Blues Brothers

For what it’s worth, here’re my thoughts on the Indian Premier League.

The format: It’s exciting but repetitive, and after the first two or three games the cheerleaders became a distraction, even a chore, getting in the way of the game. To be fair, these are points others have made as well and I can only nod in agreement. Perhaps more judicious use of Indian music and cultural products would make more sense to Indian crowds over the longer term. Somebody in Mumbai has suggested a bhangra troupe; film songs specific to players or descriptive of the situation (a six or a dismissal, as the case may be) could be other, equally corny ideas.

In the vintage years of Test cricket, boundaries were occasional. One-day cricket (F50 if you prefer) made fours and sixes common. T20 threatens to make them commonplace. If a six is hit every other over it is going to cease to be exciting. T20/IPL will need to devise new benchmarks. Perhaps vertical targets will be set: “Hit the red line near the clubhouse balcony and score eight; hit that black line on the floodlight tower and score a 12.”

Agreed, both those sound ridiculous, but so much about T20 is out of the ordinary and the conventional that it will soon have separate rules and scoring patterns being institutionalised for it. You can’t play it as if it were a compressed version of an ODI or a Test; it’s not. You don’t write text messages in accordance with Wren and Martin rules of grammar, do you?

Four months ago, he was the wronged Indian, the “Sikh warrior” who had been done in by malevolent Australians. Today, he’s the villain, the hot-head who’s gone too far, been banned for the rest of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2008 edition – and who was probably guilty as charged by Andrew Symonds too.

The most ridiculous aspect of the Harbhajan Singh-Sreesanth controversy – which in any case is the most riveting episode the IPL has thrown up so far – is the fickleness of the cricket media and the regiments of newspaper commentators and sound-bite pundits. With specials programmes like Chhante ki Goonj (The Resounding Slap) and Tamache ka Takkar (The Clash of the Slap) – and I hope I have those names right – making a further mockery of news television, Harbhajan has gone from national hero to international anti-hero, from one ridiculous extreme to another.

Much like the Beijing Olympics and China, the Indian Premier League was supposed to be the Board of Control for Cricket in India's coming out party. Much like the Beijing Olympics and China, IPL is turning out to be the BCCI's self-inflicted public relations headache.

Only India could have done this. Just weeks after one of the most rivetting, pulsating and action-packed set of Test matches in history, India is one part – the bad, listless part – of a Test series that is turning out to be a “no contest”.

This is not to suggest there isn’t good cricket on offer. The South Africans are playing brilliantly and imperiously, looking – at least in April 2008 – the best team in the world. Their fast bowling has been impressive and made its presence felt even on the tombstone wicket in Chennai. As for Ahmedabad, any team that bowls out the other in 20 overs in the opening session of a Test match – however helpful the pitch and whatever the state of the opposition – deserves accolades.

Are love of cricket and love of India synonymous – or are they, in a contemporary context, mutually exclusive? It’s a question that has troubled me often, most recently when a respondent to one of my posts – which semi-facetiously suggested an Indian batting collapse could inject some energy into a destined-for-a-draw Chennai Test – implied I was being unpatriotic.

Since I’ve never measured patriotism or sense of national identity in terms of worshipping dead-on-arrival pitches, I must say I was left bemused. What amazes me even more – and has amazed me for years – is how much and how easily a certain Indian type of Indian cricket fan manages to work himself into a frenzy over fairly inconsequential fixtures.

A quick response to the negative mail after my previous post. I wasn't comparing Sehwag's batting to Shastri's. The only point I was making was that the two are among the most gritty Indian batsmen ever: hungry, willing to take a deep breath and go on and on. Both want to maximise the gifts they've been given. This is unusual for Indian cricket, which -- from Jaisimha to Sandeep Patil to Sanjay Manjrekar, to pick three random names -- has been a saga of under-achievers.

While statistics don't tell the whole story, Shastri used his limited talent to hit 200 once; Sehwag, obviously a better batsman, used his greater talent to hit 300 twice.

Second, while I'm happy to doff my hat each time Sehwag entertains me and scores big, and scores quickly, it's a little silly to suggest, as one reader has done, that he's better than V.V.S. Laxman. Hayden has hit a triple-hundred and Ponting has not, but nobody suggests the Australian opener is a greater batsman than his captain.

Let's not lose perspective and nuance here.

I still believe it’s a bad, unequal wicket that doesn’t make for a great contest. I still believe this match is likely to be drawn. Yet, nothing, just nothing can take away from Sehwag’s innings. Every time he scores a century – and 10 scores of over 150 bear this out – he goes on to make a big one. He doesn’t throw it away, there’s a hungry, gritty, run-chewing monster inside him.

It’s tempting to compare Sehwag to K. Srikkanth, another hard-hitting batsman with a quick eye and delightful wrists who, if memory serves me right, got only two hundreds in Test cricket. I remember both those innings – one in Chennai itself, against Imran in 1986-87, and one a season earlier in Australia (which I heard on the radio, but didn’t see). So often, he’d blaze his way to 30 or 40 and then get bored, twirl his nostrils, make some silly error and go home – another of a long list of Indian stylists who scored fewer runs than they should have.

Sehwag started off looking podgy – he is much fitter in real life than the photographs do him credit – but today his stamina spoke for him. It’s remarkable that in team with four batsmen who’re all rated above him, he’s the one who refuses to get out. It would be sacrilege perhaps to mention him in the same breath as Bradman and Lara – the others to have hit two triple hundreds in Tests – but look how he’s polished his limited skills set and where it’s taken him to ... He’s a bit like Ravi Shastri in that sense, only more free-scoring.

These past two years have cost Sehwag a lot – his form, his place in the team, his shot at captaincy. He’s lost that slot to Dhoni and if he decides he doesn’t want it, maybe it’ll just free him up for a long innings as India’s most prolific opener since that day in Mumbai in 1987 when Sunil Gavaskar left the crease for the last time. There couldn’t be two more different batsmen; but only one of them ever reached 300.

Just read a piece by Harsha Bhogle in today’s Indian Express on how the ICC’s more sinned against than sinning. Not sure I agree with that. In fact the way the ICC’s made a mess of international umpiring is a case in point.

The first thing an economy needs is infrastructure – before the booming factories, you need to get the power stations running and roads ready. Cricket’s equivalent, I suppose, is the paucity of top-level umpires. The ICC’s Elite panel is woefully small and overworked, leading to, most recently, Simon Taufel announcing he’s had enough.

How has the ICC tackled this? In a very ad hoc manner. At its Dubai meeting, I expected a discussion – if not a blueprint – on upgrading umpiring skills across member countries leading to, say a doubling to the Elite panel strength in 15 months or 18 months. Some discussion on using technology to aid umpires or even take over decision-making to some degree would also have helped.

It’s all very well to say umpires are intrinsic to the game and cricket needs the “human touch”. These are fine clichés for a Sunday afternoon game – not for a multi-million dollar, serious sporting enterprise. If umpires have to take recourse to technology and replays more and more, so be it. They’re not the stars on the field, the players are.

What a terribly forgettable day of Test cricket – and to think it came right after the rivetting stuff in Australia. If the rest of the series is like this, these matches will be the best advertisement and pre-publicity for IPL and T20. Part of me is already praying for an Indian collapse tomorrow and a follow on. Else, we’re headed for yet another draw.

To bat in these oppressively hot conditions is torture, to watch shoddy fielding is even more so. Since the BCCI is in such experimental mood these days – having taken to IPL with gusto – why can’t it decide that all Test matches in India between, say, March 15 and October 1 (or between the festivals of Holi and Diwali that traditionally frame the Indian summer), will be played under floodlights. The first ball could be bowled at 5.30 pm.

I know it sounds a silly idea, but it’s better than playing in Kanpur and Ahmedabad in April, as the Indians and South Africans will be doing.

On another note, thanks for the welcoming messages in response to the first post. deepak2 warns me I have my job cut out replacing Mukul. Deepak, I’m not competing; if I manage half Mukul’s success I’ll be happy. Actually, if I blog in a year half as good in terms of playing skills and drama as the one in which he did, I’ll be happy.

It’s been 24 hours since I was given the freedom to start blogging by Cricinfo’s editors. It’s also been 24 hours since I decided to read Mukul Kesavan’s last post. “Blues Brothers” succeeds – perhaps replaces is a better word – “Men in White” and I attempt to fit the shoes of someone of a bigger size. It was appropriate, I felt, to read that valediction, in homage if nothing else.

Then I read the responses; at the time there were 126 readers who’d mailed back following that final post. Some liked Mukul and said they’d miss him; others loathed him and couldn’t wait to share their glee at him leaving the crease. Either way, there was strong emotion and great vehemence. It scared me. In India, in cyberspace at least, we take our cricket seriously. Writing on politics – which is my day job – seems almost tension free in comparison.

Well, 24 hours are enough to battle trepidation. It’s appropriate to start with an introduction. Like all cricket fans, I’m a contradiction. I grew up reading of the Golden Age of Cricket, of Trumper and Clem Hill (with whom, I discovered to my utter joy, I share a birthday). Yet, as March vanishes into April, I can’t but confess I’m looking forward to the IPL razzmatazz. True, it’s not the same game – but it’s the only one we have.

This blog is supposed to be a wide-eyed fan’s view. As a journalist, and one who writes occasionally on the business and politics of cricket, I cannot entirely escape the cynic’s view. So this blog will perhaps reflect the inner confusion of the blogger. So much like the great game isn’t it – immaculate defence one ball, cross-bat swipe the next? Cricket brings out the paradox of life.