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.     

Warne's gone!

I did not watch the last ever competitive game that Shane Keith Warne played (as it appears at this stage, at least) given that the Rajasthan Royals versus Mumbai Indians game was scheduled for a 10:30 p.m. HKT start. The news of Royals' having won the match was therefore sweet. After enduring a mixed season, punctuated by comprehensible ebbs and fighting flows, the boys in sky blue gave their champion captain a fitting farewell by thrashing Mumbai by ten wickets, also in the process keeping Mumbai on tenterhooks over a semi-final berth which appeared a certainty not very long ago. Although nobody is foolish enough to delude themselves by likening IPL games with international contests, the irony that Warne had his last hurrah against fierce rival and close friend - and allegedly a bringer of nightmares to the former a decade and half ago - Tendulkar's side is not lost at least not on me.

As Robin Steen aptly writes in cricinfo, it is difficult to appraise the legacy of men like Warne; perhaps it is even an enviable task. What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of the leg-spinner from Victoria? Is it the blonde hair, the seductive - and in a sense preying (pun intended) - eyes an admixture of the sorcerer's mystery,  his art's beauty and a gambler's deception and the loopy leg-break that stays long enough above the batsman's eye level to make him think he can hit it only to dip suddenly and  have him miss it, by half an inch short of a half-volley, and get bowled (ask Gatting) or edge it to Marks Taylor or Waugh, Heals or Gilly (ask any number of Englishmen, South Africans or Pakistanis)? Or is it the, even by his 'paunchy' standards, over-fat head-shorn shadow of his who always got thrashed around by Laxman and Tendulkar and company as if the runs he gave to the Indian batsmen were reparations for his on-field philandering elsewhere? Would Warne be remembered, as Ian Chappell once said, as the best captain to have never captained Australia or would he be recalled as a dark genius, who was always game for a game and who could inspire but who, by his own admission, was rather cavalier for Australian cricket's top job which is pregnant with historical esteem? Should we even get into his personal life and talk about his indiscretions as a husband or affections as a father or should we just be content and say "SKW was born to bowl leg-breaks like SRT was born to bat"? 

At the end of the day, it is, perhaps, a matter of perspective. Peter Roebuck once wrote something along the following lines: we urge and castigate our sportspersons fiercely because those moments when we are in their (virtual) company are the only ones when we are free of our own bondages, weaknesses and limitations. The adulation surrounding and the accusations levelled against the great Australian leg-spinner, too, can be read in the spirit of Roebuck's argument. Underlying every moralising take on Warne's personal life is arguably a standpoint which represents an immanent aspiration of perfection that could be elusive. Likewise aggrandising the man (or his brandname) - such as labelling the 1994 ball to Gatting as the ball of the century when an off-spinner's equivalent of the delivery from Muralidharan to Sadagopan Ramesh hardly received a murmur in the press - is a product of a cricketing culture that thrives  not only on intense competitiveness but also on immense, and at times unabashed, conceit.

What must, however, be remembered is that Warne, like the other great stars of his time, has merely been a magnet, if willingly so, that has attracted songs and snipes alike. What he did for the game cannot be, should not be and will not be forgotten. Alongside Muralidharan and Anil Kumble, Warne has overseen a couple of, arguably, the most extraordinary decades of spin bowling, the likes of which I may not witness before my sunset. Like Tendulkar, albeit to a lesser extent, Warne has been an icon, a face not only to be recognised but also remembered and the man who made things happen on the field and sold things off it: Warne was one of the first sign-ins the moment IPL germinated in Lalit Modi's mind. Like his pace bowling compatriot, and very often partner in crime Glenn McGrath, Warne is a ruthless, or at best nonchalant, sadist when confronted by a(n even slightly nervous) batsman (ask Athers and Daryl Cullinan). Like Wasim Akram he is an original, each man a giant in getting the ball to talk, tease, taunt and thrill! And like Brian Charles Lara, in my opinion the greatest lone match-winner of his time, he is a flawed genius, which makes his tale all the more interesting to read. Enough said, he will be missed. Farewell Warney. We do not know if you will be the richer for poker, but it will be the richer for you, while cricket will be the poorer.     

For one last time, Murali!

Umpires’ focus of attention – or more particularly Darrell Hair’s atavistic bête noir – cynosure of controversy, statisticians’ delight, performance colossus, wicket-taking machine, sheer genius... call him what you will but July 22, 2010 will see the last of Muttiah Muralidharan should the first test between Indian and Sri Lanka last the five days. And considering the kind of pitches one associates with Sri Lanka there is strong likelihood that the hawk-eyed and spring-armed offie may be in operation on the last day, trying to plot one final victory for his team like he has done so often this decade.  It is hard enough to imagine what world cricket will be with the third – and arguably the greatest – of the great spin trio gone, let alone wonder what sort of vacuum it would leave to Sri Lankan bowling. That Vaas, another stalwart though much underrated, is the second in the list of leading Sri Lankan wicket-takers in tests with 437 sticks less than Murali just gives an inkling of the epoch-making impact the wizard has had on Sri Lankan bowling. Behind and ahead of him in time steady performers seem like unseasoned dwarfs, such has been Murali’s influence.  

Through the noughties, even as Kumble wheeled away with the accuracy of an engineering metronome and Shane Warne prolonged the legacy of leg-spin bowling he had made very much his own, Murali simultaneously remained Sri Lankan’s most important player and therefore the butt of racist sneers (from various quarters) and an inordinate load of accusations against his action even by such well respected names as Adam Gilchrist. While it is unfortunate that Muralidharan and ‘controversy’ will go into cricket history textbooks together, it will be unfair to reduce an incredible average of a shade above 22, 66 five-wicket hauls and 22 ten-wicket hauls, or for that matter the prodigious ability to turn the ball on any surface, to a fortuitous biological deformity. It is as much as saying that if more English kids just stayed in the subcontinent, they would bowl spin like the quartet in the seventies. Yet Murali has braved it all, ever with the strongest support from the board and teammates – a pattern that began when Arjuna Ranathunga took his team off the field when Darrell Hair repeatedly no-balled Murali Downunder in 1993 – and fellow giants like Warne and Kumble who both hold Murali in tremendously high regard and rightly so.

One of those 43669 deliveries he has sent down 

Controversies, statistics and mastery aside, what Murali has brought to Sri Lankan bowling is not comparable even with the aggressive new face that Sanath Jayasuriya gave to their batting during and after the 1996 World Cup which the embattled Islanders won in convincing fashion. If modern fans adored their bowlers more than their batsmen and if Sri Lanka were the India of World Cricket, then it would not be unseemly to think of Muralitharan as a Sachin Tendulkar. Both little men have carried the support, passion and incantation of two cricket crazy peoples wherever they have gone and played. Both have been stoical and strong on the face of scathing castigation and emerged the stronger for their sincerity. And like all true champions, neither has allowed record book reams or their past glories to get to their head and remain humble to a fault. Undoubtedly, the last duel between Murali and Tendulkar will be well worth a cricket fan’s time as the two face off for the last time at Galle.

It is said about a lot of team sports, and by metaphorical extension about a lot of situations in life, that no individual is indispensable. Give Murali a hint that he might have become indispensable, he will grin like a school boy, those wide innocent eyes all focused on you, and say with that awkward Sri Lankan lilt in his English that it cannot be! But the thing is geniuses can hardly fathom what it is to be not them and look at them. One fact will not be denied, not even by Murali. As the veteran offie, eight wickets short of eight hundred, walks out for Sri Lanka for one last time in whites, an era will come to a close. That he may play the limited overs’ game till the 2011 World Cup gives cricket fans an opportunity to catch glimpses of the Muttiah magic. Yet for the purist cricket lover, Murali’s last ball in test cricket is likely to leave goose-skin if not a teardrop – for he is the last and by light-years the best of the greatest post-modern spinners. And world cricket will indubitably be poorer without him.  

PS: The cricinfo player database still lists him as Muttiah Muralitharan - a spelling that is no more used on his jerseys or scoreboards. 

        

An unsung champ and the IPL!

For an eighteen year career, he had to endure, and being himself in silence, the "non-turner" nicknames given by former bowlers who could not pick up half the wickets he did or who did not have half the commitment that he displayed. That after 619 wickets, he would still be behind magicians Murali and Warne is not meant as an offence but somehow always suppresses Kumble's contributions on the world scene. Surprisingly for such a fierce competitor on the field and such a nice man off it, which I think has been the problem, Anil Kumble has had more detractors than supporters and far less a fan base despite being such a giant compared to relative newcomers like Virendra Sehwag or Yuvraj Singh or even a Harbhajan Singh if you think of bowlers. However, enlisting numerical counts as evidence for greatness is a bit purblind and Kumble's relative anonymity on the world scene despite his grand achievements may be the product of his times, his own lifestyle and the fact that he was someone who appealed more to the mind than to the heart or the eye. An aesthetic pleasure he was not; a 'performer' - read 'actor' or rabble-rouser - he could never be; yet almost always he had a big heart and brought contributions to the team that go beyond just statistical measure.

During the last couple of IPLs, Kumble has just given an inkling of how age is not a bar on personal excellence or leadership. In South Africa last year he was consistently amongst the wickets and though his wickets tally has come down this year surprisingly - considering that this IPL is played in India - neither has the keenness suffered nor has the tenacity flagged. That he is still going at below six an over (and is the most economical bowler at this year's IPL) is testimony to the man's accuracy - 'metronome' is a word you would have to associate with the engineer from Kumbala. Against KKR for instance Kumble went for ten in the first over but gave away just seven in the next three. Beat that miserliness - one is forced to say! Kumble's success in the game's shortest format is as much a product of the man's unstinting ways as it is of the batsmen's respect for him. That he still earns it from the opposition itself speaks volumes for the man's stature in the game. How can we forget the world that stood still when he said, "Only one team played in the spirit of the game..."

I always equate Tendulkar to a genius and Kumble to the most persistent versions of hard-worked reality: it is not to depreciate the scale of Sachin's achievements or to think of Kumble's feats as mechanical results. Both men have been colossal heroes on the field and great gentlemen off it. And even if the world does not, Sachin has always celebrated Kumble - for there's one quintessential Indian champ who realises the value of another.      

When in doubt, go for spin!

As the Indian Premiere League edition three reaches the business end, the question has become significant again because of the answers given by the batters so far. And the answers have been far from convincing. While seasoned quicks like Malinga, Zaheer Khan and Chaminda Vaas are among the top bowlers of the tournament, the list also has the likes of Amit Mishra and Pragyan Ojha, two individuals who if groomed properly will represent India for many years to come. Add the spin triplet to the list – Kumble, the most miserly campaigner in the tournament, Murali who has been his native foxy self and Shane Warne who proved yet again against the Deccan Chargers why he is still special –and bring in Daniel Vettori who has now rejoined Delhi and Murali Kartik who has bowled beautifully for the KKR and Harbhajan Singh who is arguably the best T20 spinner going around the world, and you will know good spinners will thrive in all conditions and in all formats.

So what is it that makes dem breed of tossers, as it were, click even on flat-as-bare-plains pitches surrounded by greasy outfields and alluring short boundaries? Part of the answer lies perhaps in the question itself: in extremely batsman-friendly conditions the margin for error for a spinner in particular is minimal and therefore he is likely to bear more punishment from the dominating bats – mongoose or crocodile! The flipside though is it is precisely when a batsman looks to attack the spinner do the percentages of a spinner’s getting a wicket augments. Mishra, Vettori and (in particular) Ojha can owe much of their limited overs’ success to their ability – and perhaps audacity – to toss the ball up and invite the false stroke from batsmen. It only goes to show that the time for age-old virtues is not up yet though they may seem so.

However, to owe all of spinners’ success to batsmen’s error of judgment – although that in itself is a ‘tweaker’s’ greatest success the way I see it – is to underestimate their skill and overestimate the percentage of looseness to be found in modern stroke play. Mind you, while there are sloggers dime a dozen going around, there are still people possessed with fine technique, a great cricketing brain and/or who hit the ball cleanly: David Warner, Murali Vijay (of late), Rohit Sharma, Yousuf Pathan to name a few candidates from the IPL. One needs more than just the fortune of a false stroke from the likes of such batsmen to get their wickets; one needs skill accompanied by subtle changes – in spin, pace and bounce – if not to get them out at least to wear them down which might produce a wicket at the other end. Anil Kumble this season has been a case in point for the Royal Challengers from Bangalore.

So sceptics and batsmen who think themselves as being born to destroy spinners’ careers might have to wait quite a long while before spin comes to, if at all, die a natural death. As of now world spin is in good hands in both the hemispheres. There are good off-spinners and left-arm spinners; a good leg spinner somewhere will bring the balance back to world spin bowling if ever it was lost. In the meanwhile, let us delight in watching more batsmen done in by the dip, flight, pace of the pitch or a couple of inches of awkward bounce. When in doubt then, as they say down under, go for spin. And something will give…

 

  

An unlikely English hero!

    Sachin Tendulkar remains an exception in our time and despite his unassuming claims to the contrary we assume that he is larger than the game. Elsewhere there are greats but not immortal stars and in those places cricket remains, and fortunately, a team game. One team that has impressed me over the last several months with their test cricket is the England cricket team in whites currently skippered by Allistair Cook in Bangladesh and otherwise led by an able and rather coldly efficient – perhaps even ugly – if not inspirational Andrew Strauss. In recent memory, they have gone onto take back the Ashes and levelled a series in South Africa (within a space of a half year); saved three test matches with the last wicket standing; and played as a unit and shown more than just belying promise we are used to from England teams of the nineties and the oughties. What’s more this has been a time when their best batsman Kevin Pietersen has suffered from an oddly extended form slump. But in someone else, England has found an unlikely hero and his contributions run through won and saved causes.

Cricinfo gives a rather funny nickname to the man who is a character: “chin” – and he is not a quickie who sends thunderbolts to batsmen at day and terrorises them in their dreams at night. In fact, he belongs to the group of them bowlers who Geoffrey Boycott may call ‘dibbly dobbly’ or ‘lollypop’ depending on his mood which chooses his slang. The last of its kind in England was an eternally old-looking man from Glamorgan who tried his best but never lived to be a match-winner, Robert Croft. Off-spinner he was, and if you want to look at a match-winning one England have had, you should go back to the Illingworths. Not that England has had a great deal of recent success from spinners anyway and god knows they have had a humungous pipeline of left-arm finger spinners; Phil Tufnell promised and briefly delivered before he walked into the sunset; Ashley Giles was reduced to bowling outside the leg stump to Tendulkar and the cheers Monty Panesar used to receive have gradually faded and so perhaps – temporarily one hopes – as his craft. And that’s when Graeme Swann chose to have fun. And how well he has had it!

   At 79 wickets in seventeen tests, the now Nottinghamshire (former Northamptonshire) thirty-one year old has probably the second best wickets per match tally behind talented quicks Mitchell Johnson and Dale Steyn both of whom have well over 100 wickets. His fifth and sixth five wicket hauls in the recently concluded test against Bangladesh have taken him to second in the ICC ranking of test bowlers. And in case you were wondering Swann is some Fairytale illusion England has found, here’s more: he is also third in the list of all-rounders and with close to six hundred runs at thirty-three per innings Swann who bats number 8 or 9 for England deserves every bit the ratings he has received.

   Yet for Swann – fondly called by a journalist as a bit of a joker in the pack – the numbers do not tell the entire story and it therefore becomes significant to study his performances in the context of the two difficult series through which he has plied his trade as an off-spinner and lower order bat. Swann’s consistent wicket hauls, crucial runs and most importantly big heart in the Ashes and during the series in South Africa speak much about their significance. If you isolate Swann’s performances against the two finest teams of his time in recent times, you will see that he has picked up almost four wickets per match, which is good by a spinner’s standards especially in non-helpful conditions, and his batting average is still in the low thirties close to his career average indicating, if anything, that he has not been intimidated by the opposition. Further if Swann’s first innings 85 – his highest test score to-date and the highest in the England batting order for that innings – in Centurion perhaps helped England save the test later with Ashes heroes Panesar and Anderson at it again, Swann was himself ‘on the bridge’ unbeaten when Onions and he pulled another last over draw out of the hat a match and victory later at Newlands, Capetown. If his bat which had no extended business denied victories which were rightfully in the opposition’s to grasp, his simple mastery with the ball ensured England arguably two of their most famous victories in the last five years – the Ashes one at Lord's, England’s first against Australia at the HQ of cricket in over seventy years and an innings-and-ninety-something thrashing of South Africa at the bouncy Protean backyard Durban as Swann returned with nine sticks in the match.

   Having been sorted out aptly by Surrey’s Ally Brown who hit young Swann’s loopy off-spinners for sixer after sixer during the latter’s debut for Northamptonshire in 1998, Swann has come a long way. Thankfully, he has not tinkered with his craft too much and not tried to imitate the more sophisticated and reputed off-spinners of his time. Instead with traditional flight, slower pace and a bit of guile – which probably has also to do with his tinsel town boy image as well as opposed to that of a sportsman – he has allowed the ball to spin and fooled batsmen memorably into playing the wrong shot or leaving ample daylight between bat and pad for the ball to spin through. How can we forget the ball with which he got rid off Ponting at the Oval?

Any off-spinner would be proud to have dismissals of that kind in his bagful of batsman’s scalps!

   After an initial hiding in international cricket, Swann’s second coming has been nothing short of extraordinary for him and England. Let alone the fact that Swann now shares with legendary Jim Laker the record for the most number of times a bowler has taken a wicket in the first over of a new spell, Swann has probably done enough to be England’s frontline spinner in the years to come and to be considered a rare “match-spinning” bowler they have had in years. With the England team possessed with a more assured batting line-up and variety in the pace department, Swann may just be the sort of foil England will continue to appreciate as they try to win more matches against the better teams. And at 31, Swann is perhaps taking one day at a time. And why not? Perhaps the light-hearted blonde man from Nottingham may facetiously tell his grandkids: Sachin and I both had our second comings at the same time and our teams benefitted immensely. Joke or not, most people would not be able to find fault with that. And the way Swann is going, England will hope he would collect more on-field lore for posterity before he hangs up his boots.