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.  

Scrappers, not LOSERS!

Daniel Vettori, bespectacled, more studious in appearance than sporting, seems like the sort of man and captain who has his heart in the right place. And it did not therefore seem like an exaggeration when he said, after the attrition-filled Quarter Finals victory over the Proteas, that a sixth semi-final berth at the cricket World Cup was an "amazing achievement" for a small country like New Zealand. You weigh those words in the context of where New Zealand cricket seemed to be headed a few months before the World Cup and they seem to acquire even more significance. And yet, New Zealand's being in the final four of the 2011 World Cup would surprise few who have followed the Black Caps' cricket with anything more than cursory attention. In a sport played by teams that usually boast two or three very good names, if not great ones, on whose reputations alone games sometimes sway, the Kiwis have always represented a study in the theorem "a team is more than a sum of its parts." How else can one vindicate the almost invisible consistency New Zealand, a team of batsmen who seem to bat to kill boredom and bowlers who (with the notable exceptions of Shane Bond, Sir Richard Hadlee and Chris Cairns in his prime) have at best bowled at medium pace, has maintained in major ICC tournaments?

My earliest memory of the New Zealand cricket team goes back to a pre-dawn telecast in Chennai of a cricket match between a team in yellow flannels (Australia, of course) and another in bright grey way back in 1992. On the day, the captain of the team dressed in grey, which I later learned was New Zealand, Martin Crowe, smashed a ton, giving Kiwis a victory over Australia in the inaugural contest of the Benson and Hedges World Cup. I recall that New Zealand were incredibly consistent during the league stages and played some thrilling and innovative cricket, with Mark Greatbatch heralding pinch-hitting in the first fifteen overs (before Sanath Jayasurya and Kaluwithara poached the badge in the 1996 World Cup!) and Dipak Patel opening the bowling consistently, the very first example of an international outfit starting with spin in one-day cricket on a consistent basis. New Zealand would bow out in their semi-finals clash against the eventual champions Pakistan but they had done much better than co-hosts Australia in the only World Cup to have been played in the region so far. That was the beginning of something remarkable from a team which has fielded men with normal skill but extraordinary well.

Almost two decades have gone by since the last World Cup Downunder and if anything New Zealand's share of match winners has only dwindled during the time. For a long time, the likes of Chris Cairns and Nathan Astle could lock horns with the best in terms of all-round abilities and batting respectively and come out on top. With a steady-minded, but not flashy, captain in Stephen Fleming and sparkling, but never consistent, performers like Craig McMillan and fill-in men like Chris Harris, Gavin Larson and Dion Nash, New Zealand still kept their place in world cricket there or thereabouts. Although one should not be too unfair to the names above, none of them, it seems fair to say, elicited the awe of a Tendulkar, the raptures a Brian Lara left, the stupefaction a Shane Warne commanded, the thrill an Alan Donald delivery triggered or the feeling of disbelief a Gilchrist innings left as residue among spectators and opposition alike.

Given that background, it is all the more creditable that the New Zealand team has hardly been trounced abroad (until recently), has been more than steady at home (once again until lately) with its persistent swing bowlers doing the job and has won a Champions Trophy. In fact, tomorrow's clash against Sri Lanka will be the Kiwis' fourth in a row at the World Cup after 1999, 2003 and 2007. No team other than the decade's best team, Australia, has even come close. You can have all the money in the world to get the best support staff and equipment for analysis (read 'India'); you can have the finest talent bursting at the seams on paper (read 'India', 'Sri Lanka', 'South Africa' and bowling talent in 'Pakistan'). But the great beauty of sport lies in its sleepy disinterestedness in history, records and the like and its knack of evening competitors on the day. It it in this connection that the Kiwi endurance in cricket tells its own unique story; not too attractive, but quite inspiring. 

Even as I was trying to find out how many World Cup semi-finals the Kiwis have reached before, I was surprised to find out that the one they play against South Africa tomorrow will be their fourth in a row. But even with New Zealand's blue-collared approach to the game, the slipping of some of their fine performances under the radar says a lot about the powerhouses of cricket (and their parochial aggrandisement of achievements by their players matched only by their humungous blind eye towards others' achievements) and how New Zealand has, like a wicket keeper who does his job so efficiently that he does not even seem to be physically present on the field, gone about its cricket with focus and without fanfare. Nowhere was New Zealand's taciturn efficiency more visible than their Quarter Final win over South Africa recently. If the Proteas' mid-innings pandemonium that eventually led to their loss was a typical South Africa reminding them of their psychologically brittle days, the Kiwis' resilience to shut the door and turn the key was also typical New Zealand - scrapping but stubborn. The signs had been there even when Jesse Ryder and Ross Taylor, both men of belligerent ways, settled on more workmanlike ways of run scoring. In the end, the two batsmen's vigil counted in the final analysis as much as Oram's brilliance with the ball and Nathan McCullum's on the field. 

The New Zealand cricket team, which has never been large on ego, had stooped when it had to and conquerred the occasion when the opportunity presented itself. Here was a team that journalists targeted for having a soft underbelly, people teased and tauinted randomly on FB and twitter and the world at large seemed to have forgotten as a prospect worth reckoning in the World Cup. Here was a team that lost 4-0 to Bangladesh and followed it up with a 5-0 mauling at the hands of India in games that were intended to be prelude to the World Cup. Here is the only non-Asian team that has qualified to the pre-summit clash of the 2011 World Cup!

There was a muttering in some circles following the 5-0 defeat in India that the Kiwis did not bat long enough and John Wright, a man who knows more about "long batting" than most was appointed the national coach; Allan Donald took on the reins of the bowling which was never going to be Goliath slayers but which could with some aggression, in the words of White Lightning himself, go a long way. And the change in personnel seems to have worked like a charm. It needs to be kept in mind that a team's skipper and support staff are only as good as the on-field outputs and not efforts: but that is modern sport and harshness is its other name. Irrespective of what happens tomorrow, the Black Caps will be a happy lot.

The Kiwi vice-Captain Ross Taylor strongly believes that his team can reach the finals. Sri Lanka, with a ten wicket thumping of England under their belt and the chafing home conditions at the backdrop, may represent an altogether different proposition vis-a-vis South Africa with a known disposition to crumble under pressure. But the Kiwis will go into the match knowing that they have nothing to lose. Oftentimes, those without fear of defeat are like killers on the run: they can rubbish the odds, mutter a profanity and do something that defies credulity. Much of New Zealand cricket has been about de(i)fying commonsense and if it takes them all the way, few can grudge them the achievement.

Why a Tie is Perfect?

Perfectness like most things in life keeps running away everytime someone pursues it hard. And yet every now and then, the randomness of things and the folly and fervour of beings, assisted in conspiracy by a probable Unknown, provide us a glimpse, if not a probe, into perfectness, of the glories that might have been and of lifetimes spent in search of them. Yet as irony would have it sport, that hallowed turf that breeds unremitting competition and demands open-ended improvement, seems to appreciate the imperfect result with one side winning and another losing far more than a result where there is nothing to choose between the two sides. If the reactions to the tied Group A one-day cricket match between England and India in Bangalore, which I have been privy to, are anything to go by, it seems to me that we have missed the point about sport as being a celebration of life by taking it too seriously.

I reckon a number of decibels, reams of paper and bytes of virtual space would have been spent in the last twenty-four hours in arguing why it was a tie. An equal amount of passion would also have been spent, mostly by Indian fans and the cricketing media - which sometimes blur, for right and wrong reasons -, in trying to work out the shape of Dhoni's skull that decided in giving the 49th over to Piyusha Chawla. Amidst all the hullabaloo, the men who made it such an enthralling contest would have been unfortunately relegated to the background by fraying opinions. We in some parts of Asia revere the game so much - and as a consequence take it so seriously - that we fail to celebrate its nuances, the Practical Joke it plays on its exponents and thereby on their followers, the unseen grace with which it evens things and how it stands tallest when two sides vying tooth and claw are not able to sneak a yard past each other even after seven hours of boisterous pandemonium. In my opinion, a spectator who has an overwhelming preference for his team's victory - and I was once that kind of spectator too - over a humdinger of a game is rather like a student who studies for ranks with knowledge having little more use for him.

The England-India game at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore, afore arguably the most educated albeit ebullient crowd in the country behind Chennai, demonstrated two things: the cofluence of sparkles of individual brilliance into something close to collective perfection in a team game and how a tie in a cricket match is something even cricket scoffers, and those who think it fashionable to bemoan the game, would have to concede as unique if unwittingly.

In favour of the first point, there is ample evidence from yesterday's game. Tendulkar's 120 and the manner in which he blunted Swann in particular gave yet another account, if one was amusingly needed, of why Tendulkar makes his country's cricket fans go bananas after more than two decades in the game. If Sachin's ton was an incredible revelation of how he continues to respond magically to a world of expectations from the heartbeats of one country's fans, then skipper Strauss' 158 was a lesson in the art of setting up a chase and would go down arguably amongst the most purposeful and aggressive innings played by an Englishman in the one-day game. Tim Bresnan's five-for, which proved crucial in the final analyses, prompted just why death bowling is beautiful and critical even if the opposition has gone hammer and tongs thus far with a scorecard already reading in excess of 300. And finally Zaheer's spell during England's batting power play when everything seemed lost for the men in blue and the Bangalore crowd was a wonderfully written action piece on the subject how to make the ball talk! Give me one strong - foolproof - argument for why one of those deserved to be at the smiling end of the game, I will provide two such arguments for the others. I rest my case.

Shifting focus to those who pooh-pooh cricket, cricketers and cricket watchers, especially those with such craftily contrived undertones that debunk cricket every time they delight in praising the sport they owe allegiance to, what would they have thought of yesterday's tie? Well, if one of them said not much I would not be very surprised. But sample this: how precious can "same scores" be in a game of football played for 90 minutes and a few more of extra time if scores are level at the end of the 90? Even the most fervent football fan may have to mutter a "not much" because scoring goals is a devilishly hard task compared to getting wickets, let alone runs, for which reason a tie may actually be the more default result in that sport. Tennis? There is a tie-breaker that eventually resolves a tie, so tennis does not even allow itself to know what a tie feels like to its players and fans.

Enter cricket: even if we stick just to One-day internationals, we are still speaking of about seven hours of play. A wide here, a leg-bye there, an ungainly slog somewhere, a poor umpiring decision or a run out in a crunch situation are all so commonplace in the game that they can spoil one team's party by the narrowest margins. Yet when the artifacts and the very nature of the game, which seem so besotted to discriminate rather than unite, do conspire to even things after hours of battle, the result is not even remotely like any other that cricket or other sports can dare to script. As Strauss rightly opined one must celebrate games like yesterday's: a "historic high", submerging the twin disappointments of not winning,  is what I imagine a tied cricket match gives to those who partake of its cusp of earth-bound perfectness. No wonder we have had only four ties in eleven World Cups! If a passionate hater of the game chooses to remain unconvinced still, I can readily understand. But if a highly educated detractor shakes his head wilfully, all I can offer is a quiet smile.

There is so much more I wanted to convey through this post but I surmise those thoughts can wait for another day. I shall end on a humorous note based on TheVenk's tweet which jocularly suggested that India and England should give their tie to some corporate person. I would fully agree with my friend for once, but with a small tweak to his suggestion: they should probably gift it to a Body Corporate which goes by the name International Cricket Council  as it would help immensely in ICC's bid to save the one-day game from dying a quick death.         

  

The Verdict: My Opinion!

I am not a lawyer and I do not understand what the suspension clauses of the sentences to Salman Butt and Mohammad Asif mean. I also do not understand the hue and cry from some quarters about how the punishment given to Butt is lenient and the one handed down to young Mohammad Amir is too harsh. In any case, the ICC tribunal headed by Michael Belof (QC) has, I am confident, gone through the case as carefully as possible and even made sure they have not jumped into conclusions taking time before passing the verdict. And I am fully in support of it.

The wheels of judiciary will, however, recommence in two directions. The players would most likely appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Switzerland) against the bans imposed by the ICC. Plus there is the complication of the case pending against the players by the British Crown in London. Subtracting the legalese, what this means is we have not seen the end of this sad spot-fixing drama nor have we seen the last of these three players in terms of the present case. Be that as it may, it is important to look into the implications of the judgments handed out in the case for the general health of cricket at large and ICC in especial.

From Ian Chappell to Giden Haigh to individual cricket boards to sometimes the average cricket fan, just about everyone concerned with the game has had a slingshot at the International Cricket Council, pooh-poohing it as an organisation that, to put it short, is good for nothing. On the one hand there is this prevailing impression, one which does have a grain of truth in it, that the ICC as the game’s official governing body is not making enough crucial decisions and not making them assertively enough, giving room for powerful and notorious member boards to exercise their own muscle power in the running of the game. The lack of a firm stand by the ICC on the (non-)use of UDRS is a case in point and has come under the hammer recently from cricket analysts, players and former players alike as the Indian team, backed by an unhealthily potent BCCI, continues to deny its use for reasons the world and its uncle cannot fathom.

Allowing teams to play local and international games arbitrarily outside of the FTP window, lack of monitoring over the increased number of one-sided pitches around the world, failing to clamp down more stringently on drug abuse in the game and mishandling of corruption are only some of the important issues the ICC has been found wanting in. That ICC’s top jobs have increasingly had a political slant to them with someone like Sharad Powar at the Presidency, and John Howard’s Vice-Presidency candidature splitting the cricket world right down the middle, have only contributed to exacerbating matters.

In this context, the ICC’s efforts in leading the charges of corruption against the three Pakistani cricketers to their logical conclusion were as necessary a few months back as they are commendable now. That the ICC has had at its helm a CEO like Haroon Lorgat, who is at once a discreet administrator but a forthright speaker, as the fixing controversies raised their ugly hood again after ten years is probably a blessing. Irrespective of whether the verdicts stay as they are or are modified after appeals or are completely overturned, the tribunal’s judgments against the discredited Pakistani trio could yet turn out to be a landmark in ICC history as an example of the governing body’s no-nonsense attitude against corruption.

Although I feel for Amir, and a lot of fans (including many Indians, surprisingly) who thought he was the next young Pakistani fast-bowling magician in the making, his surprise at being given a five year ban for bowling “just two no-balls” rings more rhetorically than sensibly to me; and in the process it also rings with that inalienable “convenient” tune of our times, the hesitancy to square up to one’s mistakes and accept them even at the brink of disaster.

The issue that is at stake is not whether an inconsequential illegal delivery was bowled or whether a match was deliberately lost; if that were all at stake then the amount of attention given to the case by the ICC and cricket fans, leave alone an ever-hyped and –hyping world media, would seem absurd. The issue is one of principle, of upholding fairness as one of the most important virtues of the game not in the least because it is belief in the game’s fairness and its tendency to even things out that makes heartbroken fans still come back after a depressing loss and route for their team. Violation of that fairness, even if only for something miniscule and even if for money that is not somebody else’s daily meal, is a violation of the spirit of the national flannels one plays in, of the unspoken trust that connects a sportsperson with other sportspersons and the world that worships him, and of sport’s greatness in general. Sport, as is often believed, does not test only human strengths; it also tests whether one can tide over one’s weaknesses and in that respect Butt and Asif are perhaps more to be blamed than the rookie Amir but none of them is above the game. It is also sad that three Pakistani cricketers, three of their better ones arguably, were caught red-handed at a time when Pakistani cricket was already in doldrums. But examples needed to be set and one hopes the judgments have sent out the right signals to the generation of young and upcoming cricketers.

In less than two weeks, the attention will shift inevitably from these and other issues to the 2011 Cricket World Cup, as the one-day game’s most coveted prize returns to the sub-continent after fourteen years. Even as one prays that it should not be the Australians lifting the cup for a staggering fourth time in a row, I will settle for a tournament where cricket alone will talk: if that is ensured, whoever wins it is a secondary issue. I would obviously love it if India goes on to win it but the tournament’s conduct is far more important than its eventual result.



On the UDRS:

The debate has been raging for a while among cricket officials and players alike. And it concerns UDRS which expands as Umpire Decision Review system, one of ICC's initiatives 'intended' to assist the on-field umpires on the one hand and more importantly ensure a level of fairness and consistency in the way decisions are handed out on the other. While the system has thus far been used only on a purely experimental basis with the agreement of the team captains in question like in the series earlier this year between England and South Africa, the future of the system remains clouded not just by controversy it has set off but also by the principles on which it is founded. Let me elaborate.

One of the greatest things about sport is the all-round human element associated with it which leads to unpredictability and therefore excitement. The very fact that live sporting contests attract more crowds than films and more attention than video game counterparts in XBox versions goes a long way towards consolidating live sport as one of THE favoured forms of entertainment for spectators worldwide. The very advent of something like a referral system suggests that those who are involved with the game - the officials, the players and in some sense the fans - are missing a crucial point. For all the adrenaline rush, colours and sounds, excitements and thrills and the money involved, a sport is still a sport and should remain one in the view of all those associated with it.

The necessity then for something like a referral system surfaces when every sports person's minutest fortune is scrutinised beyond justification (and compare) courtesy our incessantly bellowing friends at the media who themselves find it very convenient to watch six or seven replays - sometimes from several thousand angles - from the air-conditioned press or commentary boxes. Naturally, when some of these decisions turn out to be erroneous stones are pelt at poor umpires despite the charitable rhetoric, "The umpires get only one look!" The defenders of technology having awaited their turn patiently would assert that it is because they are in possession of "several angles" that they wish for them to assist the umpires and players and making the game fairer and better at large. However, the question begs to be asked: is the referral system capable of achieving at least some of the lofty ends it aims to achieve?

For starters, the system in its present form is a bit like a beta version of a software and its problems were fairly evident in the contests between South Africa and England. With a fixed number of reviews allowed for each team, ICC's aim is noble in that it aims to keep the human factor largely intact with technological advice sought by the players only whenever critical. But the indiscretion with which the teams used the same and the displeasure that followed when the teams still did not get the decision they 'thought' was justified showed that the URDS only compounded problems and did not mitigate complications on the field; not to mention the amount of time that is lost when most of these reviews are done. It seems prima facie to me therefore that the UDRS is rather an urgently sought arrangement which is a product of some obfuscated thinking. And the fact that it is "neither here nor there" as of now and places players and umpires on tenterhooks speaks against it.

Even if the referral system does not contribute anything to the game, it should not as an initiative stunt the game in anyway. But based on what we saw on-field in South Africa as well as opinions we have had from umpires, captains and some reputed past cricketers there is a fairly obvious possibility that the system may do just that. For starters, by "subjecting" a human decision to a review two signals are being sent neither of which is right in my opinion (and one cannot think of the chair umpire's call being revoked in tennis or the match referees red or yellow card contested in soccer): an umpire's confidence is less likely to be trusted and as a consequence more umpires may be led to being 'naysayers' since teams have a 'second appeal' anyway. The referral system proposed is surely not an outright insult to human judgment in sport but at least a strong enough threat for the same which is inadmissible. In a sense it brings back dissent against human decisions through the back door.

I say this because the 'human element' is what makes the game a great leveller. While I am at loggerheads with a lot of what the former Australian skipper Ian Chappell says, I find myself concurring totally when he opines that over a cricketer's career the good and bad decisions even out: at the end of the day as most objective minds will tell you, the columns have to tally and tally they do in cricket. To not allow that to happen naturally is a shame and is against one of the rudimentary premises - if not principles - on which the once Gentleman's Game is run. And where a player has been hard done by, more often than not it has little, if nothing, to do purely with wrong umpiring decisions.

Lastly, marginal LBW and caught-behind decisions are the ones most likely to come under the scanner should the UDRS be adopted. But as things stand, the ICC core panel already comprises great umpires who get most of their decisions spot-on even without assistance. And these are names like Billy Bowden, Daryl Harper and Simon Taufel who are held in pretty high esteem by players round the world. While soaring media attention - read -'pressure'- in the game might be one of the factors instrumental in the hiked umpiring standards, to bring the media in the form of technology even more into human umpiring would, in my opinion, be an overkill. For all we know, we might be left beholding a Frankenstein rather than a facility. And that is not a baby anyone would like to hold. Let's hope the investigation headed by the West Indian legend Clive Lloyd and his team returns with good findings and sensible proposals.

PS: For a more pragmatic, if more progressive, view on the UDRS read Roebuck here on The Hindu dated March 27, 2010.