No Country for Greedy Men?

Follow @Vishal1686

Ask any kid in or around Shivaji Park, Azad Maidan or the Oval Ground about what his dream is and he will reply without a second’s delay, “I want to be a part of the Indian cricket team”. That’s how it has been for years if not decades, but the question is will the answer remain the same over the coming years?

With the T20 format introduced by the introducers the game, the contours of the game and pay scales are changing rather rapidly. The latest developments being the tiff between Chris Gayle and the WICB aggravating, second being one of the most bizarre retirements from the finest format of the game by Malinga and third being senior Indian cricketers like Tendulkar, Zaheer, Sehwag and Dhoni playing for clubs in the IPL but not representing their country for the ODIs in the Caribbean.

Initially, it was only a misunderstanding between the WICB and Gayle but as soon as the former landed in the subcontinent, the relationship has been getting worse as quickly as Gayle has been hitting sixes in the IPL. Gayle definitely seems to be more relaxed with RCB than with his nation’s side as he’s been smiling (which is a rare sight), giving high fives and he himself has said he is feeling very comfortable with the team. Dwayne Bravo who joined the defending champions much later recently said that he didn't have any difficulty in gelling with the team (CSK). Will this ignorance by the cricket board lead to preference towards the money laundering entertainment event?

Malinga’s retirement from Test on the other hand was nothing less than out of the blue. He announced his retirement in the middle of the squabble between the Sri Lankan board and the players who were playing in IPL who wanted to stay longer and skip the practice games before their English tour. I firmly believe that IPL was one of the main reasons he retired because if his knee injury was so serious, he could have easily retired from T20s including IPL and played occasionally in the ODIs to make himself fully available for Tests. Or choose between ODIs and Tests depending on his personal preference after retiring from IPL which takes place when cricketers around the world rest or play county in England. But sadly, players nowadays have the option of going for money and not caring enough about their country.

And then came the announcement of Gambhir leading the LOI team for the Caribbean tour starting on June 4. No doubt it is another salivating opportunity for youngsters but why are we ignoring the fact that all the seniors have chosen to skip the ODIs? Do we not want to see them win matches for our country rather than some club which is busier in hiring and firing cheerleaders and inviting Bollywood celebs for the matches?

If I had my ways, I would have reprimanded Sehwag for being so nonchalant about his injury. The shoulder injury occurred during the Tests in December during South African tour which made him miss the ODIs so that he could be in shape (so to say) for the World Cup. Credit goes to him for playing the World Cup even when his shoulder had not healed completely and we lifted the cup, didn’t we? But shouldn’t he have gone for an operation immediately after the celebrations instead of worsening it in the IPL and missing the entire Caribbean tour? On being asked about his shoulder in a press conference just before his last game for the Delhi Daredevils, he said, “I will continue to play with it as long as it doesn't hurt”. And some sweet reminders, Sehwag missed the T20 World Cups in England in 2009 and in West Indies last year because he picked up injuries in the IPL.

If you are a regular follower of Indian cricket, you will know that Zaheer has not been 100% fit for long now which is evident in his run-ups and while he is fielding in the deep. Shouldn’t he also have given rest to his tired legs to be fresh for the Caribbean and England tour?

Our man with the midas touch, Dhoni complained a few months before the World Cup that the team’s schedule was too hectic. But the same man did not go to his hometown Ranchi after playing the World Cup finals in Mumbai because he had to fly to Chennai to join his team Chennai Super Kings. Any logic behind that? I fail to understand why he didn’t take a break as the money could not have made him greedy since he is the highest paid cricketer in the country and maybe in the world.

What I cannot understand even more is that why is Sachin Tendulkar playing match after match in the IPL? He skipped most of the ODIs in 2010 to keep himself fit for the World Cup and to concentrate on Tests. Now that the Cup is in his cabinet (not literally), why does he need to play all the IPL matches? Which part of his body has he not injured in the last 21 and a half years while playing for his country? By how much will the IPL increase his bank balance, 0.1% or 1%? He himself says in almost all his interviews that playing and winning for the country gives him more satisfaction than anything else. Any dots to be connected here?

We can only hope and pray now that the trend doesn’t change because of the moolah and that upcoming cricketers whether in India or abroad still dream of playing for their country.

The Benefits of Sachin Not Scoring a 100 In The WC Final

Follow @Vishal1686


There is more to Indian cricket beyond Sachin Tendulkar. He may have dominated the headlines for all sorts of records over the last two decades but this World Cup final was not just about him. The World Cup has been his burning desire since childhood and he gave it his everything like he does once in four years but it wasn’t won by him alone even though the 31,000 crowd at the Wankhede wanted him to score his 100th international ton on his home turf.

The World Cup might be his now, though not just his, and the final was certainly not about him. It was about the skillful Zaheer, about the uncomplicated Munaf, about the new avatar of Yuvraj, about the determined Gambhir, about a promising Virat Kohli, about the leader Dhoni and about 120 crore other people of the country.

After the World Cup was won almost all Indian players dedicated the cup to Sachin Tendulkar. In fact, even weeks before the tournament started players had started saying that it’s his last World Cup and they want to win it for him.

Were the celebrations and the enjoyment overshadowed by the fact that this meant a lot to Sachin and that it was mostly about him, this being his last World Cup? Most of the post-match discussions were about him, all players were asked about him and what this meant to him, all the players wanted to dedicate this to him, all pictures had Sachin all over them, the newspapers had his pictures on the front page showing him in front of Gateway of India even 48 hours after winning the trophy and of course our ‘sensible’ TV channels also had nothing else to show as usual.

No doubt it was most disheartening and frightening to see Sachin’s wicket fall that evening as I saw it in the stadium itself as there was pin-drop silence for a few minutes. But it was nothing less than a pleasure to see that in the World Cup Final, which must have been the most important match of the players, the youngsters stood up and performed.

Yuvraj took the ball once again as the fifth bowler and broke the crucial Sanga-Jaya partnership which could have taken them closer to 300 and gave runs at less than 5/over. Munaf did not take a single wicket or bowl a single maiden but not many realized that despite being criticized the most, he had the most economical figures. The deadly duo of Raina and Kohli saved at least 20-25 runs which made our chase easier. Kohli played like a matured and experienced player and made crucial 35 runs and then the match-winning knock from Gambhir who came to the pitch when the scorecard said 0-1 and made the most runs under pressure. If I had to make a sequel of True Grit, I would star Gautam Gambhir in it.

Ever since Sachin, Ganguly and Dravid were the spine of our batting in ODIs, we have been wondering how they will be replaced. Now, only the first one is left in the team and I’m more than happy to say that the baton is being passed on to some responsible cricketers. Sachin played only two ODIs in 2010 and still our team’s performance was consistent.

Coming back to the World Cup, it was exhilarating to see these youngsters play some fantastic cricket and that it wasn’t yet another victory just because of Sachin. It very well could have been…But a part of me says, I’m glad it wasn’t.

Mind you, I am not taking any credit away from the senior players like Sachin, Zaheer, Dhoni or Yuvraj, I am only giving a lot of credit to these youngsters which they deserve…

The Return of the King: Sourav Ganguly

Follow @Vishal1686

“I thought we played good cricket for the first 10 overs and for the next 30 we were just absolutely rubbish. In one line, we were rubbish” This is what Sourav Ganguly said in the press conference after KKR lost to RCB on 10th April, 2010.
“Let's be honest. I can talk, I can lift them up but they need to lift themselves. I can't go and field for them. I can't go and bowl for them.” This is also what Sourav Ganguly said immediately after the first line mentioned above.

It shows the kind of passion he has retained even years after his controversial descend from captaincy of the Indian team. It is not just this but his recent commitment and leadership on the field during IPL-3 which shows his dedication towards the sport and the loyalty he feels towards the side he represents as he nears the age of 38.

He has thrown himself around so much that in a recent interview, the bowling coach of KKR, Wasim Akram said that Ganguly is currently the best fielder in the side. This means that the best fielder of a side need not be as athletic as Gibbs or needs to fly like Jonty Rhodes. He just needs to be more than willing to contribute towards victory, towards stopping those extra runs or take those catches which make you win matches (and of course, the others need to be worse than you because Ganguly was never even close to being the best fielder in the Indian side).

‘The Prince of Calcutta’, known for his audacity and aggression from the beginning of his captaincy career has shown those signs yet again after being pretty unsuccessful in the first 2 seasons of the Indian ‘Paisa’ League. This time he led from the front and at least did not finish last like the last time and the team did show better performances, though towards the second half of the league.

When in the Indian team, he brought about big changes after he took over the baton of captaincy from Sachin Tendulkar in 2000 after the latter stepped down. The team at that time was over-dependent on Tendulkar and had no-one dangerous in the bowling attack. And when Ganguly left, we had a much more balanced side, the batting lineup could win matches without Sachin and the bowling attack had names like Zaheer, Bhajji, Irfan, Ishant, Nehra who are certainly match-winners in themselves. They all may not match up to the other international best bowlers, but our side looks much better on paper and on field.
All the credit cannot go to Ganguly only but a lot of it does. Players like Yuvraj, Sehwag, Bhajji, Agarkar, Kaif and more have said that Ganguly has played a vital role in shaping their careers.

He was unorthodox, maverick and did not hesitate when it came to fighting for himself or for his players. He always pressed on selectors to give the above mentioned players extra chances when they were not in form because he saw the talent in them.

He was also one of the few Indian players who verbally also gave it back to the opponents whether on the field or off. During the 2003 Australian tour, Steve Waugh asked him to be on time for the toss to which he replied, “If you behave, I will.”
During the England tour in 2007, in one of the one-dayers, Stuart Broad was ‘trying’ to sledge, people expected Ganguly to reply with the bat or sledge back. But our dear dada scolded Broad saying, “You should know how to talk to your seniors. You must have been in your nappies when I started playing for India.”
There are many more instances and quotes but the highlight of his gestures was when he took his shirt off at the Lord’s balcony when India beat England in that Natwest Series final in July 2002. Who doesn’t remember that?

After retiring and having a spat with Greg Chappell, we all counted him out and not many apart from some from Kolkata cheered for him when IPL started. But after two years, in the third season he came back and came back strong. He put his foot down, performed and led by example in all departments on the field. But when the other players didn’t do much and some didn’t do anything at all, he gave up and gave it back to them during the press conference.

Cheers and tribute to one of the most successful captains of India ever and the man who took Indian crickets to new heights.

Sach an Innings!

Follow @Vishal1686

Time and again it has been said that Sachin Tendulkar plays for records. Time and again it has been said that Sachin Tendulkar chokes when India has to chase a target of more than 250. And time and again Sachin Tendulkar replies to all his critics in his own style, by letting his bat talk.

5th November 2009 was no different when India had to chase a target of 351 and many, including Ponting thought that it would not be possible. This match reminded us of many other matches. The very score of 350 reminded me of the 2003 World Cup finals when Australia scored 359. A terrific start by Sehwag reminded me of two matches: one against Pakistan in the same World Cup and the Natwest Series finals in July 2002 in which India successfully chased 325.

And when Sachin took command, his Sharjah centuries of 1998, the CB Series finals last year and most of his marvelous innings came to my mind again because he was simply at his ‘best’. He started slow no doubt which showed that he did not want to lose his wicket at any cost. Slow and steady, when he reached the score of seven, the nearly 40,000 people present were on their feet cheering his 17,000th run not knowing that was just the tip of the iceberg.

The part of his innings which amazed me the most was his strike rate which got better even though he was running out of partners. When the pressure was mounting, he got a better grasp of the match by hitting consecutive sixes off Hauritz which were from the meat of the bat. And his earlier six off Shane Watson was an identical twin of the six he smacked in the 2003 World Cup off Andrew Caddick.

His innings was tailor made to take his country to victory. Hitting the boundaries at the right time, converting the ones into twos and the twos into threes, rotating the strike, and of course, preserving his wicket almost till the end.

But time and again it has happened that Sachin scores a big chunk of the total and still India loses. Everybody remembers the 1999 Chennai Test against Pakistan in which after he scored 136 of the required 271, the last three batsmen could not score the remaining 17 runs. Why blame the last three for losing? Couldn’t the frontline batsmen stick around for a little more time? And again, this time against Australia, he scored half the runs while most of the others went back to the pavilion in a hurry as if they had been holding their pee since birth.

With that mammoth score of 175 while chasing, I believe he surely scored one of his best centuries. No doubt, he wanted India to win more than anything else whether it was 175 or a 200. I hope with that remarkable century, some barmy critics do not question his ability again. I hope they do not ask him to retire again as they did a few times in the last couple of years. A man at 36 who reminded us of two of (Sharjah) innings he played more than a decade ago is surely unfit to retire. By taking India to victories in the CB finals in Australia last year, by scoring a flurry of 90s in 2007 and now, by showing the world that he does his best to make his team win, critics should focus only on the other players who need to be more responsible and dependable in times like these.

Critics will surely say that he has scored 45 tons but why has India won only 32 of those matches. Please realise that apart from him there are ten more players in the team who do not always score when they are supposed to and a few others give away too many runs which makes his half-centuries and centuries a part of records and not victories.

The Failure of Champions League

Follow @Vishal1686
When you think of Champions League, you think of football don't you? If someone says, 'the Champions League is a big failure', you'd call him foolish won't you? And if Champions League is such a big affair in football, why couldn't Lalit Modi & Co. think of a better name for the cricket version of it?

Whatever the name, it was indeed a failure. If you are a cricket fanatic, and were expecting something as good as, say, the Liverpool-AC Milan (3-3) final of 2005 or the Barcelona-Arsenal (2-1) final of 2006, then you were asking for too much.

Not much was gained from this league. T&T showed a lot of potential, and some guidance to the WI team, some stadia might have become marginally better and some ground workers might have become a little better off. But much more was lost than how much was gained. The most recent one being, Brett Lee being sent back home only the first ODI in the 7-match series in India. What were the chances of Lee not getting injured if there had been no CL? Surely, the chances would have been far less. Does Lee regret it? Even if he does, will he still play in every season of IPL and CL? Only time will tell...

Both IPL and CL were plagiarised brainchildren of Modi. With just one motive: EARN as MUCH as you can. The two seasons of IPL certainly earned him a few crores but not every league will turn out to be as successful in India. People in India are not that crazy about cricket that you'll get a full house for a match between two Aussie teams about whom Indian fans have never even heard! For me, it was a pleasure to see empty chairs and stands. It was a slap on Modi's face. I wanted CL to be a disaster. As a cricket fan I should have loved it, but don't we have enough cricket already? Isn't there an overload of cricket matches these days? Specially T20s? What would you prefer? Injury free Ashes, Champions Trophy or several leagues throughout the year and then match-winners like Sehwag, Yuvraj, Zaks, Pietersen, Lee not able to represent their countries when they want to? The choice is yours..you will ultimately get what you want to see and not what you are made to see by millionaires just because they want to become billionaires.

The greed for money certainly attracts the players. From that point of view, I think it's fine till IPL because it gives a platform to tier II and III Indian players to play with players like Hayden, Gilchirst, Warne etc. and some money as well. But greed will kill the game. Numerous cricket lovers have already started disliking 50over matches. What will they do when they are bored of T20s? Hopefully, Tests will not get affected. I hope they are not. If the essence of the game dies, the game will not live long too.

I hope Modi gets picked up by aliens or gets raided by the income tax team so that we can get back to what we had before his dominance over Indian cricket and T20s. Or, I hope he thinks about the game for a change and not about his bank balance...

Jumbo’s Last Flight

Follow @Vishal1686
‘It is the end of an era’. How many times have you read or heard this statement when a legendary player retires from any sport? I ask this question because India’s former test skipper announced his retirement on the last day of the third test match in Delhi between India and Australia in October 2008.

Sachin Tendulkar says Kumble is the best bowler India has had; Ian Chappell says it will be hard for India to produce another Kumble and some of the Pakistani players praised the commitment, grit and determination ‘Jumbo’ has shown for the past 19 years. The way he came back to the field after fracturing his jaw against West Indies at Antigua in 2002 is a perfect example of that.

However, I would like to say that no doubt whatever is written above is true but Kumble was never a ‘very’ talented player. One of the reasons is that he was not a big turner of the ball and the other being he got a big chunk of his 600 plus wickets from the lower order. If you carefully look at the way he takes wickets, he often used to beat the batsmen by pace by pitching the ball in line with the stumps and had the batsmen LBW or bowled in case of not very good batsmen. He hardly got batsmen beaten by turn or flight (which was never there). The fact that he was almost always in the team (except for the two year period around 1990-1992), was true because we never had any other spinner who could bowl really well or could even take wickets on a regular basis. So, at least we had some one who could clear the tail away sooner or later. We had Venkatapathy Raju, Ashish Kapoor, Sairaj Bahutule, Sarandeep Singh and a few other spinners as well who could never establish themselves in the team for more than a few months. And since Indian pitches have been favouring spinners since time immemorial, we had to keep at least one spinner who was taking wickets by beating batsmen by pace or by turn. Then came Harbhajan Singh in 1998 but even he did not stay for long. But, it was in 2001 when he made his comeback against Australia and took 32 wickets (including a hat-trick) in a three test series and threatened Kumble’s place as an established spinner in the team. Since then they both have been in and out of the playing eleven (but almost always in the team of 16) because now we had a bowler who could turn, flight and spin the ball. Of course ‘bhajji’ has not been consistently consistent but he certainly has been the best of the lot we have had for the past 10-15 years.
It was only when Rahul Dravid stepped down as the skipper almost a year ago, Mahi was too young to lead a test team and Sachin said it was time for someone younger than him to take over as the captain, that the selection committee made Kumble as the makeshift captain of the test team. Unfortunately, after that his performance got worse which probably made him think of retirement. And as he discovered during the Test series against Australia that he was not getting wickets, he decided to hang up his boots.

It might be the end of an era but it certainly is the beginning of another for the other spinners to take over and take the team to a higher level.