushing his face onto Junaid Siddique as the batsman dodged and weaved to avoid any involvement? What about him? Every new player from any other country must be penalized by ICC match referees even if they fart invoulantarily as if it were a rite of passage! But not players of some countries..no sir, they do not fart, you see sir, they are born without a farthole! He hasn't even been mentioned!

We had observed during our two-three reports during the Eng-Bangla match, the excessive misdemenours of Swann, Finn...curiously we left off Broad! Maybe because by now you expect it as usual behaviour from that fella and know for sure he'll be let off. Maybe that's the level of acceptance that fella has managed to wiggle out of our tolerance.

The Broad family has enjoyed rare understanding, sympathy and allowance despite all, a combination not shown to many others in cricket for some reason or the other. The England players have been let off every time by ICC match referees who have favoured them. I cannot recall when the last time an English player was punished the way others are...and don't tell me that it is because they do not do dung on the playfield! One is forced to think then that it is for non-cricketing reasons by those who support and encourage this Broadish behaviour of England, for it cannot be a coincidence that different standards are applied to different players and for players from different parts of the world. It is time this entire bluff is called. The errant ICC match referees also need to be taken to task for their blatantcy.

Oh yes, and to all who may be offended by this article, I apologize, I am sorry, it was in the heat of the moment of grave provocation caused by the non-cricketing bias of ICC match referees, and you see, even you, the most like blinkered reader of this blog, will agree that there is substance to what I said and people must reflect. It is tough out there, tough being discriminated againt, it is frustrating, I get along well otherwise with you all, you WILL laugh it off, I apologized, there is nthing malicious in it, it is a communication thing, you are always talking on blogs and sometimes crosing the line and you can then have a word and move on...bullshyte!

Imagine the most rascally scenario of it all, this fella, this little Broad fella, this bad behavioured St. Broad fella who now has the temerity to also pontificate, could someday be an ICC match referee too! More bullshyte to you all then! Smear it upon your face, lick it, do whatever you want to do with it then, but you cricketing world bloody well will have to live with it! (by the way, the various Broad misdemeanour footages on YouTube appear to have been pulled down...wonder who's behind that! - Needless to say, misdemeanours of 'other kind' of players are still freely available in YouTube's archive of hosted footages)

- - -

Read More......