Haider's Disappearance - a Wake-up Call for World Cricket?

I would not want to be a cricket fan in these turbulent times. More specifically, I wouldn’t want to be a Pakistan cricket fan, for every time a small ray of light seems to be afoot something happens that sets it back by cricket’s equivalent of light-years. We thought that the comedy of errors involving the bans, re-bans, lifting of the bans and re-lifting of the bans was the worst that could happen to cricket in a country that has been more or less ravaged by political turmoil ever since I was old enough to have an indelible memory.

Then came the winless tour to Australia where one can safely say – even without attempting to be deliberately rude – that the Pakistan cricket team threw away the Sydney test after being utterly dominant for the better part. Kamran Akmal’s wicket-keeping – which led no less a man than Wasim Akram to ask Akmal about his goal-keeping – was particularly picked on but apart from Salman Butt who made a hundred in the series nobody deserved to speak a word. As if the team performance was not demoralising enough, coach Aaqib Javed’s comments rubbed salt into the wounds but can probably be in hindsight appreciated as a foreboding to the eruption over spot-fixing that followed quickly like night follows day.

If the (had-to-be-easy-but-became-difficult-yet-well-deserved) win against Australia on neutral territory at Headingley (Leeds, England) seemed like just the facelift Pakistan cricket required, the spot-fixing controversy that ensued during the test series versus England made short work of any points of inspiration to be garnered from there. In between Shahid Afridi decided, once again, and one hopes once and for all (given the PCB's seemingly sacrosanct right to call people from retirements if not their graves!), that the longer version was not up his alley. What was most devastating about the match-fixing chaos was two of Pakistan’s most promising cricketers, heralded by everyone who saw them as the country’s future – Mohammads, Asif and Amir, the latter all of nineteen summers – along with their captain Salman Butt were implicated by the News of the World. All through the tempestuous waters, the PCB chairman Ijaz Butt far from trying to appear even remotely like a responsible captain of the ship has (forgive me the profanity) emerged the butt of jokes from cricket-haters and Pakistan cricket detractors alike courtesy his general lack of commonsense  and control over his tongue in especial. To think that the latter almost led the one friend Pakistan cricket has had in ECB (and its chief Charles Clarke, who also (the last time I heard) leads the ICC Review Committee in charge of reviewing the possibility cricket resumption in Pakistan) to turn hostile speaks volumes about the precariousness and daftness surrounding Pakistan cricket and Butt’s administration (strictly in that order of priority) today.

Yet somewhere along the line a non-partisan cricket lover, a pure-minded Pakistan cricket fan or a young cricketer who has worked his life to break into the national squad would have felt hopeful. After all clouds brought in by human avarice and vulnerability will clear as they do not have any finality about them; nor do human predilections. But Zulqarnain Haider’s disappearance from the the Pakistan cricket team in Dubai last week and reappearance in London earlier this week has almost put paid to that innocent feeling of hope. Unless of course what is happening in Pakistan cricket is the enactment of a page-turning novel about the underworld, cricket, Pakistan and match-fixing; or contemporary Pakistan cricket is just an attempt to take reality television to a different plane; or Zulqarnain Haider is a mor(t)ally disturbed dreamer or fidgety attention-seeker with the recent melodrama being in extremely poor taste especially considering the condition Pakistan cricket is already in. The first two possibilities are just jokes and the last seems far from true given that Haider since the fighting 88 in his first test – half of the match fee from which he dedicated to Imran Khan’s cancer hospital – has struck everyone as a gritty and committed young man with his heart in the right place.

The writing is on the wall and not merely on some crappy walls in boardrooms in the buildings where the PCB sits but across the world where administrators holding a stake in the game’s welfare meet to discuss cricket’s biggest challenges. If Haider’s revelation about the death threats against him and his family is any true, it then puts the ICC, (a body corporate which most people tend to think is a sitting duck anyway in front of perversely powerful cricket boards like the BCCI,) which has had a hot-and-cold relationship with the PCB (or perhaps it should be said that the PCB has had an iffy relationship with the ICC!) in a peculiar and not very enviable position. Spot-fixing, match fixing or fixing an entire series is one thing; it might make the larger unenlightened audience look at the sport as cheap and as another source of easy money and those who have played the game with utmost integrity look at themselves as geese. But if playing the game involves keeping one eye around for strange people at strange places all the time, ones who may go to any extent to not leave you and your family in peace, it is a challenge of a different magnitude and one the game has not hitherto thankfully come face to face with. Most importantly, problem of life and death based on the ‘supposedly’ fleeting fortunes on the cricket field should not be brushed aside Haider’s problem or Pakistan cricket’s problem. It is at once the problem of the entire cricket-playing fraternity and therefore the ICC.

Over the next few weeks, or more likely months, the merits of Haider’s first press conference after the Dubai disappearance will assume extraordinary significance. For the sake of cricket, and that of an impressive young man with a young family, one hopes that the people in high places see this conundrum through to its logical conclusion. Haider’s own life in this period albeit he has thus far, expectedly, played safe in not implicating any fellow cricketer in Pakistan, is going to be lived on the tenterhooks of questioning and the internal battle to choose between being loyal to (Pakistan) cricket and reveal whatever he knows – so nobody else goes through such torment – or consider his and his family’s safety as the end alls (or balance both). One thing is for sure: you would not want to be in Haider’s shoes at the moment. I also agree with Kamran Abbasi when he says that what Haider  needs at the moment is understanding. Over time, the important task of trying to get at the truth can be pursued for whatever it is worth.

In the larger context, I sometimes wonder if the events we are witnessing today with a sense of pallor are the product of too much professionalisation of sport, which should before and after everything remain a source of entertainment to those who play and those who watch it. Spectators swarm in numbers to watch a Sehwag, a Muralidharan, a Shane Warne or a Brian Lara even though each of these modern greats has had human vulnerabilities or sporting flaws because these are entertainers who play the game only in the spirit of sport, no more, no less. But the goings-on in Pakistan cricket, the maddening love for high-scoring thrillers and therefore flat pitches – which is fed by and feeds into T20 cricket – the devaluation of 50+ averages and the unremitting foray of businessmen into cricket positions with the unabashed view to get pole position for their businesses have left a sour taste in my mouth. Perhaps, the madness is inevitable; perhaps grandstanding is the new mantra for success; perhaps illegit money, so long as you don’t get caught as writer Sujatha might say, isn’t different from legally earned money; perhaps the pandemonium in the game today is an extension of the general pandemonium surrounding our lives which is a product of our time. Be that as it may, it is a shame that one of Pakistan’s brightest stars in the recent troubled times is coerced to stay away due to dangerous circumstances. To be sure, the game will overcome those who try to devalue and sell it through the backdoor. But then, even if Haider returns to it, it may never feel the same again for life is, and has to be, admittedly larger than this game many of us love.

Click here for cricinfo's coverage of the controversy as it has unfolded thus far.

Cricket, this November!

As I get busy and take on my final responsibilities with regard to completing my dissertation, the cricket world gets busier as well come November. Two test series beginning at opposite halves of the month and played in different hemispheres are the focus of this post. Yet more than just timelines and geographical locations separate the merits of the test series in question. While the Ashes which begins on November 25 at the Woolloongabba in Brisbane (Australia) is set to be a humdinger, unless a fairly good England team proverbially invents ways to capitulate Downunder like they have generally done, the India New Zealand three-test series that will get over even before the Ashes begins is the sort of arrangement that has left everyone tearing their head apart at BCCI’s seemingly learned ineptitude in scheduling games. That New Zealand especially on current form, or lack of any, is hardly the sort of opposition India would want to face upto before a hostile test series in South Africa in December has been sufficiently debated by experts and rightly so.

But given that the two series are going to be played according to schedule, one has to look at them closely. As regards the India-New Zealand series, I would be disappointed if the home team who beat Australia 2-0 a couple of weeks earlier does anything less than achieve the same score line. Among other things, the series will give the Indian batters a chance to boost their averages and someone like Dravid who is probably short on confidence to get back to big runs on grounds which will not assist the Kiwi attack too much.

New Zealand who were outplayed – and that still seems like an understatement – by Bangladesh to go down 4-0 recently, albeit in a one-day tournament, will hope to play hard and wind up the year on a respectable note. It may however not be that easy for the Vettori-led Black Caps especially against a first choice Indian team which is likely to be fielded for the first time in several months. I agree with Geoff Boycott when he says that New Zealand is going to struggle for a while because barring the skipper and to some extent Ross Taylor and Brendon McCullum the team lacks superstars who can inspire magnum opuses. But given that the New Zealand team has always been more than a sum of its parts – and arguably been the best representatives of cricket as a team sport – I would not be surprised if they turn in a fighting performance. Davids slaying and Goliaths falling are after all very much part of the glorious unpredictability of sport. That any amount of resilience may not prevent an Indian victory this around is a different issue altogether. But the harder New Zealand play the better it is for the Indians who will look prepare mentally for the showdown in the Protean land later this year.

Coming to the Ashes, the pre-series gamesmanship has already begun with John Buchanan saying things about Pietersen who in turn retorts and calls the former a “nobody” and Shane Watson chipping in with his dose of unsurprisingly Australian gyan about the English bowling attack. And as one of those old-fashioned cricket lovers, I find all this a bit daft and extremely tiring. However, I expect the actual cricket between the two teams this time to be a lot closer than it has ever been in Australia’s backyard since my birth, no matter what the players from the two teams, experts, commentators, journalists, your-or-my-next of kin, Andy Zalzman and others have to say in the build-up to the series.

Even if the Australian quicks are likely to exploit better the home conditions which may disadvantage James Anderson and Finn – as Watson was wont to point out – who rely on swing, Australia’s batting line up given its recent hot and cold showing may concede a little bit of the advantage back to England because of its growing brittleness. Although the conditions Downunder are very different, Watson and Ponting will be looked up to hold the batting together given their performances in India. The sub-par performances of Michael Hussey, Michael Clarke and Simon Katich and Marcus North’s inconsistency will obviously worry the national selectors. But Ashes is almost a cricketing religion and if two of the four can inspire themselves and step upto the plate during the long series Australia will be well-served. England on the other hand would love to get the supporting actors early hoping that it becomes too much for Ponting to handle. And I liked the look of Tim Paine in India: he seems to be a good old-fashioned keeper without Haddin’s footwork or Gilchrist’s audacity but he seemed to make up for it with grit. It would be interesting to see if Australia picks him or Haddin if the latter is fit.

For England, Kevin Pietersen’s form is admittedly a cause for eyebrow-furrowing concern because he is the sort of talismanic character – like his one-time skipper Shane Warne at Hampshire – who can decide the issue in favour of his team with two masterpieces at crunch situations in a five-test rubber. But it would be unfair to focus too much on KP because during the previous Ashes in England he was merely a spectator after the horrible paddle sweep that took the cricketing world by storm. Andrew Strauss who stoically led England to the urn in 2009 was also the best batsman for the hosts in that series. There is a sense of the blue-collared worker than a batsman about him – and Paul Collingwood who would be looking to return to his gritty ways – which makes him go about his grafting in the middle with unobtrusive but efficient dullness denied to the more flamboyant and gifted. Like his opposite number, Strauss too would, however, need support from other batsmen. The skipper’s opening partner Alistair Cook would probably want to show the world that his mid-forties average is not one for the world to titter about and there can be no better chance than the Ashes to prove this. Some say that Jonathan Trott is perhaps England’s answer to Rahul Dravid and his exploits at number 3 thus far merit the comparison and performances in Australia will only enhancing that reputation. Matt Prior has come a long way with his gloves and his batting has always been in a good league but England will hope that Prior would not have to get involved in too many rescue acts. Collingwood is a key man in the English middle order and his form is important. Although a nudger, the Durham chap brings solidity to the middle order and calm to the dressing room. I do not see Ian Bell getting a place in the eleven unless someone gets injured.

The picture is clear: neither the English nor the Australian batting line-up has trounced oppositions in recent times, so it will come down to which bowling attack can tear the wall when it spots a crack. Mitchell Johnson, Douglas Bolinger and Ben Hilfenhaus will be more than a handful in familiar conditions (and if Nathan Hauritz gets some wickets, it is a bonus!) For England Stuart Broad with his pace and carry is likely to be the numero uno in the quicks’ department. I, however, concur with Shane Warne totally when he says Graeme Swann will play a significant role for England in the series. With his natural aggression, unnatural for a spinner, his number 2 ranking in tests and the confidence from a surfeit of wickets in the last two seasons behind him, you can rest assured that the Northants off-spinner will at least not bowl as flat has Harbhajan Singh has been doing in recent years even if he does not end up with four five-fors in the series.

Even forgetting the weight of history, which England has neither carried very elegantly nor dumped over the years, it may be difficult for the Englishmen to force a triumph because the series is played in Australia. Post-Border Aussies have always been the most resilient lot even when not at their peak and have always found ways to get into winning situations – and win from there – especially at home. It has little to do with form and lot with mindset. If England needs to turn the tide, they need to be working overtime in all departments: bat aggressively, bowl clinically, convert half chances into catches and not think defeat. My prediction though is for a 3-2 or 3-1, Australia. 2-2 may be a welcome result for both teams. If England wins, we can all be elated and stupefied and bid goodbye to one of the great run machines of the modern era, Ricky Ponting.

The Wall near the Door!

After writing a lengthy birthday tribute for one of my life’s greatest inspirations, my Father, I am a little depleted physically and mentally. Yet I do not want to shy away from recording these observations here tonight. I hope I am terribly wrong and so is my best friend Sid – and you cannot find two men who take Rahul Dravid’s game to heart more than we do. For both of us, Rahul’s batting represents a symphony set in an ethereal pitch, a symphony that evokes an emotional response containing deference, delight, gratitude and perhaps even love. But to discern that symphony being ground to the status of something like a hackneyed tune in a broken gramophone hurts – quite literally like a broken heart – and hurts big time. What is baffling is that one would have expected a sensible guy like Rahul to pick an opportune time to go and one feels that has come and gone. Seeing him bat in the last two series, I feel like he is already on borrowed time – not the best thing to say about a prodigious number 3 or one’s greatest idol, but the facts are there for all to see.

In Sri Lanka where Dravid’s defence was still working solid, commentators said he was finding ways to get out. Indeed, there was one freak dismissal to Suraj Randiv and an umpiring decision that could have gone either way. But the signs of sunset were there, not writ in stone or sounded prominently, but they were there, cooed subtly like the whispers of a grey breeze bringing in the long night. In sport, like in most other fields that test if not make human character, body language bears as much eloquence as the actual deeds in the middle. As Dravid walked back to the pavilion at the P. Sara Oval after being bowled I could see (and I admit it is subjective) something other than the disappointment of failing his lofty standards yet again. The handsome face was drained of colour and one could spot in it the faintest traces of weariness.

People who have seen Dravid in his prime would swear that seeing him get out in a similar way or to a certain type of bowling or delivery in a succession of innings is as rare as seeing Sehwag defend for an entire over, which of course is the cricketing equivalent of spotting a Halley’s Comet or understanding Einstein’s equations. But in this series, the Comet has been spotted, Einstein’s ghost has been awakened and the Wall has been breached three times out of three by: (a) a left-arm pacemen (twice to Bollinger in the last test); (ii) deliveries going across the off-stump; and (iii) strokes played away from the body – in attack or defence. Warning signs wouldn’t you think especially for a man who when in his zone used to give the impression that he had an additional eye on his back focusing on the off-stump? Writing on the wall (and no cheesiness in the use of this expression), in fact, Sid and I would say.

Cricket is a cruel game even though it may not seem as cruel as football or tennis because rapidity is often mistaken to be the mother of all sporting strains. As Peter Roebuck writes, fine sportsmen who go past their primes still linger around in the hope of one more magical hour or a half or even a minute for their ticker has been tuned to expectation, performance, consistency and winning. It is like hanging on in a relationship even though it is taxing because the tussle is familiar while getting out entails encountering alien emptiness. Gooch might have scored more than half of his test runs after his fortieth summer including a majestic 333 against India at Lord's but he is an exception. Tendulkar at 37 may be the ICC Cricketer of the Year after a dream year. Tendulkar is Tendulkar anyway and I wonder at times if he had immortality at heart alongside bat in hand when he first faced up to a bowler. But sport levels. Even Sir Donald – the greatest of cricketers – had to settle for an imperfect 99.94.

The rest of the sporting fraternity comprises mere mortals, some more skilled than others, a few more resilient than the rest and a lot who remain in the fringes – ask Badrinath – but once their present turns past everything ceases to be irrelevant for old deeds are forgotten at the sight of a new kid in the block. Change is no foe to sport, in fact, sport thrives on it. At the end of the day everyone has to step out of the dream, look at the sun, understand that it is time for others to live the dream and walk away. Mind you, it is difficult in general to walk away as you will hear men and women who have slogged with sloth behind thankless cubicles tell you that they find it hard to retire. It is even tougher in competitive sport. It requires mental clarity, firm will, the assurance from those who keep you grounded outside of your game’s nadirs and zeniths that all is going to be fine and some luck which can go a long way towards setting up a good if not a fairytale ending. Steve Waugh’s farewell was befitting as he set into darkness doing what he used to do best – play a combative knock which saved Australia his farewell test at Sydney. Comparisons between Waugh and Dravid are  quite natural but when it comes to retirement, (my friend as well as) I feel that Dravid has already missed doing a Steve Waugh.

Even if Rahul Dravid only comes up with single digit efforts in the rest of his test career, even is his catch aggregate remains on 198 and even if he is booed by a nation’s fickle crowd which has done it to him in the past, the admiration Sid and I have for the man will not dwindle. For it is a faith, a sort of fondness transfused into our bloodlines and is non-negotiable. But the muffled titters and mockery will hurt especially when he could have gone on a high at so many points during the last year or so. Fact is he deserves to go on a high. India may be brittle without Dravid in South Africa but even with him I do not see the middle order getting fortified. That is wishful thinking based on a record book which aside from statistics is just history. In any case, Dravid's performances in South Africa may be at best described as lukewarm.  His increased uncertainty outside off will be spotted and ruthlessly exploited by Steyn, Morkel and company. For the first time in the last fourteen years, I must say this: it is better for the team to feel insecure without the cushion of 11500 runs than carry the baggage of a frustrated legend. The door is ajar. And it won’t be long before others force it open for such is the order of sport and the ordainment of time through the offices of age. And we hope Dravid calls time in his own terms before that, forthrightly and confidently, exactly the manner of his forward defence which will be an enduring memory of the man that cricinfo refers to be among the last classical test batsmen.

A Humpty Dumpty Test Match

    October 1- 2010 was the day when “Endhiran” released and people crowded for 2am show to watch it. Meanwhile, the test series between Australia and India started abnormally in a quite manner in Mohali. Australia started off on high with Watson and Ponting putting together 141 run partnership. When it is an Aussie-Indian clash you expect the balance to be topsy-turvy. Its like the Humpty dumpty who sat on the wall. This one didnt disappoint one bit.

  Indians came back well with Zaheer making good use of the art he had mastered, reverse swing. The biggest bore was the rate at which the Aussies were scoring the runs. The usually aggressive Aussies played like they were scared for their life. The RPO of the post tea session on Day1 was 1.43. Now imagine sliding a hacksaw through your neck and thats what it felt like.
  Once again on Day 2, the Aussies took charge and piled up the runs and ended up with a 1st innings total of 428 despite Zaheer’s fiver-for, thanks to Tim Paine and Mitchell Johnson scoring 92 and 47 respectively. India did get off to a good start with yet another Sehwag blitzkrieg with a better than ‘run a ball’ 59. Dravid and Raina gave good support to Sachin scoring 77 and 86 respectively. The match was back again in India’s hands but the fans had a heartbreak when Sachin fell 2 short of yet another 100 with that Australia took the upper hand bowling out India for 405 and Mitch picking a five-for.

  The Aussies got off to a good start with an opening partnership of 87 runs. This time the runs came much quicker. Watson once again was the top-scorer with 56. A tall lanky Ishant Sharma, who was swatted off in the 1st innings came out of the ashes baiting 3 wickets in a spell, all big fish. Zaheer once again cleaned up the tail. The wickets of Hauritz and Hilfenhaus were dream deliveries, even top order batsmen would have nightmare facing such deliveries. The way Zaheer Khan is bowling with the old ball, he would be asking for “Second Old ball due” at the end of 80 overs. 215 was not a tough target for the Indians, considering this was team which chased big totals in the recent past. Advantage once again shifted to Australia when India were 55/4 at the end of Day 4.

Day 5 didnt start off on a good note with India tottering at 124-8. If this match was played between some tom,dick or it would’ve been over, but hey this is IND Vs AUS. Ishant Sharma camped the same crease where the top order batsmen were jumping to short deliveries of the Aussie Fast bowlers, on a wicket which was pretty tough to play short pitch bowling. Laxman despite his back problems, batted with silken touch. Ishant Sharma and Laxman took India to within 11 runs of the target from a hopeless position. There were many tense moments after Ishant was adjudged LBW when he wasn't and Ojha wasn’t when he really was LBW. Ojha and Laxman held the nerve and took India through to their “closest ever test win” with Laxman remaining unbeaten on 73. Yet another time the Aussies were stoven by Laxman. Ishant who started as a villain at day 1 conceding too many runs became a hero in a span of 5 days at the end of the test match. At the start of Day 5 everyone were screaming for Sachin, after all the hype it was a quite and Very Very Special Laxman who drew the “Laxman Rekha” for India.

Australia would be really down after losing such a close test match. They would need a lot to bounce back after this. It is really a shame this is just a 2 match series. The Match also marked Zaheer’s achievement of picking 250 test match wickets. I was jumping in joy not because India won but because i witnessed one of the greatest test matches ever played and that too between two evenly matched teams with a lot of “setting the cat among the pigeons” moments.