Mahesh Sethuraman

Steve Waugh's reputation as a crisis man is like the real estate market in Mumbai: everyone around me, except me, believes it's credible. It's the one awkward point of discussion in almost all my cricket conversations. How do you explain to the world that what they seem to take as an irrefutable fact, is an extremely dicey claim? Sometimes I wonder if some dream architect played an evil trick and planted such a thought in people's minds.

To begin with, it's such a counterintuitive claim to make without even getting into much detail. Waugh predominantly represented an Australian team which conquered nearly every peak in the cricket world. He had the luxury of fine opening batsmen in the early part of his career and a truly legendary one towards the latter stages of his career. With Ricky Ponting at No. 3 (or six), it's hard to ask for more. And if you add some fine bowling attacks over the years, including one of the best to have graced the game, and arguably the greatest No. 7 ever into the equation, there's not a particularly great scope for crisis.

While the atrocious ground experience is finally getting its share of attention from voices that have the reach, what is still largely ignored is the inexcusable and illegitimate plethora of intrusive advertisements in the cricket telecasts in India. BCCI honchos and its apologists in the media have been rattling out the humongous increase in cricket revenue in India as a justification for all the sweeping changes in our cricketing landscape. That most of the incremental revenue has come from either an irrational expansion of the schedule and/or illegitimate advertisements is hardly pointed out.

Steve Waugh's all conquering team visited India on the back of a 15-0 score line, with a promise to make it 18-0. The first Test in Mumbai was finished in three days and Australia won by 10 wickets. Going by the scorecard alone, it's a mauling. But it was the kind of match that reinforces the Cardusian axiom: The scoreboard is an ass.

Sachin Tendulkar produced one of the most glorious seventies the game has seen - with five pristine straight drives - against Glenn McGrath, Jason Gillespie and Shane Warne at their peak. After failing to put up a big score in the first innings, India got Australia in trouble at 99 for 5, before Adam Gilchrist came out and rewrote the job description of a wicketkeeper in the game forever. Has any other cricketer ever had such a huge impact on their respective discipline?