How about Gurunath getting a 3rd degree called "24 hours of compulsory attention to Shastri's commentary"

Ravi Shastri is selected in BCCI's three member committee for probing spot fixing. 

Hope he can fire on all cylinders and drive some tracer bullets into fixers, make them disappear like huge sixers before the contest goes down to the wire. it's his for the taking, that's what the doctor ordered. 

However Shaz's greatest achievement would be bringing down the (BCCI) president if he can...he has got good credentials as a 'president shooter' to start with: a three letter initial (same as LHO and JWB) !! 

That will set the cat among the pigeons...c'mon Shaz, throw caution to the wind and be like greased lightning. The situation is touch and go...it's a pressure cooker, and something's got to give.

Can almost hear him commentate on the findings: "what Indian cricket needs now is a wicket...what Srini needs now is a partnership. Srini is rapped on the pads and the finger goes up....the umpire knew exactly what he was doing there. This decision sets up rest of the enquiry nicely ...now Guru..edggeeed, and should be taken...aah, Delhi police have dropped it. Unbelievable - they will take it ten out of ten times. the atmosphere is electrifying..is there another twist in the tale? One gets a feeling Guru may have injured himself there..."

[acknowledgement: http://blog.rohandsa.com/2010/04/ravi-shastri-commentary-generator.html]

IPL-6: Moment of the tournament

THE MOMENT of IPL-6 just came up in today's Eliminator between Rajasthan Royals and Sunrisers Hyderabad in the Delhi play-offs.
38 yr old "foreign" Brad Hodge finds a little time to use between deliveries of this knock-out match, and walks up to a forever-amused-looking "local" wonderkid (Samson) - less than half Hodge's age - to teach the latter a chapter from the book of stealing singles. 
"Don't hit it boy, work it and get that crucial extra run." The old man gestures, but only after having demonstrated it. 

Priceless. 

Almost justifies the existence of IPL...such moments.

IPL-6, Rajasthan Royals, Uttar-Dravid, Sanju...and Uttar-Process

"Manzilein unki hoti hai jinki sapnon mein jaan hoti hai
Kyonki pankhon se nahi, hauslon se udaan hoti hai"

Sidhu goes overboard to describe Dravid's achievements as player and skipper this IPL season, coming back from "packing sandwiches for kids" to powering his team towards a high scoring chase tonight against Pune Warriors.

Gavaskar had a more unique line of tribute, from a Mumbaikar to Bangalorean:
"These guys from Bangalore are underrated - they are such nice guys who achieve but have no self-promotion."

But beyond this Rahul celebration (which is every bit deserved for the old man) a little story may be emerging in Rajasthan Royals backyard for Indian cricket fans. We may be hitting upon the next big thing in batting. I can't believe a batsman, even an 18 year old in-form talent, can strike a first ball cover driven four of THAT class. This was the first I saw of Sanju Samson - and I am already hoping for more, much more.

Since he is 18, he is also the right person at the right place at the right time: playing for RR just when the team is buying Rahul's "horses for courses" theory, backed by the vision of "get the processes right and worry not of the results"....something that he developed with Chappell as his vision for 2007 world cup but could not sell to the Indian team due to "over-aggressive selling" tactics of his then coach.

This RR team, quite like RR of 1st IPL season, seems to be working to "process is king" theory this year. It shows in the lack of tension on the faces of the players. May or may not be the best / only way to win, but the journey sure becomes more enjoyable. Imran Khan used to speak of it during the later, more successful phase of his career - but can't even compare a modest team lke RR to the men Imran had at his disposal. So THIS really is the first case study of the "process + Horses for courses" theory in a sub-continent setup.

PS: In that 2005 article which predicted that Chappell-Dravid will be adopting this "horses for courses" theory in 2007 WC instead of set teams and batting orders, I had given almost all credit to Greg Chappell for the theory. But subsequent to that article, Chappell's way of handling shows that he was only the father of the idea. It is Dravid who, inspite of then failure of the concept, kept believing in it and now the man has found a perfect platform to try it out amidst a sea of youngsters. This time these guys do not have conflicting signs to confuse them as there is no Chappell around.

Match winner

The customary glance from dinner table at IPL scores on SetMax told me Delhi had set an incredible 230 to Kings XI Punjab..Without looking at the scoreboard, it appears Sehwag has fired. Punjab were decently placed in the chase at 100 odd for 2 in 10 overs but even so the ask looks improbable to achieve.




But then the camera pans to a Delhi Daredevils bowler who was released from 3 years of service to KKR. I could almost hear the entire lot of IPL followers in Punjab whisper in nervous anticipation:

"Hey, this match is far from over!"

Ajit Agarkar, though, was quite oblivious of the hopes he continues to produce in rival camps.


Update: Ajit dearest comes on to bowl 17th over with Punjab needing 72 off last 4 overs. Gives away 15 runs in that over. Agarkaresque if viewed from a distance, it really is decent fare going by the match proceedings.

[developed from a note on my Facebook page]

What on earth is happening with Irfan Pathan

A relieved Irfan Pathan turned up for a post-match interview after Delhi Daredevils' close win over Pune Warriors in IPLT20. They say Irfan lost confidence in his bowling. But whenever Irfan speaks, I see a confident & communicative young man ready with intelligent & frank responses without having to be prodded. Today I saw that sparkling side of Irfan once again. I even see shades of the current Indian skipper when Irfan is in this mood. Try as I did, I could not match the bubbly guy I saw today with people's general perception of him (and with his own lack of performances in domestic cricket).



If Irfan Pathan shows decent returns in domestic cricket, then with his kind of ability I cannot believe he can EVER be a lesser preference to selectors than Ravindra Jadeja, Piyush Chawla and some of the others tried out these days. His middle overs bowling was key to Dhoni's T20 WC final win in 2007. Currently in ODI's the Indian team needs a medium-quick bowling all rounder MORE than spin-bowling ones. Yet here we see Irfan, showing much fluency with the bat at number 3 and speaking brightly in T20 interviews while betraying NO SIGNS of returning to India colours. It would be interesting to see his response had the interviewer thrown that question.


Has Irfan Pathan lost interest in international cricket? Is he happy as he is today? Is he no more keen to come back to Team India? I won't dwell again on the twisted incentives that IPL paychecks present for top T20 players. I have blogged generally on it earlier. He may even be going through genuine form issues. However, I find 'years of bowling form lapse' quite phoney for someone who, 5 years back, only had to turn up at the bowling crease for the ball to start swinging.

The other intriguing aspect about his current IPL stint: inspite of his moderate showing in previous IPL's he fetched a staggering price as an all-rounder, a price that is normally reserved for'guaranteed performers', or in other words the top players in the world who excel in other formats too. There must be something in him that the IPL franchisees are seeing and investing on, but the selectors & Irfan himself seem to be unaware of it!


Strange, the way some truly promising careers shape up in this game...especially now that IPL adds a twist that was not seen till 4 years back.


PS: I have seen and read about the 'Chappell effect' on Irfan's career. I am sure some of you would want to go back there. However I have my reservations in even starting to discuss the argument that a major talent continues to get defocussed 4 years after Chappell has left.

[developed from the note posted on my Facebook profile;
cross posted with minor edits on cricketcountry.com ]

Is Ishant's 'nishant' round the corner?

I was passing via drawing-n-dining room** when I glanced at the TV screen. An IPL match was on, as you would expect this time of the year barring Richter 9. At that point of time they were showing a replay of Deccan Chargers' Ishant Sharma dismissing RCB's Dilshan caught behind with a good quick ball.At that point of time they were showing a replay of Deccan Chargers' Ishant Sharma dismissing RCB's Dilshan caught behind with a good quick ball.


I came back in few minutes and sat down to watch Ishant bowl the 6th over of RCB innings. He was fast and accurate..and he was hurrying a batsman I have not seen get hurried in quite sometime, the splendid AB de Villiers.


Ishant clocked 149kph & 150kph in 2 deliveries. Gony's decently-fast-medium deliveries were clocking 133 odd in overs on either side of Ishant's over. The speed guns did not look to be malfunctioning, certainly not by much.


Instantly I remembered the lankier Ishant, all of 19 years, bowling at 140+ for 12 overs to Ponting at Perth in Jan'08 to prise him out and decide the Test. Then I also remembered the underperforming Ishant that struggled to clock mid-130's or get any accuracy / movement since 2007-08 Australia tour (more specifically, since Ishant started his 1st IPL season in Apr'08 - I won't name the team to avoid controversy;-).


Is the tide turning and the speed returning for Ishant Sharma? I loved rediscovering that Ishant can still produce that pace-bounce-length combo that worked for him in his 1st 4-5 months irrespective of pitch & weather. Setting aside his recent performances, Ishant is our main hope to carry the future Test pace attack. He is the only one since Javagal Srinath who can be a genuine quickie in his best days which, I am sure, are yet to come.


I hope he took the World Cup exclusion as badly and as personally as those speed guns showed today.


**take the hint, mate - I was NOT in front of TV..if IPL was to be 'corruption', I would be 'Anna bhau' remember?



Earlier posts on Ishant Sharma & his bowling: here and here


Update: It appears Ishant continued producing high bowling speeds in the 8th over (his 4th). Here is an excerpt from cricinfo commentary:

7.3


Sharma to Kohli, 1 run, bouncer, hit in the air and falls safe in the mid-wicket region. Ashutosh comments on the speed Sharma is bowling, "Has any one bothered to notice the speed at which Ishant Sharma is bowling, his fastest is at 152.2Kmph and he's averaging at almost 150kmph."

Spinners were more successful in SA's IPL-2009 than the Indian IPL of 2008

What was it that allowed that to happen?

Was it the extra bounce? Perhaps it was. The extra rise was clearly worked to the advantage by all the top spinners including Kumble, Ojha, Warne, Vettori, Harbhajan and Muralitharan.

Also, was it the extra 10 or so yards from the batting crease to the boundary ropes? I remember Ian Chappell expressing frustration last year at the bats getting better and the fields getting shorter at the same time. His argument was that by allowing this to happen the cricket administrators were looking for short sighted satiation of the spectators for more sixes (for that is what the administrators can think of as the only love of us one-dmensional cricket fans). The short boundaries were making the spinners lose the inclination to flight deliveries as even the mishits created by good bowling from spinners to top batsmen would regularly go over the fence instead of becoming a catch in the deep. At least the 75-80 yard boundaries in South Africa give tweakers some extra 'ground'.

But someone will need to explain to me where the turn came from. Since their return from exile in the 90's, the SA cricket team were as notorious for their lack of spinners as the pitches in their country were renowned for not supporting them. However spectators got to see some sharp turn in some matches with 6-7 over old balls. And they got that not only from the best spin doctors but also from some of the lesser known (but adequately effective) practitioners of spin bowling.

Did the IPL supremo Lalit Modi manage the impossible of not only taking the tournament from Asia to Africa but also some of the original Indian 'pitch' and tenor within a one month timeframe?

Can't rule that one out, going by the way Modi is beginning to rate himself as a 1st class miracle worker and trying to conjure up bigger challenges for himself.

Arranging 2 IPL's a year, for example!!

Asking rates above 10 for more than 5 overs are difficult to get even in T20....

....no matter who you have at the crease during those overs with whatever number of wickets in hand.

Need proof?

Have a look at this chart for the IPL season 2 stats showcasing best strike rates amongst batsmen.

The list may well get new additions after the 2nd semi final and the final, but as on 23rd May morning there are only a handful of people who could twice achieve a strike rate of 200 or more (i.e. 2 runs a ball, or 12 runs per 6 balls) in the completed innings they played over 14 or more matches.

They are the usual suspects - Ross Taylor, Adam Gilchrist and Yusuf Pathan. What's more creditable, they have achieved these strike rates when it has mattered most - in the 2nd innings(if I am not mistaken then all of these 6 specials barring one Y Pathan innings were done chasing down a total - or is it 100%?? Hope someone answers that). This shows how good they have been in cracking the opposition team's bowling strategies.

But ultimately this list also shows that even these 3 whirlwinders were THIS good in only a couple of matches in such a long series. And that some other not-too-less special guys like Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, MSD, Raina, ABdV - for all their fireworks - could either not achieve a completed innings with 200 strike rate or managed to get there just once. In other words, these 2-runs-a-ball-and-more innings were not as common as we may presume they were if these stats were not presented to us.

Say one of these top 3 guys (Pathan / Taylor/ Gilly) were chasing 10 an over and also playing one of these special innings. A simple calculation will show that they would still be required to either take risky singles to hog the strike or need their partners to also score at 7 or 8 to get over the line. In the closing overs it is quite likely that the partner will be a newcomer at the crease. That complicates things further.

And that, eventually, gives us an idea why it can be rather difficult to chase 10 plus in closing overs even with wickets in hand.

Knockouts are the phase where this pressure of asking rate will be felt even more in the 2nd innings. Why 10, anything above 8 can prove to be too much pressure in the final 5 overs of a semi final or the final. Now watch the replay of Gilly's innings yesterday and rate it in perspective. In a semi final clash and chasing a not too modest target, he scored at 3 runs a ball for the first 17 balls and at 2 runs a ball for the next 17 before getting out in the 35th delivery he faced.

How do I rate it? Even leaving alone the premium quality hitting demonstrated by the ageless gladiator from the Aussie Juggernaut of the 2000's, I consider Gilly's 85 yesterday to be the best of all above-50 IPL 2009 innings in terms of significance, and is arguably also the overall best amongst all knocks played in the 2 editions of IPL we have seen so far.

[Closest contestant in overall category: Warnie's cool headed finish in IPL 2008 final. Warnie scored just 9 runs, but then it was special not for the volume but for the sheer weight of the situation he was in].

"Good captains need to be fiery and pumped up on the field"

Do you believe in that?? Then perhaps you can't even picture the man I will talk about now as a remotely good one.

Look at this!!

We remember Shaun Pollock the captain as the guy that allowed his team to get knocked out of the 2003 world cup by miscalculating the rain shortened target by 1 run....But he is the 3rd most successful captain after Ponting and Jardine in the history of Test cricket. And that record spans over not 3 or four but 10 series which he captained (unlike most of the other guys in the top 10 list).

I think whoever pushed him out of Test captaincy (or did not think to coerce him to continue in tests after he stepped down after 2003 WC) pushed SA team back by a few years and allowed SA cricket to pay a price costlier than that 1 run.

I still remember the 3 match ODI series in April-May 2000. Steve's not-almighty-but-already-mighty Aussies landed in SA to play the series that was scheduled about 7 days after what turned out to be Cronje's ouster from cricket.

It was in such a scenario that Shaun Pollock took up the South African captaincy - and SA almost surreally won that series in spite of all that chaos leading up to the series. Fluke? I guess not. Aussies played well and still came out 2nd best. Later in September the same year we saw the Aussies taking SA on in the new 'covered' stadium in another 3 match ‘away’ series. Polly's Springboks lost the first match badly. However they came back and TIED the 2nd one before winning the last one.

He was perhaps the one international captain in the 2000’s who never got his due as a galvaniser of cricketers into a unit stronger than the sum of its parts. [I am not talking about Warnie / Gilly and such like that did not get the opportunity; that will be a whole new discussion and the topic of some future post of mine]. If you look back at the particular phase in last year's IPL when MI started to turn around (only to botch it up in the last 2 matches and miss the semis berth) you will notice that the fightback happened just as Polly replaced Bhajji, stand-in captain for the first few matches till the ban was 'slapped' on him. It happened even as their best player and captain Sachin Tendulkar was nursing injuries on the sidelines. One can almost say (at the risk of insulting Tendulkar’s leadership capabilities) that the finishing touches never happened because Sachin Tendulkar happened to be back after the injury and took back the leadership for those crucial last league matches!

The above stats and recollections, strrewn together, suggest that the taciturn man we saw on the field was as good a leader in ODI's and T20 as he used to be in Tests. He was not quite the commentators' / adman's delight like some skippers from the subcontinent during his time but he was no less effective than his boisterous counterparts, to say the least.

Pollock has opted out of travelling to India for the IPL and in all likelihood he will not be back in next year’s edition of the IPL. But if he decides to have a rethink, don't you think my home team Kolkata Knight Riders needs someone like him at the helm?

The quintessential T20 folk

Since the T20 world cup last year I have been trying to make my mind up on the one cricket personality who is / was literally 'born for T20'.
Repeatedly the name that keeps coming back ahead of the Jayasuriyas, Gambhirs and Misbahs is Billy Bowden.

This umpire is the Bradman of flamboyance (almost as essential to the entertainment aspect of Twenty20 as run making, wicket taking and direct hits are to its cricketing aspect) in an era where no player is so distinctly ahead of competition on any one area.

Billy continued to hit other potential competitors for "double crooked finger six-phase hop" sixes till I came across a league match involving Jaipur's Rajasthan Royals last month. A little right handed batsman opened the batting for them. Swapnil Asnodkar is armed with quick reflexes and a few decent cricketing shots but no one quite knows how he would choose to use them. The only certainty was he would surely use his shots at the rate of one per ball. (Why? He wasn't allowed any more.) He could fall any moment. At the same time he could hit any bowler anywhere irrespective of the game situation. It was like watching a gunfight in an old western.

Now we have seen that earlier. To be more descriptive, we have seen another right handed opening batsman do that on a regular basis through a tournament or a season. Of course sometimes Jayasuriya bats like that when in blazing form but not always. But Jayasuriya is also entwined with this deja vu. Because it was the guy who started off alongside Sanath on the latter's journey to ODI glory in the tri-series against Australia in 1995-96, a series that built up to that frenzied Sri Lankan world cup win of 1996. Romesh Kaluwitharana. He must be as truly born for T20 as is Billy Bowden.

Kaluwitharana fell by the wayside in later years but he will never be forgotten by cricket lovers. Since the late 80's one dayers were never more watchable than in the Kalu-Jaya era (not just because these two belted leather but because their innings could also be over in the space of a few balls as in the Kolkata WC semi final). Apart from Jayasuriya to an extent, no one opening the innings consistently in any form of the game (not even in T20) has perhaps attached as little value to his wicket as the pocket-size Sri Lankan wicketkeeper did in the period 1995 - 1997.

Kalu did it for his team (Sri Lanka) just like Swapnil did for Rajasthan Royals in the inaugural edition of IPL. Only Kalu must have been more compelling as he batted like a suicide bomber match after match in one dayers, in innings played over 50 overs where each top order player can expect to get 40 balls per innings on an average to construct his innings instead of 15 (as in T20). But whenever Sri Lanka batted we saw a man who would have no second thoughts on giving up his right to build an innings in international matches so that the team total could be boosted by an extra 15 or 20 runs. Perhaps Kalu payed with his career when the Sri Lankan team stopped doing well post 1997, but he never went back on playing the self-sacrificing role allotted to him by his captain.

Sad that T20 cricket came a little too late for the guy who was born to play it. The other day I harked back on the thrilling Indo-Pak quarter final played of the 1996 world Cup. It was the 9th of March. Now I intend to recall a little memory from earlier in the same day. This bit is from the 1st quarter final between Sri Lanka and England (this one was a day affair unlike the Indo-Pak one). It was the exact opposite of a 'thrilling' affair. England set an ordinary target and were steamrolled by Jayasuriya in the run chase. I had returned home in the afternoon a little late. I already knew Sri Lanka had just begun their chase and switched on the telly. The first picture I saw was 'Little Kalu' (as Tony Greig and millions others love to call him) walking back to the pavilion. The batsman's score appeared on the screen:

R Kaluwitharana 8(3) b Illingworth

Never saw that match or its highlights again but since that point of time I was sure that the 1st two balls were 2 fours. Mathematically it could have been a six and a two. [5 + 3 was possible but highly unlikely]. But somehow a 'two' did not fit well with the figure 8(3) there. It must be 2 fours followed by a dismissal, someone within me reasoned. I got the confirmation many years later from the cricinfo scorecard for that match that someone was right.

That innings of 8, in my mind, remains the quitessential T20 innings. I care a fig if it was played in another format.

Having played a number of similar innings in a short period, Kalu must rank alongside Billy Bowden as the 'Born for T20' tag.

PS: Just after writing that post I find cricinfo have already done a piece on Swapnil's Kalu resemblance. No mention of the 8 though!

Goodbye Kolkata Knight Riders

As I watched the Kolkata Knight Riders' thrilling run chase at the Eden Gardens in their last league match against Kings' XI Punjab draw to a favourable end for my home team tonight, two thoughts filled my mind:

1) You can make memorable matches out of brilliant lone hand displays like Ganguly & Gul did in this match, but you need supporting contributions and boring team efforts to do well over a period / tournament. In addition to the captain you need more members to stick out their head and show willingness to last the distance. So often the main batting strikers in this line up - Ganguly himself as well as Hussey - were busy doing the menial job of trying to stabilise the ship because the others in that role were not staying put. This cost the KKR boys a few matches.

Inspite of the win KKR bowed out of the competition today as they could not manage enough wins to get themselves a semis berth. I tried to figure out the differences of Ganguly's 1st IPL series for KKR from Ganguly's admirable Test captaincy career with India. One was obviously that this was only the 1st season and the skipper himself took some time to get accustomed. I am sure the second season will be better. The other difference was the one discussed earlier - not having foundation laying folk in batting and bowling.

Coming to think of it, Ganguly's memorable stint as India's most successful Test captain at home & away could have been a lot like his 1st IPL season of the Knight Riders had there been no indefatigable Rahul Dravid at one end (at a batting average of 80+) while batting and no Kumble to keep up one end all day in the bowling innings (even as a 2nd choice spinner). T20 might be a short game but you still need to have team members to put your life-savings money on. Maybe this year's IPL will help provide enough data bank to identify the requisite potential in some people.

[It is another matter that Rahul himself wrongly chose to have an overdose of such folk in the Bangalore Royal Challengers and ended up with too low a growth rate on his funds!]

2) The home match of KKR versus Chennai Super Kings on 18th May was decided on D/L method after play was washed out after the 8th over. Chennai, 56/0 at that stage, were only 3 runs ahead of the required target at that stage and were hence declared winners. If KKR had won that match they would still have had a chance to make the semis and Chennai would have been ousted. There is no point ruing bygones but I cannot resist extracting that 8th over from cricinfo commentary of that match - essentially because so many of the home team's failings in that over have been typical to India / KKR in overs-limit cricket through an embarassingly long period:

7.1
Agarkar to Patel, 1 run, bangs it in short of a length, he swings and
pulls to the on side
7.2
Agarkar to Fleming, 1 wide, slides wide down the
legside, he attempts to nudge it down fine but misses
7.2
Agarkar to
Fleming, 1 run, slides on the pads, he whips it to the on side for a single
7.3
Agarkar to Patel, no run, bowls the slower one this time and beats
him outside the offstump
7.4
Agarkar to Patel, 1 run, Dropped: Patel
hooks a short delivery and miscues it, the top edge sends the ball sailing in
the air for like ages and Dinda spills a straightforward chance at long leg
7.5
Agarkar to Fleming, FOUR, slides down the leg side,he trickles it off
his pads and the ball races to fine leg
7.6
Agarkar to Fleming, no run,
pitches outside off, he shapes to drive but misses

WG_T20

17th May, 2058

I switch on the wall telly as soon as the doctor leaves after routine check up. News channels focus on huge celebrations taking place in India in memory of completing 60 years of summer cricket. Playing cricket in the month of May was unthinkable in 20th century India till then BCCI chief Jagmohan Dalmiya decided to utilise the 'free' time of Indian cricket in 1998 to promote some of the minnows and in the process rake in some extra money for the cricket board. He obtained a schedule from ICC that allowed India to play Kenya and Bangladesh in an ODI tri-series organised in May. It was best remembered for Sourav Ganguly needing mid-innings medical attention for dehydration in the final at his sweltering home ground, Eden Gardens. Strange that he was okay in the previous match at Gwalior where it was drier but the temperature was 10 degress higher. Clearly humidity was as much a killjoy for cricketers then as it is now.

It strikes me that the Indian Premier League are also completing 50 years in 2058. Summer cricket, not explored for a few years after that daring Dalmiya experiment in 1998, came back to stay ten years later in a shorter format. It is ironic that Twenty20 was then the shortest format in cricket. It is the longest one now, at least in the international game. One dayers are extinct. 2-innings cricket is too archaic a form to be pursued on a professional level these days. Nevertheless it is still retained by the respective boards as a test of stamina for bowlers and innings building ability for batsmen, because each team needs at least 3 batsmen and 2 bowlers who are good in 2-innings cricket in order to last these twenty overs with honour.

I casually go through some old blog posts on my Blogger diary 'Pavilion View' and check out my recorded thoughts through a half-century window. I come across an interesting bit of history in an IPL match from the 1st edition. Apparently it took place exactly 50 years back, on 17-May-2008. I feel the urge to have a chat on that bit with my new old friend in early 20th century. My ailing body tells me to refrain but cricket still blurs the logic at times.

I gte up and walk to my arm-band time traveller on the table. This time traveller is an advanced release and cost me a fortune. Not only does it take me across time but it also allows me to cover any distance. I use it to go back by a hundred and fifty exact years.

17th May, 1908

Presently I land up in front of an obese ageing man in England who will celebrate his 60th birthday on July 18. I meet him so often these days; yet it is difficult to place him as the bearded doctor everyone knows. He looks so different from his photographs.

He looks pleased to have me back.

"Was feeling bored - good time for you to come. Should you start bowling?"

"Hello WG. I want to share something with you."

"Don't worry about it. Just tell me what bothers you."

" I told you about this new form of the game called Twenty20."

"That 3 hour mimicry of cricket where players will get tons of money for doing next to nothing? Haven't we had ENOUGH of that? It irritates me no end."

"But perhaps I did not share that not only are the players playing it in coloured clothes but also using their surnames on jersey backs."

"You have already told me that 6 times, old man."

"And the game is most popular in India and thereabouts, rather than your England and Australia."

"That is again a repetition. Is this all you can put up today?" I am pissing the doctor more than a bowler turning his back on him and asking a loud question to the umpire about the doctor's leg. I carry on regardless.

"And that a hundred years to this day one 'born for T20' umpire from New Zealand, Billy Bowden, will utter 'khelo' instead of 'play' to start the proceedings of an IPL T20 match."

"THAT sounds a new one. By the way, did you not use that 'born for T20' term once before?"

"Yes. Who's being forgetful now? I used that for the revolutionary Sri Lankan opening batsman cum wicketkeeper Romesh Kaluwitharana who retired before T20 came about."

"Yeah, from what I learnt from you about Romesh it may be a lament comparable to the world never seeing the exciting Gilbert Jessop play limited overs cricket. That century of him against Australia in 1902 is difficult to put aside. Folks would have loved to have him down there in 21st century."

WG stands up and walks away pensively. "I still cannot believe that a Kiwi umpire will mouth Indian words in front of live audience while officiating." He turns to me, appreciation dripping from his countenance. "This, more than all you said on the Darell Hair affair the day before, tells me a lot more about India's influence over the game in 21st century! To think most of us here still dread visiting India..."

Fielding: The single biggest gift of T20 for Tests

It is still too early to take a call on the impact of T20 on first class batting and bowling standards, except that I personally find more worth and no greater harm in T20s than the neither-here-nor-there ODIs of modern times. I still love the Test matches and I do understand that a misconstrued perception of success in this game amongst young cricketers can bring danger upon Test cricket. But that apprehension is related only to the key skills, batting and bowling.

Other than purposeful batting, the other big positive contribution of limited overs cricket is the improvement of fielding standards all around the world. Fielding had always been an 'also-ran' in first class and Test cricket. It started to change as limited overs cricket started gaining ground. Catching was not the be all and end all of fielding anymore. A run-out per innings was more of an expectation than a bonus for the fielding. A player saving 3 boundaries over the match had brought down the asking rate by .24 points single handedly - no mean feat. Ditto for the swift runner in the batting side who stole 6 singles where there were none.

However the 50 over format still allowed a little space for less athletic people. Uneven balance of skills tend to even out as the period of play gets longer. The longer the format the more value you get for your specific skills. Conversely, the T20 format asks for more players with all-round skills than specialists at a specific skill. You still have the McGraths and Asifs but then you have to be THAT good. It is quite natural that fielding now becomes a permanently ticked 'option' - also called 'compulsory' in the English language. One dayers need most of your fielders to be excellent while some passable ones can always be accomodated for brilliant bowling / batting skills. In the very near future T20s may well demand ALL fielders to be excellent.

The biggest benefactor of this new outlook should be the subcontinent teams, renowned for brilliant batsmen and master bowlers but also infamous for batsmen refusing to steal that extra run and bowlers refusing to give their all on the field. The 'take it easy' policy will now have to disappear into thin air..

...if it already hasn't, that is. Going by Ashish Nehra's unbelievable diving boundary save for Mumbai Indians on the long on boundary in the 16th over of the Delhi innings today, we are already seeing a new era of commitment in fielding emerging in Indian grounds. The ball looked like a metre away from the rope when he appeared like superman in the frame from nowhere. Due to the uncomfortable angle left to him he had to put his bowling arm at risk to make the save but he still did it.

Nehra played over 5 years of top flight cricket before injury and a question mark on commitment halted his international career. He played almost all his domestic cricket for Delhi. No one has perhaps seen Nehra do anything like that. Especially the familiar Delhi guys - they were so certain of getting a boundary off that shot that they managed a last-minute single in it where 2½ were on offer!

Only a day ago I thought the catch taken by Dale Steyn to dismiss Rohit Sharma in the Royal Challengers - vs - Deccan Chargers match would not have been taken by any Indian bowler. It is barely 24 hours and I am already wondering how many more days before we see an Indian bowler taking a similar catch in a Test match to tilt the balance of the game (such catches almost always seem to make an impact, don't they?).

Correction: Steyn caught Shahid Afridi yesterday, not Rohit Sharma

A lesson on T20 bowling from Polly's handbook

Mumbai set a none too imposing 162 for Sehwag's Daredevils in a do or die match for the former. Great fielding and good bowling in the face of a lone Sehwag onslaught kept them in the hunt for much of the Delhi chase. Even after Sehwag's departure Shoaib Malik and Dinesh Karthik kept the Daredevils in the hunt. They were beginning to accelerate. Daredevils needed 55 from the last 6 overs and looked on course.

Shaun Pollock the captain had a choice to make. He had scalped the in-form left hander Dhawan in his initial 3 over spell. Now he decided to bring himself on for his last over. The very first ball broke the Daredevil partnership as Shoaib Malik skied a catch to mid-off. At that point of time the TV analysts showed Polly's 'pitch maps' against Delhi's left-handed batsmen, and then the right handed.

As expected both pitch maps were a cluster of numerous dots in that familar back-of-length area [propose to rechristen it as the 'Pollock-McGrath' zone]. Just one pitched up delivery each for the left and right handers. The interesting part: that only full ball he had bowled to the left handers fetched him Dhawan's wicket and the one to the right handers got Malik.

That map indicated the full ones were not slip ups but deliberate invitations to batsmen itching to break loose. Only they were bowled slightly slower in pace, with fielders perfectly placed to take an uppish drive (Dhawan) during the powerplay overs or a skied mishit (Malik) during the slog. For the batsmen, they are overwhelmed by temptation when they see a 'loose ball' from the master of parsimony.

The batsmen, meanwhile had changed over and a set Dinesh Karthik was taking the strike. I was wondering about that pitch map when Pollock came on to bowl and sure enough bowled that full slightly-slower ball to Karthik. Sure enough Karthik failed to resist the bait and spooned it up in a bid to hit the ball out of the park but luckily got away with 2 runs as he managed to place it wide of the fielder.

That Malik wicket decisively tilted the game towards Mumbai.

I will go a little further and state that the bowlers are gradually finding their feet in Twenty twenty cricket. Succcessful defence of medium sized totals in each of the last three games is proof of that. Hope some other bowlers can learn and perfect (it is a high risk bait) Polly's trick to further improve the balance between bat and ball.

Update: The bowlers have found their feet and are on the kill, in fact. Tanvir destroys Chennai Super Kings with a 6-for!

On his righthandedness Rohit Sharma

IPL's Deccan Chargers sank to another defeat today (Well, yesterday - the clock struck 12 just now). The match did not even turn out to be close in the end. Warnie is the new Australian Guru in Indian shores even as the old one is still around nearby in the same state of Rajasthan. In fact Warnie is one up - in addition to coaching the Rajasthan Royals he is also captain and key bowler of the team (not just at the nets or behind the bowling machine).

Something in this DC-vs-RR match will linger on in our minds though. In the final overs of the Hyderabad innings we went back to sepia tinted mode. We were back to a once familiar sight of number eights and nines struggling to last and connect every ball to hand over the strike to the well set specialist batsman at the other end. There was every chance of remaining wickets all collapsing in a single over with the number four stranded. This used to be quite a common cause for chewed up nails for supporters during the 80's and even early nineties in all pre-T20 forms of the game. [Famous example: Richie Richardson in the 1996 WC semi final]

A little more specifically familiar was the way all that tension in the air would vanish for some moments whenever the number four was taking strike for one or two balls in the over. He was hitting everything his partners allowed him to face for a four or a six. Every one of those was an absolutely gorgeous cricketing shot played with all the time, elegance and disdain in the world.
Gosh, those exquisite drives through cover were something else. Aah - those pulls. And those lofted drives - slurrp. Those ugly hoicks - absent!

"Wasn't that Brian Lara batting for the West Indies on one of those days of his?"
"Nope, he retired around this time last year. "
"Wasn't there a technical snag in the telecast which they decided to fill in with a replay of Brian's logic defying 153* with Curtly & Courtney in Barbados 1999?"
"Nah - the ball was red and the attire was white in that match rather than the other way round. This man's wearing a biscuit shaded suit. And your Brian was left handed, silly."

That was I talking with me2. And I soon realised what me2 was saying. Yes, this was another match and that was Rohit Sharma of India. Yes, Brian was not number 4 but number 5 in the 1999 match. Yes, Rohit's classicism has more home grown Indian spice than Brian's Caribbean dash. And yes - Rohit's speciality had to end too quickly for my liking as the twenty overs were over.

Wonder what this game, in all three formats, has in store for Rohit Sharma's rare batting talent if he carries it forward thus. Earlier in the day Peter Roebuck hailed IPL in this piece but he also said:

"..India has not produced a high-class batsman for a decade."

We, Rohit's compatriots, will hope to say "you were wrong, mate" to Peter one day.

Meanwhile since it is already May 2nd, let us say 'Happy Birthday' to the guy Rohit so much resembled today in lateral inversion. We have just completed a year of missing the Prince. It was tough and that gaping hollow even made some like me drift away a little from our favourite sport. Let us hope this new kid fills some of it up by showing glimpses of that unmistakable combination of batting genius and audacious flair more often.

Update: Youtube video of the innings highlights including some of Rohit's boundaries can be viewed here.

T20 or Test, Bhajji is a pest

Just crapping with the subject line there. But the incident that happpened today goes to show the essential danger of trying to be something else without getting to the depth of it. When Australians or South Africans sledge, they are mostly putting on a facade that they consider part of their professional duty. There's always this underlying knowledge that this is an act. When an Indian sledges, he is not acting but often reacting to someone else's act. That itself indicates emotion and not logic is ruling.

Sledged players often get eager to get back at the 'offender' by letting the emotions out instead of ensuring to pay him back in cricketing kind. They often forget that a teenaged Sachin has made a worldful of verbal enemies vanish into thin air just by adopting that silent punishment procedure. Any other reaction to a sledge, and the offender has succeeded.

We have often egged on the 'young brigade' for their 'tit for tat' approach to the big teams but today when Bhajji behaved abysmally with another temperamental Indian player Sreesanth after an IPL loss, it is a slapping proof that bad behaviour can easily be bad response to pressure and most Indian players are not really putting on a rehearsed act.

And I even traced a little bit of history of the latest showdown in a Test match earlier this year. It was no less shameful. Sreesanth may have dropped an easy catch off your bowling but you simply cannot do that to a teammate, Bhajji! How much you must be letting the proceedings affect your reason to behave in such fashion with a colleague in a Test match.

VVS' vision and Ishant's mission

VVS Laxman must be very very sad after losing today's IPL game, his 3rd in a row, to rival skipper Warne's last over Symondsisms (meaning sixes - in case you are suspecting any reference to is year's Sydney Test).

VVS is under pressure for bad personal batting form and dubious decision-making as the Deccan Chargers skipper but look at the vision of the man. In the midst of the hot and happening IPL he says his aim is to make India the number one Test team in the world! This guy has forever looked like an other worldly entity with a bat in hand but this statement, with the IPL right there on his platter, makes us think if the world is lucky to be having him.

Laxman's decision to forego the icon status (and so losing out millions for the sake of a better team) sounded queer to our monetised ears then and looks a tragedy now as his team has crashed to 3 straight defeats right at the start. However these observations can only belittle us, people that can view things that way. They do not even faintly touch a man of Laxman's mental makeup.

He knows his priorities in life and will not budge from them. After an unsuccessful stint as opener in the late 90's Laxman, at the turn of the decade, announced himself closed from being considered as a prospective India opener again. That could have meant early curtains to his career as the middle order was a traffic jam. Today he has not changed much. Even a Great Indian Distraction lke the IPL fails to shift his focus from the fact that a full strength Indian team (with the big five + Ishant / RP / Bhajji / M Kartik et al) facing Australia later this year will have their best ever chance to become the best Test team in the world.

Hope they make more men like him in the 21st century. India and her cricket will keep needing them.

Not that I am disappointed with Ishant's rather opposite natured comments on IPL but I still hope he can get over his 'mission' and then get back to what he was born to do - stay fast and fit for fiery spells home & away in Test matches that make other sides spend 50% of the match-eve meeting time on him.

If ever he is short on inspiration Ishant can just glance at a tall man in his slip cordon.

The two sides of the IPLT20 coin

Side 1:

Amit Varma raises his voice, defending both the quality of cricket and the money in it.

Purists – and I used to think of myself as one – often speak of Twenty20 cricket
disparagingly, as if it has reduced the fine game of cricket to something absurdly simplistic, where sloggers rule, hand-eye co-ordination matters more than finely honed technique, and bowlers are irrelevant. If you’ve been watching, you’ll know that isn’t true. Twenty20 is not a dilution of the game but an intensification of it.

Some commentators take issue with so much money being spent on a sport in a poor country. "[M]ost of these millions will be leaving India," de Lisle wrote in his
piece, "filling the coffers of Australian stars who are already very highly paid. Money shouldn't travel in a direction like that." If that logic was correct, we might as well stop poor countries from importing anything. Every trade happens because it leaves both parties better off, and the IPL's foreign players are being paid so much because they bring that much value to the table. That value, the return on those investments, will happen within India.

Side 2:

Gideon Haigh sees some light in the new toy but is concerned about the numerous dark patches. Those patches involve both the money and the quality of cricket.

On the cricket:

Already, however, I'm struck by the fact that what I've enjoyed are those moments when Twenty20 has looked more like cricket rather than less. And this is a problem, because there simply aren't enough of them. Twenty20 is envisaged as a concentrated form of cricket, without the pauses and longueurs that test the patience and understanding of the uninitiated. But it's less concentrated than crudely edited, and what is missing are those aspects of the game that make it linger in the mind, that impress on the imagination, that take time to understand, that need effort to appreciate. It requires nothing of its audience but their attendance and their money. Apparently, the first episode of Shah Rukh Khan's Indianised version of Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? airs later this week. Pardon me for thinking that Khan's two new presentations have a few things in common.

Twenty20 has rightly been called a batsman's game, but it is a very particular kind of batsman: the type whose game is built on eye and strength. If a new Dravid were to begin emerging now, I suspect he would face a career as a second-class cricket citizen.

The game's skills, meanwhile, have been massively rationalised. What we see in the main is not so much batting as hitting, not so much bowling as conveying. The batsman is assessed by the change his strokes are leaving out of six; the bowler is like the fall guy in a comic routine stoically awaiting the inevitable custard pie.

And on the money:

Profit maximisation is the name of the game - and that goes for administrators, franchisees, players, managers, broadcasters and sponsors alike. The possible negative consequences for other countries or other forms of the game are of no account compared to the commercial, and doubtless also political, ambitions of the likes of Lalit Modi and Sharad Pawar. It is not even about giving the people what they want; it is about giving the people what Modi and Pawar want them to want, and can then make a packet out of selling them.

Exactly why the people deserve this is not abundantly clear. Perhaps it is an instance of what I once saw defined as the Golden Rule of Arts and Sciences: "Whoever has the gold makes the rules." But the contrast I noted earlier between the proceeds of my own humble cricket event and the IPL's was not merely a matter of quantum. All of the Yarras' hard-won $583.50 will go straight back into the game's beneficiation. Of what proportion of the billions raised by the IPL, I wonder, will that be true?

Gideon's taken a goofy dig at the clamour from various quarters, including the English players' clan, that ICC create a window for the IPL in its annual calendar:

You don't have to be Einstein - hell, you don't have to be Napoleon Einstein - to realise that if the IPL contains even a glimmer of promise, it won't be stopping there: pretty soon cricket's schedule will have more windows than the Sears Tower.

Singh is Prince

Indian movie star Akshay Kumar is the brand ambassador of IPL's Delhi Daredevils. He performed a stunt at the start of DD's 1st IPL match on Saturday, perhaps to live up to the Team name and as a justification of his own reputation of a daredevil star who frequently performs his own stunts. A movie of his, 'Singh is Kingg', is lined up for release in the coming months.

Akshay's team won. The first 3 matches indicate that the inaugural edition of IPL T20 is off to a satisfactory start. However the same cannot be said about the captains of the 6 teams to have played so far. While Rahul Dravid and MS Dhoni have returned single digit scores, the others too have not exactly set the stage on fire. Warne scored 14 in the first match (besides bagging no wickets), Ganguly 10 and Sehwag 12.

The only skipper from these 6 teams to go past the par score of 20 in his first match is Kings XI Punjab leader Yuvraj Singh (a quick 23). Not a bad start but still some way off the expectations from the King of 'Kings XI'. Yuvraj is easily amongst the best batsmen around in T20. He is a likely candidate for the player of the tournament. This Singh was a Prince in his first match and there can be no doubt that he can be the King.

Another Singh has recovered form at the right time for the IPL. After his stellar show against South Africans in the Test series Harbhajan Singh, who did rather well in the T20 world cup, can be a principal weapon for Sachin's Mumbai Indians. So we actualy have more than one Singh who can be King.

Akshay's Delhi Daredevils have no Singh though; no way that a Singh from his team can be a King!

Footnote about that part on Harbhajan's form: It is interesting that the Test batting form of a batsman can be no guarantee of his success in T20 and vice versa while the bowling form of a strike bowler spans across all forms of the game. The two Singhs are expected to provide adequate evidence over the tournament.