Test Cricket Reinvented

The 2nd test match at Trent Bridge between India and England was a great test. The iwas a under statement. The margin, would suggest one-sidedness, but this has been a cracking match featuring some of the old-fashioned skills that so endears Test cricket to its loyal supporters.

The Australians have redrawn the definition of attractiveness in Test cricket by spectacular batting based on unrelenting aggression. To this end they have been helped by the general feebleness of bowlers around the world and the fashion of flat pitches. The role of television cannot be understated: stroke-making makes good viewing and batting pitches ensure matches last the distance. The standard definition of a good pitch has come to be one that is suitable for batting.

Not surprisingly, the great pace bowlers of this era have been shaped by their circumstances. Glenn McGrath and Shaun Pollock are masters of minimalism, bowlers who have relied on their command of line and length and prey on the patience and the character of batsmen rather than tempting them to indiscretion. Mohammed Asif, the next potentially great bowler, belongs to their type.

This summer, though, in cloudy and heavy conditions, the art of swing bowling has come to the fore. Ryan Sidebottom has been England's best bowler of the summer, including periods when Steve Harmison was available. And it's been traditional new-ball swing and not the reverse swing Andrew Flintoff and Simon Jones deployed to bring the Australians to their knees in 2005. Late into the summer, the ball hasn't stopped swinging.

It has made for fascinating cricket. It has encouraged bowlers to pitch the ball up, and it has forced batsmen to reassess their options. Driving on the up hasn't been easy, batsmen have had to play late, adjust their strokes and be vigilant at all times. Runs have had to be earned, and so been far more valuable. More than anything else, it's been a contest.

Apart from the first two sessions at Lord's, the Indian bowlers - barring the hot and cold Sreesanth - have been exceptional. Zaheer has used his experience and the knowledge of English conditions to perfection. In the first innings at Trent Bridge, he relied on the conditions, overhead clouds and moisture on the pitch. On the fourth day, greater skill and variety was demanded. While the pitch had eased up, however, swing was still available and he used the angles left-handers alone can manage with the canniness that has been a refreshing addition to his bowling. And when the release was right even RP Singh, playing only because Munaf Patel stayed home injured, produced some great balls.

Years later, when fans look at the bowling card, they might not be able to appreciate the quality of Vaughan's innings. But it must surely count as one of his best. He made batting look easy when the pressure was immense and the conditions were demanding. It is the nature of cricket, and no one will know this better than Sachin Tendulkar, that hundreds in lost causes are not often accorded the status they may merit if skill was the only criteria. If a comparison was to made, however, this was a superior performance to his 197 against India at the same ground five years ago. That was a more flowing innings featuring more gorgeous strokes. This one tested him far more. And the moment he was out, batting seemed a far more hazardous task for his colleagues. And while there was incredulity when Kevin Pietersen described his hundred at Lord's as his best ever, it wasn't just a case of Pietersen's trying to hype up his latest performance. Batsmen know when they have been put through the grind.

Seen in isolation, the fourth day's play at Trent Bridge would count among the best days of Test cricket in recent times. The conditions were roughly even: batting was challenging, not impossible, and the bowler had to do more than just put the ball in the right spot to get wickets. Both runs and wickets had to be earned and Vaughan and Zaheer provided two masterclasses.

India dominated the Test on all five days but it was never easy. That they scored 481 without a century would point to an all-round performance. Even though it was founded on an opening partnership of 147, the middle order had to scrap for every run and Tendulkar's battle against Sidebottom on the third morning will soon be the stuff of folklore. Had Tendulkar perished then, it was conceivable that India would have collapsed.

While the Indian team and their fans savour another victory away from home, which mercifully for them is much more frequent now, here's the occasion to celebrate the return of Test cricket as we once knew it.

Cricket: Sport or a Religion?

For people who have know me, even the slightest bit know me as a person who is passionate about his Cricket. But the people who really know me, know that cricket is not a obsession to me.... Its my religion. Yup I am not a Hindu, Muslim or a Christian..... I belong to a religion called cricket. I know I am on a high when I am blogging this ..... Weather gods just helped India save the 1st test at Lords!!!! But go a bit more into a thought and u will find my words making sense.

Religion well this is what an online dictionary has to say about it

Definition:

1. system: an institutionalized or personal system of beliefs and practices relating to the divine

2. personal beliefs or values: a set of strongly-held beliefs, values, and attitudes that somebody lives by

3. obsession: an object, practice, cause, or activity that somebody is completely devoted to or obsessed by

Now Cricket, like any other religion on earth, teaches you life!!!! Life is not straight.... its is not fair.... nor is it logical.... 2+2 is not 4 in life. Yet life is straight.... Life is very fair ... its logical and yes obviously 2+2 is 4. People take help of religion to understand the devine and his ways. And beleive me these are well explained and taught by cricket.

Today the almighty played his part and the match result was a Draw. A unfair, illogical climax ... Isnt it? After all England deserved to win !!!! But life is never staright. This game has taught me all the philosophy that i know and I am amused that even after watching this great game for more than 20 years now..... how this game throws up new lessons.

The Drawn match taught me that when every thing seems lost and over.... Still stick on the ground .... Fight it out till the end.... Dont give up.... Dhoni did that. After the departure of Laxman, it would have been easy for him to throw it away. After all statistically he had done his job and would have been selected for next test.... But no life isnt about throwing it away even if it seems lost. One never knows one can get lucky. Like Dhoni found out today. On one hand Indians got lucky and might have learnt a lesson of sticking there till the end, at the same place, Englisg leant a different lesson. They learnt that one has to pounce on every oppurtunity, when things are going your way. You have to take initiatives and show more urgency even when thingsb are going your way. They didnt do that today. Over rate of 13.9 overs shows that they assumed it would be a cake walk. What a lesson they learnt!!!!

Cricket is a way of life. If looked philosophically can teach u things at every moment.

NO WONDER ITS MY RELIGION

Indian Batting Beyond the Big Three

After years of relative stability, the time was ripe for the emergence of a new brigade of Indian batsmen. I would have liked to see young blood to be pumped in the test Arena, but the team selection of Lords test has disappointed me.

It will not be sufficient to slash a few timely runs in fifty-over matches, let alone the twenty-over frivolities currently not so much capturing the imagination as amusing the brain. Despite the crowds and the razzmatazz that accompanies the shorter versions of the game, Test cricket remains the measure of a batsman. Everyone in the game acknowledges this harsh reality. Greatness can only emerge when it is demanded. Pleasure is not to be mistaken for fulfilment. Aspirants must confront this inconvenient truth. No batsman has proved himself till he has prospered for a sustained period in the five-day maelstrom.

Still the people running the game have overlooked this fact. Exclusion of Yuvraj Singh from the Lords test is an example of short sightedness of the Indian think tank.

Beyond argument India will presently need a new breed of batsmen and it’s no use expecting to find another Sachin Tendulkar. Batsmen of that calibre come along once in a hundred years. Nor is it wise to expect youth to match Rahul Dravid or Sourav Ganguly or V. V. S. Laxman or even Virender Sehwag because these players have been exceptional. Moreover they were the last of their generation, the last products of old, educated, middle-class mainstream Indian cricket, sophisticated, relaxed, proud, combining the best of past and present, east and west. Rather it is a question of uncovering a new bunch of forceful characters. Most likely they will be from the raw parts of the domain.

Strong teams are full of distinctive performers.

In the past few seasons numerous players have been introduced into the Test team. Some have stayed long enough to make an impression, others have vanished as quickly as a shadow on a cloudy day. Some waited a long time for a chance, others were chosen before shaving became a daily requirement. None has made himself indispensable. All have been caught midway between the thought and the execution. Accordingly the old guard has repeatedly been recalled.

Unsurprisingly the inability of emerging batsmen to secure regular places in the five-day outfit has provoked concern about the prospects once the tried and trusted put down their willows. Everyone has watched with dismay the painful decline of the West Indies. Anxious to avoid such deterioration, India has given promising players a chance to play alongside the veterans but it has not really worked.

None of the newcomers can be put alongside Michael Clarke or Alastair Cook. What price a young batsman unable to prosper in the protection provided by the most prolific batting order in Indian history?

And yet the protection may partly explain the failures. Every young cricketer worth a rupee yearns for responsibility. Growing plants need light. Not even the most encouraging words can convince a novice listed alongside Tendulkar and Dravid that he matters as much as them.

Moreover India reveres its sporting gods. Not easy for a promising lad to join his heroes and to regard himself as an equal.

Eventually the senior men will go and then the flame will pass to the next generation. Probably those immersed in underperformance these last few seasons will remain the same because failure grips the soul, becomes habitual.

Hope rests with still incomplete and underexposed batsmen, including precocious teenagers, a group more easily found in less hierarchical lands.

Although the outlook may appear bleak, all is not lost. India has a wealth of talent, a functioning democracy, a growing economy and an enduring devotion to the game. Inevitably the outstanding batsmen of the last 15 years will be missed but their departure may hasten the maturing of hitherto obscure successors.

For the sake of Indian cricket, I would like to see the likes of Yuvrajs play test cricket more often. We have yet to address the issue of Test Capataincy after the depature of the BIG THREE.

Too many questions.... To many issues.... and yet our selectors are overlooking the situation. Keeping eyes shut will not help. Now will the fear of loosing.... We have to pump in more young bloos to Test Cricket.... Otherwise it will be too late

Jai Maharashtra!!!!

Within minutes of Mrs Pratibha Patil being "chosen" as the UPA's candidate for president, a chain sms was floated: "After 300 years, the Marathas are finally set to conquer Delhi", a reminder that defeat in the third battle of Panipat still rankles. The next morning, the Marathi papers were equally euphoric: "Maharashtra's day in the sun has come at last!" thundered one headline. Even the Shiv Sena mouthpiece, Saamna, set aside political differences to celebrate what it described as a "historic opportunity" for the "Marathi manoos".

I must confess, my regional genes were riding high too at the prospect of a Maharashtrian lady occupying the highest constitutional post in the country.

Who then cared that Mrs. Patil had only been chosen on the presidential principle of the lowest common denominator, selected after half a dozen male candidates had been vetoed? Who was bothered that in her selection was also the humiliation of another son of the soil, Shivraj Patil, who must really wonder how he can continue in government as home minister after being so publicly rejected by the left ? Was anyone really interested in questioning how the very Maharashtra politicians who were taking delight in her choice had been responsible for banishing her from the state not so long ago? And what of the ultimate irony: Mrs. Pratibha Patil made it to the highest office, not because she was a Maharashtrian (or not just because she was a woman for that matter), but because she was also married to a Shekhawat from Rajasthan, and hence could neutralize her prime opponent?

And what of the other rather embarrassing circumstance of Mrs Patil's nomination, namely her unswerving loyalty to the Gandhi family? In an otherwise worthy political career, Mrs Patil has revealed no glimmer of threatening talent, no unsettling flamboyance, no unnecessary excellence or extraordinary charisma that her supporters and patrons might undoubtedly have hated or seen as a rival power centre. After all in our republic of mediocrity, flamboyance and star quality don't really get you very far (and nor should they, sniff the politically correct, in their constant hankering for "low profile "good people" ) Instead hers has been a textbook path to upward mobility in the Congress: stay quiet, work quietly, stay obedient to the "high command" and who knows the highest gaddi in the land may well be yours.

At one level, the collective euphoria in the Maharashtrian middle class over the rise of Mrs. Patil (or Patil-Shekhawat) is understandable. Maharashtra has thrown up great cricketers (more centuries have been scored by Mumbaikars than the rest of the country put together), outstanding musicians, playwrights and scholars. But in public life, there has been a feeling that post-independence India has not given the state its due. It's a sense of resentment that perhaps stretches back to 1920, the death of Lokmanya Tilak and the passing of the baton of national leadership to Gandhi. The shifting of the power base away from the Maharashtrian Brahmins led one strand in the direction of the RSS and Hindutva politics while another moved towards the intellectual traditions of the left. The dominant Marathas, on the other hand, embraced the Congress, captured power in the state, but were unable to translate their regional supremacy onto the national stage.

The Marathas will tell you of deep-rooted conspiracies, of how from Y.B.Chavan to Sharad Pawar, the ruling elite of the Delhi durbar refused to accept the authority of the regional satraps of Maharashtra. As a result, the prime ministerial chair remained a distant dream for the men from the Sahyadris. There is some basis for this grievance. The Indira Gandhi years in particular saw the deliberate marginalization of the regional warlords, and the imposition of puppet chief ministers, best exemplified by Babasaheb Bhosale who, it is said, was made chief minister by Mrs. Gandhi only to teach the squabbling Maratha leaders a "lesson they must not forget". In the high command culture of the Congress, regional leaders with a mass base have always been seen as a "threat"; national leaders are those who will draw in no votes, but will "manage" the political environment in the capital.

And yet, if Maharashtra's leaders were to truly introspect, they would have to accept their own role in squandering their inheritance. Take Sharad Pawar for instance. Once the country's youngest chief minister and a man gifted with administrative acumen, Mr. Pawar has always found it difficult to take the step up from regional boss to national leader. Poor communication skills and a compulsive tendency to cut a deal with rivals instead of fighting on principle has meant that Mr. Pawar has never acquired the kind of national stature he might have hoped to achieve.

Mr. Pawar, in a sense, exemplifies the failings of the contemporary Maharashtra political elite. If the Bengali left has been burdened with an innate superiority complex (many of them still genuinely believe in the Gokhale dictum of a century ago that what Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow), the inward-looking attitude of the Maratha leadership has bred a certain inferiority complex, and made it difficult for them to adjust to a wider, more complex world (which is why Mr. Pawar needs a Praful Patel as his political brand manager).

Even the "progressive" Maharashtrian middle class has failed to rise above its origins. Instead of embracing the cosmopolitanism of Mumbai, they were convinced that they were being encircled by the "outsider". The rise and growth of the Shiv Sena over the years is stark evidence of the decline in the intellectual traditions of the Maharashtrian middle class. That Bal Thackeray's demagoguery and anti-minority rabble-rousing has proved more durable and effective than his "secular-liberal" critics is a reminder of the ideological bankruptcy of the social movements that were once Maharashtra's badge of pride.

How can Maharashtra reconcile its progressive ethos with the banning of books, the selective targeting of journalists, the victimization of minorities, and the growing incidents of attacks on Dalits? Where is the vigorous debate in the state when students from north India are beaten up in the name of Maharashtrian asmita? Or when one of its most prestigious libraries is ransacked by a mob, destroying valuable archival material, allegedly because the image of Shivaji has been tarnished? Is this a state genuinely committed to a forward-looking society, or one which seeks to prey on animosities and past hatreds?

Indeed, when some of Maharashtra's politicians now speak of Mrs Patil's ascent as a symbol of women's empowerment, there is a certain hollowness to their claims. This, after all, is the state whose politicians seem to spend more time debating a slip-up at a fashion show and the closure of bar dances than the brutal murder and rape of a Dalit woman in distant Khairlanji. This is also now a state which has just one woman cabinet minister in a 40 member cabinet and where a 288 member state assembly has just 12 women MLAs, well below the national average.

Unfortunately, who cares about these ground realities when a woman from Maharashtra is about to be anointed the country's first woman Rashtrapati (or patni)?

Perhaps, there are two Maharashtras: one is a state of intellectual and social ferment, which produced the men and women who lived by the ideals on which modern India was built. The other Maharashtra is a far less noble entity, it is provincial, it is small minded, and it no longer produces original thought. I still don't know which Maharashtra Pratibha tai represents since we still havent heard her speak out on any "real" issue (and not a manufactured controversy like the veil comment). Till one decides, maybe its safe to join the chorus and say Jai Maharashtra!

Why I am Afraid of Mayawati !!!!

Mayawati's historic victory has left me speechless. And scared. Her victory tells me onceagain how I, and people like me, have no voice in Indian politics anymore. We, themiddle-class, educated, semi metro-bred, Christian-education raised, young. We, thebackbone of the knowledge, entreneurial economy. We, who have no representation.We have no voice. We have no one who speaks our language, our idiom.

We are the people who rejoice every time Manmohan Singh takes stage. He is us. He isthe success of education and middle class values rising to the top. Only, shudder, hefailed to win a poll.

We, the non-vote bank. We, who must remember that Manmohan Singh rises becauseof Sonia Gandhi. Because of loyalty to the Family. We, who form no mass base.Actually, you know, if you ask many like me, we are happy to be with the Gandhis andtheir Family-Is-All-ness than the Mayawatis and the Mulayams of the world. The Gandhisspeak our language, they, we hope have our concerns, and they, we hope express it, in our words.

All that might be untrue. But if you go by pure instinct, Rahul and Priyanka, and SheilaDikshit, and Salman Khurshid and Mani Shankar all beat the Amar Singhs of the worldanyday.

Analysts would scoff at such instincts, pundits would ridicule, but is what I'm saying anydifferent from the way people in the villages of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, in fact, in mostparts of small town and rural India vote

Why does a Raja Bhaiya, renowned for throwing bodies of his opponents in a croc-infested pond, so violent and corrupt that he is called Kunda Ka Goonda, win elections?Why does Amar Mani Tripathi, accused of murder, get votes? Because their electoratevote for one of their own. It's the same logic that kept Lalu in power, that allowed him toargue that development is nothing. He brought something more to his voters - he wasone of them, and for those who had been oppressed for centuries, to see one of them inpower, to see a CM who kept buffalos in his backyard was intoxicating. It was a realsense of power. No roads or electricity could beat that.

Mayawati, by the way, does the same. Unabashedly corrupt, one could hardly argue thatshe stands for development. Crime-fighting, yes. Afterall, she was the one who put anend to Raja Bhaiya's goondagiri. But forward planning? Infrastructure ideas? Modernity?Mayawati, alas, is the quintessential behenji.

And people like me, well, we have always disliked the behenjis, now we are scared ofthem. They rule. We have no voice.

Truly, the masses have hit back and how. In fact, in many circumstances, I am almostapologetic about by background. It is sneered at. It is also 'firang', and 'angrez-loving',my love for the world cinema and football and F1 races and the apparel I wear , and,and... and everything, shunned by the Hindi heartland. The people who rule.I have barely a handful leaders to look upon and as parties like the SP and the BSP rise,on a day when Rajdeep Sardesai was discussing if Mayawati could one day becomePM, I am conscious that I have no leader to look up too.

Priyanka Gandhi is far away. Rahul Gandhi has failed. Manmohan Singh is a puppet. Iam aware that were a Lalu or a Mayawati were ever to become PM, I would have tochoose to not to return to the country.

I, part of the first generation in India who have enough opportunities to work abroadanytime they want, and yet want to work at home for less than 1/5th the salary. We wantto do it because we believe we can push this country to great heights. For the first time,opportunities at home seem, though far less lucrative, attractive because we are buildinga nation. A confident nation that will beat the world.

And if we are to do it, we want to see a leader we can look upto. We need to see one ofus. Mayawati cannot and never will be my leader.

This is a country that prides on it English-speaking, entrepreneurial youth. We whorepresent India to the world. But we don't vote do we? And why don't we? Becausethere's no one to vote for! Where is my leader? The truth is, I don't have one. And that,as sophistication deserts our politics, means perhaps I might not return home!!!