I C C-rious connotations

There was a sense of rejoice in learning that Inzamam-ul-Haq got a light rap on the knuckles by ICC for ‘bringing the game to disrepute’ but was cleared of the big bad charge of ball tamperin. I reckoned both decisions to be….proper. [‘correct’ is not an option, is it?]

My happiness had more reasons than just an agreement with the verdict. The incident has evoked unanimous support from the bowlers’ community for their fellow swingers, a phenomenon I always love to see. The ‘rejoice’ was complete when I imagined the impact of this ‘not out’ decision on high-handed umpiring. Never saw footage of the actual incident at The Oval but the outcome of that affair added to a growing feeling that of late some umpires are getting a few free rides too many in a game that is so strict on its players.

But even in celebration of such rare moments of triumph you can trust the ICC to dish out half cooked broth. The withdrawal of Hair from ICC trophy is one such faux pas; not so much the actual decision to withdraw the controversial umpire but the ridiculously roundabout way of announcing it. However ICC Chief Match Referee Ranjan Madugalle’s adjudication on the ball tampering charge announced during his press conference is perhaps a far more resonant botch. In the conclusive paragraph he says:

“Given that the physical state of the ball did not justify a conclusion that a fielder had altered its condition, and neither of the umpires had seen a fielder tampering with the ball, there was no breach of Law 42.3. The course of action which I would have expected from umpires concerned that there may be ball-tampering would have been for the Umpires to draw Mr ul-Haq's attention to the marks and to tell him that they intended to keep a close eye on the ball after each over.”

While the second line of that all-important paragraph was designed as a brief guideline for umpires to act upon future incidents, I have serious objections with the first line and the distorting effect it has on the second line. That last bit of “there was no breach of law 42.3” could have been worded otherwise. It could go like “there is no conclusive proof that law 42.3 was breached.” As you read the paragraph in totality you’ll find a marked alteration come about in the sense with that little change of words.

In the brouhaha of coming out with the right verdict ICC have missed spelling out a little but crucial message for players and umpires alike: that the Pakistan team are being let off for want of evidence in support of the charge – nothing more, nothing less. At present that first line makes the second line look less of a guideline and more of a cold instruction from ICC for the umpires alone. ‘Do this and do no further,’ seems to be the underlying message.

The statement from Madugalle can only serve to unduly undermine the authority and inclination of an umpire to interfere with suspected ball tampering. Irrespective of the validity of the present charge, the verdict unwittingly discourages umpires from looking for ‘rape’ of the ball unless the ‘rape’ is extensive enough to be proven. If that means allowing the requisite ‘rape’ to happen in front of their eyes then so be it.

Is that the intended essence of ICC’s seminal “note of caution” for its umpires? Then they better be prepared that lesser mortals than Hair (you can’t help having that one regard for him) will pretend looking the other way when a ball tampering incident actually happens on the field. I’m sure none of us would love that.

Maybe I’m reading too much into Madugalle’s choice of words. Let’s hope the umpires do not.

Update: It seems some other people are also harbouring similar thoughts about the outcome of ball tampering controversy. Cricinfo Pakistan's Osman Samiuddin ponders:

Should the law perhaps make it necessary for an umpire to spot at least one individual or one act of tampering before taking action, as Dickie Bird said immediately after the hearing?

Update 2: Jagadish expresses his apprehensions about the verdict.

King Cricket talks about Prince of Cricket

Get a feel of Brian's 501 n.o. here.

Born to make history

This one's for the ages.

When Sachin Tendulkar retires he is going to be associated with zillions of cricketing records. As with so many special things destined for him, here is one more curious association between history of the colonial game in his land and its greatest product here:

If you join the two digits of Sachin Tendulkar's age (in years) at the time of his 1st Test century to the two digits of Sachin Tendulkar's age at the time of his 1st ODI century (in that order) we get a significant year in the history of Indian cricket.

The year is 1721. It corresponds to the 'earliest known reference to cricket being played in India.'

[Check out on the concluding section of this wiki link.]

When losing the plot comes with a clot

There can be n number of ways a captain can lose his head while playing a crunch game. Pic 10 of this series records one of them.

Greg Chappell the great ODI all rounder

Did you know that besides being an all time great batsman the Indian cricket coach is quite Viv Richards-like in qualifying as one of the top all rounders to have played in ODI's?? I never even bothered to check until I came across this Friday column by S Rajesh on cricinfo.

Chappell Jr. has taken 72 wkts in the 74 ODI's he played!! Now I know what makes him bowl so much at the top order men in the nets.

The article gives a reasonable method to judge all rounders in ODI's. Problem is, while the bowling economy rates of players is available on the players' stats pages the batting strike rate is yet to become a permanent feature in those columns...Wisden and Cricinfo, are you listening??

Strike rates and economy rates of individual players are functions of average strike rates / economy rates for that era and need to be viewed as such. You need to make a few adjustments while judging specialist bowlers and batsmen from different generations with those figures. But for the all rounders the relevant figures, as indicated in Rajesh's article, are differentials of batting and bowling figures - and that should essentially cancel out such 'generation gaps'.

Clarification: Players' career batting strike rates are already available on the individual player pages of cricinfo. In the post above I was suggesting their incorporation on statsguru so that we get filtered values of strike rates.

[cross posted on Different Strokes]

D L F?

In other words, Did Lara Falter as a captain by batting himself, the best batsman, at number nine in yesterday's nail-biter of a run chase against India? Was it overconfidence on his part? Was it poor experimentation? And that's not all - there's another nasty angle: "Was it a got up match?" asked my colleague today. Typical Lara.

The intuitive captain that Lara is, it is likely to be none of those. 'A gamble' is perhaps a more correct call. West Indies have already qualified for the finals and it is quite possible that Lara saw dual benefits in trying out his perennially failing lower order bats at the top in last evening's modest chase. Those batsmen could have gained much needed confidence if West Indies could win without the services of Gayle and Lara. The West Indian spoke about that angle in the post match conference.

Lara kept silent about the other perceived benefit of his experiment though. It would have been 'improper' to make a public expression of it. He reckoned that even the unlikely outcome of an Indian win would significantly bolster India's chances of making it to the finals - which is all very well for West Indian chances of winning a long awaited trophy. Lara's assumption: India can hope for a win against Australia but winning with a bonus point in a knockout match against the full-strength world champs is akin to asking for the moon.

Understandably Lara could not put words on this aspect of his decision making and utter those in a press conference. There's no way a skipper would want Australia to know of the esteem that his team reserves for them nor would he like a wounded Indian team to treat the final as a prestige fight if they reach that far.

It was never going to be an all-win experiment though. The shocking result of that strange batting order jumble means Lara and his top order mates will be saddled with deep worries about middle order fragility in the final match. Come Sunday and we will know if Lara had called correctly during yesterday's lunch break or he was indeed foolish and took too much upon himself as captain and player by making a facile win difficult for a team that was only just getting used to winning.

While we continue to get confounded by skipper Lara's mind and its strange functioning, Tim de Lisle gets bamboozled by some other minds.

It's how you field and bowl, dears

You score over 300 runs and lose comfortably. Next time you set 163 and win against the same team playing with 9 batsmen, a keeper and a specialist bowler . I'll have to end this here - I am frantically making a list of all those who ever accused one-day cricket of being a batsman's game, to be handed over to a cricket loving bhai I know. "It's a long time since I broke some bones," lamented the poor guy when I last met him.

He is back

...and across, and forward. He's everywhere on the bowlers' minds. And he's magnificent as usual.

Pssssst.......he's back too, and so is he. All in the same tournament! No wonder it makes someone up there break down so often.

[Pic: cricinfo]

It doesn't get bigger than this...except the hype

Every new cricket series brings with it the next level in marketing of the game. I do not expect to be charged with overstatement for stating that this image provides a comprehensive picture of a world centred around promotion. Not even 24 hours have passed since the English Ashes squad was announced and we have this image splashed across the web. Do not recall seeing anything as dramatic as that during the build up of any recent big series. Not even the last Ashes that is barely a year behind us.

But then, no one expected the 2005 version to be much more than a formality. This illustration, then, is a tribute to the elevation of English cricket team in the domain of public awareness and it is commendable that they have raised such hopes of a repeat dogfight even in the face of losing so many of their 2005 heroes to injury.

There is another team though where half the team does not matter anyway because those players simply do not crave to be the one that made a difference (except maybe against India). They seem hell-bent on clinically removing every remaining reason for the team's numerous ardent supporters across the globe to keep on rooting for them. I must say that they do a pretty good job of it.

Update: Here's an expanded modification of this post.

Those moments of motion frozen in time...

....are what sports photography is all about.

You look at the celebrities and their supporters here.....

....A few young men enfolded by a mystic haze in their own divine world here ....

......Or at this delightful, wonderful collection of magic moments from a cross section of over 100 crore people by Will Luke.....

Each of those gems is a small yet fathomless chapter in the game of cricket told thru a single moment of visual inspiration that was also a magnificent feat of hand-eye (or should it be finger-eye) coordination, a chapter that could not be described quite as well by all the words coined in history.

Seeing is believing, and there hardly was ever a point of time in my existence when I believed in that more than I do now after coming across those pictures. I am glad that I blog about cricket - as that alone allowed me the fortune of getting to them.

Many of those pics transend the sport they depict. It could have been any sport in those pics and I would be as blessed to get a share of them as I am now. But I am just glad that it is cricket in its resplendent 24 carat glow that those snaps reflect rather than another game.

About his passion for cricket pics from the sub continent Will has this to say in one of his posts:

"I still haven't discovered what it is that appeals to me about cricket photos from the subcontinent. I love all cricket photography, partly because I'm an amateur snapper myself but mainly because there's something mystical about "freezing" action into one moment. Perhaps it's that cricket is to India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh what football is to Britain. But moreover cricket on the subcontinent appears born from the dust and soil. With the exception of the privileged, children aren't given shiny white pads and a slazenger bat for their 7th birthday; they play with sticks, on dusty tracks, on railways, platforms, mountains and> wherever they choose. It's much more a way of living, of passing time, than it is of playing the game.

That's my blinkered view of it anyway....."

Meanwhile I am still searching for Sunil Gavaskar's email ID. Do Send him these links if you have his contact, as he badly needs this medicine. Things can get from bad to worse if he manages to expose himself to some of the footage from his own playing days while in this frame of mind.

Moin-ud-dowla: a road map to Test cricket for ICC associates?

The Moin-ud-dowla Gold Cup tournament is played over 3 days in a 2-limited-overs-innings-a-side format. The first innings is of 90 overs and the 2nd innings has 40. Excepting a final addition of totals the two innings are treated independently i.e. remaining wickets, overs or time from one innings do not carry over to the next. The one day wide rule is firmly in place.

I read a report where Bengal captain Deep Dasgupta explained some of the rules at the press conference and I must say I like the present format as it facilitates evaluation of talented one day specialists and young club cricketers that may become future first class and Test prospects.


Most of the young talents unearthed at club level are only exposed to the limited overs format by the time big opportunities start knocking at their doors.This is true even for some established Test nations like India and Pakistan. The Moin-ud-dowla format (I do not know if we have a proper name for it), while ensuring a result, can allow budding cricketers to build their stamina, improve concentration and maintain intensity over long periods.


There are a few associate countries of ICC that have a future in cricket but are yet to institute a first class format in their domestic infrastructure. They can implement this present format adopted at the Moin-ud-doula tourney for their apex domestic cricket tournament and maybe chart a path of progress to five day cricket.


Perhaps they will need to expand that limited-overs rule of one bouncer per batsman per over and increase the margin of error for an off-side wide. Wait, wait - some more much required alterations are already rushing to my mind.....

[Cross posted on Caught Behind]

Aerodynamics of a cricket ball..

The subject often becomes a raging topic following marvellous spells of swing bowling or allegations of ball tampering in international cricket. The cutomary response by e-readers: maybe a few browses across the net after reading a thought provoking article or report on the subject and a blog post with a lot of questions, and that's it for most of us. Imagine a person pursuing the subject for 25 years! Meet Rabindra Mehta, Sports Aerodynamics Consultant and NASA Scientist who makes the effort to share on cricinfo his learnings about the subject.

Thumbs Up mate, we are blessed to have people like you.

Shoaib's 5 years younger than Asif....

The cricinfo bulletin of the 2nd ODI between Pakistan and England (I could follow a part of the English innings and that was it) had a link of player pages. Cricinfo has this nice feature of listing the significant personalities discussed in a report and linking these names to respective personality pages. I casually pressed the link to my blue-eyed boy 'Mohammad Asif' and was horrified to learn that he was a 1971-born! Goodness gracious - age is the last similarity I have in mind when I keep saying that Asif reminds us of Glenn Mcgrath.

But then the reality strikes: our grandpa Asif is yet to play an international match. It was after all a minor linking error that allowed an Asif namesake his unexpected turn under the spotlight. And no wonder it happened - I counted 12 Mohammad Asif's in all on the Pakistan players' list. All was well thereafter and I slipped into my own Asif's player page.

Update: I cannot resist myself from sharing with you a potentially fatal thought that (fortunately) never occured to me during the precise period of shock described above. I may not have survived the damage if an image of former Pakistan fast bowler Aqib Javed had surfaced in my mindscape while I was still trying to digest the extreme advanced age of Asif.

Allegedly born in 1972 (and having started the rather easy job of fast bowling at first class level in the 1984-85 season aged 12 - right, t-w-e-l-v-e), Aqib happens to be younger than the 1971-born Asif.

Was Aqib Javed born aged five? I can't say - and that's a pity as that could have explained his rather 'early' start and likewise departure (he was spent by the time he was '26'). But he sure could have knocked me off for a round hundred; I take this opportunity to announce that the previous post was the 100th one on Pavilion View. Cake's on the way...and with it we will celebrate this new lease of life for your blogger friend. you'll agree that the landmark's far too innocuous when weighed against a narrow escape.

[The Aqib Javed info was pointed out in an earlier blog comment at a different forum as an 'intergalactic incredulity' by Jay, a cricinfo reader friend and supporter of Pakistan cricket team.]

Mindless, bordering on heartless

Cricketers of this era are turning out to be an an ill-advised lot - and we say this leaving aside controversies, politicking and on-field issues of cricket. If not for the game that gets increasingly beyond their control, the players can surely do better for the environment - and for themselves.

Bad time to be a fast bowler

.."in the 2000s, fast bowlers average more than 32 per wicket, while in the last five decades they touched the 30-mark just once. In fact, to find out the last instance when they gave away so many per wicket, you'd have to go back to the 1930s, when they averaged 32.89."

S Rajesh laments the dwindling stock of fast bowlers in the new millennium, with 2004 being the worst year for them in post war history!

"Since then (2000), the runs per wicket for pace bowlers has always been on the wrong side of 30, with 2004 being an especially poor year - their average of 35.15 is the worst for fast bowlers in any single year since the war."

Not surprising at all, not surprising at all. Morning showed the day ahead during the new Year Test of 2004 when Brett Lee registered a double century of conceded runs in the Indian 1st innings at Sydney.

Swinging in confusion

Here’s a much-awaited treatise on that great mystery of cricket – swing. While Saad Shafqat mentions a few interesting facts there about the past of swing bowling and touches upon the scientific simplicity of it all, he yorks me with the lines:

It is often said that reverse (super) swing is poorly understood, but in fact it is a simple and straightforward technique that you can try in your own backyard. All you need is a tennis ball, a roll of electrical insulation tape, and a set of stumps to aim at. Cover one half of the ball with strips of tape and hold it down the center, with the taped side entirely to one side. For a toe-bruising yorker, keep the taped side towards leg and deliver the ball aiming for second slip. About two-thirds of the way the ball will curve like a banana and crash into the base of middle and leg. The faster you are the better, but you don't have to be very quick to create the effect. To bowl a menacing outswinger, keep the taped side facing off and aim for fine leg. The physics is elementary. The smooth, taped side creates less turbulence than the uncovered, rough side of the tennis ball. Less turbulence means lesser resistance, and the ball moves in that direction.

A scientific confusion is created here. For all the elementary science lessons at your memory’s disposal and without treading into ‘turbulence’ territory you would have thought that the smoother or shiny half of the ball would face lesser air resistance and try to travel FASTER through the air than the other (rough) half and thus force the ball to move away from it, which would be the opposite of Shafqat’s take in the last two lines. The resultant trajectory, when viewed from above should resemble a heated bimetallic strip. I believe most of us laymen generally regard the normal (or conventional) swing to function that way rather than ‘reverse’ (or ‘super’ or whatever) swing.

Is the turbulence effect, that obviously functions inversely as the ‘expected’ effect explained above (let’s call it that), so strong that it overcomes this expected effect and reverses it to a degree that it becomes too negligible to even deserve a mention from Shafqat? And does the cricket ball behave in exactly the same fashion as the tape ball? In case you think of dismissing the above words of Shafqat as a typo there’s further confirmation of what he intends to say:

Super swing is simpler to understand, easier to learn, more accurate, and perfectly reproducible. Delivered at speeds over 90 mph, it can be a lethal weapon, some would even say a weapon of mass destruction. It doesn't matter what your action is or how you cock your wrist. All that matters is which way the smoother surface is facing. Provided there is enough difference between the rough and shiny sides, the ball will always move towards the smoother surface. It isn't the 'reverse' of anything. That's just the way it is.

‘Towards the smoother surface’ again? Now my confusion is peaking and needs serious sorting out. Having surfed on this topic a few times earlier I repeat the exercise. All of the more simplistic explanations (links provided below) that I pick up on the net point towards my original beliefs (to use a suitable term) about swing. However I’m far from convinced that I understand the truth.

Not for nothing is aerodynamics excluded from science syllabi for fifth standard students and there should be a lot more to the mechanism of swing than simplistic explanations. Simply put, the ball behaves as it does and it is up to us to find out how it moves. There’s no use expecting it to do this or that just because our expectations soar only as far as our knowledge allow them to.

Maybe ‘turbulence’ does weird and big things to the quickly hurled cricket ball and Shafqat’s statement may be based on that. How I wish this scientific misery of cricket lovers to end once for all through extensive studies on this front by a handful of crazy cricket lovers pretending as brilliant scientists.

Oh – I must kick myself hard for forgetting to thank Shafqat profusely. Controversies have deluged cricket over the last month and it is a long time since we all discussed ball, bat and such things that are easier to relate to. At least Shafqat has started a debate that we would love to shout ourselves hoarse about. Would love to read a more detailed account by him about those words of his.

Do add your views here and help enlighten me if you have understood Saad Shafqat's point. In case you wondered, I regard myself to be an on-the-verge-of-retirement non-pro medium pacer who generally swings the ball right up. And as Shafqat mentions in his post, I agree with Imran Khan that it would swing the same (almost) all the time irrespective of the way the ball is held.

More stuff on swing bowling mechanism has been discussed here, here and here.

[cross posted on Caught Behind and Different Strokes]

Update [7-Sep-2006]:

Rabindra Mehta has come up with an illustrative piece on cricinfo to explain the science of swing bowling in simple terms. My DS friend Krishna Kumar has this to say about the issue:

"
I know you can get conventional swing with a taped ball, if you strip away a bit of the tape on one side, after covering the whole ball first with tape, i.e. away from the shiny, smooth side and toward the damaged tape side. We used to do that for fun in Ottawa, until very quickly the batting team asked for a re-tape :)

Ball does travel faster over the turbulent air stream side. The smooth side allows air to stick to it better, roughly speaking, and hence air flow is slower. It's the same reason a dimpled golf ball travels quicker through air.

There's a ball available on order, from the Greg Chappell cricket centre online, called King Swinger or something like that (I have it with me:), it's half regular tennis ball, half smooth rubber, it swings conventionally, but swings a LOT. Very difficult to control unless you bowl as quick you can, otherwise it starts bending half way down the pitch. :)

A taped ball I'd have thought would behave much the same way, i.e. generate conventional swing, but Saad seems to suggest otherwise.

The only real difference in reverse swing and the conventional variety, is that when one side becomes really rough, air flow becomes very turbulent, and when it is really turbulent (as opposed to mildly turbulent for conventional swing), air flow slows down, resulting in a reversal of swing direction. Or so people claim :)

The real reason (I think) wrist position becomes very crucial in conventional swing, is that, the difference in air flow speeds is because of the seam position as opposed to the difference in roughness between sides of the ball. After all, the first few overs of a game, there is no rough side :) Hence, the angle at which the protruding seam cuts through the air determines the speed of air flow over and around it. That's not a very good explanation, but that's about as well as I understand it anyway :) A bit of wobble (not too much, but just a bit) of the seam I think helps (although TV comms and coaches say, you need a pefectly positioned seam), because if you notice, Zaheer Khan has about the best positioned non-wobbly seam ever, but gets almost no swing with a red ball. Or perhaps, it is the non-slinginess of his action.

But, overall, it's the vaguest science known to mankind (superstring theory being a distant second:)
"

God bless both.

Gibbs decides to take it on

Gibbs has finally decided to face his long pending police interrogation session in India with the Delhi police that will hopefully close the Indian chapter of his involvement in the match-fixing episode. Since 2000 he has avoided visiting India citing grounds of possible arrest and harassment. here's a cricinfo report on his views of the forthcoming India tour:

Gibbs said that the delays were all at the Indian end. "They haven't really played their part," he shrugged. "You know, we've asked them many a time to come question me on neutral territory, and they refuse. So it's not like I haven't made the effort. It's them being hard-arses. That's it."

It is laughable how he expects to be interrogated on a neutral land for a crime committed on Indian terrotory. Easy to blast him for that, as Gibbs had confessed to involvement in the controversy. Long dragging worries though can be thoroughly irksome - we all have a few (generally of smaller gravity) - and manage to bring out the prickly side of men. Poor guy, this Herschelle Gibbs. Brilliant batsman he might be inside of the 22 yards but he still is an ordinary man in an extraordinary situation and fighting to come out of it with no UCBSA in sight this time to approve a 'withdrawal'.

As I recently commented here, everything in cricket today is not just cricket and it is futile in the long run to skirt issues that test the mettle. At least Gibbs has decided to face the consequences and we need to appreciate that thought. He need not be worried; here in this country we all respect him for his timely withdrawal and throngs of people will surely come out in his support if he is harassed without a reason while some other tainted ones belonging to this land strut around signing autographs and participating in weekly sports debates at prestigious television channels.

The maiden maiden of Twenty20

Here's a nice piece of info: Mohammad Asif is now a strong contender for "Casanova of the year" award after winning over the most reluctant maiden of all time. It, or she, took 8 matches coming....(okay we will go this far and no further)

Holding the truth aloft

Thaat maan Michael Holding may be well into his 50's but he can still send down some serious singing stuff. Whichever side of the fence you are on, his take on a divided cricket world on the Hair controversy will take some digesting. he does not mention the much-discussed racism issue, or even the regal air that some older nations surround themselves in while dealing with the newer entrants to international cricket.

Holding says:

There is a double standard at work in cricket and this episode has only highlighted it.

Mikey's statement opens up a different perspective when he points to a first-world-third-world factor in the equation of power. In other words, he says that the unwritten rule of traditional Indian marriages also dictates polarisation in the realms of ICC: spouses bond well when their families have similar economic backgrounds.

You start thinking, "Is there a chance in a hundred that South Africa might have reacted any differently than Australia did (by staying on) if they had been playing a series in England last year when the London blasts happened?" Back in 1996 the cricket administrators of Australia thought nothing of even forfeiting their World Cup match in Sri Lanka but when the 'action' shifted to England everyone in Cricket Australia showed a big heart.

Till the recent South Africa incident I found nothing partisan about that bravado. The 1996 reaction of Australia and Mikey's own West Indies always looked more of a panicky reaction, independent of the 'status' of Sri Lanka in the world of firsts and thirds. After the brilliant Ashes last year I could only thank heavens that the intervening nine years of terrrorism around the world had so drastically changed perspectives of even the 'safer' nations. [Not that I am a great supporter of terrorism, in case I selected a few wrong words there...] Had Australia pulled out after the London blasts we would have been denied cricket of quality rarely seen in the past decade.

The South African reaction to the Sri Lanka blasts and a telling silence from the 'first world' in response to that backout said things that no cricket lover in these parts wants to hear: we are considered below par in protecting our guests from local distractions. Sadder still, that message may just be the header text of a rather long paragraph. After these incidents from the recent past even the most neutral of Asian cricket supporters will hope to be forgiven for nodding in agreement when Holding says "That is first-world hypocrisy and we have to live with it."

I am yet to come across recordings of the exact events that took place on "Hair Day" but even so I am pretty sure that Hair would have gone about the matter just as Mikey says if the fielding team at Oval had been Australia, England, West Indies or even New Zealand (who are about as old, or new, in Test cricket as Pakistan).

"All in a day’s work", the new Macbeth

For a few moments let us forget the rights and wrongs of Pakistan in the ball tampering controversy and concentrate on the parody of that Shakespearean tragedy Macbeth that the Hair drama is throwing up. Trying to reword the latest developments with some creative license:

Scene One:

"I’ll be putting a lot to my side when this is all over. I have been vilified by virtually everybody here and when the truth comes out a lot of people will pay. So, that’s all I can say."

Darrell Hair mouths these dramatic words and achieves his original aim of making people chew off nails in anticipation of his autobiography. Good PR job that, we must say. But then……

Scene Two:

……with his present and future workload the story can only come out a few years later - as stale as John Wright talking about his Indian tenure in 2006. Enter the three witches who whisper business sense into Hair's ears and arouse his greed. [Analogies yet to be established for all three witches but Steve Waugh with his indirect role in fanning the controversy qualifies as one…]

Hair realises that he simply has to write a book on this controversy right NOW. "Hit the market while the principal topic is still raging." He may strike gold with the publication and never have to stand again in the sun with stressed lumbars for days on end.

But how does Hair write a book while ICC (King Duncan) makes him conquer new frontiers [officiate in Test matches] around the globe all year? Darrell (okay, we will call him Macbeth henceforth) feels the prick to chuck this umpiring job for a greater gain. Time for a few drastic measures.

Scene Three:

Meanwhile, Macbeth consults Lady Macbeth (umpire Ross Emerson, of the Murali connection). The Lady comes out in support of Macbeth’s plan to get rid of Duncan from his scheme of things. The Lady incites him further: why not try and wring out his expected earnings over next few years from the King’s coffers before eliminating him? Enter $500,000, Hair’s claim for vacating an umpiring slot of the ICC panel. [I bet that was the most expensive way to lose Hair.]

Our Macbeth is a man of deeds. [Please note the absence of the term ‘honourable man’ – I hate mixing up plays.] He assures us about making 'a lot of people pay when the truth is out' and actually attempts it. Indeed what is ICC, Darrell's paymaster and the Duncan of this Macbeth, but representation of 'a lot of people'?

Scene Four:

"If people want to force me out of the game it has to be done in some shape or form that I am unaware of, because I am contracted to do a job and I know I am doing it quite well at the moment so far as the ins and outs are concerned."

Is it the same Macbeth speaking to news agencies while firing off that half-a-million letter to ICC? Here the Shakespearean script threatens to morph into a Ram aur Shyam like Hindi movie ("Maqbool" be damned) where lookalikes keep exchanging positions. But wait! Darrell Hair’s Macbeth has to be taken to task and who else can you have but the slain King’s son Malcolm speeding up to the podium, joining hands with Macduff (Inzamam), another Macbeth victim to elaborate on the clandestine deeds of Macbeth.

Scene Five:

Fierce battle ensues.

Scene Six:

Still under scripting – keep watching.


And almost all of this has happened in a single day! Irrespective of the fate of Darrell Hair this Macbeth is anything but a tragedy.

Disclaimer: I happen to be a complete outsider in this Hair-v-Pak war as I admit to the shame of not having watched live cricket in the past fortnight or so.

[FOR THE EXACT SEQUENCE OF EVENTS THAT TRIGGERED THIS CONTROVERSY READ THIS POST BY MATT THORNTON.]

An ICC-free cricket match...

Billy Bowden hands out a dodgy lbw to Brian Lara playing in his final Test. The batsman crinkles his eyes an ambles back with head falling back. While passing the umpire Lara stops on his way and asks:

Are you sure the eyesight's any straighter than that finger of yours?

Vishnu Pawan imagines a dream world and has a few breezy suggestions for those 'ideal' conditions when no rules are there to stop you from having your way..or, say.

If it's 'Ashes to Ashes' for the English then for the Pakistanis it's...

...hair to Hair!

Dying to play cricket

"
Wasim Raja, the former Pakistan batsman who went on to become an ICC match referee, has died while playing for Surrey Over 50s at Marlow in Buckinghamshire. He was 54.

"Wasim had a big heart attack on the field," a Surrey spokesman told Cricinfo. "He felt dizzy, and mentioned this to the slips, saying that he felt he had to go off. He was carried off but then collapsed on the boundary."

"

That was part of the cricinfo report on Wasim Raja. Amid the sadness of the incident emerges this rare picture of a cricketer dying in harness. Very few people are fortunate enough to die doing a job they love deeply. I am not aware of the stats but presumably for a cricketer such a death is far more unlikely than, say, for a business executive.

Barring accidents, most sportsmen retire long before health check-ups find their way into packed monthly schedules. Wasim Bari was 54 and It was no time to leave, really. It is not even the retirement age in other 9-to-5 professions. But.....can we view this from another perspective?

Let us ponder over a hypothetical situation: say, what thoughts might come to Wasim Raja during a net session 30 years back if some mystic prophet would lean towards him and whisper in his ears to tell him that he would die playing cricket?

I guess I will invite wrath from some quarters for cheapening a personal tragedy by confessing that one of the first thoughts to cross my mind upon reading the news was "I wish I was that lucky in my death'. Maybe I deserve to be criticised. "The high of cricket contributes to these callous thoughts" is one of the generous reactions I can imagine. I ask myself, "Would I feel differently had I personally known Raja?"

No. The death of Wasim Raja is a tragedy to people who cared for him and my first reaction to the news does not challenge that. It merely speculates if the cricketer himself would settle for a 'till death do us part' affair with cricket. Not everyone though will relate good fortune to a demise. Barring, perhaps, those sport lovers who dream to be with their beloved sport all the time.

Even when they have no more time.

Sadly this isolated incident has the potential to become a reference for banning Over 50's cricket as a potentially hazardous concept for aging sportsmen.

Mark Boucher McFlies back to South Africa

Mark Boucher owns a baby-face. Remember the similar countenance of Michael J Fox when he played the teenaged Marty McFly in 'Back to the Future' trilogy? How badly I want a refresher of the fun-loaded movie series now that Boucher has lived upto his McFly resemblance right up to the 'Nobody calls me chicken' bit.

Away from home

Do you know what separates the batsmen from the batsboys in Tests?

Alternatively, do you know how to get Mohammad Kaif and Ramnaresh Sarwan out of lean trots in ODI's?

Answer's just the same - cast them away to foreign shores. The Cricinfo List this week also disproves my long time suspicion that the home / away factor has far less pronounced an effect in the ODI format than in Tests. As for Sachin who averages in the high 50's and hence could be expected to have some deviant stats, absence of his name from this sort of a list highlighting standard deviations again bears testimony to his consistency.

I mean, Rahul Dravid averages a formidable 51 at home along with that 65 away average, but Rahul baiters could easily observe that 'Rahul is decidedly more susceptible on low and slow tracks' and logic would not allow outright rejection of that view. Sachin's stats offer no such opportunities to his detractors as his batting performances show little variation with the presence or absence of a visa in his pocket.

But I just cannot get over Rahul's average of 65 plus in foreign shores. S-I-X-T-Y F-I-V-E !!! For that alone I am willing to stand up and salute Rahul Dravid without any reservations.

By the way, going by that list Mohinder Amarnath's away record is 70% better than his home stats!! Surely that must be another record?

Anniversary celebration

How do you celebrate an anniversary? Simple - recreate the original magic.

Test cricket in the year 2006 has so far been generally disappointing. If we delve deeper for the reasons we find that most of the Test series featured at least two of the four principal causes that produce nondescript matches: mismatch in strengths of rival sides, loss of key players through injury, pitches that are unconducive to rivetting cricket (bat dominating ball being the bigger problem) and safety first approach from skippers.

Logic says that the above list names those causes in their descending order of impact. Now let us designate those reasons as A (team mismatch), B (loss of players), C (unconducive pitches) and D (defensive approach) and rate a few series on those shortcomings.

India v Pak @ Pak: C & D; rating - avg.
Eng v India @ Ind: B, C & D; rating - disappointing
Sri Lanka v. Eng @ Eng: B, rating - good
Aus vs. RSA @ RSA: A, rating - avg.
Ind vs. WI @ WI: B, C & D; rating - disappointing
Pak vs. Eng @ Eng: B, D and E (NIGHTMARISH CATCHING); rating - disappointing

(A friend pleads that I upgrade the Eng-v-Pak rating after that pole vault dismissal of Inzamam at Headingley)

Amidst all this comes a breath of fresh air - the RSA vs. Sri Lanka series at the latter's home territory. It started off with strong suggestions of 'A' over the 1st three days of the 1st Test. But the South Africans played valiantly over the last two days and went close to dragging a virtual gonner to a draw. And now this cliffhanger of a 2nd Test. All three innings so far have produced scored between 300 and 400 and the fourth one, barring a brilliant Ntini spell early in the 5th morning, is heading towards a similar total irrespective of the outcome.

The match is evenly poised for a certain result. The bowling has been both excellent and tidy while the batting was as brilliant as it was purposeful. Both sides have been up at each other's throats. All this could not happen without positive thinking going on between the skippers' ears. The way things are poised today at close of 4th day's play, there could not be a better celebration of 1st anniversary of that great Ashes 2nd Test last year at Edgbaston.

Sada - for ever

On occasions that are getting rarer by the day, I find time to turn over the pages of Sunil Gavaskar's 'One day Wonders' and the one thought that inevitably comes back to me each time is: "What exactly happened to that audacious nut of a keeper called Sadanand Viswanath?"

Pre-Ganguly, chirpy players were a rare breed in India and Sadanand Viswanath is absolutely the earliest bird of that feather that I can remember (naturally, as I started cricket viewing in 1985). His mannerisms and energy are amongst the few remaining memories of that victorious 1985 World Series Cup campaign by India.

The mid eighties was a strange time for Indian Cricket. Quite a few young cricketers with obvious calibre gatecrashed into the Indian cricket team with remarkable initial success but then almost all of them disappeared from the scene just as quickly. Laxman Sivaramakrishnan the leggie (and brilliant fielder), Maninder Singh the left arm spinner (and brilliant fielder), Narendra Hirwani the leggie (not as great a fielder, perhaps). The quickest of those shock demises that set Indian cricket by a few years must have been Sadanand Viswanath's.

Here's a long-awaited chat with 'Sada' (as we all referred to him back in our household and neighbourhood during his glory days) that Sportstar has thankfully managed to come up with. He shares a few memories of his honour and his misfortune in the tete-a-tete.

Memories of the 574 run Jayasuriya-Mahanama effort

That rare feat was started on this day 9 years back. Last week Mahela Jayawardene and Kumara Sangakarra usurped the most coveted team batting record of all from their senior compatriots Jayasuriya and Mahanama. The latter duo had stitched together a 576 run 2nd wicket patience-tester in the 1st Test versus India in 1997 at the Premadasa. It was the highest partnership for any wicket in Test cricket at the time, a record Kumara and Mahela bettered by 48 runs.

I recall having appeared for a professional entrance examination on the 4th and 5th of August, 1997. Those were also the 3rd and 4th days of "Jayasuriya's Test". I went into the exam hall on Monday (Aug 4th) in a happy frame of mind, secure with the knowledge of India declaring at 537 on a batting beauty and Sri Lanka losing their first wicket at 39 on the last ball of 2nd day. I came out late in the afternoon and headed for the nearest paan (betel nut) shop.

I was expecting news of Indian ascendancy but instead learnt that it was way past tea and yet no Sri Lankan wicket had fallen. Next day I came out of the exam hall at the same time, and got the same news. No wickets yet. Something was wrong with the paan shop, maybe. Luckily for me I never found myself in its vicinity again with an India match on.

The longest wait by any Indian fielding side for a wicket finally ended on Wednesday morning when Mahanama thankfully decided to relent. [It is another matter that Sri Lanka batted on for the whole day with the sole aim of getting a world record Test score of 952.] Two whole days and six no-rain sessions of Test cricket were played out by Sanath and Roshan without getting dismissed.

I wonder if that has ever happened...we may have other partnerships lasting over 12 hours but those are generally comprised of a full day and two partial days. That Jayasuriya-Mahanama lullaby might well be the only one that spanned two whole days of uninterrupted cricket. Their runs may have been overwhelmed but that unique feat may take some doing.

A look at performances of Indian bowlers in that match will tell its own story:

Chauhan 78 ovrs, 8 mdns, 276 runs, 1 wkt
Kumble 72 ovrs, 7 mdns, 223 runs, 1 wkt
Kulkarni 70 ovrs, 12 mdns, 195 runs, 1 wkt

(And to think Kulkarni's wicket came off the very 1st ball he bowled in the innings, which was also the 1st delivery of his Test career)

I know a lot of people will back me in the assertion that Indian fans of the time would be happy whenever their entire team would surpass the figure in Chauhan's runs column in an overseas Test innings.

Any guesses how I fared with that exam?

Afterthought: The Jayasuriya-Mahanama partnership was just 9 years old when it got overwhelmed by Kumara and Mahela an there's some relief in that. The new recordholders know the previous holders and have also played with them. That sounds so different from Sehwag-Dravid's near-successful assault on compatriots Mankad-Roy's highest opening partnership record earlier this year at Lahore. On that occasion Sehwag faced ire from old timers after his innocent declaration that he never heard of two gentlemen by the names of Pankaj Roy and Vinoo Mankad.

Sri Lankan authorities must have watched the Sehwag episode with consternation. However they failed to realise that the pitfalls associated with a 50 year generation gap do not apply to a mere 9 year old record. Consequently they overdid their attempt to prevent similar embarassment: they ended up inviting Sanath Jayasuriya (still a teammate of the new record holders) and Roshan Mahanama to the dais for official 'handing over' of their record during a never-ending prize distribution ceremony. The duration of that event should have been another record if someone would care to note.

Now some REAL breaking news

Today has been a phenomenal day for cricket newshunters.

First comes the preview of ex-India coach John Wright's autobiographical book Indian Summers where he expresses both reverence and reservations regarding skipper Sourav Ganguly. I guess after a 5 page email it is a whole book that Sourav now has on his plate.

Soon after we get the confirmation that Shahriyar Nafees of Bangladesh is growing in stature as an opening bat with every game.

Then comes the predictable stuff: early dismissal of both Pakistani openers in their second innings (too) on the 3rd morning at Old Trafford. By now it has almost become a part of the deal.

And then the one we all forgot to check out on: The 1st test between Sri Lanka & South Africa at Colombo! Sure we knew that the guests were all out for 169 and that not a single wicket fell yesterday as Jayawardene and Sangakara remained undefeated on double centuries at the end of 2nd day's play yesterday. But that only meant terribly one-sided fare and little more.

Now it means a little more to the record books though - Sangakarra stopped 13 short of a triple century and Jayawardene stopped 26 short of a quadruple. Yes - 374! They have also broken the record for the highest partnership for all wickets with their 624 run 3rd wicket duet.

Pakistan batsmen may learn of that development at Colombo and even find a reason in it to console themselves. After all Pakistan's position in the 2nd Test is vastly better than Ashwell Prince's South Africans, having conceded a lead of only 342 runs compared to South Africa's 587.

That was consolation for Pakistan, but what of South Africa? Well they always have Jaques Kallis. He may just urge his teammates on to another impossible mission by simply pointing out that the lead may be 13 runs short of a winning one!

Cricket buzz

Psychiatrists and plastic surgeons of Hampshire, in no particular order, are having a tough time attending to an unprecedented number of female visitors from various age groups. All of them have a common reason for depression: Not getting that sms even after sighting Shane Warne.

While on medicine, sure you already heard about the invitation received by half the English side for turning up as live demo during a session on 'Joints: All that can go wrong will go wrong' at the world sports medicine forum? Insiders say the boys are sore about the invitation, coming as it did only after the Pakistan Board refused it.

By the way, guess who are the fastest of friends in the Pakistani team?
The openers, of course! They spend so much time together in the dressing room.

Meanwhile, Irfan Pathan has instructed a ghost writer to start work on his autobiography. It will be titled 'The sine wave'.

His skipper Dravid is looking grumpy these days. Reason: He sees no further scope of using the word 'historic' for describing India's away performances in future tours. 'Historic' found its way into the Indian skipper's larynx at the time of 2004 Pakistan tour, charted its course through Zimbabwe and other controversies, got itself another skipper and exhibited lasting power in its new abode till the recent West Indies tour. Some fringe players of India expressed secret envy at the h-word's knack of ending up as every Indian skipper's favourite.

Glenn Mcgrath comes back to international cricket and immediately wants Troy Cooley to make him a 'faster' bowler. The university of biomechanics would do well to stop their usual arm twisting fare and check these Australians for intake of some strange potion that reverses ageing.

The seeds of doubt were sown as Australia kept inducting new players aged 30 that continue to improve with age, and now this Shoaibesque desire from the monumental metronome after attaining grandfatherhood in a veteran Australian side! Reincarnation is a favourite theme these days; and who can say with any authority that John Buchanan was not Getafix in an earlier birth? On that note, I am willing to bet my earnings that Merv Hughes is none other than Obelix reincarnated.

Accomodating international guests is going to be a problem in the sparsely populated Caribbean isles during 2007 world Cup. The West Indian team have discussed the matter and graciously agreed to "take a trip on a sailin' ship" for the nights they have to spend at venues most pressed for hosting space. Maybe the smart Calypso guys plan to maximise performance by staying bouyant.

There's some opposition from the selectors though: Brian Lara's overbearing desire to be a captain is an area of concern with that gesture, they point out.

[sources: unreliable]

5 all out

A side in Yorkshire got themselves all out for 5 runs, all extras.

These were some of the explanations on offer:

"It was a very, very dodgy wicket." Henry Webster, chairman of Yorkshire side Goldsborough, comes up with an international-quality excuse after his side were dismissed for 5. None of the runs came off the bat

"We almost got a run but the batsman turned it down because he'd just been hit on the foot the ball before." Goldsborough captain Peter Horseman explains how it could have been so much better

[courtesy: cricinfo quotes]

Updates:

The Yorkshire Post says: The team's captain, who perhaps understandably did not want to be named, described the experience as both "surreal" and "embarrassing".

To their credit Goldsborough came back and immdtly hit back at the opposition to get them 2 down (with again only 2 extras scored). However the opposition, Goldsborough's North Yorkshire neighbours Dishforth and division four leaders, scored the winning run with no further loss.

That winning run was reportedly the first run to be scored off the bat in the match! Besides putting up that brave defence for not scoring a single run with the bat the skipper of the losing team Goldsborough had more aces up his sleeve.

"When we were nought for four I jokingly said it would be strange if we were all out for ducks," said the captain. "But I certainly didn't plan it like that."

and....

"You would have thought even when we were seven or eight down someone would have got an edge or something to get a run."

If it is any consolation, the side was a second XI. Amazingly all ten Goldsborough batsmen were out caught, which means all hit the ball but none scored.

A fan of the side summed it up just right at Goldsborough cricket club's official website:

"I know it was wet on Saturday, but nobody expected so many ducks."

[Indiatimes article here]

The madness is here

As speculated in the previous post the Indian ISP's are indeed blocking blogspot blogs like the one you are reading now. Amit Varma of indiauncut.blogspot.com suggested a few solutions that enable Indian readers to keep visiting their favourite blogspot blogs till this madness is over (one hopes it will be). The easiest of them I guess is to simply visit http://pkblogs.com and type in the relevant blogname in the box there. Alternatively you can directly go to the desired blog by keying in http://pkblogs.com/blogname on your browser address bar [e.g. for visiting Pavilion View you need to type http://pkblogs.com/pavilionview]

Update, 20-Jul-06: The reign of blogblock is over, it seems.......

Classic sledges - and we all are having some BIG reasons to use them

Here's a load of these sledging masterpieces painstakingly uploaded by some blessed soul on the wiki. And no sooner than I devour the stuff I get completely valid reasons to use them.

Amit Varma writes:

"The block on Blogspot blogs that I mentioned here seems to be spreading across ISPs."

There's a real possibility that you may not be able to visit this and other blogspot blogs unless you opt for the solutions suggested by Amit.

The Ashes 'war' turning out to be a hoax...

What else do you say when a team said to be harbouring a big dream finds excuses left and right to stop trying to win a Test match as early as middle of the 4th day? Decision making is indeed tough business when a long injury list adorns your first choice team sheet; but the English are doing their chances no favour if they constantly allow opposition to sense that they are content trying to 'save' games that they should really be disappointed not to win. Even the 'memorable' triumph at Mumbai 2006 spoke more of Indian surrender than English conquest.

With each cricket match this English side plays the talk of making a war out of Ashes 2006-07 sounds more like a desperate shout devised to conceal murmurs that English cricket is steadily going back to its defensive days of the 90's minus Vaughan's leadership, that they are happier letting opponents lose matches than them winning it, that the English would be more than happy to look for a handful of draws when they land in the Southern enemyland a few months later. And we all know the result of taking that approach against Australians, right Mr. Nasser Hussain?

When Greg Chappell takes over from Marcello Lippi

Amit Varma fantasises about the Indian cricket team playing football, World Cup ishtyle.

Brilliant buggers

Osman Samiuddin vents out his take on all that is wrong about Pakistan cricket and also the amazing 'right's that manage to outweigh them on such regular basis. Makes for good reading if you like the brand of cricket played by the Pakistani bunch.

The impatient Crowe

All of you must have heard of the fable where a patient crow keeps dropping pebbles one by one inside a pitcher till he succeeds in drinking the water inside it. Well here's a Crowe that is quite unlike the legendary bird, at least when we think of the patience aspect. Going by indications this one rather loves picking up stones from such a pitcher and dropping them on unsuspecting soft targets.

Andr-eulogy

'I can be replaced, everybody else can be replaced. But, at this moment in time, Fred (Flintoff) can't be replaced because we haven't got anybody else in the country who can bat at six, bowl at 90 mph and stand at slip. I don't think you'll ever replace that."

That was English quickie Steven Harmison on the eve of a long-dreaded Fred-less Test for the Englishmen against formidable Pakistan. Even for a person as used to high praise as Andrew Flintoff of late, that beautiful thought from a peer must have pride of place adorned in frames of gold on some wall in the Flintoff household supporting most things dear to Andrew.

Now for the Strange World cup

For those who are still in the dark about the Cricket world Cup in its 'Frankenstein 2007' avatar (like I was, until Pratik pointed out in a cricinfo post) this link may be helpful. It is a rather strange format that strains to be foolproof and compromises the basic duration of a quadrennial showpiece in the process. Mutual isolation of the host countries renders the DNA strand like structure of the tourney all the more insufferable.

Come to think of it - the tournament lasts from March 11 to April 28......ONE AND A HALF MONTHS! ICC may as well have "Who awakes wins" on their logo. Seriously hope all the teams are allowed 16 man squads instead of the customary 14 (hotels permitting, of course - learnt that there'll be acute shortage of those!). The last thing we want is a final where a limping Pakistan team struggle to put up 200 on a belter and half-dead Indians struggle to chase it.

As for the Frankenstein part I can only pray that the apex competition in the game does not achieve the opposite of its basic aim of popularising the game beyond its present bounds. The 2003 edition of the Cup was not too successful in that respect, other than the bursting ICC coffers.

There are people that watch cricket once every four years, and they were virtually shooed away by a million inconsequential (mis)matches that had to be endured before the real action started - and ended soon after. Maybe enlightenment will dawn upon ICC some day of this auspicious millennium and they will be able to see that the world Cup is not exactly the stage where cricket lovers around the world would love to see fledgling sides learn their trade.

Dividing the 16 teams in four initial groups instead of the usual two is the first step the 2007 World Cup rulemakers have taken to curtail those 'promotion games' (cannot find any other words for those matches after the soccer world cup where even the 32nd ranked team looks consistently capable of causing an upset) . But in the process the Cup gets an overly long 'Super 8' phase that worries me no end. 24 more matches will be played during this phase, after the 24-match group league, and then only are we allowed to enter knock-out teritory. Hope you're still reading....

On the flip side, that very stage actually offers the cricket world a rare chance to compare the real strengths of so many leading cricket nations in the one day format while playing against each other. [I mean, even the semis and the final may pale in comparison to that cricket feast]. Reminds of the mini world cup of 1985, this Super 8...

Ask You: 03

Sanath Jayasuriya scored 150's in consecutive ODI's [5thODi vs. England, and versus Netherlands yesterday). I cannot recall that to have ever happened. Am I right?

Update: Jagadish says I am indeed.

The 6-6-6 men for Australian batsmen

Cricket funda: Hadlee's comet comes once in 29 years

The only 2 bowlers to take modern Australian batsmen for breakfast, lunch and dinner over full series, Sir Richard Hadlee and Harbhajan Singh, were born on the same day, 29 years apart.

Corollary: If we extrapolate that occurence then someone born somewhere on the 3rd July of 2009 may grow up to manhandle Aussie batsmen again.