Let's talk about Duncan and Mickey

It has been my contention for years that good cricket coaches, however skilled at man management and however charismatic, do not build great teams. Rather it is team performance, as Ian Chappell asserts here, which makes a coach look good or bad. One can even repudiate the other generally accepted claim that great teams often make strategically average captains look great while bad teams can make good tacticians look ordinary, because captains can still alter the game with bat or ball in hand. Coaches though neither score runs, nor take wickets, and their fates are shaped by the performances of the people taking the field. I am sure both Mickey Arthur and Duncan Fletcher know that.  

With the Indian team winning the Champions Trophy, following their comprehensive decimation of Australia 4-0 at home, the volatile Indian fan and media might finally accept Duncan Fletcher as a good coach, having raised a united call for his axing after India went down 2-1 in the home Test series versus England last year. In sharp contrast to Fletcher, Micky Arthur, who had presided over Australia's 4-0 'whitewash' of India in 2011-12 - and a not far from honourable 1-0 loss to the number one-ranked South African team at home in 2012 - finds himself ousted, allegedly for things deeper than on-field results. If things had been smooth on the field, however, it would be difficult to see Cricket Australia sacking their head coach, especially two weeks before the Ashes, regardless of certain players' off-field shenigans. My take, and it is a commonsense one, is that the ebbing and flowing of the Indian and Australian national teams' fortunes have had far more to do with the fact that these teams are in transition rather than the credentials or the capability of the men coaching - or, if you like the corporate-sounding football term, managing - them. 

First, consider India's showing Downunder in 2011-12 - assuming , rather preposterously, that their 4-0 Test series loss in England was an aberration caused by the injury to one Zaheer Khan - which was a non-showing, except for Virat Kohli's belated less-than-consolation hundred at Adelaide, and Zaheer Khan's incisive spells with the new ball throughout the series.  During the course of it, Laxman forgot he was playing (in) Australia for a change. Dravid found new ways of getting bowled.  Tendulkar, for all the sweet contraries his fans would sell you, did not look like getting anything substantial after his tantalising piece at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Sehwag got out more than he batted. Gambhir, except for a counterattacking 80-odd at Sydney, kept courting first, second, third slips and gully, in turns. 

A contest that was billed as the battle between India's batting masters and Australia's young battery of fast men was reduced to an Australian parade, just after the third afternoon of the Boxing Day Test .You could argue that it was Fletcher's fault that the team never played Rohit Sharma, who has been backed by Ian Chappell for years, and who could not have returned worse performances with the bat than Dravid, Laxman or Sehwag did during the series. However, to suggest that that non-decision was responsible for India's hiding is like saying that an absent star in the sky was responsible for someone's breaking up with their spouse. The point is this was a team whose batting spine had displayed clear signs of frailty and ineptitude in England; in Australia, the spine was clinically dismantled by a set of young bowlers who were mean, accurate and genuinely quick. 

If India's problem in Australia was a batting engine approaching its last miles, Australia's problem when they reached India in 2013 was a batting engine, whose parts were still getting adjusted towards working together: even Michael Clarke was not sure what his best position was in the Hussey-less, Ponting-less batting order until the third Test came around. And lo, how the Indian and media fans loved to see the Australian batsmen fail - revenge they called it, never mind M.S. Dhoni does not believe in revenge in sport - and how we tittered when the 'homework-gate' added to our fun! 

The series in India was, in almost every way, the hosts' perfect reply to the series they had played in Australia: Clarke's hundred in the first Test at Chennai was Australia's only three figure score just like Kohli's was India's lone ton in the 2011-12 Australian summer; all the big scores - including two double hundreds - were recorded by Indian batsmen here, while Clarke had plundered a double hundred followed by a triple to add to Ponting's double there; and as James Pattinson toiled alone in the Indian heat, one remembered Zaheer Khan's masterful swing bowling which came to no avail, thanks to some ordinary back-up bowling and defensive field placements from a captain who looked like he had the flight home in mind half-way into the series. Australia failed to win /draw a Test in India like India had in Australia. However, to blame Mickey Arthur for the capitulation of an Australian team without the services of two of its premier batsmen, both experienced in subcontinent conditions, any experienced  spinner and, in hindsight, fast bowlers who knew how to restrict local stroke makers on Indian patches, is grossly unfair.

Ironically, the two teams had found opposite paths to disaster: the Indians had taken too old a team to Australia - thanks to the Kris Srikkanth-led selection committee which was blind to the portents sprinkled during the England summer in 2011 - and lost badly. The Australians, compelled by retirements, had fielded a team with many fledglings an India, a formidable assignment even in this age of great hotels, dependable food and the IPL, and were served a taste of their (once) own medicine. One team suffered due to lack of succession planning; the other languished because of the lack of skill and wisdom in players who replaced Ponting and Hussey, especially in conditions so different from home. Even Shakuni, I think, would have struggled to have much impact as a coach under such circumstances.

Those in favour of great coaches may point to moments such as V.V.S Laxman's promotion in the Eden Test - the match that redefined Indian cricket for many - in which John Wright reportedly had a say. However, not often are batsmen with a Test average of under 35 promoted from number 6 to first-drop on the basis of a first-innings half century, and not often do they come off in as spectacular a fashion as Laxman did. While Wright must indeed be credited for trusting his instinct in a sport where everything is sadly becoming organised to the point of appearing pointless, it is Laxman who vindicated his coach's gamble. In essence, coaches and man-managers can appear like messiahs if their players deliver on the field. On the contrary, they can be made to look stupid and alien, as Mickey Arthur has been, even as the unsmiling Duncan enjoys an extended run with the men in blue. I wonder what Shane Warne thinks about it all. 

Team loyalty in the IPL

It is that time of the IPL when all except the fans of Chennai Super Kings are partly bored and only partly curious about their favourite team's prospects for the last four. The time is, therefore, politic to examine what the construct favourite team means in the context of a franchise-based tournament. While I have been interested on the topic of fan loyalty in T20 leagues for a while, the Mumbai crowd's partisan booing of Virat Kohli recently, Kohli's riposte to the same - Gayle's defence of his RCB captain in a newspaper article - a follow-up discussion on the huddle and this engaging piece by Samit Chopra which juxtaposes regional rivalries, unearthed by the IPL, against national rivalries, have all acted as triggers for this piece.

In its sixth edition, the IPL has mainly attracted two types of emotional loyalty from fans towards teams if discussions on social media and what I have heard from friends are anything to go by. The first type of loyalty is region-specific, CSK, MI and RCB fans being die-hard representatives of it. The second type of loyalty is determined by whether a fan's favourite (generally international) players form the core of a specific franchise. My own support of Rajasthan Royals, for example, has  to do with the fact that the team is skippered by Rahul Dravid, one among my favourite cricketers of all time. 

In terms of numbers, fans with a regional bent, I think, greatly outnumber those who root for teams in which their favourite stars play. The trend is unsurprising for at least two reasons. First, identification with a regional team is arguably more spontaneous, and is perhaps subconsciously grounded on extra-cricketing factors such as linguistics and culture. CSK's whistlepoDu, for example, is a quintessential Tamil chorus in favour of a team that is captained by a man from Ranchi; is led by a Western Australian with the bat; has a West Indian as its best all-rounder; and is coached by a Kiwi. Second, regional loyalties are, by their very nature, not fickle. They are only strengthened if teams retain their core group of players for any length of time, as has been done by the Mumbai Indians and the Chennai Super Kings. 

In sharp contrast to regional loyalty, player-based loyalty is more liable to change as cricketers get transferred from one franchise to another. While established internationals, likely to have a stronger following, are in theory less likely to be transferred than tyros, there are always exceptions like Ross Taylor, currently with Pune Warriors India, having got there from Royal Challengers Bangalore (three seasons), Rajasthan Royals (one season) and Delhi Daredevils (one season, in 2012). To push through an outlandish comparison, just like there are "team players" and "individuals", there seem to be team fans and fans of individual players. The two factions are not easily distinguishable in the international circuit where nationality trumps sub-national differences (Tendulkar's and M.S. Dhoni's fans excepted). They are more visible in a local league, which, for all its glitz, money and star power, is what the IPL is.

Whichever way fans are divided, the fact there is division must delight those who have a stake in the IPL - advertisers, broadcasters, BCCI, regional cricket associations and the lot - because it shows that people care. And while views from England about the IPL, especially from the pro-cricket establishment circles, is less than encouraging, one must acknowledge that the league offers the neutral cricket-lover something as well. Watching Dale Steyn steam in to Chris Gayle with 21 needed off a super over is a thrilling micro-contest even without context. Seeing Ponting and Tendulkar punch gloves (never mind they have done little else) is the stuff of which fans' dreams are made. And seeing Dhoni take teams apart in the home stretch of games though predictable - and irritating, because nobody seems to have a viable counter-plan - ensures people on seats in stadia and in front of the telly.

I do have my issues with the IPL, the duration of the tourney, the mute-worthy commentary in the games and the off-field machinations not being the least of them. I still look forward to the Australian cricketing summer every year, am in love with the rhythms of Test cricket, and believe that batsmen around the world will be the better for county stints. I would, therefore, not miss the League if it were to stop existing overnight. However, it appears that the IPL has come to stay. The tournament is more than tolerable for the moment, the cricket in it mostly good and at times superb.
 

Ponting's Last Bow!

It is likely that two Pontings have  burned themselves for all time into the minds of Indian cricket fans the world over. And what contrasting Pontings they are: the batsman who wrested a World Cup finals from the opposition by half-time with an innings for the gods (no pun intended!); the man who was part - and some say at the very heart - of the controversies following the Sydney Test. My favourite Ponting, however, batted in another game where India was again the opposition. Australia arrived at the World Cup 2011 Quarter Finals in Ahmedabad having just lost their first Cup game since 1999, not nearly the force they were in the previous decade; nor was Ricky Ponting the free-spirited audacious willow wielder of his formative years. Yet, playing within himself, he scored a century characterised by such grit and self-restraint that I couldn't but help applaud the innings.

It was like seeing an undemonstrative skipper stand firm on a sinking ship, his commitment writ large in his eyes and his purposefulness at the crease. He would inevitably leave, too, but not until he had seen others go, and not after he had given his best. It is difficult to like Ponting, or, for that matter, even admire him. By some reckonings, including that of the late Peter Roebuck, he played the game too hard. However, now that he is set to leave international cricket , I recall with fondness how his strength complemented, and did not emerge in spite of, vulnerability during that match at Ahmedabad.  It was a Ponting we were not used to, self-aware, controlled and deep; it was, dare I say, if only for a few moments, an endearing Ponting.

Ponting's no-nonsense approach to cricket - not for nothing is he called the most uncompromising player of his generation - and his adamant desire to win matches for Australia have been criticised by fans and experts alike. His own personality - his nickname, his mischievous laughter which become it, and his brashness - might have contributed to the scathing judgments. It is also not outlandish to surmise that Ponting was as an Australian captain compared, especially by non-Australians, to his predecessor Steve Waugh, the most unyielding man to have walked the cricket field, but a gentleman revered by many. Unsurprisingly, he lost out more as a man than as a captain in popular opinion.

Ponting was never a master strategist either, a fact that Ian Chappell repeatedly accentuated at many points during his captaincy tenure, though he did not need to be with the teams he commanded. Still,  he led from the front with the bat, like Michael Clarke and Alastair Cook today,  both setting up and winning games for Australia, always talking and playing an aggressive game. The fact that he is the only cricketer to have been part of 100 Test victories is a telling statistic, arguably the most relevant number in a team game. It will probably stay perched alongside 99.94, a hundred international hundreds and 800 International Wickets at least till the end of my lifetime.

The biggest blot in Ricky Ponting's fine CV will undoubtedly be the 'A' word. Such is the importance of the Anglo-Australian rivalry in cricket, even during these times when the sub-continent (read 'India') virtually runs the sport, that he will likely be remembered as the captain who lost three Ashes including, criky, one at home. I wonder if generations hence Australia's 5-0 bossing  of England in 2007 -  the series which was to be Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Justin Langer and Damien Martyn's last- would be mentioned in the same breath as the three defeats that Ponting presided over as an Ashes captain.

Many of us were thrilled at the end of the 2010-2011 Ashes: the magisterial Aussies had been brought to earth in their own den. For the Australian cricket team, a Test-series loss to England at home was, perhaps, a fitting final scene in a climactic decline that had taken years coming. Ponting himself had turned in only one half-century in the series whilst Trott and Cook topped the run charts. For once, the Australian cricket team and the pugnacious Australian skipper had both been subdued by an England team at the height of its powers and a perfectly conceived - and executed - campaign, once they ensured that the loss at Perth was no less than a note of caution against complacency; no more than an aberration.

The tidings of 2011 - the Ashes loss, the handover of captaincy to Michael Clarke, the continued struggled for form in South Africa and the drop from no. 3 to no. 4 -  must surely have hurt Ponting. However, just when it seemed like he might see sense in the calls for retirement, he warmed (to) the 2011-12 home summer against India with a couple of 60's against some ill-conceived short-pitched bowling that fed his famous pull. There was a poignant moment as he, then, brought up a statuesque hundred at the Sydney Cricket Ground: Rahul Dravid, who who had been encouraged by Ponting to keep at it during lean times, applauded the reemergence of a fellow great to form. Ponting then returned to Adelaide Oval, and turning the clocks backwards,  produced a fluent double-hundred, his second there against India as Australia made a clean sweep of the series. Emboldened by the reversal in his and the team's fortunes, he was arguably justified in having an eye on next year's back-to-back Ashes. What better than a last stand with a bat against the arch-rival, the competitive voice inside would have said. Unfortunately that is not to be as the voice has not been able to arrest his waning form against a high-class South African pace attack.

Ponting may yet have a fairytale ending where it all began with a 96 on debut versus Sri Lanka. A hundred at the WACA would be a perfect end to a career that has seen three World Cup triumphs (one more World Cup final) , and has helped the Australian team stay at the top of the ODI and Test rankings for many years. On the other hand, Ponting may be content with a couple of his casual blinders in the slips if that takes Australia to victory and returns it as the top Test team in the world again. One can, however, rest assured that South Africa will come hard at him. I wish, for once, that Ricky hits back harder and walks back to a standing ovation, his bat held aloft, not just in acknowledgement but also to celebrate a final accomplishment.

Well-timed, Mr. Ponting, and very well played!

Au Revoir, Laxman!

The Australians are a miserly lot when it comes to giving credit and Australian cricketers are particularly grumpy. So, when they expanded V. V. S to Very Very Special, one couldn't but help but take notice. And when no less a judge than Ian Chappell heaps generous praise on someone you know you are watching something seriously special. 

Hereabouts is a man who opened the batting before the turn of the millennium, and scored 167 out of 260-odd at Sydney when the proverbial Indian touring ship was sinking and burning. Two years later, he stepped out to Shane Warne bowling round the wicket, and drove him between mid-off and extra cover en route to 281 in (unarguably) the greatest innings played by an Indian in Test cricket. (Even the gentlemen at Wisden found it worthy enough to be ranked as the sixth best innings played in the long format). Back at Sydney in 2004, he 'composed' 178 of the most beautiful runs I have ever been witnessed. It is no wonder that even the former Australian Prime Minister John Howard, a great cricket fan, loved to see him bat. And now he leaves, like his partner in many a memorable 'heist' did in March, "disbanding", as Sharda Ugra rightly points out, the finest Indian middle order of all time, leaving the stage for the Pujaras, the Rohit Sharmas and the Virat Kohli's. It will be nothing short of a cliche when I say Laxman will be missed. We will know exactly how much he is missed the next time India tries to chase a total down on a tricky last-day pitch under pressure from a good bowling attack.

A single overwhelming mood predominates when I think of Laxman's innings many of which I have watched over the years - unrestrained joy. One often hears commentators quipping about certain batsmen: "He makes batting look so easy" or "He seems to be batting on a good wicket while others are batting on a minefield." These quips true every other time in Laxman's case. He belongs to and in the ilk of batsmen, which includes among others  Mark Waugh  and Mahela Jayawardene, whose stroke play is supremely rich in expression, reminding us of art for art's sake, of a bygone era when this was a game free from its professional trappings, and of the possibilities of life. It is little surprise then that Laxman often looked imperious and carefree one-day, and impulsive and careless the next. I still remember that there was a time when he used to stroke the prettiest thirties before feathering an edge through to the keeper of a fairly innocuous delivery. The fact that Laxman outwitted his own nonchalance, without sacrificing the spontaneity or the blitheness of his craft, to become one of the mainstays of the Indian batting line-up speaks greatly of his temperament.

The breeze that Laxman's bat exudes has given me many wonderful memories, some more likely to endure than others. His last bow in Australia might not have contributed even a single half century, but when I think of cricket in Australia my mind will probably go back to Laxman's drives, short-arm pulls, leg glances, Azhar-esque flicks and deft dabs which send the ball singing to the boundary, dispersing en route the seagulls enjoying a day out on the lush green outfield. I will also recall with fondness and respect the way he batted in 2009 and 2010, pulling of a physically demanding run chase with a classy hundred at Colombo, ruining Australia's party with an adrenaline-defying undefeated 73 in a humdinger at Mohali, and setting up a famous victory with a statuesque 96 in Durban - the Waterloo of India's 100 and 66 all-out in 1996 - against Dale Steyn & Co. If Laxman's legacy is to be defined, the three aforementioned innings and the 281 at Kolkata  provide a common thread: he didn't battle pressure, he batted it. (And pressure or not, he made runs whenever he went out to bat at the Eden Gardens like Azharuddin did before him! And it was a sight to see Laxman appear bamboozled every time he got out, bowled).

As a slip fielder, Laxman appeared almost somnolent making it is easy to take his contribution for granted (may be they should also have nicknamed him Very Very Simple). But good close-in fieldsmen are like good wicket keepers in that their best work is done with quiet sufficiency; when they grass a couple you never hear the end of it. Laxman was so clinical in his catching like the Marks, Waugh and Taylor, that he made taking tricky catches appear like another day at the office. In fact, I cannot remember the last time Laxman dropped a catch even as Dravid, another brilliant catcher, plucked rippers and dropped sitters regularly during the last two years of his career. The next time I watch an India playing Test cricket  one thing will, perhaps, more take time to sink in than the batting line- up which will be 21000 Test runs poorer - a strange slip cordon.

 Winding up, I admit that the timing of Laxman's retirement surprises me just the way the timing behind his strokes did. Having been picked for the upcoming series versus New Zealand and having a final chance to play at his home ground at Uppal, one would have thought that he would play out the series. But as Harsha Bhogle has tweeted, "[It] requires a very special man to turn his back on a grandstand end and accept the end has come." Many have said this before, and I will for my part say it again: it has been a privilege to have grown up in an era that has seen the likes of Tendulkar, Dravid, Laxman, Kumble and Ganguly. Mukul Kesavan said on CNN-IBN after Dravid's retirement that this may be the beginning of the end of Test cricket itself in India. Sports fans are suckers for nostalgia and doomsday theories but Kesavan's warning does seem ominous given the goings-on in Indian cricket. With Laxman now gone, Tendulkar alone remains from an era of Indian cricket which he himself heralded, and which is now in its twenty-third year. Soon, the curtains will come down on it for good.