My alter ego

I always thought I had jussssst a bit of Rahul Dravid in me....and that did me proud. Now I am ecstatic - 'coz I just learnt that Dravid too perhaps has a bit of me in him!!
Check his 'tree analogy' for Test cricket, while trying to explain why other forms of cricket don't have a hope in hell to survive without it, even though these other formats do not 'appear' to depend much on Test cricket right now: http://post.jagran.com/rahul-dravid-bats-for-daynight-test-matches-with-pink-balls-1376997540


Now check the 'family analogy' this old Pavilion View post, supporting Dravid and Pink Ball Cricket while the former started actively promoting the latter couple of years back: http://pavilionview.blogspot.com/2011/04/need-your-support-in-favour-of-marching.html

If you find similarities in the two analogies, I will buy you a drink. Not that such analogies are unlikely to come to anyone's mind, but forget that mundaneness and imagine how much happy a Dravid admirer can be when he finds that his idol's mind thinks along the same (albeit obvious) lines as his own on while thinking of the same issue!

Ready for the drink I offered? Now give me your sweat analysis report....:-D

How do we say thanks to personalities like Laxman

‎2008. 

IPL 1st season player bidding. 

5 Indian cricketers are declared as icon players by their respective 5 teams (icon player to get 25% more than highest. 
One of them finds that his team has limited buying power and to maximise his team's chances of winning, more top players are needed. 

He gives up his icon status and brings in big players. 
Subsequently he performs poorly and is dropped from playing XI midway thru IPL 2008, as his team now had a pool of better players. This player does not complain. 

Why should he? He did what was right, not because he expected a favour in return.

Vangipurappu Venkata Sai Laxman.
Incomparable.
Unforgettable.

And a total misfit in fast buck cricket...for reasons far nobler than runs or strike rates.

[photo courtesy: www.espncricinfo.com]

Test batsmen and spectators bid adieu

AUs-vs-RSA, 2nd Test, 2nd day at Jo'burg


Tahir with Steyn.
Top class leg spin with express pace. 
Joyous to see both bowlers make the ball talk on same pitch, on same day.


It could be called a great session of Test cricket, if only we had batsmen brought up on better stuff than T20...batsmen who "don't look at 3rd slip fielders as aliens encroaching their space" [to borrow the commentators' words]. Pathetic state of things. And ominous when seen with Eden crowd not crossing 10000 on any day. Tells us that a generation of skilled Test batsmen and their spectators are all bidding adieu across the world hand in hand.


Pink ball day-night first class cricket must be tried next season, if not this one. It can't be worse for either cricket or cricketers than this...and it can always be eased out after letting the 'evening cricket' generation have a taste of cricket in whites.


[adopted from my FB wall post]

Class and variety still breeds in only one format of cricket

Have a look at this link



Do you know what is Murali's jersey number this IPL? I did not notice until tonight that it is derived from his achievements in another format, a format seen to be the only one where bowlers' need to take wickets is FAR more important than just containment. Check pic 9/10 of this link. [I say 'seen to be' b'coz it is only a perception. Taking wickets is the most important job of bowler in all forms - the importance reduces but still it remains #1 priority].


Also check pic 8/10 of that link for Manoj Tiwary's cover drive pic. Whenever that guyholds the bat he looks as good as this snap to me. Pity that he lost his international opportunities to misfortune. People like Tiwary and Rayudu (I was struck by a top-notch, classy cover drive hit by the latter today - keep catching these glimpses as someone or the other watches IPL at home) abound in domestic cricket today and that is where Indian cricket (at least batting) looks healthy. These players have developed their pedigreed batting by growing up playing ANOTHER format, and IPL is ONLY reaping the benefits.






Sangakkara peppered the mid wicket boundary the other day...and before you shut your eyes to conjure up slog sweeps or across the line hits, let me mention that ALL his shots were vertical bat drives. Yes, they really were even if you keep staring at me disbelievingly for the next fortnight..


Even now class is bred in only one variety of the game. First class cricket. It may well change after some years of T20; maybe slogs to mid wicket will be the ONLY 'classy shots'!! I have no problems with those shots; as a fan of my favourite cricket team such shots can very well win us the match. It is the 'ONLY' that bites me as a fan of cricket (as against fan of a team).


I remain one of the biggest fans of Jayasuriya, the first mega product of One-day cricket. But what will you choose if you have the choice between (i) having THE ODD Jayasuriya / Dhoni (alternative batsmanship styles based on modern formats) and (ii) having ALL batsmen modelled on ONLY Jayasuriya (or Dhoni)? Or WORSE still, all of them modelled ONLY on some 3rd generation guy who becomes the first mega product of T20 (hits across the line to mid-wicket ONLY, for instance)?

Again it is the 'ONLY' that I am questioning.

[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 ]

Getting the drive right in eight & nine year olds

Following on my previous posts (this and this) urging all of us to be more open and allow day-night first class cricket to happen:

I just came across a brilliant post from Michael Jeh on cricinfo's Different Strokes (reminds me of some delicious old days). That post was most impressive, not the least due to the fact that I have been spending some time of late with the kids playing cricket in my apartment complex and I have seen some of the things he mentioned in that blog happen right in front of my eyes.

Quoting a part of that blogpost that was most relevant:

Junior cricket, at my son's club anyway, is predominantly played in the V between midwicket and fine-leg. dominated by strong boys who can play the 'hoik' to every ball. Most bowlers at this age can barely get the ball to the other end without a few wides each over. A far cry indeed from the Azar Maidan in Mumbai where I recently watched a group of very young lads with impeccable batting techniques facing a bowler who bowled doosras on request! These Indian kids were probably not deemed "elite" and will probably never grace our tv screens but their rudimentary skills suggested that something (or somebody) has got to these youngsters at an early age and set them up with a framework that they can extend as their bodies grow stronger. Cameron Tradell was one of the few coaches who was able to get the message across to my son (and friend) that playing straight was a long-term goal that would outlast the temporary glory of scoring cheap runs exclusively through square leg. Try telling a seven year old that technique is more important than runs - this was the first time playing straight made sense because of the use of a unique bat that rewarded the boys for hitting the ball with a full face. It absolutely pinged off the sweet spot when they hit straight down the ground and all of a sudden, the hoik was yesterday's shot!

Ponting himself was a junior prodigy, brought up on a classical technique and clearly coached by someone who knew how to coach a kid properly. We are reminded today that soon he will no longer stride out to bat for Australia at number three, arguably our greatest ever in that crucial position. I don't think we'll ever see the likes of Ponting again in this country unless our junior cricket system can encourage kids who can bat for long periods and play straight. Not unless we can find ways to encourage coaches who can see the big picture and can find ways to communicate those simple techniques to young minds who cannot easily understand why a single to mid-on is less preferable to a boundary through square leg. That's the difference I see at the grassroots level between the Asian countries and Australia at a very young age.

I let Michael know that he need not judge 'Asian countries' by his good experience of enriched youth cricket at Azad Maidan, amongst the cricket-elitest places in cricket-elite Mumbai. That would be as accurate an assessment as estimating rhinoceros count in the world by taking rhinos per square mile in Kaziranga and multiplying that by surface area of the earth. That 2nd para in the above quote from Michael's blogpost could well be about any of Tendulkar / Dravid / Laxman / Gavaskar / Viswanath instead of Ponting, and the country India instead of Australia.



Check my comments below that blogpost (comments dated 4th April), sharing my thoughts on the subject and recent experiences of being a 'very senior' player amongst 8-9 year olds. If you enjoyed Michael's post, chances are you may like my comments too.

Need your support in favour of marching towards floodlit first class cricket

My appeal to any cricket followers that read this post by intent or by accident:
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Please spare a thought about supporting first class / Test cricket played with pink balls. It needs support. No use supporting the branches and leaves (read ODI's & T20) of a tree whose roots (first class cricket) are shrinking by the day.



Currently floodlit first class cricket has a downside: it leads to more consumption of resource (power) but I believe that can be managed in near future by advanced solar energy harnessing resources. A cricket stadium receives a lot of solar energy in daytime - which can be used at night!

Want to see the pics? Here they are: http://www.lords.org/latest-news/news-archive/mcc-v-nottinghamshire-champion-county-27-30-march-2011-sheikh-zayed-stadium-abu-dhabi,33,PS.html?imageNo=4

 
While the cricket crazy world is keeping collective eye on the climax of the global event, a silent revolution has been started by people concerned with the health of the 'Mother' format of the game - first class cricket.
It is clear now that while the Son (Tests) augmented the mom's health since itis inception, Grandson (One dayers) had been a mixed bag- positive in some ways and negative in others. Mother was still doing fine but now the Great Grandson (T20) threatens to finish it off by pumping away all blood (read talent) from it by lucre of money.
This development is quite a shocker, as the lifeline for all 4 generations resides solely in the mother. Without survival of the mother, the next three generations might either perish or go into a coma (read 'associate member quality'). Problem is: the Great Grandson is kind of a 'bull in a china shop' guy, one who has immense power but does not know about using it for family's good.
For the Mother to stand a chance of survival, she may need to raid the Great Grandson's territory. The 'positive move' may or may not work but it is worth trying as the mother is dying anyway if she tries nothing.
The preparations for that assault into grandson's territory started at Abu Dhabi on 27th March. Support the cause.
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More links:

MCC website report of Rahul Dravid endorsing to take 'pink ball first class cricket' experiment forward: http://www.lords.org/latest-news/news-archive/dravid-pink-the-future-for-tests,1969,NS.html
Pink ball day-night first class match between MCC & Notts at Abu Dhabi - scorecard: http://www.ecb.co.uk/stats/fixtures-results/score-card.html?Pfixture=com.othermedia.ecb.stats.Fixture-L-16738

Here's a link to my previous post listing the exact concerns on health of first class cricket that I discussed heart to heart with a cricket loving guy I know very well - MYSELF.

This is the cricinfo report where Dravid, after completing his participation in the experimental floodlit first class match at Abu Dhabi, has endorsed the new idea as good for cricket's future. The comments in that article list concerns of the readers - one of which was negative impact on energy consumption.