Talismanic

The word is used rather generously these days for teams doing well and having a leading light to show for their efforts. In a recent newspaper report MS Dhoni was termed as talismanic for Indian cricket team. I wonder. He has a rather decent team at his disposal which looks likely to do well. True Dhoni has contributed immensely to the development of this team (at least the team for shorter games) but that does not qualify him as 'talismanic', does it?

I will expect a 'talismanic' individual to play a direct role in the success of his team on regular basis, at a far greater frequency than others in his team. Agreed Dhoni has an elevating effect on the Indian team and he has lately done enough to be looked up to in all forms of the game. But the word 'talismanic' has a stronger meaning than just that.

It is not how the teammates see this particular individual but how the world, especially the rivals, views this guy that lends the charm to the talisman. India, at least in Tests, has done reasonably well even at times not too long ago when Dhoni was not justifying his place in the team. Even today, when Dhoni is deservedly praised for his positive role in the team's success it is not meant to imply that Indian fortunes have risen or sunk with Dhoni's performances. Clive Lloyd the captain was not talismanic, Brian Lara the batsman was. Ganguly the captain was not talismanic, Sachin the batsman in 90's and Dravid the batsman in early 2000's was. Ricky Ponting the captain was not talismanic, Ponting the batsman is (more so in the last couple of years when Australia have looked fallible). Mike Brearley the batsman was not talismanic, Brearley the captain perhaps was when in tandem with his weapon Ian Botham.

I regard that last instance of Mike Brearley the captain as a rare exception. In fact, I have not seen him in live action and hence I confess I am not too sure of knowing enough about Brearley's captaincy to back my decision to pick him if one of you challenges me on it. That is exactly the point: it is way too difficult for someone in a managing role (i.e. the captain) to be a talisman. How difficult? Even more difficult than being adjudged Man-of-the-match in a Test match for fielding alone. A talisman needs to work, not inspire.

In Test matches, the closest we have to a talismanic player today is Virender Sehwag. In one dayers and T20's we have none, although Yuvraj and Dhoni the batsman are perenially close to staking a claim. That explains why India are doing so well without depending on one or two individuals.

Webster's revised Unabridged Dictionary explains the word 'talismanic' thus:

Of or pertaining to a talisman; having the properties of a talisman, or preservative against evils by occult influence; magical.

The news of Bangladesh losing by just over 100 runs chasing 521 against Sri Lanka's Murali-Mendis-Vaas in the 4th innings was the news of the day to me. The first thought I had after that was: "How much did Ashraful score?" I have never tried to consciously analyse the contribution of various players to Bangladesh's famous cricketing moments but I have this perception that Ashraful has played a stellar role in an overwhelming majority of them. In other words, I consider Ashraful to be 'talismanic' to the fortunes of Bangladesh cricket team.

Why? I wish I could explain. Is it because Ashraful sparkled in the World cup 2007 victory against South Africa and played a sizzler against Australia at unforgettable Sophia Gardens? But then I also know that he did not do much against the same opposition at the Fatullah in 2006 and nor did he contribute when the Bangla boyz defeated India in World Cup 2007.

It is all in the mind, apparently. I have blogged earlier about how notions and perceptions can be unrelated to the reality. Maybe we WANT to see things in a certain fashion out of respect or contempt for certain individuals. I just see Ashraful as the guy who is pivotal to Bangladesh's success. In that respect, he is a talismanic Bangladeshi to me.

Perhaps that explains why I was satiated to learn that on this instance Ashraful has indeed proved to be 'talismanic' to Bangladesh's good 4th innings show where they could keep the match alive till a fair distance even while attempting a big BIG chase. 2008 was a disappointing year for Bangladesh and, not surprisingly to me, it was personally an even more horrendous year for this very special Bangladesh batsman. Hope the talisman can conjure up his magic in favour of Bangladesh in 2009.

Best Batsman in Bangla

"I had confidence in Mashrafe [Mortaza]. To me, he is the best batsman in the team.." - Shahadat Hossain.

Exactly what I wondered about for a moment as I learnt of Mortaza's 4th day heroics against Indian bowlers. Since he made those head turning 30 odd runs to upset New Zealand in a World Cup warm up match Mashrafe Mortaza has shown more than decent batting ability whenever his team has needed it. His knack of knocking a furious cameo under pressure is the stuff of a genuine all rounder in his early days. While his methods will keep him miles away from the "Mr. Dependable" tag, his talent at belting leather makes itself obvious in innings after audacious innings.

I'm waiting for the day when Mashrafe is going to pull his team over the line against a big team in an actual ODI. Life will never be the same again for the young man as he will then be a star. Make no mistake, he is already a very good bowler. In his subcontinent though nothing succeeds like batting and ODIs.

Bangla’s conquest & a Protean heel

Main features of Bangla's win over South Africa:

1) Mohammad Ashraful holding the Bangladesh innings together without losing his own tempo. All the points that follow have a few invisible linkbacks to this one, for every one of them resulted / drew from Ashraful’s nonchalant imposition of his exceptional skills on an unsuspecting big brother.

2) The stabilising 5th wicket partnership between Aftab & Ashraful: They encashed on the Dravid-ian tactic from the South African skipper to slip in his 5th bowler instead of putting a full stop to the struggling Bangladeshis. The pair did the crucial job of stitching a steadily paced partnership in reaching the 40th over with 5 or more wickets in hand.

3) Mortaza’s tide-turning assault in the end overs: The more I see of this energetic young man the more I am impressed about him. He grabs every opportunity to make an impact in the game. He is there with the new ball making vital breaktroughs like his identically featured bowling idol. He is there to let the bowlers smell his intent of hitting a few big ones late in the innings whenever he has an outing at the crease with a bat. In between he is also there to make diving stops and cut off runs inside the circle as well as near the boundary.

4) South African batting woes against certain left arm spinners – check out on the ODI success of Jayasuriya & Sunil Joshi against them while Oz tormenter Vettori struggles. Rafique has not been too impressive against Proteans until yesterday but then that is what a cocky performance by a standout player does to people who know how to stand up and be counted.

5) The well-known monotony of South African attack and lack of slower balls / bowlers in their ranks makes them a lesser team in conditions unhelpful to seam & swing bowling. Only Nel seemed capable of bowling decent yorkers and slower balls. Pollock’s loss of sting in the major event has landed him a new role - of delaying middle overs acceleration. On current form South Africa need both Nel and Hall in the final overs; and other teams will be watching how they solve that dilemma.

6) Propensity of South African batting (and, to a lesser extent, bowling) to choke in unlikely circumstances.

We can discuss a little more on that last point. Of late Graeme Smith’s men show a remarkably wobbly streak once a few early wickets are taken. The South African top order seldom looks prepared for great blows from lesser teams. Perhaps this team bats well against the Aussies because they expect to get in bad situations against that opposition. But then Aussies have not taken early wickets against them in their last two matches – that record breaking one at Wnderers and their WC group league match last month.

While other big teams manage to stem the rot in the lower middle order after starting badly, the South African middle order often freezes upon failure of plan A. Most South African collapses generally penetrate right down to the tail. That tail is the most formidable of all – housing South African allrounders Boucher, Pollock and Hall.

Some teams have often let up or faltered in resources after bagging the first six or seven South African wickets and payed dearly. The 3rd Ind-RSA ODI at their backyard in end 2006 is a classic example. South Africa were six down for 76 even then but Indians dropped Justin Kemp twice before he reached 10 and then it all went out of hand. South Africa, batting first, reached 274 then and won by 106 runs. India never recovered and where washed out in the series.

But Shakib Al Hasan and his left arm slow mates never let off the pressure yesterday even when they were not picking wickets. When Pollock was stitching together a typical comeback partnership for the 7th wicket with Boucher, a direct hit from Tamim Iqbal put paid to South African hopes of not facing a desperate struggle to qualify for the semis.

Earlier in the tournament Bangladesh had opened up the group league matches of Group B by defeating India. Yesterday they did enough to bring global cricket audiences back to their tellies to follow Super Eights by re-igniting semi final hopes of a few other sides not excluding the home team.

Now we hope Ireland catches a big fish to turn this final phase of the Super Eights into the bitter dogfight no one expected it to be when Vaughan and Jayawardene went out for the toss on Wednesday.

Two surprises, that 'upset' two teams

Yesterday’s results

So India lost to Bangladesh and Pakistan to Ireland. India batted way below par at the two ends of their innings and Pakistan batsmen succumbed to Irish persistence in not allowing them to score. Indian bowlers were too wayward to defend 191 and Pakistan bowlers didn’t have enough to defend. India are still hoping for two wins and some winners’ luck to qualify for the next round but Pakistan are out of the world’s biggest cricket tournament by the 5th day.

We can go on and on elaborating on the surprise results of the two 17th March games in this fashion. But are we giving credit where it is due? Probably not. Yes those results were surprises, but they were not upsets in the true sense of the word. An 'upset', so far as history of such matches go, is a loss that resulted mainly (sometimes solely) from the big team playing badly. I'm not sure that was the case yesterday either at Trinidad or at Jamaica (unless we have reports of post-match upsets of a visceral kind in the Pak camp).

Bangladesh and Ireland in this World Cup

Unlike other wins of Bangladesh in other tournaments and series involving big teams these wins are no one-off shows. Their matured game and that warm up result against New Zealand indicate otherwise. Ditto for the Irish. In fact the latter deserve a bigger applause for making full use of their county exposure to make up for lack of matches against international sides.

I gladly take back the words from an earlier post of mine. Ireland and Bangla were not doing too much too soon by surprising big teams in warm up matches. They were merely serving up warnings. To then come into the World Cup and live up to the growing expectations against teams that were already aware of their shock value speaks of self-belief, meticulous game planning and talent in the ranks.

The Bangladesh game plan

I have not had much of the Irish game except in highlights. But I watched a new look Bangladesh unfurl at the biggest stage. They were slightly aided by the ever-prepared-to-choke Indians but the win belonged to only to Bangladesh.

Bangladesh remind us so much of the Sri Lankans in the 1996 tourney. They have a number of attacking batsmen with just one (Nafees) or two (Bashar) likely to get near a hundred. They have a swashbuckling opener (Tamim Iqbal) who announced himself in yesterday’s match, and looks good to score a few in the Powerplay overs whenever a loose delivery comes him way. That bevy of enticing, accurate, strangling slow bowlers in their ranks is ably supported by one very good pace bowler, Mortaza. Just what the doctor ordered for the West Indian grounds.

From their choice of bowlers I suspect restricting opposition batsmen to a low-ish total and chasing it down to be the Bangladesh game plan for the tournament. (Yesterday’s match will lead them further on that path.) They even have an interesting plan for the chase. I noticed that most of their top, experienced batsmen like Bashar and Ashraful had moved down the order to propel the finishing act in a chase, if required. It may not be the greatest plan against top sides for an anchorman like Bashar to come in so far down the order but the Ashraful move looked a good one. They will need a combination of striking ability and big match experience in case the asking rate climbs.

It will be interesting to have them bat first though. Their flashy batsmen are likely to struggle a bit. And while their spinners can expect assistance in the afternoon on drier pitches that may not always happen, as the pitches tend to hold well on the first day. On the flip side Mortaza and his medium pacer mate Rasel will be hard pressed to give those vital breakthroughs.


Indian woes and hopes

As for Indian fans hoping to see India proceed further from the Group of Death, they have to add the following to their list of daily prayers:
- no rain on India’s match days
- India bat first against Bermuda and put up 350 plus
- India win both their remaining matches (with top seven firing in both)
- either Bangladesh beat Sri Lanka, or Sri Lanka thrash Bangladesh badly
- Bangladesh Bermuda game getting washed out

The equation, as it stands now, is elaborated by cricinfo's Anand Vasu here. India have to overcome two major hitches to make the best of the controllables. [Those are besides the accepted perennial minuses of lethargic fielding, lack of consistent bowling and, increasingly, the Sehwag form problem.] Both of them reside in the Indian middle.

The Indian middle overs bowling led by Bhajji is not hot and everyone except Bermuda can expect to be let off the hook at that stage. Sri Lanka did that in three consecutive games last month and will be hoping for the same again. Also Indian middle and lower order batsmen have no plan in place to counter loss of early wickets even after so much exposure to these conditions over the last year or so. Bangladesh administered Lara’s methods to Team India and the latter demonstrated their continued ability to freeze in the face of accurate slow bowling. Ones and twos are just not their cup of cricket.

Let's hope forthe sake of Indian cricket lovers that these 'middles' are not 'upset' anytime soon. As Dr. Mardy quotes Ovid in today’s Quote of the week newsletter:

"Chance affects everything. Let your hook be always cast;
in the stream where you least expect it, there will be a fish."

PS: A few weeks back Harbhajan publicly asked his lower order mates to contribute more in West Indies. Look at Bhajji’s two innings since landing there: He casually gave catching practice to the cover fielder first ball in the Holland match, and was bowled attempting to cut a ball inside stumps yesterday. This when each of the occasions required a senior player like him to play sensibly and stay on. Perhaps that ‘contribute more’ call from Harbhajan was just a surreptitious request to Pathan, Zaheer, Munaf and Agarkar to share his quota of scoring runs.

The Sehwag question and Mortaza's visual answer

"Mashrafe Mortaza to Sehwag, OUT, Gone! Mortaza nails Sehwag! Sehwag's disastrous recent run continues. Perfect offcutter that landed outside off stump, on a good length and cut back in. Sehwag's eyes lit up at what he perceived as width and shaped to cut it. The ball jagged back in, took the inside-edge and crashed into the furniture. Bangladesh taste first blood."

That was cricinfo's Sriram Veera describing Sehwag's departure in India's opening match against Bangladesh.

Now we try to look at that dismissal from the point of view of the Indian think tank. We will not discuss the fact that this batsman was arguably picked on the insistence of the captain who believed he would strike form in the nick of time. It is immaterial now. We leave perceptions aside and concentrate on the facts.

Our man Sehwag has now got out in that fashion a good many times in the past couple of months. We can easily picture all opposition coaches and captains playing back his well documented problem with the fast incoming deliveery to their new ball bowlers ahead of an India match, helping them plan Viru's dismissal. It is the same with Viru's skipper Dravid; he too has a problem with this particular delivery.

The difference ends there though. To nail Dravid you have to bowl it fast and full - but not too full. And bowl it on a particular 3 or 4 inch wide channel just outside offstump. And have the delivery swing / jag back onto his pads. When struggling with form Dravid can often get out to lbw to this ball. But then this is a pretty handy delivery for any batsman to face.

Not so with our Viru. These days he seems to make it easy for the bowlers. We can't help thinking that the quickies start their run up against Viru with the simple aim of bowling it quick and bringing it back secure in the knowledge that Viru, like a typical 5th day pitch, will do the rest irrespective of length and width. Worse: Sehwag does it.

And he does it yet again, come next match. [It is a sad and ironically reversed usage of 'again' to his batsmanship; once upon a time the word was most accompanied by 'fours' and 'sixes'.] Sehwag does it off the full deliveries and he does it off the short ones. In the last warm up match he added variety by edging one that moved away. For a change.

Of course we need to be objective and avoid excessive criticism of his attitude ("he's reckless and needs to be dropped") considering this period of time to be the lowest ebb of this capable player. And these can be truly embarassing times. Had The Don been videotaped at such times he just might have evoked cat calls like "isn't he from the same country as McGrath" today.

Before this match started I was wondering about the adequacy of the Indian build up to the big matches, the first of which is scheduled against Sri Lanka on 23rd March. India will have played five matches in the West Indies by then (2 of them warmers) with the only big opposition in that sequence having folded for 85. i.e. Barring upsets they would have had too long a sequence of relatively soft matches to keep their alertness up.

I do not think so anymore. Part of it is because I never expected the ongoing one to be a soft match and it is looking as close a call as was my hunch yesterday. But coming from the point we were discussing, India have to sort out the Sehwag problem before facing Sri Lanka and the slingy Malingy, sorry, Malinga and they are fortunate to have another soft match before it to sort things out. Now they simply have to try out plan B in the next match against Bermuda.

With Andy Roberts warning teams that quicker surfaces await them later in the tournament, Sehwag looks set to dig the team's and his own chances of success a deeper hole if he is retained in the opening slot. The only alternative to dropping him altogether is to get him playing in the lower middle order right where his co-struggler Pathan is slotted.

On the other hand, the Team Management can back Sehwag to just do a Jayawardene on Bermuda and hit a few vital, confidence building runs from his usual opening slot. Things may never be this woeful again for the beleagured dasher once he gets into a scoring groove.

In order to tackle the Sehwag conundrum this Indian think tank has been pushed to deciding between a plan and a gamble . Whatever their choice is, there just cannot be any further postponement of that critical decision.

Nothing said in the above post discredits Mashrafe Mortaza of that Sehwag wicket and the next (he sends back Uthappa as I draft this piece). With better luck he could have scalped a few more, including his Bong neighbour Dada.

Mortaza had looked good in his early days but then he went off the radar for a while. He is now back bowling at full tilt and furiously well too, reminding us of one Mr. Waqar "You-miss-I-hit". With more bowling support and careful preservation I see Mashrafe Mortaza making it into the top bracket.

Interestingly Mortaza has also found a way to look like the great Pakistani rocket launcher in his younger days!! Mediapersons / commentators can save precious column inches / airtime seconds by not asking Mortaza who his bowling idol is, coz' these days Mashrafe prefers wearing the answer on his persona.

Thoughts on upcoming India Bangladesh match

India play Bangladesh after a long gap; 2 years and 3 months to be reasonably precise. The second last time they played a match India ended up on the losing side. Virtually everybody in this world, including people who know nothing of cricket, remembers that day for a far heavier reason. It was Boxing Day of 2004 when the killer Tsunami struck on the east facing coasts of many South Asian countries extinguishing hundreds of thousands of lives.

Two of the badly affected countries, India and Sri Lanka are group B rivals of Bangladesh this World Cup. ICC associate member Malaysia and neighbours Indonesia were the worst hit by the calamity. It is needless to repeat stuff that people know too well but the thought of so many cricketing nations tied by a second common thread of grief makes it resurface spontaneouly.

Cricinfo's enchanter-in-chief Siddharth Vaidyanathan explores a few areas of the Indian game that Bangladesh will look to assault. One of them can be an ambush with their left arm bowlers. Siddharth observes:

India are likely to face a slew of left-arm spinners in that (middle overs) period, with Mohammad Rafique's darts complemented by Abdur Razzak's loop and Saqibul's accuracy. Razzak and Saqibul arrive with economy-rates of 3.5 and 3.7 respectively and India will need to find innovative ways to manoeuvre the ball around with the field spread.

Indeed Habibul Bashar and Shahriyar Nafees hold the key to Bangla doing well in the match. Indians are in pretty decent nick but Bangladesh are at the top of their game with a warm up win over the Ashes beating (Oz and now England) Kiwis. And Mortaza, if he knows anything about latching on to good form, will be a handful for the openers.

Talking of left-arm menace, ace cricket writer Mukul Kesavan was really upset about certain aspects of the Indian think tank's vision around six months back and strung his grievances together in a piece that can make you chuckle when Indian cricket is doing well. The post (a rant really) is dated but nevertheless enjoyable for his delicious take on left handers.

My left-handed left hand says it looks forward to meeting you, Mukul.

[cross posted on Desicritics]

Too much too soon

These well-intended warm up games ahead of the World Cup are proving to be dampeners....

"Ire on fire, makes no. 1 dance on a wire"

"Mashrafe takes Oz-whitewashers to the cleaners"

How serenely shocking would headlines like these be if results such as those came up in the WC group league matches.....As things stand now, these premature good shows by smaller teams in tour games are likely to diminish their chances of causing upsets when the real thing starts.

For one, their 'unsuspecting' big brothers will be wary of their shock value now. [However much their coaches may warn them, players of top teams have this proud history of simply refusing to take the small fries seriously until calamity]. Also the minnows will now feel some pressure to try and produce a repeat act - the last thing you would want to happen to people woefully short on match practice against quality opposition.

However I am still not writing off the Bangla Boys' chances of causing a real flutter in the Indo-SL group. My neighbours across the Bengal border on the east have shown too many flashes in 2005 and early 2006 against top flight opposition to dismiss this NZ beater as a one-off in the pan.

Welcome to the pool of death, Sri Lanka & India!

Update: That Ire-wire-fire bit on SA has reached higher.....sixth floor precisely. One hopes it was fire indeed and not just smoke - of the forbidden kind that some Pakistan cricketers tend to puff while listening to Calypso beats. The incident was funny on the hotel's part, to say the least.....in mega events like these safety should be the least of players' concerns. Spectators too. We love watching players on fire only inside a cricket ground...

Update 2: We have more fun smoking out of that fire...

Update 3: I eat back the observations made in this post. Ireland and Bangla came out blazing on March 17th and all but ended Indo-Pak challenge in the World Cup. They did it all with a quiet confidence and quality of performance that says to buggers like me: "It is up to you to feel the heat."

DC preview on South Africa

is up. Told you about my latent poetic talent.....

Other collaborative WC'07 previews on DC:

West Indies
Sri Lanka
New Zealand
England
Zimbabwe
Bangladesh / Kenya
Minnows [Scotland / Holland / Bermuda / Ireland / Canada]
Pakistan
India
Australia

Remembering Sophia Gardens

The Fatullah Cricket Stadium in Narayangunj District near Dhaka is about a quarter of the globe away from Sophia Gardens cricket stadium in the British Isles. But the events of this 1st day of the Test series between Australia and Bangladesh have reminded cricket followers of a particular match played between the same sides at the Welsh ground. Bangladesh supporters will hope that today’s proceedings at the Fatullah has the same impact on Test cricket in Bangladesh that that Natwest league match of 18th June 2005 had on their one-day outfit.

Ever since winning the cliffhanger of a final against Kenya at Kuala Lumpur in the 1997 edition of ICC trophy Bangladesh have always shown this ability to surprise big sides in international cricket whenever taken lightly. In one day cricket they have recorded knockout punches against each of their sub-continental big brothers and have occasionally scared a few other traditional Test sides rated as semi-Goliaths to Bangla’s David. The crowning glory was the in-your-face victory over Australians at Sophia Gardens last year that set the tone for the Antipodeans’ Ashes misfortunes later that summer.

Ability, therefore, was not a concern for the fledgling team. The bowling remains thin but that is no shame in this phase of early growth. Over the years though, Bangladesh supporters were let down by recurring non-performances from an unmistakably potent top order batting. For nearly a decade the Bangla batsmen betrayed a reluctance to do it the hard way, which is often the only way in international sport. Aftab Ahmed appeared to exorcise a limpet of a demon with that sixer off Jason Gillespie to seal the Sophia Gardens match. A spurt in Bangla’s one day performances indicates some truth about that take. Bangladesh have won only 15 of the 120 one day matches they played. Of the 15 wins though, no less than 6 have come in a remarkable period starting 18th June 2005.

Bangladesh appears to relish the opportunity to play against the Australians. They first took this formidable opposition by surprise when they batted admirably at Cairns during the second Test of their Down Under tour in 2003. And interestingly that match too had marked an upswing in Bangla’s performances in Test matches. One win and three draws in 22 matches (starting from the Cairns Test) is certainly no renaissance worthy of note. But no wins and a solitary draw in 20 matches till that point perhaps provides....well, an adequate perspective.

Dav Whatmore, serving as Bangladesh coach for three years, has valuable experience of a similar team-building job from his stint with the struggling young Sri Lankan side in the mid 90’s. But success, when it comes, in his present assignment of removing the ‘minnow’ tag from all future references to the Bangladesh team should rank higher than even the 1996 World Cup triumph.

For millions of fans in a nation where cricket is the number one sport the past year or so has been like a generous helping of apple pie after the bitter pills swallowed along the learning curve. They are hoping for the best and urging their team on to another step up the ladder. With that kind of history against the top team in cricket world their prayers may not remain unanswered for long.

That the Bangladesh players have broken their record for best all-wicket partnership and rewritten the record for most runs scored in a day for the second time in a month on this remarkable day is truly of secondary significance. After all the pitch played to the home team’s strengths, the spinners were ineffective on a first day wicket and a left-right partnership did Australian bowlers in on a hot n’ humid afternoon. Notwithstanding all that and a few critical lapses in concentration by the batsmen, the calculated audacity exuded by the team and an abiding picture of batsmen collectively striving to bat the team to a position of ascendancy were the primary gains for Bangladesh during their 88 overs of emancipation.

May Fatullah be the next Sophia Gardens, and much more. And the one person who will not have anything to complain about that is Muttiah Muralitharan.

[cross posted at Differrent Strokes]