An Apology for Compelling Draws

Outside the ambit of painting and, perhaps, the art/science of seduction, the word 'draw' gives the impression of something dragged out, much like an overlong film about the flora found in deserts. A typical draw in a game of Test cricket also creates the impression of elaborate pointlessness, especially among the game’s newest fans, introduced to it through the T20 format; its fiercest detractors; and those who view the current health of cricket, rightly, with Argus-eyed skepticism. Sometimes, though, one is made to wonder if draws alone are responsible for all the ills afflicting Test cricket and that a farewell to them will ensure instant revivification and a broader acceptance among fans of the game’s 125-year-old format. Two different frames of reference suggest that the latter is a simplistic view. First: the cause for the waning popularity of the game may be located as much in the zeitgeist of the day – with its unapologetic emphasis on instant gratification – as in the results a five-day contest produces (more on this another day). Second: even if results are a cause of concern, not all draws can be condemned with the charge that they are curtailing the future of Test cricket.

The draw that the South Africans attempted earlier this month in Delhi, for example, deservedly drew a lot of praise from various quarters—the captain and Manager of the opposing team included. On the other hand, it did also attract the sardonic barbs of at least one writer. According to the former, South Africa’s ultra-defensive batting (which has spawned the lexical monstrosity 'block-a-thon') symbolised, among other things, the commitment of peripatetic cricketers to their national whites and to Test cricket in an era of domestic T20 leagues, garish clothes and slog-fests. The latter, however, holds that South Africa’s approach represented a futile exercise because the series was already lost. My own opinion of South Africa’s second dig in Delhi dovetails with the views of the former, and I think it made for compelling Test cricket while it lasted.

South Africa’s obdurate batting was fascinating to watch because it reduced and exalted cricket to its very essence—a contest between bat and ball (ceteris nearly paribus). Obviously, the speed of the scoreboard was such that it might have even driven a Yogi to lose patience, but that was incidental to the drama; whose main players were two vulpine and skillful spinners, a ring of close-in fielders and three fine batsmen, their stage a pitch that gave no freebies and rewarded mindful persistence. With each ball delivered and each delivery safely met, one could witness a substantial and substantive dialogue between two equal adversaries, the lines (and lengths) occasionally veering into sub-text to keep the more discerning aficionados honest. The theatre lasted for close to nine hours and while the final act showed an Indian win, who is to say that a draw would have reduced the value of the gripping contest that preceded it? To do so would be to succumb to the convenient trap of hindsight.

Admittedly, not every draw or attempted draw keeps bums on seats. The worrying trend is that for every draw that enthralls and thrills lovers of Test cricket, there are four which make them wonder whether the Sun will set upon this Time-honoured five-day sporting spectacle of substance, style and subtlety, just as it has on the Empire that birthed and propagated it around the Commonwealth. Indeed, the writing has been on the wall for a while and the stakeholders of the game – players, umpires and match referees, cricket boards, journalists and fans – must quickly come up with strategies to reduce the number of drab draws that currently frustrates Test cricket. Draws should not be altogether eliminated, however, because their elimination would kill a congenital aspect of Test cricket: playing for Time.

Now, ‘playing for time’ is not an anachronism 'favourited' by grey-haired ladies and gentleman who take up the cudgels for what they believe is cricket’s purest format. Even three summers ago, Francois Du Plessis, in the company of his boyhood friend Abraham De Villiers, future-skipper Hashim Amla and others, batted for fourteen minutes short of eight hours and retired undefeated on 110 to the dressing room at the Adelaide Oval after facing a small matter of sixty-two overs and four balls. On debut. Just for the record, neither South Africa nor Australia won that Test match. A year and few weeks later ABD and FDP were at it again, and almost surmounted a fourth-innings Mt. Everest against India at the Wanderers—the ‘almost’ a riveting 'no result'. While thinking of thrilling 'no results', England’s three last-over heists (in December 2009, January 2010 and March 2013) should not be forgotten, as they deserve pride of place in the Hall of Fame of Draws. Nor are English ninth-drops lone specialists in hanging for dear life till the last mandatory over is bowled, as their Sri Lankan counterparts showed, against England, at the HQ in June 2014.

Each of the aforementioned Test matches is a classic and deserves to be called as such. Bidding adieu to draws would mean the assignment of such matches to the musty files of history—a treasure trove of nostalgia, and a graveyard of hope, at least as far as sports is concerned. Obviously, there is no assurance that Test cricket will continue to conjure up exciting draws if the result lives to fight another day, but that is beside the point. The point is rather that a draw is just one of four possible conclusions to a contest! Conversations should, therefore, focus on the quality of the contest and cutting the list of possible results by one would do little to improve it. The point is also that the dogged pursuit of a draw, when the circumstances so dictate, does not make other results impossible. Examples abound of teams planning to bat time and winning or losing. My own favourite draw in recent memory is the one that India ‘achieved’ against the West Indies in 2012 (yes, in that match where Ravi Rampaul and Darren Sammy were booed at Mumbai for postponing Tendulkar's 100th Test hundred to another day): the match scores of the two teams were tied after the last mandatory ball had been bowled, and first-innings centurion Ashwin refused a second run even though he could have half-Ranatunga-ed it. There is a tragicomedy (or comic tragedy) for the ages. Beat that.  

On 'Sporting' in Sporting Pitches

I am one of the many disgruntled fans of the Indian cricket who have thought for a while that pitches which assist fast bowlers at home are the best breeding ground for Indian batsmen to tackle the barrage they are subjected to in places like Australia, South Africa and England. Consequently, I found  Virat Kohli and Ishant Sharma’s remark about how the boot would be on the other foot when Australia travels to India quite objectionable, especially with the team verging on a 3-0 hiding. However, that view does not, and in my opinion should not, detract from the fact that pitches which offer plentiful turn make for contests in test cricket which are as exciting as those played on pitches conducive to fast bowling. This being the case I find the tendency to label the latter type of pitches as sporting, to the exclusion of the former type, somewhat unfair, convenient and even parochial.

While going through the comments’ thread on a cricinfo article about the Indian cricket team’s woeful performances since its tour to England last year, I read an observation from a gentleman – presumably Australian – which suggested that the pitches in Australia befit the tag of sporting decks more than those elsewhere. To some extent this view is borne out: Sydney is a particularly compelling example given that it keeps fast bowlers interested with the new ball, the batsmen interested after that even as good spinners can come into their own during the last two days. Indeed, the case of the Sydney Cricket Ground, and to some extent the Melbourne Cricket Ground, is ideal and should not, therefore, be confused with what is normally meant by sporting wickets – those on which a good contest between bat and ball is assured. Against the latter sense, a spinners’ dustbowl is often referred to as “unsporting” whereas a pace man’s paradise is seldom referred to as anything more than “challenging”, a bland adjective if ever there was one.

Besides being unsporting, pitches that offer spin are often accused as being tailored to suit the home team’s – in most cases a team from the subcontinent – needs even by the most sapient of observers. What is more, you would think that this is a crime. By contrast when South Africa prepares a twenty-two yard strip sprinkled with grass to intimidate Sri Lanka or when Indians await a “talked up” perked up Perth pitch (just a metaphor; the wicket at the WACA for the last test was a beauty and the Indians batted woefully!) we hear zilch about the home team playing to its strengths but seldom hear the end of the fabled frailty of sub-continentals against the moving and bouncing ball. While the Australian and South African teams of the recent past have admittedly adapted better to playing on turning tracks than sub-continentals to juicy ones overseas, that is no argument as to why wickets that offer turn alone should be singled out as being home team-conspired even as those which assist chin music are surmised to be neutral fait accompli.

The fact of the matter is exciting test matches are no more a norm on fast and bouncy turfs than they are on slower ones which aid considerable spin: the state of the pitch offers a context for the contest, no more no less. Whenever the term “bad pitches” is mentioned my mind instantly goes back to the 2004 test match at Bombay where Australia, chasing a measly fourth innings target, was dismissed for 93. Ricky Ponting complained about a sub-standard pitch; but what is forgotten in all the hullabaloo is Michael Clarke, too, picked up 6/9 in the second Indian innings in that test. Whether Ponting’s complaint was legitimate, and whether it would have come forth had Australia lost the test, is a matter of speculation, but it is undeniable that the test match in question was as exciting as test matches can be. The tied test between India and Australia in 1986 was played out at Chepauk, the site of Hirwani's sixteen-wicket debut, a game where Dean Jones scored one of the most tenacious double-hundreds of all time! THE  test match of 2001 was played on a typical Kolkata strip but there was little in the wicket itself to foreshadow the Australian collapse in the final session. Similarly, there was little in the pitch (forget the umpiring) at the Sydney Cricket Ground in 2008 that justifies India’s losing three wickets to Michael Clarke in a single over and eventually getting bowled out minutes before stumps on Day 5. South Africa chased down 414 against Australia at Perth to set up a famous win and take a 1-0 lead in their 2008/9 series Downunder; nor did the second Ashes test at Edgbaston in 2005 turn out to be a nail-biter only because the curator at the home of Yorkshire roll out a fine pitch for the clash. Trivially, a pitch can only influence the contest but ultimately it is the thirteen who are out in the middle at any given point in time who dictate its terms. 

After all, Malcolm Marshall, Dale Steyn and Glenn McGrath have conquered the sub-continent as well as Bhagwat Chandrasekhar bamboozled England in England, Shane Warne and Muttiah Muralidharan made the world their stage and Anil Kumble (towards the latter part of his career) succeeded during his last two tours to Australia. If they had carped instead of going out there, competing and raising the bar, they would have been the poorer and world cricket the poorer for them.

A battle's on at the Bellerive!

As I start to write this (14:42 hours HKT), New Zealand are 127-3, which is an overall lead of 141 over their Trans-Tasman rivals Australia, in the second test at the Bellerive Oval in Hobart. Playing a game that is as antagonistic to his nature as it is to Sehwag, the Kiwi skipper Ross Taylor is unbeaten on 35 off a hundred deliveries, steadily taking New Zealand to some semblance of safety. In what has been New Zealand's most secure display with the bat on this tour, the doggedness and the determination that has so often characterised New Zealand teams of the past has thankfully returned, and is clear for all to see. It will be wonderful, therefore, if the New Zealanders can make their final innings with the bat on the tour a series-levelling one. But whether that happens or not today's play has been yet another advert to test cricket, coming in the back of Australia's series-levelling triumph versus South Africa at Johannesberg and the enthralling tied-draw that India and West Indies played out in Mumbai.

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Although I joined live action only during the fading moments of the second session, I realised instantaneously that nothing had been 'fading' about the day's play. Dean Brownlie, the Western Australian who crossed over to New Zealand to give himself more chances of playing first-class cricket, might have been laughed at for saying yesterday that he considered 150 a good score. James Pattinson, with commonsense and the Australian bravado intact, had said that 150 is below-par on any type of surface. In the event, the New Zealander proved correct as Australia had been bowled out for 136 - reportedly their third lowest score against the neighbours, and yet another nadir for the troubled Australian batting line-up . The lead might have been greater had it not been for gritty lower-order efforts from Peter "thorn-in-the-flesh" Siddle and Pattinson, but New Zealand would have taken fourteen when the Australian innings started. At tea with all their wickets intact they led by 26.

The session that followed was test cricket at its subtlest and best. Under muggy skies the ball bounced over the stumps sometimes and kept low other times. And even if you had shut your eyes to the action, the first-rate descriptions from the Channel 9 commentary team (a post on whom will follow, another day) would have given you more than an adequate picture. Brendon McCullum left to a straightening snorter from Pattinson that pitched full, squared up the aggressor, got the edge and reached Hughes' at third slip, while Martin Guptill went to town flirting with a Siddle delivery that Boycott would have left alone even in his sleep only to see the edge taken by Haddin comfortably.

Then Ryder and Taylor resisted, the stocky man the more comfortable of the two, in spurts of attack as well as solid defence, and the diminutive skipper ungainly and ugly, playing across his front pad, opening himself too much because of his technique that compels the predominant on-sidedness of his strokeplay, but batting as if for the match and his life simultaneously. Edges were squirted to third-man, balls were left on bounce, Phil Hughes - ye, of great misfortunes currently - dropped Taylor at gully, a chance the young man may come to rue, and Ryder leant back on a front foot cover-drive through extra cover, majesty and elegance written in the stroke. And when it seemed like the Kiwis were on the road to safety, brilliance counterpunched them on the gut. Michael Hussey bowled a harmless leg side delivery, on which Ryder failed to get bat or pad. His front and back leg were switching places more in routine than as an effect of over-balancing, and Haddin whipped the bails off. A casual moment that appeared nonexistent had been converted into a wicket and Ryder was obviously stunned as he trudged back. It was ironic that Ian Healy who had castigated Haddin's keeping a week earlier was on air during the stumping. When Tony Greig asked him how much he would give for the stumping out of 10, Heals replied 10!

Kane Williamson arrived at Ryder's exit and played in a fashion that matched his test hundred on debut against India last year for composure if not style. Surprisingly, with Taylor playing the blocking game Williamson kept the singles and couples coming, putting bad balls away to the fence for good measure, releasing some of the scoreboard pressure his captain must have felt. Towards the end of the day the Sun came out, and it seemed like a congratulatory gesture from the skies to a New Zealand team that has done the hard work to get their noses in front from an impossible position, and will go into tomorrow with hopes of batting Australia out of the test. Ross Taylor apparently averages 77 whenever he crosses 30, and is presently on 42. But Taylor's conversion rate would not be Australia's only one worry.

There was one moment in the day which signified Australia's fall from greatness more than anything else, and it was befitting (or bitter, based on the view point) that one of Australian cricket's greatest and proudest sons provided it. Wrapped on the pad, this time by Tim Southee, the bat everywhere and mind nowhere, Ponting walked - just five to his name. The last time he batted at Hobart he had been dropped by Mohammad Amir on naught and had gone on to make 201, his last test hundred. There was no reprieve this time, nor a milestone as a consequence to celebrate it. After a sparkling performance with the ball and a brave and disciplined one with the bat on a day when the "test" in test cricket was on view for all to see, the Black Caps would be looking to put the issue beyond Australia's reach. They deserve no less. Daniel Vettori, the man whose services they would not have for a while, deserves no less either.

Dream Debuts, False Dawns and a Dwarfed Career

A few days ago I was having a chat with Venkatadri, with whom I co-author this blog, about how this year, particularly the last few weeks, have been great for debutante bowlers: Bracewell, Ashwin, Philander and Cummins have all had five-fors in their first test against different teams and under vastly different conditions. Promising, indeed, but little else for well-begun is not always half-done in sport. A great debut may be be either a false dawn or a ray of light obstructed by happenstance and competition as a career progresses. A case in point is Narendra Hirwani who after a famous debut against the West Indies in 1988 which yielded sixteen wickets, albeit on a dust bowl in Madras, played his last test in 1996 at the age of 28. In between his 17 tests had given him 66 wickets at just over thirty, while Anil Kumble was already on his way to being a colossus, at least at home. You can't blame Kumble for succeeding, nor can you blame Hirwani for not trying for there is little in the wickets tally to suggest he did not. Yet Kumble's rise was in every sense, unobtrusively admittedly, also the plummeting of Hirwani's stocks and perhaps in equal measure those of other aspiring spinners in the country at the time including the Kerala stalwart Ananthapadmanabhan who sadly did not get a game for India.

When I think of promises which have never seen the extended light of a fruitful day, a thirty-five year old spinner from Railways, who was with Middlesex for three county seasons and is currently with Somerset, comes to mind. If Murali Kartik had been in any other country, and, it is probably fair to say, started under any other captain than Ganguly, he might have received more chances, thereby allowing his career fairer room for success or failure, giving critics and experts more evidence based on which to judge him. In the event, a total of eight tests and thirty-seven one-day games does scant justice to his talent. The likes of Ravindra Jadeja, who until recently has had nothing to show for himself other than Shane Warne's glowing recommendations, have received more rope.

There is whispered consensus, and unfortunately little else, that Kartik is a fine left-arm spinner whose services to the national cricket team have been lost to the winds of time and arguably the whims of a captain who in his prime could murder left-arm spinners of every kind with one eye shut. Whether Gangles really saw Karthik's potential to the team in the light of how he treated left-arm spinners is open to debate, but Kartik's performance in country cricket speak of a stellar performer. Not all his county wickets can be brushed aside as a result of Englishmen being traditionally poor players of spin. Incidentally, according to a Zaltzman multistat the England cricket team has had, in the recent years, the best batting average against tweakers. While the retirement of Kumble and Warne, and more recently Muralidharan, could have contributed to the statistical swelling, it may well be the case that the quality of batting against spin in English domestic cricket has genuinely improved. In this light, Kartik's continued exclusion from the national squad is even more troubling.

I am not very proficient at the nitty-gritty of spin bowling but it is clear enough for a keen enough eye that Kartik's bowling is a result of its strong basics: a clean, orthodox and beautifully smooth action, reliance on flight encouraged by a mind that is willing to attack and the ability to get good turn and bounce especially when the wicket offered something. Nowhere did the strengths of Kartik's craft come to the fore better than in the  consolation victory over Australia in 2004 at Mumbai where the Australians who had already completed a 2-0 rout to take a rare and famous series win in India were ambushed for 93 in their  pursuit of a modest but tricky 107. Kartik scalped four and befittingly, perhaps, Dravid skippered him in that game. Ponting promptly wrote a letter to the ICC about the state of the Wankhede pitch, which was admittedly appalling, but if someone could bowl the delivery that got rid of Damien Martyn as well as the one that got Ponting in the second innings of that match he cannot possibly be fluke's favourite protege, never mind the conditions. One more test appearance followed, against the Proteas at Kanpur also in 2004, and Kartik has not been seen in national whites since. Only the most ardent optimist would bet against Kartik not playing another test; but knowing the BCCI's selection committees - or not knowing them - one never knows.

In mitigation, Kartik's non-selection in the shorter formats might have had also to do with the fact that he brought no value addition to the side, a Ganguly-engineered criterion starkly evident in Dravid's having been asked to keep so that the Indians could play seven batsmen and four bowlers even on made-to-order pitches at home. Although Kartik was a gritty batsman on his day, as he showed in Mumbai again in a tense chase against Australia while partnering with Zaheer Khan who smote Brett Lee for a straight six on the way to victory, his days were few and far in between. His fielding was not poor, but in an era where the Mohammad Kaifs often clung to the team based on the sheer weight of the runs they saved and prevented through tigerish fielding and brilliant catching, not bad was just not good enough especially since the Indian outfield was already manned by men who did not have either  the arm or the feet  and very often both to stem the flow of runs in the death overs. Harsh and hackneyed as it may sound, Kartik was, perhaps, at the wrong place at the wrong time. In test cricket, however, where specialists in my opinion must definitely merit more consideration than floaters and fillers, Murali Kartik's continued absence has remained a mystery. What rankles me is that even while Harbhajan Singh has struggled and has been persisted with, until two months ago, Kartik's name has hardly been heard though wickets have come in by the dozens in country cricket for the Tamilian. Que sera sera?

Although Kartik's career, or lack thereof with the Indian cricket team, deserves attention by itself, my concern for it is also fuelled by my concerns over the career of a 25-year old left-arm spinner from Orissa who is currently in the national squad and who, in my opinion and that of many who know their cricket and a thing or two about good spin bowlers, should never have been away from it. Pragyan Ojha like Murali Kartik is cast in the classical mould of left-arm spinners, trading guile for the sparring dart, and willing to entice the batsmen to drive or loft even after being hit for a six. In fact, Ashwin's and Ojha's successes in the on-going test series versus the West Indies have been based on the age-old adage of spin bowling which made Harbhajan Singh the 'Turbanator' in the 2001 series against Australia, a fact which he seems to have forgotten because of the glut of T20 cricket he has played - give it air, let it spin and the pitch will do the rest! 

Ojha has already played five more tests than Kartik, has 55 wickets, turned only twenty-five the September past and has age and an astute and encouraging captain in Mahindra Singh Dhoni, who does not mind giving spinners the new ball, by his side. I just hope he is nurtured rather than neglected, and has a Vettori-like career rather than a Kartik-like one. When I see Ojha I see no less than 350 test wickets. While teams like Australia are struggling to unearth their next spinner, as it were, the Indians should be happy to have a attacking left-arm spinning option who will be around for a long time. I do not wish to hear or see encores of tales like Murali Kartik's doing the rounds in the future. The least the selectors owe Ojha, and every other  young cricketer worth his salt, is yardsticks for selection applied uniformly along with accountability.  But then again, there is little hope of anything, least of all fairness, when one is faced with a cricket board run by a businessman for whom his position is probably a trophy or an indulgence, which revels in power but treats responsibility like a teenager would treat hard work, leaves fellow boards dangling at its mercy over a number of important issues and looks increasingly like the notorious Big Brother in cricket's own version of 1984. I hope my hopelessness is wrong.     

No.1: who cares?!

Sourav Ganguly is a passionate man, if his playing days, the Lord's shirt spin and the way he got into the face of Australian teams and Steve Waugh are anything to go by. Off the field, however, those close to him claimed that you could not meet a man of greater equanimity: if you took the reactions of the Kolkata fans to Ganguly's being dropped as representative of reactions from Ganguly's own cricle, you are bound to get his personage wrong for Bengal is a passionate state and had to wait several decades to get its own superstar. Why am I saying all this? Because the man formerly referred to as the Prince of Calkootta is the one former cricketer who has got his reactions to India's bruising defeats to England dead right: accept it and move on!

I don't mind admitting pride over Team India's number one status in test cricket  - I am prouder of it than the 2011 World Cup victory - despite my recurrent emphasis on the fact that the ranking arrived by default and that it has been sustained not by ruthless greatness but by coming-back-from the debris performances characterised by basic grit. Great teams do not thrive on playing catch-up, though; they just happen to be better at catching up as well should it be required. None of this is to insult the contributions made my present and past greats in ensuring that India has built up a strong front at home and overseas in the last ten years. It is only to put things into perspective - the perspective that when the focus is on the process, as the Australians like to belabour and often rightly, other things will follow. That is exactly the perspective that is missing in the reactions to India's two consecutive defeats down in England. What is sad is that past players, who you would expect not to be drawn into superficiality, make a mockery of themselves by drawing the ranking into everything they discuss - including DRS - and leave out the question marks behind the dismal performance. The reverse pattern would be better recommended.

If Dhoni's own observations over what he felt went wrong after Lord's still had a hint of humour about them, the post-Nottingham responses seemed more like excuses from a brilliant leader who was expecting sympathy. But what could the poor man do? Being hamstrung by your premiere fast bowler's hamstring injury, not having your first choice opening firm - only to see the other half also ruled out by contingency - and having to respond to questions from an eccentric media about your own form with the bat (and less notably the glovework) can affect the blithest of spirits. But therein lies not the answer, but more questions, questions which I am sure Messrs. Srinivasan and others at the BCCI will not have Duncan Fletcher - or others - answer directly.

Does the over-reliance on Zaheer with the ball - and a lesser one on Sehwag with the bat, never mind four others average over 45:00 in that most enviable of line-ups - itself say something about how the Indian cricket is still a constellation made of some bright stars, at best, never mind the rankings? Dhoni says injuries do happen - we know that! We also appreciate - as much as a non-player can - that a fast bowler's craft entails by many counts the most tangled use of the body in sport, but why is it that fitness regimes elsewhere are better ? More to the point, why is our bench strength invariably second-grade and why is one other swing bowler - someone like R.P. Singh - not travelling with the team when we have taken a substitute keeper?  A more telling question - and it had better be - is why does someone like Sehwag need to 'show himself up' for Delhi Daredevils before he undergoes a surgery but miss two important tests? This is in pathetic, sometimes shameful, contrast to how Michael Clarke and Mitchell Johnson have opted out of the Big Bash League in Australia to focus on getting their country's test team perform better. (If there is something that does not look the eye as far as Indian players are concerned, such as volitional priority towards your franchise - or worse, compelled priority -, then the powers that be have some answering to do). We in India are used to excuses and when a player passionately says, "Nobody would demean playing for the country," we accept it. But is the passion in the words translated into action, the planning and the prioritisation of one's time and fitness? Is a Pragyan Ojha or a Rahane getting the right sort of signals from the behaviour of seniors? I leave this case here.

BCCI's handling of test cricket raises a different issue. While the Indian board's sudden enlightenment to play more tests since two years ago is a welcome sign for test cricket in the country - and test cricket as a whole what with India being modern cricket's Mecca - the reason for this shift in priority is as parochial as it is wrong. The wrongness comes to the fore precisely when the weather becomes rough. It is clear for all intents and purposes that the BCCI wants Team India to maintain the no. 1 status - but it is commonsense, let alone reason, that that can happen only if we win games. With the sort of scheduling (that always includes the IPL!) the Indian players have - and how some are free to take breaks - we are going to find it difficult to barely stay in a test match against good teams in alien conditions let alone win any. I may sound hyperbolic. The apocalypse has not yet come; but it may well do so sooner than later (and this is regardless of the timing of the stalwarts' impending retirement).

Ultimately - I say this as a cricket fan as well as someone who knows a bit about what people generally feel - I would prefer to watch a Team India that is up for a scrap, one which can fight for 140 overs in an attempt to bat 160 and still lose, rather than a team which is top of the tree because of accident, coincidence, its captain's nouse (and good fortune!) and the deteriortation of other teams in the circuit. It is the spirit with which a team plays its sport that reveals its nature and workings.

Australia have not been "harassed" even on their worst days, which is a sign of a good team, until their recent Ashes campaign - a coincidence that their opposition, too, was England? I think not! - because doggedness has been their trade mark for decades. Flair (the other spelling would do just as well!), as Sangakkara said in his glorious MCC Spirit of Cricket Lecture, is the signature of cricket in Sri Lanka. It is that - or any - spirit which, by its absence, was appalling about India's cricket in the tests at Lord's and Nottingham. But one unlikely figure, who might not have been even in the frame for this series two months ago, quietly infused whatever spirit he was capable of into his seemingly one-dimensional game. He may never be the heartthrob of female fans or threaten the sleep of test batsmen but men like Praveen Kumar bring value to a team that can never be counted or commodified. He has got wickets to show for himself, too. A few others could learn a thing or two about lifting for the occasion from the young man, the praise for whom is always accompanied by the irritating phrases "despite his lack of pace" or "in England he'll always bowl well." May be, the pundits are right but cricketers with a will have a way of succeeding anywhere and the heart they bring to the game enriches it in a big way. Besides, If cricket has to be made up only of Steyns and Shane Warnes, it will be a game for the elite in terms of talent. Nothing, however, could be further from the truth as cricketing history shows time and again. And as for now, nothing could be less important than India's number one ranking. If imagining that it is lost would inspire them to fight without a cluttered mind, it is just as well.  

Between Kingston and Lord's - a Dravid fan's perspective:

After Dravid scored that gritty, but arguably ugly, 112 at Kingston barely a month ago, against a West Indian attack that was potent in patches but not powerful overall, I followed the comments' threads on Dravid-related articles out of curiosity: one gentleman - or may be a young lad, as it seemed from the tone - suggested that it was becoming a habit of Dravid's fans to come out of the woodwork whenever Dravid scores and stay silent when he (often, evidently) fails. Not that it is a crime for most fans tend to do that but the observation got me thinking. For a moment, my loyalty, too, seemed to cringe and I felt guilty for being such a blind adherent to Dravid's craft. That the 112 won in India the game - eventually the series - was forgotten. Maybe, that's what Dravid is- a man who needs to reprove his worth, and does not mind doing so, even to those who know better, time and again. The day he has done enough reproving, he would probably walk away. That, too, is Rahul Dravid.

Now that I think of the gentleman's comments once again, in the light of Rahul's hundred at Lord's today, I feel pleasantly amused and mildly annoyed. Chris Tremlett is not Curtley Ambrose and Stuart Broad is not Malcolm Marshall - and in any case cross-generational comparisons are at best quirky and at best silly figments of collective imaginations: how else can you explain an all time ICC World Test XI that has no place for Sobers, Hadlee or Muralidharan but has (with due respect to them) Sehwag, both Lara and Tendulkar, and Kapil Dev? - but the English bowling attack is arguably the second best going around at the moment and at home they can be more than a handful: scoring a hundred against them - never mind he is 38, never mind the pre-match hype and never mind the history associated with the Lord's which can stifle the most seasoned of veterans, for he is Dravid, the blue-collared workman "whose to only do, never question" - when everybody fell around him speaks of, cliched as it may seem, class of the highest kind. Yes, IF Swann had pouched him at slip on 42 - then what? Contact Navjot Sidhu, please.

From the articles I have glimpsed so far, the ones released soon after the 3rd day's play at Lord's, the theme that I'd expected to emerge has damnably emerged though the structures and words used vary: "while everyone expected the little master's hundredth, it was Dravid..." Sachin Tendulkar got a standing ovation, accentuated by the expectation of a 100th international hundred but it was Dravid who scored the 100th hundred - putting Laxman's, Tendulkar's and Dravid's tallies together." Even a pundit like Jonathan Agnew - or may be because he is a pundit he needs to satisfy the hoi polloi - while praising Dravid's accomplishment has to juxtapose his getting onto the Honours' Board at Lord's with Tendulkar not teaching his 100th ton! Why on EARTH?! Sachin Tendulkar may be the next best since Bradman, or even better if some quarters are to be believed, but does it mean every fine batting performance has to refer to Tendulkar in some way? It is worse than hearing Gavaskar, Shastri and Manjrekar together in the commentary box when Tendulkar is batting - or more often when he is not! It still makes no difference to them.

I don't have a problem with the great man (and I can liken a 100 international hundreds at best to having many phonology papers published, which manifests the scale of his imminent achievement by not even fitting it into my imagination!), but for once I shall refrain from being diplomatic and say that I DO have a problem when someone contextualises a Dravid achievement in terms of something else - Laxman's artistry, Sehwag's savagery, Ganguly's elegance, Tendulkar's genius... the list never seems to end. As it is the man's performances are mostly overshadowed by stastistics and greenhorns whose cameos have the sparkle his sturdiness in the middle lacks, so let us cut him some slack at least when he truly stands head and shoulders above the rest. It is good to know I am not alone, though, in saying this. A girl expressed similar sentiments to the espncricinfo commentary team and thankfully it was published. Alec Stewart, without getting into the argument, celebrates Dravid's achievement as that of a fine cricketer's and a gentleman's in a tweet. In this context, I recall another write-up. Two years ago when Dravid made a 177 in a Day against Sri Lanka at Motera, after India were 69-4, Jarod Kimber wrote a delightful piece about how Dravid has always been the man behind the man, how it may have to do with the essence of Dravid's own personage - and how he, Kimber, has a problem with it. I have a problem, too.

I have not, in gloating about Dravid's chips-are-down hundred, forgotten that this test match has still a lot of cricket left. Drawing it will require a mighty dig - of the Athertonian kind - in the second innings from India. But in the hullabaloo, fuelled slightly by the comparative tendencies mentioned above, I have forgotten two things: Dravid's innings was more fluent than any of his recent hundreds and a throwback to the Halcyon Days of 2002-2005 when the extra cover drive, the on-drive with a straight bat through mid-wicket and the forward defensive competed for immaculateness. A particular shot stays in memory: Anderson pitched full, the ball swung, Dravid opened the face of the bat and the square-drive (it's been ages since I saw Dravid play the stroke, going down on one knee!) cantered along the carpet to the fence, for what was the first of the latter's 15 fours. The other thing is the small matter of Dravid's surpassing Ponting in the list of test cricket's highest run-getters (if only temporarily) during the course of his century.

If India does lose this test, it will only be the second time in twelve years that a Dravid century will have not helped in a draw or victory. Many cricket teams would woo such a batsman; we take him for granted. The gap Dravid will leave may not be impossible to fill, for human beings are indispensable, but it will be difficult at the very least . Let us acknowledge at least that much for a man who is only behind Anil Kumble in the number of tests he has one won for India and behind nobody in terms of that inspiring whole-hearted dedication he brings to his job. The acknowledgement is long overdue.

Towards the 2000th test: Test Cricket and Life!

No where is test cricket more like life than in the lack of a standard recipe for success or an assumed reason for failure in it: for every elegant Ramprakash and flamboyant Kambli who has performed below credentials at this level, there has been a 'nudgy' Collingwood and an ugly Chanderpaul who has punched above his weights. The only thing that links the Waughs, Mark and Steve, is their bloodline; if anything the less 'talented' senior twin endured longer to be counted into the league of greatness, a courtship whose culmination though seemingly destined had to be worked hard for. Anil Kumble did not need to turn it like Murali and Warne to be a match-winner and sneak in - albeit a distant - third in the list of test cricket's all-time highest wicket takers. But when men with half Kumble's numbers are revered, we ought to acknowledge what Anil has done. Dale Steyn and Glenn McGrath could not be further apart, but ask any top-order batsman whether he'd like to face the two together: and if the reply is in the affirmative, he's probably had a slip of the tongue, is perhaps out of his wits, has taken the competitive spirit too far or does not know cricket.

Not that variety is a trend recently unleashed by the game's original and most hallowed format - one that outsiders and fans of the game's sibling formats alike frown upon. Malcolm Marshall was not possessed with the height of his illustrious colleagues, Holding, Garner and others, but he used the lack to become skiddy and even more dangerous. Today he's reckoned to be amongst the most complete fast bowlers the game has ever seen. And even before the famed Indian spin quartet shared the spoils in the 1970s and 1980s, it was actually a West Indian by the name of Lance Gibbs who became the first spinner to go past 300 wickets. From a land that would produce fast bowlers who personifed "terror and thunderbolts", Gibbs is deservingly a legend, one whose numbers remain untouched even today by spinners from the Caribean. Then there is the fairytale of a man from the Land of the Long White Cloud, which has arguably not had a matchwinner of his likes before or since: Sir Richard Hadlee's brisk swing bowling was not just poetry in its curves and prose in precision but also yielded 431 wickets in 86 games, a record only Muralidharan might want to tease. That Kapil Dev - even allowing for the fact that he was born in the sub-continent - took 34 more games to get there puts Hadlee's colossus in perspective. Nobody (until Dale Steyn) has come even remotely close in terms of consistency; and there has perhaps not been a more befitting knighthood in the game with the exception of Sobers. (And we are not even hinting at what Sir Richard was capable of with that bat!)

Batsmen would not want to be forgotten. After all, even in this day and age of flat pitches, batsman-friendly bowling rules and Virendra Sehwags, the bloke with the willow gets but a single chance. It is as unfair as it looks but so is life. You might have weathered a two-hour tempest of bouncers and outswingers, but may then end up hitting a rank long hop down the throat of the only man stationed at square leg - more out of convention than imagination - just like you may end up having an inopportune foot-in-the-mouth moment your friends and foes will never let you forget. You can mutter all you like - but only in the dressing room lest a ban should be imposed or the match fee docked. A batsman's vigil and its (anti)climax are life at its ironic (and arguably iconic) best: hard work is only part of it, one must have enough in the tank and mind to sustain the good ensured by the toils. Even that is not enough sometimes if fortune, regardless of its gender, decides to intervene: a generally fine umpire may not hear an inside edge that's loud as thunder and give you out. Like in life, you have to take it on your chin hoping that it evens out at the end of the day as Ian Chappell says. In many cases it does, in some cases it does not. The aggression found in the games of those like Sehwag and Sir Vivian Richard itself embodies those fortunes and misfortunes, simultaneously not making a fuss of either. The Tendulkars and the Laras impose themselves on what seems like a written script, trying valiantly - in attack or defence - to change their destiny and that of the men around them; not for them the resigned walk into the sunset because passiveness is a sin in the hall of greats. For guys like Laxman, Mark Waugh, Carl Hooper, Jayawardena and (I am told) Rohan Kanhai art is the finest means and the highest end where context has to often take a hike. And for those in the mould of Steve Waugh, Viswanath and Gavaskar every innings is like a fort that would be relinquished only over their dead bodies. For men like Boycott who obsessed about rising above their ranks, hours at the crease, like writing for some writers, fed into and fed off the ago. And magnanimously enough for a game that indulges these days in seeing the scoreboard run berserk, the Haydens and Sehwags have not made the Husseys and Dravids dispensable, which is the beauty of test cricket. Sir Donald Bradman was above them all, to the man. Some say Dr. W. G. Grace and Sir Jack Hobbs might have come close. Enough said, the little man from Adelaide remains the world's greatest cricketer - by a distance.

All-rounders are the most colourful breed of them all, more so because who qualifies as one seems to be a never-ending debate among fans, experts, journalists and cricketers alike. Is it someone who can scythe through sides with the ball and get a few runs with the bat? Or is it someone who can bat like a dream and bowl well enough to break partnerships? Are we not then being unfair to the Gilchrists, the Andy Flowers, the Matt Priors and Dhonis who, when they do not have their gauntlet in their hand, have pulled their teams out of trouble, forced the pace or saved a test match? Sir Garry Sobers and Jacques Kallis have been the finest in the illustrious club of those who could bat and bowl, their value to the game as a whole evidenced by the fact that no other cricketer has scored over 8000 runs and picked up over 200 wickets at over 50 (let alone 55) and under 35 respectively. Present-day New Zealand and West Indies may construct an entire team around a Kallis or Sobers, if they had one, but Daniel Vettori who recently called time on his role as New Zealand captain has been a pretty good all-rounder himself if we rightly shed the bias that tweakers should not be considered as incumbents in this particular list. Among the trio of Kapil Dev, Imran Khan and Sir Ian Botham who graced the game around the same time, the Englishman was probably the most complete all-rounder; yet both Kapil and Imran shared Botham's fierce hitting abilities as well as the precious skill to swing the ball. Imran - or Pakistan sides under him - should also be credited for giving reverse swing to the world, but for which test cricket in the sub-continent would be dead as death, an art whose left-arm practitioner and master at once was Wasim Akram, another fine character who may just make the all-rounder's spot - and more than just in today's Pakistan team.

Come the first test between India and England and test cricket would be two thousand matches old. And the prospect cannot be more mouth-watering for the showdown will be at the Head Quarters of Cricket, Lord's: one of the top two bowling attacks in the world, and in form, against the best batting line-up in the world. Can Anderson's out-swinger work wonders against Dravid and Laxman? Can Tremlett target Tendulkar and get him out? Will Kevin Pietersen, still not in the best of nick, turn things around and decide the issue in favour of the Union Jack? Will Ian Bell's dream-like run of form be thwarted by Ishant Sharma or Harbhajan Singh with the ball? Is Zaheer Khan going to call English batsmen, like a teacher calls rolls, and pick them up like he did last time India were there? Regardless of what happens, test cricket has already given the game's purists, aficionados and historians enough to cherish, deliberate, debate and come to terms with: from Bodyline to the post-26/11 Chennai test between England and India, from Warne's ball of the century to Lara's 400 not out, from Ambrose's routing of Australia and England to McGrath's "precise" hat-trick, from the great Australian and West Indian teams of the past to the wristy masters from the sub-continent, from ribs threatened by great fast bowlers to men who have bowled with bandaged jaws, we have seen shame, dedication, magic, flamboyance, aura, accuracy, arrogance, artistry, intimidation and courage. There have been deaths and near deaths too, and cricketers coming back to play for their country in the most challenging format after surving bomb blasts.

There will be those who think that watching a game for five days can only be a fool's idea of sport. May be, but no other game comes close to life more let alone mirror it (so Monsieur Shaw can, for a change, go and have cake). And because of that reason no game has brought, or can bring, character to the forefront better: over five days, you need everything from physical stamina to mental strength to commonsensical application to knowing when to relax and when to concentrate in order to survive and succeed. Not to forget a certain sense of equanimity if after five days you lose - and lose by a close margin like Australia did at Headingley five years ago. Converts are not sought, for test cricket is not a Faith. Beyond the wins, losses, draws and rare ties, it's a way of life. In its own way, as cricketers and cricket pundits might tell you, it is life.



A Fortress to Storm!

Fifteen years have gone but as with nightmares in general this one seems like it happened yesterday: Curtly - yes, Ambrose - and company blew India away on the final day as a  batting line up, with Azhar and Tendulkar in their prime and Ganguly, Laxman and Dravid on their way up, collapsed for 81 pursuing 120 at the Kensington Oval, Barbados. Sunil Gavaskar had reportedly looked at the pitch the night before the final day and wondered if the target was even attainable on it, let alone easily, against the Caribean pace attack which was still formidable if not invincible. The former Indian opener, who had been prolific against the likes of Holding, Garner, and Marshall, did not express his misgivings but they came true all right. It was the only test in the 1997 five-test series that did not have rains or a pointless surfeit of runs. West Indies took the series one-love and there was no love lost between the sides. It was Brian Charles Lara's first test as captain, as Walsh sat out due to injury. The Prince of Trinidad's initial taste of captaincy was as sweet as his initial taste of batting in international cricket had been. 

Five years on, the teams arrived again at Barbados in 2002. The Indians were, for once, one-nil up in an away series after some tight bowling had given them victory as light faded on the last day of the second test at Port-of-Spain, Trinidad. If the Indians had been buoyed by the scoreline, it did not show. In an irony of sorts, bitter for Indians it need not be said, the Indians were bowled out for 102 in the first innings - the zero and two transposing places compared to the score they had been set to win five years ago, also in the third test of that series. Half-centuries from Laxman and Ganguly in the second innings did only enough to make the WIndies bat for a second time but Mervyn Dillon, who picked up eight wickets in the match, had sealed its fate a minute into it when he bowled Shiva Sundar Das for a first-ball duck. After a drawn fourth test, which went on forever as tests do in Antigua, during which Laxman and Dravid opened their wickets' account and Ridley Jacobs, Chanderpaul and Hooper scored hundreds for the West Indies in the only innings they batted, the Indians flopped again in the fifth test at Kingston, Jamaica. The test is remembered for an open-ended sentence that had sadly become a refrain about Indian batting line-ups which always looked majestic on paper and were often crumpled like paper on the field by half-decent bowling attacks: if only India had batted for fifteen minutes... (for then the skies opened up and it seems it rained for a couple of days after that in Jamaica).

The 2006 series, which was decided 1-0 in favour of India in the final test at Kingston by Dravid's fine twin half-centuries and Kumble's grit with bat and ball, did not feature a test in Barbados.

Tomorrow, the Indians would once again set foot on Barbados to bury the ghosts of the past and try to beat West Indies on a ground that had been their fortress for many years. Even in home conditions, every team has something that is its backyard, a ground that visiting teams are in awe of having been called there as if to be summarily thumped: Barbados is West Indies' version of Perth (Australia), Durban (South Africa), Headingley (England) or Wellington (New Zealand). The home team would know that and even though they are weak they would want to exploit any remnant of a historical advantage there is.

 However, the Indians will be inspired both by their number one status, as opposed to the West Indies team's lowly number 8 ranking, as well as the home team's recent record at the ground. Since drubbing India, the West Indians have won only two of their eight games at the ground, drawn one and, more importantly, have lost to the better sides - England, Australia and South Africa. Besides, their bowling attack can be sharp on its day but is not one that will make a batsman lose sleep: considering that Fidel Edwards, their only genuine quick bowler, is coming of an injury, the task for the Indian batsmen would be a lot easier. Gayle's absence will also continue to emasculate the hosts and keep the visitors interested.

However, the Indians cannot afford to be complacent. A senior statesman like Rahul Dravid who has been there and done that would know that Indian cricket has seen many false dawns and do well to impress that upon his younger colleagues. Admittedly, the Indian teams of the last three or four years have been enormously consistent, so the alarm is, if anything, a cautionary note at best. And with a cool but no-nonsense man like M. S. Dhoni leading the team, the tyros would know that they cannot take anything for granted. That is just as well because the next five days represents India's best chance to win their first test at Barbados.

Three years ago, a resurgent Indian team stormed Perth after Sydneygate had laid them low, yet again snapping a winning streak the Australians sought to extend.  Back then, they had a gladiatorial man like Anil Kumble who led by example. Going into tomorrow, the Indians would look to a gentleman who loves the struggle, an artiste who would love to showcase some of his silk to fans in the Caribean before he signs off for one last time from the islands Columbus touched and a stoical captain who will tell them "to of course just go and enjoy the game." But winning it is not beyond Team India either.

The Power of Three!

Two test series in the Southern Hemisphere ended within a space of half a day at the behest of time zones. And here I was in the Northern Hemisphere trying desperately to look for similarities between the two. I got only as far as the word “historical”, as India drew their first ever series in South Africa and England won their first Ashes (series) away from home in twenty-four years, and gave up:

One was as tightly contested a test series as they come and the score line 1-1 was, I am sure even by the standards of most neutrals, fair. The only grudge was that here was another three-test series between the titans which appeared like an extended trailer in lieu of the blockbusting movie it should be. The other series was anything but a tight contest and at the end of it both the teams would have wondered if Perth was an aberration, the final throwback to a recent era of Australian dominance, or just comic relief. Despite the dissimilarities, the two series together gave us an idea of the teams to watch out for over the next two winters at least, and, perhaps, at most. While Australia plummeted from one low to another nadir with  the same sort of drastic and dramatic regularity they displayed while scaling those incredible highs, we realised not only that a once great team was now barely competent but also that the days when a single team dominated world cricket are all but over.

Although the Sri Lankan cricketers may demur and justifiably, what with the team never getting the share of test cricket it deserves, I firmly believe that England, South Africa and India are the top teams going around now and will be for a while. I am obviously restricting my view to test cricket for every other form of the game, including the upcoming ODI world cup which is likely to be a pointless ritual of batting practice with scorecards that might rival Manhattan intended to test who gets to snooze first on the ground, seems to be a mundane overdose.

If you ask me which among the three teams is the best, I would say the following: India (and it does not take great shakes to say so because they are ranked number one and have not lost a test series for a while and because I am an Indian); South Africa (purely based on the unbelievable bowling strength they have and a solid, if slightly nervous, batting line up) and England (for being arguably the most consistent team in the circuit).

Hair-splitting apart, I think England has an edge (don’t look at me like that for saying it, but the days when “edge” would have definitively referred to an English middle-order man’s bat are behind us!) simply because there is variety in the bowling department, doggedness and flourish with the bat, a gritty wicket-keeper batsman in Matt Prior and a coach who knows a thing or two more than others about wading through difficult water. Their bench strength is fabulous as well and all the mentioned pluses came together at different points in the Ashes where England played as single-mindedly and clinically as I have seen any team play in recent memory. Admittedly, the English dominance appeared exaggerated because of Australia’s at times painful – for the fan – otherwise wan struggle in choosing between explosion and implosion on the pitch, and some inexplicable selection bloopers off it which made one wonder at times whether the board in charge was the ACB or PCB. Owing to Australia’s mediocrity, I believe that the edge England has over India and South Africa is slight. Thankfully for them England understand that winning the Ashes in Australia is just the sort of prelude, albeit historical, to better things and not an end-all.

Among South Africa and India, South Africa is likely to have less worries; any team with an evidently ever-in-form – sometimes pretending-to-be-out-of-practice – Jacques Kallis and Dale Steyn is not bound to have too many headaches. But even apart from these too big names, who once again drilled their presence over the Indian team in the recently concluded series, the South Africans will be in good cheer. Although Kallis and Tendulkar had a stupendous 2010, made even more memorable by their age and longevity, Hashim Amla was for me the batsman of 2010. He scored runs everywhere, against all attacks and at first-drop, a tricky and challenging position to bat and one owned by greats such as Bradman, Ponting, Sangakkara and others: his three hundreds in the two test series against India in India last year with the twin hundreds Eden Gardens may be mistaken for the stuff of a marathon man than a simple shy Moslem from Natal. Smith and Petersen have formed a decent partnership upstairs; AB De Viliers scored South Africa’s best test score recently and is by no means old; and Mark Boucher’s return to form with the bat ticks most boxes for the Proteas.

The Indians on the other hand have more forebodings than their stoical skipper would care to admit: for me, the greatest of them is the over-reliance on Zaheer Khan which was abundantly on evidence during his absence in the first test at Centurion where the Indians bowled without heart, inspiration, swing or bowling commonsense. While Khan’s record of injuries is itself a source of concern and frustration for him and those around him, the team clearly needs a second spearhead. Harbhajan’s 7-120 at Newlands is a relief but I hope it spurs him on to be the leader of the attack in home conditions and a potent ally to quick men abroad. But the concern is, as it has always been in India, in the fast bowling department: for all that was said about him, Sreesanth was brilliant in South Africa but all with due respect I do not see his head being made for leading an attack. Ishant Sharma was disappointing to say the least and although the young man has time I hope, for his sake and the country’s, that he does not become another case of an Indian quick in the “what-might-have-been” category than the “what-is”.

From the batting perspective, some major surgeries are required: old age is India’s biggest problem and because it is an all-or-nothing issue piecemeal solutions will not thankfully last. At 37 Tendulkar had his best year in the decade, and while it is cause for celebrating the Master all over again it is also cause for concern. Dhoni said that “comebacks” are the stuff of this team but great teams do not put themselves in a backs-to-the-wall scenario three times in four tests. Each of those times, and once with an injury, it was Laxman who had to bail India out. Having a single bogeyman for all occasions does not augur well in a team sport. Despite his 192 and his palpable attempts to fight it out in South Africa, Dravid would know he had an ordinary year and that his records in South Africa and Sri Lanka, like Ponting’s and Warne’s averages an India and Sampras’ record at the French Open, would remain a blot: if it is not time to go yet, at least it is time for him to drop down the order. It is too early to judge Pujara or Raina but their ascent is going to be difficult. The only settled thing about this team is the opening pair, with Murali Vijay waiting in the wings with strong intermittent performances as well. Despite that little consolation, India may be headed half-way to the sort of place the Australian batting place was in during the Ashes – and rest assured, it will not be a good place to be.

Apparently, India play tests in four more continents this year, including Europe, America and Australia. For this team, or at least its three elderly statesmen, this represents the best chance to win matches in a row in varied conditions and show that there is more to the No. 1 ranking than ICC’s method, which with reference to most things (apart from perhaps the UDRS), borders on madness. I do not know about South Africa and England’s schedules but one can be sure that they will be at India’s heels, chipping away.

Barring the four intolerable months that will be spent in the sub-continent in determining the best team in the world in 50 over cricket and then the best Indian-by-name-but-international-by-names team in IPL, under conditions that might make dry bread look more appetising than it ever was, the year promises fascinating cricket for the purists. And something tells me that India, South Africa and England will not remain as close this time next year. If they do, they will have played some unbelievable test cricket which will of course be brilliant for test cricket and for fans of test cricket like me who want it do far more than just survive as a residue of the game's glorious evolution.

A Tasmanian Titan: Ricky Ponting!

Inspiration is often derived from leaders. But to construe inspiring as an objective of leading is to miss the point. And it is precisely in this context that followers of Australian cricket probably put Steve Waugh in the list of its greatest and finest captains even as Ricky Ponting is given his due grudgingly especially by followers of the Australian team outside of Australia. Those who compare Waugh’s tough but honest ways and Ponting’s victory-at-all-costs approach put the New South Welshman in the “fair” category and Ponting in the “unfair” category.

Ask any Indian, and he will swear by the senior Waugh twin’s name just as he will swear against Ponting. Sydneygate is just one of those nasty sporting episodes that went too far and any skipper would have been made to look like a goose: that Ponting refused to back down made him appear more so. Ponting (and in his company others) might have been wrong as South – and they have never claimed to be saints – but to fail to give the little Tasmanian his due wholeheartedly using the fairness argument seems to be a subversion of fairness. Indeed, this author believes firmly in fair play himself and can possibly never love Ponting. One should not however forget that sport owes its remarkable richness to the variegations of its characters.

And discounting the rise of Ponting from being Tasmania’s blessed but notorious prodigal son to the leader of the finest one-day and test teams in Australian cricket history is to miss an important chapter in all cricketing history. Every great has had a failing: Tendulkar’s has been, till recently, his inability to complete matches; Lara’s reportedly was selfishness; Bradman missed the immortal 100 as average by 0.6 but he missed it all right; Ponting’s crime evidently is that he has been ruthlessly single-minded in charge of world beaters who shared the vision with fixity. And it is a better crime than having a soft underbelly like some Indian teams of the past.

When Ponting broke through with 96 about fifteen years ago at the WACA against Pakistan, he was already touted to be one of Australia’s future greats. But not every young genius deals with early accolades with the shoulders of a giant like Tendulkar did. One of the reasons why the Indian Little Master is revered the world over has to do with the poise with which he has kept the extra-cricket elements he has received through cricket away from his game, thereby being wedded to it and it shows in his staggering consistency. Lara’s career which concurred with a period of petty politicking in Windies cricket that ultimately affected the players, however, swung between the sublime and the subterranean, often within the same series. Ponting’s issues were off the field. Alcohol is no alien to a Punter nicknamed so on purpose and did its job; the Australian skipper, I still remember, even got a black eye once. But rather than dilly-dallying like Jesse Ryder, the New Zealand left-hander who has himself dealt with issues relating to alcohol lately, Ponting came out, confessed his vulnerability, worked his way out of it, married a lawyer and took charge of his life. And as the new millennium arrived, Ponting’s fitness in the field and hunger for runs were already eliciting comparisons respectively with Jonty Rhodes and contemporary Herschelle Gibbs and Lara and Tendulkar. Some would die to be compared with the likes of those for just a day; Ponting has managed to keep the comparisons going, often rising about them, for a better part of his tremendous career.

His fiasco against the Turbunator in the epoch-making 2001 series in India, a place where he has not set the scores ringing, was an aberration and he made up taking toll of bowling attacks round the world making big runs when Australia needed it the most. Arch-foes England met a new Ashes champion, one who would by the play of irony be the first captain to concede the Ashes (possibly thrice) in several years, and had no responses but nor did the Indians. To sum up the World Cup 2003 finals was a no-brainer: Ponting (who was already skipper of the one-day team) launched a blitz that left India clueless. Harbhajan Singh was particularly mauled and revenge was sweet. And though India drew the historical Steve Waugh farewell series later in the year, Ponting was thick with runs becoming the first Australian since Bradman to score consecutive double hundreds.

Through the rest of the decade, leading upto 2008 Ponting played many other stellar innings besides pouching catches – at gully, the slips, point, and just about anywhere – he was not supposed to take and hitting the stumps with staggering consistency. The need to review Ponting’s runs assumes significance because it is said that a leader is only as good as his team. Half a Ponting would still have led Australia to the 2007 Ashes whitewash, the 2003 and 2007 World Cup wins or a number of other triumphs which I forget because of the consistency with which victories came for the Australian juggernaut. Messieurs Warne, Hayden, Langer, Martyn, McGrath and Gilchrist are not names that need to be led. But Ponting still towered in a team of greats by being the team’s best batsmen. That he scored his runs at number 3, played only in fourth gear and was still prolific meant that Ponting was the opposition’s most prized wicket, the noughties’ highest run scorer and world’s most prolific number 3 in terms of runs and second only to Bradman in averages.

And now the great run machine is on the wane; or perhaps as the soothsayers, naysayers and associates say, he has waned. It is hard to blame the factions from which those whispers come: after all, they have high-credentialled names like Ian Chappell. Grapevine and the media, and it is difficult to fathom whether they are different these days, say that Ponting may call time if they strip him of the captaincy. Ponting has an ego the size of the international batting colossus he has built but the problem is that the ego was fed by the very runs that fortified it.

The colossus sadly does not seem like Work in Progress anymore. Its construction struck everyone with awe and may soon stand “completed” for everyone to stand and judge. Ponting as the world and its uncle knows has never been a master strategist as a captain and his lack of runs have therefore been doubly accentuated. Unlike India where Dravid, another fabulous number three who seems to be going nowhere with his mind or runs, has managed to hold onto the wreckage, Australia will not give a magnanimous rope and Ponting who has emerged from and lived with the hardnosed system will know it better than most.

That his runs have reduced to drips when the rest of the batting line-up, barring to some extent Hussey senior, Haddin and Shane Watson, too is in introspection mode has made Ponting’s insipid run-scoring phase seem balder for not long ago did Ponting score those fine fighting half-centuries in India or the brisk 50-odd in the second innings of the first Ashes test at Brisbane. With Ponting staring at the third Ashes defeat as a captain and the first at home – and Ashes Echoes has it that neither is simply another dubious distinction to be forgotten with time like King Pairs or having a Chris Martin batting average –, the drought seems even more cruel especially as Ponting’s young opposite number keeps Trotting along, almost making it seem like the Aussie bowling is a feast for him. But such is the irony and ire that sport is ordained. To not await the destiny and deal closure speaks of prudence; to stay on, linger and change it is fortune that a few – like Tendulkar or Muralidharan – are blessed with; for the rest, the ending is grey and dragged out, a nostalgic reproduction of glimpses of a golden age rather than the spontaneous sunshine of fluency.

Only the most absurd optimist or skewed mystics who can make rains can prevent England retaining the urn at the end of the Boxing Day test. Even if that happens, there is no assurance Australia will win at Sydney; Perth last week already seems like a hyperbolic fluke and a rude joke played on the Australians. To cut it short, Ponting’s undeniably superb legacy as a captain is all but lost: he will be remembered not as the guy who supervised a 5-0 Ashes whitewash of England but as the man who lost the campaign thrice not least because the human memory is fickle and remembers only the most recent tidings. But Ponting’s batting legacy should not be lost in a heist of commonsense or bitterness. Whether the Sydney test is Ponting’s finale or the beginning of the end only time and selectors can tell.

Eventually, Ponting’s end will come. Steve Waugh once said that Ponting would overtake Tendulkar’s hundreds. To even spare a thought to that prediction evokes titters or tears now – as the case may be – but Waugh would not have foreseen either Tendulkar’s incredible second wind or Ponting’s simultaneous autumn. And armed with a technique that could charitably be described as grotesque, Ponting would not find his place in the list of the game’s graceful greats either. We have spoken enough of his charred legacy as a skipper and his lack of popularity as a player. All the same, Ricky Ponting’s cricket at its peak was aggressive, forthright and single-minded, qualities which characterise the Australian landscape. He may not be missed in due course even by the Australian team for dispensability is taken too literally in sport. And irrespective of when the sun sets over Ponting’s extraordinary career, the little Tasmanian’s membership in the company of the world’s greatest batsmen is a formality now as it has been for some years. Gainsaying his greatness – with or without a #Pontingface – would amount to the gainsayer’s being diagnosed with cricket’s own strain of partial amnesia.

Cricket in Hong Kong and a pre-Boxing Day Roundup!

There are so many things that are so quintessential about India that even when doses of these are lacking elsewhere we Indians find it quite unfathomable. Cricket is one such thing. Nine years ago when I visited Hong Kong, the SAR which had been taken back into the Chinese fold only three years ago did not know what cricket was. After searching for EA Sports’ 1997 Cricket Video game at more than five shops – in as many parts of town – my father and I came to the convincing and arguably only conclusion that even if they had it they would not know it because the locals reacted as if they did not know the name of the game. It might as well have been a game played by the insect breed called cricket. Coverage of cricket in the media was sparse: newspapers occasionally carried a report and the TV news next to nothing.

Eight years on, something seems to have changed. A local English newspaper called The Hong Kong Standard has on four of the last six days carried cricket-related news – from Australia’s and South Africa’s triumphs in their previous test matches against England and India respectively, to Tendulkar’s 50th ton in test cricket and return to the Indian one-day team to other bits of trivia. Admittedly, these news items are sometimes briefer than the blurb of a novel but there is something for those interested. The English news at 9:30 on TVB Pearl has also been airing cricket-related news including a few seconds of video clippings or images.

Whether cricket’s finding a place in the local news is a result of the game’s increased popularity among countries outside the nine test-playing ones courtesy formats like Twenty20 or an impact of probable requests from Indian and Pakistani populace in this part of the world or Hong Kong’s own interest in the game – what with its participating in the Asia Cup before the last one and the Hong Kong sixes’ tourney attracting its own share of ‘A’ teams from various cricketingly old parts of the world – is unclear to me and remains to be seen.

And what a season the ongoing one is for cricket too! I had predicted Australia to take the Ashes purely on the overwhelming merit of the robust argument that Australians at home are impregnable like India and South Africa. Pietersen, Cook and Company, however, made me do a pirouette only for Mitchell Johnson on a comeback trail – assisted by Ryan Harris – to give Australia a stunning series levelling victory at Perth. Whether the Perth victory has turned the series on its head only history will tell. From Australian teams of the past the Adelaide loss would merely have been an aberration and for English teams from the past the Perth loss might have been the putting-them-in-their-places summary ritual. But this England team under Strauss will emerge strongly after the stinker at Perth and the Australians though riding high will still have to play unrelenting cricket to regain the urn. With two tests to play and everything to play for, my prediction currently is on an English win or a series draw which would mean than the Britons would take the trophy back home.

As far as India’s performance at Centurion goes the lesser that is said the better. Surely, Dhoni has to find a way to win tosses for currently he finds it as impossible as making his batting appear attractive. The skipper’s most recent wrong call at the toss made sure that the first day of the series was touch-and-go death for the Indians especially against the likes of Steyn and Morkel. But there can be no excuses for getting bowled out for 136; if the much-vaunted batting line up had aggregated half its career average India would have still scraped 200. The bowling performance that ensued might have convinced everyone that a somnolent club side was bowling, only that it was the world’s No.1 side in the absence of one of its strike bowlers. The shoddy showing with the ball betrayed the unhealthy dependence there has been on Zaheer Khan at home and away since Kumble’s retirement three summers ago. After Amla, Kallis and AB De Viliers took toll on the generous Indian offerings, despite the second innings grit from the Indian top order, which was heartening to watch, Tendulkar’s 50th test century and Dhoni’s fine twin efforts – in my opinion his two best outings in tests alongside the match-saving and eventually series-winning second innings 78 he made at Lord’s in 2007 – the match was headed only one way and there it ended. Indians, everyone has been saying, lost another first test and have to play catch-up. But they did not deserve to win. In the meantime, another colossal Dravid achievement was written into the footnotes where it is probably likely to remain with other similar achievements half-forgotten, never to be tickled – his 12,000th run in test cricket. That he could not save the match for the side and got out with his tally on 12000 would have hurt him more than others but that is besides the point. As Harsha Bhogle rightly points out here is yet another case of Indian fans failing to recognise a champion because he has been content to perform and let the “performers” take the spotlight.

The Boxing Day test matches promise to be crackers. The one at the Melbourne Cricket Ground will be closely contested for all money but whether the match at Kingsmead (Durban) will be or not depends a lot on the mindset with which Indians look to the game. Zaheer Khan’s return bolsters the side but the other bowlers need to support Khan ably. And with Durban probably being the fastest deck in the world at the moment, the batsmen need to come good. Sehwag’s runs in the second innings of the previous test augurs well for we know that if he stays for any length of time the opposition will be on the back foot. But if India even fancies squaring the series, the team needs to do more than just depend on certain individuals and find out a way to blood into the unit the espirit de corps that was on display in Australia in 2003 and England 2007 and more recently against Australia at home and Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka. After all, great teams do not have One General for all crises, but several loyal footmen who can respond to the call at different times. All of India’s batsmen have rallied in the recent times. It is now a question of playing the game rather than the conditions or the names of opposition bowlers and hoping that Zak and Co can get twenty sticks in five days.

Why Ashes Exemplifies Test Cricket?

When aficionados of the game keep harping on the need for test cricket to survive, fans of the game’s most recent versions tend to disagree. And more often than not, they probably think that the support for test cricket is just the indelible quaintness of a few jobless old men who cannot change with changing times. But nothing could be furthest from the truth. Although the recently concluded test match between England and Adelaide was one-way traffic most of the way, and unusually against Australia which is becoming fairly usual of late giving Australian selectors a lot of headache, the primacy of a series like the Ashes and the passions involved in pursuing the elfin urn are unmatched in world cricket. And in more ways than one, the continued fanfare behind world cricket’s oldest and greatest rivalry suggests why test cricket is treated as THE pinnacle by cricketers and purist fans alike even if it is unarguably on the wane.

In 2005 Kasprowicz and Brett Lee almost took Australia home at Headingley from an impossible scenario only to see Geraint Jones pouch a low leg-side feather of Kasper to leave Australia stung and stunned. In 2006 three Australian giants – Glenn McGrath, Matthew Hayden and Shane Warne – sought the most supreme revenge: they aimed 5-0 and gave it to the Englishmen. Adelaide was what hurt most. After 500-odd in the first innings which was bettered by the Kangaroos, England collapsed in a third innings effort akin to Australia’s own three years ago against Ajit Agarkar and Company. England returned the compliments at home in 2008 but not nearly with the same kind of comprehensiveness with which Australia had done two seasons ago. Come 2010. Come Adelaide and Irony. Come Cook, Pietersen, Anderson and Bell. This time the men from the Isles ensured that they did not even leave a window ajar to tempt fate.The rest is silence as the Bard would say.

Ponting said after the Oval defeat in 2008 that he wanted his players to sit around and feel the pain as Strauss held the coveted urn. With an inconsistent batting line-up and his own form hitting different scales in the batting barometer and a bowling line-up that has looked more like an automatic bowling machine, Ponting’s burning desire seems to be headed nowhere but to hard rocks right now. But no one-day tournament or T20 affair is distinguished by such fierce ambitions. Ponting brought his men to India recently with the same firmness of thought as well but his team, with the exception of Watson and himself, let him down. BCCI’s own daft last-minute scheduling of test matches supplanting one-day internationals, something that would have been unheard of three years ago, betray a blatant intention to help India retain the numero uno ranking in tests. For once, a parochial end has crystallised into noble means which can only be good for test cricket. The upcoming three test battle between India and South Africa in the latter’s backyard is therefore more than just a contest between test cricket’s current number 1 and number 2. Based on the quality of the cricket that will be played, which as a test cricket fan I hope is excellent, the series like the Ashes will once again define the stature and significance of test cricket.

Despite lobbying for test cricket as proudly and as vociferously as I do, I can sympathise with test cricket’s haters and detractors. For starters, the game in its essence is still more to do with attrition than adrenaline and  attraction which characterise T20 and to some extent one-day cricket. Given that tastes are a product of our times, the dwindling lack of support for the game’s oldest format which dates back to more than a 120 years is hardly surprising. Furthermore, batsmen-friendly pitches are mushrooming all over the world: from Ahmedamad to Lahore to SSC to Adelaide Oval to Antigua there are grounds which are notorious for helping teams remain 1500-5 in the first innings if they want to keep batting. The growing insipidity of pitches coupled with the presence of uncluttered aggressors like Sehwag and the advent of a more swashbuckling style of playing which has been imported into tests as well from the shorter versions of the game has meant that the noughties was the most batsman-dominated decade since the post-war 1940s. How much ever one loves a Tendulkar or a Ponting or a Sangakkara, seeing runs amassed by the truckloads even as wickets come at a premium leaves one tired or at least to search for the remote controller to switch channels.

Such poor recommendations for test cricket apart, it is still the highest form of the game and arguably the most challenging and therefore the most gratifying. For me personally, the love of test cricket has to do with the parallels I have always been able to drawn between that and life. Fans from other sports, or for that matter of other formats of the game, taunt test cricket with the rhetorical question: which other sport is played over five days? The perception is that test match cricket is lazy and is watched and played by the supremely bored. However, I beg to disagree on the point.

Cricket in general may involve less athleticism than, let’s say, football or tennis but success in test cricket involves as much a battle of wits as guts and over long periods of time. A team that wins a session cannot afford to be complacent; and a team that has been steamrolled one-day cannot afford to have hangovers when they walk into the field the next day for to do so would be to seduce ruins. This is similar to everyday life where as someone said: success is not final, failure is not fatal, it is the will to go on that counts! Nothing exemplifies the point in sport better than test cricket and perhaps Tour de France, both requiring sustained endurance, focus and application of skill. When the skies are overcast and the pitch has a sprinkling of grass, the batsmen ought to be smart enough to give the first few hours to the bowlers as Gavaskar said. And when the pitch is flat and the sun is shining, the bowlers need to think on their feet, cut down on pace, conserve energy and maintain discipline. The upshot is that test cricket involves more than just outwitting and outlasting your opposition over longer periods of time; it also entails wrestling conditions on a regular basis and hence the tag “test”.

Michael Bevan was – and probably remains – unrivalled in the one-day game as a finisher but the fact that he is never mentioned in the same breath as a Tendulkar, Ponting, Waugh, Lara or an Inzamam has to do with the records the latter players have in the game’s long format. The Honours’ List at various stadia in England highlights bowlers who have taken five-fors in tests but not, to my knowledge, one-day cricket. While this is not intended to depreciate the value of cricket played in coloured clothes under floodlights, which has definitively more entertainment value and is required to take the game to territories beyond the boundaries within which it is currently played, it says something about the continued prestige test cricket holds among the Establishment and players.

The worrying signs are, however, obvious. For every Ashes series or an India-Australia contest or a series in New Zealand or South Africa, there are a number of pointless test series that are played out under shockingly batsman-friendly conditions. India-Sri Lanka cricket meetings have become more like bet matches between suburban neighbourhoods. It is therefore not a joke when someone says that these matches hold no spectator interest which is important for the survival of test cricket. Cricket boards in countries like India, Pakistan, West Indies and Sri Lanka have to take a call on some of their test match grounds and pitches: sorry, no cricket fan in his right mind can take a 750-5 anymore even if his own team is batting. Furthermore as Harsha Bhogle said on twitter recently, test cricket needs to be played in centres which have a longstanding tradition of cricketing culture and appreciation for the game: Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata, Bombay, New Delhi and Kanpur are some places in India that come to mind. One-dayers and T20s can be given to the other centres. This way test cricket is ensured its share of interested attendees but every important city – and its cricket board – gets its share of cricketing entertainment as well. So much can be done if responsible minds do some brainstorming and apply their thoughts to actions. This is integral if test cricket needs to do more than just survive as a residue in the subcontinent.