Tour Diary
Not quite the home of cricket
Imagine a cabbie in Melbourne not knowing how to get to the MCG, or his counterpart in New York staring at you blankly when you ask to go to Yankee Stadium
Dileep_Premachandran
25-Feb-2013
Imagine a cabbie in Melbourne not knowing how to get to the MCG, or his
counterpart in New York staring at you blankly when you ask to go to
Yankee Stadium. You can't. But in Kuala Lumpur, where cricket really isn't
part of the nation's sporting psyche, blank looks are usually what you get
when you get in and ask to be taken to the Kinrara Oval. Located in the
suburb of Puchong, it's more than a half-hour drive from the city's
commercial hub, and exact directions and a gaze or two at the road map are
necessary before you can head off in the right direction.
Along the way, you pass the National Stadium at Bukit Jalil, a magnificent
structure that seats 100,000 which hosted the Commonwealth Games in 1998.
And nearer the airport is another sporting venue that Malaysians are
immensely proud of - the Formula-One circuit at Sepang. As my cabbie tells me
earnestly, cricket doesn't really register here. The main newspapers have
opted for agency coverage of these matches, and the lack of interest was
evident as West Indies and Australia played out the opening game in front
of empty plastic seats and upholstered chairs.
"Soccer is the most popular game," he tells me seriously, before adding
that despite the government's best efforts, the national team languishes
outside the top 100 in the FIFA rankings. When it comes to national
sporting icons, you have to look towards badminton - remember the famous
Sidek brothers? - and squash, where Nicole David now heads the women's
rankings. They also have a handy hockey team, once coached by Australian
legend Terry Walsh.
Full postWelcoming Kinrara
Flanked by a mosque on one side and the highway on the other, the picturesque Kinrara Oval is a welcome addition to the many venues that dot modern-day cricket's landscape
Dileep_Premachandran
25-Feb-2013
Flanked by a mosque on one side and the highway on the other, the
picturesque Kinrara Oval is a welcome addition to the many venues that dot
modern-day cricket's landscape. After the space-age Sheik Zayed Stadium in
Abu Dhabi and the lovely Warner Park in Basseterre, it's Kinrara's turn to
bask in the debutante's spotlight. Unlike many of its utterly soulless
concrete counterparts, its gives off an impression of space and light,
surrounded by trees and with a few mini-pagoda-like constructions that
resemble the stands named after the Chappell brothers at the Adelaide
Oval.
The Adelaide connection doesn't quite end there either. Les Burdett, the
curator in Adelaide, has been entrusted with preparation of the pitches
here, and apart from the dodgy bounce that dismissed Ricky Ponting, he has
every reason to be pleased with his efforts. With the players seated on
plastic chairs beneath picnic umbrellas, the impression of a laid-back
outing in the country is further reinforced. The only thing that isn't
idyllic is the afternoon heat, and the humidity that makes you imagine
that you're locked into a sauna.
The Oval came into being in 2003, with a team from New Zealand helping out
with the turf, and there are now six strips that can be used. The four
floodlight towers took just four weeks to construct, and the
Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) have invested the lion's share
of the US$465,000 spent on them. Sadly though, the whole purpose of the
exercise - the lofty aim of spreading cricket's message at non-traditional venues
- appears to have been defeated by the lack of public interest.
Full post'We need matches, brother'
They departed under the cover of darkness, an embattled team that wanted nothing more than to return home
Dileep_Premachandran
25-Feb-2013
They departed under the cover of darkness, an embattled team that wanted nothing more than to return home. Tempers had been frayed by the “chicken” headlines in the morning newspapers, but by 11pm, when they boarded the coach to the airport, the smiles were back on most faces. Mark Boucher wasn’t one of those grinning, his face still a dark mask, and the Sri Lankan journalist who insinuated that Boucher was a bully can count himself lucky now that plenty of air miles separate him from South Africa’s stand-in captain.
On Thursday night, with the decision to leave having been taken, most of the players could be seen in the coffee shop or downstairs in the pub. Ashwell Prince was one of those around the pool table, and he and Shane Jabbar, the physio, played out a tightly contested game against yours truly and Gordon Templeton, the media manager.
It’s uncanny how those who excel at one sport that requires terrific hand-eye co-ordination are usually proficient at several others. Prince’s pool was not too different from his batting – calculated, composed and devoid of any flash. There was still time though for Makhaya Ntini to come by and deliver a mini-sledge before walking upstairs where he held court in the coffee shop with Loots Bosman and Thandi Tshabalala.
Full post'It's just a game, man'
As sports fans, we've heard all the clichés a million times
Dileep_Premachandran
25-Feb-2013
As sports fans, we've heard all the clichés a million times. "Winning
isn't everything, it's the only thing", "Cricket is life, the rest mere
details" and so forth. At times like this, you begin to realise just how
much garbage it is. As a South African player told me in the hotel
lobby a couple of hours after the bomb went off, "It's just a game, man.
Heck, I want to bowl to Sachin [Tendulkar], but not if I can't feel safe
about where I am."
Another senior South African player was even more candid. "If we hadn't
been playing today, we'd probably have been out shopping. And a lot of us
have been to Liberty Plaza before."
I found out about the blast on the way to the stadium. Pouring rain had
already ruled out any prospect of play starting before early evening, but
when the phone trilled, there was more than a weather forecast to worry
about. When told, my driver didn't panic. "Best not to go toward the
stadium," he said. So I asked him to turn around and head towards the Taj
Samudra instead.
It took us nearly an hour to get within range, the roads choc-a-bloc with
cars and tuk-tuks full of people presumably heading home. When he found
out that I was from India, the driver's mood deteriorated. "You Indians
helped this LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam)," he said sourly, even as I sat mute, not wanting to be drawn into a debate on a conflict where the fault-lines run so deep.
Full postRain, billboards and teddy bears
Dileep_Premachandran
25-Feb-2013
Having left behind the rainy south of India, and the flooded north, it's a relief to see the sun beating down as we land at Katunayake airport. The warmth extends as far as immigration, where the official's face lights up when I mention what I'm there for. "We're in good form, you know," he says, just in case I hadn't watched Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene take South Africa to the cleaners and beyond a week ago.
It starts to cloud up as we begin the drive into the city, but despite all the streamers and posters promoting the South Asian Games - they start on the 18th - it's cricket that rules this beautiful island. Even before you leave the airport premises, you can see a billboard for Sri Lanka's Board of Investment, which quotes Sanath Jayasuriya as saying: Sri Lanka - a perfect pitch where your business scores. A few kilometres down the road, Sachin Tendulkar and Brian Lara grin at you from an MRF tyres hoarding. And in case you hadn't already got sick of it back home in India, there's the Reebok ad featuring Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh, goofy grins and all.
Full postLasting memories
It's been 54 days since I landed in Kingston, days spent in cricket grounds resembling a carnival setting, in hotels resembling home, in beaches resembling images on exotic postcards, and in departure lounges resembling anything between bus
Siddhartha Vaidyanathan
25-Feb-2013
It's been 54 days since I landed in Kingston, days spent in cricket grounds resembling a carnival setting, in hotels resembling home, in beaches resembling images on exotic postcards, and in departure lounges resembling anything between bus stations to seven-star hotels. As is always the case, sometimes I felt it was all happening too fast; sometimes I just wanted it to end then and there.
Visiting the West Indies fulfilled a lot of my childhood ambitions. As a 15-year-old night life usually involved staying awake late, tip-toeing onto the television room, muting the sound, and watching cricket from the Caribbean. The passion that was on show – the sight of people dancing in the stands, fans watching from trees, spectators constantly providing advice to the batsman – never ceased to fascinate.
The flair that accompanied the West Indian cricketers – Hooper's smoothest of smooth cover-drives, Lara's square cut hit on the jump, Ambrose's bouncers which batsmen only smelt – made the game a true spectacle. Then there was my grandfather, a die-hard West Indies fan, who somehow always insisted that my dear Azhar was not a patch on Lawrence Rowe when it came to style. The best part was he's never seen Rowe bat, but only heard and read about his exploits.
Full postThe West Indian wicketkeeper factory
Siddhartha Vaidyanathan
25-Feb-2013
A few minutes away from Sabina Park is Wolmer's Boys’ School, founded way back in 1729 and rich in cricketing tradition. Several schools around the world have produced Test cricketers but none might be able to match Wolmer in the wicketkeeping department. Six Wolmer alumni have been West Indian Test wicketkeepers. Take that.
It’s given West Indies their first-ever Test wicketkeeper, Karl Nunes, their first centurion in England, Ivan Barrow, a captain, Gerry Alexander, a battler, Jackie Hendriks, a legend, Jeffrey Dujon, and a promising star, Carlton Baugh. That makes 417 catches and 21 stumpings at Test level, along with 5447 handy runs. If one were to write a story of West Indian wicketkeeping, it’s tough to find a better setting.
Full postGelsenkirchen tension in Jamaica
Siddhartha Vaidyanathan
25-Feb-2013
There was a moment just after the lunch break when it was difficult to gauge what was going on. Around the same time when Harbhajan Singh began the first over after the interval, Portugal and England were starting their penalty shoot-out. The giant screen, that was showing football till then, shifted to displaying the cricket score, and the spectators had to rely on a handful of television sets to follow the action in Gelsenkirchen. Dwayne Bravo probably wanted to watch the ending himself and promptly fell to Harbhajan soon after resumption. Postiga's goal was accompanied by a lot of cheer - most, it appeared, were rooting for Portugal - but they had to instantly hush it up with Bravo falling almost immediately. Such tensions.
Full postConey and the art of pitch analysis
Siddhartha Vaidyanathan
25-Feb-2013
There are different ways to do a pitch report. Jeremy Coney, the former New Zealand captain, has probably covered the entire range. He’s attached a ball to a string to exorcise it, recited a poem to describe it, and once, late last year, almost did a breast stroke on land while knocking his knuckles on the pitch. Coney, who during his playing days was hailed for his ability to read pitches, loves analysing the 22 yards. On the eve of every game one can see him scrutinising the surface, tapping on it, inspecting the grass, feeling the clay … It’s almost as if he was a horticulturist on some scientific mission.
So what does Coney look for during his investigations? “I call it reading the entrails,” he says enthusiastically when asked about this whole business. “I ask myself questions as I go along. Is there grass? Is it distributed evenly? How is it shared around? Are there gaps? What sort of grass is it? Are they new young plants? Are they stressed because of lack of water? All this will tell me whether the pitch is going to be quicker at the start, or whether the ball will skid on from the grass (which is always the fastest). If it’s an old plant, the ball will hit the crown and start to do some strange things. If there is dirt there is automatically more friction. So if there are bald patches, I will know that this pitch is going to be variable and will only get worse from that point.”
Full postThe tale of a Windies spinner
Siddhartha Vaidyanathan
25-Feb-2013
"For every fast bowler that played for West Indies between 1976 and 1986, there was a spinner whose ambitions of playing international were finished." Elquemedo Willett would know. One who represented West Indies in five Tests between 1973 and 1975, Willett's career came to a premature halt mainly because of West Indies' focus on pace, pace and nothing but pace. Willett's not complaining; in fact he doffs his hat to the great fast bowlers who made West Indies an invincible force. But maybe it's worth sparing a thought for an entire breed who took up, in Willett's words, a "useless profession".
The list of spinners who played only a handful of games for West Indies, in that era, is endless. Raphick Jumadeen (12 Tests), Inshan Ali (12), Imtiaz Ali (1), Derick Parry (12), Albert Padmore (2), Clyde Butts, Willett, Rangy Nanan
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