Demons of the Mind

Vijaysingh Madhavji Thackersey a.k.a. Vijay Merchant, was considered as India’s best ‘all weather’, ‘all wicket’ batsman in the 30s and 40s. No wonder, when he led the Indian side to England in 1946, he scored an incredible 2385 runs at an astonishing average of 74, in what was considered as one of the wettest summer in England.

It is interesting to know how one of the most technically accomplished batsmen approached his game. Says Merchant, “When I played cricket I never had a plan of action when going out to bat. As a matter of fact I never gave any thought to the match itself and went in to bat with a clear mind and perhaps an empty mind. And because there was no plan in my mind I concentrated 100% - not 99%.”

If one has to find a fault with Indian batsmen for their pathetic performance on day one at Motera, then it has to be the way in which they approached this match. The image of a verdant green pitch played in their minds over and over again. They allowed themselves to get so overawed by the incessant talk pertaining to the nature of pitch that they ended up fighting the demons, more in their minds than on the twenty two yards strip.

After scoring over 600 runs in the previous test, one would have expected India to shut out any discussion concerning the wicket and concentrate solely on the job at hand. Instead, as a result of this needless ambiguity, it was the Indian team that looked more ruffled, going into the match, than the visitors.

Having said that, it would be unfair to go hammer and tongs at the players for one bad day (read session) on the field. After all, the same team had performed admirably well in Australia and before that, in England.

But the same cannot be said about the authorities in charge of preparing wickets. This series was played on the back of a hugely successful one in Australia and the public interest in the game was at an all time high. Instead of encashing on this golden opportunity and making test cricket more popular, they have managed to wean the common man further away from test matches.

If Chennai track was disastrously docile, the one at Motera threatened to go the Wankhede way, albeit briefly, when India was batting.

Already the South Africans have a vice like grip on this test. If Indian team is harbouring any hopes to make a match of it from this position, some one needs to play the role of Vijay Merchant, who, while returning to pavilion after scoring 250 runs in a first class match said, “My concentration slackened just a bit, else I could have easily carried on.”

Arise, Sir Rahul!

Triple Hundreds and all that....

What is the relation between a triple century and a drawn test? What do triple centurions have in common? Is triple century harmful to health of test cricket?

Don't blame me if you find these lines ripped straight from the Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner authored bestseller 'Freakonomics'. Because they actually are.

As the cricketing world debates the significance of Sehwag triple hundred at Chennai, here are few interesting points, I thought, I should share with you. It is like a rogue cricket fan exploring the hidden side of everything!

• Out of the 22 triple hundreds scored so far, only one has been scored it in the second innings. That honour goes to the original little master, Hanif Mohammad, when he scored 337 runs in his marathon stay of 970 minutes at crease against the West Indies in Bridgetown Barbados. All others have come batting first.

• 14 out of the 22 tests, which recorded a triple hundred, have meandered to a meaningless draw.

• Out of the remaining eight wins, three have been recorded against the lowly ranked nations – Australia winning against Zimbabwe in 2003 (Hayden scored 387), West Indies against Pakistan in 1958 (Sobers making 365 n.o.) and England crushing the hapless New Zealand in 1965 (John Eldrich's 310 n.o.)

• In the 14 drawn tests, almost 50% of the matches (6 to be precise) have barely managed to complete the first innings. The only drawn match to generate any kind of interest was WI Vs Pakistan, which Hanif Mohammad single handedly saved for his team.

• The more telling fact is that no triple centuries were scored between 1975 to 1990, when the WI pace attack, not to mention their contemporaries like Lillee, Thomson, Imran, Botham, Kapil, Hadlee and co, were at their peak.

• Almost a third of the total triple centuries have been scored in last 5 years alone, indicating:
  a) Overall decline in bowling standards and b) Lack of Sporting wickets

• Wisden's top 10 all time great innings includes just one triple ton, Lara's 375, that too ranked at number 10. And I am inclined to believe that Lara's innings was included more for its timing (it took 36 years to break Gary Sobers' highest individual test score) than for the sheer quality or its impact on that particular match.

It is not Sehwag's fault (or for that matter, any other triple centurion's) that they encountered flattest of tracks. Scoring a triple hundred is the ultimate test of batsman's endurance, patience and perseverance.

But it is often the 'lesser' innings played under trying circumstances, which remain etched in the memory forever.

Test cricket at its boring best

There was a time in the 1970s when the Chepauk was considered as the bounciest wicket in India. So when the West Indies team led by Clive Lloyd reached Madras to play the fourth test of the 1974/75 series, they were pretty confident of wrapping up the series. They had a potent pace attack of Andy Roberts, Brendon Julien and Keith Boyce to take advantage of a lively track. Soon enough, they had India struggling at 117/8. It was from here that the eternal stylist of Indian cricket, Gundappa Vishwanath, took charge of Indian batting. Employing his fierce square cuts to deadly effect, he helped India to a respectable first innings score, from where they could level the five test series, two all! That innings of 97 n.o. was described by Bishen Singh Bedi as one of sheer artistry, belligerence and technical finesse. It was also an innings that Wisden Asia ranked as third best amongst all time great Indian innings, behind only VVS Laxman’s epic 281 at Kolkata and Rahul Dravid’s monumental 231 at Adelaide.

The just concluded Chennai test may have seen Virendra Sehwag score more than thrice the runs that Vishy did in that test against WI; Hashim Amla, Neil McKenzie and Rahul Dravid may have helped themselves to easy centuries, the runs scored in the first innings of this test may far exceed those scored in the entire match in 1975, but it has certainly left an unsavory taste in most cricket fans.

Chepauk, in past, has been witness to some remarkable test matches, beginning with the third and final test match of the 1933 home series against England. India’s first ever victory in a test match (1952) and the near victory against the WI in 1966/67, Vishy’s superb batting (1974/75), the tied test against Australia (1986), Hirwani’s dream debut against the West Indies (1988), Sachin’s memorable knock against Mark Taylor’s Australia (1998) and the standing ovation to the visiting Pakistan team (1999) bear testimony to it.

So isn’t it sad that a test in which Sehwag became only the third player in test history to score two triple centuries, in which Dravid became only the third player ever to cross 10000 run mark in both ODIs and Test cricket, the sole talking point should be the Twenty Yards - truly the graveyard for bowlers? Isn’t it a matter of shame that Sehwag’s innings, in spite of being the highest ever by an Indian, would rank nowhere close to the all time great knocks played by his fellow countrymen?

At a time when test matches all over the world are becoming increasingly result oriented (the recent Aus Vs India, England Vs NZ and Sri Lanka Vs West Indies series), India has been of late, dishing out tame and dull ‘draws’ with alarming regularity – last year’s India Vs Pakistan test series just being another case in point.

In the preface to his book, ‘Playing for India’, Sujit Mukherjee has this to say:

The English lexicon and the game of cricket became permanently wedded when the word ‘Test’ came to mean the highest form of elevation known to cricketers all over the world. Much as touchstone tests gold, so does Test cricket reveal the essential substance of cricketer.

Unfortunately, the latest Chennai Test miserably fails this ‘test’.

Cricket and Music : A Great Fusion

Ever heard of all eleven players making their ODI debut on a same day?

On 13th July 1974, eleven Indians led by Ajit Wadekar did exactly that. It was India's first ever One Day International.

Since that game at Leeds, a lot of water has flown under the proverbial bridge. Wadekar never played test or ODI cricket after the drubbing in that series. Mike Denness, his English counterpart, played for exactly a year more. Eknath Solkar, India's best close-in fielder, died relatively young at 57. So did Robert Andrew Woolmer. In the meantime, India won the world cup and even hosted couple of them. And the cricketing world almost turned topsy-turvy.

Why am I even raking this up? The reason is, India's next match against SL at Melbourne on 10th February, will see them overtake Pakistan (and all other nations) in maximum number of ODIs played by a team. (India is currently level with Pakistan at 674 games.) Given India's busy season and their increasing thrust on one-day games, they are likely to stay well clear of the competition hereon, very much like Murali's wickets in test cricket.

I am not saying this is a cause for celebration. But it is remarkable that almost half of these matches (332, to be precise) have been played in last decade alone. India may not have the same winning ratio as Pakistan (1.23 in 674 games) or Australia (1.79 in 670 games) , but in between it's first ODI in 1974 and the one they will play on 10th February 2008, India has changed the dynamics of limited overs game so much, that it will force even Kerry Packer to take a backseat.

Before India lock horn with their southern neighbours, Australia will have a first go at them in Sydney, tomorrow. It is a repeat of WC final. Australians have 'handled' Murali pretty well in their last three outings, including the WC final, Murali's figures reading 193/1 in 27 overs! To me this is a contest between top two batting sides in the tournament. It will also provide the much needed spark, that has failed the tri series so far.

As for the fusion, it comes in the form of 'Vasantotsav' (translated as 'Festival of Spring' and also named after famous classical singer Vasantrao Deshpande) starting in Pune, tomorrow. It is an exquisite treat for music aficionados. This year's edition features Tabla maestro Zakir Hussain and drummist Shivamani in a jugalbandi, Violinist L Subramaniam, Sufi singer Abida Parveen, Gazhal king Ghulam Ali and the vintage vocalist Kishori Amonkar.

It is like watching your favourite cricketers play on your favourite cricket ground. Truly a 'Taare Zameen Par' (Stars on the Ground) stuff.

Exciting cricket contests and celestial music, a heady mix, this weekend brings!

Rain Match

There aren’t many things in India, that would relegate cricket off the newspaper headlines. Sania Mirza’a dramatic withdrawal from the Bangalore open almost threatened to do that. Sania’s announcement may be a culmination of number of factors, but it had a huge lesson embedded in it - be prepared to be damned, doesn’t matter how successful you are.

The young Indian team selected for the Commonwealth Bank Tri series may not have been subjected to the same moral and cultural policing as Sania was, as yet, but make no mistake, it was a team under enormous pressure. It took all of one Twenty20 tie and half a limited overs match for the critics to draw their daggers out. Suddenly, the ‘men’ who won us the T20 world cup were ‘boys’ who could never stand the rigours of a tough Australian tour.

Incongruous as it may sound, the youngsters must have welcomed a shift in focus, whether in form of Sania, or the disturbing happenings on the streets of India’s cricket capital, Mumbai, or the scheduling of match itself - on a busy Tuesday, unlike the opening one on Sunday when whole of India seemed focused on Brisbane.

Brisbane has been a low scoring pitch in recent times. The average score for a side batting first in past 5 ODIs was 233 runs. Even that looked imposing when first four wickets fell for fewer than hundred runs.

But what a good performance Gambhir and Dhoni came up with thereafter!

I must confess I was never a big fan of Gautam ‘flashy’ Gambhir. He is that sort of batsman against whom the slip cordon will always fancy their chances. While Hussey and Ponting forgot the cardinal rule to stay awake yesterday, it was Sangakkara’s turn to doze off today. To Gambhir’s credit, he hung on and importantly, made it count. If this innings has cemented his place in the team, he knows whom to thank for.

But I am most impressed with MS Dhoni. He may not possess the best batting technique, but has a temperament of gold, in that he is inert to most pressure situations. As a captain, he has adamantly preferred a young team to the experienced one, which puts the onus of team’s success squarely on him. How remarkably well did he shepherd the Indian innings today!

At lunch break, 267 looked like an eminently winning total.

And then, it rained…

Early Bird...

Last time rain had interrupted an ODI match between India and Australia, at Bangalore, Adam Gilchrist had accused India, and specifically MS Dhoni, of chickening out of the run chase. Australia had scored a huge 307 runs and Gilly was referring to the fact that Indian batting was top heavy with Ganguly, Dravid and Yuvraj making up its middle order.

Given its weak batting this time around, India could not have asked for a better start to the ODI series. One could well argue that having lost three wickets Australia was in real danger of losing the match. But with frontline batsmen like Clarke, Symmonds, Hussey and Haddin and non-so challenging total to chase, India will thank rain gods for their mercy.

A split verdict has enabled India to open their point’s account. I am expecting a close finish to this triangular contest and these points in the early stages will stand them in good stead.

Having made an opening, India will have their best chance to build upon it against Sri Lanka tomorrow. On paper, Sri Lanka looks the most balanced team of the three, but they also head into this match with just two practice games under their belt and we all know how difficult it is for touring teams to find their feat straightaway, especially in Australia.

India’s middle order faces the same difficulty – of acclimatization - as their opponents. Gambhir, Sharma, Uthapa and Tiwary aren’t exactly the names that would strike terror in the opposing camps, atleast yet. Which is why Sachin Tendulkar’s yet another attempt to ‘please’ Sir Don would not have gone too well with them. It was on this very ground sixty years ago that Sir Don got out hit-wicket for the first (and also the last) time in his test career. Lala Amarnath had unwittingly found his name in the record books then. Indians will hope that like Lala, Brett Lee is the only bowler to find a mention in the score sheet, thus.

If this Indian team is overtly dependent on Sachin Tendulkar, then Sri Lanka’s ace in the pack is undoubtedly that old warhorse Sanath Jayasuriya. I say this inspite of the presence of class players like Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara. He has often taken a huge liking to Indian ‘medium pace’ bowling in the past. Ask Venkatesh Prasad, who won’t wink before vouching for it.

Murali, the other great player in this SL team, may live another day to play in Australia once again. For Sanath, this definitely is his last. And like Tendulkar, he will be keen to stamp his authority on this series. India would have won half the battle if they prevent him from doing so.

With India’s bowlers finding the right form, this is also India’s best chance to take an early lead in the point’s table.

Let The ODIs Begin

“We are having such a good time. We are. We are. We’re having a wonderful time.”

“Yes, absolutely.”

It is hard to believe that these two had refused to even acknowledge each other, only few days ago. But then politics makes for strange bedfellows.

Ditto for cricket, which, of late has seen an intriguing mix of muscle flexing and subtle art of back room diplomacy, in equal measure. Imagine what a fascinating duel it would have been had Symmonds or Ricky Ponting batted against Harbhajan Singh at Melbourne yesterday and then faced the cameras together for the mandatory post match conference! They would have no doubt put up the same 'friendly' facade that Hillary and Obama displayed in Los Angeles, the other day.

But Indian team had different plans. They were in a tearing hurry to finish the match. Perhaps they took their captain’s word, of treating the lone Twenty20 match as a practice game, bit too seriously.

Has this win shifted the momentum Australia’s way? It is too simplistic to assume that, its resounding nature notwithstanding. I believe it has only served as a good wake up call to the Indians. One day series will be a different cup of tea altogether.

Australia admittedly will enjoy an upper hand on account of their strong batting line. Where India will fancy their chances is Australia’s surprisingly weak bowling line up, save Brett Lee.

It would be clichéd to state that the opening pair will define India’s course in most matches, but one needs to remember that in absence of Saurav Ganguly and the injury plagued Yuvraj Singh, India’s batting is the weakest amongst the three teams, something the team is not used to. Sehwag needs to carry his test form into the shorter version and others, especially Suresh Raina, needs to fulfill his potential as the most talented young bat, for, this tournament in most likelihood showcase India’s middle order, once the big four hang their shoes.

What gives me hope, though, is the bowling. Again a situation, which both the fans and the players won’t be too familiar with. Irfan Pathan lends a critical balance to this team and he will be the pivot around which M/s Ishant Sharma, Shreesanth and Harbhajan will cast their spell.

Tri series tournaments in Australia have given some abiding memories to most Indian cricket fans who began watching the game in early 80s, a point beautifully put across by Soumya Bhattacharya in his recent article in CricInfo magazine.

A joint conference featuring Symmo and Harbhajan will certainly be one such memory to carry from this year.

Even without it, the last tri series in Australia promises much more.