Enough already

Monkeygate (or is it Maa-Ki-gate?) has plunged to such levels of absurdity that the only way to achieve closure would be for Harbhajan and Symonds to settle it inside a ring, WWE style. My preference would be for a lumberjack match with their respective teammates acting as the lumberjacks. Procter can be guest referee.

p.s.: Wait, maybe this is what Roebuck had in mind when he gave Harbhajan this memorable sobriquet.

‘Get over it. Get over it quickly because it is happening right now’

Atherton paints quite a scary picture of the future of world cricket in his latest Sunday column. What surprised me most was this: “Had you been in India last week, you could not have avoided the issue: every day the Indian Cricket League, India’s domestic Twenty20 competition, was front-page news, and this despite the national team’s resurgence in Australia and another century from the game’s greatest current player, Sachin Tendulkar.”

Now, I’m currently living at the diametrically opposite end of the globe from India but I can’t imagine the ICL grabbing viewer attention in preference to India’s tour of Australia especially with Tendulkar having his most prolific series to date. I always believed that cricket fans would rather watch their ‘national’ teams (as debatable as that adjective is) than artificially concocted teams. Indeed, that’s one of the reasons that could be put forward to explain the failure of the Super Tests or the Afro-Asian contests. Cricket has been so inured to the idea of contests between teams formed on the basis of regional contiguity, be it international cricket or first-class cricket, that spectators may not be able to accept this new football-clubbish paradigm of franchise teams. The weight of history and the intangible benefits of naturally-formed cricket teams is a substantial (if perhaps impermanent) safety net against the IPL and ICL.

Which is why Atherton’s article is scary. If what he says is true, then my supposed safety net is being over-run at an alarming rate by these new Twenty20-fed beasts.

A pleasing commentary moment

A rough transcript from Channel 9 commentary late on Day 3 at Adelaide:

Healy: I think India have made a mistake by taking the new ball. It would’ve been ideal to have a crack tomorrow morning with the old ball and then take the new ball. India have missed a trick here.

Taylor: I disagree with you Ian. In fact, they should’ve taken the new ball about 4 overs back. They’ve tried the old ball for 107 overs and nothing happened. That’s far too long.

Healy: I agree with you Mark. They should’ve taken the new ball with 8 overs to go for the day’s play. But with 4 overs to go, they should’ve stuck with the old ball. They’ve made a mistake.

Taylor [laughing]: You’re just picking at straws, Ian.

Note: Reproduced from memory, so there might be some slight inaccuracies.

Taylor shocker

In an otherwise unremarkable interview with Sahi, this:

On his favourite captains (in order of his choice)

Ian Chappell: The way he played his cricket caught my imagination… He’d be aggressive, positive… He hated to lose and was a proud Australian.

Allan Border: He was my first Test captain and had a very strong nature… Was very competitive and, much like Ian, hated to lose.

Ross Turner: One of my first captains in grade cricket… His man management would be very good and he had excellent communication skills.

Mohammed Azharuddin: The fields he set for spinners would be very good… He’d been captaining for some years before I did and I found those field settings imaginative and effective.

Tendulkar, the Romantic

CLR James, in Beyond a Boundary, writes thus:

“New technique consists in lessening such margins [of error], not in maintaining or expanding them. Some young Romantic will extend the boundaries of cricket technique with a classical perfection. .. He will drive overhead and push through any number of short-legs, as W.G. used to do, so that a whole race of bowlers will go underground for fifteen years as they did once, and once more emerge with new tricks. .. Our Romantic will do these things or other things – what he will – and the big battalions will follow in his train. We shall extol his eyesight, his wristwork, his footwork, his audacity, to which some nationalist fanatics will add his ancestry and climate. He may come from Pudsey or South Sydney, Nawanagar or Bridgetown. But wherever he comes from, and whatever he does, he will be doing what W.G. did – so reshaping the medium that it can give new satisfactions to new people.”

When James says “he will drive overhead”, he probably didn’t envisage a batsman driving the ball over the keeper’s head as Tendulkar did against the bowling of Lee in the first innings of the Perth Test. The stroke, however, was executed with every ounce of the “classical perfection” that he mentions, and was the perfect response to the conditions in which it was played. It was not the first time that Tendulkar had played that stroke either; he had played a similar stroke against Ntini in the first innings of the Johannesburg Test in late 2006. Not only were the shots audacious, they also entailed no more risk than a conventional cut shot or front foot cover drive would.

I don’t know if the “big battalions will follow in his train” but there is no reason for them not to. Of course, they might need to put in a few hours of practice in the nets before they are able to pull it off.

Pollock goes

Shaun Pollock just announced his retirement from Test cricket and with him goes the last of the great fast bowlers of his generation. South Africa is not generally known for producing the most attractive cricketers (think of Gary Kirsten, Hansie Cronje, Makhaya Ntini) but Pollock was one of the most naturally talented cricketers I have seen. In his prime, his bowling was no less lethal than McGrath’s and based on the same principles. Along with Allan Donald, he formed one of the most exciting new ball attacks that the modern game has seen.

It is unfair that a bowler of his class was also bestowed with the kind of batting talent that he had. He had a simple and correct technique apart from exceptional stroke-making abilities. He played some sparkling knocks for South Africa but unfortunately, we didn’t see the full utilization of his phenomenal batting skill over the full course of his career. Part of the reason was, perhaps, that he played at a time when South Africa had an embarrassingly rich array of all-rounders (Pollock himself, McMillan, Klusener and Kallis) and he usually ended up batting at a position lower than a batsman of his ability deserved.

It is almost universally accepted that Gary Sobers was the best all-rounder cricket has seen. I have not seen Sir Gary but I submit that Shaun Pollock could not have been too far behind. Comparing players from different generations is difficult in itself and I am seriously handicapped by not having seen Sobers first hand. Luckily, both played for a similar length of time (93 Tests for Sobers and 108 for Pollock). However, Sobers was a batting all-rounder while Pollock is a bowling all-rounder. Based purely on career statistics, Shaun Pollock’s bowling average of 23.06 and batting average of 32.31 compare quite well with Sobers’ batting average of 57.78 and bowling average of 34.03 (one way that the comparison could be made is by looking at Pollock’s percentile score among bowlers and Sobers’ percentile among batsmen and vice-versa; for fear of digression, I will not say any more on this subject here). Figures don’t tell the whole story but over the length of a career they are a generally good reflection of performance.

Yet, it wasn’t just his cricketing talent that was endearing. His on-field conduct was immaculate; never did I see him sledge a batsman or indulge in anything unfair. Most importantly, he always looked like he was thoroughly enjoying his cricket and brought a unique boyish enthusiasm to the game. I remember him once getting a batsman caught in the outfield during a tight one-day match, Aleem Dar handing him his sweater, and Pollock spontaneously hugging Dar before rushing out to embrace the fielder. I will remember Shaun Pollock with great fondness as a cricketer of joyous spirit, tremendous consistency and immense natural talent with both bat and ball.

Picture of the year

Obama soars.

Settling one age-old debate

The Sydney Test has stirred up a hornet’s nest by bringing to the fore issues such cheating, umpiring, racism, the spirit of cricket, laws of the game, diplomatic relations and probably much more. It would be fair to say that opinion seems split on many of these issues as arguments can be found on either side. Besides, there is the haze of conflicting accounts, differing moral codes and swirling emotion. It might take a while to regain a sense of proportion about the events and for all the relevant facts to emerge.

However, the one irrefutable conclusion that can immediately be drawn (based on the events observed) is that this theory of “trusting the fielder’s word” in the context of catches taken close to the ground is flawed. On the last day, Ricky Ponting, the Australian captain who is a strong proponent of this theory, made a vociferous appeal for a catch he had taken off MS Dhoni. Replays showed that he had clearly grassed the ball before the catch was completed. Now, whether he was aware of this or not is not relevant here. If he was aware, then the theory breaks down on the assumed honesty of the catcher. If he wasn’t, the theory still breaks down, albeit less dramatically, as it shows that in the pressure cooker situation of a tense battle even the best fielders are unable to judge the legitimacy of their own catches. Astonishingly, a similarly grassed catch was claimed just a few overs later by Michael Clarke (the umpire gave the batsman out purely based on the fielder’s assertion that the catch was clean; I have never seen the square leg umpire not consulted first in such cases, even when the fielder’s word was eventually taken).

It is worthwhile to recall that it was Ponting who had initiated an agreement with Anil Kumble at the beginning of the series that both sides would accept the fielder’s word in such scenarios. He said later that he believed that this was the right way for the game to be played.

What an irony that Ponting himself should play the central part in exposing its flaws.

Update: Sambit Bal has made this same point here. My only criticism of his piece is that he should have been more unequivocal on the Bucknor removal issue. Just for the record, I think Bucknor had to be removed after the kind of incompetence that he displayed in Sydney. He should also be removed from the Elite Panel altogether if the panel is to remain “elite”.

And so too does Mrs. Singh

When umpiring howlers, dishonest appealing and alleged racism are threatening to turn a cricket row into an international incident, it might be best for the mothers of all involved to keep their thoughts to themselves.

Sachin takes a stand?

If this story is true – it well might not be – it will mark the first time in his 18 year career that Tendulkar has actually taken a stance on a controversial issue. Rights and wrongs be damned; Sachin has stood up for something.