Writes Paul Lewis,

Quite so – so why not produce some green-tops and have their batsmen wondering about things other than how many centuries they will score and whether it will be Goanese fish curry for lunch?

The answer, of course, is money. New Zealand Cricket, like every other cricket board in the world, is terrified of India because they are the new powerbrokers; the Keepers Of The Cash.

Their money has cascaded through the game like acid rain, eroding the old order.

Cricket boards and players alike have been seduced by the bounty.

If we’d offended them by producing a green-top and running through them like a prune and licorice vindaloo, well, India might not return and might use their power to squeeze New Zealand out of lucrative events and tours.[link]

I despise much of what BCCI does. They are frequently liable to behave like a bunch of thugs punch drunk on power and money–witness their bullying of ICL affiliated players commentating on the New Zealand series.

But even then, this goes a little too far. I don’t think BCCI has reached the stage where it  can dictate pitches on tours. I mean, what next? India did not fold up on the fourth  day because Lalit Modi called NZ IPL players and told them he will throw them out of the cash-rich tournament if they dared to bowl well.

The real reason why NZC is preparing the pitches it is (indeed, most boards in the world), is because they make more money if matches last the whole distance. Quite simply, a five day test match yields far more revenues–from gate collections to television rights–than a three day match on a greentop. The Indian series is obviously lucrative–the NZC board expects to make nearly NZ$25 million from it–and it wants to milk it for it all it can. India can afford to ignore such concerns–even here, we are hardly preparing the kind of dust-bowls common in the early 1990s–because for the Indian board, test match earnings are loose change they would probably not even notice if they popped out of Lalit Modi’s pockets.

Silly to blame BCCI for that! And really, in Zaheer Khan and Ishant Sharma, India has probably one of the world’s best new ball attacks. Hard to imagine they would be cowering in their boots if they had to play on a greentop. Perhaps, that is another significant reason why it is not easy to frighten India these days by preparing bouncy pitches: The Indian cricket team is simply more skillful and better balanced than a lot of teams which have toured before.

And finally, if the Indian board was as powerful as Lewis claims, they would never tour–after all, the tv rights as well as gate collections are owned by the home board. Arguably, the Indian board makes very little money when they tour. And boy, does the BCCI love money! Hell, if BCCI had its way completely, both one day as well test cricket would be disbanded and we would play five IPL tournament a year or maybe more depending upon Lalit Modi’s moods.

p.s On another note, Sachin Tendulkar is quite close to his imperious best in New Zealand. He may have been around since Dinosaurs roamed the streets and might have scored like 5 million runs, but for an Indian cricket fan, there is little which gives as much pleasure as watching Tendulkar in full flow. He is special.

Perhaps, India was overconfident though I am not fully convinced: Is it the first time India has collapsed in a matter of overs? In fact, the fact it has actually managed to surprise us is a pointer to how improved this team is compared to its predecessors.

But even if India was overconfident, think of it this way: When was the last time any cricket team was overconfident against the Australians? India has beaten Australia before but when was the last time a draw was considered an Aussie victory?

If that does not signify a tectonic shift in world order, I don’t know what will.

Sigh. What will we do now?

Now, after close to 20 years, my generation needs to brace itself for this exodus. Some of my friends, crazy as this sounds, have been talking of needing to revaluate their own careers. Others are realising they need to recalibrate their childhood definitions of cricket. “Part of me just died,” said a college friend who was the kind of extreme cricket buff who memorised scorecards. “No Dada, no Jumbo. I’m positive I’ll stop watching after Sachin and Rahul retire.”

These players were not only outstanding cricketers but also great statesmen. However hard they competed, they were always exceptional role models. Now we dread the next wave of brashness and impetuosity. Harbhajan Singh and Sreesanth are talented cricketers, but there’s no way anyone would want a young kid to emulate either. The younger crop seems worse – a visit to some of their Orkut and Facebook pages tells you enough – and things may only get cruder in a cricket world when you can make a million dollars in a little over three hours.

“Our childhood is ending,” said a friend from school, and in some way he was probably spot on. Tendulkar’s retirement may mean a lot of things to a lot of people, but for a generation of 25- to 30-year-olds it will mark the end of the first part of their lives. Switching on the television the day after will be a serious challenge.[link]

Retire. Enough torture for your fans who really think you have been India’s stand out batsman in this century. But your extended form slump gives us no hope that you can be The Wall again. Sometimes, you just can’t fight anymore.

Thanks

Confused

He exited the game the way he played it: With dignity. Considering the muck house Indian cricket is, that is a testimony to the man. And as many have pointed out, he did not overstay his welcome by a single day. It would have been natural for him to want to lead the team in Nagpur and fulfill what every cricket captain of modern era desires most–a series victory against Australia, and after 18 years who could have grudged him that?–but he was too committed a cricketer to let his team down when he wasn’t 100%.

Ganguly will retire after the next test. On current form, it is hard to visualize Rahul Dravid lasting for too long. Much as I like the man, he is surviving on his CV and it may be time for him to go after the England series if his form does not improve drastically. Laxman is still relatively young and should survive another 3-4 years unless he suffers from a debilitating injury.

That really leaves us with Tendulkar. The man started playing cricket in 1989 and is still going strong. And if his sublime batting in the Delhi test is any indication, he still has at least a couple of years left. But he is injury prone and its hard to imagine him coming back if he suffers from another major injury. There is only so much the body can take.

So in any case, within the next year or so, we would be looking at a  completely new look Indian test team–the Dhoni era has began. I am not even sure I will recognize that team. I started following cricket at the same time people like Tendulkar and Kumble made their debut and a Dhoni team just doesn’t cut it. I am sure I will still follow the team and relish their beating Australia as much as I do now, but I don’t think a Rohit Sharma can ever evoke the same passion as Sachin Tendulkar. Or a Robin Uthappa can exasperate and enthrall–depending upon the day–as Sourav Ganguly. And neither will another Dravid emerge any time sooner whom you could almost always trust to keep his wicket while you visited the fridge to get another beer.

I think I will become another Neil Harvery–albeit a much younger one–and claim that cricketers in ”my” era were so much better.

So long Kumble. And thanks!

Dilip Vengarkar opines,

Vengsarkar felt that Kumble did not handle fellow leggie Amit Mishra properly in the third Test match. “Mishra was bowling quite well and was getting good zip but still Jumbo under-bowled him,” Vengsarkar said.[link]

This is just plain stupid. Apart from the fact that Mishra bowled the most overs–even more than Sehwag–he gave away too many four balls. I like Mishra and I think he has a lot of potential. But it will take him some time.

Now, it may actually be time for Kumble to go. But to argue that Kumble would deliberately underbowl him is tasteless. With all due respect to messers Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dravid, Laxman et al, Kumble has not only been the most influential player for India in the last two decades, he has shown a bigger heart then most.

Even in the current test, he bowled despite am injury. Kumble’s place among the greats of the game is secure– whether he retires tomorrow or after six months. But it is preposterous to question the man’s commitment. Even yesterday, when Indians fielded atrociously,including Mishra,Kumble went for a catch– stiches and all–caught it, and then threw the ball in disgust. You can just look at the expression he gives to understand how badly he wants to win.

Giving the man who has served India so long and so well some respect is just plain human decency.

In a press conference after the Bangalore test, Zaheer Khan came out swinging and declared the Australian team as overtly defensive. It sounded a little bit premature because Aussies had the upper hand in the Bangalore test. India continued to called them defensive after the Mohali test–no problems there at all. Clearly, Mohali was a thumping Aussies are not likely to forget in a hurry.

Now, second day into the third test, the gentle VVS Laxman, again called them defensive.And he even fingered Ricky Ponting.

Now, Khan is naturally aggressive but it would have taken some coaxing to get Laxman into the fighting mode. It seems to suggest there is some method to the madness. Ask the standout performer of the day/test to speak to the media (Khan played a brilliant hand in Bangalore; and Laxman was speaking after playing the kind of dreamy innings which he reserves for Aussies), and finger the Aussies in one aspect of their game they cherish above all: aggressiveness. It certainly helps that India has been the better team over the last few tests the two teams have played, but getting under their skin still helps.

Its hard to say if this was the reason why Hayden and Katich came out swinging in the second innings of the Mohali Test and consequently self-destructed. But still, it’s nice to see India playing some smart mind games (I have never been a fan of the kind of street-thuggery players of both sides occasionally display) and come out on top.

India beating Australia in tests is not completely unexpected but for those of us who have been around for some time and still remember India’s massive defeats. it is still a great feeling. But India beating the Aussies in mindgames is absolutely delicious.

One here,

An appeal for caught behind on the next ball. Dhoni was one of the loudest appealers following his catch. The umpire is unmoved with replays clearly showing the ball bounced before being scooped up in Dhhoni’s gloves.[link]

Second here,

Johnson flashes a drive outside off-stump, Zaheer finds the edge but it sails safely to third man for four. There’s then a big appeal for a catch behind, all the Indian fielders go up but umpire Rudi is unmoved. The replay shows a clear inside edge, but Dhoni wasn’t sure if the ball carried – it looked like he wanted the third umpire consulted, but Rudi (rightly) ruled the ball had bounced just in front of Dhoni’s gloves[link]

Ah, well, We won, though!

Just for a minute, I thought, may be…

But West Indian resurgence is good for the game. International cricket needs at least one more competitive team. But as Michael Holding likes to remind, West Indian cricket has seen many false dawns. Let’s hope, this isn’t the case this time.

Staying on cricket, George Binoy writes,

The USP of Twenty20 cricket is the close finishes the condensed format promises. A spectator expects nearly every Twenty20 match to go down to the final over and, on the occasion that it doesn’t, there are still plenty of fours, sixes and wickets to soak in. The three league one-day games over the last week in Mirpur were hopelessly one-sided with the end result being a virtual certainty early into the second innings: Pakistan beat Bangladesh by 70 runs, and India beat both of them by 140 runs and seven wickets respectively.

The mis-matches and uncompetitive victories are the primary reason that one-day cricket has attracted so much criticism. Over a 50-over format the gulf in quality between the two teams – India and Bangladesh for example – is more severely exposed. Bangladesh are currently focusing on batting through 50 overs on a consistent basis, and their bowlers are working on sustaining a disciplined performance throughout an innings. They were competing against far more developed teams and hence the gulf in quality translated into no-contests. The shorter Twenty20 format needs them to perform to potential over a shorter span of time, therefore increasing chances of being competitive, and of victory.[link]

Right, so how many matches did Bangladesh win in IPL? And by that logic, should we introduce T1? That will probably make my neighborhood team competitive against Australia.

As a matter of fact, only one Bangladeshi player was considered good enough to play in the IPL. Mismatched matches between India and Bangladesh (Or Bangladesh/Zimbabwe and any other top team) is not the fault of the format. Quite simply–despite the occasional fluke win–Bangladesh has no business playing international cricket. The only reason it does so is because it helps the BCCI project a majority in the ICC.

Now, there may well be a case for drastic overhauling of the one day game. But that case is not build by stupid arguments. Well, forget reforms, as Kevin Pietersen has been suggesting, the one day game may well die within the next two years.

Writes Mukul Kesavan,

No, doomsayers like me don’t dislike Twenty20 or the IPL: we’re scared that they’ll make our cricketing passions obsolete. As we fret about the future of the four-innings game (Will the Ranji Trophy survive? How will we nurture future Test cricketers if it doesn’t?), it might help if we begin by recognising that we aren’t alone. Historically, what is happening to cricket today has happened to other forms of entertainment – music, for example – in the past.

People who prefer Test cricket to the limited-overs forms of the game are often called “purists”. This is the wrong term: fans of Test cricket don’t see the long game as the “pure” form of the game; they think of it as the classical form. It is classical because it is a codified, cultivated form of the game, distinct from both local/popular/primitive forms of bat-and-ball games as well as modern abridged variants such as ODIs and Twenty20. Classical also in the sense of being authoritative and definitive. Rahul Dravid, for example, chose the players for Vijay Mallya’s franchise on the principle that good Test players ought to be able to play Twenty20 cricket because the four-innings form teaches the Test player a classical technique that can be turned to any purpose, a style for all seasons. He was horribly wrong (as we now know) but this was more than an individual error: it represented the collapse of the classical ideal in cricket.

Well, the fact remains that test cricket is an anachronism in today’s world. In practically no other sport, teams slug its out over five days. Sure, it gives test cricket its special flavor but that is not a sufficient reason for it to survive if people are not interested in watching it. I was skeptical of IPL’s success but by all accounts it seems to be doing well. And there is at least some degree of club loyalty: Dhoni was jeered in Mumbai. If T20 is what interests the majority of viewers and let’s face it–it is the Indian cricket fan who really matters–then so be it. No sport, no art can be kept alive perpetually by artificial means. It may be disappointing for people Like Kesavan or me for that matter, but sport cannot be elitist and popular at the same time. Cricket must deliver what its market demands. 

Two minor quibbles with Kesavan’a article. First, the analogy of classical music isn’t the most appropriate one. Classic music doesn’t need the infrastructure or investment of a test cricket. A few thousand followers, an elitist tag to attract the uppity corporates, and of course, some hugely talented and respected musicians is enough. Second, I still remain unconvinced that Bangalore’s travails can be explained only by team selection. For one, Dravid himself seems to be doing quite well. For another, it’s not as if the one day specialists–Misbah-ul-Haq and Craig White–are setting the stands on fire. And the Hyderabad team, packed with big hitters isn’t doing that well either. 

Writes Ronojoy Sen in The Times of India,

Do we sniff a hint of elitism here? Most certainly. Actually, Kesavan makes no bones about it when he talks about the Indian fan’s appetite for “coarse cricket”. The inference is that while there are only a few who can appreciate the finer points of the game, such subtleties are lost on the vast number of cricket fans who tune in to Twenty20. This in many ways echoes the debate on Bollywood a couple of decades ago. When we were growing up in middle-class Calcutta in the 70s and 80s, we were forbidden to watch Bollywood films. Satyajit Ray and  Hollywood classics were recommended while Bollywood was dismissed as vulgar. Over the years, however, many of us came to realise that Ray had his own special place; so did films like Sholay and Satya. 

Why rage against Twenty20 and the IPL as a corruption of the real thing and even fervently hope for its demise, as Rees-Mogg and Kesavan do? Far better to accept that Twenty20 is a different beast from Test cricket and much more suited to the needs of modern life. But this still begs the question whether unmitigated rubbish is being dished out in the IPL. There are many who would disagree with purists on the quality of cricket being played. [link]

I am all for elitism ( ) but I have to agree with Sen here.  Not only because there is no upper limit for elitism–I enjoy one day cricket; someone like Kesvan might think only test cricket is real cricket. But simply because as a mass sport, cricket cannot afford to be elitist. Why should the views of hoi polli elites–fewer in numbers–hold more importance than the millions of cricket fans who may not care much for the finer intricacies of the game but simply see IPL as a post-dinner substitution for kyonki saas bhi kabhi bahu thi? Why should their views considered less credible than that of the elites?

Many former greats like Sunil Gavaskar have expressed the view that test cricket must survive and it is the duty of administrators to make sure that they remember the longer version of the game amidst all the hoopla over instant cricket. Here again a question must be asked: Why should the survival of test cricket be a matter of life and death? if there are enough people who want to watch tests, it will continue to prosper. It cannot be run as an obligation. 

As I have said before, T20 doesn’t do it for me; I am more or less on the side of traditionalists. Neither have I felt any sense of club loyalty (Delhi has a team) except wishing Kolkota Knight Riders lose every match. (1) But unless ‘we’ are ready to sustain test cricket from our own checkbooks, we should shut up and let people watch what they want to. And what they are willing to pay for. 

1. Mainly to ensure Shah Rukh Khan shuts up. Imagine what will happen if Knight Riders win! All of King Khan’s buddies, Karan johar, Adiitya Chopra et al might be fielding teams next year. 

The Overlord has demanded better statistics from IPL arguing essentially that T20 is a completely different form of the game. Ashok Malik has made the same argument in a slightly different context,

In the vintage years of Test cricket, boundaries were occasional. One-day cricket (F50 if you prefer) made fours and sixes common. T20 threatens to make them commonplace. If a six is hit every other over it is going to cease to be exciting. T20/IPL will need to devise new benchmarks. Perhaps vertical targets will be set: “Hit the red line near the clubhouse balcony and score eight; hit that black line on the floodlight tower and score a 12.”

Agreed, both those sound ridiculous, but so much about T20 is out of the ordinary and the conventional that it will soon have separate rules and scoring patterns being institutionalised for it. You can’t play it as if it were a compressed version of an ODI or a Test; it’s not. You don’t write text messages in accordance with Wren and Martin rules of grammar, do you?

What these fine gentlemen (Overlord undoubtedly is the finer one) are arguing is that T20 isn’t just an artificially shortened form of test cricket. For T20 to thrive, it would require innovative thinking including new metrics to assess performance. But the crucial question is this:Does T20 demand players of entirely different skill sets? It may still be cricket but is it simply impossible for a test player to automatically transfer his skills to this format? Is that an explanation for the relative failure of batsmen like Rahul Drabid, Kaliis, Laxman and Ganguly?

This question is interesting because Rahul Dravid has been accused of packing his team with test players. And that is apparently why his Bangalore team is languishing at the bottom of the points table. Siddartha Vaidyanathan, discussing Bangalore’s troubles has this interesting little story,

After the first round of auction in Mumbai, a few friends congratulated me on my Test team,” Vijay Mallya, the franchise owner, said before the IPL. ” I mentioned this to our captain Dravid and he laughed it off and told me that Test cricket is the ultimate test for any cricketer and if a player can do well in that format, then he can do well in all other formats, be it one-day matches or Twenty20.

Vaidyanathan opines that ”this theory has been torn apart.” While it would be easy enough to point out that some other teams packed with powerhitters, Hyderabad for example, are not doing too well either, it is clear that teams with bit-and-pieces players have performed well in IPL. Rajasthan led by an inspirational captain would be a classic example. Even Mumbai’s floundering campaign has been rescued by a set of rookies.

But Dravid is not entirely wrong. Test cricket is the ultimate format of the game (at least for an old-fashioned fan like me) and you would expect cricketers who have survived the rigors of test cricket to do well in T20 too. What, in my opinion, Dravid underestimated is how much the administrators have changed the rules of the game to favor the batsmen: apart from the ridiculous limit of four overs per bowler, the boundaries have been shortened to ICC minimum limits–mishits have regularly resulted in sixes. What this has done is to level the playing field (no pun intended) between a classically accomplished batsman like Dravid and a new upstart who may not be blessed with Dravid’s technical virtuosity but knows how to hit the ball hard and is unafraid to take risks. Or the pitches which have largely been featherbeds. To give an example, If you take an extremely hard exam like JEE, and reduce it to a sufficiently low standards, the difference between someone who has worked really hard and someone who is giving it just for the heck of it will narrow.(1) The former may yet beat the latter but in the case of T20, the format is simply too short for these finer distinctions to be made.

To be fair, cricket administrators have been trying to make the game more batsmen friendly for the last two decades. The limited number of bouncers, shortened boundaries, designer pitches have all helped make the quality gap between a Dravid and a Yusuf Pathan irrelevant. A genius like Tendulkar may be immune to such changes but for less naturally gifted players like Dravid, it makes their job much harder. T20 has simply taken this to the next level.

Unfortunately, T20 is all about fours and sixes–at least, from the spectators point of view which is all that really matters. From that perspective, Dravid certainly made a few errors while selecting his team.

p.s Not that I particularly care about T20. All I hope is when the real cricket starts, Laxman can still hit those beautiful cover drives, Dravid can continue to stonewall as if there is no tomorrow, Ganguly can still place the ball between the third slip and the gully, and Tendulkar can be, well, Tendulkar.

1. When the Supreme Court ordered that even reserved category students would have to clear minimum qualifying marks, this is what the U.P government did. It lowered the standard of the its entrance exams so much that unless you did not know how to read and write, you could not fail to score the minimum 40% required for admission.

The Los Angeles Times think so,

Violence between players? Scantily clad cheerleaders? Toss in a rant by Charles Barkley and three minutes of commercials for every 45 seconds of actual game time and cricket may finally be ready for a mainstream American audience.

]]> http://retributions.wordpress.com/2008/05/06/ready-for-cricket-america/feed/ 2 retributions http://retributions.wordpress.com/2008/04/27/a-new-name/ http://retributions.wordpress.com/2008/04/27/a-new-name/#comments Sun, 27 Apr 2008 17:36:41 +0000 Confused http://retributions.wordpress.com/?p=626 ]]>

They should rename I.P.L as the Australian Premier League.

Where are the Indians?

Our man in Calcutta comments,

Sidestepping the debate going on here, can I just comment that most of the cheerleaders in the IPL games are just plain ugly and pretty wierdly dressed (not the ‘imported’ Redskins ones – the desi variety). The cheerleading should be banned for plain aesthetic reasons.[link]

Hmm, how in the name of sweet Jesus did IPL manage to find ugly cheerleaders?

And yeah, second the motion!