Samir Chopra
Brawlgate and the need for moderation
What is consistent about Indian teams is that they are not very consistent
Samir Chopra
25-Feb-2013
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| Thanks to the over-enthusiastic hyping of Indian cricket, Indian fans seem to have confused economic power with cricketing power © Getty Images |
Brawlgate is singularly depressing in reminding me of just how ugly the flip-side of Indian fanhood can be. Unrealistic expectations and exaggerated over-reaction, are, as many brighter lights than me constantly point out, the hallmark of this mode of existence. And as in any dysfunctional relationship (from a not-so-great-distance, this is what it appears to be) things won't change till both parties do. The players "simply" need to play better. The task for the fans is much harder.
What precisely is it that creates such over-wrought expectations? The Indian team has never approached the consistency of champion teams. The local maxima of a good performance in one tournament or Test series is very quickly succeeded by the trough of a catastrophically bad performance. What is consistent about Indian teams is that they are not very consistent. Perhaps this roller-coaster induces the exaggerated reactions? But why doesn't it induce the calm of the long-distance traveller?
The answers for that question would take too long to detail in this space. But somewhere along the line, thanks to the over-enthusiastic hyping of Indian cricket (a hyping whose din only seems to have grown in recent years), Indian fans have perhaps confused economic power with cricketing power. And not only that, we seem to have confused the highlight reel, set to music, with the real-time pace of an actual cricket game. What else would make Indian fans forget that our bowlers are always on the mend, or on the sidelines, that our batsmen had not provided any evidence since the World Twenty20 of their improvement against the short ball, that our fielders still lack nous and verve?
Full postThe true cricketing wealth of a nation
After three years of the IPL, and several more years of the financial domination of the BCCI, how much richer in cricketing terms is India?
Samir Chopra
25-Feb-2013
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India, we are told, is the world's richest cricketing nation. I presume the wealth in question has something to do with its "burgeoning middle-class", the IPL, and something called TRPs. But what of the cricketing wealth in India? How does the Indian balance-sheet stack up on that account?
Years ago, when comparisons between "blue-collar Bankstown boy" Steve Waugh, and "Maharajah Snooty" Sourav Ganguly were common (and invariably unfavorably inclined away from the Indian captain), I was struck by the absurdity of it all. Ganguly might have grown up in a household with hired help (an unimaginable luxury in the Waugh household, I'm sure) but in cricketing terms he was a pauper when it came to Waugh. I do not doubt for a second that Captain Courageous grew up with access to an established, well-organized, cricketing structure, to cricket nets provided by the local council, to high-quality equipment, and all of the rest. And I'm willing to wager good money that Ganguly's access to anything similar was far more attenuated. When it came to cricketing riches, Steve Waugh was the true millionaire.
In 2000, shortly after I moved to Australia, I was asked by an office-mate (and future team-mate) whether I'd like "a net". A few days later, I was staggered to find out that we could just stroll up with a kitbag and lay claim to a pair of cricket nets at the Waverley Oval. We batted and bowled for over an hour, and repeated the process over the next few weeks as the suburban cricket season started up.
Full postBig hitting in context
Now that the IPL is on (and on and on) there is, as might be expected, plenty of talk about big-hitting, and especially talk of the biggest hits and hitters
Samir Chopra
25-Feb-2013
Now that the IPL is on (and on and on) there is, as might be expected, plenty of talk about big-hitting, and especially talk of the biggest hits and hitters. Indeed, to hear IPL commentators (and some of its fans) go on, one might think that six-hitting was invented by the IPL. But my point here is not to complain about IPL coverage; there are plenty of folks already engaged in that worthwhile task. Instead, I'd like to talk about the biggest hitting I've ever seen, which funnily enough, didn't happen in the IPL. But it didn't happen in a Test or a one-day international either.
Because what I mean by big hitting here is not necessarily an objective assessment of the distance covered by a cricket ball after it left a batsman's blade. Rather, my assessment of the biggest hitting of all is very much a subjective notion, a reaction to the awe-inspiring power that I was able to bear close witness to. I've seen Kapil, Richards, Botham on television; their hitting was some of the most brutal ever, but there was nothing quite like this spectacle, just because one could hear the bat, hear the sound of the ball's trajectory, and track its flight clearly. And it was made all the more impressive by the context of the game.
Permit me then, to set the stage. In my last post I had written about my cricket watching experiences during my university days. In those days, the trials for the college cricket team were a major event on the sporting calendar. Many folks tried their hand; a select few made it through. Those rejected sometimes took it with grace, sometimes with resentment, mutterings about nepotism, and sometimes with an ostrich-like denial of their lack of playing ability.
At the end of such one trial, when the smoke had cleared, a happy band of twenty or so players had advanced to the next stage, and a larger bunch of young lads were left disappointed. But there was a chance at partial redemption, at partial confirmation of one's sporting self-esteem; the intra-departmental tournament was around the corner.
Full postCricket, up close and personal
A couple of years ago, after I read Sambit Bal's wonderful piece on his cricket-watching experiences at Galle , I got to thinking about which cricket ground had provided the best cricket-watching experience for me
Samir Chopra
25-Feb-2013
A couple of years ago, after I read Sambit Bal's wonderful piece on his cricket-watching experiences at Galle, I got to thinking about which cricket ground had provided the best cricket-watching experience for me. And the more I thought about it, the more I realised that once I had moved past considerations of best viewing angles and the aesthetics of particular grounds, I was left with only one choice: the almost-squarish cricket field at my alma mater, Hindu College, in Delhi University.
This judgment is, as I said, not because there were bucolic visions of nature or architecture available. Rather, quite simply, it was at this ground that I've watched the most high-quality cricket, up close, at leisure, and in a state of mind that can only be described as insouciant. And because too, the players were not excessively remote in a crucial way; they were, to run the risk of cliche, just like me and my mates.
In the 1980s (and I suppose even now), Hindu College and Delhi University were the cricketing powerhouses in Delhi. The best high-school cricketers competed eagerly in the trials for admission to the college; some hoped to make the progression to the university team and then the Delhi Ranji team. The more serious followers of the game among us kept track of who was trying out for the team, and who could be expected to feature in the first XI in the coming season. There was always the ever-present possibility that one of these might be an international cricketer down the line.
And from the moment the cricket season started, we, the cricket spectators, were treated to a bonanza of cricket watching, from the extended nets sessions to the fielding practice drills to the warm-up friendlies to the more serious encounters in the college competition. Watching serious cricket talent up close was revelatory in more ways than one: the straight bats, the dazzling strokeplay, the pace of the bowling, the fielders' reflexes, all served to convince us that these young men were on a different plane from us when it came to playing a game we all loved. And yet, they were not that different from us; they had gone to schools we knew about. They were not older men. It was this simultaneous intimacy and distancing that made this cricket watching the most entrancing experience of all.
Full postOn top of his game
Here is a little bet I set myself: I could open Ray Robinson's On Top Down Under (a collection of biographical essays on Australian Test captains) to any page at random, and find a memorable turn of phrase
Samir Chopra
25-Feb-2013
Here is a little bet I set myself: I could open Ray Robinson's On Top Down Under (a collection of biographical essays on Australian Test captains) to any page at random, and find a memorable turn of phrase. So here goes.
Exhibit #1: On GHS Trott: "Harry folded his shirtsleeves as formally as banquet serviettes around elbows that knew how to bend after a hot day's play."
Exhibit #2: On W Bardsley: "He would notice which end had worst visibility, whether a sightscreen was missing, which were the farthest boundaries, and whether they were favoured by slopes, casing the joint for stealing runs."
Exhibit #3: On Arthur Morris: "Hooking to the four winds and the white pickets, Arthur's bat seemed to have no top edge."
Full postCricket and becoming American
When I stepped out into the windswept, icy canyons of Manhattan later that afternoon, my naturalization papers in my backpack, I had to restrain a giggle or two
Samir Chopra
25-Feb-2013
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| Neville Cardus was the spark for a most interesting discussion © Getty Images |
On this blog and on Eye on cricket, I'm fond of noting my American location: perhaps to make a complaint about American media coverage of cricket, perhaps to note the similarities and dissimilarities in professional sports rivalries and those in international cricket, perhaps to mildly complain about the lack of cricket books in the US or, like my post yesterday, to report a sighting of cricket-related art (an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, featuring the Mexican conceptual artist Gabriel Orozco, whose works feature cricket photographs).
So, in that vein, I would like to report what strikes me as the most unlikely encounter I've had with anything cricket related in the US: an Immigration and Naturalization Service interview. In the course of this procedure, and in process of "becoming American", cricket became intimately involved.
Some ten years ago, after some years in the US with a permanent resident card, I decided, (as can be imagined, with some mixed feelings), to apply for American citizenship. As usual, the paperwork was tedious, and I was required to make a final appearance before an immigration service officer who would review my papers.
Full postThe IPL and fan loyalty
Samir Chopra
25-Feb-2013
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The IPL attracts, as it should, given its prominence and importance in the world of cricket, a lot of commentary. Some critical, some adulatory. In the former dimension, one finds well-meaning worries about its influence on Test cricket, aesthetic discomfort at the crass commercialisation on display (and the prominence afforded to the grinning visage of Mr. Modi). In the latter, admiration for its delivery of an exciting assemblage of players, the broadening of the appeal of cricket, and an entertainment package neatly wrapped up for the post-work hours.
I've handed out my share of brickbats to the IPL. But I always found one particular line of criticism (or scepticism) directed at the IPL to be utterly baffling. That this strain has almost died down is adequate testimony to just how strange (and revelatory of an almost knee-jerk dismissive mindset) it always was.
For this scepticism about the IPL centered almost exclusively on expressing doubt about whether anyone in their right minds would ever care about teams whose name consisted of a pairing of an Indian city and some other noun. Our cricketing pundit would thus proclaim in a tone of almost pitch-perfect incredulity, "Who is going to care about some outfit called the Jaipur Whatchmacallits or the Rajasthan Rovers or the Landikotal Lotharios"?
Full postCricket books and masters of the game
In buying and reading these books, I rediscovered several pleasures which had started to become distant memories: the idle browse through several decades of cricket history, the serendipitous discovery of a classic, and most importantly, when reading
Samir Chopra
25-Feb-2013
Cricket fans living in the United States used to complain about lack of access to the game. Well, we got live telecasts (on satellite and broadband video) and we got the chance to play the game itself. But one thing is still hard (impossible?) to find: a bookstore that carries cricket books.
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Thus, one highlight of my recent trip to Australia was a chance to visit stores that actually carried decent selections of cricket books and to rediscover three masters of cricket writing: John Arlott, Ray Robinson and Gideon Haigh. The icing on the cake was that two of the books are genuine classics: Arlott's An Eye for Cricket is a pictorial one, featuring the photography of Patrick Eagar, the greatest cricket photographer of all; Robinson's opus On Top Down Under is yet to be rivalled as an intimate portrait of Australian captains. I do not attach the adjective "classic" to Haigh's Silent Revolutions only because its vintage is too recent; give it a few years and it will be so, the quality of the writing to be found in there will ensure it endures and continues to edify.
I purchased books by this trio from both first-run bookshops (Readings in Melbourne) and second-hand specialists (Goulds and Berkelouw in Sydney). My procurement method included the roundabout technique of looking up titles on www.abebooks.com and then calling in orders.
Full postShould any 'family' be this tolerant?
There is a way of describing Pakistani cricket, which used to be tiresome but which has now started to strike me as patently offensive
Samir Chopra
25-Feb-2013
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| Pakistan cricket has plunged into yet another crisis, and it calls for a different reaction from outsiders. © Associated Press |
Apparently, there is some drama in the world of Pakistani cricket. The headlines are sensational, and the outraged reaction even more so. But really, is this even mildly interesting? All the banned players will be back soon enough and Pakistan cricket will go on the way as it did before: dysfunctional in the extreme.
There is a way of describing Pakistani cricket, which used to be tiresome but which has now started to strike me as patently offensive. This is the insistence that Pakistani cricket is charmingly erratic, wonderfully unpredictable, beautifully inconsistent, sublimely indisciplined. Right, I'm making these up. But you see the pattern. Pair a couple of adjectives which span the spectrum from the sublime to the sordid and have a go at describing Pakistani cricket. And I suspect the world of Pakistani cricket revels in this description, because this sort of indulgent tolerance gives it a free pass.
A common feature of the calls for a display of solidarity with the Pakistani cricket world in its "time of need" is the invocation of "family" and "fraternity". I find that a bit over the top, but let's stay with it for a second. If we are going to invoke the family trope, then let's go the whole hog. What kind of family member is Pakistan then? Your lovely talented nephew who can't behave himself? Your incapable-of-good-manners little sister? What does it take for the family to say "Enough is enough"? (I don't know what "enough is enough" amounts to in the cricket case but at the very least it should be an end of the amused indulgence of Pakistani dysfunction, whether it is within the team or between the board and the team).
Full postA rare cliché that has remained fresh
That sports-writing is full of clichés is, well, a cliché
Samir Chopra
25-Feb-2013
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| The Rawalpindi Express chugs into the platform © Getty Images |
That sports-writing is full of clichés is, well, a cliché. And that isn't too surprising when you think about it. There are lots of variations on a theme but the theme never quite goes away. Journalists write for deadlines. And even good writers get lazy sometimes and reach for the favorite (case in point: I loved Dileep Premchandran's use of the word "coruscating" to describe a batting performance from a few years ago. A short while later, I felt he was using it excessively. Sure enough, a google search for "Dileep Premchandran coruscating" shows too many hits for his liking. Just last week, a reader pointed out I tend to overuse the word "tend").
But this post isn't about to complain about clichés. Rather, since I'm feeling pretty self-indulgent today I wanted to focus on a little phrase used in cricket writing, whose frequency of usage I'm not sure about, but which always seemed to me to be marvelously evocative in many different ways.
The phrase I have in mind is "steaming in" or "steams in" when applied to a fast bowler, as in, "Michael Holding steams in from the Vauxhall End" or "He's been steaming in all day from the Paddington End". I don't know where I saw such usage first, but I'm pretty sure it was a long time ago.
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