Beyond the Blues

The city v small-town cricketer

A few years ago, when I was still playing for Delhi, I saw a young Delhi batsman struggling against short-pitched deliveries in the nets

Aakash Chopra

25-Feb-2013

A few years ago, when I was still playing for Delhi, I saw a young Delhi batsman struggling against short-pitched deliveries in the nets. He had the tendency to square up the moment the bowler dug it short, and to add to his woes he would also take his eye off the ball. More often than not, the ball crashed into his body or helmet. He needed a little help, obviously, but was too bigheaded to ask for it. Or perhaps he was shy. So, I made the first move and asked him about his apparent discomfort. To my disbelief he didn't acknowledge there was any particular problem while facing the short ball. When I pointed to the deliveries that had him jumping like a cat on a hot tin roof, he continued to be defiant and said that it wasn't as serious as I was making it out to be. I got the message and didn't pursue further.

Was it an aberration? Unfortunately, it wasn't. The moment you try telling a youngster about the things he may not be doing right, he would not only rubbish your observations but also 'enlighten' you on how it is done these days.

Most young cricketers from the metros have a similar mindset now: oozing with confidence, brash and close to becoming haughty. The veterans in the team don't take long to accept their new role in such a scenario, which is limited to minding their own business and offering 'limited' advice, and that too only when they are asked.

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Long way to go for Under-19 stars

August 26, 2012 was a momentous day for Indian cricket - their Under-19 team had lifted the World Cup in Australia, beating the hosts in the final

Aakash Chopra

25-Feb-2013

August 26, 2012 was a momentous day for Indian cricket - their Under-19 team had lifted the World Cup in Australia, beating the hosts in the final. While the seniors had been whitewashed a few months ago in the same country, our boys defeated all odds to reclaim the coveted trophy. At one stroke, these youngsters became household names, for they were no longer appearing just on sports pages, but on the front pages of newspapers and tabloids. Even some of the most respectable voices in world cricket thought that a few of our boys might be ready to don the national colours.

With the league phase of this season's Ranji Trophy having concluded, this might be a good time to see how these promising young stars of the U-19 World Cup fared amid the senior men on their home turf. This may not only elaborate the relevance of Under-19 cricket but also reaffirm Ranji Trophy's place in Indian cricket. There have been many occasions when players have been made to jump the queue and represent the Indian team straight from the Under-19 level. Some of these players did sparkle in the beginning, but after a short while were sent back to domestic cricket to reclaim form. While some of them managed to find their way back to the top, others just flittered away into the oblivion.

Let's start with the Under-19 team captain Unmukt Chand, marked as the most promising cricketer of the lot, and touted to be a replacement for Gambhir and Sehwag. Unmukt has scored 445 runs at 37.08 in eight matches, while Jeewanjot Singh from Punjab, who played half of his Ranji matches on a green-top in Mohali, has scored 916 runs in nine matches. In any case, two centuries in 21 first-class matches doesn't really speak volumes about a potential Test opener.

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Ranji venues asking for improvement

Goa-Mumbai-Jammu looked slightly better on paper than our last arduous travel route starting from Guwahati via Kolkata and Mumbai to reach Goa

Aakash Chopra

25-Feb-2013

Goa-Mumbai-Jammu looked slightly better on paper than our last arduous travel route starting from Guwahati via Kolkata and Mumbai to reach Goa. While the latter had taken about seven hours of total travel time to cover the distance, this one from Goa to Jammu ought to have been a much smoother ride, or so we thought! Cricket, domestic cricket even more so, teaches you the meaning of "traveling the length and breadth" and "living out of a suitcase" like nothing else does.

After a back-breaking ten-hour ride, on the road, in the air, and through the mountains, we reached Jammu. While family and friends envy us for getting to explore a wide array of Indian cities, we'd happily give our right arms to play all our games at home. It isn't fun, after all, to pack, unpack, catch flights at odd hours, catch sleep on bumpy seats, and still endure the pressure to perform on the pitch next morning. So much for the love of the game.

Anyone who's played a four-day match would know that sound sleep of seven to eight hours is a major causality on match-days, as you don't completely switch off until the match gets over. That is why, to most of us, the night of the last day of the match is of utmost importance. It is crucial for recovery; having missed on one, the player might take a lot longer to return to a normal pattern. Since travel to the next venue starts early next morning or even the night of the last day of the match, sleep becomes a victim.

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Cricket's quirky rules that defy logic

When GB Shaw said "the golden rule is that there are no golden rules", it made for marvellous lyrics

Aakash Chopra

25-Feb-2013

When GB Shaw said "the golden rule is that there are no golden rules", it made for marvellous lyrics. But when a sportsperson mutters the same, even in hushed tones, it is simply profane, unfair and dishonourable. That perhaps explains the gap between art and realism -- also, the absurdity of the latter. All rules, however out-of-place, out-of-date, out-of-use, must be followed -- the cynics order. Even in the game of cricket, most progressive and contemporary, we fail to see through the sheer quirkiness of some of the most bizarre rules. And I am not even touching upon the ones that concern the actual play, but those that exist on the periphery and yet rub you the wrong way every now and then.

Quirky rule No.1 Take for instance, the rule of mowing the grass on the pitch before the start of play, every single day. Obviously, this rule works well on pitches with a decent covering of grass. Believe it or not though, the pitch that doesn't boast of even a strand of grass is mowed too, every single day. In such cases, the blade is set a little high so that it doesn't touch the surface at all, for the blade can damage the grass-less pitch. Nobody seems to be too bothered about asking: what is there to be mowed? What is the purpose of this mowing? Why waste manpower, energy and time indulging in such a senseless act?

But rules are rules…

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Fast bowlers turning extinct in India

So, what's in fashion this cricket season?

Aakash Chopra

25-Feb-2013

So, what's in fashion this cricket season? It isn't a particular brand and its gear, neither sporting a tattoo, nor a flashy hair style -- our generation-next cricketers have moved beyond such fads. The in-thing that I talk of is, bizarrely, a whole new understanding of the game, a version which is difficult to make sense of by old-school boys like me. What's alarming is that most seem to be swearing by this new, warped philosophy that pace is an "over-rated virtue" and that genuine fast bowlers are fools to invest time and energy in honing this skill.

Educating me on the subject of "neo-cricketism" has been a fast bowler, in his late teens, with the ability to generate great pace for his age. This kid regularly made the batsmen, even the much senior batsmen, jump and hop. In fact, on first seeing him, and having been thoroughly impressed, I'd marked him as 'one for the future'. The kid went on to play first-class cricket in India and I kept hearing good things about him. Well, my last rendezvous gave me an opportunity to know him closely and decipher the workings of many young minds like him even better, not particularly to my pleasure though.

For starters, he's no longer obsessed with pace; in fact he's lost a lot of it, voluntarily.

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Ranji points system needs an overhaul

The first round of the Ranji Trophy this season kicked off amid much fanfare

Aakash Chopra

25-Feb-2013

The first round of the Ranji Trophy this season kicked off amid much fanfare. Uttar Pradesh defeated a star-studded Delhi team, taking many by surprise. A keen Delhi follower, after reading out the Delhi line-up, announced this team was good enough to face any international side. Not one to jump the gun, I politely told him that putting one across a competent domestic team like UP was likely to stretch them. Fortunately, the pitch in Ghaziabad had something in it for everyone on all four days. In the end, the team that won was the team that outplayed the other, made possible only because of a sporting pitch.

It was also during the first round that another widely-watched game took place in Mumbai, involving Sachin Tendulkar. The match was between Mumbai and a weaker Railways team. As expected, Mumbai held the upper hand in a game that turned out to be a dull draw.

But, still, the first round did throw up some exciting outright results. The second round, though, seems to have made a mockery of the BCCI's brief to the curators for preparing sporting pitches. Two triple-centuries were scored in the second round and in as many as four matches the first innings didn't finish until tea on the fourth day. The match involving UP again drew the most attention, this time for all the wrong reasons. Maharashtra, on a highway, scored 764 in a little over two days, and U.P. couldn't even finish their first innings in the remaining time. What a sad advertisement for the sport!

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For the love of the game

Memories of the majestic Armani Hotel in Dubai zip past my mind

Aakash Chopra

25-Feb-2013

Memories of the majestic Armani Hotel in Dubai zip past my mind. That evening, immaculately orchestrated musical fountains had made for a beautiful backdrop for a rendezvous with friends over some delectable kebabs. Two months later, as I now spend time in a small district called Nadaun in Himachal Pradesh, that awe-inspiring opulence comes back to nudge me, almost mockingly. The background for the cook preparing my basic dal, vegetable and chapatis is an open kitchen with a faint halogen bulb hanging loosely. The menu is painted on the wall and steel pots with a variety of dishes left uncovered for the flies to enjoy a game of peek-a-boo.

Having survived a couple of nights in the best hotel the town could offer, I decided to venture out and look for food - good food. After walking past a couple of dhabas, I settle for "Kamal Da Dhaba", decorated with hordes of fancy lights, an attention-seeking tactic that almost always works. It was reasonably busy, which could be a sign of good food. The chef, wearing a striped T-shirt full of grease stains, had replaced the prim waiters at the Dubai Hotel, while fine china and upholstery had made way for plain steel plates and a dilapidated wooden table. The only thing that could have saved this eatery a bad report card would have been its food.

However, just before the waiter served the chapati, he scratched his head and used the same hand to serve. That was the last straw. I tell you this story in a cricket blog because sometimes, as fans of a sport we love so much, we need to look beyond the gloss and confront the grim.

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What's wrong with commercialising cricket?

A journalist from a local news channel in Punjab recently questioned me about the growing commercialisation of Indian cricket

Aakash Chopra