Different Strokes (old)
Once upon a time in Singapore...
April 7, 1996
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2013
April 7, 1996. It is a gloomy Sri Lankan dressing room, after the newly crowned world champs suffer a shocking defeat to Pakistan in a tri-series final at the Padang Stadium. The newly crowned World champions restricted Pakistan to 215 and came out blazing with their double-barrel opening combo, Kaluvitharana and Jayasuriya. But the middle and lower order caved in and Sri Lanka fell short by a considerable 43 runs.
None of the middle order stalwarts want to face the Lankan skipper Ranatunga. He has consumed just 3 of the 5 staple post-match pizzas from his plate and has since been grim and motionless like a soon-to-erupt volcano at the corner seat.
Kaluvitharana is a free spirit who cares little for anyone's mood. He walks in whistling, fresh after a bath and ready to rub it in. "Really, you middle order guys have been absolutely hopeless here. I give you an opening stand of 70 with Sanath and you just blow it all up like this.." He picks up his neatly packed wicket keeping kit and leaves for the team bus where Jayasuriya is already waiting.
Kalu's quip serves its purpose soon enough. There is an outburst from Arjuna and some of the cricketers hear the filthiest expletives of their lives from their portly skipper who generally reserves them for the tours Down Under. Steam let off, Arjuna comes back to sanity and picks up his kit. The 2 remaining pizzas are neatly rolled up in a napkin and pocketed before he departs.
Full postGanguly's stiff hip and other stories
A spinner came along, and gave it flight
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2013
Cricketing topics you must admit make for the best conversations. For seemingly no real reason you can keep talking about the game. Frequently, when you run out of topics of current interest, periods of nostalgia drift in. And then, your thoughts take totally different turns and the dialogue takes on a completely different tone. Topics merge into one another and everything appears to make complete, continuous sense. A sort of soothing, equal music.
A few days back, a friend and I were talking about how we learnt to play our cricket. The conversation gradually turned to players' mannerisms we'd picked up somewhere along the line during our so-called cricketing lives. He said, as a kid, he'd try imitating Gavaskar. On a hunch, I laughed and asked him whether it was the settling into his stance part that he would attempt copying. He said Yes. Curious parallels like these somehow increase the pace of the Cricketing Conversation. The mood is lightened, frequently, you are chuckling, the world appears a sunnier place, Bangalore suddenly feels like Kerala etc. And, this got me thinking.
It is remarkable how uncomfortable I used to feel when batting (as a kid or even sometimes I must admit as a teenager) if I did not get the time to do the Gavaskar-settling-into-his-stance bit. It partly explained why I could never bat in the Nets. There was simply no time for you to settle into your stance. But, actual matches were different. As the bowler shuffled back to his run, the left leg would already be in place, the right leg would soon swing compactly into place right behind it. The process seemed to give you some sort of presiding authority over bowlers. The bowler about to start off on his run, you sliding your right leg into place. You felt a proper batsman. Settled in your stance, the reference point to your strokes all nice and balanced. You viewed the slips with disdain. Your mind occupied a high plane where edges didn't exist.
That was before the bowler bowled. If the ball was full and on leg, you went smartly forward and drove. On-drove. Once the stroke was completed, the important bit remained. You lifted your back leg and struck a pose. Graham Gooch, driving Malcolm Marshall.
Full postRetirement planning, Earl Woods style
Earl Woods bred a Tiger
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2013
Earl Woods bred a Tiger. Richard Williams spawned a couple of tennis Supergirls and Damir Dokic did his utmost with Jelena until she estranged herself from his obsessive clutches.
So I am going to follow in the footsteps of these and other noble sporting parents and breed me a megastar. I have serious reservations surrounding the ability of my seven Marks & Spencers shares to feed me in my retirement so will take the opportunity to live vicariously (and rather splendidly) through the sporting feats of my offspring.
Of course, this will be no easy task. First I must make the child. Then, devote at least the first ten years of his life to following my routines and punishing schedules until my prodigy is ready to sign his first endorsement deal.
He will be an all-rounder, thus maximising his chances of success by being multi-disciplined.
Full postA chronic dose of institutional paralysis
If I find one thing more objectionable than the incredulous inaction shown by the ICC over the dire mismanagement of Zimbabwean cricket, it is the self justification of their inaction through their latest media release.
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2013
If I find one thing more objectionable than the incredulous inaction shown by the ICC over the dire mismanagement of Zimbabwean cricket, it is the self justification of their inaction through their latest media release.
The ICC is losing credibility with every utterance of self importance that spews from its cosy confines, detaching itself from the Zimbabwean situation and even further from the hearts and minds of the millions of stakeholders to whom the game of cricket means so much and dare I say belongs.
The last time that the ICC offered an opinion on the Zimbabwe issue, they cited their own rules as justification of their inability to intervene. One of the most disturbing aspects of their recent repetition of this restriction is they now add that intervention is not only prevented, but it also is not the best way for the issue to be resolved.
The problem, they say, can only be fixed from within.
Full postFrom 100 yards away
Imagine standing 100 yards opposite a taking off airplane, train and triple-decker bus, all three filled to capacity; imagine the noise, the hues, and the ambiance in such a scenario
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2013
Imagine standing 100 yards opposite a taking off airplane, train and triple-decker bus, all three filled to capacity; imagine the noise, the hues, and the ambiance in such a scenario. Then multiply it all by two. The result would be something vaguely like the atmosphere I experienced yesterday sitting around with 40,000 or so cricket starved Karachites, about half a dozen rows back in the Waqar Hasan Enclosure.
The official capacity for the NSK is only 33,000, but I suppose that only caters for spectators that have occupied seats, and not the ones that are sitting on the stairs leading up to the seats, in between the seats, in the foyers besides the lavatories, and in the little space here, there and everywhere. No potential vantage point was left vacant. When you read somewhere in the papers today that yesterday’s match was a full house, the papers were lying. It wasn’t a full house, it was an over-full house.
I am usually someone who is used to sitting around in my living room and watching cricket with 2 or sometimes 3 people and a remote control. At other times I prefer to be alone, the commentary turned down to mute, the curtains pulled down and across, in the glow of a sole 50 Walt bulb. My cricket-system as such is used to calm, unruffled moods; there is an indifference to time and circumstance outside cricket.
I am aware of every little half chance, the could-have-been moments, the dropped catch, the chance that fell short, every appeal, its duration, intensity and result, the batsmen’s scores, the strike rates, the over rates and the run rates. But this is not what you get at the NSK, or at least not unless you’re nicely seated in one of the hospitality boxes inside the pavilion. But then again, that’s precisely what makes yesterday’s adventure, and it really was an adventure, such a stirring, unforgettable experience.
Full postThus spake Chief Selector: A Chronicle
“Run aggregates and averages are not everything,” I keyed in indignantly, “They have to be seen in perspective
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2013
“Run aggregates and averages are not everything,” I keyed in indignantly, “They have to be seen in perspective. Think of the opposition that conceded them and the lack of assurance with which they were earned.” It was the day’s typical quota of e-argument amongst us college friends on Sourav Ganguly’s exclusion from Indian cricket team for the Sri Lanka ODI series a month or so back.
The above-mentioned selection may have had its share of dark secrets, primarily regarding the non-selection of Sourav Ganguly. We'll never know of them. The allegations at that time were largely unsubstantiated. Also the ‘daredevil’ selectors apparently deserved some benefit of doubt in view of the lighter moments generated during that phase and the support Sourav still enjoyed from the ruling BCCI supremo. That was an interesting first reel of what would essentially end as a sordid saga this week.
The contradictory quotes from the BCCI selection committee chairperson Mr. Kiran More were a drop-dead giveaway to ongoing backend manoeuvres. The remarks were so transparent, so to speak, that one could straightaway name the person behind the decision he would be uttering like a programmable android. Let us chronicle ‘Thus spake Chief Selector’ in a comprehensible sequence.
Following his non-appearance in the challenger trophy citing injury, Sourav Ganguly was kept out of the 1st two internationals of the 7 match Indo-SL ODI series on fitness grounds, which seemed a right decision at the time. My desktop keys started getting busy around this time. “More Power to the selection committee,” I thought aloud through my e-mails contracting an Australian bad habit with little premonition that the two words would come back to haunt an entire cricket-crazy population.
Full post "Dravid is an honourable man" or "Beware of the Ides of December"
As you can guess from the title, I am drawing inevitable historic-literary parallels
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2013
As you can guess from the title, I am drawing inevitable historic-literary parallels. It would be hard to not think of Ganguly as Caesar and Dravid as Brutus. And it is in this parallel that lies a big lesson for Rahul Dravid.
Brutus, addressing the people of Rome for the first time after caesar's murder said,
If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Caesar's, to him I say, that Brutus' love to Caesar was no less than his. If then that friend demand why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my answer: --Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more. Had you rather Caesar were living and die all slaves, than that Caesar were dead, to live all free men? As Caesar loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was valiant, I honour him: but, as he was ambitious, I slew him. There is tears for his love; joy for his fortune; honour for his valour; and death for his ambition.
Dravid too may well give this defence....it is not that he loved Ganguly less, for the two started their careers together, fought many battles together, as did Brutus and caesar, and were good friends for a long period of time. Yet, there came a stage where Ganguly's leadership degraded enough to cause serious problems for the team. For the sake of the well-being of Team India, Ganguly had to go. Dravid can thus plead, that he loved the team more. He could ask, had you rather Ganguly was playing and India be a weak team, than that Ganguly were dropped, and India do well?
Full postDear Yuvraj Singh haters (my old friends)
13th Dec, 2005
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2013
13th Dec, 2005
First I would like you to take a look at a few figures:
79*, 0*, 103, 4*, 53, 49 - aggregate 288, average 96.
Of course this is a sequence of scores handpicked by me to showcase a purple patch. The selection could hardly be any more partisan. But a search for the last six scores of Yuvraj Singh in ODI's will give you the source.
Full postThe streaker dilemma
Streakers have a tendency to display their bits and pieces at the most inappropriate times of a cricket match.
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2013
Streakers have a tendency to display their bits and pieces at the most inappropriate times of a cricket match.
Streakers are invariably home side ‘supporters’ who disrobe and disrupt with equal measure, doing their team no favours in the process. Despite reports of recent poor crowd behaviour, the cricketing world is perhaps not yet ready for barbed wire borders on our boundaries. So what to do, to combat these naked invaders?
The solution clearly lies in organising this band of naturists, in order for all streaking to be conducted within the breaks of play.
Streakers will have to identify themselves to ground staff on arrival at the match and will be issued a ticket number in return. At the lunch break, the ground announcer will call out the streaker’s number who can then run rampant through the pitch (avoiding the square of course) and return peacefully to their seats at the conclusion of their performance.
Full postSledging on the slippery slopes?
Malcolm Speed wants to clean up the game citing a “ spate of Code of Conduct offences ” as the impetus for his request for players to take a copy of the rule book to bed and wash their mouths out with soapy water.
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2013
Malcolm Speed wants to clean up the game citing a “spate of Code of Conduct offences” as the impetus for his request for players to take a copy of the rule book to bed and wash their mouths out with soapy water.
There are many aspects of the game that fall under the generic banner of ‘conduct’ and I for one would certainly like to see continued penalties imposed for actions on the field that overstep the line. Shahid Afridi was dealt a three game ban for his pitch scuffing antics, and whenever a player is physically attempting to alter the conditions of play, then a penalty of appropriate severity needs to be imposed.
Ball tampering, pitch scuffing and intentionally slow over rates should all attract a consequence of enough significance to dissuade players from performing these activities.
Sledging however is different, yet Speed has bundled physical and verbal behaviour under the one statement.
Full post