India’s defeat at the hands of England in the second Test match in Bombay has turned the spotlight not on the spinners who were supposed to take revenge on the Poms for what they did to us when we went to their country, but on India’s greatest ever cricketer, Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar.
With the 39-year-old getting out cheaply twice in a row to the left arm spin of Madhusudhan Singh alias Monty Panesar—his last 10 Test innings have yielded just 153 runs at an average of 15.3—the calls for Sachin’s retirement are ringing aloud once again.
For its part, the BCCI says the maestro will himself decide when it is time to go.
“He will hang up his boots when he thinks it’s time for him to go. He does not need any advice on this. Before making a comment on his performance you have to see his colossal record and his past performance. “He will do well in forthcoming matches,” BCCI official Rajiv Shukla has said.
The irony will not be lost on many, that while Rahul Dravid and V.V.S. Laxman—no less contributors to the India Batting story—were given no such choice to decide their fate, the BCCI seems overly reluctant to make up its mind on Sachin’s future although Sachin himself indicated in a recent television interview that he was unlikely to play the next World Cup.
Question: should Sachin take the cue from his recent performances and pack up his bags or should he stay on because, well, a turnaround could still be around the corner?
E.R. RAMACHANDRAN writes: As the cricket ball swings or spins towards slip and gully after leaving the bowler’s hand, every batsman with a coaching manual in his kit either prepares to shoulder arms and let it go past to the wicketkeeper, or cut and drive it in the direction of cover and cover-point.
Alone among modern batsmen, Vangipurappu Venkata Sai Laxman aka V.V.S. Laxman, had the unique gift to whip it to exactly the opposite direction—between squareleg and midwicket—as spectators and viewers ooh-ed and aah-ed while the bowler and fielders suddenly adjusted their field of vision.
Verily, he was, in a manner of speaking, the world’s greatest leg-break “batsman”, those supper wrists turning anti-clockwise as a matter of course.
If Hyderabad was famous for its biryani, so was it for V.V.S. Laxman’s silken grace while he was at the crease.
He lacked Rahul Dravid’s concentration, Sachin Tendulkar’s power and Virender Sehwag‘s devil-may care approach, but each time when the team was in dire stress he delivered. And how!
Granting every batsman will have to pack up and go one day, what made VVS the special player that he became, a legend in his own way?
# Laxman had supreme confidence in his ability for he become the ‘Rescue Man’ time and again. He revelled in adverse and completely hopeless situations like the one in Eden Gardens in 2001. The tougher the opponent, the tougher the situation, it was more or less certain Laxman would deliver.
Australians by nature are tough as nails and never give an inch. It is this ability to take them on his terms that they came to admire in Laxman immensely. In him, they saw one of their own. That is why his 281 after being put to follow-on will rank one of the finest ever seen in Test cricket.
# Laxman had to do the recue act most of the times with lower-order batsmen and more often with tail-enders. He gave them the confidence and it is in his company some astonishing draw or victories that have been achieved.
Ishant Sharma, Pragyan Ojha, Zaheer Khan, Anil Kumble all brought famous wins with Laxman at the other end battling the opposition and also battling his perennial back ache.
# Laxman ‘s batting was sheer poetry in motion. You could see Keats and Shelley guiding with him when he was on a song. Even when India was losing a match in Australaia, his 167 littered with boundaries, made the Aussies feel they had lost the match.
# Laxman right from his Ranji Trophy days had the habit of chalking up triple centuries in quick time. He never occupied crease for the sake of it, never doddered around eighties looking for the hundred, never clobbered a cricket ball. Yet runs came in quick time, sheer timing and placements doing the job.
# Laxman after Dravid was the best slip fielder in the side. Most of our fast bowlers had a reason to be thankful as they knew they had safe pair of hands in second slips waiting for the snicks.
Nobody will ever know why such a one-man rescue team, who represented India for 17 years was ignored when it came to the World Cup. Their reasoning was he was far too slow. Those who are singing hosannas of him today themselves saw to him he was dropped from side in favour of Dinesh Mongia.
He had a poor tour in England and Australia but so did almost the entire team save Dravid in England. The so-called one-day experts hardly measure up to exacting standards of Test cricket and it would have been wiser to have Laxman around to guide the youngsters at least in the home series.
What made Laxman who was selected to play against New Zealand and who should have played against Australia and England at home suddenly announce his retirement? Did Krishnamachari Srikkanth tell him he was required for only series against New Zealand?
Did any of the cricketer turned commentators question his usefulness to the team anymore?
Why did Laxman decide not to play even in front of his home crowd in Hyderabad and quit in a huff?
We will never know.
Now it looks like it was a farewell match he played in Mysore when he scored 169 just 10 days back while playing in Shafi Darashah Tournament for Hyderabad against Karnataka.
Good bye, VVS. You brought that rare grace and charm that could have only come from the land of Jaisimha and Azhar. The days of wristy flicks are over in Indian cricket.
E.R. RAMACHANDRAN writes: Former India captain Sunil Gavaskar has criticized the Indian cricket board’s decision earlier this week to revive cricketing relations with Pakistan with a three-match ODI series in December this year.
Reason: he feels Pakistan is not cooperating in the probe into the November 2008 siege of Bombay despite the mountain of evidence that has been piled at its door.
“Being a Mumbaikar, I feel, what is the urgency (to resume cricketing ties) when there is no co-operation from the other side?”
Gavaskar is a great cricketer and a weighty columnist and commentator to boot. His views carry enormous weight in the cricketing fraternity. He can make or mar ties between BCCI and PCB having been part of the BCCI and International Cricket Council (ICC) administration for a long time.
However, “Sunny” is plain wrong in questioning BCCI’s rationale for resuming cricket with Pakistan three years after the dastardly attack on his hometown?
First: BCCI would have dared to approach Pakistan with a tour proposal only after securing the government of India’s clearance. Perhaps it was Pakistan which came up with the proposal first.
Either way, Union home minister P. Chidambaram and external affairs minister S.M. Krishna would have discussed the issue threadbare with the Prime Minister and only after his (and/or the cabinet’s) clearance would the BCCI have made the first move to invite Pakistan for a tour.
It is the Indian Government that will decide whether Pakistan is cooperating in the Bombay terror attacks, not BCCI and definitely not Sunil Gavaskar. At least we haven’t reached that stage in the BCCI.
So far.
Second: While one certainly appreciates his views that as a ‘Mumbaikar’ for the tragedy that struck on 26 /11, he cannot decide whether there is cooperation from the other side. Not even BCCI. That is again strictly the job of the government.
Once the Government gives its clearance after satisfying itself of all the aspects and give its nod, the board and the cricketers should do their assigned jobs, as rightly pointed out by Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni in a media conference.
Third: I am sure every player would have felt terrible about the attack, irrespective of whether he was a Mumbaikar or not. So is it with every Indian. In fact it was with that spirit that the whole team played a match against Andrew Flintoff’s England and both teams came in for huge praise from all over the world for their fantastic gesture.
However well meaning, parochial sentiments on a national issue like terror are better consigned to the dustbin, particularly from a cricketer of the calibre of Gavaskar.
Fourth: Sunny is on firmer ground when he questions BCCI with regard to squeezing this tour in a year which is already quite packed. Here again, if he is questioning the tour on cricketing grounds, he should have also questioned the wisdom of selectors’ acceding to Sachin Tendulkar’s ‘pick and choose’ policy, especially in ODIs, a subject which has been dealt by quite of few cricket experts and commentators at length.
This affects balance in the team, creates uncertainty in minds of younger cricketers about their future as they have to make way whenever he ‘feels’ like playing cricket. One would have expected Sunny to question the selectors or Sachin in his weekly column regarding this but that did not happen.
It is only Sanjay Manjrekar who has rightly dared to question this in the past.
Fifth: Why should cricket and cricket alone be the barometer of ties between India and Pakistan? Despite 26/11, the two countries seem to have started finding ways of doing business. Its politicians meet happily, its bureaucrats do, there are growing trade ties, etc.
So, why should cricket be held hostage to terror? It is, after all, a sport.
There is never a dull moment in the circus that is the Indian political league. As if the indecent clamour for a Bharat Ratna to be bestowed upon him wasn’t enough, the word is that the Union home ministry has recommended that Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar be nominated to the upper house of Parliament, the Rajya Sabha.
Coming as it does the very day Sachin and his wife, Anjali Tendulkar, called upon the Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, in the company of the other IPL chief, Rajeev Shukla, the move has necessarily led to some tongues wagging.
Like, is a battered government trying to distract attention from the scams and scandals? Like, is the beleagurered Congress trying to shine in the reflected glory of a sterling cricketer? Like is the Mukesh Ambani hold on the Mumai Indian becoming all too clear? Etcetera.
Sachin hasn’t said yes or no, but obviously smoke like this doesn’t emanate without some fire somewhere. Simple question: does Sachin deserve the “offer”? Should he accept it? Will he be useful in the “house of elders” or will he just end up being used by politicians and political parties? And what can the BJP to match this?
India Drown Under. Surrender Down Under. Wallopped! Tigers at home, lambs abroad.
The adjectives are tripping off TV screens and sports pages, following the precipitous fall in Indian performance in Australia, where the 0-3 scoreline looks less from a cricket series, more from a tennis match.
The blame, as usual, is being laid at the door of the IPL and the surfeit of Twenty20 cricket. The cricket board is being slammed for ignoring domestic cricket, for short sighted selection, etc.
But how much of the blame does the media carry?
Calcutta-born Andy O’ Brien, a former journalist with Sportsworld magazine, now happily settled in Australia, on the debacle of Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his World Cup winning boys, in The Telegraph, Calcutta:
“If one was to compile international media clippings of this tour, mention of Sachin Tendulkar‘s milestone would probably outnumber 10:1 any analysis of the outcome of a Test match or the shortcomings of the Indian team….
“Are Indian cricket fans more interested in Sachin getting his century of centuries or in winning a Test series? Or is the truth that this almost cosmetic overemphasis on the peripheral is a coincidental cover-up of the fact that, by and large, Indian cricket reporters tend to be too soft on their cricketers?
“Not many are willing to bite the proverbial bullet and risk their “contacts” with the team or the hierarchy. If always seemed to me, even when I was a part of this wonderful hardworking group of people, that the business is not so much about writing or cricket, but what contacts you have and can tap, to produce a “cosmetic/glamour” story with banner headlines.
“That trend has grown and as a result many reports now deal with either the mundane or the inconsequential part of the game.”
Photograph: Australian captain Michael Clarke tosses the coin at the start of the third Test match against India in Perth, as captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni looks on, with ICC match referee Ranjan Madugalle (right) and Channel 9 host, Mark Nicholas.
There is little good news wafting in from Down Under for cricket fanatics switching on TV before brushing their teeth. Sachin Tendulkar seems to have taken a vow not to score his 100th hundred till the Lok Pal bill is passed. The gap between Rahul Dravid‘s bat and pad seems to getting wider than the creases on his forehead. V.V.S. Laxman has a priceless tour average of 1.6 from the three innings in the first two Tests.
Gautam Gambhir still thinks he is on his honeymoon. Virat Kohli can barely believe his luck that he got a look-in ahead of Rohit Sharma once again. If Ravichandran Ashwin bowls so many balls that go the other way, he might be a legspinner before he returns home. Etcetera.
It could all change, of course, cricket being a game of glorious uncertainties and all that. But this was not the way the Agneepath tour was supposed to be and it would seem that the Star Cricket commentary team has more players with more fire in the belly than the ones on the ground. The World Cup victory is now firmly history as the tennis scoreline of 0-4 in England now looks like being repeated before the Australian Open.
On top of Team India’s travails is Mahendra Singh Dhoni‘s captaincy. The midas touch seems to desert him as soon as he gets a visa stamp on his passport. And as if the waning of the three greats wasn’t enough, the experts are asking questions of his captaincy. Ian Chappell called him conservative recently, and Sourav Ganguly and Ravi Shastri are mocking his bowling changes and field placings.
So, what is the one question you are dying to ask Mahi?
The modification of the rules of eligibility for the nation’s highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna—expanding the field of possibilities from art, literature, science and public service to “performance of highest order in any field of human endeavour”—has led to a veritable stampede of potential winners.
The hocky hockey legend Dhyan Chand is the politically correct top contendor contender, but quite clearly the hot money is on Sachin Tendulkar, who is widely believed to have lost the race last year because of the constricting criteria. There are others who feel world chess champ Vishwanathan Anand or shooter Abhinav Bindra should get it first.
Not just sportsmen, there are other worthies on the horizon too: the press council chief Justice Markandey Katju was pushing the candidature of Bengali novelist Sarat Chandra a few days ago; today he seems to have zeroed in on the 19th century poet Mirza Ghalib, whose quotes adorn half of Justice Katju’s judgements.
Obviously, the government has put its hand in a beehive by expanding the scope of the Bharat Ratna for populist reasons. Inasmuch as giving the award to a Tendulkar, Anand or Bindra would please the masses, the question really is should one so young be decorated with such an onerous honour?
Is the Bharat Ratna for career acccomplishments or a lifetime of achievements? What if Sachin & Co, fine role models as they are today, become the exact opposite in the rest of their lives? Has the UPA increased the scope for lobbying and politicking by expanding the range?
With the year drawing to a close and Christmas close at hand, E.R. RAMACHANDRAN is in an expansive mood, compiling a list of gifts that he would like to give out to our various performing and non-performing assets.
1. Asif Zardari: A permanent hospital room in Dubai
2. Imran Khan: A Pakistani political pitch to bowl on
3. BJP leaders in Karnataka: Sites in Bangalore + a room in Parappana Agrahara
4. Jayalalitha: A set of 10,000 sample questions for practice
5. Rahul Gandhi: ‘India is UP, UP is India’ T-shirt
6. Sharad Pawar: Protective cover for the other cheek
“Liberals are carrying out a smear campaign against an established centre of faith of Hindus. This ritual is not something that has come into practice in recent times. It has been around for generations and people do practice it even today. By denigrating the ritual and its practice, the liberals are hurting the religious sentiments of devotees,” a local leader has been quoted as saying.
But what is the likelihood that the equally ghastly sight of devotees happily walking over fire and flogging themselves in public (as they did on Moharram in Hubli and Bangalore on Tuesday), will tie up liberals and fundamentalists in similar knots, or exercise human rights bodies?
Or will this too pass, as it has been around for generations and devotees do it voluntarily (presumably)?
Muttiah Muralitharan took 1,334 international wickets: 800 in Tests and 534 in one-dayers. Shane Warne had 1,001: 708 in Tests and 293 in one-dayers. Yet, no one remembers any of us losing sleep when they conquered the 1,000 mark.
Yet, why does Sachin Tendulkar‘s “100th international hundred” (he has 51 in Tests and 48 in one-dayers) send commentators, newspapers, TV channels, advertisers into a tizzy, when we should really be looking at the real number, which is 78?
“The real cricketing illiterates are the people who believe that adding ODI centuries to Test centuries and arriving at a hundred gives you a heroic landmark. It doesn’t. This isn’t just a meaningless statistic, it’s a pernicious one because it equalizes two different orders of achievement…
“It is to speak and think like a child with 99 coins in his piggy-bank, 51 made of silver and 48 of lead, who is dying to acquire one more coin of either kind because he will then have a hundred metal coins. The child can be indulged because he’s too young to know better but what of the grown men and women who follow cricket and report and comment on it, who carry on as if something monumental is about to happen each time Tendulkar crosses 50 and then mime tragedy when it doesn’t?
“Even children know that winning a game of checkers isn’t the same as winning a game of chess even though they’re played over the same 64 square….
“Tendulkar, whose 22-year career shadows India’s history since ‘liberalization’, has become, through no fault of his own, the totem of New India’s self-congratulatory middle class. He is at once their redeemer and their guarantee of self-worth. He must, therefore, be a singular genius: in the heaven of cricket, there must only be one god: Tendulkar. And so a copywriter’s meaningless catchphrase becomes a cricketing statistic: a hundred international hundreds.”
At the very temple where the “God” of Indian cricket—Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar—has often come to seek deliverance from an ill omen, more earthly devotees perform the Made Seve, which entails rolling on the ground in the dining hall after cleaning the leaves used by their brethren to eat, at Kukke Subramanya in Sullia taluk of Dakshina Kannada, on Monday.
For months, a country utterly lacking in genuine heroes has been desperately groping around to find somebody, anybody, deserving of the nation’s highest civilian honour. The name of Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar is on most lips, not least because he does something very well which many understand, because his stellar feats will never ever be repeated by anybody who ever plays the great game again, and because everybody loves a winner.
But Sachin is still 38. Sure, he hasn’t put a foot wrong in his long, luminous career, but he has a lifetime ahead of him and he might yet do many things after hanging up his boots that might take the sheen off the Bharat Ratna to everybody’s regret. Moreover, decorating a sportsman who has doubtless provided hundreds of hours of entertainment to millions but changed nobody’s life but his own and that of his family is fraught.
Allow us therefore to propose an alternate, unlikely Maharashtrian: Kisan Baburao Hazare.
At 74, Anna Hazare, as the small man who speaks Bambaiyya like Sachin might when he is that old is known, is not everybody’s favourite public figure, especially of those who see a tinge of saffron in his white attire. Still, in bringing corruption to the national centrestage when neither the Congress nor the BJP were interested, in jumpstarting the movement for the Lok Pal bill which had been hanging fire for 38 years, in resolutely even if obstinately sticking to his convictions, he has been a revelation.
And after today, when his early-morning arrest evoked shades of the Emergency a day after August 15, Hazare has united vast sections of urban, middle-class India; his release by the end of the day a standing testimony to the power of the people against an arrogant, repressive regime, whose Harvard-educated ministers (Kapil Sibal and P. Chidambaram, if you have to name them) show what they don’t teach at Harvard about democracy with their every word and deed.
Make no mistake. A brazen, scam-tainted government with much to hide might yet bury its hand in the sand and bulldoze its way on the Lok Pal bill; the great protectors of our democracy who can do anything for cash may shamelessly back it in the name of parliamentary democracy; Hazare’s own struggle may yet peter out like so many have before; and high corruption of the sort we have seen over the last few months might be here to stay.
Still, in his stamina in sticking to an issue, in his single-mindedness to achieve his dream, and above all in his desire to change things which has the potential to change the lives of millions of Indians—all traits most Indians will happily agree they do not possess—does Anna Hazare qualify, even if only notionally, to be crowed Jewel of India ahead of SRT? After all, he has some practice, having received the Padma Sri and Padma Bhushan earlier.
Photographs: Protestors in Bangalore wear masks of Anna Hazare demanding his release (Karnataka Photo News)
India’s 0-3 scoreline with a match to go in the four-Test match series against England will only surprise those who have only passing acquaintance with the game, shout Chak de India or Jeetega bhai jeetega as if the other side is only playing to help “us” win, and are only bothered about how much Sachin Tendulkar scores.
The deep cracks in Indian cricket—an ageing batting lineup, an unfit fielding side, injured bowlers, poor bench strength, a preponderance of limited overs cricket, etc—had been papered over by the heady (even if unexpected) World Cup victory and the anything-goes Twenty20 format of the Indian Premier League (IPL).
Truth is, India’s strength was always going to be tested in the longer, more testing format of the five-day game against quality opposition, and not surprisingly all these cracks have been exposed most mercilessly by England. That it should come after all the hoo-ha over the centenary Test match is only incidental.
However, defeat is a part of sport. What is more worrisome is what the future portends for the Indian Test team.
As it is, the only top-order batsman with runs in this series has been the 38-year-old Rahul Dravid; the bowling still depends on an always injured and hobbling Zaheer Khan, who is 32. With Sachin Tendulkar and V.V.S. Laxman both on the other side of 35,the simple question to ponder is, is the golden era of India in Test match cricket, which began at the turn of the new millennium, over? Will future Indian teams (at least for a while) only shine in the shorter, more paying versions of the game—and mostly at home? Or will this too pass?
“In the winter of 1947-48, the Indian cricket team visited Australia to play four Test matches. Australia, led by Don Bradman, were by some distance the finest team in world cricket. India, on the other hand, were greenhorns, having only played 10 Test matches, without winning any of them. To make matters worse, some of the country’s top players were not available for selection. These included three superlatively gifted batsmen: Vijay Merchant, Mushtaq Ali, and R.S. Modi….
“The loss of the three Ms would have hurt the team in any case; here, because of the quality of the opposition, their absence was catastrophic…. Only two Indians emerged with any credit from this unequal encounter. One was Vinoo Mankad. The other was Vijay Hazare…. To play a lone hand was not an uncommon experience for Hazare. He did that always for The Rest, his team in the Bombay Pentangular, then India’s premier domestic tournament….
“In the 1930s and 1940s, Hazare bravely bore the burdens of The Rest; in the 1940s and the 1950s, he oftentimes did the same for India. When India were 0 for four in a Test match in England, it was left to Hazare and his fellow Vijay, Manjrekar, to come together in a retrieving stand that restored some respectability to his side. In the first part of the 1950s, three Commonwealth sides toured India — in the 15 fiercely fought, albeit unofficial, ‘Tests’ that they played, the man that bowlers of the quality of Sonny Ramadhin and Jim Laker found hardest to dismiss was Vijay Hazare….
“No historical analogy can be exact, but still, it may be worth pursuing the question — who is the modern Hazare? One might say it was Sachin Tendulkar, who, for much of his career, has had to bear “this strange burden of popularity and responsibility”, to score hundreds upon hundreds to maintain his fame and keep his team afloat.
“But one can also make a case for Rahul Dravid. For one thing, his style is more akin to Hazare’s, sound and orthodox — coming in at 5 for one, which soon becomes 10 for two — he seeks to patiently rebuild the innings, whereas Tendulkar would seek rather to play some flashing shots and immediately take the initiative away from the opposition.
“These past few weeks in the West Indies, Rahul Dravid had indeed been the modern Hazare. As in Australia in 1947, three of India’s finest batsmen — Sehwag, Tendulkar and Gambhir — cried off from the tour. Here, as then, there were only two experienced batsmen left to carry along a bunch of novices. Laxman, like Mankad in 1947, has batted bravely on occasion — but the Hazare of this tour has been Rahul Dravid. That India won the series is owed largely to the magnificent hundred he scored in the second innings of the Test match in Jamaica.
“Like Hazare, Dravid is a man of courage and decency, content to play — and live — in the shadows of his more glamorous team-mates. Like Hazare, his contributions to Indian cricket have been colossal, and probably under-appreciated. It is time that one of the present, and very gifted, generation of Indian writers treated his achievements and his character in a subtle work of fiction. I suspect, however, that its ending will see its hero living not with animals in a farm, but among books in a library.”
For long, the Sunil Gavaskar versus Gundappa Viswanath has been firmly sealed, signed and delivered in favour of the latter’s style, selflessness, civility and above all, match-winning prowess. With his 32nd century in his 151th Test, has Rahul Dravid followed in the footsteps of his idol, making it 2-0 in the Bombay vs Karnataka battle?
“It is already fifteen years since a simple, elegant, studious and very likeable young man walked out to bat for India at Lords. It was an appropriate setting. Rahul Dravid is neatly turned out, plays the game correctly, likes the traditions associated with the game and is respectful of them. It is not difficult to see why the English would like him. In 1996 though he was significantly more humble and courteous than those I seemed to run into at the ground.
“Not much has changed since then. He is still as intense as ever, still unlikely to sport the ponytail he rejected in one of his earliest commercials, still deeply enamoured by the idea of playing for India, still very out of place in the Kingfisher jingle! That intensity is worth studying though for Dravid knows no other way of playing the game”
“Dravid is the least obtrusive of players, he demands little mind space. He wears his passion on one sleeve, his intelligence on the other. It is a rare combination that evokes awe rather than love, admiration more than conviviality. He is the intelligent man’s guide to what a sportsman ought to be—modest, dependable, well educated, with the gift of grace under pressure and a perspective that is adult.
“While carving out a distinct cricketing personality despite performing alongside Sachin Tendulkar, Dravid ensured that the Indian team retained some of the old-fashioned values unique to cricket. For some years after that Kolkata partnership with V.V.S. Laxman, Dravid carried the Indian batting on his shoulders, saving Test matches in Port of Spain, Georgetown and Nottingham and playing the key role in victories in Headingley, Adelaide, Kandy and Rawalpindi. He had four centuries in successive innings, and four double centuries in a span of 15 Tests. He made an incredible 23 percent of the runs made by India in the 21 victories under Sourav Ganguly, at an average of 102.84.
“It is necessary to descend into statistics only to underline the fact that with Dravid it is never beauty without cruelty – he is a stylish batsman who makes it count, a do-gooder who is focussed on the result, a century-maker whose innings are not out of touch with team performance but an integral part of it. No ploughing the lonely furrow here, every part is a piece of the main.
“Tendulkar’s batting is a joy of straight lines and geometric precision; Dravid’s bat makes no angles to the wind but describes beautiful arcs. In this, he is the spiritual successor to Gundappa Vishwanath, whose secret of the ferocious square cut was passed on to him in that mysterious way cricketing genes jump from one generation to another. When he was selected for India, Dravid told a colleague, “I don’t want to be just another player. I want to be bracketed with Sunil Gavaskar and Vishwanath.” The schoolboy Dravid had photographs taken with his two heroes.
“In time he would dine at the high table with them. He played more strokes more consistently than Gavaskar and the more risky ones with greater safety than Vishwanath.”
ARVIND SWAMINATHAN writes from Madras: India’s loss to South Africa in Nagpur on Saturday didn’t bug me one bit.
The hosts’ implosion after a great start, and the Proteas’ last-over assault after it seemed a win was in the bag, was reaffirmation of all the usual clichés. That cricket is a game of glorious uncertainties. That it isn’t over till the last ball is bowled. Etc.
But if there was something that really, really bugged me on Saturday night, and still does, it was the manner in which the Indian team went about defending the target of 296.
And by manner, I don’t mean the way they bowled, caught or fielded.
I mean the way they behaved.
At the end of the match, I was wondering: are the Indians the worst behaved team in the tournament?
Don’t mistake me: several key players like Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag, not to mention captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni, are admirable ambassadors of the great game, impeccably gracious in their on-field and off-field behaviour, despite their sky-high achievements.
But the behaviour of the rest of the twerps leaves much to be desired.
As it is, their body language is no different from that of cricket’s tri-colour smeared neo-literates who watch the game on giant screens at the stadiums.
In the obnoxious way they carry themselves—the testosterone-rich swagger, the arrogant chewing of gum—you would think that by some divine right, India is destined to win always, no matter what, and the other team is only there to help them do that.
But if there is anything worse than their body language, it surely must be their awful bawdy language?
Take Saturday’s match, for example.
Opener Hashim Amla walks—walks, mind you—after he edges a sharply rising delivering from Harbhajan Singh into the gloves of Dhoni. But what do we get from the bowler? An urgent intimation of what he would do the mother and sister of the departed batsman.
MC-BC, if you don’t get it.
Take another example: After reverse-sweeping ferociously for four, A.B. de Villiers ferociously sweeps down the throat of Virat Kohli at deep square leg. But what do we get from the fielder? An urgent communication on what he would do to the mother and sister of the departed batsman.
MC-BC, if you still don’t get it.
Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra, Sreesanth, you name it, the language of Indian players is, to put it in a language they will understand, assholic.
Like a Ganga in spate with all its effluents, expletives seem to effortlessly trip off the tongues of some of the Indian cricketers, without provocation, and without any questions asked by the captain, coach, board or the TV companies bringing these images into our homes and lives.
Such behaviour passes off in many people’s books as “aggro” alias “killer instinct”. Their logic is, this is a big tournament, there is a lot at stake for “India”. This is the way players let off steam and, anyway, don’t other sides do it too?
Some others will argue that it is easy to pounce on the Indians because we can read their lips and identify what they are saying. What if the Kenyans and Dutch are doing it in their own lingo?
Point taken, but Dhoni and his boys have an added linguistic responsibility.
Because their actions are closely watched by millions of young men and women on television, their lips are closely read by all who can.
On current evidence, they are giving a poor account of themselves.
On current evidence as gathered from TV, I would unhesitatingly call them the worst behaved team in the tournament.
In fact, on current evidence and at this rate, I would unhesitatingly recommend that they change their preferred song at the stadiums from “Chak De India” to “Fuck De India.”
Photograph: Harbhajan Singh celebrates with Virat Kohli after taking the wicket of AB de Villiers in Nagpur on Saturday (Photo by Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images)
I repeat, don’t get me wrong: I consider Tendulkar to be a phenomenal achiever and, in particular, I have really come to respect how he has reinvented himself as a great defensive batsman.
In the history of world cricket, there aren’t too many instances of someone with Sachin’s ability for stroke making turning himself into a great, perhaps even the best defensive batsman in the world. I like the way he still retains his childlike enthusiasm and love for the game after more than two decades of playing international cricket.
Naturally, he is deserving of our affection, respect and, indeed, all honours that come his way, including an honorary doctorate degree.
But by the University of Mysore?
Neither the City of Mysore nor the University of Mysore have any relationship with Sachin. None of his great accomplishments have come in this City. So I am not sure what Mysore University seeks to commemorate by honoring Sachin.
Moreover, Mysore University isn’t a national university. And being a State university, its reach is limited to the districts of Mysore, Hassan, Mandya and Chamarajnagar. So if it recognizes achievers from this region or those from Karnataka, then that would be appropriate.
There is one more surprising factor. The present vice-chancellor Prof V.G.Talawar had famously declared that the game of cricket is a waste of time and he has no use for the sport. This he had said when he was invited to a Ranji Trophy match last year.
Now the same university honors Tendulkar for his cricketing accomplishments?
In another strange decision, the university has also conferred an honorary doctorate on Nalwadi Krishnaraja Wodeyar (1884-1940), seventy years after his death.
Why does the University wants to honor him now? I fail to understand the logic of this decision. Wodeyar, who founded the University in 1916 and was instrumental in the creation of modern Mysore, is a worthy recipient but this award has come about ninety years too late.
The usual cliche that’s strutted out on occasions like this is that by honouring Tendulkar and Wodeyar, Mysore University has honoured itself. But I think this is a cheap gimmick by the University that potentially simply demeans the award. As I said above, both the honourees are surely worthy of the honor that’s being bestowed on them but should they have been honoured now and by the Mysore University?
Who are they going to choose next year? Mahatma Gandhi and Ranjitsinhji?
For the record, I should admit the University syndicate has also chosen four other worthy recipients, and I am particularly delighted that Rajiv Taranath is being honoured.
PRASHANT KRISHNAMURTHY writes from Bangalore: A week may be a long time in politics. But 220 yards is the essence of life.
The politics in Bangalore stinks to high heavens today as the politicians and puppeteers, and their masters and minders, indulge in never-before-seen skulduggery in the Vidhana Soudha and the Raj Bhavan, and at every hotel, resort and spa in between and beyond.
The shenanigans of the well-fed, obscene, inglourious basterds fill you with anger. And disgust. And disappointment. And despondence. And embarrassment. And hate. And negativism. And rage. And shame.
Their core competence is built on failure.
The contrast is available just a couple of hundred yards away on the playing fields of Chinnaswamy stadium, by a short, stock fellow hasn’t put a foot wrong in 21 years, in showcasing skills which will never ever be seen in Bangalore and Birmingham, and at every ground and stadium in between and beyond.
The feats of the little gem fill you with happiness. And pride. And joy. And pleasure. And awe. And love. And positivity. (And envy.)
His core competence is success.
One does business in the dark; the other shines in broad daylight. The credo of one is to conceal; the credo of the other is to reveal. One is driven by the urge to take the low road; the other knows no other road but the high one. One pulls down; the other pushes up. For one, self comes comes before State; for the other nation comes above all else. One attracts bricks and barbs; the other collects plaudits and applause.
In climbing Mount 14,000 on Monday (in picture), in crossing his sixth double century on Tuesday, Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar shows why every mom would want her son to be him.
In disgracing themselves and shaming us on Monday, and in disgracing themselves and shaming us on Tuesday, the well-fed, obscene, inglourious basterds show why every mom would want her son to be anything but them.
Vangipurapu Venkata Sai Laxman was shy of his magnum opus 281 by a clear 208 runs. Still, his stellar unbeaten 73 was enough to guide India home in Mohali.
His career runs and centuries are fewer than some of his more decorated peers, yet Laxman has delivered each time the chips are down. As indeed has Rahul Dravid. As indeed did ‘Jimmy‘ Amarnath.
Which is brings us to the question: who is India’s most valuable Test match batsman ever?
After travelling thousands of kilometres by road over 40 hours to meet a temperamental rival who wouldn’t let volcanic ash come between him and the title, Vishwanathan Anand has been crowned the world chess champion once again.
The soft, self-effacing Spain-based Indian has been there, done that and won the laurel before, of course. But it is still worth asking: is the 40-year-old Anand the greatest sportsman India has produced? Greater than Sachin Tendulkar? Greater than Leander Paes? Greater than Pankaj Advani?
E.R. RAMACHANDRAN writes: During the IPL semifinals between the Mumbai Indians and Royal Challengers Bangalore last night, one minor incident proved that the more things change in cricket, the more things remain the same with one of our greatest cricketers.
In Melbourne, in 1981, Sunil Gavaskar, opening batsman and India captain, almost walked out of the MCG along with his partner Chetan Chauhan, peeved at the umpire’s LBW decision off the bowling of Dennis Lillee, much to the astonishment of Australian cricketers, the public and to the embarrassment of the Indian team.
Thankfully, team manager Col. Durrani came running to the boundary and was able to persuade Chauhan to go back and resume the innings that saved great ignominy for Indian cricket.
Imagine walking out of a Test match because you don’t agree with the umpire’s decision?
Yesterday, when Rahul Dravid stood his ground after Sachin Tendulkar had ‘caught’ him in the slips, the self-same Gavaskar remarked:
“Dravid is not going! After playing for so many years with Tendulkar and spending time in the dressing room, Dravid should know what sort of a person Tendulkar is. He would never cheat. Dravid should have accepted the catch and walked.“
Gavaskar’s fellow commentator, Robin Jackman was more circumspect. He was not sure whether the catch had been taken cleanly and felt that it was rightly referred to the third umpire.
Subsequently it was proved beyond doubt that even as Tendulakr’s hands grabbed the ball, a part of the ball had touched the ground and hence it was not a catch.
Cameras do not take into account the celebrations. The cameras had conclusively proved that it was not a catch and Dravid was right in standing his ground.
It is possible that a fielder may not know if the catch had been taken cleanly or a boundary scored, as it all happens in a micro-second. That is why more than 20 cameras capture the action to be played in slow motion. It helps umpires to give the decision, reverse the decision if need be, after getting the facts clearly.
The yardsticks are same, be it Ricky Ponting or Tendulkar.
However, what must have been surprising to millions of viewers as well as Robin Jackman, was the unnecessary diatribe by Gavaskar against Dravid whose credentials for fair play is one of the highest order, if not the highest itself.
In fact, the cameras proved Dravid was right and Tendulkar was wrong.
Dravid and Tendulkar have played for India with distinction and are ranked amongst the greats of the game and have shared many a great moment in team’s victory.
Gavaskar is one of the all-time greats of the game; there is not an iota of doubt about that. But as in the Melbourne match when he lost his cool and reason, he seemed to have lost again last night.
A little bit of humility adds lustre to greatness. Always. Both Dravid and Tendulkar are examples of that.
Gavaskar doesn’t have to go far to see that. There is one in his family in G.R. Vishwanth.
The inclusion of Ranganath Vinay Kumar in the Indian squad for the Twenty20 World Cup is much deserved, statistically speaking. But it is also nothing short of seismic, sociologically speaking.
The man hails not from traditional urban cricket centres like Bangalore and Mysore, but the humbler cotton cocoon of Davanagere. It wasn’t on the lush green grounds of some international school that Vinay cut his cricketing teeth, but on the hard outfield of the Mothiveerappa high school grounds.
He wasn’t born with a silver spoon in his mouth, with his mother dropping him off at a coaching class in a fancy car; the servant lugging the kit. Rather, like Vinod Kambli, he was born on the other side of the railway track; his father driving a hired autorickshaw to eke out a living for the family.
And unlike plenty of recent worthies who have been fast-tracked into India’s most coveted club, Vinay has had to strain every sinew in match after match, with bat and ball. There was no “godfather” holding a gun at the heads of the selectors. Despite the bucketful of wickets he had soaked up in the last three seasons, he wasn’t considered good enough for a BCCI contract by the worthies.
But, unlike the benne dose (butter dosa) that his hometown is famous for, all who know him and have dealt with him, have only one thing to say: Vinay is the Rahul Dravid of bowling: gutsy, hard working, tough as nails, never say die and streetsmart. The word impossible has been scratched out of his cricketing lexicon.
Here’s how sections of the media covered the selection of a true son of the soil.
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Cricinfo/ A break that was long overdue: “Vinay’s friend, Harshan, used to tell him, ‘If you get SachinTendulakar”s wicket, you will definitely play for India. Whoever has bowled him—S. Sreesanth, Piyush Chawla— has played for India.” Last year, in the IPL in South Africa, Vinay got Tendulkar with a beauty in Port Elizabeth. So Vinay called Harshan, and asked, ‘Okay maga [mate], I have got his wicket, now tell me, I’ll play for India or what?’ Harshan, like the selectors, had an excuse ready. ‘No, I told you to get him bowled.’
“In the third season of the IPL, at the Brabourne Stadium, Tendulkar was in much better form than he was in Port Elizabeth. He was moving across and playing unbelievable flick shots from in front of the stumps. Vinay, though, got one to nip in a touch extra, and hit the exposed leg stump. Harshan texted immediately, ‘Get ready to play for India.’ Six days later, when he was driving to another friend’s place, on a short break from continuous IPL matches, Vinay got the belated call-up.”
The Times of India/ Auto driver’s son rises: ” Having been let loose for a couple of days by the management of his IPL side, the Royal Challengers Bangalore, Vinay chose to go for a long drive in his Santro, mostly in a bid to escape the tension that has always enveloped him and his family whenever the national selectors meet. Had this scene taken place a few years before, he could well have been moving about in an autorickshaw, not the usual hired one but the one driven by his dad Ranganath to keep the family fire burning.”
Hindustan Times/ Happy to see my parents smile: “I had been expecting this for a while and every time I would be disappointed. My parents would ask me why I wasn’t getting selected despite good performances. Sometimes I would tell them that perhaps I wasn’t destined to play for the country…. Now I am happy seeing them happy.
“Maybe God wanted me to work harder and longer…. We weren’t financially strong, and me being the eldest, it was my duty to take care of them. But looking at my interest in the game, they encouraged me to continue playing. They never made me feel guilty about the fact that I wasn’t helping them in running the family.”"
The Hindu/ Vinay has a legacy to live up to: “Indian cricket’s latest heroes are continuing to emerge from the hinterland. Vinay is a fresh example of an iron-willed small-town lad carving his space under the sun.”
Deccan Herald/ Gutsy Vinay gets T20 cut: “The wait, which appeared eternal, is finally over. His State team coach K. Sanath Kumar’s reaction was laced with a tinge of sadness when Abhimanyu Mithun was picked for the first Test against South Africa in February. While he was all happy for Mithun, he was disappointed that the big-hearted Vinay missed out on the opportunity. However, Sanath is a happy man now, with Vinay getting recognised at last.”
DNA/ Bangalore medium pacer pulls a fast one: “The wait is finally over for Indian cricket’s ‘Nobody’s Child’…. It’s been a long journey for the son of an automobile spare parts dealer in the small town of Davangere. Despite taking the highest number of wickets in first class cricket in 2007-08 and 2009-10, Vinay was not considered for a central contract by the BCCI. But he did not lose hope and believed that his day would come.”
Cricinfo/Maybe God wanted me to work harder and longer: “Few people get the chance early, few have to wait. We weren’t financially strong, and me being the eldest, it was my duty to take care of them. But looking at my interest in the game, they encouraged me to continue playing. They never made me feel guilty about the fact that I wasn’t helping them in running the family.”
CricketNext/ Vinay ready to put his best foot forward: “”I am very happy for my son. I am sure he will perform well for the country,” said Soubhagya, his mother. “Though the call has come later than what we had anticipated, I am happy for him. My son is a very hard worker. I am confident that he will make India proud,” said Vinay’s father Ranganath.
The Telegraph/ Vinay thanks selectors: “I would also like to thank my coach Prakash Pawar, who is no more, and L.M. Prakash for recognising my talent and developing me into what I am today. K. Jeswanth and K. Sanath Kumar were also instrumental in shaping my career. I’m grateful to former Karnataka bowler Y.B. Patel. He would say that I will go on to play big cricket and always encouraged me. Even on his deathbed, he told someone to hand over a kit bag to me. I haven’t used it. I treasure it.”
Vijaya Karnataka/ Dil khush: “Whenever the selection committee sat down to pick the team, I would sit in front of the television to see if my brother would be included. I felt proud when he sent titans like Sachin and Saurav Ganguly and Virender Sehwag back to the pavilion. My brother just loves Rahul Dravid. He has his pictures pasted in every corner of our home,” says his sister Vinutha.
Bottom: Vinay’s mother Soubhagya (right) helps sister Vinutha (centre) stuff doodha pedhas into the mouth of his coach L.M. Prakash in Davanagere on Friday (courtesy Praja Vani)
Sachin Tendulkar took the escalator, in the words of his school partner Vinod Kambli, and has never put a foot wrong. But in his consistency and in the records, it is easy to forget the durability.
Time magazine on a well known Indian’s amazing journey.
“When Sachin Tendulkar travelled to Pakistan to face one of the finest bowling attacks ever assembled in cricket, Michael Schumacher was yet to race a F1 car, Lance Armstrong had never been to the Tour de France, Diego Maradona was still the captain of a world champion Argentina team, Pete Sampras had never won a Grand Slam.
“When Tendulkar embarked on a glorious career taming Imran Khan and company, Roger Federer was a name unheard of; Lionel Messi was in his nappies, Usain Bolt was an unknown kid in the Jamaican backwaters. The Berlin Wall was still intact, USSR was one big, big country, Dr Manmohan Singh was yet to “open” the Nehruvian economy.
“It seems while Time was having his toll on every individual on the face of this planet, he excused one man. Time stands frozen in front of Sachin Tendulkar. We have had champions, we have had legends, but we have never had another Sachin Tendulkar and we never will.”
Editorial in the Pakistani daily, The Dawn, celebrating Sachin Tendulkar‘s double cenury, the first ever by a batsman in the 50-over format:
“There are many truly wondrous things about Sachin Tendulkar breaking the world record for the highest one-day score and becoming the format’s first double centurion, in effect cracking one of cricket’s many four-minute miles. He is months away from turning 37 and he batted through 50 overs.
“He has now been in the game for over 20 years. He did it not against minnows but a top side and the best fast bowler today. And for years he has looked the most likely to do it. But above all was the simplicity with which he greeted his feat: arms raised, a smile, and a peek up to the great beyond. No leaps, no fist-punches or extravagance, only humility. It has been the leitmotif of one of sport’s greatest, most significant careers, for the most remarkable thing about Tendulkar is that he is still Tendulkar 20 years on.
“He remains as committed and devoted to the sole idea of scoring runs and winning matches as any teenager taking his first steps in the game. The game today is not the same he came into. For one, greater riches are now available. Tendulkar is part of the reason for this abundance and is its beneficiary as well. Countless other distractions offer themselves. But he remains the same, the focus, priority and hunger untouched and untainted, his skills undimmed.
“All cricketers, but particularly some on this side of the border, would do well to learn from that. Swiss watchmakers might have struggled to create a more consistent, longer-lasting and elegant model. In all likelihood there will be more double hundreds now that Twenty20 has further liberated batsmen — not that they needed it. But few will come from a man such as Tendulkar. We have been fortunate in the subcontinent to have Little Masters aplenty, in Hanif Mohammad and Sunil Gavaskar. But Tendulkar is the biggest of them all. Remember him and appreciate him, for there may never be another like him.”
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The Shiv Sena, which berated the Bandra Bomber just recently for his “Bombay-for-Indians” comments, wants a Bharat Ratna for Sachin.
The overcooked chickens of divisive politics are coming home to roost on the streets of Bombay for the cooks, chefs and cleaners who were dishing it out for decades.
As Bal Thackeray‘s Shiv Sena mounts a “Mumbai for Maharashtrians” campaign, as Raj Thackeray says jobs should only be given to those who were born in that State”, urbs prima in Indus is being kickedwhere it hurts by those acting in the name of its sons and daughters, fathers and mothers.
With the Bihar elections around the corner, the “cultural organisation” RSS suddenly wakes up and says its cadres have been instructed to “protect” Hindi-speaking north Indians in Bombay. The RSS’ new sarsangchalakMohan Bhagwat twirls his moustache to say “language, caste, sub-castes, groups, tribes can be different but all are sons of India”, hoping that nobody notices that he deftly, deviously left “religion” out of his list.
Suddenly, the new BJP chief Nitin Gadkari, whose party has been in bed with the Shiv Sena for nearly two decades, says he will speak to the RSS and make a statement. And then, because the Bihar elections (where the party is in bed with the JD(U)) are around the corner, finds the strength to say “the strength of India’s unity in diversity is achieved only when all identities converge into a larger national identity of Indianness”.
Meanwhile, the Congress whose chief minister Ashok Chavan statement on the domicile status of taxi drivers kicked off the latest round of pathetic parochialism, finds some voice. Home minister P. Chidambaram calls “Mumbai for Maharashtrians” a pernicious theory. Rahul Gandhi declares India is for Indians.
But ponder this: if the three biggest icons of Indian industry, sport and cinema—Mukesh Ambani, Sachin Tendulkar and Shah Rukh Khan—aren’t safe from the provincial parasites pillaging into the carcass of a once-great cosmopolis, can a poor pani puri seller from Patna (or Chennapatna) be?
Cartoons: courtesy Prasad Radhakrishnan/ Mail Today and E.P. Unny/ The Indian Express
