Black Muddy River

Down with Dow? Maybe not

2011-12-07T12:08:00.003+05:30

Ordinarily, with a name like ‘Dow’, you’d be a caption writer’s delight. But when the ghosts of over 10,000 Bhopal residents you murdered – very, very indirectly, of course – peer from behind your red diamond shaped logo, puns go out the window. And when we know that the Olympic Games, that ancient sporting competition designed to bring people together, has signed on Dow Chemicals as one of its sponsors for the 2012 edition in London (and beyond), ‘shocking’ is pretty much the only word that comes to mind, ‘aghast’ coming a close second.

Aslam Sher Khan, former hockey star, is of the opinion that India must boycott the Olympic Games in London next year. The venerable Mr Khan, his heart totally in the right place, says, “It’s a shame that the people who murdered so many innocent people in Bhopal are allowed to be part of the Olympic movement. India must force Dow out of the Olympics, and if that doesn’t happen, boycott the Games.” Now that serves all those who are called on to defend India’s ‘disastrous showing in yet another Olympic Games – how can a country of over a billion win next to nothing’. But this might be a good time to step back and view the debate from a few different angles.

Ordinarily, especially in these days, when the absoluteness of Annaesque sentiments is what rules popular discourse, it would have been easy to go along with Khan’s opinion. But, really, is it all so cut-and-dried?

To start with, let’s just step back and place Dow under the right light. The Bhopal gas leak on December 3, 1984 is rightly described as the worst industrial disaster of all time. The leak of the poisonous methyl isocyanate killed about 3,000 people immediately, and has since taken the lives of 8,000-odd more. The company responsible: Union Carbide. Without littering this sports-related column with facts easily found on Google, let me just say that the law has failed to punish those responsible for the dastardly act (whether of commission or omission) or compensate those victimised. Even here in the ‘Third World’, it was a revelation that human life was so cheap (but the fact that it happened in a developing country had, of course, everything to do with how events played out thereafter). But Dow came into the picture only in 1999 when it bought Union Carbide. At the time, the Dow board had fears that the company would become responsible for Union Carbide’s crimes. And so it did.

Now, let me state a few cold facts, and please – please – take me at my word when I say that I hold no candle for Dow (why should I?):

· Dow did not commit the crime to start with, though that does not absolve them of the responsibility that comes with being the company that merged with the crime-committing company
· Dow’s main ‘crime’ is in refusing to pay compensation to the Bhopal victims as demanded – and I cannot find the words to condemn that strongly enough
· I see this as the difference between homicide and culpable homicide. Dow is culpable because it bought over Union Carbide, so as far as I can see, they did not commit the crime but – quite rightly – inherited the culpability. Don’t shed a tear for them. It was a business decision they made knowing every fact
· Since Union Carbide doesn’t exist anymore, the main sticking point now has to be the non-payment of compensation
· Lastly, and importantly, I believe that the Indian government is almost as culpable as Dow as far as the non-payment of compensation is concerned, simply because it has done very little over the years to push the law in this regard, acting only when the protestors’ voices grew loud enough to reach Raisina Hill

Given these facts and circumstances, the question I am trying to answer is this: what purpose does a boycott serve?

Do I mean that India, as a nation, should keep quiet? Certainly not. I think Ajay Maken has started a solid initiative, and importantly, it’s being backed by the sporting community. But, before moving forward, I also want to question Maken’s stance a bit. Maken started things off by writing a letter to Indian Olympic Association (IOA) President VK Malhotra asking the IOA to speak to the International Olympic Council about the issue. Why? Why is this IOA’s cross to bear? Call me a born cynic, but as far as I am concerned, it’s the Indian government’s job to take this up with the British government. It’s not an issue concerning sportspersons any more than it concerns the rest of us Indian citizens. It’s for the government – and remember that it must share half the burden of blame – to put diplomatic pressure on the UK and ensure the nation’s athletes don’t have to perform under banners emblazoned with the letters D-O-W. Why is the government firing from Maken’s shoulders and why is the Sports Minister firing from the IOA’s shoulders?

Having said that, though, I will now step back. I am not a political commentator. Let’s return to the sports side of things. And while Aslam Sher Khan might have gone a step too far with his boycott call, many others do make solid points.

Like Michael Ferreira, who told me, “Hit them (Britain) where it hurts the most. Freeze trade relations. Hurt their economy. Force them into a situation where they are forced to drop Dow from the Olympics.”

Viren Rasquinha and Ashwini Nachappa told me – separately, but almost entirely in agreement – that it’s not the job of sportspersons to do what politicians should do, but sportspersons must raise their voice to express the concern of the people of our country. Having Dow as a sponsor for the Olympics is not acceptable to the people of India, and we must express that in a unified voice.

And that, to my mind, is the solution. As far as the Indian sports community is concerned, we could consider participating in the Olympics with black armbands on. The government and Indian civil society must simultaneously protest in all other relevant fora. Not boycott, I believe. Because remember, these are athletes we are talking about. Not social or political activists. They have trained hard for four (or more) years to have a shot at Olympic glory. That can’t be snatched away from them because the Indian government is incapable of doing what it is supposed to do – get compensation from Dow for the Bhopal victims. It just doesn’t seem fair.

Ban the men, can’t ban the menace

2011-11-07T18:37:00.002+05:30

(Written for Sahara Time)

I’m fairly sure that absolutely nobody, anywhere, actually believed that Salman Butt and Mohammad Asif were innocent. Indeed, despite their ill-advised ‘not guilty’ stances, the two were always up against it once Mohammad Amir and Mazhar Majeed pleaded guilty. It was not the Pakistan Cricket Board hearing their plea after all; it’s the Crown prosecution in London. The boys had no chance. And that’s what makes the story that much more different from past cases of fixing in cricket.

See, in the past, no one has ever been caught red-handed. In this case, unlike Tehelka back in 1999-2000, News of the World recorded a live incident of matches (or spots, as is the case) being fixed. It was all happening in England; in London, to be exact. It became a criminal case. Very different from earlier incidents where statements, which talked about incidents past, were recorded and then investigated. As a result, the case went out of the hands of the PCB or the ICC. Butt and Asif were tried as committers of a crime. And now, their next few years will be spent as criminals.

But on to more relevant matters (and without shedding a tear for the obviously guilty Butt), we need to figure out why the only two great exposes on cricket fixing have both been conducted by news organisations. Did it have to come to that? Doesn’t the ICC have something called the Anti-Corruption and Security Unit that is supposed to prevent corruption? Isn’t it a massive failure on the part of the ACSU that journalists have to do their job?

Well, the obvious answer to that will have to be ‘yes’. But it isn’t. Not quite. See, corruption, in some ways, is like terrorism. You can have the best systems in place to prevent it, but someone or something will always slip through the cracks. The International Olympic Committee, the biggest governing body in the world of sport, has been trying to prevent doping in sport for heaven-knows-how-long. Has it succeeded? No. In fact, nations have put in place systems that are carrying out scientific research every single day to find newer and newer performance-enhancing substances and substances that can mask their presence in the human body. Hasn’t baseball and basketball in America, two of the most professionally-run sports in the world, had to deal with drug use and fixing? Aren’t there big stories about fixing in world football? Or world tennis?

As an aside, do we honestly believe that India as a nation is not trying to prevent terror activities in India?

Cheats, and kamikaze kids, will always exist, and always slip through the cracks. You can reduce the instances, but can’t weed it out completely.

But at the same time, can the ICC really hide behind the cloak of helplessness? Can it continue to justify its incredibly naive policy of asking players to report approaches by bookmakers? I don’t think so. Look at the IPL (which has recently been elevated to the status of ‘List A’ cricket); the BCCI pushed away the ICC ACSU from the IPL by saying that the IPL is an Indian domestic league. Not acceptable. But it was to the ICC. After all, what the BCCI wants, the BCCI gets. So if the BCCI wants corruption to take place in Indian ‘domestic’ cricket, the ICC, or anyone else for that matter, can go take a hike.

What that proves, all over again, is the complete toothlessness of the ICC. So yes, the ICC has a tough, almost impossible job in its hands. And it’s made doubly tough by the ICC bending over backwards to accommodate the BCCI, even if it’s Sharad Pawar in charge.

Coming back to the latest episode, Sarfaraz Nawaz has called for the ICC to be taken to task for “allowing fixing to flourish”, saying that he plans to file a case against the ICC. While former ICC President Ehsan Mani (a Pakistani) says “An example should be made of Butt and Asif for other cricketers”. And Lalit Modi, himself no paragon of virtue, says there should be no forgiveness for people like Butt and Asif.

Sure, but Butt and Asif’s guilt is only a third of the actual truth. One of the other thirds is that the powers-that-be are as culpable as the players. The PCB has told its cricketers over the years that crimes can easily be treated as aberrations. That a ‘life ban’ only means a ban till someone in the PCB decides it’s time to overturn it. While the final third is that even as these Pakistan cricketers serve their sentences, a pile of other cricketers will be sitting away smirking at their good fortune. Yes, three players can’t be the whole lot. There were others. There must have been others. Like Farokh Engineer told me, “I want Salman and Asif to go to jail, but I regret that so many others, who have also filled their pockets in the same way, are sitting pretty”.

Much as we want, fixing cannot be wished away. Nor can the use of drugs in sport. As always, some people will get caught, but many more will go scot-free. That’s the reality. We can try. The ICC can show some intent and will. As can the IOC and FIFA. The menace will remain, as pessimistic as it may sound.

The Srinivasan Regime: Lots to worry about

2011-09-20T15:45:00.002+05:30

I don’t claim to posses any degree of astuteness when it comes to political issues, but I must say that I am very uncomfortable with the idea of having Narendra Modi as our Prime Minister. Not that it’s happening in a hurry, but many analysts feel the rest of India is being deprived of Modi’s magic touch – something that has made Gujarat so very vibrant and much else.

But why am I talking about Modi in a sports column? Oh well, it’s because I feel much the same way about N Srinivasan taking over as the new BCCI President. I know being the boss of India’s favourite sport is a long way off from being the boss of the nation itself, but I think it’s a fair analogy. The point being that however brilliant Srinivasan might be as an administrator, I can’t believe that someone with a proven track record of twisting and changing the BCCI’s rules and regulations for his own benefits can be trusted to run the game in the country. Especially when the motive for his indiscretions in the past remains unchanged – the Chennai Super Kings.

From all accounts, Srinivasan is a good administrator, a more than competent manager. As a boss at India Cements, he has taken the company places. As a cricket administrator in Tamil Nadu he is known as a strong but silent sort, who gets what he wants and gets done what he wants done. That’s pretty much his reputation as BCCI Secretary and CSK owner as well. Except that documents have emerged that clearly prove that Srinivasan might have used a bit more ‘crook’ than ‘hook’ in getting his way at times. To start with, by changing the BCCI Constitution that prevents officials from having financial stakes in affairs of the BCCI. This was changed to allow Srinivasan to own a team in the IPL. And, interestingly, this was changed after the first edition of the IPL. There are documents that also prove that Srinivasan picked and chose umpires for matches concerning his team CSK. And much more.

Also, don’t forget, he admitted to the Parliamentary Standing Committee recently that Lalit Modi had taken him “for a ride” when it comes to financial matters of the BCCI. Uhhh! If he’s lying, he’s a liar and culpable in the IPL mess. If he is being honest, he isn’t really a good administrator, is he?

And then there is, to my mind, the biggest problem. An intangible problem. The fact that, as BCCI President, Srinivasan can not only attend IPL meetings, but also effect changes that help his and his team’s cause. Will he use the unfair advantage? Maybe not. But history suggests there is the possibility.

But let’s move away from Srinivasan to a couple of other major changes to have hit Indian cricket at the end of the BCCI’s Annual General Meeting in Mumbai over the weekend. One of the first big decisions taken by the new dispensation, led by Srinivasan, is to terminate the Kochi team’s contract. Interestingly, I spoke to two of the co-owners of the team, and while one of them threatened to take the BCCI to court, the other blamed the investors in the team for the eventuality. Satyajit Gaekwad, in fact, said that the BCCI had done the right thing, because, like Srinivasan announced grandly, “the breach cannot be remedied”. So nine teams in the fifth edition of the IPL. Not a bad thing, unless it ends up increasing the number of matches again!

Elsewhere, the big positive. Mohinder Amarnath being instroduced as the ‘joker in the pack’. Once upon a time, two decades ago, when he was being picked and dropped in the Indian team like a yo-yo, Jimmy announced that the selectors were a “bunch of jokers”. Not much has actually changed because earlier this year, just before the World Cup, I had asked him during an interaction whether “anything has changed or do you still think that the selectors are a bunch of jokers”? Jimmy said with a thoughtful expression: “Well, they do get a lot of things wrong a lot of the time”. Oh well!

Now though, he is a selector himself. Someone who will be a paid professional, much like the current crop led by Krishnamachari Srikkanth. Jimmy is known as a straight man, who calls a spade a spade and usually walks the talk. Someone you can trust to do the right thing. But will he be able to, or be allowed to, do that? Remember, though he is senior to Srikkanth, Srikkanth remains the Chairman of the BCCI Selection Committee for the time being, and Amarnath will be his understudy. If no major overhaul is in the offing, Amarnath will work under Srikkanth for at least a year and then take over as Chairman of the Panel for the next three years. That doesn’t sound too positive. In fact, it’s a recipe for disaster, because knowing Jimmy, he is quite capable of walking out in a huff if he sees poor decisions being taken.

But there’s the other speculation that might come true sooner than we think. The Independent Selection Panel. Srikkanth might have a whole year left on his contract, but what if the BCCI finally gives the go-ahead to the long-pending Independent Panel, and dissolves the Zonal Selection Panel which is headed by Srikkanth? Yes, it’s a possibility. And if that happens, Amarnath might be the man to head it. Very probable.

A lot of all this, however, depends on the route adopted by Srinivasan. If he plays with a straight bat as some of us expect him to, and puts Indian cricket above Chennai Super Kings and the IPL, things might move in the right direction. Tricky. And remember, stranger things have NOT happened in the BCCI!

‘No accountability please’

2011-09-02T12:20:00.002+05:30

[Written for Sahara Time]

What was Ajay Maken thinking? Did he seriously think that his colleagues would jump at the opportunity to be made accountable and help him push through the National Sports Development Bill? Did he seriously think that some of the most powerful politicians in the country would suddenly slip on the veneer of honesty and help Maken become a hero? How naive! How very naive!

Think about it. Vijay Kumar Malhotra, Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa, Praful Patel, Jagdish Tytler, Satish Sharma...and many others. They care a damn about sports or sportspersons. Much like Uma Bharti or Mani Shankar Aiyar or MS Gill – recent sports ministers who considered their jobs ‘punishment postings’ and made it clear that they didn’t want to do what they had been asked to do. Come on, who are we fooling? It’s one of the oldest known secrets that politicians choose to become part of sports federations for two reasons and two reasons alone: one, because of the funds that come in, and are not really accounted for; and two, because of the free foreign tours that come as one of the fringe benefits of the job. Period. And Maken actually thought that the politicians would chuck up years of ‘hard work’ and become accountable and transparent? Ridiculous!

I don’t hold any brief for Maken, but it’s obvious that his intentions are noble. But much like the Jan Lokpal Bill propagated by Team Anna, Maken’s method is naive. Ill-informed. Do I know what the right way is? No. But that doesn’t mean I can’t see that this way is ineffective. Because it will never work. Any Bill – Jan Lokpal or Sports Lokpal – needs the nod of Parliament to come into effect. When Parliament itself, or the people who make up Parliament, stand to lose so much, why would they give the nod?

So far, among the people I have spoken to, Vijay Kumar Malhotra has cried hoarse about the ‘age and tenure’ clauses of the proposed Bill that affect him both on the count of age (he’s 80, 10 years past the mark) and tenure (he has been President of the Archery Association of India for close to 40 years). His argument was “What’s my age got to do with anything? Our archers are winning medals in international tournaments. What else do we want?”

Well, how about that old argument? Medals are won despite the administration, not because of it, Mr Malhotra. I tried to suggest that, humbly. The old BJP hand said to me, though not in as many words, to “stuff it”! I suspect I would have received similar answers from the rest of the men named earlier.

And I haven’t even started on the BCCI yet. “We don’t take any funds from the government,” grandly announced Congress MP and BCCI Vice President Rajeev Shukla. “If we (my real employers, the BCCI) don’t take help from the government (my part time job as Minister), then why should the BCCI be answerable to the government?”

How about this, Mr Shukla? One, because the BCCI gets lands at subsidised, often nominal, rates from the government, and this is where stadia as well as academies are built. Two, because none of your international matches or the IPL would take place without the security that is arranged by the government. Three, because of the tax exemptions the government extends towards you, and helps your crores multiply. And four, that stupid old thing about our boys not representing the BCCI but India. Does any of it make sense?

Importantly, the sports fraternity has come out in complete support of Maken, and that might make a difference as we go along. Four-time world champion cueist Michael Ferreira says, “It’s vested interests and nothing else that is making the politicians reject the Bill.” Former India captain Kapil Dev lauds the BCCI for what it has achieved, but adds, “Why should it have a problem coming under the ambit of the Bill if it has nothing to hide?” Former India all-rounder Ajay Jadeja asks, “How can there be different rules for different people?” While former sprinter Ashwini Nachappa says, “A clean-up is necessary and there is no doubt on that front. Politicians should come out and set an example.”

Let me pick up Kapil Dev’s statement and expand a bit. “If the politicians have nothing to hide, why are they worried about coming under the RTI?” Can’t argue. We are not talking about sensitive and confidential matters of the Defence Ministry or the PMO here. We are talking about sports. Simply about money coming into the federations and associations, and being disbursed for the development of sports. That’s the brief for the politicians in question. If they have been doing their job, as Malhotra so eloquently told us, then they should use the Bill to blow their own trumpets.

Truth though is that there isn’t much to boast about. Truth is that, as mentioned earlier, the big money that comes into the federations are frittered away, wasted, or worse. No one cares as long as a few stray cynical journalists sit back and say these things over a drink or two. But once it reaches the public domain, things become problematic. And remember, as Kirti Azad says, “the RTI is not about the government, it’s about being accountable to the public”.

Who wants to be accountable to the public? Not us!

Eddie Had to Dive

2011-08-17T16:42:00.004+05:30

(Published recently by Scholastic in their collection 'Sports Stories - Nine Short Stories by Contemporary Children's Writers')

[The photo is unrelated; courtesy Britannica.com]

No one knew very much about Edmont G Spitzworth. He was obviously firang, gora as he was. But when he sat down with his haph-cha (in Calcutta, that half a glass of tea is a legitimate menu item) on a bench by the side of the pavement and held forth in Bengali on the government’s failures in the city, he seemed anything but firang. When someone asked him, he might say he’s of German descent. To someone else, he’d probably say ‘Australian’ or ‘British’.

Eddie loved that aura of mystery and that people spoke and speculated about him. As it happens, there was much talk of him in certain circles – because along with being a pavement party hero, Eddie was also a champion boxer. Not the sort who goes to the Olympic Games, but the sort who takes on opponents inside a warehouse at night. You’ve seen them in Hollywood films, haven’t you? Hollywood was in Calcutta in the 1970s and ’80s. Even in the early 1990s, which is when Eddie was around. Warehouses became boxing rings at night. The rings were made of wooden boxes. People bet money on boxers. People – layabouts, dockyard workers, local gangsters, small-time businessmen.

Boxers fought with their bare fists, bare-torsoed…they bled when they got a good punch on the face, they bled when they fell hard against the wooden boxes. The businessman booed. The dockyard worker cheered. The layabout had fun. The local gangster paid good money for the night. And made some as well.

The boxers fought through the pain; meagre as their income was, it was more money than they could make otherwise.

But I was telling you about Eddie, the champion boxer. It’s true. He was only 5-foot-7 and he wasn’t too muscular, but Eddie had something the bigger guys didn’t. He had speed. And agility. He could avoid punches better than anyone else in the warehouse. So he won often and made enough money. Enough money to rent a little hostel room in Middleton Row, eat decent food, buy decent clothes and have his haph-cha. Every now and then, he would get drunk at night and create a racket outside the expensive restaurants on Park Street, the most exciting road in Calcutta, just off Middleton Row.

In the warehouse, people bet only about a hundred rupees in a night. You didn’t win too much, and you didn’t lose too much either. And you bet on the safe boxers. Not the ones who would be brilliant one night and stupid the next. You bet on boys like Eddie. You bet on boys like Eddie because you knew he wouldn’t do anything stupid. You knew that he always gave you a good chance of making those extra bucks.

Until he lost a few fights in a row. Four of them. In the warehouse, losing meant no money. Losing also meant that no one offers you a chance to fight. You wait your turn. If one of the regulars fall ill or something, you get an urgent call. If no one fell ill, Eddie wouldn’t get a chance to fight.

Now, Eddie’s friend Kisser was one of the guys who promoted the warehouse fights. Kisser – Qaiser Mohammedally – worked hard and ruthlessly to make money. One of the things he did was to scout the dark alleys of Calcutta looking for youngsters to join the warehouse circus. He promised the young toughs a good time, a bit of money and a lot of glory. To youngsters in the dockyards and the mean back-streets of central Calcutta, this was as good as it got.

When Kisser came to Eddie, the boxer hadn’t paid his hostel rent for six months and everyone was wondering whether he would go back to Germany or Australia or England or wherever. Kisser had fixed a fight for Eddie with a six-foot Bengali boy. Everyone in the warehouse circus knew the newcomer was a muscular but dumb fighter. He could swing big punches, but he’d telegraph them so far in advance that he hardly ever landed them where he wanted to. Kisser had fixed for Eddie to fight with him.
For Eddie, it was an answer to his prayers. He finally had a fight – and against someone who had no hope in hell of beating him.

“But it’s a fight you must lose, Eddie,” Kisser said.

“What?”

“Yes. His dadas are powerful local people. They want him to win. They are willing to pay you big bucks to lose. They are willing to pay anyone who gets into the ring with him and loses.”

“But how can I lose to him? He is an absolute idiot. He has to punch me for me to lose.”

“You have to let him punch you then, Eddie. Land a couple of your own. Do whatever. Just lose.”

“But I can’t lose to him. There’s no way I can lose to him. You want me to take a dive? Come on, dada!”

“Then there’s nothing I can do for you, Eddie. This is all I have. If you don’t take it, someone else will.”

“I want it, but I can’t lose. If I get the fight and win it, I will still get some money, won’t I?”

“Yes, but if you don’t agree to lose, there’s no fight. And if there’s no fight, you don’t get anything. Don’t you see it? Eddie, you are going to get chucked out of this room if you can’t pay your rent. Everyone’s tired of loaning you money. This is your chance. Your last chance.”

It was the face of his Armenian landlady that finally swung it. Germany or Australia or England, wherever he may have been from, Eddie didn’t actually have a home outside of Calcutta. It was a one-way ticket that had landed him in this city, and he had to live here or die here.

If he lost the fight, he’d have enough money to pay off the six months’ dues and a few months’ advance.

Finally, it was a deal Eddie couldn’t say no to. There was no point in fretting over it. If he had to dive to live, he would dive. What else could he do anyway? And keeping the Bengali dadas happy might just help him sometime.

Eddie reached the warehouse on the night of the fight. So did the layabouts and dockyard workers and local gangsters and small-time businessmen. A lot of the regulars knew Eddie. They had bet money on him in the past. When he started losing, they chose one of the other Eddies. Any Eddie that won was good enough. But against the Bengali boy, Eddie was the favourite. The ones who knew Eddie also knew Bengali Boy. They knew Eddie could beat him with his eyes closed.

These people in the warehouse, they lead hard, tough lives. They like seeing people getting beaten up. They like their boys winning. They like making a bit of extra money to go with their meagre earnings. And when they had a fight with an obvious favourite, they knew they wouldn’t lose money. They might not win a lot of money, but they wouldn’t lose anything.

Eddie knew that he had signed up for his last chance. He hoped it wasn’t his last fight. The Bengali dadas knew what they were about too. They were new to the business, but they were rich. The Bengali Boy was part of their new plans and they were willing to cheat. They’d pay people to lose, and they’d be sure to make way more money than they’d spent on the fight. So they had paid Kisser a lot of money, and Kisser was happy to pass on a share of that to Eddie.

If Eddie lost the fight on Diwali night.

It was like a carnival that night. Diwali was on outside the warehouse. Calcutta’s North Indians were playing cards, betting, gambling. Inside though, it was just another fight night. As people stepped into the warehouse, they looked up at the fireworks once again. The money riding on Eddie was much more than on other days. He was the favourite, wasn’t he? And it was also Diwali night; the night to loosen the purse-strings a bit – especially when you knew you could get back more.

The fight began. Eddie was looking good. He landed a couple of punches. Not as well as he would have on another day… Kisser smiled. The Bengali dadas smiled. The plan was working. It worked even better when Eddie let Bengali Boy swing a couple towards his face. Avoiding them was easy. Eddie could do it with his eyes closed.

Five minutes passed. Eddie kept landing punches...soft ones. Bengali Boy kept missing.

The dockyard worker told his friend – Eddie won’t ever let Bengali Boy land a big punch.

The local gangster thought to himself – Bengali Boy doesn’t even know where Eddie is half the time.

The small-time businessman told himself he wasn’t gambling – it’s Diwali night; two hundred rupees extra will let me buy enough firecrackers to bring a smile to Titlu’s face.

The layabout knew it was only a matter of time – Eddie would get it right soon.

Kisser knew it was only a matter of time – Eddie will falter; he will dive, he will let one big punch hit him.

The Bengali dadas knew it was only a matter of time – the money had been well invested; this firang boy is playing to the script.

And Eddie knew it was only a matter of time.

Eddie waited for Bengali Boy to catch him with a big punch. If he had to dive, he had to make it look authentic. In fact, Kisser and he had gone over it again and again. Eddie would land a few soft punches here and there, and Eddie would dodge all the big punches that came his way. And then, he would let Bengali Boy get him. And crash, not to get up. That way, no one would suspect anything. Simple.

And Eddie did keep it simple. His opponent was much bigger than him, so it didn’t look odd when his punches didn’t rock Bengali Boy much. No one needed to know that Eddie wasn’t punching as hard as he could.

Three minutes...Eddie had landed many more punches than Bengali Boy. Five minutes...seven minutes...ten minutes of sweating, punching, abusing, and missing.
Till Bengali Boy did actually land that big fist on Eddie’ jaw.

Silence. A smile flickers across the older Bengali dada’s face. Kisser raises an eyebrow.

Eddie stumbles at the impact, but only for a second. And he replies. A right just above Bengali Boy’s left ear, a left on his chin, a right on his left jaw and another left on his right eye. The four punches fly out in less than a second. Remember, I told you Eddie had something no one else had? He had speed. And agility. He could avoid punches better than anyone else in the warehouse.

Bengali Boy looked blank for a second. Then his eyes closed. His arms flailed. Before Eddie had even stopped to remember the dive he had forgotten about momentarily, his opponent started to fall, his arms now by his sides. And then the head crashed against one of the wooden boxes.

I’d like to have told you that the story ended with Kisser and Eddie having to return all the money. No, actually, I wish I could have said that it ended with Eddie making a good return to the ‘ring’. It could have ended like that...

It did end. But differently.

Indeed, it ended the day after the fight; the day after Diwali, was when I first heard of Eddie. I was sitting on the pavement outside the Armenian hostel where Eddie stayed with my friend. We were sitting on the pavement with a haph-cha, talking about nothing in particular; maybe the government’s failures in Calcutta, or about going to watch a fight in the warehouse ‘one of these days’.

My friend caught sight of Kisser-da standing some distance away. He was smoking a cigarette; his eyes red, looking rather dishevelled, stinking…possibly drunk. He was a man my friend acknowledged but was also clearly intimidated by.

“I know him well, he usually chats with me,” my friend told me. “No idea why he is behaving strangely today.”

“Call him,” I said.

And he does. Kisser-da brings his haph-cha and sits down with us.

And that’s when we meet Eddie.

Kisser-da tells us Eddie’s story. He tells us what happened on the night of Diwali that year. He tells us about losing a lot of money and having to spend most of the night trying to pacify the Bengali dadas.

And then he tells us about the phone call. A phone call the younger Bengali dada made immediately after Eddie ran out of the warehouse. Eddie ran out without picking up his shirt, without wiping the blood off his face; in just his jeans.

But Kisser-da said, with the hint of a smile, that Eddie did raise his arms to acknowledge the cheers. Only for a couple of moments...before starting to run.

Kisser-da hadn’t slept all night. Even after the Bengali dadas left. He had come straight to the hostel on Middleton Row at four in the morning. He had been drinking. He had been waiting. And now, we were waiting with him, waiting for the police to bring Eddie’s body back to the hostel. I was waiting to say farewell to a young firang man I hadn’t ever met. I was waiting to sight a young man who had no address, no citizenship, but had often helped a lot of people go back home with 200 extra rupees in the night.

The 20-year-old I was, back then, felt he knew this man. I was waiting to say farewell to a boxer who knew he had to lose, but just couldn’t. He tried, but he couldn’t stop his hands from tightening into fists and letting fly when a punch landed on him unexpectedly. He was a boxer, and a good one, no matter that he’d never fought outside a warehouse. When that one punch came his way, and his agility wasn’t good enough, he didn’t think. Not for a moment. Nothing crossed his mind. It was only his arms. They knew what they had to do.

Maybe Eddie was an idiot. He was, wasn’t he? But strangely, many years after the 20-year-old me heard the story about Edmont G Fritzworth, I think of him as a hero. And I think of him as someone I lost along the way...somewhere.

No comments, the BCCI is paying us!

2011-08-17T14:02:00.005+05:30

(Written for Sahara Time)

News is that Sunil Gavaskar and Ravi Shastri are both BCCI stooges. News is that the BCCI pays them money and they mouth lines the BCCI wants them to.

And this is a revelation to you?! I mean, sure, you or I probably wouldn’t know all the facts, but did it never strike you that the two Mumbaikars can be nothing but BCCI propagandists? Despite hearing them on all the contentious issues over the years and realising that they are the only two major voices in Indian cricket who have never criticised the BCCI; they have defended the indefensible over the years, raised the pitch when all around them have gaped incredulously. Well, maybe you didn’t know that the BCCI was paying Gavaskar and Shastri, but did you not wonder how they could be saying what they do?

Okay, how about hard facts? Gavaskar and Shastri are both part of a number of BCCI committees, they were both part of the IPL Governing Council (Shastri still is) and they are the only two commentators who are not committed to any one broadcaster – they appear on every single channel if there’s an Indian interest in the proceedings. Is that possible under normal circumstances? Obviously it’s not. Now you know the truth. Though I would have thought that you’d suspect the truth anyway.

I had my first major suspicion back in 2001. Remember the Mike Denness controversy in South Africa when a combination of offences saw five Indian players being suspended by the match referee? It was Port Elizabeth, and the Indians were fighting hard to avoid going down in the series. There was some ‘excessive appealing’, though Denness’ ‘excessive’ might not have been so for another ref. There was most certainly a bit of rule-breaking from Sachin Tendulkar, when he was filmed digging his nails into the seam of the ball. He said he was cleaning the dirt, but it was against the law anyway. In any case, Denness suspended five Indian cricketers and, obviously, the BCCI swung into action, creating a situation where the next Test match was rendered ‘unofficial’.

As it happened, the press was invited to an unscheduled press conference, where Denness was brought in by an ICC official. It was announced that Denness would be present but not field any questions. Kind of bizarre, but that was the rule. And as the question-answer session panned out, came a booming voice: “Why is Mike Denness here if he won’t answer questions, we know what he looks like!” Oh sure, it was a cool thing to say. But Shastri was not there as a speaker or as a journalist, so why was he there? And he sure as hell wasn’t really asking a question.

Well, what he was doing, is making a statement. We probably didn’t understand it then, though we did find it rather strange. But now, in hindsight, it was clearly a BCCI line going out to the world.

Which is exactly what Shastri dished out – like a tracer bullet – when Nasser Hussain, justifiably, called the BCCI’s stance against the UDRS ‘disgraceful’. Oh well, you can argue against the use of the adjective, but not the sentiment. Enter Shastri: “England is jealous of India. People can’t stomach the fact that India are the number one team in the world and that the BCCI can organise such a great product like the Indian Premier League.”

Huh? What? What exactly is the connection?

Or, at the end of the tea break of the Trent Bridge Test when Ian Bell had been run out in bizarre fashion: “India have done the right thing by running Bell out; they have nothing to apologise for.” Till Shastri realised that the boos had changed to cheers as a result of some tea-time diplomacy between the two sides. The tone changed in the blink of an eyelid: “Dhoni has given a great example of how the game should be played,” Shastri boomed, no hint of embarrassment in his trained voice.

Remember, when it comes to BCCI ‘properties’ like Sachin Tendulkar and Mahendra Singh Dhoni, you will never hear a word of criticism from Shastri or Gavaskar. Never. At least not on air. Because the BCCI’s payment to the two doesn’t involve their newspaper columns. Shastri doesn’t bother changing track there either, but Gavaskar certainly does make an attempt to speak his mind in his columns even if he doesn’t do it on TV.

To conclude; it all comes down to the BCCI and its insecurities. All tyrants are by nature insecure because they know their rule can’t last forever. Winds must change. And so is the BCCI. Which is why it chooses to stunt the growth of cricket around the world, prevent its evolution. Put people in the right places to ensure that it’s the BCCI’s opinion that gets played out. Broadcasters are helpless, because their futures in the cricket arena depends entirely on the BCCI and the cricket the Indian team plays. Shastri and Gavaskar are just pawns in a much bigger game. A game that we can watch from the sidelines, booing or cheering if we choose. But at no stage can we actually enter the field of play and be part of the action.

Not unless the BCCI wants us to, of course.

Copa Larissa!

2011-08-16T17:00:00.004+05:30

(Written for the August issue of Man's World)

Someday, somebody is going to place Larissa Riquelme in the Football, nay, World Sports Hall of Fame. And I (and, I’m sure, zillions of other football fans) will be cheering all the way!

Think about it. What is sport if it isn’t about entertaining people? About bringing people with differences together? What makes a sportsperson great if he or she is not able to spawn a generation of clones? And in today’s scenario, add to that gate and TV receipts as well as bringing in tourists?

Muhammad Ali, Diego Maradona, Roger Federer, Dawn Fraser, Tiger Woods (just talking about his game here), Lance Armstrong, Sachin Tendulkar, Steffi Graf, Michael Phelps, Usain Bolt.... Heroes. Legends. People who made their sports what they are today. People we respect and revere; people lesser mortals have tried to emulate over the years, usually without success.

Now then...Larissa. I don’t know if she’s ever played a sport, but she could. Any sport. But consider her pioneering efforts as far as international fandom is concerned. A promise. A big smile. A flash of her...umm, mobile phone. And football will never be the same again. Nor will football fandom.

Facetious, am I? Well, maybe. But things do get serious as we move on.

Not right now though.

Let’s start at the start. One small statement: “I’ll strip and run down the city square naked if Paraguay wins the World Cup.” That was last year. Most thought she was being a bit random. Paraguay had no chance anyway, so Miss Larissa could keep her clothes on. But she had her nation’s best interests in mind after all, and stripped anyway for a magazine cover only to tell her boys that it was all right that they couldn’t win. Long as they did want to see her naked!

Just over a year later, Larissa has taken the Copa America by storm. The Copa is not among the more followed football tournaments in India. It doesn’t involve La Liga or the Premiership, for starters. And, because of the time difference between India and Latin America, matches usually start at an ungodly hour in the morning. But ask any football fan you know, and they would have been tracking the tournament with a magnifying glass. Literally. Because most of the coverage has been centred around Larissa. Her promise remained the same. Paraguay wins, she strips and runs around the streets of her country.

And did Paraguay try! For themselves. And for the rest of the world. Give me one other reason why they could step past Argentina and Brazil and reach the Copa America final. Finally, right at the end, the most improved football nation in the world – Uruguay – stopped their march. The Paraguay team isn’t any better than it was when it finished nowhere in most international tournaments. The only thing that’s changed in the last two years is Larissa’s presence in the stands. Every day. Every match. Fans from Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador...everyone wants a souvenir photograph with her. And there’s Larissa; a Paraguay-coloured shirt with a plunging neckline highlighted by the strategically-placed mobile phone. Sometimes, no phone. And often, depending on the circumstances, a little extra treat for the fans. And the cameras.

And in case Larissa is too far away from where you are sitting, there’s Javy. As well as Patty Orue. The Larissaheads. Part of the growing tribe of smiling, sexily-dressed, bust-on-camera groupies of the Paraguay team – or, maybe, just Team Larissa.
Not many of us even know the name of the captain of the Paraguay team. Or their number ten. It’s a team no one outside of Paraguay has ever cared about. But today, it’s the Neutral Fan’s favourite team – by far. Everyone wants Paraguay to keep winning. Everyone knows Paraguay is not really good enough to beat the top teams.

But what’s sport without hope? And fun...entertainment? Because it’s not like Larissa will be the first nude woman any of us will see – in real life or otherwise. Especially in Latin American football, where the likes of Larissa are a dime a dozen in the stands during football matches. She isn’t even the most gorgeous, is she?

It’s the fun of the occasion. It’s the unlikeliness of the occasion ever coming true. It’s in how a sport that’s littered with examples of fan clashes and violence, a bit of voyeuristic pleasure is attracting fans from around the world to one corner of the stands. For a while at least, fans of Paraguay’s opponents also want Paraguay to win. One Copa title less won’t change Brazil or Argentina or Uruguay’s rich history much. Certainly not in any dramatic way. From the point of view of their fans then, it’s an ‘I was there’ opportunity. A couple of photographs. An embarrassed smile of explanation to the wife or girlfriend. And a little memory. A memory that doesn’t really add up to too much.

But, to go back to the start, think about what Larissa has done for football. Eyeballs. Not that football needed it, but what’s the harm? She’s brought The Football Fan to the forefront. At the World Cup, it’s only a sidelight. At the Copa, it’s a headline, especially with Brazil and Argentina doing their bit to let Larissa live her promise.

Pity the wait’s just gotten longer. Or wait, maybe that’s just added to the fun.

Club it; nations be damned!

2011-04-27T16:46:00.002+05:30

(Written for Sahara Time)

I’m fairly sure a lot of you are going to hate me by the end of this article, but I’ll take the risk anyway.

Yes, records and patriotism can take a backseat. The future of world cricket is with the clubs – for starters with the IPL, soon, with similar leagues in the rest of the world. Today’s villains will be tomorrow’s pioneers, and we will stop hating Chris Gayle and Lasith Malinga and Shaun Tait and the rest of his ilk soon. Because they will become the norm...as they must.

At the time of writing this, now, today, cricket remains the only sport I can think of off-hand that survives on bilateral and triangular series, made up of contests spanning three formats. How sustainable is that? It doesn’t take an Einstein to tell you that it’s not. Limiting cricket to six competent nations and a handful of teams that really shouldn’t be competing with the top six is not the way to structure a sport. Unfortunately, nothing suggests that this will change in a hurry. It won’t.
And you know what, the ultimate sport, the sport of the world – football – is no different.

Think about it. If it had to survive on bilateral and triangular tournaments, only tournaments between Brazil, Italy, Germany, Argentina, England, Holland, Spain and France would make for compelling viewing. Just eight nations. Out of over 150 that actually play the sport very seriously. If football had been structured like cricket, we would never have seen George Best or Didier Drogba or Ryan Giggs or Cristiano Ronaldo or George Weah or Emmanuel Adebayor or Diego Forlan or another one thousand mindblowing footballers. In fact, that list could go on forever and we’d still manage to think up a few new names.

That’s where club football comes in. And that’s where club cricket comes in. A format where cricketers from all nations clash in either a T20 format or an ODI format.

In case of the IPL, it’s played in India over just under two months at the moment. Tomorrow, you could either have one of two options. First, a series of T20 leagues like the IPL in, say, Australia, West Indies, South Africa and England. That’s a total of five leagues of 50 days each. Players can sign up for a club in either of these countries and play in all of them. Or, the second option, where the leagues take place over a whole year like in football, and you have a Champions League-like face-off at the end of it. Then, every two years, you can have a T20 World Cup...and because the cricket fraternity is sentimental, an ODI World Cup every four years.

And what happens to Test cricket? Well, much as I portray myself as a purist and a fan of Test cricket, I honestly don’t see it fitting in. Simply because the ICC hasn’t managed to put together a proper Test World Championship. If they had, we could have fitted it in somewhere.

Which brings us zooming back to the biggest debate in world cricket today: club or country? Should the players’ allegiance be towards the club that pays him so much money, or should his country’s cricket team take precedence? Well, I think there is no reason to treat sports any differently from other professions here.

Yes, you might not like it, but picture this: a 25-year-old executive works in Company A. Company B offers him more money and/or a senior designation. Wouldn’t he go to Company B? Of course he would. A cricketer needs not do anything different then.

You are Manpreet Singh Gony or Paul Valthaty (just as examples). You know you will play in the Ranji Trophy for many years, not get paid too much, and then hope to make it to the national team, where you may or may not be a success. Is that tempting enough when you can earn loads of money by playing the IPL instead? And away from India, say you are a cricketer from New Zealand or West Indies or Bangladesh. Say you are Daniel Vettori or Chris Gayle or Shakib-al-Hasan. You know that despite your best efforts, your team is likely to lose against the bigger teams. And you’re not getting paid much either.

What, then, are you playing for?

The answer is: nothing. Years of the hard grind, at the end of which you get very little unless you are Brian Lara or a top Indian cricketer. In the good old pre-IPL days, no one had the option. Today, the option is there. And under the circumstances, Gayle and Malinga and Tait are only the frontrunners to the future international cricketer. A man who will go where he is respected more and paid more. Country? Sure, it can be fitted in. Like it is in the case of Lionel Messi or Wayne Rooney or Kaka. They are not gods because of their exploits with Argentina or England or Brazil. It’s what they do for Barcelona and Manchester United and Real Madrid that makes them who they are.

Then why is a cricketer a misguided traitor if he wants the same?

MSD: Master of his dreams

2011-01-10T12:57:00.001+05:30

(Written for Sahara Time last week)

If you are meeting Mahendra Singh Dhoni after a gap of two years or so, you’ll see why they say that being the captain of the Indian team is the second toughest job in the country (after the venerable Dr Manmohan Singh’s, of course). The grey streaks around his ears as well as on his chin are clear indicators of the stress. Not that you’d think that of the man you see on the pitch—even when the pressure’s massive, even when everything and everyone around him is going crazy. But that’s the only giveaway.

You know, Dhoni is quite the man Rudyard Kipling had in mind when he composed the iconic ‘If’. Frankly, it’s tough to believe these lines aren’t about modern-day cricket: “If you can keep your head when all about you/are losing theirs and blaming it on you/If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you/but make allowance for their doubting too…” On to, “If you can dream—and not make dreams your master/If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim/If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster/and treat those two impostors just the same…”

Or even, “If you can make one heap of all your winnings/and risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss/And lose, and start again at your beginnings/and never breathe a word about your loss…”

At the end of it, I suppose, it just comes down to being street-smart. How else do you explain Dhoni? A compromise candidate for captain prior to the 2007 T20 World Cup, mainly because he was the most ‘regular’ member of the team. What did Dhoni do? He went and won India the World Cup. Superb performances from a number of players, but some magical, and key, decisions from the captain too. More importantly, at the end of it, you had a World Cup-winning captain who only displayed a proud smile, exchanged a couple of high-fives, and not much else.

Since then, Dhoni has led India in two disastrous T20 World Cup campaigns. Nothing has changed. The slight smile is still there. Naturally, the high-fives aren’t. But the demeanour hasn’t changed. Triumph and Disaster. Dhoni treats the two impostors just the same.

Unless you do, you don’t become the fourth-most successful Test captain of all time. Dhoni’s success percentage in Test matches is 60.86, behind only Steve Waugh, Don Bradman and Ricky Ponting, among captains who have led in more than 20 Tests. Imagine, the most successful non-Aussie Test match captain. Ever! Achieved with 14 wins from 24 Tests, with only 3 losses (stats prior to the end of the Cape Town Test).

Lucky? Sure, you have to be. If Laxman wasn’t a great player with tailenders… If Harbhajan hadn’t scored those centuries against New Zealand… If Zaheer Khan hadn’t rediscovered his enthusiasm… If Tendulkar hadn’t hit his greatest patch ever… Sehwag, Dravid… Sure. But that’s always true of all teams. In cricket, there’s no truism greater than ‘a captain is only as good as his team’. But I doubt you can have a great team under a bad captain. And so Dhoni has made his luck by a combination of smart player selection, commonsense, presence of mind, street-smartness and, again, an ability to ‘keep his head when all about him are losing theirs’.

And, just in case you are not a fan of stats and treat them as pesky insects (therefore ignoring them), Dhoni averages over 50 in both Tests and ODIs. In Tests, he averages 51.8 as captain over his career average of 40.6. In ODIs, he averages 56.1 as captain over a career batting average of 50.3. You might have missed this, because unlike the players who come in high up the order and add to their century column, Dhoni has been scoring the crucial 30s and 40s and 70s regularly. In his typical tennis ball batting style.

They call him Captain Cool, or Captain Marvel. But often, like we end up doing so often, the epithets are based only on his success record. Not because of a serious insight into what makes Dhoni tick. He is cool because he knows being cool, and calm, is the only way to achieve success in a pressure cooker career. He is a marvel because he backs himself to take marvellous decisions. Decisions that work.

Much like Sourav Ganguly did. At his most useful, Ganguly was a petulant kid. He was the sort of boy who would walk home with his bat if he got out. He took that gully cricket mentality to the world stage. And it worked! Ganguly was a bully. And he knew how to be a bully. Dhoni is not too different. True, his cards are different: ‘risk it all’ and ‘grin and bear it’. Two sides of the same coin. In a fashion.

Now, you might say that no Indian captain since Ganguly deserved to win the World Cup more. Look at the miracles he performed. Look from where he picked up a team ravaged by match-fixing and corruption and where he took it. But then again, it’s luck. Ganguly led India to World Cups when the Australians were almost invincible. The World Cups were played outside the subcontinent. Dhoni has luck on his side. Australia is on a dip. South Africa has proven again and again that they are incapable of winning the really big tournaments. Pakistan is too mercurial. And Sri Lanka looks just a shade below the top rung. It’s India on pole. And the World Cup is at home.

Luck, right? Sure. But that’s what people who master their dreams end up having on their side. Like Dhoni. That’s why he might be the man standing tall on April 2, 2011.

A 50-ton salute (of sorts)

2010-12-21T21:57:00.002+05:30

(Published in the latest issue of Sahara Time)

In the past – even on these pages – I have criticised Sachin Tendulkar for not being a match-winner, for not playing in the interest of the team at all times. Well, nothing’s changed on those fronts, but right now is a time to push the criticism to the back of the mind and celebrate what we will never see again. Celebrate the good fortune of growing up and becoming cricket-wise in the era when Tendulkar strutted his stuff around the playing fields of the world.

50 Test centuries!

We knew it was only a matter of time, but now that it’s happened, and we have witnessed it, it really is worth pausing for a bit, and thinking about how it all unfolded over 21 long years.

So how did it unfold? Well, credit it to Tendulkar’s longevity and his insatiable hunger for runs. 21 years. That’s less than two-and-a-half Test centuries per year. Not difficult, except that to play in a Test team for 21 years itself is mindblowing, isn’t it? It means that irrespective of whether he was at his best or not, he has been good enough to be India’s best number four batsman. It means that he has been at the top of his game – or thereabouts – for two decades.

Look at it like this, and then compare him to the rest of the best (barring Bradman, whose career was sliced in two chunks by the war years): lots of batsmen debut early, but are not good enough to play for two decades. There are others, who start late, and then blame their ill-fate for not being picked early enough – but then, were they good enough to be thrust into the Test arena at 16? And then you have Sachin Tendulkar. Good enough to face Waqar Younis and Wasim Akram at 16. Now, at 37, still agile and sorted enough to face Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel – the fastest pair in the world. Along the way, many bowlers have gotten the better of him; but not one can say that he had the measure of Tendulkar all the way. Not Glenn McGrath. Not Shane Warne. Not Muttiah Muralitharan. Not Shoaib Akhtar. Not Shaun Pollock. Not nobody!

If that isn’t greatness, what is?

And Tendulkar’s 21st year of international cricket has probably been his best – personally, even if all of it hasn’t contributed to India winning games. Seven Test centuries. Across in ODIs, the first ever double hundred in history. Away in the Indian Premier League, the highest run-getter for the tournament. Is there anything he hasn’t done this year? At the age of 37. When he has nothing to prove to anyone. When he doesn’t have to bother scoring big to hold on to his place in the Indian team. When he knows that bunking a sequence of one-day series means nothing as far as his ticket to the 2011 World Cup is concerned.

Find another batsman who has been able to juggle the three formats of the game with equal panache – you can’t. In any case, most of the batsmen who can, theoretically, hold a candle to Tendulkar never had to bother with more than two formats; many only one.

Why then? Oh well, mainly because he doesn’t know better. Speak to him, and you’ll know that he thinks of nothing but cricket – he doesn’t know anything but cricket. The rest of the world is a blank to him. Take cricket away from Tendulkar, and you’ll be left with a mere shell of a man; a void. As far as Tendulkar is concerned, cricket is life. Nothing else matters. If anything did matter, would a 37-year-old father of two be able to challenge Bradman – at least for one calendar year? Not quite 99.94, but Tendulkar’s average for the ongoing year is a fantastic 85.72 at the end of the Centurion Test.

And secondly, because over the years Tendulkar has reached a zone where his basic level of performance is a couple of notches above the rest of the world’s. A 50 doesn’t matter to Tendulkar anymore. It has to be a hundred for him to be convinced that he was better than his opposition.

And thirdly, because time is running out. He still looks good to play top-notch cricket for another couple of years, but Tendulkar knows more than anyone else that his curtain call is just round the corner. Many records need to be broken by then. New benchmarks need to be set. And there isn’t much time left.

What else can he do then, between now and then (when it gets over)? He has already scored a Test double century, in Australia, without hitting a single boundary on the off-side; only because he wanted to correct an outside-the-off-stump flaw in his technique. Just for the record, it’s Anil Kumble’s favourite Tendulkar innings. He has scored a 114 against Australia, at Perth, when still a teenager – in 1992; the greatest Tendulkar innings according to – among his peers - VVS Laxman, Javagal Srinath, Sanjay Manjrekar and Navjot Singh Sidhu.

What else is left to achieve then? Well, maybe the World Cup in 2011 – the one he is targeting. And with the way India has played at home recently, it’s a very real possibility.

And the one he won’t be able to do again – my favourite Sachin Tendulkar moment from the 37 I have collected over the 21 years: The famous Calcutta Test of 2001…when Tendulkar got Shane Warne plumb in front of the stumps with a googly! Yes, the greatest batsman in the world against the greatest leg-spinner in the world with their roles reversed – and our little hero gets Warne with a googly. Beat that!

The lost art of 'collecting'

2010-05-08T13:08:00.002+05:30

(For a change, this one is not for any publication; just thought of writing it)

Have you ever realised that the concept of the ‘collector’ has vanished from our lives now? Unless you are rich enough or industrious enough to collect antiques and stamps and coins, what do you collect?

You know, and this is for people born after 1980, there was a time when people collected, hold your breath, advertisements! True. Do you know that people like me – and there were more than a few – collected advertisements, cut out from stray copies of international magazines that somehow found their way to us? Yeah, this was before 1991, and therefore, before everything that is available in the West was available in India. So ads of airlines, clothes, watches, everything, was like something we hadn’t seen before. I remember owning 32 print ads of Citizen watches – it’s not even a major brand anymore. I also had 18 ads of KLM. Wow – wonder where that big box is now!

The sources were limited. Swagat magazine had just taken off around the time and it printed quite a few attractive ads. We’d hang around the old magazine stands in Gariahat in Calcutta and tear off pages when no one was looking. And of course, that venerable visiting relative from America or England who would bring a couple of glossy magazines – mostly to show off, usefully for us, full of full page ads.

And did we compete! Yeah, we had an unofficial club of ad-collectors. We’d compare collections as often as we could. Duplicates were kept more carefully than the single-piece ones, and exchanged for sheets of magic. Obviously, all of us stole liberally from each other as well when given an opportunity.

Today, there’s no point to the exercise. Forget the available material in the market, the Internet leaves no reason for anyone to really collect anything. Like names of films watched with details of the director and the actors. If it’s an Indian film, then the names of the music directors too. I had four or five such massive diaries. Full of details. Separate sections with names of directors and actors and music directors. Entire lists of the films they have been part of. And little boxes to tick as I conquered one film after another. As I got older and world cinema opened up new horizons, the number of diaries increased.

Today, I have IMDB.

Today, I also have Cricinfo. So those 26 diaries I owned with details of every single cricket match I saw and didn’t see, are redundant. Would you believe me if I told you that the details included the number of minutes each batsman spent at the crease along with details of how they got out?

And also player lists. Diaries with names of cricketers from each country. Just names. Nothing else. Along with diaries full of names of tennis players, picked up after going through every word in the newspapers and the sports magazines (Star, World and Week) with a magnifying glass. Hockey players too. Honestly. And obviously footballers.

Now why would someone growing up in the 1990s be interested in collecting any of these things? It’s all there, accessible to everyone. There’s no point in cutting articles from newspapers and pasting them on scrap-books. There’s no point in writing long lists. The concept of a Mycroft Holmes or Shidhu Jyatha, for example, is a dead concept.

Pity! Pointless as it was in the broader scheme of things, it did fill up many afternoons, and filled them up wonderfully.

The IPL is dead, long live the IPL

2010-04-23T13:08:00.002+05:30

This has easily been the most exciting time to be a sports journalist since the wonderful match-fixing days in 2000-2001. What a brilliant time it was. Sports be damned. We were doing news. Finding out the truth behind what we saw on screen. Kapil Dev. Mohammad Azharuddin. Manoj Prabhakar. Ajay Jadeja. All our heroes were falling. And whatever any other journalist tells you, believe me, it was awesome. It gave us a feeling of being in the middle of something important. Something more than just match reports. Something more than scores and talk of winning and losing.

The current situation is a lot similar. Except that while we all loved Kapil and Azhar, not many of us love Lalit Modi. We don’t mind if Modi is sacked. We don’t mind hugely if the IPL dies a sudden death. None of us think it’s cricket. We think of it as entertainment. And the biggest difference between cricket and entertainment is that a cricket match creates its own script, while entertainment performances are scripted. It turns out that almost all the IPL matches are actually fixed. That means, matches are taking place according to a script. And that means it’s not cricket. It’s only entertainment. Why should I have a problem then, if the IPL is scrapped for good?

On the basis of everything that I have heard over the past few days, the following points are all true:
- Modi is deeply involved in the betting and money-laundering aspect of the IPL
- Modi himself has stakes in more than one team
- Modi cornered Shashi Tharoor at the behest of other BCCI officials
- This was done so that one of the other cities could win the bid, a city that senior BCCI officials are close to
- Modi is now being made into a scapegoat in the entire episode
- There’s no reason to believe some of the other BCCI bigwigs are not equally culpable

What’s also true is that if Modi is sacked, nothing is going to change in the BCCI or in the IPL. How can it? N Srinivasan is the owner of a team despite being the BCCI Secretary. This, despite a clause in the BCCI constitution barring officials from having such interests. This clause was changed in 2008 to accommodate Srinivasan. We have a Chairman of Selectors, who is also the brand ambassador of Chennai Super Kings. If that isn’t conflict of interest, what is?

So how will anything change if Modi is sacked? Indeed, the only way to change things is to scrap the IPL altogether. It is not cricket anyway.

Waiting for a star to fall

2010-04-22T16:54:00.003+05:30

(Also in Bengali daily Ek Din)

It’s an old human frailty. We love seeing successful people fall. Fall hard. We middle-class sorts like success stories, but even more than that, we like seeing success stories go wrong.
Lalit Modi’s is one such story. He is a man we have loved to hate for the past three years, ever since the Indian Premier League became what it is. It was a borrowed idea; borrowed from the English Premier League. That too, after Subhash Chandra had used it first for the Indian Cricket League. It was put together by blackmailing and pressuring the entire cricket world. The ICL was killed; players across the world were threatened with international bans if they participated in the ICL. The ICC was bullied. The IPL was born.
Modi was the face of the IPL. Why? We don’t know. It was the BCCI’s property. Why did Modi become synonymous with it? Why did he get the chance to hobnob with the rich and famous? Why did he become the ‘Indian of the Year’ when he had very little to actually stake claim to?
And what’s happened now, after the Income Tax raids, is that Modi’s credibility, and the IPL’s credibility, have been questioned. Big time. Shashi Tharoor’s too, but that’s not my problem.
All along, we have heard that matches in the IPL were fixed. Were they now?
All along, we have wondered why one team is bought for 111 million dollars and another for 67 million dollars. How is that possible? Now, we wonder if Modi had fixed it that way.
All along, we have worried that too many of the teams are going to places where the current BCCI regime’s friends rule. Is that true?
All along, as we hated Lalit Modi and his guts, we waited for him to fall. Hard. On his face.
Is that happening now? Is the bubble going to burst? Is the fairytale over?
Maybe. Maybe not.
But at the same time, I just wonder; is Modi the worst of the lot? Or is there a bigger puppeteer pulling the strings? Is Modi just a pawn in a bigger game? Who knows!

The IPL must be taken seriously

2010-04-15T18:37:00.001+05:30

(Also on www.cricketaakash.com)

If the International Cricket Council is thinking about providing a fixed window for the Indian Premier League, then I suggest the ICC also start going the whole hog and take the IPL more seriously than it is right now. This halfway-house stance is just not good enough.
Every single cricketer in the world wants to play the IPL. And they are doing so. The clamour to have a window for the IPL in the ICC calendar has also gathered steam, and with the BCCI pushing for it, chances are it will come through too. Because the IPL is that important.
Under the circumstances, why lead the teams into a situation where they don’t send their best possible squad to the World T20? Why force the teams to announce their teams on the 26th of March, when the IPL has started just two weeks prior to that? Why not allow the teams a bit of time so that the best teams could be taken to the party?
Now, whether they are in form or not, chances are the selectors would not have dropped Mahendra Singh Dhoni or Yuvraj Singh or Gautam Gambhir. But truth is that Murali Vijay and Naman Ojha are the in-form opening batsmen at this stage, better than Gambhir by far. Robin Uthappa is clearly a better middle-order option than Yuvraj at the moment. And when it comes to the bowlers, Praveen Kumar has been pathetic in the IPL, while Ashish Nehra hasn’t even made an appearance. Truth is that Irfan Pathan, Siddharth Trivedi and RP Singh are all bowling better than Praveen.
The problem is also with the BCCI selection panel. The team is actually fairly highly-paid these days. Their job is to select the best Indian squad possible. Do they do that all the time? Or ever? Just a few days back, we had the fiasco over VVS Laxman and Rohit Sharma, and therefore Wriddhiman Saha, in the Test against South Africa. We lost the match.
I am not saying we must drop Dhoni. He has done enough, and promises to do enough as captain, batsman and wicketkeeper. No question of dropping him. But what about Yuvraj and Gambhir and Praveen and Nehra? Big players, yes. But if there are better players at the moment, why must reputation be the deciding factor?

Swansong or another coming?

2010-04-09T17:29:00.004+05:30

(Also in Bengali daily Ek Din)

Wasn’t this IPL supposed to be Sourav Ganguly’s swansong? Wasn’t he supposed to be the joker who scores slowly, fails to take singles, and misses balls while fielding? Wasn’t he supposed to fall flat on his face?

But wait! What’s going on here?

Sourav Ganguly is Kolkata Knight Riders’ highest run-getter after 10 matches. Not just that, his 333 runs are way ahead of second-best Chris Gayle’s 251. And his 333 ranks only behind Jacques Kallis, Sachin Tendulkar and Naman Ojha on the list of highest scorers in the tournament.

And then, in the game against Delhi Daredevils, Ganguly again showed why he is regarded as one of the best when under pressure. It was a match Kolkata had to win. Ganguly led with the bat, scoring 56. He dived around on the field, lifting the morale of his boys. He ran Gautam Gambhir out with a direct hit when Gambhir was looking dangerous. He bowled. He took a catch. And his facial expressions were a running commentary of what was going on at the Eden Gardens.

In short, he was involved. Big time. Something we don’t always see when it comes to Ganguly. But when the need of the hour was specific, Ganguly did the needful. Like only he can.

Tendulkar can flop match after match; he won’t be dropped from the Indian team or the Mumbai team or the Mumbai Indians team. Rahul Dravid can wait for his turn in the dugout wearing those inner gloves but never will anyone question his ability in T20s. VVS Laxman too, can be a big flop, but everyone will continue to back him.
Not Ganguly. A flop means we call for his head. If the big foreign stars flop, people don’t bring out their knives. But for Ganguly, an obituary is always ready.

But now, after this performance, there’s a good chance more than one team will want Ganguly when the next auctions happen. Ganguly has said he won’t play IPL-4. But now, could there be a rethink? Certainly he should be one of the in-demand players.

The media and ‘other’ sports

2010-04-01T18:14:00.003+05:30

(Also in Bengali daily Ek Din)

For a change, let me talk about something a bit personal, instead of the bigger picture. I am talking about a conference I was part of in Delhi recently, where we were talking of the media’s role in promoting sports outside of cricket, especially in connection with the Commonwealth Games.

Now, this girl cornered me after the discussion, asking me why kabaddi, kho-kho, hockey, etc are ignored by the national media. Now, I will be the first one to admit that the national media downplays news outside of cricket, but I do have a few solid arguments for it.

I asked the girl, “Did you see the half-an-hour documentary my channel did before the hockey World Cup where we spoke to 30 of the greatest Indian living players and used footage never seen in India before?”

She said, “No, I didn’t”.

I asked why. She said that it’s because she didn’t know about it.

Then I asked her, “Have you heard of Reena Dharmshaktu?”

She said she hadn’t. I asked her, “Would you be excited if I told you that Reena recently became the first Indian woman to ski across Antarctica?”

She said she would be excited. I mentioned to her that my channel had recently put together a half an hour show on Reena, using her interview and fantastic shots of the group skiing across Antarctica, encountering blizzards among other things on the way. Obviously she hadn’t seen it.

I asked her again: “Did you see these shows, and if not, why not?”

Her answer was simple: “I wasn’t aware you were showing these programmes. When it comes to one of the bigger channels, it’s easy to know about the big shows they do, because they advertise in newspapers and elsewhere.”

Inadvertently, she had answered the question she had asked me to start with: why do news channels cover cricket over everything else. It’s because when it comes to cricket, we are informed of what is happening. It’s also true of boxing, hockey to an extent, and the Commonwealth Games. These sports are run by federations or associations which have solid communication wings. They keep us informed. As a result, they get covered. In the 15 years that I have spent as a journalist, I have never received a communication from many of the other associations telling us of something that will happen. It’s always what has happened.

Criticise the media all you want. But remember, while it is true that cricket is highlighted because of commercial reasons, other sports are highlighted too. To a lesser extent, but not ignored. Keep us posted of what is happening. Chances are, we will find some room for you. After that, it’s for you to do well and achieve something big. Do that, and we will find even more space for you. Like we have for Leander and Mahesh and Saina and Sania and Anand and Vijender and Abhinav and Narain. If you want to sit in a cocoon and blame the media for ignoring you, chances are you will continue to be ignored.

The problem of being VVS Laxman

2010-03-22T15:39:00.003+05:30

(Also in Cricket Aakash; a version of it is in Bengali daily Ek Din)

How can anyone not like VVS Laxman? He is easily the most stylish right-hand batsman since Mark Waugh (I’m talking of sheer elegance and laid-back class here, Sachin fans). He has done more for India in the second innings of Test matches than even Rahul Dravid. He won India that Test match in Kolkata back in 2001! And of course, he is one of the nicest men you will ever meet. He is such a throwback to a much nicer, more beautiful era, that you want to back him no matter what.

And that’s why his entire career graph saddens me. Yes, he is feted as one of the greatest Indian batsmen ever. But only in Test matches. He just didn’t have Ganguly’s grit, Dravid’s fitness, Tendulkar’s all-round machismo or Kumble’s advantage of being India’s best bowler. All he had, and still has, is class. And elegance. And wrists that Madame Tussaud’s should build a wax statue of, leaving the rest of him out.

Now, one could ask: what’s wrong in someone being a Test batsman and Test batsman alone? Well, I’d be inclined to agree. I have no problem with anyone being a super Test batsman and a flop in every other format. To me, Test cricket is what it’s all about, and Laxman is awesome there.

But the problem is that Laxman has been trying his darnedest to be a one-day batsman over the years and now knows he will never cut it. He chooses to play the IPL, knowing full well that he will never be good enough for the format. Hell, he isn’t even a contender for a spot in the Indian ODI or T20 team – the IPL is far away. But he needs to play it. For the money. For the fame. And he is destined to flop, because he will never be good enough for it. Or bad enough for it.

And what this will do is reduce his glamour in the eye of the public. The more people see him struggling, playing stupid shots, attempting the impossible, the more they are going to devalue him. Obviously, he doesn’t deserve it. But at the same time, he does have the option to say no and walk away. Can he?

Should Akram be opening his mouth?

2010-03-09T13:44:00.002+05:30

(Also in www.cricketaakash.com)

Today, Wasim Akram came out with a statement exonerating Kamran Akmal and other Pakistani cricketers of corruption in cricket.

This sounds fine on the outset. After all, Akram is Big Brother to many of the kids, and a big hand of support on the shoulders feels wonderful. Akram’s done the right thing.

He’s done the right thing, but is Akram right?

To answer that, we need to know Wasim Akram. Not the Akram who has been the finest left-arm pacer in the history of cricket. But the other Akram. The Akram who was among the many who had to appear before Justice Qayyum during the inquiry into match-fixing in Pakistan in 2001.
Of course, Akram was exonerated.

But Qayyum wrote in his report: “This commission feels that all is not well and that Wasim Akram is not above board. He has not co-operated with this Commission. It is only by giving Wasim Akram the benefit of the doubt after Ata-ur-Rehman changed his testimony in suspicious circumstances that he has not been found guilty of match-fixing. He cannot be said to be above suspicion.”

That’s the Wasim Akram we are discussing here. The Akram who was ‘not above suspicion’.

That was 2001. Cut to 2006, and the Cricinfo article filed by my friend Siddharth Vaidyanathan after meeting Qayyum: “Qayyum told us that he hadn’t wanted a great player like Wasim to be banned, especially towards the end of his career. I had some soft corner for Wasim. He was a very great player, and I was his fan. I didn’t want that towards the end of his career, he should be banned or something like that.”

So Wasim Akram, dare we say it, wasn’t totally honest. And despite the truth of his interaction with Qayyum being made public by Cricinfo, Akram remains at large. No harm in that as such, except that Akram really shouldn’t be issuing certificates to players on the subject of match-fixing. And, well, Akmal and the others may well be honest, but Akram’s certificate, to my mind, weakens their case somewhat.

Who’s the Winningest of them all?

2010-03-04T14:38:00.004+05:30

(Also in the March issue of Man's World)

Brazil and Spain are far apart in terms of success at the football World Cup. But make no mistake about it; they are the best their continents have to offer at the 2010 World Cup.

‘Winningest’. Nice word, isn’t it? Not a word you’d find in the dictionary, but in the lexicon of sports jargon, it’s a useful cliché.

Winningest.

There are winningest players; Roger Federer is one, Lance Armstrong, Muhammad Ali, Tiger Woods…. Then there are winningest players within teams, like Shane Warne or Michael Jordan. And of course, there are winningest teams. In the football World Cup, none bigger than Brazil.

Apparently, some players and teams know how to win, and some don’t.

Brazil, the winningest team ever
The only team to have qualified for every single one of the 18 World Cups to date and with a record five trophies in their cabinet, Brazil are always one of the favourites for the World Cup. They may not eventually make it to the top despite having the best team; they didn’t in 1982. Or, they may win even when they are playing with a weak team on the field – like in 1994 in USA; leave out Romario, there’s no team. In any case, it was a boring team, because coach Carlos Alberto Parreira seemed to think the traditional Brazilian flair was outdated – he chose to focus on the defence without any good reason. The team won in spite of—not because of—this wisdom. Leave out the six key goals Romario scored, and Parreira was inches away from becoming the most hated man in Brazil.

The curious incident of Romario
Romario was an idol in the 1993-’94 season. In Brazil. And in Barcelona. It was an almost-disastrous qualification campaign, where Brazil desperately needed at least a draw in the last qualifier against Uruguay to make the cut. Romario was left out of the team’s first qualifier. He complained, as always, “If I knew I wouldn’t play, I wouldn’t have come over from Spain.”

Parreira banned Romario from the Brazilian team for the first seven qualifiers, leading to outrage among fans and the media back home. Parreira had to relent. Romario came back and scored two in a 2-0 win over Uruguay. Romario remained undisciplined. Parreira had to keep picking him. Romario won Brazil the World Cup.

A flair for tradition, a tradition for flair
It started in 1958; Brazil’s first step towards becoming the winningest team in the World Cup. Look at the team – Didi, Zagalo, the Santos brothers, Zito…and Pele! Six players. Take out any three and leave the rest in. Chances are, the team will still be good enough to win the World Cup.

Then in 1962, the same heroes, bolstered by Garrincha and Vava. Unbeatable. Conceding goals was never a bother; they knew they could score more. So the team let in 5 goals in 6 matches, but scored 14 in response.

1970, again. Amarildo in the mix too, as were Rivelino, Gerson, Tostao and Jairzinho.

The big star through the 12-year period, of course, was Pele. In 1958, he was the youngest player in the tournament, the youngest ever World Cupper at the time. In the semi-final, against France, he became the youngest to score a hat-trick in a World Cup. Cut to 1970, Pele played his last World Cup at 30, a year before his retirement.

Pele and the No 10
Since 1950, all players have had numbered uniforms, but players could switch numbers at will; in 1958, it was decided that numbers shouldn’t change during a tournament. Brazil overlooked the norm in Sweden during the World Cup. The Swedish commissioner decided to assign numbers himself before Brazil’s first match. Pele, the youngest and least known of the players, was given the number 10. It stayed on his back since. And from 1970, the number was reserved for the best attacking player in the team – everywhere in the world.

No Pele, no World Cup titles either
Pele was gone after 1970. The golden generation also faded away, and so did Brazil’s dominance. And that’s where we go back to the Winning Habit. 1982. Zico. Socrates. Falcao. Serginho. Juninho. No trophy. The best team that didn’t win the World Cup.

Until 1994. The Romario Edition.

And then, in 2002, the Ronaldo Edition.

Yes, it’s a team game. Also yes, individuals can make the difference. Diego Maradona did, as did Zinedine Zidane. It happens. Return to the top of this article; you do have winningest players within teams.

The 2010 Campaign
Ronaldinho might still be a regular starter in the AC Milan squad, but Brazil coach Dunga is sure he doesn’t want the down-on-his-fortunes superstar in the team anymore. And why not? He does have Kaka, doesn’t he? He also has Julio Baptista from AS Roma. And up front, who do you leave out among Adriano, Robinho and Luis Fabiano?

Not the best Brazilian team of all time, but would you lay your bets against them in a World Cup?

And remember, the winningest member of a team can also be the coach; Dunga won the World Cup as captain in 1994.

The non-winningest favourites for 2010
On the other end of the spectrum is Spain. Along with Holland, the best team to have never won the World Cup. But the Spain of the past is very different from the current line-up. That Spain choked. This Spain choked, choked, choked some more, and then won Euro 2008. Spain’s first-ever major title (leaving out the small 1964 edition). This is an all-star cast; and a team that plays in, arguably, the best football league in Europe.

An all-star line-up
Two of the top five players in the world at the moment are Spanish – Andres Iniesta and Xabi Alonso. The most exciting striker in the world at the moment is a Spaniard: Fernando Torres.

Look at the roll call: Iker Casillas in goal; Gerard Pique, Carles Puyol and Sergio Ramos in the back; Xabi Alonso, Cesc Fabregas, Xavi Hernandez, Andres Iniesta and David Silva in the midfield; David Villa and Fernando Torres up front.

Can Spain break the jinx?
Man for man, Spain has a team that is the best in Europe by far. It has a league that is the best in Europe by far. The best club in Europe is FC Barcelona. The team’s players play against the rest of the best in the world on a daily basis. And they have now tasted victory. You could even say that if the Spaniards can’t do it this time, they will never be able to do it.

But then, there’s a reason why in 18 editions of the World Cup, we have had only seven champions; only six since 1938 (Uruguay fell hard); and only five multiple winners of the trophy (Brazil, Italy, Germany, Argentina and Uruguay). That old Winning Habit. Spain has tasted a bit of it, but do they actually have it?

Sehwag, The Simple

2010-03-04T12:58:00.005+05:30

(Also in Bengali daily Ek Din)
There’s something quite amazing about Virender Sehwag, and no, I am not talking about him being India’s second-best Test batsman of all time (after Rahul Dravid). I am talking about the man himself. Just his attitude towards life.

Just a couple of days back, Sehwag appeared for a press conference in Delhi. No questions on cricket, we were told. We were told that Sehwag wants to talk about something very specific, and different.

And what we got was Sehwag talking about his hair. You would have noticed how the completely bald Sehwag has recently sprouted a nice, lush outfield on his head. Almost the exact opposite of what happens to the pitch the morning before a Test match in India against one of the teams with good pace attacks.

In any case, for a while, Sehwag gave no one even a glimpse of his head. Bandanas, caps, hats, helmets...the secret was well protected. I remember a colleague telling me, “Dekhna, yeh hair-weaving kara raha hai”. It turned out to be true. That’s exactly what Sehwag was up to. But that’s not important. It’s fun to joke about, but nothing more.

What’s important, and interesting, is the man himself, and how he approaches most of these matters.

2000-2001; as a cub sports reporter, Sehwag was one of my regular interviewees as he was making waves and getting into the Indian team. He was one of my ‘contacts’, I thought. Till, within a year or so, he became really big. I called him. He greeted me fairly warmly on the phone, told me he was sitting in a ‘coffee shop in a five-star hotel’, quite proudly. And then told me, without any arrogance, but with a fair dollop of innocence: “You’ll have to SMS me if you want my interview; too many people want me now”. Simple. Hoiked from outside off over mid-wicket for a six.

In fact, ‘simple’ is a word that comes to mind often when thinking about Sehwag. He is a simple man. His batting is simple. And he deals with situations pretty much the same way. Like with Harsha Bhogle recently. Sehwag would rather bat in the middle-order, so Harsha said, “But it’s because you are an opener that you are getting to bat for long periods and scoring those big hundreds”. Sehwag’s reply: “If I were batting in the middle-order, I would have scored more.” And he explained, “I am still not comfortable with the moving ball so much.” Wonder if he explained that to the Pakistanis and South Africans after those triple centuries!

To come back to the hair-weaving press conference; sample a few of his answers: “I got the weaving done because it helps get advertisements”, “Have you ever seen bald men do ads”, “It’s not to get female fans, I am married”, “If you have hair, you can take off your cap more often”. Again, simple; and, of course, witty.

The magic of the Garden of Eden

2010-02-21T23:06:00.002+05:30

(Also in Bengali daily Ek Din)

They call the Old Trafford in Manchester the Theatre of Dreams. That’s the home ground of the Manchester United football team.

But in Indian cricket, there can’t be a Theatre of Dreams other than the Eden Gardens. Any theatre must have drama. And when was the last time an Indian cricket ground saw as much drama as in the second Test against South Africa?

A Test match that had it all. One team on top, one team fighting for survival. Four centuries by the Indian team – from four of the city’s favourite batsmen. One opposition batsman emerging as a hero; standing tall amid his team’s ruins. Rain intervening and almost robbing the Indians of the win. And finally, a resistance that took the match all the way into its second last over.

If that isn’t drama, what is?

But the Eden Gardens and drama have always gone hand in hand – because of the cricket as well as because of everything that went on around the cricket. The rioting and the fire in the stands back in 1966. Then in 1987, when Saleem Malik slammed 72 not out from 36 balls to beat India singlehandedly. 1994 – the Hero Cup semi-final, when Sachin Tendulkar bowled a magic last over to beat South Africa. The 1996 World Cup semi-final against Sri Lanka, when India threw away the match, and there was a riot in the stands, and then on the streets of Kolkata. And, of course, the 2001 Test. Cricketing drama at his most enthralling.

Interestingly, there’s a major parallel between the 2001 Test and the 2010 Test. The heroes of the 2001 Test – VVS Laxman and Harbhajan Singh – were the big heroes of the 2010 Test as well.

It happens. Players get attached to grounds. Both of Brian Lara’s triple centuries were scored at St John’s, Antigua. Thomas Muster or Sergi Bruguera never did well at a Grand Slam except at Roland Garros (of course, they were clay-courters, and that’s part of the reason). A player’s game meshes with the conditions at particular grounds. Some tennis players play better on clay courts than elsewhere; not because they don’t want to, but they have a comfort level there that goes missing elsewhere.

It’s true of VVS Laxman and Harbhajan Singh too at the Eden Gardens. VVS now has 1041 runs at an average of 94.63 from 9 Tests here. Harbhajan has 46 wickets from 7 Tests at 21.76 (much less than his career average of 30.94). No cricketer has done better with the bat or ball than these two gentlemen.

And when they have come to the party, they have done so with drama being a central part of their performances. And that’s what makes the Eden Gardens the Theatre of Dreams that it is.

An Asian takeover of the EPL!

2010-02-12T12:21:00.003+05:30

(Also in Bengali daily Ek Din - a bit Bengali-focussed; and a bit of repeat of what I wrote here)

There’s a very interesting phenomenon developing around the English Premier League at the moment.

But that's in a bit. First, a check on what makes the Premiership the hottest thing going around right now. I am no fan of English football. My days aren’t made or broken by Manchester United’s fortunes. But it’s true that the 2009-10 EPL season has been magnificent to say the least. Did you know that this season, for the first time in its history, the EPL is seeing goals scored at a rate higher than three per match? More than in Italy or Spain or Germany.

Anyway, that’s just trivia.

What’s more important is what is going on in the boardrooms of the clubs. Once upon a time, American tycoon Malcolm Glazer’s takeover of Manchester United made crazy headlines. Today, four of the top 20 clubs are owned by Asians; Manchester City, Portsmouth, Birmingham and Fulham. And there’s talk that the second-most historic British club – Liverpool – will be bought over by Sahara’s Subroto Roy. Yes, a Bengali. Another honorary Bengali – Lakshmi Mittal – is currently the owner of Tier 2 club Queen’s Park Rangers.
Interesting, isn’t it? While on the football field, Asians are nowhere among the best in the world, off the field, their big bucks are making the world dance to their tune.

The logic is very simple. The worldwide recession has hit Europe and America the worst. As a result, owners of Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal are currently in debt of close to 500 million pounds each. The clubs are trying to sell. And the clubs can’t find buyers anywhere except in Asia, where the recession has had an impact, but not a massive one.

So imagine a tomorrow: the biggest sporting franchisees are on offer – not just in the EPL, but even in the NBA or elsewhere. Their owners are in debt. What happens? The Ambanis and Tatas and others are among the best-placed around the world when it comes to spending power. And they go and buy. It’s a win-win situation.

And who knows, once he counts his profits at the end of the third season of the Indian Premier League, Lalit Modi might be interested as well. And then you have a semi-complete takeover of the biggest British industry by non-Brits. Asians at that!

Spin is out!

2010-02-05T12:55:00.004+05:30

(Also in Bengali daily Ek Din)
VVS Laxman has finally come out and said it like it is. Quite courageous, if you consider the BCCI’s rather glorious tradition of shutting people up whenever they open their mouths. In Laxman’s case, that’s not happened. He has come out and openly said that the depleting spin reserves in the country is a cause for concern. And we have accepted it.

We have accepted it because the truth is that there isn’t one quality spinner in the country anymore. Once upon a time, paraphrasing Jatayu, the Indian team could choose from the ‘innumerable spinners in this spinner-infested country’. Not so anymore.

Harbhajan Singh is at best a containing bowler right now. The spin is almost gone. The flight is completely gone. All he has are spearing darts at the batsmen’s feet. And very few wickets. Amit Mishra. Good. But is he good enough? Ditto for Pragyan Ojha. Or Piyush Chawla. The only spinner of any standard really is Murali Kartik, but he has fallen foul of the Indian selectors a long time ago.

At the end of it, the situation is that a country that was once famous for its spin bowling now has not even one spinner the world will fear.

Look at the list of top spinners in the world at the moment: Muttiah Muralitharan, Daniel Vettori, Graeme Swann, Nathan Hauritz, Ajantha Mendis and Saeed Ajmal. Not one of them is Indian.

Part of the reason for this is that about five years back – in the face of growing criticism from many quarters – the BCCI decided to change the nature of the pitches in India, choosing to make them more pacer-friendly. What that meant is that spinners stopped getting assistance from the domestic wickets. And the number against their wickets’ column dried up, making the selectors ignore them.

Part of the reason is also the advent of T20 cricket. One-day cricket had, in any case, made spinners become defensive. And with more and more teams scoring at a rate of over 4.00 in Test matches too, economy became more important than striking. It seems to have affected the Indians more; obviously, seeing that India play more ODIs and T20s than most other teams.
And part of the reason is also the change of focus in the last 20 years. Pace bowling became more popular in India after Kapil Dev. We didn’t have a spinner of the stature of Bishan Singh Bedi or Bhagwat Chandrashekhar to inspire youngsters. So now, we have an assembly line of pacers.

When it comes to Harbhajan though, the problem is somewhat different. Some bowlers are happiest when not playing the lead role. Harbhajan was a lethal weapon when playing under Anil Kumble’s shadow. As an individual, he doesn’t have the same bite. And with him losing sheen, none of the youngsters who have come in have managed to play the support act with as much panache, simply because the lead hero isn’t good enough.

Ball-biting: how much is too much?

2010-02-02T14:51:00.002+05:30

(Also on www.cricketakash.com)
I’m sure Shahid Afridi didn’t expect to get away with it. Holding the ball with both hands, taking three-four chomps on the ball, with a good dozen-plus cameras focussed on him. Obviously he didn’t think he could get away. Not even if the camera had focussed on Rana Naved-ul-Hasan’s face – where a big, indulgent smile spread out the moment the ball went between Afridi’s teeth. Surprisingly, bowler Mohammad Asif showed no emotion – almost as if it was par for the course.

In any case, whenever something like this happens, you ask a few questions: (a) why do cricketers continue tampering with the ball when they get caught? (b) Is there a chance cricketers think they can get away? And most importantly, (c) Do cricketers think they can get away because they know they can get away?Afridi might have taken the thing to an extreme. But what he said afterwards is more damning. Afridi said that all countries and players continue to tamper with the ball. Outrage followed. But is he completely off the mark?

Truth is, he is not.

Yes, there are 20-odd cameras on the cricket field, but how much do they actually catch? More than one former paceman I spoke to confirmed that while bottlecaps are out, various other things are still in. Like the trusted old fingernail. Yes, it still works wonders, and yes, despite Sachin Tendulkar getting caught in South Africa back in 2001, hundreds have not gotten caught in the nine years since.

Remember Rahul Dravid’s little cough drop on the ball? Well, you don’t necessarily need to run the sweet on the ball, but the spit from your mouth when sucking on a cough drop is good enough. It does the trick. Dravid might just have accidentally dropped the sweet when all he wanted to do was use his spit. He got caught. The ones who continue to use the spit and manage to keep the sweet in their mouths are fine.

Importanly, Afridi and Dravid are at two ends of the spectrum. Afridi is a repeat offender. Dravid is one of the nicest people you’ll meet.But both realise that the game, especially ODIs and Tests, are loaded heavily in the batsmen’s favour. Every once in a way, the bowler needs a bit of extra help. Does that mean fielders can tamper with the ball? Not at all. But, to widen the scope of the debate a bit, maybe a couple of rule changes to make the game a better match between bat and ball might do the trick.

Time to say 'to hell with hockey'?

2010-01-22T19:35:00.002+05:30

(Also in Bengali daily Ek Din)

Indian hockey is a rather interesting subject. Not many people are really interested in it. But everyone knows that it is the right thing to shed tears about. Whether we like hockey or not, we can’t criticise it. We can’t, as Aslam Sher Khan once said, say ‘to hell with hockey’. We can’t. So when a set-up that has won nothing of note since 1980 cries about the players being slighted and ill-treated, we must cry for them. We must make the right noises about them. And we must criticise the powers-that-be for being insensitive towards our great national sport.

Okay, I agree that hockey must be backed, like all other sports. Not more, not less. If the Indian kabaddi team is in trouble, we should back them. If the Indian judo players are in trouble, we should back them. Only because they are being ill-treated by their bosses. For no other reason. So the Indian hockey players – men and women – must be backed and supported if their bosses don’t pay them money. Not because hockey is our national sport – it isn’t. Cricket is our national sport; about time we accepted it.

Honestly, I am a bit sick of this neverending sob story around hockey. It’s been well over 20 years that the world has moved to the astroturf. India doesn’t have a lot of grounds with astroturf, true – but the national team has always practiced on astroturf. Why then can’t we stop crying over being discriminated? Why is it that the rest of the world can play the fast-paced hit-and-run game while we can’t? We can’t because we choose to use it as an excuse to be failures.
We cry about hockey not being popular among the masses. Of course it’s not. It’s not popular because we haven’t taken it to the masses. Cricket became as popular as it is, because we won the 1983 World Cup just over a decade after the format was introduced. We adapted. We won the 2007 T20 World Cup – just 5 years after the format was introduced and before any of our players had played any serious T20 cricket. We adapted. As a result, the formats became popular. As a result, youngsters wanted to play cricket and nothing else. They also want to play tennis and football because they have their role models.

They don’t have a role model in hockey – no, not even Dhanraj Pillay.

It’s taken us 30 years, and we still haven’t adapted in hockey. Yes, the players should get the money they deserve, but at the same time, isn’t it high time they went out and won something important – apart from the Asia Cup and the Azlan Shah Trophy and the Champions Challenge? If they won, they would be heroes. They don’t win, so even a Shah Rukh Khan superhit can’t make the sport popular. No chance. And till then, all of us will continue to cry for our ‘national sport’ even though it’s not important enough.

It's not just cricket

2010-01-19T20:17:00.005+05:30

(Also in the January 2010 edition of Man's World as part of the overall look at the highlights of the decade gone by)
A millennium ended, a new one swung by. In many ways, nothing changed in Indian sport. Cricket remains the big deal. Politicians continue to run (nay, rule) sports federations much as they run the country: ineffectually and indifferently. The National Sport continues to languish at the bottom of the foodchain. But, as if from nowhere, we found individuals who cut through these constants; they are the ones who made ‘change’ possible.

Abhinav Bindra
None more so than Abhinav Bindra. Possibly because his federation’s apathy didn’t matter to him – his affluence puts him above these petty obstacles. But more than anything else, it didn’t matter because he is super! He’d missed out in Athens 2004 as Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore set the benchmark – almost ‘up there’. So if Abhinav were to bring home a silver in Beijing 2008, it wouldn’t have counted for much. It had to be better or bust. And better it was. Gold! The first time anyone but the Indian hockey team had conquered the world in the Olympic Games. And even if his feat is emulated in years to come, Abhinav Bindra will remain the man who broke the glass ceiling. Speaking of glass ceilings, a couple of old men who know all about that were still out there rock-and-rolling.

Leander Paes & Mahesh Bhupathi
Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi. Admittedly, they didn’t do anything important together in the current decade except win the French Open doubles crown in 2001. But Leander has gone on to win six men’s doubles and seven mixed doubles Grand Slams since. While Bhupathi has won one men’s doubles and seven mixed doubles Slams. We can shake our heads and wonder about what could have been… Fact is, they split up. Fact also is that they made us happy more often than most others have. And, in a sense, they also paved the way for people like Sania Mirza, Yuki Bhambri and Somdev Devvarman to poke their heads out. Meanwhile, away from the glam-sports was a small, muscular and uncannily spirited young woman breaking new ground.

MC Marykom
Magnificent Mary – MC Marykom. A four-time 46-kilogram world champion in women’s boxing. A feat no one can stake claim to. And, would you believe it, Mary is not yet 30. This means that apart from being India’s longest-ruling world champion, Mary also has a shot at Olympic glory when women’s boxing is introduced in the 2012 Games.

Viswanathan Anand
Now, when a sportsperson receives the Khel Ratna award, you assume the person is closer to the end of his career than the beginning. Viswanathan Anand earned the accolade in 1992. In his case, the award was more a beginning than an end. Seventeen years since, Anand is the undisputed world champion. Still. A title he first assumed in 2000. He lost it in between, regained it in 2007 and has held it since then. Along the way, Anand became the first player in history to win the World Championship in the three different formats: knockout, tournament and match. Along the way, Anand has also been the undisputed world number one – twice. All in this decade; one decade after receiving the nation’s highest sports award.

Saina Nehwal
And on the way out, we must include the one person best-placed to become India’s next world champion – Saina Nehwal. Queen Saina has already made us sit up and take notice of her. First, when she reached the quarterfinals at the Beijing Olympics. Then, when she won the World Junior Championships last year. And in 2009, when she became the first Indian woman to win a Super Series title. Saina is just 19. Already sixth in the world, she is getting stronger and better. Who knows, number one might not be all that much to ask.

I like Manish Pandey

2010-01-15T16:42:00.000+05:30

(Also on www.cricketakash.com)

Yes, I like Manish Pandey. I liked Pandey when he threw caution to the winds in the IPL last year to score that 114 against the Deccan Chargers. I liked the fact that it was in South Africa that he got the hundred, and not in India. I liked the fact that he was happy to hook and pull. I liked the fact that he had a stroke for every delivery, and had natural footwork to back him.

Then I liked Manish Pandey in the Ranji Trophy final on Wednesday and Thursday. The top order had fallen. There were three India discards bowling with a fair bit of pace on a track that offered good bounce. Manish slammed 144 off 151 balls to give Karnataka a chance. He pulled the pacers with ease. He appeared to be a compulsive hooker, which may or may not be a good thing. But not once did he hook or pull without watching the ball till the last moment. I haven’t seen a single top-notch Indian batsman do that except Rahul Dravid.

Why isn’t he in the Indian team yet then? Well, for starters, he has been a bit inconsistent. He is also a bit of an impulsive chappie, who wants to hit every ball for a boundary or more. And though he was brilliant while he lasted in the Ranji final, it was his all-or-nothing attitude that seemed to mess it up for him in the end. He seems to be the sort who can be very exciting, but not very dependable.

Which also suggests that he can be a good T20 or ODI prospect, but not a Test prospect.
And that’s the mistake we might end up making.

Manish clearly has the talent, the strokes, and the ability to become a great Test batsman, and I use the word ‘great’ knowing I will be accused of using it too loosely. He has a good cut. He has a good cover drive. He has a good hook and a good pull. Plus a neat flick around mid-wicket. But more than all these things, he has presence. He ‘looks’ like a good cricketer. Something that I last saw in Murali Kartik – when he walked out to the field, he looked like a cricketer.

Manish Pandey has that. The right attitude. Possibly one for the future then.

Is the Ranji Trophy relevant anymore?

2010-01-14T16:42:00.002+05:30

(Also in Bengali daily Ek Din)

Another Ranji Trophy final. Another appearance for Mumbai in the final – their 43rd. And then, another win – their 39th. Of the 76 editions of the Ranji Trophy, Mumbai have won 39. But that’s just a record. If we play the Ranji Trophy for another 50 years, Mumbai will probably win it another 30 times.

How does it matter though?

Yes, I still think Test cricket is the most important format of the game, and I do think the Ranji Trophy is the best source of young talent. But if the BCCI doesn’t care about the Ranji Trophy, then why are we so bothered about it?
Senior Indian cricketers are not asked to play the Ranji Trophy. Rahul Dravid played the semi-finals for Karnataka, but Sachin Tendulkar, despite being in India, refused to take part. Tendulkar, of course, does what he wants, and the BCCI does whatever Tendulkar wants. But if the BCCI is not in a position to force the players to play in the Ranji Trophy, what legal right does the BCCI have to force the players to play in the Indian Premier League?

Yes, the players, being human, would rather play the IPL to earn money. They are not as interested in the Ranji Trophy, because they are already in the Indian team – their state teams don’t matter anymore.

Yes, the IPL is played within a fixed window, the Ranji Trophy is not. This means that players who are playing for India cannot, logically, make time for the Ranji Trophy in its entirety.

And that brings me to my point: why do we have to play the Ranji Trophy then? Only because it has become a tradition? Only because no one has the guts to say “let’s forget the Ranji Trophy – it doesn’t matter”? Or only because the state associations and their cricketers don’t have any other big stage to perform in?

Come on, let’s face it: The Ranji Trophy doesn’t matter anymore. The IPL does. Whether we like it or not, the Indian team is selected on the basis of players’ performances in the IPL, or on the basis of Krishnamachari Srikkanth’s likes and dislikes. Success in the IPL brings you a place in the Indian T20 team. Then the ODI team. And once Dravid, Tendulkar and VVS Laxman retire, the same people will be in the Test team.

Then why this annual farce?

Give the Churchill boys a chance

2010-01-07T18:44:00.001+05:30

(Also in Bengali daily Ek Din)

When he spoke to us, Felix Chimaokwu claimed that he and Odafe Onyake were chatting in the aircraft when he accidentally elbowed the airhostess in question. He says both of them immediately apologised. He also says that the airhostess in question didn’t say anything; it was a steward standing close by who raised the stink.

How much of this do we believe?

Do we believe every word Felix says?

Do we believe Churchill Brothers goalkeeper Arindam Bhattacharya when he says both the Nigerians are completely innocent?

Or do we refuse to believe them and side with the Indian airhostess, whose modesty was outraged – allegedly?

I don’t really have an answer to this. But I do have a couple of points to make in this regard.
Firstly, Indians are by nature racist. Blacks are usually treated with trepidation, disrespect. A Black man going slightly out of line is often looked upon with a tad more suspicion than a White man. We have all bumped into enough women over the years – unintentionally – and gotten away with an apology. A Black man in India might never have it so easy.

To this day, we refer to Blacks as ‘kallus’. You do too, reader of this editorial. It’s ingrained in our DNA.

The second argument is that Felix, or Odafe, or any Tom, Dick or Harry, will think at least 500 times before attempting to molest a woman inside an aircraft. There are people all around. There are stewards, airhostesses...very little space, in an airline like SpiceJet. In fact, having travelled in SpiceJet often, I can vouch for the fact that airhostesses and stewards bump into passengers in the aisle seats all the time. All the time!

Now, I am not ruling out the possibility that the two Nigerians did commit the crime they are being blamed for.

But I think the possibility that they are innocent is much bigger.

It’s just that India, as a nation, along with being racist, is also suspicious of foreign sportspersons. It’s almost as if we can never trust them or take them at face value. And if that foreigner is an African, with a strange accent, he becomes that much more alien.

I hate the derby, I love the derby!

2009-12-30T16:27:00.003+05:30

(Also in Bengali daily Ek Din)

On one side, you have Abhra Mondal and Soumik De – maybe a couple of others. That’s the ‘Bengal’ part of East Bengal. Sangram Mukherjee and a handful of others in Mohun Bagan. That’s the sum total of the Bengal presence in the Great Calcutta Derby today. Even in the sidelines, one team is coached by a Moroccan and the other by a Belgian. And that’s the match we are so excited about.

Forgive me, I am not a good Bengali. A Bengali from Calcutta, as I am, should be obsessed about the derby. I am not. Yes, I do want East Bengal to win, as I always have, being a true-blooded Barishal Bangal. But come off it. There is nothing remotely romantic about this encounter.

There was a time in the 1980s when an East Bengal vs Mohun Bagan encounter was important. Krishanu Dey, Bikash Panji,Tarun Dey, Swarup Das, Prashanta Banerjee, Shishir Ghosh, Sudip Chatterjee, Krishnendu Roy, Aloke Mukherjee...and of course, the two mascots – Manoranjan Bhattacharya and Subroto Bhattacharya. And the goalkeepers: Shibaji Banerjee, Debashish Mukherjee, Tanumoy Bose, Atanu Bhattacharya...and East Bengal’s favourite goalkeeper – Bhaskar Ganguly, brilliant for East Bengal and under the crossbar for Mohun Bagan when East Bengal pumped in those Famous Five.

Yes, there was the odd African and Iranian. Yes, a few players from other parts of the country were also coming to Calcutta. But the matches were strictly between Bengalis. That was when Bengal was still the number one centre of excellence for football in India. Kerala, Punjab, Goa and Maharashtra were threatening, but Bengal was still number one. And the best club football was also played in Bengal. In Calcutta.

Of course, I understand that foreigners and non-Bengalis will come in. That is the essence of club football. And yes, in England or Spain or Italy or in Latin America, die-hard fans still fight for the crumbs when ‘their’ team plays. Even if there isn’t a single kid from their part of the country playing for their team. I understand that. But I can’t do it myself.

I can’t get obsessed about a match where the goalscorers’ list is likely to have the names of a Sikkimese, a Nigerian, a Ghanaian, a Manipuri, a Goan, and so on. Why should I be bothered?

Now then – all this is true only because I suspect Mohun Bagan is a better team than East Bengal and have an edge. Everything I have said so far is essentially my defence in case East Bengal fail to go past Mohun Bagan into the Fed Cup final. If East Bengal win, as I will be praying they do, who cares if there isn’t a single Bangal in the side? Who cares if a Ghanaian is the best striker in the team? Who cares about anything at all? It’s the best possible end to the year – East Bengal is better than Mohun Bagan. End of the discussion.

Ground realities about the BCCI

2009-12-28T18:05:00.002+05:30

(Also in www.cricketakash.com)
Exhibit One: The Eden Gardens
One of the greatest cricket grounds in the world; it has to wait close to three years before getting a one-day match. In the interim, grounds in Mohali, Mumbai, Kanpur, Jaipur and many others have been allotted match after match.

Exhibit Two: The Ferozeshah Kotla
In the dock at the moment, after preparing a pitch that schoolkids wouldn’t rent for a match. Now staring at sanctions from the ICC.

The first instance tells you what’s wrong with the BCCI.

The second instance also tells you what’s wrong with the BCCI – not because it should defend the Kotla or the DDCA, but because of the reasons why it won’t defend the Kotla or the DDCA.
Cricket fans come last in the BCCI’s list of priorities, and that’s why the Eden Gardens has been ignored as a one-day venue for the longest time. Only because the Cricket Association of Bengal is led by Jagmohan Dalmiya, a man known to be against the Sharad Pawar regime. That’s the only reason.

Dalmiya is also known to be close to Bharatiya Janata Party. Pawar is not.

Ditto for Arun Jaitley, chief of the DDCA. And the DDCA is not one of the associations that support the Pawar regime at the helm of affairs in the BCCI. And that’s the reason the BCCI will not support the DDCA. Not for any other reason.

And here’s the thing: the BCCI should go against the DDCA. But not for the same reasons. The BCCI has always defended Indian cricketers and cricket associations whenever the ICC has gone against them; often without a proper defence, but only because it is more powerful than the ICC. So the BCCI can force the ICC to avoid banning the Kotla if it wants to. But it won’t. Only because it doesn’t want to, not because it is the right thing to do.

I can also put it down in black-and-white that if a similar situation had cropped up around an association that is a supporter of the Pawar regime, the BCCI’s reaction would have been vastly different.

Shame on the BCCI for ostracising Eden

2009-12-28T11:34:00.003+05:30

(Also in Bengali daily Ek Din)

So finally the BCCI had to slot a one-day match at the Eden Gardens!

After choosing to ignore the greatest cricket stadium in the world for almost three years and denying the people of Kolkata their favourite source of joy. After proving that more than anything else, the only thing that the BCCI really cares for is money and power. Cricket doesn’t matter. And cricket fans matter even less.

This attitude of the BCCI was very much in evidence in the run-up to the recent Rajasthan Cricket Association elections. Lalit Modi’s biggest poll plank was ‘matches for Jaipur’. It was simple. Modi told people that if he was voted to power, the BCCI would allot matches to Jaipur. Modi wasn’t even trying to hide the truth.

This means that only associations that vote for the Sharad Pawar-N Srinivasan-Shashank Manohar regime will get big international matches. If Jagmohan Dalmiya is the boss of the Cricket Association of Bengal, the Eden Gardens will fall off the map. How much more brazen can you get!

This, in fact, is completely symptomatic of the present BCCI regime. In every sense. They have converted the BCCI into their own little playground. Like kids. The para bully, who picks on the weaklings.

Thankfully, we did finally get a one-dayer in Kolkata. Interestingly, between the same teams that played the last game I saw at the Eden Gardens as a fan. From the time that I was eight, I saw every single international game at the Eden Gardens. As well as a number of domestic matches. I saw every single day of every single Test match, starting from the West Indies tour Test in 1983; all the way to the 1996 World Cup semi-final between India and Sri Lanka.

That match left such a horrid taste in the mouth for me that I refused to go to the Eden Gardens after that – except to report on the 2001 India-Australia Test match; a match that again reaffirmed my belief in the Eden Gardens; a match that told me that the best cricket is always played at the Eden. Like the Hero Cup semi-final and final. Like all the brilliant centuries Mohammad Azharuddin scored – I was there for each of them. Like when Saleem Malik smashed the Indians for 72 from 36 balls to win the one-dayer in 1987.

Nothing beats the experience of a top-class competition at the Eden Gardens. My favourite ground. The favourite ground for everyone who has been part of the experience. An experience that is being denied to the current generation by the dastardly BCCI top brass.

Don’t cry for Tiger Woods

2009-12-21T18:20:00.003+05:30

(Also in Bengali daily Ek Din)
I am no fan of golf. I am a great fan of champions though. And that’s why Tiger Woods is so important to me. It’s heartening to note that 142 sports editors in the United States have still found it in them to name Woods the greatest athlete of the decade gone by.

And that’s exactly how it should be.

No sportsperson, anywhere in the world, has impacted his or her sport the way Tiger Woods has. Ever. Not Don Bradman. Not Pele. Not Roger Federer. Not Lance Armstrong. Not Steffi Graf. Not Jesse Owens. Not even Muhammad Ali.

Tiger Woods. Coloured. Polite. Educated. Erudite. Good-looking. And absolutely brilliant. So brilliant, that top tier pro Colin Mongomerie has celebrated Tiger’s sabbatical by saying, “now we have a chance to win too”. That’s how important Tiger Woods is. Not like Ali. None of his opponents ever wished he wasn’t there. They wanted to beat him. When it comes to Tiger, his opponents know it’s practically impossible to beat him.

And that’s what makes the present situation so terribly sad. Tiger Woods has actually done what most heterosexual men do, or want to do. If he is a sex-maniac, as he has been called, it has no bearing on his game. It’s not like drug addiction. Or, like in George Best’s case, alcoholism.

But then, having said that, it’s not too dissimilar either. Because Tiger Woods is not just about his game. He is also a lot about his persona. His image. Tiger Woods is the richest sportsperson in the world not only because he is the best golfer ever. It’s also because his public persona is such that most big brands want to associate with him. They want him to be their face. A clean image. Much like someone in India wanting to associate with Viswanathan Anand. Or Anil Kumble.

Each time I have had this discussion with friends and colleagues, I have faced the retort that Tiger Woods has never cheated at his game. But isn’t that a lie too? Tiger has earned millions from corporate like Accenture and Gillette and General Motors for his image. But that image was a lie!

So even if Tiger hasn’t cheated on the golf course, he has cheated corporates of their millions by lying to them. Isn’t that worth anything?

Recently, when Andre Agassi confessed to drug abuse in his autobiography, many tennis players including Boris Becker implored him to return his Grand Slam trophies. Maybe the world of golf will not read this article, but if they could, I would ask them to force Tiger Woods to return money to his sponsors. That would be fair.

The Premier Goal Rush

2009-12-14T12:19:00.002+05:30

(Also in the Talk section of the December issue of Man's World)

For the first time in the 18 years of the English Premier League in its present format, there were no drawn games on the opening day. No drawn games! In the land of hard tackles and defensive coaches obsessed about avoiding losses.

But what was a bit of trivia on Day One has now escalated into a fascinating debate. One that has football pundits scratching their heads. That of the cash-rich and star-studded but boring Premiership suddenly becoming more exciting than the Serie A in Italy or the Spanish La Liga –in terms of goalscoring.

It’s true, and to help put things in perspective, chew on these figures: The EPL is seeing 3.03 goals being scored per game after well over a hundred games being played, whereas La Liga tocks in at 2.72 and the Serie A 2.52.

And that’s not all, the EPL itself saw goals scored at 2.48, 2.64 and 2.45 in the last three seasons and has now jumped up to 3.03 for the ongoing season. In fact, it’s stayed at over the three-mark all through the season.

Soccernet confirms that striker accuracy has gone up by 3.04 per cent and conversion rates have gone up by 1.59 per cent over last season.

More statistics (or trivia, if you like): this is the first time in 11 years that the EPL has seen goals scored at over three per match (after at least 50 games). And finally, this is the first time since 1968-’69 that England has seen more goals scored than in Spain or Italy.

Why though? Is it because the gulf between the big clubs and the small clubs have widened so much that the Big Four are walloping the minnows? Or have all the clubs suddenly bought themselves brand new scoring shoes?

Well, the truth is actually somewhere in the middle. Look at the big wins so far. On August 15, Arsenal beat Everton 6-1. A week later, Manchester United beat Wigan Athletic 5-0. Liverpool beat Hull City 6-1 on September 26. On that day, Tottenham Hotspur too beat Burnley 5-0. Arsenal beat Burnley 6-2 in an eight-goal thriller on October 4, while Blackburn Rovers had no clue where they were against Chelsea on October 24, losing 5-0. Away from the limelight, West Ham United beat Burnley 5-3 on November 28. And very recently Spurs again underlined the changing times with a 9-1 hammering of Wigan. Five of those goals came from one man — Jermain Defoe. Expected results from United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool then, but nine goals from Spurs?!
Expected results from United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool then, but five goals from Spurs?!

Or Manchester City, who are, surprisingly, in the Top Five at the moment; the same club that lost 1-8 to now-nowhere Middlesbrough in May 2008. As are Spurs. As well as Aston Villa. In fact, so unique is the Top Four that you’d think you are following a different League altogether.

So, from a four-horse race, the Premiership has suddenly become a seven-horse race. And it’s not just that. Wigan Athletic have beaten Chelsea 3-1. United have lost to Burnley 0-1.

The question, though, is: why?

Well, there are five evident reasons: (a) poor defending, (b) the new Total 90 Ascente balls, widely described as a ‘keeper’s nightmare’, (c) the realisation that floating around within the EPL doesn’t bring in money, (d) refereeing in favour of forwards, and (e) the rising stature of the smaller clubs, which has been discussed already, and of which City is the greatest example.

Everton manager David Moyes clearly blames club owners for investing in goalscorers, when he says, “all clubs big and small are guilty of playing with patchwork defences”. While Blackburn Rovers manager Sam Allardyce only says, “Poor defending”, when quizzed.

Case in point: the seven-goal Manchester derby, where City scored two of their three goals from defensive lapses, and United scored three of their four when no defenders were anywhere near the scorers; they missed a dozen more from similar situations. The guilty included Rio Ferdinand.

Let’s discuss the monetary angle now: former British footballer and coach Bill Adams, now in Delhi as Director of Super Soccer Academy, explains: “TV means the rewards for finishing in the top six are substantial. Getting into Europe gets you 23 million pounds. Merchandising for a top club will get between 20 and 40 million quid, and good gate receipts will get you half a million a week. On top of this, England is a tax free haven for multi-billionaires.”

So the billionaires (mostly Middle-Eastern) have come in, bought some of the less-privileged clubs, pumped in money and bought big-ticket stars – mainly strikers.

But is it only for the moment? Is this is a temporary high or will the bubble last – especially when it comes to Spurs and City and Villa? Adams shakes his head on this one: “In the short term, it’ll work. But both have tactical and strategic weaknesses. City is unbalanced and need two or three more defensive players, and Spurs do not have the sophistication of the other top four clubs. Villa will always be there and thereabouts.”

But at the same time, in the long term, there is no reason why there should not be more than four big clubs. Consistently getting into Europe is the key and all teams know that now. And most importantly, the billionaire bosses of the ‘smaller’ clubs know that. For years now, the bulk of EPL clubs have done just enough to stay in the top flight. Finish anywhere above 17th on the table and your salary for next year is guaranteed. Most clubs never believed they could do better. Most clubs didn’t even try to do better. Except the one time in 1994-95 when Blackburn won the title – the only time in 18 years that the title has gone to a club outside of, you guessed it, the Top Four. And blame that on Alan Shearer, who played for Blackburn then and scored 34 goals.

That’s changing. Fast.

Even Aston Villa manager Martin O’Neill appears to agree: “City might not be favourites right now, but they should be soon. They have as good a chance as anybody of winning it.” Adams agrees, saying, “This year is a bit too soon for City to win, though they can be in the Top Four. Spurs will take longer. But City can be a contender next season if they strengthen their defence.”

The new, improved Premiership, it appears, is here to stay. No more dreary draws. No more long clearances that are aimed at nothing in particular. Goals are in. Goals are hot. And goals are happening.

And, here’s one other bit of trivia to wrap things up: six of the top 10 goalscorers (6 and above) at the moment are not from United or Chelsea or Arsenal or Liverpool. Hurrah!

Champion player, champion coach

2009-12-14T12:14:00.003+05:30

(Also in the Gamechangers of 2009 section of the December issue of Man's World)

Pullela Gopichand made his name as only the second Indian after Prakash Padukone to win the All-England Open badminton championships. That was in 2001. Eight years down, he is India’s number one badminton hope again — this time, as The Coach. Coach to Saina Nehwal, possibly India’s best sportsperson at the moment; coach also to the Indian national team. And to Jwala Gutta and Valiyaveetil Diju, who became the first Indian pair to win a Grand Prix mixed doubles title.

Gopi is also a thinking man. When you ask him what the one issue closest to his heart is, he theorises on the link between poverty and sport, between fitness and education. “We have a huge population, but we are woefully behind in education. The uneducated are poor. The rich, who are educated, suffer from all sorts of lifestyle diseases. The problem is lack of physical activity. Ask them, have they walked even a kilometre in the last two years? Poverty eradication is the biggest issue for our country. I can’t solve that. So I am trying to work on making people fitter, healthier,” he says.

So, along with managing the Pullela Gopichand Badminton Academy in Hyderabad, he also runs a foundation that organises 10-km marathons across the country. Importantly, he’s willing to put his money where his mouth is. Gopi once refused to endorse a cola company because, well, he didn’t want to endorse a product that is ‘anti-fitness’.

Oddly enough for a man so much in the news, all of this isn’t common knowledge. But it’s important to know this side to Gopi, if we are to understand that Gopi is not our everyday coach. He engages with his wards on a deeper level. He explains, “I can’t tell Saina what she should endorse and what she shouldn’t. I can’t push her in the direction I think is right. But I do try to explain to my ‘kids’ what’s right and what’s wrong.” Does everybody else have it, though? Because these days, not all of those kids are getting coach-time to their heart’s content. “I coach a lot of kids but nowadays Saina obviously takes up most of my time. Apart from travelling with her, we train together for four hours every day when she is in Hyderabad. Plus there are other endorsement-related commitments with her,” Gopi says.

Gopi, 36, is comfortable in the world of competitive sport. Saina is 19. Still learning the ropes, trying to figure things out, so the role of the coach goes a bit beyond just working out the backhands and forehands. “I’ve known Saina since she was 13 or so,” Gopi says. “I guess I am a bit of a father figure. I am also a bit of a friend. A mentor. A bit of everything.” Let’s talk a bit more about Saina, shall we? Gopi is game because he is in the centre of things right now mainly because of Saina’s super performances through the last year and a half. “She’s brilliant. Remember, she has many years ahead of her. Some things will come only with experience. Some of her weaknesses she has ironed out already. Give her another year, and she would have gotten even stronger.”

In a sense, all coaches wait for someone like a Saina Nehwal, don’t they? But does the discovery of someone like a Saina make the job that much simpler? “When we started the academy, a bunch of players applied, and we took on all of them. Importantly, we got a number of kids who were talented. Indians are naturals at badminton, and if you get two talented kids out of 20, your job becomes easy. When you get a Saina, it’s even better.” For Saina too, this is as good as it gets. After all, she began training under one of the best shuttlers in the country. Someone who has seen the way international sport works and knows what it takes to succeed at the highest level. Had it not been for a series of injuries during his prime, Gopi would have been at the top of the game in his time.

For Saina and Gopi, things worked out perfectly. But do the other youngsters at the Academy feel left out somewhat? For once, Gopi, who took over as coach of the national team in 2006, wavers a bit before responding: “We do have a good group of coaches at the Academy. There are a couple of good Indonesian coaches with the national team as well. So it’s not as if the kids or the senior team members are ignored at any stage.” Plus, Gopi does spend a lot of time with the kids as well as the pros when in the country. And that’s evident in Gutta and Diju’s exploits too — Gutta credits Gopi with improving her game in recent times, despite having boycotted the national camp in 2008 ahead of the Sudirman Cup when Gopi refused to allow players to participate in random Open events. It helped that they patched up, because Gutta and Diju won their first Grand Prix title in Taiwan in August this year. A first for Indian badminton, like Saina’s Super Series win in Jakarta.

But is this because Gopi is a super coach or because he has gotten lucky with a batch of talented players? Possibly, the former. For some of us who have watched Gopi from close quarters, spotting his coaching character traits isn’t tough. You’ll have coaches who want students to become mirror images of themselves. And there are others, who let kids have their own identities. Gopi appears versatile enough to belong to the latter category. “I realise not everyone can do what I can do. I also realise there are things some of them can do, that I couldn’t. I shouldn’t push my style on the kids,” says Gopi. He doesn’t either. For him, it’s — to borrow a Harry Potter usage — ‘constant vigilance’ more than anything else. And, importantly, while trying to improve his ‘kids’, he does try to improve himself. “I know I am a bit stubborn at times. But I am working on it.”

Yet another first is the number of Indians in the Top 20 of the senior categories in world badminton right now. Apart from Saina, the Badminton World Federation puts Chetan Anand at number 17 in men’s singles, the Rupesh Kumar-Sanave Thomas combine at number 19 in men’s doubles, and the Gutta-Diju combine at number seven in mixed doubles.

To end, though, a question is necessary. How do we feel about Gopi prioritising Saina above everyone else? Do we criticise him, or are we going to back him on this one? Difficult to answer, and maybe Gopi isn’t sure either. Is there a chance we would have had a group of world-class players if Gopi were to divide his attention? Who knows? As it stands, we are sure Saina is going to get closer and closer to the top with each passing day. That’s not such a bad deal, is it?”

Don’t set the agenda for Sehwag

2009-12-10T17:27:00.002+05:30

(Also in Bengali daily Ek Din)

Amazing as it sounds, Virender Sehwag has not crossed the 30-run mark in Twenty20 cricket in over two years. Yes. The same man who has now risen into the top five Test batsmen’s category in the ICC rankings, is no good in Twenty20s. This, despite Sehwag being known as an attacking batsman.

Sehwag scores at a strike rate of over 80 in Test matches, and the 293 he scored the other day came off 254 balls. That automatically suggests he would be a huge threat to opponents in Twenty20s. But that’s not quite the case. The man known across the world as one of the fiercest hitters of the ball has a rather poor Twenty20 record.

13 games. 249 runs. An average of 20.75. A handsome strike rate of 148.2. But only one score of 50+.

Why though?

The more you think about it, the more interesting it gets and the more you realise that you don’t really know Sehwag at all. And the story actually became interesting from almost the time when Sehwag started playing international cricket.

Prior to that, Delhi selectors were always iffy about him, because he was too attacking. Everyone thought he would be no good in the four-day Ranji games, because he wouldn’t be able to bat for long. He did.

When he emerged on the international stage in 1999, he made a name as a dasher straightaway. But in Tests, there was no room for him. Again, he was too much a hitter. It was only in November 2001 that the debut happened. Bloemfontein. He scored 105 on debut. At a strike rate of 60! Where had the fire gone?

But it was only a matter of time. From number six, he was promoted to the top of the batting order, and that’s where Sehwag finally blossomed. First in ODIs, then in Tests as well. And today, in Tests he averages 52.5, while in ODIs, he languishes at 33.9.

To return to the original question: why though?

Is it because Sehwag is at his best when there are more fielders up close than in the boundary? Can’t be. He clears the field brilliantly even when there are fielders in the deep. In Mumbai for example, he played with a spread out field for the most part and got to within 7 runs of a third triple century.

I think it’s because for Sehwag, hitting a boundary or two every six deliveries is not a big deal. It’s when the demand is more that he starts getting hassled. I think he likes setting the agenda, not when the agenda is set for him. In Tests, a boundary every over is good enough. Sehwag will give you two. In T20s, the demand is at least three, and Sehwag feels under pressure to perform.

Why I think this is true is also that Sehwag is not the best batsman around in the third or fourth innings of a Test. When the asking rate and target is set out for him, Sehwag is half the batsman he otherwise is. Let him bat without numbers muddling his brain, Sehwag is possibly the most exciting batsman in the world. Any other situation, you have a better chance by asking him not to bat.

Can Sachin pull off a Tiger?

2009-12-10T16:57:00.004+05:30

(Also on http://www.cricketakash.com/)

Tiger Woods is a great man. He is easily the greatest golfer in history. By far the most charismatic. All of which contribute to him being the richest sportsperson in the world.
He is golf’s Roger Federer. Or Sachin Tendulkar. Or Usain Bolt. Or Cristiano Ronaldo.

But these comparisons throw the issue out of focus a bit. Because Federer is clean as a whistle. Tendulkar is ‘squeaky’ clean. Bolt is anything but a cheat, on the tracks or off it. Ronaldo is at most a ladies’ man, but young, not married, and therefore 'allowed' to fool around.

So was Tiger Woods. A coloured man. At the peak of his abilities. Married to lovely Elin Nordegren. Life was perfect till Elin found out about his relationships with various women. Heaven knows what Tiger had confessed to, but the count has gone up past 10 already – the number of women Tiger had sexual relations with.

As a result, Tiger’s empire is in a shambles. No one knows if he will able to hold on to the endorsements which make him the richest athlete on the planet. No one knows if Tiger can ever get back to the course and remain the best golfer there is.

And that says a thing or two about pressure, doesn’t it? The pressure of succumbing to your image – only to remain different from the average man.

This year itself, apart from Tiger, we have had a few examples: Andre Agassi, Andrew Symonds, Diego Maradona, Serena Williams and Thierry Henry. All heroes. All now regarded as cheats in some way or the other. None of them now have an image they can bank on anymore.

Let’s just talk about Tendulkar for a bit here. Doesn’t he ever want to abuse? Doesn’t he ever feel like getting drunk? Doesn’t he ever want to share a cigarette with his friend Shane Warne? Doesn’t he ever feel like being with another woman?

Maybe, maybe not. Most probably, he does. But there’s the image one must live within if he has reached where Tendulkar has. A level where there is no good or bad or right or wrong. It’s a level where lines blur so much that lines don’t exist anymore. It’s a level where there’s only success or disaster.

Stick to the image – success. Take even the smallest detour – disaster.

Think about it – billions are usually at stake around these parts. Also think about the fact that Tendulkar has managed to pull it off for 20 years now!

Constant is the only change

2009-12-09T16:19:00.002+05:30

(Also in Bengali daily Ek Din)

A few days back, we got the confirmation from Pakistan Cricket Board chief Ejaz Butt that the Pakistan cricket team has no room or patience for Shoaib Akhtar anymore. Then, courtesy a mauling from the Indian batsmen in Kanpur, Muttiah Muralitharan announced that he might quit sooner rather than later.

That’s two of the many people who should never have been cricketers. Because they are chuckers. Not bowlers. Or, as Bishan Singh Bedi calls them, javelin throwers or shot-putters. Their wickets are nothing but run-outs. I agree.

Which is why Akhtar’s fall from grace and Murali’s gradual decaying are good things. It’s good news. It’s a reason to celebrate.
But there are a lot of unfortunate areas in this. Firstly, the fact that – forget Akhtar – Murali already has more ‘wickets’ than anyone in cricket history; almost 800 in Tests and over 500 in one-dayers. That’s unfortunate, because that means around 1300 batsmen have been dismissed illegally by Murali over the years in international cricket alone.

But what’s even more unfortunate is that the gradual decline of Akhtar and Murali, and hopefully Harbhajan Singh in the near future, does not really signal the end of this illegality in cricket. Cricket remains a sport that is ruled not by its official governing body, but by its unofficial governing body; not by the ICC, but by the BCCI. The BCCI will not change its colours. And the ICC will never be able to grow its fangs. What that means is that whatever the BCCI wants will continue to be a part of international cricket.

If that means allowing blatant cheats to continue bowling and picking wickets – so be it.

If that means allowing the IPL authorities to announce sanctions on cricketers from the rest of the world – so be it.

If it means altering the cricket calendar to suit the needs of the premier Indian cricketers – so be it.

Do I have solid evidence of any of these things? Not in my hands, no. Do I know or believe all of this is true? Yes, I do. We all do. None of this is new. It’s all been going on for over a decade now.
Will it stop? Will things change? Unlikely. Cricket fans in India will continue to back their favourite sport till kingdom come; the greater common good be damned. And that means the BCCI will continue to carry out their business the way they do. And why not? Seeing that they are being allowed to. And will continue to be allowed to.

Thank heavens Sreesanth’s back!

2009-11-27T15:15:00.004+05:30

(Also in my column 'Shoja Kotha' in Bengali daily Ek Din)

It’s easy to dislike Sreesanth. He is irritating. He is totally full of himself. He gets on your nerves at times. And I am not just talking about the Slapgate incident with Harbhajan Singh. I am talking about Sreesanth in general. During practice sessions. During breakfast at the team hotel. On the phone – sometimes he will pick up the phone and speak for hours; sometimes he will become incommunicado.

I remember one particular incident in Sydney – this was during the Commonwealth Bank series last year. Sreesanth had something going with Robin Uthappa from before the net practice session started. And when Robin’s turn to bat came, he went up to captain Dhoni and said clearly that he didn’t want to face Sreesanth. Dhoni refused to pay attention, but Sreesanth had overheard the conversation, as did all of us journalists standing by.

What followed was easily the most irritating and childish episode you are ever likely to see. Sreesanth bowled a sequence of about 15 deliveries to Robin. All of them were bouncers. And all of them were down the leg side. As a result, Robin couldn’t get his bat to a single delivery. Each time he ‘beat’ Robin, Sreesanth had a smirk on his face, as Robin went purple. Eventually, Dhoni had to intervene; he moved Robin to a different net to face the other bowlers.

Sreesanth’s line and length became okay within two minutes.

That’s what Sreesanth is like. Irritating. Childish. Churlish. Petulant. A kid.

But that’s what is also so endearing about Sreesanth. That’s what makes him so likeable. I’ve seen him promise an interview to a young reporter on the condition that the youngster take five catches in a row during an India team practice session. The youngster missed two, Sreesanth still granted him the interview. Over breakfast, Sreesanth has spoken to me at length about his bowling, his injuries, the problems with his temperament, his family, his home in Kerala...this, as the rest of the players went off to shop on an off-day while on tour.

And even when it comes to his indiscretions on the field, beneath the nonsense, you can’t help but admit that Sreesanth is basically an overgrown kid. Which is why, you have to admit that he has been punished enough for his stupidities – Slapgate and everything else. It was time for him to come back, and it’s such a relief that he has come back on such a high note. Because, sincerely speaking, he deserves a good turn now.

Tee-time for caddy golfers

2009-11-24T17:56:00.002+05:30

(Also in M - http://www.msutras.com/)

Muniyappa’s story is proof that a golf caddy could soon be the rich man whose bag he’s carrying today and also bring India our next Olympic medal
Something quite significant took place the other day. A 33-year-old man named Chinnaswamy Muniyappa won the most important golf tournament in the country around the second week of October. Before the Indian Open started, not many outside of the Karnataka Golf Association had heard of Muniyappa. Now, he is the placed sixth in the Asian Tour Order of Merit with earnings of $ 215,516.

All of this is momentous because Muniyappa was, until recently, a caddie. You know, the man who carries the rich man-cum-recreational golfer’s heavy kitbag on his shoulders on the golf course while the big business deals are sealed? Yeah, that’s what Muniyappa was. Back in those days, he earned a rupee for an hour’s work. He is now the sixth richest golfer in Asia.

“My parents used to work at the Karnataka Golf Association,” Muniyappa says. “I never thought of playing, but watched people play. I was happy with the 1 rupee I got every hour. But the other caddies would cut branches and play in the evenings. I did too. It was fun, but with a wooden club, the ball would only go around 75 yards.”

Things started getting serious only when, at age 12 after playing with the wooden club for five years or so, Muniyappa got his first real club – a used 7-iron a KGA member parted with. All the way to the 2009 Indian Open title.

Fascinating, isn’t it? Quite the script for a 1970s Hindi blockbuster flick.

But remarkable as Muniyappa’s story is, it isn’t a first in Indian golf. Or, for that matter, in world golf.

In India, the story starts with Ali Sher. 1991. The Indian Open. The first time an Indian golfer won the title, and broke the stranglehold of the foreigners. Importantly, the little man with the big heart was also a caddie-turned-golfer. Someone who, like Muniyappa but two decades before him, also “cut branches to make wooden clubs, watched the good players play, learnt the sport and then became obsessed with it”, as Sher puts it.

Ditto with Kolkata-based caddy-turned-golf heroes Jamshed Ali (1970s), Basad Ali (1980s), and Feroze Ali and SSP Chowrasia (1990s).

The point, though, is that this isn’t all that surprising. It’s widely accepted that, like tennis markers, golf caddies are the quickest learners of their sport. They are in a prime position to pick up technical nuances because they watch decent players playing all the time. They are seeped in the game through the day, every working day. If the best of them don’t become golfers themselves, they become a Fanny Sunesson – easily the world’s most famous caddie; a woman in a man’s game. She shouldered Nick Faldo’s ‘burden’ for ten years before ‘dumping’ him for Henrik Stenson. Sunesson’s resignation letter coincided with Faldo’s decline. Faldo won four Majors while Sunesson was around, and even rehired her for a while after the split – but the magic had faded.

This brings us to a difficult question: why aren’t there more caddy golfers then? If caddies can become such super golfers, then why not have programmes where caddies can be nurtured as potential golfers, instead of a handful of caddies becoming good golfers by sheer individual hard work, perseverance and big dollops of luck?

You want to know why this needs to be done, and done desperately? It’s because we are in the process of moving away from golf being an elite sport to becoming a mass sport. It’s going to be part of the Olympic Games from 2016 in Rio de Janeiro after all. It’s not going to be a sport of the elite. It’s going to be a sport where nations compete. For the most important gold medal in the world of sport.

And you know why India must have a programme at the earliest? It’s because golf is among the few sports in the country that is not governed by a federation run by the government. Like cricket. There isn’t a politician at the helm of affairs who does nothing to improve the sport – like is the case with every single Olympic sport in the country.

Do you know how players like Digvijay Singh reacted upon hearing the news that golf will be included in the 2016 Olympics? While the rest of the golfing world was celebrating, Digvijay said, “I don’t want Suresh Kalmadi (President, Indian Olympic Association) or anyone else to look into the golfers’ future at all. There is enough mess in every other sport in the country.”

We do have Jeev Milkha Singh. As well as Jyoti Randhawa, Arjun Atwal, Shiv Kapur and Gaganjeet Bhullar. But are they good enough to bring us a medal from Rio? Good as they are, can we count on them to deliver against Tiger Woods and the rest of the top golfers of the world?

Could the answer then lie in a Professional Golf Tour of India (PGTI) nationwide programme to ‘create’ talent? Or, for that matter, ‘tap’ talent? From where? Yes, the talent pool that already exists in the form of the caddy brigade. To repeat, people who love the game, know the game and are part of the game, but not quite.

As things stand at the moment, caddies get interested in golf by being involved with the sport as a career, earning a pittance, starting to play with hand-me-down clubs from club members and occasionally, only occasionally, becoming good enough to become a pro. Clubs do help, but not in a deliberate or organised fashion. Ravi Puri, CEO of the Classic Golf Resort in Manesar, explains, “Most clubs let caddies use the facilities after the playing hours for the members are over. Imagine, you have the entire course, the driving ranges and the putting greens at your disposal. Maybe you don’t have a good kit or a coach, but you do have everything else. And then, most members will change their kits from time to time, and the old kits are handed down to the caddies.”

Doesn’t sound like a bad deal. But there’s no plan in place anywhere. There’s no target. There’s no objective. Is any of that really programmed to produce India’s next golf hero?

True, caddy tournaments have become fairly popular across the country now. Like the All India Invitational Caddies Tournament, played annually for seven years now at the Delhi Golf Club. As well as programmes for caddies, like the ones initiated by the historic Royal Calcutta Golf Club and the Tollygunge Club in Kolkata. RCGC, the second oldest golf club in the world, started a training programme for caddies around the turn of the millennium. Caddies are handed out spare balls, second-hand clubs and given basic technical training, enough to add the natural ability some of them possess anyway. Tolly Club does the same.

But isn’t that too little? And too unfocussed? Isn’t that mainly to try and be inclusive and not much more? Not to say that’s not a good thing, it is. It’s very noble. But is there a solid objective anywhere?

After Muniyappa won, a delighted Asian Tour chairman Kyi Hla Han predicted: “Muniyappa's triumph will inspire more rags-to-riches stories. Young and underprivileged Indian golfers will practice harder. He has shown that the way to success is through hard work and dedication.”

Can’t argue with that. But why not put words in Mr Han’s mouth and frame the statement this way: “Muniyappa's triumph is proof that caddy-turned-golfers can make the cut. But for that, the PGTI must put in place programmes for caddies that will help them reach the top level.”

To end, here we have a natural talent pool waiting to be tapped. If the golf clubs scattered across the country stretch their resources a wee bit, and the PGTI takes a little more interest, a rupee an hour needn’t be the only reward a caddy gets.

Time to standardise pitches?

2009-11-24T17:48:00.003+05:30

(Also on http://www.cricketakash.com/)
What makes a good Test match?

Without getting into the nuts and bolts of it, you need (a) the pitch to be batsman-friendly for the first couple of days, (b) the pitch become a spinners’ game as it wears on into the last day, (c) two or three centuries, (d) about 35-37 wickets, and (e) a result.

Simple, right?

Let’s break it down further. The first innings should last just over a day-and-a-half, the second innings should last about a day-and-a-half, the third about a day and the fourth slightly less – not counting the possibility of declarations.

What you need then is a pitch that starts out with the ball bouncing and moving around a bit – so that the pacers get a few wickets in the first hour of the first day. Then the batsmen come into play and see out the day without losing too many more wickets. On the second day, the pacers become effective only for the first half an hour. By the fourth day, the spinners start becoming effective. And on the fifth day, spin is all the works.

If you accept this as the basic template of a Test match, my suggestion might make sense to you. If you don’t accept this as the template, let’s chat some other time.

Right – my suggestion: put together a committee that standardises pitches across the world. It’s not a wholly original idea, but it’s a good time to revive it. Yes, home advantage must be there. An Indian pitch must be batsman and spin-friendly while Australian pitches must be pace friendly. But the science of making pitches must be brought into play. How can curators get away with preparing dead and daft pitches like the one in Ahmedabad? Not the first one in India in recent times.

So bring Fat Andy Atkinson back. Or get someone else to head the committee. You can’t force teams to play for draws and against losses, but the conditions must be made such that teams are forced to pull at all stops to negotiate.
Do you think crowds won’t come to the grounds if they know a result will in all probability happen? I don’t think so. I’m sure that if a result is promised, or a tough, grinding draw is promised, the crowds will be excited. But the more we make Ahmedabad happen, the more we will ensure that Test cricket dies away. Unless, of course, that’s what the IPL-obsessed cricket bosses actually want.

What’s your favourite Sachin moment?

2009-11-15T17:19:00.003+05:30

(Also in Bengali daily Ek Din)
I suppose it’s one of the Indian cricket fans’ pastimes of choice – asking each other what their favourite Sachin Tendulkar moment is. I’ve been part of a few of these...obviously!

Many instances come up almost on cue: Operation Desert Storm for one, and that look on Shane Warne’s face. Then that double hundred in Sydney where he didn’t play a single cover drive. Or when as a 16 year old he slammed Abdul Qadir for successive sixers. That last over in the Hero Cup final maybe. So many others...

Strangely, I have usually stood out when these discussions happen. Yes, each of the instances mentioned earlier are fantastic, and I will explain why I feel so slightly later in the piece. But the incident that I remember most fondly is one that many people usually don’t remember. I don’t use it to stand out or to say something that makes me appear more intelligent than others. It’s because that one incident sums up Sachin Tendulkar for me.
The incident took place in Kolkata in probably the most important Test match in India’s history. Yes, the one in 2001, when VVS Laxman, Harbhajan Singh and Rahul Dravid walked away with all the honours. This was the 51st over. Shane Warne was the batsman, facing up to Tendulkar. The match was in India’s pocket already, but here was the moment of the match. Tendulkar ambles up, pitches the ball outside the off-stump, it’s a googly! The greatest leg-spinner in the world fails to read it; he is caught plumb in front. For a duck!

And that’s Sachin Tendulkar for me.

A man who can do almost anything in the game, but wants to do a bit more. He can play every stroke in the book, but he wants to play the top-edged cut over point because Virender Sehwag can play it. He wants to play it better. He wants to play the reverse-sweep because the rest of the world is playing it. He wants to play the scoop over short fine-leg because everyone else is doing it. And while bowling, he wants to bowl six different deliveries because Shane Warne can do it.

That’s Sachin Tendulkar for me.

What about the other incidents then? Desert Storm? Sure. After all, how many others can make Shane Warne look around in awe like that?

But that’s Sachin Tendulkar.

How about Sydney 2004 – the unbeaten 241 where he didn’t play a single cover drive? That proves the ability of the man even more. Imagine Warne not being able to bowl the flipper. Or Shoaib Akhtar and Muttiah Muralitharan not being allowed to chuck. Or Brian Lara banned from using the square drive. Or Sunil Gavaskar being told he can’t play the forward defensive stroke. Imagine one of them scoring a double hundred, or picking five-six wickets.

Yes, that’s Sachin Tendulkar.

It’s one of the great privileges of watching cricket in the modern era. Possibly the greatest privilege of them all. That we watched cricket in the era when Sachin Tendulkar played. Nothing beats that. Nothing at all.

What do we do with Sarfaraz?

2009-11-07T18:40:00.003+05:30

(Also on www.cricketakash.com)

Rahul Dewan is one of my fellow columnists on this website, and being ‘on the rise’, he would probably be best-equipped to answer the questions I try to raise in this post; I’m talking about Sarfaraz Khan, the boy who scored a mammoth 439 in the Harris Shield the other day. It’s the highest score ever in Indian school cricket. And the second highest recorded score by an Indian – after Bhausaheb Nimbalkar’s 443 in the Ranji Trophy back in 1948.

Question 1: How important is the innings?
Question 2: What can we expect from Sarfaraz going forward?

At the onset, let me confess that I have no answers to either question, but can only hazard a couple of guesses.
How important is Sarfaraz’s innings? Well, a score of over 400 is always fantastic. Young Sarfaraz batted aggressively hitting 56 boundaries and 12 sixes, which is a good thing. It means that the little boy is not afraid of going over the fielders’ heads or of putting away the loose delivery. He batted for two days, resuming on just over 200 on the second day. This suggests that his focus and concentration are both good. And just the sheer number of runs confirms that he has the ability to play long innings. This is an especially a good thing in this day and age of T20 cricket.

Sarfaraz is just 12 – which means that all the faculties necessary for a good batsman are already there, and all he needs is to build on his strengths.

Now, what can we expect from Sarfaraz? This is the trickier bit. If Sachin Tendulkar is a yardstick, then we can expect loads. If Vinod Kambli is a yardstick, then we can expect a lot of unfulfilled promise. The difference between the two was ‘discipline’. Nothing else.

But there are other people we can turn to as well. Ramesh Nagdev and Sanjeev Jadhav, for example, who hit 427 and 422 in Bombay school cricket as well. We haven’t heard much about them either.

This suggests that an early spark isn’t enough to start dreaming.

This also suggests that the key to the proper development of a bright young talent is just that: proper development.

If success goes to your head, then you are most likely to become a Kambli.

If early success tells you that you will be part of the Indian team in a jiffy and you then get frustrated when reality hits you, then you are most likely to become a Nagdev or a Jadhav.

The idea should be to work hard, and try to be a Wasim Jaffer, who also scored a 400 in Bombay school cricket, has played a champion role for Bombay over the years and done moderately well in Test cricket. If, in the process, you do become a Sachin Tendulkar, be glad for it. Don’t expect it. Because chances are, it won’t happen. And planning for it will only set you back.

The kamikaze boys

2009-10-21T11:56:00.002+05:30

(Also on http://www.cricketakash.com/)
How often have you joked with your friends about different facets of Pakistan cricket? The fact that not one of them has their correct age on record. That at any given point of time, they have five to eight current and former captains in their side. That most of them have wonky actions. That you can always count on them to self-destruct – a match is never lost even from the unlikeliest of positions if you’re playing Pakistan. And vice-versa of course.
Don’t get me wrong. I love Pakistan cricket. I love the country – especially Peshawar and the chapli kebabs there. And I have some awesome friends there.
But yes, Pakistan cricket and Pakistani cricketers are an enigma. Impossibly and inscrutably so. It baffles more often than it doesn’t.
Why else would you have a Parliamentarian come out and allege that the team’s captain had fixed a match in the Champions Trophy and then backtrack thrice to eventually say he had only wanted a probe to ensure no one thinks Pakistan had fixed any matches?
Why else would you have an obviously choreographed ‘courtroom’ drama in the senate of the nation where Younis Khan walks in with his resignation letter, which is not accepted but pocketed by his boss Ejaz Butt, followed by reports that Younis is happy to take back his resignation only if he is made captain till 2011?
So here’s a story that started with the T20 world champions losing in the semi-finals of the Champions Trophy and being accused of match-fixing, and ending (temporarily) with the accused (Younis) demanding perks to take back his resignation! And being granted it.

And the intrigue all around is equally fascinating. Apparently, Shahid Afridi has been meeting Butt to try and become the ODI captain now. Afridi denies this. Butt denies this. But everyone thinks it’s true. So Younis is being sidelined? Possibly. Except that he is also on a strong enough wicket to demand the perks that he has.
But Pakistan cricket has always been like this. I mentioned earlier about the number of captains at any given time in the team. Add to that murmurs that at any given time, there are at least three factions in that team as well. One led by the current captain. The other two by people who are captaincy aspirants. Is this true? No one can say for sure, but ever since the days of Imran Khan, Zaheer Abbas and Javed Miandad, and later Wasim Akram, Inzamam-ul-Haq and Waqar Younis, people have whispered about this.
And the worst part of this story is that Pakistan cricket is on an upturn right now. That fabled factory has just given us Mohammad Aamer. The latest great spinner is out in the form of Saeed Ajmal. The team has just won the T20 World Championships. The team also looks fairly relaxed under Younis Khan, who has endeared himself to the media across the world with his innocence and earnestness.
But then, this is Pakistan cricket we are talking about…

The curious case of Sourav Ganguly

2009-10-02T12:05:00.002+05:30

(Also on www.cricketakash.com)
Isn’t it time we stopped big cricketers from treating the Ranji Trophy like it’s their personal fiefdom?
Yes, it’s true that (a) the Ranji Trophy isn’t as important as it used to be, (b) it’s not even the benchmark for domestic excellence, with the IPL a more reliable make-the-grade-for-national-selection tournament now, and (c) smaller, less starry teams are happy to get their grubby hands on as many stars as they can.
But, let’s take the case of Sourav Ganguly. He (a) is not an international cricketer anymore, (b) spends more time trying to become a Cricket Association of Bengal administrator, (c) spends the rest of his time hosting game shows, and (d) is trying to end his career with one last splash in the third season of the IPL. And, frankly, he doesn’t give a fig about the Bengal Ranji team.
Despite all that, to the people of Bengal and the Bengal cricket team, he is the one-man selling point – the biggest name the cricket-crazy state has ever produced. If you could read Bengali, you’d know that the press there hasn’t covered the Indian team for the past decade-plus, they have covered their Dada; a Tendulkar century is usually relegated to second place when Dada makes a double-digit score. Which is why, he can avoid playing in the Ranji Trophy for years, but find a place at his preferred batting slot when Greg Chappell chucks him out of the team and he wants to make a comeback. Or now, when he is clearly not in any kind of shape or match practice, he is able to get into the team to prepare himself for the IPL.
I don’t mean to single out Ganguly here; he is just a case in point. Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Virender Sehwag, Zaheer Khan – all of them are in on the Ranji game too. Their state teams are mere net practice options.
Their one-point excuse: they never have time to play with their state teams when representing India. Alright, but why not practice with the boys the rest of the time? At least, then you are, at some level, a part of the set-up.
Is that what state-level cricket is about? Shouldn’t there be some sort of selection criterion even for big stars when it comes to the Ranji Trophy?
So let’s assume that a senior cricketer who has just been dropped from the Indian team or been left out because of injury is good enough for the state team. That’s fine. But let’s return to Ganguly. On form, he shouldn’t be part of any of the IPL teams. He is not a ‘player’ anymore and has probably not hit the nets in ages now (it shows around his mid-section too). He retired from international cricket because he was spent. At this stage, what makes him good enough to play for Bengal?
And worse, what makes him good enough to come out and say “I’ll play the Ranji Trophy to get in shape for the IPL” without the Bengal selectors even having a think about the option?
Fiefdoms, anyone?

Not the ‘Test’ case scenario

2009-10-02T12:00:00.005+05:30

(also on www.cricketakash.com)
Must senior Indian cricketers lie every time they are asked about their preferred format of the game? Ask Harbhajan Singh or Sachin Tendulkar or Robin Uthappa or Yuvraj Singh and chances are that you’ll get a glib “Test cricket is the real thing” answer. Did I say ‘chances are’? Do a quick Google; it is the answer.
But that’s a lie, isn’t it? And what makes the lie worse is that it’s needless.
What stops a Man in Blue from admitting that Twenty20 cricket is the flavour of the season and possibly the flavour of the future too? It is, isn’t it? It is, and as long as the BCCI remains in charge of world cricket, it’s not about to change. Is that a bad thing? That’s hard to tell, and in this context, it doesn’t matter.
I’ll make my biases clear. I’d take a good, hard Test match played in England or Australia than anything else. But even I’d say that no one actually watch entire Test matches anymore. Heck, we don’t even watch international cricket unless India is playing and doing well. (Happily, I have to – to stay on top of my job.) We watch Twenty20 cricket with more enthusiasm; and the IPL has been a complete blockbuster.
Now tell me; if Test cricket and the whole ‘purity’ thing is what keeps these cricketers going, then what’s stopping them from approaching the BCCI and telling them “look boss, we’re happy to play T20s and earn you money, but we want to play more Test cricket – let us”. You think that if a Tendulkar or a Harbhajan or a Yuvraj seriously wanted to plead the ‘Test case’, they wouldn’t have? Truth is, they are happy to play three hours of cricket and earn many times more money. They don’t want to put their worn-out bodies through 30 hours of cricket.
And here’s the thing: there’s nothing wrong with it. Cricketers are out there to earn a living for themselves. They don’t have to pretend to be good chips off the old block. They can come out and say openly “scrap Tests, we’re not interested”. The BCCI will be happy to oblige. Spectators – the majority of them at least – will be thrilled. Cricketers have short careers as compared to the ‘retire at 60’ gigs we have; no one grudges them the money they earn.
So why can’t they come clean? Like a Kiwi or Aussie or Caribbean cricketer can?
Public image? Possibly. The image marketing chappie can’t do it all by himself.

Derby ho to aisa!

2009-09-20T20:39:00.007+05:30

September 20, 2009
Saw an entire football match after a very long time – the Manchester Derby.
Part of the reason for watching it was the quick glance through the sports pages in the newspapers, where the scoresheet says that almost every single Premiership game this season has seen around three goals being scored. Wow! Part of the reason was that I am quite certain City will take the Premiership title this time – yeah, I know, but I am quite certain. Yeah, I’m with you Colin Shindler!Of course, the Derby took place soon after Lionel Messi scored two in a 5-2 demolition of Atletico Madrid, but still…thought I’d catch the derby nevertheless. And at the end of it, here are some quick, and very random, thoughts:

1. City can’t do much despite their great strike force with this sort of defending. The United attack isn’t spectacular, and though Giggs had one of his greatest days in recent, or otherwise, memory, Given had it too tough because of the twerps in the defence. Real Madrid had the best attackers in the world playing together, but couldn’t do much – you can’t always outscore opponents; there’s a reason football is played the way it is.
- First goal: no one going in for the final tackle on Rooney
- Second goal: no one marking Fletcher
- Third goal: no one marking Fletcher again
- Fourth goal: yes, it was way past the end-time, but why was no one marking Owen
- The number of times Berbatov got free headers was also ridiculous
2. It’s very simple; Toure can’t, repeat can’t, be the team’s number one defender. He’s best as a support act, but definitely not as the prime defender.

3. Still talking about City, and I don’t think Tevez is up there yet –Adebayor has to be part of the starting line-up at all times, and with Bellamy in the kind of touch he was in today, man, what a strike pairing!
4. From United’s part, and this is aside of the usual dollop of cheating that they have survived on for decades now, I don’t think the team has that zing about it. I don’t see Giggs playing like this everyday, though I’ll bet my last rupee that he will keep trying to. I also don’t think Owen will be a regular solution, simply because I don’t see him playing more than 20 minutes at any stage.
I also don’t think you can count on Fletcher to pull you back like this too often – he is just not good enough, even if he plays with his heart on his sleeve. And I certainly think that Anderson is among the worst players to have worn the United strip ever. What United is missing is that one spark. The sort that Rooney is providing off and on. The sort that Giggs provided every minute of the second half today. The sort that Ronaldo used to provide. Or Beckham.
At the end of it, while I do believe City have it in them to pull off a Premiership win this season – I seriously do – I think this whole we’ll-score-more-than-them philosophy has to change. Fast. Else, those billions won’t add up to much.

Freddie the freelancer!

2009-09-19T18:22:00.003+05:30

September 19, 2009

So now Andrew Flintoff is going to be a freelance cricketer, eh?

Oh my god! How can that be? How can a cricketer play for multiple teams? It’s unheard of in international sport!

Oh well, that it is. In team sport, especially. Imagine a Cristiano Ronaldo playing a couple of weeks for Real Madrid, then with Manchester United, and then, another couple of weeks depending on which part of the world his girlfriend wants to holiday in. Nope, not done!

Except that this is cricket we are talking about. And that makes this completely unprecedented plan on Freddie’s part quite acceptable. Really!

No other major team sport involves such massive country representation to start with.

Football – no. Hockey – no. Baseball – no. Rugby – no. Basketball – no. Volleyball – no. What other team sports are there? All these are primarily club sports; with players getting together to play for their countries once every six months or so. If you are a big footballer for a major team, chances are you will not be forced to play all these matches either – only the really important ones.

And that’s why cricket, and cricketers, should be looked at slightly differently.

Once a regular with his national team, an average cricketer spends almost 90 percent of the time representing his country. This would be closer to 100 percent in the pre-IPL era. That’s quite ridiculous.

Now, the fact that the future of world cricket is Franchisee Cricket or Club Cricket is no secret. That’s the direction the sport is headed in. If that means no more cricketers with 100-plus Test matches and 10,000-plus runs, so be it. Truth is, if cricket needs to exist as a global sport (which it has been attempting to for a long time now), it must go the club way.

It must allow the Didier Drogbas and the George Weahs and the Landon Donovans and, even, the Bhaichung Bhutias to play with the best in the world even if Ivory Coast and Liberia and USA and India are not good enough as teams. It must.

It must have Test championships and ODI championships and T20 championships. Between countries. But it must identify one format – most likely the T20 format – that will be played among clubs around the year. There must be an Indian Premier League. As there should be an Australian Premier League and an English Premier League and a West Indian Premier League. And there should be the Champions League.

Which brings us to the Flintoff question. The Freelance Cricketer. Is it acceptable? Your take on this is as good as mine, but I do want to say this: as long as cricket doesn’t operate the football way and forces cricketers to make themselves available round the year to satisfy calendar commitments, more and more big players like Flintoff will take the freelance route. If Flintoff is allowed to operate as a freelancer, every single West Indian cricketer – Chris Gayle downwards – will take the same route. And no one will have a legal or legitimate ground to stop them.

And no one should stop them anyway.

September 12, 2009

2009-09-12T18:23:00.004+05:30

NOTE:
Off the daily work grind for a while; not sure how long the peace will last and I'll have to get back to earning a bit of money...but thought I'd make use of the lull in the interim to 'restart' my blog, make it a more sports-heavy kind of set-up, be more regular with updates. Write the sort of stuff no one will let me to write for them; stuff that probably doesn't matter. Nevertheless...

India No 1
It's interesting that after launching a full-fledged Rooting For India campaign while at Headlines Today, the team becomes number one in the world at the end of the first match they play after I quit. Mission World Domination, we called it, as the Indians did almost everything right in the one-day format through the lead-up to the big breakthrough.
It's not going to be forever, but I think it's a great big deal. And it's the big story in a situation which is quite similar to what was happening around 2007. Indians doing well in various international sporting events - from the point of view of cricket, the T20 World Cup was won and some good Test wins were happening.

Right now, there's the Paes-Bhupathi face-off in the US Open men's doubles final. Between them, they have 21 Grand Slam titles - this will be the 22nd, one way or the other. Vijender Singh did extremely well at the World Championships, though some of the other boxers who could have done well fell by the wayside. Force India is doing well, finally, even though the team has (a) very little to do with India and (b) very little to do with sport (but that's another topic). Saina Nehwal is up and about and almost there... And MC Marykom is hard at work trying to make sure she remains the number one come the next Olympic Games (pity Beijing 2008 didn't include women's boxing, it should have been there).

But coming back to the Indian team, there's a little niggling thing that continues to bug me, even though we are officially the best team in the world in ODIs and should win the Lanka tri-series. And that's because we have played little or no cricket against South Africa or Australia recently. Nor against England in England. Ever since the team got on their winning run, we have been in the subcontinent, away at a very under-par New Zealand team, etc. And that worries me. It tells me that there's a very good chance our high won't last. Of course, who's to say we wouldn't have beaten South Africa - we could have. But the odds are iffy.
There are serious problems with our batting order - Sehwag is iffy, Gambhir has been iffy recently and is now injured, Raina is too inconsistent, Dravid may or may not be a long-term solution, Dhoni is not the big-hitter he was, Yusuf is not good enough beyond a five-over spell. Tendulkar - yes. Yuvraj - yes. But is that good enough? Ditto with the bowling. Zaheer, Nehra, Ishant and Harbhajan at their best is a potent combo; but they are not at their best most often.

And that tells me that the bubble might burst sooner than we think it will. As early as in the Champions Trophy later this month...

Ashes to Ashes, Test to Dust!

2009-07-27T21:45:00.001+05:30

I think it's over.
There's no hope for Test cricket anymore. Much as purists like us make our case for Test cricket, it doesn't look like it will work.
Geoffrey Boycott, that great champion of everything five-day long, says: "We need to get those booms (bums) to fill the seats at Test matches. But it's not happening except in Australia and England." And even there it's a stretch. Depends massively on the opposition.
Sunil Gavaskar, a member of every committee the BCCI runs, admits: "Young cricketers are taking the wrong path by thinking IPL is the be-all and end-all in cricket."
And that's the truth.
West Indian cricketers might just have started a trend. Prior to that, players like Shane Bond and others had chosen the Indian Cricket League over their nations. Now, Andrew Flintoff has furthered it. In countries outside India (and that's a very limited number anyway), players do not get paid enough; they do in the IPL and similar tournaments. So why not bowl four overs instead of 50? Or even 10 in ODIs? Or bat for an hour instead of many hours? That too, for less money?
And that's only from the players' point of view. What about those 'booms'?
The old argument: If they get more entertainment in three hours, why bother with 30 not-so-entertaining hours, which might not end in a result?
Now, if we accept that T20 is the writing on the wall, is there any point, really, in persisting with Test cricket? Personally, I don't think so. Yes, I am a purist. I like nothing better than a good Ashes fight or a gripping fifth day, which sees the batting side battle out a draw. But not everyone does. And truth is, only a fraction of the Test matches actually end in such super finishes.
This suggests to me, that T20 should become the only form of the game. Yes, I won't like it. But is there a choice?
Compare it to a sport like football, still the most popular sport in the world. You don't have 50-minuters and 90-minuters and 150-minuters, do you? 90 minutes. Maybe another 30. That's it. One format. One sport. The optimum in terms of entertainment.
That has to be cricket's future if it has to survive.
Throw in multi-nation tournaments - a World Cup. The IPL, and IPL-like tournaments around the world. Because really, kids are not being trained to play their cover drives when they get a half-volley; they train in switch hitting; the ball goes to the third-man boundary instead of cover.
And that's the reality.

GRAND SHAM - Our loss, Federer's gain!

2009-06-10T12:06:00.002+05:30

Roger Federer is the best men's tennis player ever. There's absolutely no doubt about that anymore.
14 Grand Slam titles place him at par with Pete Sampras at the top of the pile; but Sampras never won the French Open.

A career Grand Slam places him at par with Fred Perry, Rod Laver, Don Budge, Ross Emerson and Andre Agassi; but none of them won 14 Grand Slams.

No question anymore then. Nor, for the fact that no one - not even Sampras at his peak - dominated the sport the way Federer has.

And that's sad. Because I just can't bring myself to accepting this.

When Sampras was at his best, some of us losers preferred Agassi. When Ivan Lendl and Mats Wilander were winning everything, we waited for Wimbledon to watch Boris Becker or Stefan Edberg win; and prayed that they did something worthwhile at the US Open or the Australian Open. They seldom did.

Once they became the best in the world, a sequence of One Slam Wonders crawled out of the woodwork to spoil their chances.

The logic behind the preference was simple - rage against the machine! You can celebrate more often by rooting for the Schumis and Federers of the world, but is it really any fun? Is it really fun watching a player who makes almost zero errors and is almost like an assembly line-produced Mercedes?

I still don't think so.

Which is why I am so, so irritated with Rafael Nadal. Who asked him to work so hard at Wimbledon and at the US and at the Australian to get tired at the French? This is where Federer had to be beaten. Forever. Kept away. Kept out. Denied.

It's so very unfair that Nadal had to lose at the French and not elsewhere? Federer's the best machine we have ever had, and it would have been fine if he had gone out to win some 20 Grand Slams but not the French. It would have been fine. He would have still been the most successful player ever, but not the greatest.

What happens now though? He's won it all. The history books won't remember the fact that Nadal wasn't around for Federer to beat at the French Open in 2009. No one remembers these things. Like no one will ever say that Schumacher was as good as he was only because no one managed to make a better car than Ferrari. Or that Sunil Gavaskar's 13 Test centuries DID NOT come against the deadly West Indies pace attack - most of them were in India, or against a pace attack depleted because of World Series Cricket.

No one remembers. And that's so unfair. And that's what Nadal should have remembered.
For now though, the 'crying shame' will rule.

Post Script:

An article in a leading English daily titled "She's famous and in love - how hard is it?" starts with the following lines: "What pointers can tennis player Sania Mirza take from pop icon Madonna, British actress Liz Hurley and Bollywood star Karisma Kapoor? As she starts to wed a relatively unknown businessman, Mirza can learn from the turmoil others have faced in their relationships because they are famous and famously women."

Lots of bad English, but that's beside the point. The point being that Sania doesn't need to take any pointers from any of these people. Truth is, Sania isn't worth much anymore. She's yesterday's news. She made news when she forehanded her way to the Top 30 in the world. But the fall was quicker, harder and more expected than anything else. Yes, she now has a Grand Slam title to her name, but even the girl herself knows it's Mahesh Bhupathi who won it for her. You seriously think Sania has to worry about tabloids dogging her every move? Nope - not a chance.

Welcome to 'Grand Sham'

2009-05-28T20:37:00.004+05:30

Well, that's the name of a blog I've had to start on the channel's new website. Writing on sports. Very random. But if nothing else, it exists. And forces me to write, for whatever it's worth.

This is the first one:
The second:
The third:
And the fourth, at the end of 'what a night' in Rome:

What a wonderful world!
It was in 1964 that Muhammad Ali said about Sonny Liston: "He's so ugly, when he cries the tears run down the back of his head." Gorgeous Ali later called Joe Frazier ahead of the Thrilla In Manila in 1975, "an ugly dumb gorilla, an inarticulate physical specimen devoid of any intelligence". Ali believed a world champion must be good-looking. It's a pre-requisite.

Many years later, in 1993, Andre Agassi said about Pete Sampras, "Nobody should be ranked No.1 who looks like he just swung from a tree." Evidently, Agassi and Ali are in agreement about their perception of world champions.

Ummm…so am I. I like a good-looking champion. Give me Yelena Isinbayeva any day.

Which makes Barcelona the greatest possible champion of Europe. It would only have been fair if Argentina had won the last World Cup, but Barcelona's win over Manchester United makes the world just that bit fairer.

I won't say that United is an ugly side. Not like Chelsea or Arsenal. Or Liverpool when Xabi or Gerrard don't get going. But they are a bit like a predictable piece of art. You know who can do what. You know Ronaldo can do a, b and c. Rooney can do b, d and e. Tevez can do e and f. Berbatov can do c and f. And so on. None of them can actually surprise you. Not one of them.
Giggs could. But that was on another day. A day a long time ago. When the body could do what the mind asked of it.

Scholes could. Again, another time. Beckham could. But that's another story altogether.

But Anderson can't. Carrick can't. They are just not good enough. Not against clubs outside of the lot in the Premiership.

But Barcelona can.

Over 30 passes in the opposition half in just over a minute. Over 30 passes. In the opposition half. Over a minute. That's possession. That's arrogance. That's making the opposition feel like idiots. That's telling the opposition that they aren't good enough. Most of the passes first touches. Almost all of them actually.

Andres Iniesta. He just doesn't let go of the ball, does he? Unless you bring him down, you don't get the ball. Xavi Hernandez. He's the best David Beckham going around at the moment. One, the cross that found Messi's head. Two, the freekick that got the post. Three, everything else he sent in. Stats say he got 90 per cent of his deliveries on target.

Lionel Messi.

Together, the five of them - Messi, Henry, Eto'O, Xavi and Iniesta - are like five brushstrokes on a huge canvas. Flowing. Moving in graceful arcs from one end to the other. The ball almost an extension of their feet.

Football doesn't get better than this. It doesn't get more beautiful than this. Unless you find a Messi-Rodriquez-Mascherano-Tevez- Riquelme combine on a good day.

In any case, football of this level of beauty doesn't happen in England. It never did. Never did. And never will.

Beauty.

If Ali or Agassi had been football freaks, they would have been thrilled with the pecking order in Europe right now.

Shakti Samanta - he was fun, wasn't he?

2009-04-11T09:53:00.010+05:30

He was the original Masala Man. Fantastic music. Random locations. The usual good-bad-ugly characters. Smart picks for heroes and heroines.

Masala Man: check out the two Howrah Bridge posters - my call is that Shakti-da picked the first one, and the rest of the people involved forced the second one on him.

Exhibit one:

Exhibit two:
Smart picks for heroes and heroines - picking Rajesh Khanna has to be his biggest contribution to mainstream Hindi cinema.
Ajitha and I were watching Kashmir Ki Kali just a few days back. Amazingly random. It's fascinating how you forget how random some of these films actually are...till you see them again.

Oh well, the good Bengali man was fun while he lasted. They just don't make entertainers like him anymore.

Delhi sucks…

2009-02-23T20:42:00.002+05:30

...the movie that is.
- You had actors like Om Puri, Supriya Pathak, Atul Kulkarni, Pavan Malhotra, KK Raina, Divya Dutta, et al, apart from a collection of other competent actors – they were all wasted
- You had AR Rahman doing the music, with Sukhwinder Singh singing the main song – the song became popular; and a couple of other songs were also fairly good; but these would have gone better in a better film
- You had the entire Chandni Chowk, Delhi 6 area as your location (even if these were sets) – they were good only for the NRI lot; wasted otherwise

Delhi-6 is a bad, bad movie. Terrible. All you remember at the end is something called the Kala Bandar. So there’s a Kala Bandar, and then there is a family feud, and then there is the whole Hindu-Muslim crisis (inflammable, ready to seep through at the hint of an opportunity), there’s the do-gooder from America, there’s an Indian Idol aspirant, her submissive sister, two very irritating kids…. In another film, it could have worked. In Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s Delhi 6, it flops miserably.
Honestly, the only things you come back with are (a) a couple of nice tracks, (b) the locations, (c) a really beautiful dove called Masakali – none of which you would want to remember for very long.
And if there’s one thing that stays with you beyond that, it’s the use of the Ramleela motifs to link the story. Credit not to Mehra but to Raghuvir Yadav, who apparently conceptualised the whole thing and worked on the words, and the art director, who put it all together.

A real hero...

2009-02-23T20:30:00.002+05:30

My friend Arijit Sen's story on a most fascinating woman and her stellar work in Kohima - find here...

Assam-Meghalaya-Bhutan

2009-02-23T07:34:00.030+05:30

The original plan was to go to Arunachal Pradesh. Didn't work out. But with the North-East definitely on the agenda, and close friend Arijit Sen promising the use of his house in Guwahati as the base, we put together a nine-day trip that seemed packed enough to be about three weeks long. Another close friend - Rajarshi Datta - travelled with us; and no, none of the stops were cursory; we did a fair bit at each place.

Guwahati
Nothing spectacular about Guwahati as such, except for a couple of nice walks and drives around the hilly parts of town - the Second War Memorial was nice and tranquil though. There's a separate section for members of the Chinese Army; a separate section for Indian members of the Queen's forces, etc. The place is kind of out of the way, and it turned out that most locals also don't know of its existence. Apart from that, it's mostly a normal Indian big town/small city with the advantage that the hilly terrain offers.
And of course, food at the Delicacy - pork with banana flower (mocha) - fantastic!

Umananda
Essentially a temple island just off Guwahati; importantly, you take a ferry across the Brahmaputra to get to Umananda, and that's what makes it special. The Brahmaputra itself is dry right now with expansive char-lands; and it's starting to get dirty around here as it enters the plains. But the sunset on the Brahmaputra is quite something.
That aside, the Umananda area is home to the endangered Golden Langoors, and there's quite a sprinkling of the beautiful creatures; happy to pose for cameras, happy to eat of the palms of human beings, not prone to attacking or creating a fuss.
Kamakhya
On the Nilachal Hills off Guwahati, the 16th century Shakti temple is unique in that this is where Sati's yoni fell after Shiva danced with her corpse; the yoni itself is worshipped here; deep inside the sanctum sanctorum, which doesn't have an idol, but a natural underground stream.

Shillong
Some of us had been Shillong before, but none of us had stayed at the beautiful colonial Pinewood Hotel either. It wasn't going to be one of the backpacking, trekking trips anyway, so why not a good hotel? And actually, the hotel was one of the highlights of the hill station, apart from the beautiful early morning walks around the winding roads. And food at the Centre Point restaurant.

And though most of the waterfalls around the area are dry at this time of the year, the Elephant Falls were up and running - not sprinting, but running a fair mile nevertheless.
And while at it, we went the whole touristy hog - playing king and queen of Meghalaya at this tourist hotspot (forgotten the name of the place).
Cherapunji
Everyone knows about Cherapunji - wonder how many people actually make the trip to what was the wettest place on earth. And there's a good chance we wouldn't have gone if it had continued to be the wettest place on earth. Massive deforestation means that we have murdered the place and it's been going through a dry spell for years now. So you see a dry mountainside, which used to be a massive waterfall. You see lakes that cattle now graze on. You get the picture.
(L to R) Rajarshi, Arijit and Ajitha at the natural caves in Cherapunji; once upon a time, these used to be filled with water throughout the year; you get a sense of it from the stalactites and stalagmites with their smooth surfaces.

Barapani
There is the very picturesque Barapani area though, with flowing water and a stunning sunset on the way back from Cherapunji-Shillong.
Manas National Park
But the best part of the trip was saved for later - at the formidable Manas National Park, where we went for night patrols and various other sighting trips through the day. The 64 tigers at the Park proved elusive, but we spotted a fair number of water buffaloes, bisons, elephants, sambars, barking deer, peacocks, etc...
During the night patrol - we went out on both the nights that we were at Manas. On the first night, we had a flat tyre deep within the forest and were told the next morning that a tiger had been spotted at the same area a while after we left, which may or may not be true. What is true is that Manas currently houses 64 Royal Bengal Tigers and a fair few of them do exist in the area were patrolling in. The patrol itself was thrilling; with a torch, a spotlight, the magic of being able to spot deer, buffaloes, etc while on the move...the forest completely dense, the trees providing strange, scary shapes.
Water buffaloes getting out of the Beki river on to the char-lands towards the Bhutan side of the Manas National Park.
A sambar - dime a dozen around these parts; not scared of people, quite curious when it comes to curious tourists. But difficult to photograph as they are brilliantly camouflaged at all times.
And peacocks...

Panbang-Galabi, Bhutan
The Bhutan border is just 300 metres from where we were staying inside the Manas National Park - you don't need a passport anyway, so we drove into Bhutan from Manas. It's 13 kilometres from the border checkpost to Panbang, a further 3 kilometres to Galabi, both completely unspoilt, un-touristy parts of Bhutan. Villages essentially. With a handful of families and hamlets. A wonderful footbridge that goes over the river. A couple of shops that sell local liquor, cooked maggi, oranges, etc.
Pabitora Wildlife Sanctuary
The last stop on the whirlwind trip. Pabitora is a small wildlife sanctuary, but is important as the densest population of the one-horned rhinoceros. They say you can spot a big rhino every few minutes and that's exactly what happened. We saw sleeping rhinos, crapping rhinos, brave rhinos, cowardly rhinos, eating rhinos - the works. And also spotted a fair few migratory birds, a staple feature around these parts at this time of the year.

Now I’m scared…really scared

2008-12-04T22:51:00.003+05:30

It was all right as long as India was mourning the dead, expressing anger, criticising the politicians and generally being outraged at the Mumbai terror attacks. But now things are getting dangerous. Most Indians seem to want India to attack Pakistan and wipe out the country. Most Indians seem to be coming around to George W Bush’s philosophy. Most Indians seem to be intent on wiping out terrorism by wiping out Pakistan.

The same Indians who were celebrating Obama’s win a couple of weeks ago; happy that Bush and his policies were out.

I hope like hell the warmongers in India don’t become a majority.

I hope like hell we are not planning to let Narendra Modi become the next Prime Minister.

I hope like hell the youngsters in the country don’t seriously think war is the answer.

I hope like hell the majority of the nation doesn’t answer an SMS poll saying India should nuke Pakistan.

I hope like hell the youngsters around us – and the minuscule number of people who read my blog – stop for a moment and read the excerpts from headline stories I am pasting below this (all from 2008).

These are just from a three-minute Google search – an hour would have provided more.

JAMMU & KASHMIR - NOVEMBER 22, 2008
Official figures released by the Indian government
The nearly two-decade-old anti-India campaign in occupied Kashmir has left 47,000 people dead, more than 20,000 of them civilians, according to official figures released on Friday. The figure did not include those labelled as having “disappeared” in the region since unrest began in 1989 and a prominent human rights group said the real toll was certainly far higher.

ANDHRA PRADESH
August 10, 2008: Incessant rain and flood killed over 150 people; more than 1500 people lost their homes and livelihood.

More than 30 farmers have committed suicide in Andhra Pradesh every single month in 2008.

ASSAM (till 30th October 2008)
140 people have been killed in blasts and shootouts this year in the state – the unofficial figures put this number at over 500.

October 30: A series of bomb attacks through Assam killed 74 people and wounded over 300; the government pointed fingers at the ULFA.

THE KOSI FLOODS
Over 300 people died and more than 2 lakh people were rendered homeless in the floods - you couldn't have forgotten this; it was a couple of months ago.

JAIPUR
The blasts in Jaipur (13th May) killed 60, injured 150 (official figures).

Floods, rains, droughts, famines kill over 5,000 people in India every year (a very conservative estimate picked up from a random website). Blasts, shootings kill over 2,000 people every year (according to government estimates; again picked up from a random website).

Remember this before you go to war against Pakistan. Just do a Google for photos of Afghanistan and Iraq before signing that petition.

Mumbai – random thoughts

2008-11-29T10:45:00.002+05:30

Is it just me, or are we all starting to accept the American point of view that took shape in the aftermath of 9/11? George W Bush is a bastard. That shouldn’t change. What he did to Afghanistan and Iraq is unacceptable, unpardonable. That opinion shouldn’t change. But after the 60-hour terror war in Mumbai, a lot of people seem to be agreeing with Bush and America.

I caught myself saying a couple of times over the past 30-odd hours that our government is completely impotent, and we should remember how America ensured there was nothing in the US after 9/11. I heard a celebrated Mumbaikar on TV celebrating the Homeland Security appointment immediately after 9/11. I heard people – ordinarily acceptably intelligent – saying that the way to go about stamping out terror is the way America played their hand. I once even heard myself saying that a non-Congress government would have come down much harder on terrorism than this government has.

That’s true. The country, at the moment, doesn’t have a Prime Minister. What we have is a caricature. The sort that we use in C-grade satires. In fact, I would go far as to wager that Dr Manmohan Singh doesn't really exist anymore. What we see of him on our TV screens is actually a speech that the Congress party recorded at some stage - listen to him after every single terror incident. The words are identical.

We have a Home Minister who is at once an idiot and a bastard.

We have put no systems in place in the 15-odd years that we have had to deal with terror. The government evidently doesn’t care. Or, in their politically-educated minds, they know that we won’t hold it against them till the next incident takes place. Not the incidents in Guwahati or Imphal – those don’t matter to us talkers and protestors; specifically the ones in Delhi or Bombay, because those are the only ones that are real terrorist attacks.

Anyway, gone a bit off-topic there…the point I want to make is that nothing in the world should make us go the American way. Yes, they secured their borders and so must we. But we should find an Indian way of doing it. Placing Narendra Modi in the hot seat is not the way to go about it. There must be another way. A simpler way. A more acceptable way.

-----xxxxx-----

At some level, nothing affected me more than the visuals of the Taj Mahal hotel in flames. Of course, the builders of the hotel deserve a 21-gun salute for putting together what appears to be a fortress in many ways. 50-odd grenades, firing, fire…the façade remains absolutely unaffected – of course, the priceless paintings, photographs, carpets, etc inside must all be gone by now.

I remember staying there – only once – when the Indian cricket team was staying there prior to their departure for the 2007 cricket World Cup. Okay, yeah, I stayed in the new wing, but I took a tour of the entire Heritage Wing of the hotel, and I think I have mentioned all the Taj stories to Ajitha a hundred times, practically reliving every moment of it each time. [When friends from, say abroad, ask me about the Taj Mahal in Agra, it usually takes me 40 seconds to say all that I want to say.]

Maybe Ratan Tata will be able to take it back somewhere. I’m not pseudo-sentimental enough to say I will never go back to the Taj Mahal hotel. Of course I will. But I’ll wait for them to take it back at least halfway to what it was.

That picture of John Lennon, I’m sure, won’t be there anymore…

-----xxxxx-----

Leopold - heck, where am I going to have that Chilli Beef now?

-----xxxxx-----

I’m a TV journalist – scum of the earth. Over the past couple of days, we have received numerous emails and calls from viewers lambasting us for beaming live visuals of the security operations, which many commentators – some of them fairly educated – have called irresponsible journalism. Yes, channels possibly beamed them because they made for riveting TV. Channels also beamed them, simply, because these visuals formed part of the overall coverage. But can anyone tell me why the cable and mobile phone connections to the three major battlefronts were not cut off?

And can anyone convince me that the 20-odd terrorists who laid siege on Mumbai with such meticulous planning actually had LIVE TV COVERAGE listed as one of the things that would help them carry out their plans? They didn’t. MARCOS told us that the terrorists had inch-by-inch knowledge about the layout of the Taj Mahal hotel. TV didn’t tell them that. They knew where they were. They knew where the security forces were. They knew what they were doing. They didn’t need live TV to tell them any of that.

I'm too old to rock 'n' roll...

2008-10-29T13:10:00.003+05:30

Colleague of mine got this from her cousin - the last part of the mail has been left out because it was all personal. This part is being reproduced (with permission) as is, for your entertainment (if you can decipher it):

need to ask u sm stuff bout mba..
dis yr d cat exam is on 16th nov.
toh all d forms etc of various colgs hv come out.
m filling the folloeing exam forms..
1. CAT (16th nov)
2. TISS (14th dec)
3. JMET (mba in iit's) - (14th dec)
4. SNAP (21 dec)
5. NMAT (28th dec)
6. IIFT (23 nov)
7. MAT (07 dec)
8. XAT (04 jan)
phew!!!!!!!
apart frm dese il fill 1 or 2 more.. i mite fill FMS .. bt m nt sure..
aacha ub d thng is i want my mastrs in mktg.
or HR so various colleges under xat n cat hv come out wth dere forms..
bhaiya how is "UBS - PU CHD"
ub i toh hv v less idea about ubs .. n dts y i really need ur help regarding what all forms to fill n wt not...
n under CAT i hv filled d following colg forms..
1. FORE
2. MDI... MBA (INTERNATIONAL MANAGEMENT 'IM' )
n under XAT only XLRI till now...

Quick Diwali rant

2008-10-29T09:11:00.002+05:30

All day! All bloody day!

Stuff like this (put up unedited, despite it killing me to let them pass as is):

Exhibit One:
3 people were asking ur mobile no. I didnt giv ur no. But I gave them ur home address. They r coming to ur home 2day, they r: SUKH, SHANTI and SAMRIDDHI pls welcome them as I requested them 2 stay wid u 4ever! Have a nice festival week and very happy Diwali!

Exhibit Two:
Sun glows 4 a day, Candle 4 an hour, Matchstick 4 a minute, But a wish can glow day 4ever, So here is my wish for glowing DIWALI, glowing life.

Whatever happened to good old Happy Diwali? Or that old grunt?

Online petition for Soumya

2008-10-03T16:11:00.002+05:30

http://www.petitiononline.com/soumyav/petition.html

A plea to everyone...

2008-10-01T21:34:00.005+05:30

FROM HEADLINES TODAY

Our dear colleague Soumya Viswanathan was murdered in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
It is a terribly tragic moment for every one of us.
Once we get over the grief, it's important to get to the bottom of this dastardly act. Who did it? And why?
To this end, we would like to launch a campaign "Justice for Soumya". There will be a signature campaign and a resolution will be passed, both of which will be petitioned to the Home Minister of India.
We urge each member of the Press Club of India and of the Indian Women's Press Corps to join this campaign of ours. The details are mentioned below.
Date: 4October 2008
Venue: Press Club of India
Time: 1 PM

Soumya Viswanathan

It's been almost two days now since Soumya was murdered. The dust has settled. The rounds of the hospitals and mortuaries, the police interrogations...visits to her house...all that's done for the moment. We've all had time to get over what was a shattering experience.

But none of us - believe me, none of us here in office (forget at Soumya's house) have managed to get over anything. It's still the most shattering experience we have ever had. And I am talking about a group of seasoned journalists who have covered and lived with some of the worst experiences any human being can encounter. I am talking about people who have - like every one of you - experienced personal losses. Big ones. Serious ones. Trust me when I say that none of us have been as shattered ever before.

We tend to say this about everyone we lose, but believe me when I say that Soumya was probably the only all-good person we ever knew. A bit boring, isn't it? To be so good? Maybe. But that can't count against you. It didn't count against Soumya either.

Four years ago (almost), Soumya and I started work at Headlines Today on the same day. She had been told (or warned) about me by the venerable Arijit Sen, colleagues at The Pioneer before she came to Headlines Today and he went off to become an ace north-east correspondent for CNN-IBN. Can't say Soumya and I became huge friends immediately, but I can tell you that within a month or so, Soumya was the most popular person in office. Without a doubt.

And that's because she was the person she was.

As journalists, we cover deaths, we thrust our mikes up people's faces, forever trying to get the story we want, never bothering about the sentiments of the person concerned. Today, for the first time, we are all that person. One of us is the story. The headline has come home to roost. Random theories are floating around. Random insinuations are being thrown around. Like we all did when the Aarushi story happened. We asked each other if the 15-year-old girl was actually sleeping with her domestic help. We asked each other if the little girl was sleeping with her father. We said whatever we felt like about Aarushi, because beyong the obvious point, we didn't care. We still don't. Like you, possibly, don't care about Soumya. And you can't be blamed. Because we were not blamed then.

Anyway, to cut short what could become an interminally long ramble, Soumya's murder needs to be avenged. There's nothing else we can do. For the moment, we are just sitting here doing nothing, writing things that don't really mean anything, feeling completely impotent. But if we can help the police bring Soumya's killer to book, we would have done the only thing we can realistically do.

It would help if you can help. Join in the campaign. If you're a journalist, cover the event and spread the word. Or just come. You would have wanted to meet Soumya if you could.

And here are a couple of links you can visit (sites created by people who knew Soumya, visited by everyone who agrees with her friends):

http://www.new.facebook.com/group.php?gid=26887274209&ref=mf

http://www.new.facebook.com/group.php?gid=30157298526&ref=mf

Calcutta is dead…

2008-09-28T17:46:00.003+05:30

Long live Calcutta!

It’s something I want to write about each time I go to Calcutta; quite often these days, with my mother staying there alone (entirely her call, we are fairly dutiful children) and requiring attention from time to time: the decay and gradual death of a once great city.

And while I’m sure enough people with a better sense of fatalistic poetry have written on Calcutta over the years, that shouldn’t stop me from keying in my thoughts. And this has nothing to do with Singur and Nandigram. That’s totally incidental.

Now, because I don’t have a set idea about how I want to go about this, let me start at the very beginning (a very good place to start) – when I get out of the 1962-model airport and on to a rickety, noisy Ambassador. Honking. Non-stop. Honking. Fast-swerving cars. Honking. Bumper to bumper traffic. Honking. Abuses. Honking. The smell of petrol (or is it diesel?).

All this in ancient Ambassadors with torn seats with the stuffing flowing out. I love Ambassadors, make no mistake about it, but I like them when they are in their full glory, as these were approximately 20 years ago.

The next thing that hits you – as you reconcile to the fact that the 15-kilometre distance home is going to take around an hour-and-a-half and the honking will continue all the way through – are the number of advertisement hoardings in the city.

For a city – and a part of the country - that is down on its luck as far as industry is concerned, you would be amazed at the number of hoardings all around. Words. Words in different colours, sizes, fonts, languages – including English written in Bangla and Hindi written in Bangla and all other permutations and combinations – scream at you sending you into a claustrophobic haze. You don’t even feel like lighting up the cigarette. And people – semi-nude women (more cleavage in Calcutta ads than in any other part of the country) and semi-nude men (more undie ads than in any other part of the country as well).

The city has been screaming for space for years now, and whatever little space there is has been taken over by these hoardings. Even on water – little water bodies, lakes along the route have hoardings stuck on poles stuck in the lake-bed.

The space is further reduced by a spate of flyovers that have come up in recent times. Necessary. But evil. Because they have been built on roads, which are just about wide enough to function as roads. So the flyovers go parallel to the roads – like a second storey. The entire road is covered. And because of the lack of space, the roads were in the first place built just outside the boundary walls of houses. So the flyovers now run just outside the windows of these houses.

Then we come to the city during the rains. And not say anything.

And then we come to the condition of the houses – residential as well as commercial. And not say anything.

And then we come to the busses. And not say anything.

The pollution in the air. Silence.

The administration. More silence.

Mamata Banerjee. Deathly quiet now. We’re in mourning.

Bad cinema. Bad literature. Bad language on the streets. Uncouth people.

Now, I’m a true-blue Calcutta boy, who has steadfastly refused to hear anything bad said about Calcutta for years now – 11 years; since I moved out to Delhi. But it’s come to a stage where in conversations I tend to take the lead in criticising the city.

But now even that seems pointless. The city is dead. Completely. Even the addas and bookstreets don’t seem interesting anymore. Durga Pujo is a drag. It’s all over. Well past its sell-by date, hurried along by every single Calcuttan, and not just the politicians.

Note: No photos. Tried. None of them succeeded in establishing what I wanted to.

When Time Ran Out...

2008-09-28T17:01:00.005+05:30

Paul Newman (1925 to 2008)

Somebody up there likes him...oh well, everybody everywhere liked him, didn't we?

Gorgeous and stylish to the end.

PS: Mahendra Kapoor died on the same day. What a relief that voice won't be heard again.

Good show, sis!

2008-09-12T20:45:00.002+05:30

Well, I'd shied away from writing anything about my father after he passed away last year. Still feel no necessity to write with any sort of 'importance' on the matter. In any case, my sister chose to 'celebrate' his first death anniversary on the 27th of August rather interestingly - she put together a very good exhibition of his paintings. Baba was an economist by training, taught economics at the end of his education, first in Canada and USA and then in a couple of universities in India before switching focus to journalism. All the while, however, he did dabble in a few of his other interests - painting, poetry, theatre, translations - but it was only towards his later life that he chose to really plunge headlong into these interests of his, painting prodigiously, writing non-stop, etc.

Well, to cut the story short, I thought I'd put up a bit about Baba here because a rather flattering article about him and the exhibition Didi put together for him has come out in the Kolkata Mirror. Not that this will interest anyone who didn't know Baba, but nevertheless...

A Tribute To Samir Dasgupta – A Man Who dared to dream of Utopia
By Anam Rizvi
Posted On Thursday, August 28, 2008

Kolkata, August 28: In an attempt to pay tribute to her late father on his first death anniversary, Ina Puri with the assistance of Darshan Shah organised a painting exhibition at the Weavers Studio Centre for the Arts on August 27.

Most of his paintings are on paper with pastels. Ranging from the abstract to the morbid and rising to great heights of passion in his paintings of the human form, his work flows with a fluidity that tells the viewer that these works chronicle the journey of his life.

“His paintings show his response to nature. Though he was an economist who traveled all over the world, he was a romantic when it came to art. His paintings show what he thought life should be like. He was an avid story-teller and always looked at the positive side of life,” said Puri.

The theme of his work gradually shifted from the human and animal form to nature and this also indicates a maturity and development in his style. Sohini Dhar, a professor in the faculty of visual arts at Rabindra Bharati University who knew the artist personally said, “He nurtured beauty and had a multifaceted personality though he preferred to stay away from the limelight. He was not trained as an artist and was never satisfied with his work.”

Dasgupta the economist, the professor, the author, the poet, the critic and the artist- each avatar of this great man comes alive through the gamut of ideas in his paintings. His earlier works deal with the human form in its various moods. One of the paintings depicted a horse with two heads and two front feet whereas another showed two animals looking up and reaching for something sublime. He does not shy away from using bright colours such as fuchsia, yellow and fluroscent green and orange on a gray background.

Sanjay Sengupta, an artist himself, commented after having viewed the paintings on show, “The paintings have raw passion. The use of colours shows a Fauvist influence. I found the human forms very interesting.”

Bengali in Beijing - In the company of legends

2008-08-23T20:46:00.015+05:30

Have been a sports journalist for a decade now, but today was the day it all added up to something seriously significant. Years of doing stories, making pages, doing shows, the works...it's all feeling worthwhile now. The day interactions and encounters with cricketers big and small were forgotten (possibly for good), and time was spent watching, interviewing and interacting with real stars. Real heroes. Real athletes. Athletes I have spoken about in superlatives more often than not.

It started with a hastily-planned trip to the men's football final - Argentina vs Nigeria.

Yeah, I was there - let's establish that straightaway...today more than ever before, because this blog might just make a lot of people very jealous.

The fire was burning in the cauldron - it will have to for a couple more days before it can be extinguished without fear of the wrath of Zeus and the rest hitting the world.

The man himself! Lionel Messi walks out of the tunnel. Is he looking at me perchance? Let me believe he is for the moment. Four electric bursts. A couple of assists. Good enough.

Juan Roman Riquelme. Interesting, isn't it, that Messi qualifies as an Under-23 player. So Argentina could afford to field the likes of Riquelme and Javier Mascherano. Riquelme is so bloody laidback. But the ball just doesn't leave his boots. Defenders and defensive midfielders can hassle him till kingdom come, but Riquelme will hold on to the ball.

In the stands, Bora Milutinovic. Here because he is a former China coach.

The best footballer in the world at the moment walks back to the changing room at the end of the match...after the whole team celebrated like crazy on the ground.

The man in the yellow shirt with the long hair waving to the crowds is Ronaldinho, in case you didn't recognise him. Brazil won bronze. The bugger just didn't turn my way. But the roar when he walked out was clear indication that he is still China's favourite 'European' footballer. Far ahead of Messi.

Now then, if you thought the day was over at the end of the football match (which Argentina won 1-0 by the way), you're way off, guys! Yep, had an interview with Yelena Isinbayeva lined up. Easily the greatest track and field athlete of her generation from either sex - stunning to boot. And Russian.

Just before the interview - she is an inch taller than me - three with the heels she was in.

Okay, Messi, Riquelme, Ronaldinho, Mascherano, Isinbayeva...and then Tyson Gay. Met him at the Omega show as well. The man who would be king - the man who's going back home without a single medal. They are all with Usain Bolt. Idiot didn't even qualify for the 100m final!

And then at Vijender's medal ceremony...he doesn't quite qualify as a legend - not by a long shot, but what the heck!

What a day! What an absolutely mindnumbing day. I'm a sports freak first and then a sports journalist. Today was all about that sports freak. And it was awesome while it lasted.

Bengali in Beijing - V-Day in China

2008-08-22T18:33:00.003+05:30

The first one is of Vijender during his bout - the semi-final. At the end of it, a bronze. Good enough...we'll take it, won't we?

After the bout, and the loss, facing the media. Importantly, everyone was happy enough with the outcome. Obviously. He's done more than anyone ever has.

And much afterwards, with me, after I had done - hopefully - my last story for the tour.

Bengali in Beijing - Eating out

2008-08-22T06:40:00.006+05:30

One of the big incentives of the Beijing visit was the possibility that there would be snakes and other exotic animals to eat. And the place to go to, unless you have a lot of time and can really explore the options, is Wang Fu Jing (pronounced 'Ching'). The equivalent of Lahore's Food Street, it's a long line of thelas that have every conceivable edible animal. They say that if an animal doesn't find mention on the menu here, it has never been eaten. So there are snakes, scorpions, various kinds of worms, locusts, sea urchins, sea horses...the list is endless. The Dog Liver has been taken off the menu keeping in mind the sensibilities of the millions of tourists.

Momos being made at Wang Fu Jin. Choose your stuffing - this one's a pork and cabbage option.

Bengalis surveying. My old friend Gonchoo, whose scooter I wrecked back in 2000 along with part of my face, has been in Beijing for 8 years now. Studying first. Then working. Currently with Ogilvy PR. A pro as far as the Chinese language is concerned as well as the lanes and bylanes of Beijing. Also someone who has spent enough time eating most everything China serves up.

Me and the snake. Have been scared of them forever, but when skinned and ready to be grilled, they don't look as scary or creepy. Small snakes of course, not a cobra or a black mamba or something... This one will be chopped into pieces now, skewered, and grilled. Then it will be eaten. By me. Quite crunchy. A bit like fish, but the texture is totally different.

Random shot of the place. I ate a lot of other stuff, including a bit of the more mundane beef and stuff...couldn't quite bring myself to try the lizard, but tried almost everything else. And most everything was highly palatable. Except the swallows stuffed with pumpkin they served up. Yuck!

Bengali in Beijing - Indian Idol II

2008-08-20T22:08:00.005+05:30

Yeah, I'm still an Akhil fan. But look at this man. He's gone and done it, hasn't he? If he goes higher than bronze, and if he can sell himself well after that once he is in India, this boy's your next big thing. He's got everything a marketing man needs.

Poor Sushil Kumar. No one, absolutely no one, was aware of what he was upto across at the CAU Gymnasium at the Olympic Green. No one. I felt so bloody guilty even going up to him and meeting him afterwards. Indian medallist number two - he will take it, won't he?

Akhil. He's just lost his quarterfinal bout in this picture. But he remains the biggest character of the lot. And still my favourite...

Bengali in Beijing - Euphoria

2008-08-20T22:05:00.002+05:30

Could it possibly get better than this? Three bleedin' medals. It's spectacular. Absolutely spectacular. And today has to be the greatest day in Indian sport. At par with whatever else you want to nominate.

Bengali in Beijing - At Changcheng...

2008-08-19T20:56:00.014+05:30

...or at the Great Wall of China. Had to go. Went. Saw one of the greatest - if not the greatest - structure of the man-made world. Did a story. Came back with an experience to last a lifetime.

Above: The first sighting of the Great Wall. From the ropeway that takes you up from Mutianyu to the Great Wall. It's a bit scary actually...but worth it entirely.

Strangely, no photos of me during the ropeway ride. This one's of Shantanu Pusalkar, the upright and honourable Times Now reporter who was travelling with us.

Soon after reaching the Great Wall. Not quite up on the Wall yet. It's behind me in the picture. But I need to turn to my left, walk up 12 steps, and then set foot on the structure proper.

At the Wall. Looking out one of the lookout points. See, the Wall built to keep away the Mongols and the Manchurians around the northern border of China. So there were a million-and-a-half soldiers guarding it. Which meant there needed to be lookouts.

Quite unnecessary, you would think. Seeing, that these massive mountains would ordinarily keep most attackers away.
Tourists - me included. The interesting thing about the Great Wall of China is that while it's absolutely spectacular, formidable and many other adjectives, you get only one, or two, photo angles. Because, simply put, it's just a wall. Which means that all 6,400 kilometres of it look the same. The views are awesome, but the wall itself doesn't offer too many varied backgrounds.

Bengali in Beijing - At Tiananmen Square

2008-08-19T20:37:00.006+05:30

The Bengali in Beijing series would have been incomplete without a trip to Tiananmen Square. No reason to miss it anyway. It's a straight subway (metro) ride from where we stay, and is, in fact, in the 'backside' of Forbidden City, which I didn't realise when we went to FC the other day. We had gotten in the other side and went out the same way after roaming around inside.

Anyway, T-Square is no big deal apart from two big facts - (a) that it can fit a million people when it feels like it, and (b) 1989. It's essentially become a Sunday spot for the locals now. And it's been Olympic-ised with myriad banners and signages. But the memorial (with regard to 1989) at the back does send a chill up your spine. Not that the memorial is remarkable in any way...it's just that I'm Bengali.

Bengali in Beijing - The Name's Bolt!

2008-08-17T10:32:00.008+05:30

I told you I was there. Witnessing the race to be the Fastest Man on Earth. Tyson Gay had crashed out in the qualifiers, making the three-horse race a two-horse race. Of course, Asafa Powell eventually finished fifth - but that's immaterial. It really was about Bolt. Usain Bolt.

This one's of the eight men at the start - just after taking off. They're all blurs. Obviously. Not because of the camera - well, maybe partly. But they're all blurs anyway.

At the finish line then. I had made up my mind to click when the group was five paces off the line. Did so. But when you're setting a world record, chances are, this is what you will do to a poor unprofessional cameraperson shooting with an automatic digicam. Yeah, the rest are there, but Bolt is out of the frame. Only the heel of one of his shoes can be seen if you check carefully.

There - the world record. The usual pose immediately afterwards. 9.69, the time. You wonder what might have happened if the Jamaican in Bolt hadn't woken up 10 metres off the finish line, when he suddenly started waving his arms about and celebrating with whacks to his chest and stuff. Probably not 9.60, but certainly 9.62 or 9.63. What say?

Posing with his golden shoes afterwards. When we were in Jamaica for the cricket World Cup, the intelligent and witty Atreyo Mukhopadhyay had told me very seriously that when Jamaicans are born, a little hole is made in their head and a worm is put in. The worms act up every once in a way and that's when the Jamaicans do strange things. Which is what you see in Jamaica all the time. Guys walking around quietly and then suddenly breaking into something inexplicable. Like Bolt. A complete weirdo. His celebrations were fantastic, starting from the 90th metre of the race.

There he goes again. The archer's pose that he put on even at the start when his name was announced. He saw himself on the giant screen and did the exact same thing. This, when the other seven were limbering up, mouthing prayers, etc. These Jamaicans...

And then the official press interview. 9.69. End of story. For a man who has always been a 200-metre runner and won his first major 100-metre race only in May this year.

Bengali in Beijing - Bolt!!!

2008-08-17T06:42:00.002+05:30

Saw it happen. Saw it happen right in front of my eyes. I was just off the finish line - three tiers up. The race finished just below where I was standing.

Bengali in Beijing - Indian Idol

2008-08-16T18:10:00.001+05:30

He's the man. Always has been. My pick. The best 'sportsperson' you'll ever meet. And he's got a medal lined up in Beijing for sure.

Bengali in Beijing - At Forbidden City

2008-08-16T17:38:00.014+05:30

First came the Mings (with an apostrophe somewhere there), and then came the Qings (with another apostrophe somewhere). This much we all know. Somewhere along the way, the Forbidden City was created. It became the Imperial Palace of the Mings (waast), and then served as the Imperial Palace of the Qings (waas). This – according to details mentioned in guide books – means that it served as the palace for almost five centuries.

Some other basic numbers explain how massive and imposing the City is. It has 999 buildings – because 9 is another lucky number for the Chinese…lucky because according to ancient Chinese nonsense, 9 is the largest possible number. There are 8,707 bays of rooms. A total area of 720,000 square metres covered.

Obviously, touring all of it is (a) only possible over a week or so, (b) impossible. I had around two hours. This means I could only rush through a portion of it. Enough, I suppose, to form a general idea in my head and be madly excited. Enough, also, to keep my camera happy.

PS: As some of the pictures might have told you, I've bought myself a pink waist pouch.

Bengali in Beijing - Randomness

2008-08-16T06:38:00.013+05:30

Just to put up some stray photographs before deleting the pictures from my camera. As you will see, most of the time so far has been spent around the Olympics, but the Indians are slowly inching their way away from the Games, and that's slowly giving me more and more time to explore the city. Those photos will come up gradually.

Officials of Lenovo - the man in the light blue jacket is the chief designer of the company - the guy responsible for the beautiful 'Cloud of Promise' Olympic torch, lying in front of him.

Behind me, the badminton courts - Saina Nehwal is crashing out while this photograph is being taken.

The Games volunteers celebrate the birthday of one of the kids at the Worker's Gymnasium - the boxing arena.
More from the Federer Experience. This is Day Two. King Roger walks in - he walked out less than an hour later having demolished Paes and Bhupathi along with Wawrinka.
From the match. An action shot that's remotely acceptable. The rest have all been discarded. Federer's just served out wide to Bhupathi's backhand. Bhupathi will return it for Wawrinka to volley home a winner.

At the Independence Day celebration at the Ambassador's residence. Former MEA Spokesperson Nirupama Rao is the Ambassador. Nice gathering of Beijing Indians - about 300 of them. Nice occasion. But afterwards we were treated to bad, small, red samosas, soggy kachoris and sweet paav-bhajis. Why?!
Aah! My favourite. Old man peddling something Chinese - his face is exactly like the Kabuki mask we have at home.

Communication is always a hassle in Beijing. English is hardly spoken, though a whole generation of locals are being forced to study the language now. Not well enough though. As this photo explains. It's mostly sign language. Some vague sounds and grunts. A lot of nothingness. But so far we have gotten by.

Bengali in Beijing - Star-gazing!

2008-08-15T18:37:00.012+05:30

Okay, the IOC finally woke up to my existence yesterday and qualified me as an 'Olympian'. Yeah, all access. Total. Which means I can walk in anywhere and watch any sport, any athlete, whenever I want (obviously in competition). Now, being conscientious and all, I chucked Phelps and went to watch Leander and Mahesh - the tennis courts. Late evening after all the rain. Reached on schedule but the match against Federer-Wawrinka was yet to start. So I went into Centre Court...where Na Li had just stunned Venus Williams. And who was next? Yeah, Rafa!!!!!
Getting action shots with my small digital camera is next to impossible - but who cares!
All right, Rafa's the little red dot behind me on court. This one's just for proof - proof that I am not passing off someone else's shots as mine. And yeah, I'm looking unhappy because the guy taking the snap was taking ages.

And here's an interesting shot from the press area - lots of Rafas on screen and the original in the background - on court.

Okay then - we know what happened in that match against Austrian Jurgen Melzer, don't we? 6-0, the first set. The fun started from the first point itself. Melzer serves, Rafa returns, Melzer volleys, Rafa's on the run - sideways and backwards - and sends a precision forehand down-the-line that falls just inside the tramline. Game on! And it never went off.

But duty calls. And we had to leave the game midway to catch our boys in action - on Show Court Two.
Yes, they were important, but guess what - King Roger was at hand to take away all the attention and drain my camera battery.
Above - at practice - less than 20 feet from where I was.
Then at play. Manning the net with Stanislas Wawrinka for company. Lee and Hesh were knocked out in those 20-odd minutes before rain came down. 4-1 - no comebacks.
Yeah, the rain, the blasted rain. Which meant our Federer Experience was broken up over two days. Not a bad thing altogether, but Day Two was under a searing sun. Not happy at all.

And the usual proof shot. The smile is silly - but like I have been saying often of late - who cares!

Bengali in Beijing - Bindra

2008-08-13T17:09:00.002+05:30

Bengali in Beijing Part 4

2008-08-13T16:47:00.009+05:30

Putting up some random photographs from the set I have so far. Not in any sort of order...
The identically-dressed girls to my left are deaf and dumb dancers. Find below an example of their performance during a programme called My Dream, where disabled artists put together an Olympics tribute. The group is recorgnised by UNESCO as Artists For Peace. And it was brilliant, what they did. Songs. Dances. Short plays. The works.

Leading the line is the girl to the extreme right in the photograph above. Beautifully coordinated dance...and none of them can speak or hear. Keeping that in mind, the coordination was even more fantastic.

At the Athletes' Village - looking a bit harried because I was rushing to get an Abhinav Bindra interview. In the background are the five Fuwas - mascots.

Smoking outside one of the zillions of random signs - this one is just outside the shooting range.
Behind me is the Bird's Nest. Ugly, yes, but a marvel of architecture if there ever was one.

Brad and Tessy Frank - father and daughter. Badge (or pin) collectors. This one's their fifth Olympic Games together (including the Turin Winter Games). They just bring their badges across, trade them, soak in the sights, and have a good deal of fun.

Bengali in Beijing Part 3

2008-08-12T10:10:00.014+05:30

Images from the Opening Ceremony, and what an Opening Ceremony it was! It will take the rest of the world years to even think of matching up to what Beijing gave us on the 8th of August, 2008 - starting at 8.00pm. Interesting legends around these parts as far as the Number 8 is concerned. Everyone wants the number on their car number plates, in the addresses of their houses...essentially, the sound of the word 'eight', when spoken in Mandarin, sounds like the word 'prosperity' in Mandarin. And like the west considers 'seven' as the lucky number, and India considers anything Ekkkta Kkkkapoor puts down as lucky, so is eight for the Chinese.
Pictures are put up in random order...

Now, if you saw it on TV, you got pretty much the same view as me. I wasn't allowed in, see. Got to see only a bit of it, but then, I went one better than the rest of you because I could still see the entire thing on a giant screen and there were zillions of Chinese locals watching it at the same place. Which did provide a fairly good atmosphere and there were all the fireworks lighting up the sky. So not bad on the whole. No reason to envy me much - just a bit.

Pics courtesy: Samip Rajguru of Aaj Tak - he was the only one of us to have a pass for the Opening Ceremony.

Bengali in Beijing Part 2

2008-08-12T08:55:00.009+05:30

Was walking around Beijing when I spotted this art gallery by the side of the road with a poster saying "Sport in Art". Sensing a story, we walked in. And what a story it turned out to be! Sport in Art turned out to be an Adidas-arranged exhibition of paintings by some of the biggest sporting heroes of our times - Ian Thorpe, Yelena Isinbayeva, David Beckham, Tyson Gay, Lionel Messi, Jeremy Wariner... No one else was aware of it. It had not been advertised. But there, at the Today Art Gallery was this little goldmine.

Above: at the entrance - a brilliant bronze sculpture of a woman relay sprinter. And inside, the ADIDAS poster advertising works from the champion sportspersons.
An original Ian Thorpe. The explanation on the painting said that Thorpe has always believed that there are a number of little men inside his body and these men make him do the things he does. So this is him swimming away, while the little men inside his body swim with him. I'm sure he calls them his 'swimmers', which makes it all rather interesting, and a case for the illegal use of substances officers!
The Tiny Giant, by Lionel Messi. A classic. Went with a video that talked about Messi's growth hormone deficiency as a kid, which made him concentrate on his speed and agility, and taught him to keep the ball on the ground and develop his dribbling skills.
A David Beckham. Shows him celebrating after scoring a goal. The words 'strength' and 'family' float around him, while the word 'believe' is away with the ball at the other corner of the net. Must be an old painting. Seeing that he's celebrating a goal!Just outsdie the Today Art Museum. Laughing Chinese men greet you at the entrance. Made of some metal obviously. Not sure what. But very interesting. And as it turned out, a wonderful location for me to anchor from.

Locals. Helpful. Friendly. And very excited whenever they meet someone from 'Indu' - that's us!

Bengali in Beijing Part 1

2008-08-12T07:40:00.017+05:30

Don't even mention the word 'Tibet' around here. They might not know what you are saying and you'll get in trouble. Fair enough, you say, and then go to the monastery and find the Buddhist mahamantra written in Tibetan on the rockfaces.

Anyway...had to start blogging at some stage. But when work forces you to get around five hours' of extremely tired sleep everyday, blogging is the last thing on your mind. Anyway...here's a beginning. Not a very wordy one. More picturesque than anything. But what the heck! We went to an old Chinese monsatery where the Beijing International Media Centre had arranged a bit of a song and dance thing from some of the 56 Chinese communities - or nationalities, as they are called here.
This, an annual dance common to most Chinese communities - or nationalities as they call them here. A symbolic process of washing away sins. Not too different from Holi, except that it's a bit more refined here. No colours. No overall nonsense. But boys do chase girls and make them wetter than they make other boys.
Another shot from the same ceremony. Important because the photograph was taken at precisely the right moment, catching the arc of the water beautifully. A French photographer was with us and got himself completely drenched trying to get that perfect shot. He came back dripping water but without a single shot as good as this one, taken from a safely dry spot well away from the water. He admitted so himself. I offered to give my shot to him. He wouldn't take it. These photographers are crazy!
Part of a harvest dance - this man is the baddie, the big insect that spoils all the crops. Lovely costume, no? An acrobat appeasing the Buddha ahead of performing this breathtaking stunt of climbing up a ladder of blades. Not alone. With his two young disciples.
That's him, up on the ladder, clinging to a blade, making life as tough for himself as possible.

This ornately dressed elderly lady was playing a metallic drum while the crazy acrobat was making love to those blades. A rhythmic, almost hypnotic beat.
Drummers of the mountaineous Jingpo tribe. A rather wild, exciting people with wonderfully energetic dances, high energy beats, long-haired men and very pretty ladies. Interestingly, partly because they are darker than the rest of the Chinese, the Jingpos are believed to have links with India.
Another tribe - probably the Mians. Unattractive women, uninteresting music, attractive costumes in a Naga sort of way.
There they are - dancing away behind me. Very boring dance. Much like the oh-how-quaint Santhal dances we have with a Naga touch courtesy the costumes.
Our lovely Jingpo guide. Speaks broken English and has a name that I will never be able to pronounce. And she wasn't able to write it down in English.
A little souvenir shop by the trail. The boy was not asked to pose for me. He stands like that, in the same pose, pretty much all day. And he's not crazy. He just stands there. Maybe he has been asked to. Not sure. He just does.
Me with the women. The unnamed Jingpo girl and three of our BIMC volunteers. Interestingly, all bespectacled. On the streets, you will find that Beijing has many more women than men. And you will find that Beijing has many more people with bad eyes than good eyes. The Buddha provides the background.
At the monastery. Evidently evil.

Celebrating Shaurya

2008-04-08T20:58:00.002+05:30

Watched a rather interesting film the other day: Shaurya. It was interesting firstly because we saw a film in a theatre after a long time (the cellphone-toting South Delhi lout-infested PVR Saket, in case anyone’s asking). Secondly, and much more importantly, because it’s the first mainstream Hindi film that openly criticises the Army. And thirdly, the acting is uniformly good.

All these factors make it an “interesting” film. Not a great one. Or even a particularly good one. All right, I have personally always disliked the Army. And it has nothing to do with non-violence or anything. I don’t like the Army because of a number of reasons which don’t need to be enumerated here.

But in the context of Shaurya; it’s important that the most important negative of the Army is highlighted in a moderately sensible way here. This has to do with the human rights violations that the Army routinely commits in many parts of the country – notably in the Kashmir Valley and in the North-East. I am hardly the first one to talk about the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act and I am not going to be last one. Nor am I going to be the most educated of criticisers of the act. But it is an Act that can only exist in the Trash Can and nowhere else.

In Shaurya, this aspect of the Army is highlighted big time – in fact, that’s the film’s central theme. A far cry from the series of films that have, down the years, glorified the Army beyond reasonable limits. I do admit that the Army has a melodramatic appeal that can’t be ignored. And as a populist (and commercially viable) option, glorification of the Army would also be more sensible than a demystification of it. Fauj and all that. The great Indian obsession – Operation West End be damned!

Samar Khan’s Shaurya takes the road less-travelled and makes some strong points and that is significant. Yes, in the hands of a better director, the film could have become much stronger. But then better directors than Khan have never chosen to make the same statement. So we’ll have to live with it.

PS: Caught a slew of moderately good films in recent times:
Atonement (2.5 stars)
No Country For Old Men (3.5 stars)
There Will Be Blood (3.5 stars)
The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford (3 stars)
Juno (2.5 stars)
Sweeney Todd – The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street (4.5 stars)
PPS: Musicals, crime and Johnny Depp – three of my favourite things. Together, it doesn’t get better. And Sweeney Todd lived up to the promise. From the red paint animation in the beginning to the last frame.

How To Eat Australian

2008-03-04T08:35:00.004+05:30

Finally had the only Aussie marsupial to have evaded me so far: possums.

Most restaurants in Australia don't serve possums, partly because they love possums like they love koalas. But unlike koalas, possums are not protected animals. Which is why you might just come across a restaurant that serves possums, if you're lucky. Which is what happened last night, at Tukka's here in Brisbane...

Well, here's how you make the Baked Possum and Sweet Potatoes dish that I had:

Ingredients:
2 young possums, 2 1/4 to 2 1/2 lbs each, dressed weight
1 baking potatoes, 1/2 lb
7 cups cold water
2 lbs sweet potatoes or yams
4 tsp salt
3/4 tsp black pepper
1/8 tsp red pepper
3 tablespoons flour
1/4 cup cold water
2 cups possum broth
Parsley

Directions:
Clean possum carefully and remove scent glands and any clinging hair.

Pare potato, wash and cut in quarters lengthwise; lay potato inside possum.

Fit into a 5 qt kettle. Add water, cover kettle but leave open space on one side for steam to escape. Heat to boiling and boil gently 15-20 minutes; then skim froth that collects; pour off about half the broth.

Add 3 cups fresh hot water, return to heat, again partially cover and boil gently until meat is tender, but not tender enough to pull away from the bone. Remember possums will not become more tender after they are placed in a roasting pan.

Sprinkle outside well with the seasonings that have been well mixed in a coup.

Make gravy by sprinkling flour over cold water, mix to a smooth paste, then blend with 3 coups of broth drained from kettle in which possums were parboiled. Mix and pour around possum.

Arrange pared, washed sweet potatoes around possum. Cover pan and bake until possums and potatoes are about tender. Now uncover and bake until possums and potatoes are tender and beautifully browned or from 35-40 minutes.

Baste every 10 minutes with the gravy in the pan.

Remove meat and potatoes to platter and garnish with parsley.

Pour gravy into separate dish and serve meat and gravy piping hot.

Makes 5 to 6 servings...

NOTE: We don't have possums in India, so these directions are for anyone who might to cook a bandicoot or a big field rat at home.

An event to remember

2008-03-02T12:44:00.007+05:30

Every year, Sydney lights up around this time of the year for one very special Saturday night. It's the annual Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras here in Sydney. The fun starts around afternoon and goes on late into the night. People come in from all parts of the world. Costumes. Acts. Masks. Floats. Dances. The works.

And it's fantastic. One of the greatest things you will ever see...

It is close to impossible to get decent photographs unless you are one of the accredited journos covering the event. I tried. Not very successfully.

The Pope makes an appearance amidst massive cheer.

One from the Net...the same float + costumes were there last night as well.

The Queen and I. Wonderful picture, isn't it? Except that the person who took the snap left out the Queen's costume - shimmering gold.

Shot from the crowd.

The giant screen that was televising the whole show...shot by FTV.

Random people in colourful costumes.

Justice, finally...

2008-03-02T10:46:00.003+05:30

I hate sounding jingoistic, but as someone who has followed the Australian summer very closely, I think that I have just witnessed one of the greatest stories in cricket history.

After getting Andrew Symonds' wicket, Harbhajan has just picked Matthew Hayden's wicket. It doesn't get better than that, does it, at the end of all the nonsense that has gone one for heaven-knows-how-long?

Below is a hastily-taken picture of the Indians celebrating Hayden's wicket, as the giant screen shows Hayden walking off.

More time in Sydney

2008-03-02T10:16:00.007+05:30

Haven't had too much time to write, but with the 8.1 megapixels of magic in my pocket, the photographs have been thick and fast in coming.

In the meantime, we have come back to Sydney for another 5 days. The match is currently on, and India have picked the first four Australian wickets in the first final here. Of course, they had the first three in a hurry. After that, Hayden and Symonds - two Queenslanders and two of Harbhajan Singh's favourite people - put together a few runs. Till Harbhajan got Symonds.

Anyway...the photos. Here they are:

At the Darling Harbour. Behind me is the massive cruise ship that came in with piles of people ahead of the Mardi Gras on the 1st of March. It's freezing cold, which explains the hands in my pockets.

Not so cold in the morning though, as Debu-da paints Sydney white in his laundered kurta-pyjama. Balancing out the frame is Moses Kondety of Deccan Chronicle.

Back at the Sydney Harbour area - just outside the Opera House in fact. Edward Scissorhands is playing and I'm playing Johnny Depp (though of course, it's not the movie but the play that's on).

On the steps of the Opera House with (L to R) Nishant Arora (CNN-IBN), Shivendra Singh (Star News), Anurag Bharti (Zee News) and Sunder Iyer (Times Now).

Seagulls at the Harbour Walk.

Later, at Shivendra's hotel room. A boys' night out.

Weeding Out The Story

2008-02-27T02:46:00.001+05:30

Now Matthew Hayden has gone and called Harbhajan Singh an “obnoxious little weed”! Whether you agree with that sentiment or not is immaterial. What isn’t, is the sense of making the statement at all.

The Australians (and the Indians to a lesser extent) have made this a summer to remember with their big mouths. And that’s been useful for us newsmongers. But at some level, you do wish it would stop now. There’s been enough. Not any more! At least the unwarranted ones. The ones that don’t come with a provocation.

But that’s never going to happen as far as the Aussies are concerned, see. Because this is the Australian way, and that’s not about to change.

First of all, Hayden’s statement, or Symonds’ statements since the incident with Ishant Sharma, does have a provocation – a common one. That India have reached the final. So India have reached the final of the tri-series – that’s the action, the provocation. That the Aussies must now talk, is the reaction, the retaliation.

Secondly, what can anyone do about Hayden calling Harbhajan an “obnoxious little weed”? Nothing. The ICC has no jurisdiction over what a player does off the field, in an interview. The only thing that can, logically be done, is that Harbhajan can file a defamation suit against Hayden. But surely no one is going to take things that far!

And what the inability to react is going to do, is to make Harbhajan more and more agitated as the days go by and he has to wait before having a go at Hayden on the field – on the 2nd of March in Sydney. Harbhajan also knows that being a spinner, he is probably not going to have a bowl at Hayden anyway. Hayden is going to get out well before that (going by Hayden’s recent form). And that’s going to frustrate Harbhajan more.

Now the Australians have perfected this art, haven’t they? Harbhajan is the worst behaved cricketer in history, because all his little tantrums on the field down the years have been carried out stupidly. He hasn’t figured out how to misbehave without being caught. Which is exactly what the Australians have done so successfully. Is Harbhajan worse than McGrath? Or Lehmann? Or some of the others? No, but he’s not smart enough. No Indian is. Ganguly was. Which is why Symonds says what he does to Ishant and nothing happens. But Ishant reacts by openly pointing to the pavilion. Who gets the wrong end of the stick? Obviously Ishant.

That’s being Aussie. They never play by the rules, but they never break the rules either. They will find loopholes in the law. They will stretch the law far as possible. Like the Chappell Brothers’ Underarm Show, or the Lillee Aluminum Bat Show, or all the McGrath Shows. None of these were illegal. They were against the spirit of the game. But the spirit is intangible. It doesn’t stop you from being the best in the world in terms of collecting trophies.

And now, Harbhajan’s going to pick up another reprimand in the final – you mark my words.

In pretty Hobart

2008-02-26T17:05:00.007+05:30

Difficult to believe obnoxious-ies like Ricky Ponting come out of Tasmania, it's so picture perfect.

This ship is the oldest vessel at the waterfront, over 150 years old.

Little sight to remember at the St David's Park.

Off the Masonic Church.

And at the Bellerive Oval - this is the view out of the Press Box, made even more beautiful because of the dark clouds.

And the game itself. Gautam Gambhir is getting set to take India home against Sri Lanka.

The Indians at practice...

2008-02-26T15:06:00.013+05:30

Got a mail from old friend Bhaskar the other day, saying that he wanted to see pictures of the Indian team at training. Don't know if these photos will make him happy, but here they are anyway...from the SCG.

Tendu stretching...Yuvraj walking away...can't figure out the kids towards the left, but I can see Dhoni's face.

Everyone wants to pick things up from Tendu. Robin Uthappa for example.

And Virender Sehwag, who can't really figure out how to get back in the playing 11.

Sreesanth is hot property with the fans around here. Everyone loves him, and he's a great playactor as well. But more importantly, and I say this seriously, Sree is probably the one player who takes every single practice session very, very seriously. I don't recall ever seeing him fool around. Never. The others do. Sree doesn't.

Uthappa sitting on the ice boxes. Gambhir hanging around. Sehwag talking to Tendu in the background.

And wherever the Indian players are - especially Pathan and Yuvraj and Dhoni - there'll be a fair bit of glam around. Nice photo, isn't it?

The captain and the vice-captain in conversation during practice.

And finally, the latest big star of the team - the six-and-a-half feet Ishant Sharma...already a favourite of the autograph hunters.

If you're in Oz for long enough...

2008-02-26T14:41:00.005+05:30

They say that if you stand long enough at Times Square, you see the entire world passing by. British Airways uses the flavour of that line in their ads as well...

Across Australia - easily impressed by things as I am - the number of nationalities being represented has been an eye-opener. And it's been the drivers' seats of the taxis that have been the most illuminating.

I've met people from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh obviously. Add to that Malaysian, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Italian, Polish, Senegalese, Japanese, Chinese, Ethiopian, Ukrainian, Czech, Serbian, Chechen, Eritrian, Fijian, Russian, Iranian, Korean, Thai, Jordanese people, and it's been fascinating.

Now I get rather touristy (read curious and questioning) when I meet new people in new countries, so I have been doing a lot of talking to each of these people and getting political insights; about their countries, about the United States - about which everyone has something to say, and about India - about which everyone has something 'educated' to say as well.

Now, most of these people were in Melbourne. That's the city that draws most immigrants. Unfortunately I didn't have my 8.1 megapixel Pentax there, otherwise I would have put together a bit of an album. But here's Noor Mohammad Ashani from Peshawar, who drove us from our hotel to the airport in Sydney.

A common thread between most of these people who have spent between 4 months and 27 years in Australia among them: they hate Australians. They want Australia to lose every sporting event. They think the Aussies are racist. They think the Aussies are haughty and pricey and abusive to outsiders.

My observation: Most taxi drivers are cheats. Definitely all the ones from other countries.

Around Sydney...

2008-02-21T16:07:00.009+05:30

Incidentally, I've bought an 8.1 megapixel Pentax digital camera - life's smoother!

Seagulls flocking to the cookie-man at the Darling Harbour promenade.

The Sydney Opera House - the cheapest programme tickets are A$60 - not sure the experience will be commensurate to the money spent.

Also on the promenade - the deep baritone of the didgeridoo, which lots of Aussies spell as 'dijeridu'.

The Sydney Harbour Bridge in the background.

We took a ride on the pedapod as well - it's pretty much the same as a rickshaw, but comes with 18 gears and a highest speed of 20kmph! And goras ride/drive them, making it a rather interesting experience...

The Phantom is not playing at the SOH. In fact, it's not playing anywhere in Sydney at the moment. But busses carry the posters on them, and do so around the year even if it's not really relevant.

Boomerangs! And the boomerang man with the Sundowner.

At the Sydney Wildlife Park

2008-02-20T19:44:00.012+05:30

Joeys soaking in the sun on a warm summer afternoon at the Park.

An adolescent kangaroo - not quite fully grown, by which time it would be more than double the current size.

The koala! Bloody sleepy animals. They hardly move at all. And they are either sleeping or chomping on leaves. They never do much else. Even if you pick them up, they hardly react. It's almost as if they don't even realise they have been woken up from their slumber. Aussies love koalas, and I suppose these creatures are so confident that they won't be hurt, that they just don't open their eyes for anything.

This one's a full blown kangaroo. It wants to sleep, but is keeping an eye on its joeys because of all the people around.

Birds. Bijoy might know what they are called.

Another koala. A different one. It's sleeping as usual despite being perched rather precariously.

Another bird. Again, Bijoy might know what it's called.

Another bird. I can tell Bijoy that this one's a seagull. If there's a fancier name by which they go, I have no idea.

Chameleons. Aussie chameleons.

This one's part of the monitor family. It loves being photographed. And strikes different poses as you click away.

Wine-tasting in Adelaide

2008-02-18T18:49:00.006+05:30

Pics courtesy: Rohit Mahajan of Outlook

Every once in a way, in the middle of a hectic work trip, you need a bit of time off. Time where you take off on a little trek to see or do something that you haven't seen or done before. Such it was today, when the South Australia Cricket Association plotted a little trip for us journos to the wine-production area on the outskirts of Adelaide.

South Australian wine is famous across the world...and we got a taste of why that's so during our trip today.

It was blazing hot. Blazing, blazing hot. Hotter than an afternoon in the peak of Delhi's summer. But that's part of the reason why the wine is as good as it is.

The destination was the Grant Burge Winery in the Barossa Wines Area, which also houses the Jacob's Creek variety, which is so popular in India. We saw both green grapes and purple grapes - which lead to the wines being white and red respectively, though white wine can be made from either variety because the wine is made from the pulp, and when you want red wine, you just proceed to use the purple grape-skin more. However, you can't make red wine from the green grapes - that's just so...

The hat has made its way to The Indian Express' GS Vivek's head.

Remembered A Walk In The Clouds from the early days of Star Movies, but in Australia at least, there's no erotic dance on top of the grapes to make the wine happen. It's all mechanised. A lot of the grapes are picked by hand, granted, but most of it is machine-picked and processed. The end result is fantastic. Especially for the whites, of which I tasted three varieties. The two reds I tried weren't particularly good, though truth is that I don't have a taste for wine.

Of course, there was a bit of work involved as well, and I've managed to put together a fairly decent colour story for the office.
PS: And yes, we finally spotted a live kangaroo. It ran alongside our bus for a while, and then once we stopped for it, it rushed across the road right in front of us.

Bradman, prettiness and walking around

2008-02-17T05:38:00.007+05:30

There's no better way to figure out a new city than by walking around in it. It's something I've always done wherever I've gone. Unfortunately, I couldn't do it in the city I have fallen in love with so much - Melbourne. For reasons mentioned in previous mails, I had very little time in Melbourne and had to use taxis and trams more often than I would have wanted to.

But here in Adelaide, things have been different, and while it is practically impossible to walk-explore an entire city while on a business tour, we've done a fair bit of exploring here.

It doesn't have Melbourne's city feel, but it certainly has a lovely relaxed feel to it, and is certainly the prettiest city around these parts.

And the Adelaide Oval is also the prettiest big ground I have seen during my travels...there are lots of small grounds, like the one in Canberra, the one in Kuala Lumpur, small grounds in England, etc, which are very pretty. The problem with big grounds is that commercial interests force massive rebuilding and a whole lot of concrete, which rob the ground of its beauty. Adelaide's managed to reach a compromise, and while it does seat over 35,000 people, it remains very old world. A lot of wood. Lots of history scattered around. All over.
Like the scoreboard. It's the oldest functioning scoreboard in the world, and the people here prefer it to the electronic scoreboard-cum-video screen adjacent to it.

In a most memorable tour, the South Australia Cricket Association historian Bernard Whimpress took us inside the massive four-storey scoreboard, where up to six people work at any given time during a match. I've seen scoreboards function in other parts of the world as well, and the processes are pretty similar. But the size of this one, and the impressive woodwork within makes this one stand out.

Apart from that, I've picked up a local Sundowner.

It's the traditional Aussie hat - made of Kangaroo leather. Soft. Very soft. And very stylish. Which proves that useful animals are useful in many ways, kangaroos being very tasty as well, like cows.

The hat's already done its tour of journalists' heads as well...senior colleague Ashish Shukla's for example...

And we also spent a bit of time at the Bradman Collection, a room in the South Australian Museums complex. Some photos are common, like the one of Bradman being bowled by Eric Hollies for a duck in his last Test innings, and some shots of Bradman batting. But there are a few priceless photos...rare ones.

And some of his personal stuff, which his family donated to the collection.

Manoj Tewari was also around, checking out The Don's collection on his off day.

Bradman-house!

2008-02-15T18:51:00.004+05:30

A couple of photographs of the house Don Bradman died in...

Pix: Courtesy Vijay Tagore of DNA

It's an interesting story that not too many Adelaiders like Bradman. He was apparently a miser. A cranky old man, who reported schoolkids for creating a noise outside his house.

His son of course changed his surname once, and his grandchildren don't really like to associate themselves with the great man.

Canberra and Adelaide

2008-02-14T18:11:00.006+05:30

It's been such a mad whirl that it's been difficult to note down stuff and figure out what can be blogged about and what can't be. But then, that's how it is, and that's how things will stay.

I've made my way across to Bradmantown now, from Canberra - the political capital of the country, and easily the worst centre in the world. I've been to many terrible places around the world - none of them are as tourist-unfriendly as Canberra is. We were there for only two days and though the Manuka Oval is rather beautiful, the city itself is crap. And I'm not even getting into the lack of Internet facilities, which all of Australia is pointless about. In Canberra, all you get is McDonald's shit to eat, because restaurants shut by 1.00pm for lunch and 7.00pm for dinner. Booze shops shut by 7.00pm as well. Taxis don't ply, or answer to phone calls. There are no people on the streets - day or night. It's all a big pile of shit.

But then, as always, the next stop is worth the wait, and Adelaide is quite like that. Quite like the word 'Adelaide' itself, like a beautiful Victorian damsel.

It's green as green can be. Spacious roads. More space than Melbourne, primarily because Adelaide is also a planned city, unlike the more Calcutta-esque Melbourne. They have 'a' tram here as well. Only one straight journey from the centre of the city to the beach out in the outskirts of the city. It plies to and fro. And it's all really convenient. The area around the really small Torrence River is also very beautiful, and some of us spent a nice lazy afternoon sleeping on its banks the other day.

But the big deal about Adelaide is, of course, Donald Bradman. And it's fascinating to note how the people of the city feel about the greatest batsman in the world. But first, let me tell everyone that I visited Bradman's house at #2, Kensington Avenue. I also visited the Bradman Museum around the centre of the city. And there are little bits of Bradman scattered around the streets in the form of statues and little plaques and the works...plus at the Adelaide Oval, which is worth signing paeans about forever - it's so incredibly stunning. Beautiful. Really beautiful.

Anyway, people here hate Bradman. John Tiles, the taxi driver, told us about 'that bastard' who would report little kids who made a noise returning home from school. A member of the Adelaide/South Australian cricket community told us about how Bradman was the worst cricket chief Australia ever had, and how he forced many good cricketers to leave the game, because he refused to spend a cent on anything. People bitch about the cricket legend's miserly ways. Neighbours bitch about Bradman's grandchildren scrapping over his estate. In essence, Bradman is not a liked man. Another man I met on the road told me, "Oh he could bat, couldn't he? But he was a nasty piece of work. Not one nice bone in his body."

That's that then - but he's The Don, isn't he?

Anyway - more about Adelaide as we spend a bit more time here...

Aussie pictures

2008-02-13T17:20:00.014+05:30

Some stray pictures from the Australian tour so far. All these are taken from Outlookman Rohit Mahajan's digital camera. Old travelmate Atreyo (Hindustan Times) has also taken a number of pictures involving me, but hasn't bothered to give them to me yet.

Outside the lawyers' chambers in central Adelaide. This is very close to the court where the Harbhajan Singh racism hearing was carried out by Justice John Hansen after the fourth Test.

Being photographed by Headlines Today cameraperson Subodh Saxena outside the Aussie war memorial in Adelaide.

With the bearded and learned Atreyo Mukhopadhyay of The Hindustan Times in the stands at the Manuka Oval in Canberra. It's a small ground with a capacity of around 8,000 people, and there's space for only about 7 people in the official press box. Which is why we were seated in the general stands. Made watching the game that much more fun.

Not much has changed, eh, Ajitha? Washed my clothes in Brisbane. Ironed them in Melbourne. Good as new by the time the next PTC happened.

Lasith Malinga crosses the frame at the Manuka Oval...he 'bowled' badly, but Sri Lanka beat India in the rain-affected game.

Subodh (left), myself and the ponytailed Nagraj Golapudi of cricinfo striding out to get a gauge of the Manuka Oval in Canberra. It's a beautiful ground. Very picturesque. Low stands. Lovely breeze as a result. Quite large though. The curator Marcus Pamplin claims the playing area is larger than the MCG, which may or may not be true.

Rohit (Left), me and Subodh on the banks of the Torrence River in Adelaide.

The shot I had mentioned in a previous post - this is the footbridge we walked when going from Flinders Street to the MCG or the other way round. The buildings are around the Flinders Street area, which means we were walking back to town from the MCG.

Settling down Down Under

2008-02-06T17:53:00.000+05:30

Interestingly, one of the biggest items on the agenda for the next Parliamentary elections in Australia is the spread of the Internet. Interesting, isn’t it, seeing that the www would ordinarily be such a given in the developed part of the world? But that’s how it is. Yes, offices might have good connections and people who need to surf the Net at home might have decent connections. But for people like us TV journalists and many other people who need strong connections to upload heavy files as part of their day-to-day work, Australia is very, very Down Under.

And what the lack of good Internet connections, coupled with a few mess-ups back home in office, has done is that it’s forced me to spend most of my time cooped up in my hotel room/s or Internet centres. The first leg of the Melbourne trip, therefore, wasn’t worth much in terms of catching the big tourist attractions. Ditto with the only four days I might get in Brisbane (will get a few more if India make it to the final).

But things have improved in office, and I have got a great Internet connection in the hotel in Melbourne that we are staying in now. Hallelujah!

*****

Now then, nothing’s changed as far as my perception of the Aussies is concerned. They remain wonderful people. Most helpful. Very inquisitive. And I’ve even met a few taxi drivers who were quite clued in about India. To the extent that one of them rattled off “Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Gujarati, etc” when I told him I don’t speak Hindi, but Bengali.

*****

The first few days in Melbourne were spent well, primarily because the hotel we got – and a beautiful apartment in it – was a minute’s walk from the MCG. Maybe a minute-and-a-half. And the MCG is, in fact, a stone’s throw away from Melbourne Park, the new venue for the Australian Open.

And you approach this area by a footbridge – a pretty, wood-and-concrete-and-metal walkway along the right bank of the Yarra River connecting Flinders Street (the city centre) to the MCG-Melbourne Park area – it’s one of the most breathtaking sights that you can imagine human beings could have built. It’s stunning. The river adds to the imagery. The tall, imposing buildings in the background create an aura. And the silence because of the lack of vehicles makes it all that much more exciting.

And then of course, there’s the MCG. Smaller than Eden Gardens in terms of spectator capacity. But bigger in terms of gallery space, because each spectator has a full chair to place his ass in, unlike Eden, where you get approximately 12 inches of chipped concrete to sit on.

Now, while I’m not knocking Eden as a cricket venue (I don’t want to either, seeing that I think the ground itself there is prettier), the MCG is as fantastic a spectator-interest stadium as can be.

Before you enter the ground itself, there’s the Parade of Champions – nicely made life-size sculptures of Aussie sporting greats from the world of cricket, rugby, Aussie Rules, athletics, etc. Inside as well, as you pass the brightly lit modern corridors, you’ve got huge posters of Aussie cricket legends, loads of memorabilia, sepia-tinted pictures, the works…

The ground itself is also spectacular (not as pretty as Eden). It’s a great mix of modern and traditional, and that’d probably what makes it what it is. And the size of the green, of course.

*****

All of Melbourne, in fact, is a mix of the traditional and the modern. And almost every step I take there reminds me of Calcutta in a strange way. Narrow streets, not-too-wide main roads and intersections, old and slightly cramped buildings…. And the trams. Obviously, all of Australia has a lot of space. Its mind-bogglingly low population density is legend after all. But somehow, Melbourne has a cramped appearance to it.

If Calcutta had been cared for, it would have looked exactly like Melbourne.

*****

Spent a few days in Brisbane as well, but it’s not a city I took to particularly well. The high point was touching base with old friend Surojit, who has got the most annoying accent now. He’s still pretty much the same and is doing rather well with an Aussie corporate set-up, and has a found a most wonderful partner to be with – Christie.
But the city itself has nothing much to offer. A sensation heightened by the fact that all the four days that I was there were drenched with rain. Both the matches had to be called off…but again, spending time at the ’Gabba was special in its own way.

*****

Now I’m back in beautiful Melbourne…more posts to follow…. And I forgot to mention that I did have some kangaroo meat and some crocodile meat before leaving for Brisbane. Plus some scallops, which aren’t very mentionworthy. Now for the ostriches, emus, wallabies and possums.