Watching Shami Ahmed in the debut of my dreams

I have watched matches at Eden Gardens since 1988. Although I have not been remotely as regular a visitor as some other avid cricket buffs, I have attended enough for Eden to give me a 'home' feeling whenever I arrive there.

It all started in 1988. A 13 year old attended an India West Indies ODI (in whites, those days) with mama. And somewhere down the line when I returned to play at my mohallas I developed this secret dream: of making my Test debut as on opening bowler for at the Eden Gardens. Polished red cherry in hand,  raring to go at the end of my runup decked in sparkling whites. All set to bowl my first delivery in a Test match playing for India.

Of course I didn't chase my impossible dream and it didn't even take shape. But it remained – as my favourite impossible dream.

In all these years, I doubt if I have been on the ground when an Indian quickie has made his Test debut and opened the bowling. Perhaps certainly not. Before yesterday, the only Eden test I attended on opening day was India-vs-England in 1993..and I am pretty certain no Indian quickie made his debut in that match.

On 6^th November we went to the ground on first day of Sachin's 199^th Test. The whole point was to say goodbye to Sachin Tendulkar. That's an entirely different post, and I will not go on about Sachin here.

Takking our seats, we found that Shami Ahmed has been picked in playing eleven. This will be his Test debut. Shami would the bowling along with Bhuvaneswar Kumar, the only other medium pacer in the side.

My impossible dream came rushing back as the Indians took the field. As Shami took the ball and walked up to the end of his run-up I slipped into a trance…as if I was reborn as a spectator on the day of my dream debut..and Shami was me. All decked up in sparking new whites, raring to go with a red cherry in hand.  This was the moment I have repeated visions of, even to this day when I no more follow cricket with any devotion.

I watched him closely when he delivered his first ball. From the slow start of run, to the acceleration, ending in the brisk delivery action which generates decent fast-medium pace. I don't remember what happened after he delivered. I had made my debut and the rest mattered little at that point of time.

"Sapne hona zaroori hai". It is important to have dreams. Coz sometimes you can live them through another person.

A friend of mine had asked me not to give up on this dream, as it will happen one day if I keep on nurturing it. Well, in more ways than one 6th November was my "Joy of giving" day, sort of. I ended up relinquishing my dream to India's newest Test player, Shami Ahmed.

That recurring moment of my dreams has now passed into reality with Shami's debut delivery. I do not see it returning again in my daydreams. Perhaps I shall now be content to die without having bowled a 'real' delivery in my first Test match at Eden.

Update: I guess I should also give up a second, and very lately nurtured, secret hope - to earn tributes like this when I retire : http://pavilionview.blogspot.com/2012/03/dravid-tributes.html?m=1

My Brian

"I just want that someone in their 50s or 60s, when they talk about Brian Lara, they say `I enjoyed watching that guy playing cricket'. "
That's how Brian Lara wanted to be remembered by cricket lovers. Back in June 2002.....5 years before calling time.
It is nearly six years since he played his last international match. It is also for six years that I am drifting further and further away from this game that I wanted to live my life on. I wish I could just stop at saying: "I enjoyed watching that guy playing cricket."

Gains for Team India from 2011 Test series vs West Indies @ home

Gains from WI series:

1) Viru has started getting 2nd innings runs in the 2nd decade of his Test career.

2) Ashwin has stamped his Aussie never say die brand of fighting cricket in Tests too, after T20 and ODIs. What a year for him!

3) Ojha, the other (better) spinner, nearly turns a dead Test into a win on a flat track...in a single sessn. Memories of the 70s & 90s. Dare say Harbhajan needs to unlearn a bit of T20 bowlg and relearn Test bowlg. We need him back.

4) After years (?) we have seen three 140k Indian bowlers bowling at those speeds on Indian tracks (yes, all of them) and...miraculously, finishing the series injury free. 

5) Team selectn in the series was done with an eye on current series and another on future. It was delightful to see Varun Aaron making his debut in 3rd Test instead of Umesh although the latter scalped 7 in 2nd Test. It is better to have them fly to Oz with 1 each under their belts than 2-nil.

6) THE HAPPIEST PART, PERSONALLY SPEAKING. The decisn to keep pushing for a possible win after 6th wkt fall in 2nd inngs on 5th day, even risking a surprise loss in the process, was a sight I have waited to see for last decade plus. 

Thanks for that, Team India. You are my favourites again

[edited from my FB status msg]

"You have been lucky if you have failed with time left to benefit from the lessons"

Actually that thought, posted as subject line, came to my mind as I was browsing through some old Facebook posts in my profile.


I came across one on 12th March, as South Africa were taking advantage of India's inactive fields / bowling plans during middle overs. Here's what I wrote as a comment at 8-51pm (at around 40th over of South Africa innings):

"Dhoni lets opponent get away in middle overs...I am seeing this coming loss as a blessing in disguise - may be now he will be forced to rethink his strategy in middle overs.. he will see that he is winning INSPITE OF it and not due to it...but then these opponent batsmen,they get out just as I see a silver lining - and perhaps give MSD a chance to carry his poor strategy to the KO's."

Well luckily for Indian team, South Africa did NOT panic for once and scraped through to win that match..in retrospect we can thank this loss for the obvious rethink of Indian middle over strategies that subsequently worked so well against ALL the former World Cup Champions (West Indies next match, Australia in QF, Pakistan in semis & Sri Lanka in finals).

Let all Indian Cricket fans therefore gather at India Gate, candles in hand, and shout thankfully in unison to commemorate the last over of that match:

"ASHISH NEHRA AMAR RAHE"

India Revisiting all WC champion teams in chronological order

Who won the WORLD CUP since its inception (barring 1983, which was won by India)?




1) West Indies (1975, 1979)..& defeated in India's last group league match


2) Australia (1987, 1999, 2003, 2007)..& defeated in quarter final


3) Pakistan (1992)..& defeated in semi final


4) Sri Lanka (1996)..waiting in final



India is a nation that respects history.


We undo things in the EXACT order those were done.
 
[Shared on my FB page today]

Girls Aloud

Some of the world's topmost woman cricketers are now blogging on the game at cricinfo.
We can keep up with them at "Girls Aloud".

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.

Marlon Samuels' quicker one..

..is under the scanner once again. I am unable to speak on the legality of his action in delivering that 'Perth special' but I was amazed a year and a half ago that he could deliver it at that kind of speed. 82 miles an hour, to be precise.

He was bowling those darts off five steps when India toured West Indies in 2006! I have a sneaking feeling that the trauma of watching Marlon effortlessly go past them on the speen guns was too much for our nascent medium pacers to handle. Irfan Pathan lost his pace soon after, Munaf Patel his fitness while Zaheer had already lost his form and place in the Test side at that point of time. I am reproducing what I thought at the time about the delivery that shattered their psyche:

"AND.....this creep n' slime delivery got unleashed while their fast bowler Ian Bradshaw was consistently clocking late sixties from the other end, with a flummoxed Carlton Baugh standing up at the stumps. I almost screamed in protest (muted it with great difficulty, as it was midnight in India) when the otherwise lovable bore Tony Cozier tried to vilify the poor keeper for missing a stumping chance. Guess he wanted to call the little gloveman a dumb ass for not realising, after all those years of keeping to 'fast' and 'slow' bowlers, that a stumping was easier attempted off quickie Bradshaw?!

West Indies cricket losing potential quick bowlers to basketball? Huh! Ever thought of blaming off-spin?"

Why just blame the Indian bowlers for succumbing to the Samuels shock? If you think hard about the match where he clocked such speeds and the state of Indian cricket in its aftermath, it is easy to rule that the 1 run defeat in that 2nd ODI against West Indies toppled the fortunes of Rahul Dravid's invincible ODI juggernaut and turned them into a shellshocked lot over the time span of a 50 over match, a setback that they are still recoving from.

You say the 82 mph stuff is taken a few miles too far? Well here's more damning evidence. It took R P Singh's vigorous 140 kph stuff at England in the summer of 2007 to assure the poor Indian pacers and their supporters in India that the the giant leaps of our quicks could yield slightly better results than the 5 steps of Marlon. You will agree that the Indian new ball bowlers, post RP's quick overs in England, have looked a more confident lot and done far better than they did in 2006 in all forms of the game. Zaheer got back his hunger and Pathan his place while Ishant Sharma is making people sit up and take notice.

It is hardly surprising to me. These days all four (those three along with RP) are easily capable of crossing the 82 mph barrier..

31st July: Magic Day

So many Days abound now-a-Days, why not one for magic? I propose 31st July to be christened "Magic Day".

I believe I have enough reason backing my demand. For starters it is the birthday of Harry Potter. That one's contrived, for it is also the birthday of JK Rowling, the creator of Harry Potter's magic.

31st July is also the birthday of reputed Indian magician, P C Sorcar Junior.

Not enough magic still? Well today is also the birthday, or 'Discovery day', of a country called Trinidad.

Apparently Columbus sighted the land on this day of 1498 AD. 501 significant years later a Wizard Prince from this land would choose to make one glorious March afternoon his own and conjure up arguably the greatest 4th innings batsmanship ever seen in a future ball game that would be worshipped like religion in the land Columbus intended to set foot on - India.

Here's a report from a newspaper from the Wizard's land.

I was fortunate to be in front of live television that night (in India). I remember Windies having lost 8 wickets with 60 runs remaining. That recall was confirmed by cricinfo's ball-by-ball commentary. West Indies were 8 down in the 5th ball of the 101st over, having lost 3 wickets in the previous 14 runs. At that point they were still 60 runs adrift of a win with Curtly Ambrose approaching the crease with a bat and only Courtney Walsh to follow.

Curtly Ambrose with a ball in hand was a perennially intimidating sight for batsmen taking strike. In those twilight years of the giant bowler's career, an Ambrose with a bat in hand was no less frightening a sight for batsmen at the non striker's end. I recall Lara's exceptional strike manipulation during that phase of play. I check up on that with the cricinfo commentary.

I find out that in all 19 overs and 2 balls were bowled by Australia after the fall of 8th wicket till Lara completed the surreal win with a cover driven boundary off Gillespie. In that period the West Indian captain managed to face about 73 balls, i.e. almost 2/3rds of the strike. This against a bowling side consisting of Glenn McGrath, Jason Gillespie, Shane Warne and Stuart MacGill.

Gimme a break if you still think that was not enough Magic. A part of me, the blogger you know, is still unable to come to terms with the fact that this last mentioned magician's trade can never be seen again except in replays or in non-recognised national leagues in the East Indies.

Geoffrey, Gayle and a lost talent

Meet Kevin Mitchell, an endangered species - an English sports writer / ex player with some nice words to say about the sub continent's darling Sir Geoffrey Boycott. Okay, make that an English sports writer / ex player with any nice words to say about Boycs.


Sarwan thinks of Gayle's fill-in captaincy as 'outstanding'. Wish I had something to say on this but unfortunately I am completely off cricket these days (this is one helluva long hangover and I am seriously wondering...). It may sound weird but I update myself about the ongoing Indo-England Lord's Test only when someone else puts me to shame by asking for one (the poor guys still think of me as a cricket fanatic).

Wish the selectors and the antagonised WICB were thinking as much about Chris Gayle. Terms like 'Discipline' and 'Pride' - terms that Gayle will be the last person to represent or enforce in a team - are proven failures as motivators with the current West Indian lot. So maybe it is time to change the medicine and go looking for new words.

So how about getting them to win a few through 'Fun' and 'Relaxation' and then - when one day they stop going into matches with 'nothing to lose' - make them gradually aware of their place under the Caribbean Sun? Chris Gayle may not a bad choice if you are willing to let the boys work out their path to redemption. It may not work but that will be no decline.

The other day a Hindi news channel on the telly was covering a young ex-cricketer from Central India who had won every award in U-19 cricket but never got picked to represent his state. The boy left cricket to sustain himself. At present he works at a wheat grinding shop. The reasons for that missing call-up is unknown to him and he thinks 'paaltix' plays a role in the fading of talents like him. Was this the guy? I wish I could recall...

That's all folks - no more Lara!

You are on a week long all-expenses-paid trip to the Hawaiian islands. You wake up on the 5th morning at Honolulu only to get a message from your sponsors that your trip is aborted with immediate effect.

Or, you move out of town for five days to attend a wedding at a remote area. You come back in town and learn that the one cricketer you hated to miss even for a single game has played his last in all forms of the sport.

The former is more shocking, if only because you did not see it coming. But then it only takes a few curses and a smooth passage back home to a happy family to forget all about it. Try emptying the gallons of regret oozing from a fan’s heart when the rarest batsman - a combo version of the greatest and the most attractive in at least three decades of cricket - bids adieu without so much as giving the fan a chance to stand up and applaud his idol when he departs for the last time.

The only time I saw him from the stands of a cricket ground was way back in 1994 in a tri series final at Eden Gardens. He scored something like a blob in it. But no one can take away the memory of those few hours of live cricket watching till the wee hours inside a hotel room 1000+ miles away from home when he scored that 153 not out to win the third test against Australia in 1999. It felt unbelievable then, and it still is hard work to believe that someone – even Brian Charles Lara - actually scripted a win in those circumstances.

This is a farewell post, but one where I am going to quote someone else’s words all along. It’s not as if I am unwilling to write one of mine but fortunately Rahul Bhattacharya has already given his masterly words in this cricinfo piece published ahead of Lara's last match to most of the clumsily compiled points you would have found in an 'original' post of mine. Most exactly similar to my thoughts is this one:

I also came across a short note on the message boards of caribbeancricket.com minutes after the understated announcement of retirement. "My hero since I was a very young boy. I've followed his career since de afro days at Fatima. Missed classes to watch him bat. This is a sad day for me."

It is for me too, because Lara's batsmanship was the greatest pleasure I derived out of cricket in the last two decades along with the bowling of Wasim Akram and I could have watched the game if they alone played it in the field.

That Rahul piece has so many gems on offer that I cannot resist quoting them here.

On Lara’s relatively lesser success in one day cricket:

He bows out now in a one-day match but it was not his preferred stage. Though his magical wrists, his intuition for gaps, his talent at going aerial were all suited to one-day cricket, not so the scale. The canvas was too small. Lara was of odysseys. He liked to get in, bat one, two days, score two, three, four hundred runs. Before such calibre, the limitations of one-day cricket were too petty.

On Lara’s brilliant backlift:

Having been unlucky in that way, it is from a one-day match that I have the best memories of watching Lara live. This was in Trinidad last year. The position was carefully determined so as to find the most unfettered view of that great big glittering backlift and wind-up. We settled somewhere between wide long-off and extra cover. Till he closed the issue with triumphant sixes off Harbhajan Singh, he played an innings of hard grit. So it was an hour or two of watching him size it up and really it was all I wanted to watch.

There comes a point in the Lara wind-up when all the game seems frozen. He is bent climatically at the knees, bat, as the cliché' has it, raised like a guillotine, eyes trained down the pitch and, surely, given his knack for reading of spin and swing, at the bowler's wrist. Insofar as the life of a cricket stroke goes, this is the fatal moment, the hairline between death, glory and a day at the office.

It is perhaps not normal to think of cricket shots in those terms. Yet nobody could make the spectator more alive to these possibilities. Nobody could pack so much drama, meaning in every shot of cricket. Consequently nobody could so illuminate the point that this is a sport of such independent events, of an infinite number of worlds. Nobody, for better or for worse, could so strongly confirm that this here is the ultimate individual sport played by a team.

On ‘the’ 153 not out:

Five years ago after a fair chase I did a satisfying interview with him. He told me a little story behind the 153 not out against Australia, perhaps his defining work in a career full of defining works. You remember the scenario, pay dispute, 0-5 in South Africa, 51 all out in the first Test, and then the brilliant double hundred to level the series before the classic Test at Bridgetown. A school friend, Nicholas Gomez, had presented him a Michael Jordan book. In it Jordan had spoken about his visualisation techniques. "I remember calling Gomez at six o'clock in the morning, the last morning of the Test match, and we went about planning this innings against the best team in the world." This was Lara's focus upon arousal, and if it deserted him he always found it back, and in the waxing and waning there was something reassuringly cyclical as it was frustrating.

On Lara’s Lara:

Nobody twinkled his feet so and angled his blade so and keep hitting gaps like Lara, an intuition sharpened in childhood when he arranged pots as fielders to practise. In 2003 a man at deep midwicket was taken out and put beside another behind point. This comes from Adam Gilchrist in The Australian a couple of seasons ago. "Mistake," hissed Lara. Next ball Lara lofted to midwicket for six. Gilchrist taunted Lara to take on the two men behind point instead. Lara strung it between them for four. Next ball was straighter, Lara backed away and strung it through again. Best remain silent now, Gilchrist then decided. This was to demonstrate precision of his skill. But I particularly liked "mistake". 'You don't know what I can do?' was the strut. That is the Lara motif.

And finally this:

Nobody made the game look better and few ever played it better. So look hard on Saturday because we may not see the likes of this again and if we do we can think back to Lara and smile.

I personally thank Rahul Bhattacharya for doing this article on his idol and mine. It befits a most special cricketer. I feel no need to add any more to what he has already said except that I was denied that chance to look hard at this incomprehensible creature on Saturday. It is as if Lara ran me out.

Cricket lovers from some future era will be thankful that television technology had made reasonable progress by the time Brian Charles Lara came to the scene. For this man is far, far beyond the scope of explanation through the numbers he leaves back against his name. Batsmen unworthy of comparison to him in genius have left (and will continue to leave) better figures of career achievement. Brian Lara is virtually the sole cricketer that makes the stats-happy person in me feel ashamed of even existing.

If anyone is still interested in having a peek at Lara's story in numbers here’s a statistical career summary of Lara. Rahul finds the man in his figures:

Lara batted with sensual beauty and gluttonous appetite. To watch him move into position was to already understand the possibilities of this game. To study his figures was to marvel the scope of his conception. He made the most runs in an over, an innings, a career. Anything anyone did he did bigger.

It's all over folks. Now maybe we can stop bickering over what Prince Charles Lara of the Brian name could have been off the field and revel in the legacy of all that he chose to unravel on it.

Unity and Providence

Master cricket writer Rahul Bhattacharya ends his typically lucid piece on Shiv Chanderpaul's cricket and genes with this observation:

"On the television in Mr Chanderpaul's living room it appears that West Indies have just slipped to defeat against New Zealand, their second loss in three days. The thought, I'm afraid is inescapable: Unity and Providence must come together if West Indies are to win it in Guyana."

'Unity' assumes even greater significance in the upcoming SL-v-WI match tonight if we take into account the open-book West Indian infighting during the past week on team and squad selection issues. It should be a cracking game between 2 teams desperate for a Super 8 win tonight.

Here's a Rahul Bhattacharya profile of Ireland's rising speedster Boyd Rankin. He observes:

"Boyd now averages 23.5 from four matches in the World Cup; before it he was not even a certainty in the XI, just a raw talent who had impressed coaches, including former England seamer Mike Hendrick. Indeed, World Cup preparation had to be mixed with some equally pressing issues.

It is lambing season back home, and things are busy on the family farm in Londonderry in Northern Ireland. "There were a few sheep lambing," he told the Mirror, "so I was doing that whenever I came back from training." It is not quite so casual too. Wake-up time 6am, then a session of farm work, then a driving of 140 miles to practice, then back to farming chores
till midnight."

280 miles of travel each day - all for the love and joy of playing an uncelebrated but beautiful game. And to top it all with a World Cup bowling average of 23.5. That must be getting his 'ranking buoyed'. (Apologies for the two bad puns, Rahul)

Scot free

Q: What did the Australian say after his team defended 335 against Scotland in their world Cup opener?

Clue: It is same as the West indian said after their victory against Pakistan in the tourney opener, as every cricket fan said when Sir Garfield Sobers declared the Big Carnival open on 11th March.

Ans: "Finally..."

1st match, 1st innings: head, heart and tail of it

Why do you keep your head still while playing a shot?

“Coz’ it is fool-proof?” Nyaaaaah!

“Coz’ it is in the books?” So is ‘too much of anything is bad’.

“Coz’ your coach will kill you if you get out playing a wrong shot, perhaps?” Phew!

You do it simply because it makes you look like the master of all you survey. It actually makes you look better than you are. Catch up on the six and the four off consecutive balls that "Mr. Phoenix" Samuels essayed off Rao Iftekhar and you’ll get my point.


And what a lion-hearted talent this Danish Kaneria is.

He tried to bowl a newly arrived Brian Lara round the legs with a googly. And he tried it again. A couple of overs later he tried to get a stepping-out right handed batsman (Samuels) stumped off a vicious leg spinner after going for a four and a six earlier in that over. And tried to back it up next ball with another straight-on sucker. Danish tried all of them, which shows the stuff that goes on inside his champion’s head.

Lara was uncomfortable in that over to whatever Kaneria dished out. Samuels could have gone in either of the last mentioned deliveries. Danish very nearly achieved each lofty target he set himself, which domonstrates his ability.

If Harbhajan emulates three-quarters of that aspiration or skill he can win India the World Cup.

I look forward to watching Danish succeed - even against India.

By the way have you ever seen a batsman capitalising on a little good fortune to multiply his tally by eight times…or infinite times, to be correct?

Tailend man Corey Collymore hits the penultimate ball of the innings to short mid-wicket and takes off for a non-existent single. The fielder narrowly misses bowlers’ end stumps with Collymore well short and the ball is finally fielded deep, by which time Collymore completes a comfortable two. Then he coolly hits the last ball for a six over long on and turns to start his walk back to the pavilion - even before the ball lands on the stands.

Does Corey keep his head still? I forget to notice really – and he turns rather quickly….sort of….and it was the head of the tail anyway...Okay, I go back to the match if you insist.

Nothn’ much haas changed n 4 years maan

“Hey paal. Wath’s gowun’ on – is this a new world cup or wath? Once ahgain we ar playun’ tha 1st match of a World Cup; an ahgain a green team is fieldun’ against us. Ahgain our one drop baathsmaan is dropped aat slips firsth ball and again he proceeds to play a steady haand, again a lower order maan scores a fifteen-ball thirty two that gets us to aa competitive tothal…and again…” Better to stop there, yo maan from WI; it’s only half way thru and we gotta wait for the rest.

But Pakistan supporters won’t be happy with that history-repeating start. Not only do they stand to lose the ongoing match by three runs, at this rate Pakistan are going to be ejected on a D/L miscalculation like the 'green team' of 2003!

That hardly matters to me though. What a glorious joy it will be to watch Team India walking out to play another final against Australia!! And then – hell, something needs to change BADLY then…..

Speaking of resemblances, I always find familiarity in the mannerism and looks of Pakistan’s Rao Iftikhar Anjum. Today I connected him at last - to my friend, across-the-street neighbour and cricket-mate Anupam. Anupam’s name having 4 of the 5 letters in ‘Anjum’ in same order should be proof enough of my accuracy of observation.

Another familiarity struck me in the 5th over of the freshly fragrant World Cup when Danish Kaneria overthrew the wicketkeeper by about 20 feet throwing from a similar distance and yielded four overthrows. During their 1996 post-WC tour to England I watched skipper Akram bowl a delivery and then yell at mid-off fielder Waqar for attempting a direct hit at the bowler’s end which went past the bowler and overthrew a run. The front-on slo-mo suggested that the run-out was on. The other camera revealed Wasim's side of the story – Waqar had threw 10 feet wide of him from virtual touching distance.

With Pakistan fielding, nothing much has changed even in 11 years.

Update: Minor alterations in pattern finally emerge late in the inaugural match. The result is the same as 2003 with the West Indies once again lording it over a green team but this time the margin is much more than 3 runs.

Memories of great World Cup feats

If you are a cricket lover and have a history of slipping into the odd bout of dejection like most fellow mortals, save this link. You can finish two rounds of globetrotting and yet struggle to find too many better remedies. Cricinfo recalls the 11 greatest World Cup comebacks in it, tide-turning performances forced in the backdrop of self and / or team facing an extreme adversity.

A few personal memories are attached to each of them barring two. While I had the privilege of watching the entirety of two of those performances unfold, I have watched live only parts of a few others on that list. I have watched replays /read / heard of the rest.

It is hard to fathom the exact impact of Kapil's 175* against Zimbabwe in 1983 on Kapil's eventual World Cup winning team, and consequently on the popularity of cricket in India. The pleasant-est memory associated with that epic will always be the twinkle in my father's eyes whenever he used to narrate his memories of the day to me twenty odd years back.

Those were not exactly memories - like other Indian cricket followers dad too was blanked out by a broadcast strike on the match day - but that perhaps helps add to the old-world charm of the epic feat. It was less of listening to a cricket match and more of papa turning into a story telling granny. I hope I can discuss it with him the next time we meet, just to catch up on that old twinkle once again.

That Murray-Roberts partnership is another one that shaped dad's cricketing beliefs forever. Whenever he sees any of the numerous West Indian lower order collapses of recent years he seldom fails to remind that Roberts and others of that old lot of quicks were far better with the bat as well.

Us papa-son pair were together on 13th March 1996 at the Eden Gardens when India took on Sri Lanka in the 1st semi final of the 1996 World Cup. A few days earlier I was shocked at people writing off the latter, a favourite with me, as worthy opponents of India in the semis and on that day I had inauspiciously (I'm an Indian fan first...) reminded my friends of the depth in SL ranks even after that Sanath-Kalu-gobbling first over from Srinath. Eden was burning around seven hours later but the ugly sight was hardly more painful than the inferno that raged inside after my worst fears had come true.

But I remember that numbing show from Aravinda with immense fondness. How unfortunate it is that the sports tellies in India never show that innings just because India happened to be on the losing side. It blew out the hopes of millions eleven years back but illuminated the best aspects of batting for immortality. Aravinda's driving, as in The Innings in the next match, was divine and he was easily the best batsmen in the planet during that week. I fail to recall having watched any other fifty scored in less than 35 balls that involved no lofted stroke, where all boundary strokes were perfect ground shots between fielders.

The very next day I watched the semi final loss of West Indies to Australia live on television. I never got the compensation I demanded for the previous night and felt hopeless about life for a time after it actually happened. I still find it hard to believe West Indies lost after getting within 40 runs with 8 wickets remaining, with skipper Richardson unbeaten.

Just as Murray and Roberts had shaped dad's views on West Indian lower order batting, watching most of Fleming's Jo'burg 2003 heroics live contributed to a growing belief that Fleming is extra effective against South Africans. It turned out to be a false impression when I checked it up later but what a commanding innings it was!

I also watched most of Bevan's unbelievable-yet-so-familiar rescue act against England in the same edition. A real indicator of the man's calibre is that he did it even when the opposition were not getting slack or celebrating prematurely - those days nobody dared indulge in it with him unbeaten.

As far as missing great matches go I have a history of wretched luck. I missed Inzy's hurricane 37-ball 60 in Pakistan's 1992 semi-final win over New Zealand - er, I don't even remember the reason. [An insatiable query inside makes me watch replays of that match and the 1992 final & inspect if the thin man from 1992 is indeed the man we know as Inzamam-ul-Haq today.] But I recall some others. Australia and South Africa played out the (ODI) Match of the Twenty-first Century on 13th March last year while I was travelling. And I spare them not an iota of hatred for doing nearly the same to me with the Match of the Twentieth Century - the 1999 World Cup tied semi final.

I had reached home just in time on 17th june 1999 to watch the final 3 or 4 overs of the best cricket script of all time (Even Lagaan, I'm afraid, comes second). I remember Reiffel spilling a Klusener catch off Mcgrath over the boundary soon after. The four deliveries of the final over were the stuff that separate the strong from the immune.

Strange are the ways of fame and glamour. Some are destined to hog the camera flashes while others will never be worshipped come what may. Damien Fleming, the Australian medium pacer, has never been a star. I saw him at the Mohali airport in a blue shirt during the 2006 ICC trophy and promptly thought of the early setbacks he caused during India's losing chase in the league match with Australia in the 1996 World Cup. But his greatest moment, one that gave his team a chance to win the 1999 World Cup, never came back to me. Damien Fleming's name features way below in columns, episodes and, perhaps, even sections of human memories dedicated to its celebration.

Imagine this man's resilience at that frozen moment against Klusener in having been hit for two blinding fours in the 1st two balls and still coming up with two unhittable deliveries on the trot after that with the scores tied. Try to measure the self-belief in a team that misses a run out chance in the first of them and yet believe in deserving another chance to win it. Klusener showed a lot of strength but it came second to immunity from pressure.

That gives me a nice opportunity to end this discussion with my favourite World Cup tale of flowering under fire: Steve Waugh's hundred in the Aus-v-RSA Super Six match four days before that semi final encounter. It was an elimination match for Australia and who would come to rescue but the man who was instrumental in the team winning their first World Cup in 1987. And what would he score but the highest score of his career.

This is the match from his 1st international season when I first watched him, a twenty year old then, play his now-famous no-nonsense game to extinguish broadening Indian hopes of a surprise win. On 6th January 2004, his last day as a cricketer, he altered his methods a bit but did exactly the same. In between he became the cause of many such moments of lament to us Indians and other non-Australian cricket fans across the world, but such men leave you little choice but to bid them farewell with a 'Way to go'. I'm glad I did that on 6th Jan 2004.

Long-toothed horses still kick the hardest

Kumara Sangakkara puts his money on ageing greats conjuring up one final blast this World Cup before walking into the sunset.

A unique World Cup this turns out to be in that so many of the great men taken to be playing their last World Cup still carry the tag of 'Best Player of the team'. They do so on the back of solid performances rather than history. Look at Brain Lara and Inzamam-ul Haq: they are still the go-to men facing a steep chase and also the skippers of their teams.

Turn to Sanath Jayasuriya - he is another of those big-chase men and capable of bowling out his quota on any track. Invaluable. Ask Dhoni, if you must. Not for nothing do I love to call him the Gary Sobers of one-dayers.

Only Adam Gilchrist, with his waning form, faces serious competition as 'the player to watch' from his skipper's willow magic. But then such are the ways of Cricket Australia that this might as well be the 32 year old latter's final hurrah!

We turn to South Africa and there shines pure gold in the hair and cricketing form of Shaun Pollock. These days he bowls like a dream, bats for the team and catches like a scream. Hard to believe if you last saw him bowling off-spin in Sri Lanka, eh? Check here!

Think of these names once again: Sanath, Inzamam, Lara, Pollock, Gilchrist, Ponting. Now think of their shows in the year gone by. Don't you think they still laugh their way into any world XI?

And you really thought I missed out on India's Sach, didn't you? Well that's because I do not imagine this to be Tendulkar's last Cup at all! But then you again have a final-hurrah-seeking Ganguly-da pushing Sachin hard as the 'best man in blue' these days....

By now I expect you to have worked out that 'Old is Gold' was indeed the original (?) title of this post.

Postscript: Quite irrelevant to the topic, actually. There was a good amount of surprise involved in reading certain passages in that Kumara Sangakkara interview, especially when he says:

"I was pretty ordinary at both (batting & fielding), if I have to be honest, when I started. I had to work really hard. Guys like
Mahela Jayawardene have been exceptionally talented since they were young and I am not of that mould. It's been a lot of hard work.."

Try telling me you thought likewise about the silk-man...

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

Transcripts of Marlonspeak

...are here.

Well you can only judge these transcripts on your gut feeling - there is little else for backup as yet. I am inclined to go ahead and call Marlon Samuels naive on this evidence, unless it was a most intelligently disguised information-sharing carefully designed to safeguard against tapping.....I mean Marlon truly seems to have a close personal relation to this punter who repeatedly encourages him as a good mate would.

Even so Samuels should be punished severely for compromising non-negotiable rules. But breaching rules is far more forgiveable, and digestible, than the bitter concoction that is breach of trust and adulation.

However I had already handed a clean chit to Robin Singh yesterday even as those misinformation centres called Indian news channels (barring NDTV perhaps, who report an unconfirmed report as such) were deep into speculating 'why Robin Singh could have done this' based on what now comes across as a falsity. I was shocked out of my wits to hear that name when I heard of his mention in the tapes.

Robin Singh is amongst the first names to spring up in Indian cricket lovers' minds whenever someone mentions the terms 'commitment' and 'sincerity'. We have seen his efforts for ourselves and felt for the man when he strived for his team's cause. He has served Indian cricket to the fullest extent on the field and has since continued his good (and customarily unsung) work by preparing youngsters for international rigours.

Listening to coverages of the 'breaking news' across the channels I felt like being pushed to the edge of a cliff. I was obliged to take a side and I chose his. It was as much a vote for Robin as a desperate answer to a question asked of my ability to continue putting faith in distant people that feel like family. I would have (and still have) no option but to give up following and loving this dirty game-of-cheats called cricket if Robin Singh, of all people, is found guilty.

I lost my greatest childhood cricketing hero to the 'black rain' in 2000 but could somehow get over it. This man Robin never got such a pedestal from us and yet is far, far more important to us for what he is respected for. I am praying hard, mostly for myself, that I am proven right by the investigations.

Tailpiece: We learn that Marlon's room no. was 206 that night, which is also the number of bones in his body. I think the West Indian cricket lovers know what to do with those if their boy has strayed.......

Princely Ton

At some point of time during Lara's assault on Pakistan bowlers today the West Indian scorecard for the Multan Test read thus:

Batsmen ------------Runs--B---4s---6s--SR
RS Morton (rhb) -----5-----13---1---0--38.46 striker
BC Lara (lhb) -------92-----63---12--5--146.03 non-striker


Runako Morton failed to see the fun of it all and chose to depart immediately.