From the moment Virender Sehwag broke the record for highest score in ODI, there is a debate going on among all cricket experts from Chai –stalls to Salons to vegetable market (and yes not to forget the 24 hrs Breaking news channels !!)
The buck stops here - why Sachin Tendulkar is considered God while Sehwag is still a human being.
I am not qualified (rather statistically equipped) to contribute to the debate. But I take this proud moment to express my angle to this very interesting topic.
Generally speaking , most of the Gods, at some point in their lifetime had to resurrect themselves to show the light and lift the mortals from period of darkness.
People who follow cricket as fanatically as I do ( Hemant Dua are you reading this?) would agree if there ever was a dark period in Indian Cricket of modern times, It was between 1996 to 1999. Placed between two world cups of 50 overs format, I single out the period as dark age because that was the time when almost nothing went right for Indian Cricket.
The decline started with India’s semi final loss to Sri Lanka at the Eden gardens. It broke too many hearts. And ironically enough, while the cricket board should have engaged in the some kind of post-mortem of the sudden death, it rather started organising tournaments after tournaments to rope in the newly found moolah. The world cup was swiftly followed by the singer cup in Singapore, Sarjah cup , siyaram cup, Akai champions trophy in Colombo , Independence cup , bilateral series against Srilanka , another series against Srilanka , another Sarjah cup...what not and where not. If we ignore four- five sparks of brilliance – mostly orchestrated by Sachin Tendulkar, it was a deep sallow and dull period. Just as Sachin Tendulkar had single handedly carried India to Semi Final of the world cup’96 he did the same in all other tournaments but faltered painfully at penultimate stage. It was evident that India needed more than one Tendulkar. Certainly three more - at least.
Defeats after defeats followed. Others teams took full advantage of our ill fate. Saeed Anwar scored 194 , A kid called Shahid Afridi emerged to torment the modest Indian attacks, Sanath Jaysuriya started to re write the script of ODIs and unfortunately chose Made in India ink to do so. Can you forget Jayasuriya’s onslaught against Venkatesh Prasad & Anil Kumble?
All of a sudden it appeared the mother India’s womb had dried up from producing genuine talents. While Pakistan and Sri Lanka were producing modern day geniuses one after another , India had suddenly found some steadiness in producing plethora of mediocre personalities. Amay khurasia , Hrishikesh Kanitkar, Vijay Bharadwaj, Amit bhandari , S Ramesh (man with zero footwork and zero luck) , Abey Kuruvilla, Debasis Mohanty , Harvinder Singh Sr & Jr, Ritendir Sodhi , Nilesh Kulkarni , Noel David etcetera etcetera. They came and they went. Those who were batters served 5-wicket hauls to Vass , Muralidharans , shoaib Akhtars and Aquib Javeds. Those who could bowl helped Jayasuriya to notch one record or another Tournament after tournaments. The quest for more Tendulkars was yet to bear any fruit.
And then the inevitable happened. Sachin Tendulkar made his debut in 1989. By that time most of the middle class homes had started buying colour Television.
Suddenly there was a boy next door aged 16 , who looked 12 started hooking and pulling the bouncers showered by quickies. And when the generation who grew up watching one of their own dance down the wicket to hit spinners out of the stadiums was ready to sail into the big league, India finally had some answers.
Virender Sehwag is a phenomenon. He can do unthinkable with the bat. From run a ball triple century in test match to his latest carnage of Indore. One who was touted as a clone of Sachin in his initial stage of career , has now galloped ahead in the race for records.
Not long ago there was a jat from Punjab who hit 6 sixes in an over in a knock out game. He single handedly guided India to 2011 World cup victory. And there is a captain cool around who can do no wrong. The Rainas and Kohlis more often than not bail out India of difficult situation with ease. Mumbaikars Rohit sharma and Ajinkya Rahane look poised to take over the baton from their idol. When did the last time so many promising talents appeared simultaneously?
It’s correct that Rahul Dravid , Saurav Ganguly and Anil Kumble should also been given the credit but few would argue that it’s only one Man- the pied piper of Indian Cricket who has inspired the young bunch of self believers to produce amazing results at enviable regularity.
We are indeed witnessing a resurrection here.
Friday, December 9, 2011
Sunday, August 21, 2011
The other India
First things First , I start with meaning of the title of this blog. I don’t think it’s too difficult to guess that either. 'The other India' is a part of India which comprise of people who survive on $ 1 per day. Which flock in queues to polling booths during elections while we surf internet , attend rallies of Politicians (and these days social workers), pull the rickshaw we ride on , Clean our toilets , work as maids and prostitutes. Their children spend teenage at traffic signals carrying Shanidev on saturdays and 'Made-in-China' toys on other days, grow up only join or replace their parents in their odd jobs.
The part of India which still doesn’t know the benefits of Internet, do not own a cell phone amidst this huge mobile revolution. To whom, the shopping malls stands inaccessible and appear as imaginary castles form fairly tales and glassy office buildings seems like Tilism from Arabian nights. Whose photographs appear on WHO reports year after year, something, they are obviously not aware of. Who are unaware of who is Sachin Tendulkar and why should the ticket for a car race being held at outskirts of Delhi cost INR 35,000.
They are a part of statistics which we wish if somehow didn’t exist.
While for the last fortnight or so , it appears as if the whole of India is giving opinion on the popular subject Sarkari Lokpal Vs Jan Lokpal debate , I thought of writing about something else.
I am not a big fan of this Anna- andhi movement either. Since I strongly believe this is not the best 'Tarika' to arrive at the 'Natija'. And no one should, in any situation, assert to blackmail in order to push for any demand.
This is about the other India I was talking about in the first paragraph.
I first heard about this word from a nemesis named Mr Dennis (Batch mates, help me recall his first name) who taught us Personality development when we were in the final year of Engineering.
Most of his Classes were bunked (with no concept of campus interviews in 2003, a personality development program was the last thing we wished to attend) but I remember in one of his first sessions, while explaining about Joblessness and stiff competition, he mentioned how fortunate we are, since we are actully competing with only 10-20% of the potential population and added that they day when rest of India wakes up how much this competition is going to be stiffer and tougher.
I felt I have met the other India which Mr Dennis had had described a decade ago, head on, on 6th July 2011. The day when supreme court upheld the Allahabad High Court decision to quash the land acquisition in Shahberi village in Greater Noida. While it came as a shock to the middle class Flat buyers (fraternity belonging to India we know), the villagers jumped with joy, distributed sweets and burnt crackers. I watched the interview of villager’s lawyer Mr Parmindar Bhati who beamed with confidence of victory and hope for a fan following and solid scope of clientele. He was the face of ‘Other India’ ready to take up rest of the countrymen as bull by its horn.
The other India had finally woken up. Big time.
Contd....
The part of India which still doesn’t know the benefits of Internet, do not own a cell phone amidst this huge mobile revolution. To whom, the shopping malls stands inaccessible and appear as imaginary castles form fairly tales and glassy office buildings seems like Tilism from Arabian nights. Whose photographs appear on WHO reports year after year, something, they are obviously not aware of. Who are unaware of who is Sachin Tendulkar and why should the ticket for a car race being held at outskirts of Delhi cost INR 35,000.
They are a part of statistics which we wish if somehow didn’t exist.
While for the last fortnight or so , it appears as if the whole of India is giving opinion on the popular subject Sarkari Lokpal Vs Jan Lokpal debate , I thought of writing about something else.
I am not a big fan of this Anna- andhi movement either. Since I strongly believe this is not the best 'Tarika' to arrive at the 'Natija'. And no one should, in any situation, assert to blackmail in order to push for any demand.
This is about the other India I was talking about in the first paragraph.
I first heard about this word from a nemesis named Mr Dennis (Batch mates, help me recall his first name) who taught us Personality development when we were in the final year of Engineering.
Most of his Classes were bunked (with no concept of campus interviews in 2003, a personality development program was the last thing we wished to attend) but I remember in one of his first sessions, while explaining about Joblessness and stiff competition, he mentioned how fortunate we are, since we are actully competing with only 10-20% of the potential population and added that they day when rest of India wakes up how much this competition is going to be stiffer and tougher.
I felt I have met the other India which Mr Dennis had had described a decade ago, head on, on 6th July 2011. The day when supreme court upheld the Allahabad High Court decision to quash the land acquisition in Shahberi village in Greater Noida. While it came as a shock to the middle class Flat buyers (fraternity belonging to India we know), the villagers jumped with joy, distributed sweets and burnt crackers. I watched the interview of villager’s lawyer Mr Parmindar Bhati who beamed with confidence of victory and hope for a fan following and solid scope of clientele. He was the face of ‘Other India’ ready to take up rest of the countrymen as bull by its horn.
The other India had finally woken up. Big time.
Contd....
Friday, June 3, 2011
The Dragon & the Democracy
I won’t be wrong if I say, it’s an obsession among Indian Intelligentsia to write, read and opine about how China’s fabric of development and governance is not sustainable. And how much the Indian elephant is poised to take over the dragon in the time to come. Notwithstanding the ever shifting (like the ‘Forward policy’ of Nehru :) ) time frame within which the overtake is predicted.
While the Americans are busy flooding youtube with videos about the real state and credit bubble of shanghai and Beijing, I’m still reluctant to join the league or simply I am just not learned enough to say something new.
I was watching some episode of Hard talk on BBC where a panel was discussing the problem of population growth where some erstwhile-Chinese –now-American scholar was expressing his views on One child policy which was introduced in 1978 and initially applied to first-born children in the year of 1979.
After giving out the relevant details like …It was created by the Chinese government to alleviate social, economic, and environmental problems in China, and authorities claim that the policy has prevented between 250 and 300 million births from its implementation until 2000, and 400 million births from 1979 to 2011..etc , he mentioned one flip side that how much he longed for a little sister to hold her hand on his way to school. And later he underscored his sorrow by saying that’s the sort of sacrifice they had to make to achieve the trough in the population curve.
The chinki scholar didn’t add more to the story of missing sibling but it kindled good amount of imagination in me.
See how big this problem is.
1978 , the year when this policy was implemented, is close to the year of marriage of our parents. Most of the readers of this blog, I assume were born in late 70s or early 80s. Fast forward to 20 years from now and let’s evaluate the curious case of poor solo supporter of the family. He has, under normal circumstances, at least 4 senior members to support. (his parents & his wife’s parents). Assuming the worst case where the grandparents are also alive, he has 4 plus 4 = 8 senior family members with age 60-85(with various medical problems) plus his wife and one child. Meaning one earning member out of eleven !!!
I would rather buy an expensive insurance policy and give my supari to some contract killer from Azamgarh :)
The problem is not just that. The first generation born after the implementation of policy, since they never had any sibling (being the only permissible child), Their children will never understand what does an uncle mean. There are no Mama/Mami , no Phupha / bua, no Jija/ Didi , no sala/sali , no tau/tai too. Of course the distant ones like the permutations chachere mama or mamere chacha , door- ke-mausa are out of equation. They are the people who, in Indian circumstances, welcome us in their homes while we are on vacation in their town.
Do you still endorse the one child policy? Katrina Kaif is the 9th daughter of her parents. It’s cruel to even imagine the 70 mm motion picture sans the 21st century avatar of Punjabi girl from sarso-ke-khet! quite sluggish...isnt it so ?
While the Americans are busy flooding youtube with videos about the real state and credit bubble of shanghai and Beijing, I’m still reluctant to join the league or simply I am just not learned enough to say something new.
I was watching some episode of Hard talk on BBC where a panel was discussing the problem of population growth where some erstwhile-Chinese –now-American scholar was expressing his views on One child policy which was introduced in 1978 and initially applied to first-born children in the year of 1979.
After giving out the relevant details like …It was created by the Chinese government to alleviate social, economic, and environmental problems in China, and authorities claim that the policy has prevented between 250 and 300 million births from its implementation until 2000, and 400 million births from 1979 to 2011..etc , he mentioned one flip side that how much he longed for a little sister to hold her hand on his way to school. And later he underscored his sorrow by saying that’s the sort of sacrifice they had to make to achieve the trough in the population curve.
The chinki scholar didn’t add more to the story of missing sibling but it kindled good amount of imagination in me.
See how big this problem is.
1978 , the year when this policy was implemented, is close to the year of marriage of our parents. Most of the readers of this blog, I assume were born in late 70s or early 80s. Fast forward to 20 years from now and let’s evaluate the curious case of poor solo supporter of the family. He has, under normal circumstances, at least 4 senior members to support. (his parents & his wife’s parents). Assuming the worst case where the grandparents are also alive, he has 4 plus 4 = 8 senior family members with age 60-85(with various medical problems) plus his wife and one child. Meaning one earning member out of eleven !!!
I would rather buy an expensive insurance policy and give my supari to some contract killer from Azamgarh :)
The problem is not just that. The first generation born after the implementation of policy, since they never had any sibling (being the only permissible child), Their children will never understand what does an uncle mean. There are no Mama/Mami , no Phupha / bua, no Jija/ Didi , no sala/sali , no tau/tai too. Of course the distant ones like the permutations chachere mama or mamere chacha , door- ke-mausa are out of equation. They are the people who, in Indian circumstances, welcome us in their homes while we are on vacation in their town.
Do you still endorse the one child policy? Katrina Kaif is the 9th daughter of her parents. It’s cruel to even imagine the 70 mm motion picture sans the 21st century avatar of Punjabi girl from sarso-ke-khet! quite sluggish...isnt it so ?
Sunday, March 6, 2011
The lost black diamonds
For plenty of Cricket spectators (the purists), there is nothing more pleasing to the eye than a West Indian steaming in and smoke out a batting line up with brutal pace combined with immaculate length and helmet bound short pitch stuffs.
And one need not be from one of the islands situated between two American continents to be an admirer. All of us have grown up listening to stories of fierce bowling prowess that West Indies once possessed. Of Charlie Griffith who hit Nari Contractor that terminated his career. And how the Garners, Holdings , Roberts, Marshals created havoc amongst the best batters of that era.
The lineage didn’t dry up with the mentioned foursome fearsome. Few years later, there was Courtly Ambrose who consistently scared the daylights out of Allan Border in 1990/91 and delayed his tryst with history of becoming the leading run getter in Tests. The troika of Walsh , Cameroon Cuffy and Pattrik Patterson ran through the Indian batting order , rather regularly , on dust bowl Kumble-ish pitches in mid 90s’.
So what happened after that ? When did they all vanish? And where ?
Reports say that the trend among the youth is more to join NBA and thats where the well built lads are heading to. This sounds logical. The players are bound to move to greener pastures if they have choice to make. But didn’t NBA exist in the days of Walsh and Ambrose?
Afterall, they did consistently produced Cameroon Cuffys, Ian Bishops and Keneth Benjamins as replacements to Walsh and Ambrose whenever they didn’t feature in the sqaud for Sarjah Cups.
Few points that touch the crux of problems -
1) West indies is not a country. Its not even like Chinese Tiepeh which participates in all the sports. Cricket is perhaps the only sport they participate as a team. It was created like ‘Third Front’ of Deve gowda / I K Gujral days. May be the idea was to unite the talent of carribean Islands under one umbrella and form a third team to compete with power houses like Australia and England.
Now , with no National Pride at stake , it fails to ignite fire in the belly to fight.
This is the reason why Ireland fights so hard, even if the team is largely full of non professionals. And there have been instances of boycotts in West Indies over trivial issues of pay cheques.
2) To play as ‘Team’ which actually is comprised of players of different nationalities, one needs a charismatic leader to gel the unit together. Unfortunately after the days of Clive Lloyd and Vivian Richards , West indies is still struggling to find one. Darren Sammy is not even like Cortney Walsh.
3) Now then...Whats common among Ottis Gibson, Franklyn Rose, Adam Stanford, Jerme Lawson (please forgive the spelling mistakes in the names , I am writing this from my memory ), Tino Best, Jerome Taylor and Vasbret Drakes ?
They all promised so much and most of them had talent to hit 150 km/ph. They all Invited natural comparisons with their mighty role models during the debut tournaments but hardly played in even couple of series that followed.
Need we have sixth sense to understand, there is something rotting in the system over there?
ICC is too busy forcing BCCI's interests in the game to step into this problem of missing Black Diamonds. We cant hope Mr Haroon Lorgat to do somethig worthwhile , when he calls the stone pelting incident as Pebble throw out of misunderstanding.
I wish one day this problem gets addressed on its own. Until then we can sit back and enjoy some Keemar Roach run through the Bangla batting line up as a duck takes into Water.
And one need not be from one of the islands situated between two American continents to be an admirer. All of us have grown up listening to stories of fierce bowling prowess that West Indies once possessed. Of Charlie Griffith who hit Nari Contractor that terminated his career. And how the Garners, Holdings , Roberts, Marshals created havoc amongst the best batters of that era.
The lineage didn’t dry up with the mentioned foursome fearsome. Few years later, there was Courtly Ambrose who consistently scared the daylights out of Allan Border in 1990/91 and delayed his tryst with history of becoming the leading run getter in Tests. The troika of Walsh , Cameroon Cuffy and Pattrik Patterson ran through the Indian batting order , rather regularly , on dust bowl Kumble-ish pitches in mid 90s’.
So what happened after that ? When did they all vanish? And where ?
Reports say that the trend among the youth is more to join NBA and thats where the well built lads are heading to. This sounds logical. The players are bound to move to greener pastures if they have choice to make. But didn’t NBA exist in the days of Walsh and Ambrose?
Afterall, they did consistently produced Cameroon Cuffys, Ian Bishops and Keneth Benjamins as replacements to Walsh and Ambrose whenever they didn’t feature in the sqaud for Sarjah Cups.
Few points that touch the crux of problems -
1) West indies is not a country. Its not even like Chinese Tiepeh which participates in all the sports. Cricket is perhaps the only sport they participate as a team. It was created like ‘Third Front’ of Deve gowda / I K Gujral days. May be the idea was to unite the talent of carribean Islands under one umbrella and form a third team to compete with power houses like Australia and England.
Now , with no National Pride at stake , it fails to ignite fire in the belly to fight.
This is the reason why Ireland fights so hard, even if the team is largely full of non professionals. And there have been instances of boycotts in West Indies over trivial issues of pay cheques.
2) To play as ‘Team’ which actually is comprised of players of different nationalities, one needs a charismatic leader to gel the unit together. Unfortunately after the days of Clive Lloyd and Vivian Richards , West indies is still struggling to find one. Darren Sammy is not even like Cortney Walsh.
3) Now then...Whats common among Ottis Gibson, Franklyn Rose, Adam Stanford, Jerme Lawson (please forgive the spelling mistakes in the names , I am writing this from my memory ), Tino Best, Jerome Taylor and Vasbret Drakes ?
They all promised so much and most of them had talent to hit 150 km/ph. They all Invited natural comparisons with their mighty role models during the debut tournaments but hardly played in even couple of series that followed.
Need we have sixth sense to understand, there is something rotting in the system over there?
ICC is too busy forcing BCCI's interests in the game to step into this problem of missing Black Diamonds. We cant hope Mr Haroon Lorgat to do somethig worthwhile , when he calls the stone pelting incident as Pebble throw out of misunderstanding.
I wish one day this problem gets addressed on its own. Until then we can sit back and enjoy some Keemar Roach run through the Bangla batting line up as a duck takes into Water.
Friday, February 18, 2011
One day Mataram!
As the Bengali opening ceremony of the 2011 Cricket world cup wraps up, the focus now shifts on the actual tournament which starts tomorrow when India takes on Bangladesh.
With pride at stake and revenge on the cards, we can expect a decent beginning to India’s campaign which , to all of us , appear overwhelmingly favorites.
Team India has the arsenal and the gladiators to accomplish that. And for the first time India looks poised to win a world championship before the start of tournament. I am not counting Asian games Kabaddi medal here. :P
It is tailor made opportunity for India to win the cup unless they go the 1983 west Indies way.
This Indian side , on papers, is very similar or even better in terms of batting to Lloyd’s lions of 1983.
Sachin & sehwag are much better than Haynes & Greenidge
Yousuf pathan can hit as long as Viv Richards
Dhoni is long way ahead of Dujon in glove skills and abreast with Clive Lloyd in acumen
Yes Munaf Patel is no Andy Roberts and Sreesanth is not as good as Garner. Even Zaheer khan cant match shoulders with Michel Holding but these are the times when 10-0-55-1 bowling figure is not considered too bad and each one in the Indian line up can manage that.
With team like this, the case of complacency cannot be ruled out. If every willow holder is as good as the one to follow, it creates an aura of somebody-will-surely-do-it and by the time the last one realizes ,its already 80/6 and the curtains. Quite like Vivian Richard would have thought of when he top edged Madan Lal and Kapil Dev plucked one hell of a catch.
2011 World cup success is also very important for the survival (or revival) of the one day Cricket. If 2011 edition goes on the forgettable lines of 2007th one, its surely the end of the road for One day mataram!
There are people who, amidst all the euphoria , are questioning the very significance of cricket world cup arguing the 50-50 format, which although ICC dubs as ‘the cup that count’ practically has no takers outside the Subcontinent.
Purists admire test match while Twenty20 for the majority, the ones who hardly know cricket! Even this three year old debate will take a back seat , if India Wins the cup .
Who knows we might witness another revolution like the IPL which followed 2007 T20 world cup triumph.
With pride at stake and revenge on the cards, we can expect a decent beginning to India’s campaign which , to all of us , appear overwhelmingly favorites.
Team India has the arsenal and the gladiators to accomplish that. And for the first time India looks poised to win a world championship before the start of tournament. I am not counting Asian games Kabaddi medal here. :P
It is tailor made opportunity for India to win the cup unless they go the 1983 west Indies way.
This Indian side , on papers, is very similar or even better in terms of batting to Lloyd’s lions of 1983.
Sachin & sehwag are much better than Haynes & Greenidge
Yousuf pathan can hit as long as Viv Richards
Dhoni is long way ahead of Dujon in glove skills and abreast with Clive Lloyd in acumen
Yes Munaf Patel is no Andy Roberts and Sreesanth is not as good as Garner. Even Zaheer khan cant match shoulders with Michel Holding but these are the times when 10-0-55-1 bowling figure is not considered too bad and each one in the Indian line up can manage that.
With team like this, the case of complacency cannot be ruled out. If every willow holder is as good as the one to follow, it creates an aura of somebody-will-surely-do-it and by the time the last one realizes ,its already 80/6 and the curtains. Quite like Vivian Richard would have thought of when he top edged Madan Lal and Kapil Dev plucked one hell of a catch.
2011 World cup success is also very important for the survival (or revival) of the one day Cricket. If 2011 edition goes on the forgettable lines of 2007th one, its surely the end of the road for One day mataram!
There are people who, amidst all the euphoria , are questioning the very significance of cricket world cup arguing the 50-50 format, which although ICC dubs as ‘the cup that count’ practically has no takers outside the Subcontinent.
Purists admire test match while Twenty20 for the majority, the ones who hardly know cricket! Even this three year old debate will take a back seat , if India Wins the cup .
Who knows we might witness another revolution like the IPL which followed 2007 T20 world cup triumph.
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