And I am glad. I am a fan of Zaheer’s, pretty much the same way I used to be a fan of Srinath.
Take away the pretense and the glamour and the showbiz, and all you have left behind is just bat and ball. And in that game, these two, considerable-but-not-extraordinary talents both, had done good. Had done enough.
And Zaheer has a few miles more to travel. A few miles more to travel, now as the craftiest fast-medium bowler in the world.
If only he could learn to pick up tail-end wickets….
Unfair? Yes. Not the sacking, but the way the matter was dealt with. I wonder why they fuck it up every single time!
Will he make it back to the Indian team, if he tries a comeback? Yes he will.
Or no he won’t, if the selectors have their way, but that will be the death-knoll for Rohit Sharma, Badrinath or Tiwary or whoever replaces Ganguly. Ganguly will perform a few heroics in the domestic scene…. and for every time the newbie underperforms, the vultures in the media will be let loose on them. Remember Mohammed Kaif?
What would one give to have the Australian system, where a Mark Waugh is told well in advance that he has one year left to his international career… and that’s all. And what would one give to ensure that Dravid is given that flexibility…
Isn’t Zaheer Khan extremely similar to Sehwag?
They will both do nothing for a while (and people will start calling for their heads), but then there will be one match where they will get a stellar performance, and will be single-handed match-winners…
Genuine match-winners both. And are now at the peak of their powers…
happened a few days ago, when Sehwag scored his double hundred against Sri Lanka.
Have I got your attention yet?
And did you scream Sachin? And did you scream Rahul? Or Sunny, did you say, old-timer?
And then you shook your head and said Laxman’s 281 of course.
And yes, Laxman’s 281 was special. Was very, very special. And I am proud to have seen it.
But this was better.
Let’s try the checkboxes, shall we?
Won India the match? Check.
Was a big, big hundred? Check.
Were the opposition of a high quality? Check.
Was the highest score, by a long shot, of the two sides? Check.
Was strokeful and a joy to watch? Check.
Was he the only real batting success in the match? Check.
Okay, yes, greatest ever by an Indian.
Ah, Indian cricket fans!
Ah, us Indian cricket fans! We don’t watch cricket, we indeed pray at the altar of the gods of cricket… cricket is our raison d’etre; and all this, while we find it impossible to make a rational argument on the game at any point in time.
We aren’t ignorant about the game, mind you. We know the scientific machinations behind bowling the doosra and the reverse swinging yorker, we appreciate the difference between setting the 6-3 versus the 7-2 field, and our analysis of non-Indian players and matches where India is not involved, is well nigh as precise as you can find it out of any general mass of people.
The confusion’s only when we discuss our own. And that is when our logical reasons (reasonably precise and accurate otherwise) go haywire in the face of a full-frontal attack by our cliques and cabals and me-and-my-tribe instincts. We don’t remain base cricket fans anymore, appreciating and analyzing the game like we tend to do so well otherwise. We become men (and women) of religion, be that religion that of Sachin-god, or Very-Very-Special-Laxman-god, or the Namma-Rahul-god or the immaculately named Bangalir-Gourob-Sourav-god.
And we are pulled from different directions, the primary one indeed being from the country-within-country that we belong to. So the Bihar-country boy and the Tamilnadu-country boy will not see eye-to-eye in discussions over who the greater god is among Dhoni-god and Karthik-god, and merits a place in the pantheon that is the team. And of course Sachin-god is the biggest god of them all, but does the Jat-country boy take kindly to Sehwag-god being any lesser?
And then there is continental pride, whereby the East-continent rises up in fury at any indignation, perceived or otherwise, at the great Sourav-god. Or the old very-Very-Special-god being vilified by the north-continent for keeping their devoted Yuvraj-god out of the pantheon, and the vice-versa by the south-continent for a perceived Damocles’ Sword perennially hanging on the Very-Very-Special-god’s head, even though he has played nearly a hundred tests now. (I’m not kidding about the Damocles’-sword quote, I have actually read it in some reputed newspapers and forms of Internet media).
Really, I remember in college, when I was discussing the merits and demerits of including L Balaji in the team, a classmate, visibly in disagreement with me over my perceived slight of his beloved Balaji-god, tried to end the debate by suggesting that ‘Ganguly is a bastard anyway’, knowing that I, indeed, have my base at Bengal-country***.
Oh and then there are those other invisible strings…
And yes, I did hear your question. And I was indeed trying to dodge it all this while. Who do I support in the Ranji trophy? Sly fella, you, no? Well put. So here’s the answer. Bengal. Karnataka. Delhi. In that order.
*** What could I have answered? Well, having no definite locational root apart from that of language, the affront did not affect me. So I mentioned that I haven’t ever had the good fortune of meeting Ganguly or his parents and discussed this specific case of parenthood. Has he?
## As for Kumble-god, I will agree that (apart from his being so worshippable) my worshipping would have had some basis to my tribal heritage; he indeed is a senior alumnus from my college.
but has, these days, taken up the role of being the rebel-without-a-cause among the media. In the belief that he is pulling down sacred cows, in reality, all that he is managing is mistaking an aberration for a trend. And therefore sensationalizing non-issues (or rather, as-of-yet non-issues). And thereby, making a fool of himself. Remember the ‘Sachin should be dropped‘ gaffe? Well, here’s another. Just on dint of today’s (and yesterday’s) performance, he proclaims that Indian batsmen are no more the masters of spin…. (click here for more)
After 2002-03 our batsmen haven’t shown much improvement against the spinners as they have against the faster men. So this is a changing trend in Indian batting where we cannot confidently assert that we are the best players of spin. We used to be, but now good spinners are starting to bother the Indian batsmen.
Ahem, improvement? we have had the same four players in the middle order, and their averages against pacers, nor spinners have changed much in recent times. Have they? Statistics, please…. Sehwag, if he gets to the spinners, will generally rip them apart. His problems have been short, into-the-body stuff. So is it that Manjrekar makes all his assumptions from just observing Gautam Gambhir getting dismissed twice (and being one of the top scorers in both cases) to the Sri Lankan spinners? And that too, just in one match? When did we have the great opening batsman against spinners? The last one I remember retired in 1987… The ones in the interim did not quite survive on the crease long enough get to spinners anyway 
Murali is brilliant and a one-off; a mystery-spinner tends to trouble batsmen for a while before he is found out…. Let’s not be too early in denouncing what has been the greatest middle order Indian cricket has ever had. And believe me, this is a regular cricket-gods basher writing.
Sanjay Manjrekar, you really are blabbering, sir.
Graeme Smith
… this guy for the South African cricket team?
As important as
Gary Kirsten
was, for the most part of the last decade of the last millennium …
Gary Kirsten has long been one of my favourite players: dour, gritty, doing a job and doing it well….
Hope he does the job well for the Indian team. May it be known as Dhoni’s team much like the last team was Ganguly’s, we all know the great work put in by John Wright for ensuring the same. May it be Dhoni, along with Kirsten, to take the next step forward. And believe me, the werewithal is all right there.
This, I wrote a long time ago…. replicated here for you, dear readers.
_______________________
Book: A Corner of a Foreign Field
Author:Ramachandra Guha
Genre: Society/ History/ Sports.
Publishers: Picador India 2002
Pages: 496.
I love social history. I love sports. I quite like cricket. So I picked up “A corner of a foreign field” with hardly any trepidation. I had to like the book…. And you know what? I did.
Now I am not a greenhorn in the cricketing history of our country. I remember actually identifying Palwankar Baloo’s snap at some quiz somewhere. I did know him as the first in the line of great spinners that India has produced, and had read of the famous unofficial tour to England in the early part of the last century where this great dalit cricketer, with only two English words in his vocabulary (How’s that!) wrecked havoc among the best of the English batsmen (After reading Guha’s book, I tend to believe that this story of Baloo and his command over the queen’s language was more of romanticised urban legend that anything else). I did know him as one of the first few truly national figures among the dalits. I had in fact heard of the Triangulars (of Mumbai) which eventually became the Quadrangulars and then the Pentangulars. I have heard and read of the exploits of CK Nayudu, and the paeans written for him by musty-eyed old cricket writers. I had heard of such names as Buchi Babu and Lord Harris and CB Fry.
And there were many take homes for me from this book. In a clipped, honest, sturdy rather than poetic style, the writer details for us the whole history of Indian cricket, especially of its pre-test status era. Ah, and would a social historian just give one the facts and figures? Would he stand back from analysing the data that he has collected? Thankfully, Guha does not. His analysis is precise, correct to an extent of assurance most of the times, and I should not really complain, for the only situations where I differed with his views completely in the first three parts of the book was about Calcutta football, clearly not one of Mr. Guha’s fortes.
The book is divided into four chapters to indicate the four great social waves into which Indian cricket could be divided. To start with, the establishment of cricket in the country, and the osmosis of the stiff-upper-lip fish-and-chips sport into the spicy kitchens of India ( a simple example: the conversion of the popular proverb “it isn’t over ‘till the fat lady sings”, often used in the game of glorious uncertainties, to the manifold more colourful “it isn’t over till the fat sardarni from Bulandshehr does the bhangra” which I happened to read somewhere); the opposition Indian cricket had to face in its infancy from the British rulers who hardly considered Indians capable of ever playing the game at the standards of the founders of the game; a nice analysis of why this game more than any other, took the fancy of the Indian public in general, on how the nature of the game was perfectly suited to the Indian’s tastes and behavioural idiosyncrasies; are all perfectly reproduced in the first part of the book, termed ‘Race’. The next chapter deals with that bane of the Indian Hindu society, caste. As cricket grows in the country, so does the country develop and try to eradicate the bane of untouchability from within it. Rather, how the dalits make their presence felt in the arena of sports, this serving as just a precursor to their presence at all other segments of society, in spite of all the despicable methods adopted by the higher castes to keep them from the mainstream Hindu folds. It is here that the chief characters of the book, the Palwankar family, are presented to the reader. The third part of the book deals with the most direct intermingling of the freedom struggle and cricket in the country. Religion, an issue which was hardly a major factor in the previous two parts of the book come into serious focus in this part, due especially to the times (the 30’s to the 50’s), and the religious uncertainty permeating the country at that time.. CK Nayudu, possibly the most dominant Indian sportsperson (definitely in the minds of the public) in pre-independence Indian sport, comes to us with all his spectacular brilliance as a sportsperson and with his most human flaws. The fourth part does not deal so much with the cricket as with the fans of the game, and how they underwent the transformation from a genuine cricket-loving race, appreciating good sport and yet wanting their side to win, to rowdy partisans, who want the team to win at any cost; now putting the cricketers on a pedestal as national heroes, now unceremoniously pulling the images down after one shoddy performance.
Guha’s style of writing befits that of a historian with a knack for writing. For all his love for the cricket of the Palwankar brothers, he never goes at lengths into the beauty of Palwankar Baloo’s follow-through, neither does he go ballistic in his praise of Vithal’s batting and fielding. He presents the facts exactly as they are. Economical with his words, he says what he has to say exactly the way he wants to say it. His analysis is almost always supported with facts and numbers and reliable anecdotes. I was really glad to see that he does not go into comparison between cricketers of different ages, a common bane of sports writers. He presents the facts as a historian, does his analysis as an analyst, with the help of numbers and vignettes rather than any pre-conceived notion, and is convincing throughout.
But if I could say, the bane of this book, and of Guha himself, is the bane of most historians. Very true to the facts in his analysis of history, he never overshoots, neither does he miss any single strand of information in his accurate analysis of Indian cricket before Independence. The first three parts ring true because of the meticulous research and impartiality of his observation and analysis, And this is precisely where he misses out in the last section of the book, where his personal feelings come in (obviously so, for how can you be impartial and observational as a historian to something you have yourself seen with your eyes), making this part more strident, clearly taking sides, the Ramachandra Guha in him comes into prominence with his preferences and dislikes, his political and his social beliefs; the impartial, impassive historian in him gradually sliding into the woodwork. The voice, economical with words, clipped, with an honest ring to it, becomes shriller, with the analysis becoming more and more the case of one trying to prove his point by hook or by crook. And that has to be anticipated too. Historian or no historian, no Indian, especially someone with so much passion for the game and the country, could be completely impartial in their observations of the two major panacea of the country, cricket and politics.
What comes across the most at the end of this book is the intense love for a game by the author. It is possibly because of this love that he is able to be impartial and honest in his analysis in the first three parts, and even more so, this great love could be sited as the reason which prompts his to sometimes be a bit opinionated in the last part of the book.
All in all, a knowledgeable, intelligent, researched read, which thankfully never becomes tedious in its pursuit of the unrecorded and unregistered. I would call it a definite success, Guha did reach where he wanted to in the end. I think it’s quite a landmark in the Indian sports writing arena, and would suggest it to everyone who has a love for either of social issues, the Indian freedom struggle or cricket, and can at least appreciate the other two. It, I guarantee, will be quite an enchanting read and a rewarding experience. Thank you, Mr. Guha.
Do read this article (click here). An excerpt….
The BCCI did its best not to commemorate the silver jubilee of the World Cup victory because the drama of such a commemoration would have been hard to carry off without giving the winning team’s skipper a speaking role. Finally, when Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev both made it clear that the celebrations would go on with or without the Indian cricket establishment, the board was shamed into agreeing to participate, since it didn’t want to come across as a bunch of vindictive little men.
The most revealing aspect of the BCCI’s vendetta against the ICL’s recruits was its decision to cut off the pensions awarded to ex-cricketers for their services to first-class and international cricket. Kapil Dev can probably afford to do without an annuity, but that isn’t the point. If these pensions were granted in recognition of past service, to cut them off on account of contemporary quarrels is a monstrous thing to do. The revocation of the pension is both material punishment and metaphorical erasure: it’s like saying, “We, the board, have decided that your career, your service to cricket, your achievements, count for nothing in themselves unless they’re recognised by Us, because it is Our recognition that legitimises your past and your present, that makes it visible.”
Need to write about it. Need to speak about it. We all need to speak, need to write about it. This is just not done….
India in New Zealand 09 – Observations
March 29, 2009Will India ever be the ruthless world champions of cricket like the West Indies were? Or like Australia was? I have my doubts. India’s team will get better, and might even be the dominant team of the world, the ‘first among equals’ if you will, but that one bane, complacency, might prevent this generation from becoming the Baggy Greens of the 2010-2020 time frame.
And do we know anybody who does not like Jesse Ryder? And Ross Taylor?
I do dislike the fact that it took his foibles to be evident to the cricketing world for me to go beyond the respect / admire and actually become a fan of Sachin.
Arun Lal! Arun Lal! I liked him when he was playing for Bengal and making a proper cricket team out of a rather tag-rag bunch.. and I like him as a commentator. Not spectacular, but solid and consistent. Just like the cricketer, the batsman he was. Will have to write a post on Arun Lal the cricketer some day.
Isn’t Iain O’Brien’s blog (click here) exactly the way you always expected a New Zealand cricketer’s blog to be like?
Can I request all Indian cricket fans to not troll the abovementioned blog?
Dhoni is really the heartbeat of the Indian cricket team.
Posted in Cricket | Tagged Arun Lal, Commentators, Iain O'Brien, Indian cricket, Jesse Ryder, MS Dhoni, New Zealand cricket, Ross Taylor, Sachin Tendulkar | Leave a Comment »