Lesson on 'Never say die'

The sound of bat whacking ball would have Chandidas Ganguly waking up with a start in the middle of the night, only to find son Sourav batting in the drawing room with the domestic help bowling to him.

“My son has gone mad,” the father would say and tell his wife to get her son to realise that there is life beyond cricket as well. But his mother never had the heart to tell her son that it was all over and “he could never make it back to the Indian team”.

Moving lines those, on Sourav Ganguly's extreme dedication to making a comeback after being left out in 2005-06.

I am certainly as inspired by them as most of you, I am sure, are. My prayers are with him this series.

Lessons that will not be learnt

Cricinfo quotes Australian captain Ricky Ponting thus:

"Some of the older players are probably looking at this as their last Test series. There are all sorts of things going around in the media at the moment, with claims that some of them will be forced out and told they have to retire at a certain time. Guys like Laxman and Dravid. And who knows when Sachin is going to call it quits.

"He's probably going to be the only one who is going to have the luxury of deciding when he is going to retire by the sound of it. I'm sure they'll be reminded of that on a daily basis, and not just by us. Their media will be all over them if we start the first Test well and put pressure on them in lots of different ways. "

Sad part is: Perhaps he is true with that last sentence. I remember the Australian captain saying similar words ahead of their 2004 campaign as well. It is like saying 'Indian media will help our cause.'

Even sadder: Very few, if any, in media will feel insulted by Ponting’s insinuation at the the way Indian sports journalists put pressure on THEIR players instead of the opposition. Most of them will STILL do as Ponting says if Australia do well in the first Test.

Ponting goes a step further and predicts the exact words that will come out in criticism of some Indians:

"If we can make their fielding look as bad as it is by some good running between wickets and good hustling and good pressure," Ponting said, "then you know straight away all the old stuff about the old bodies and 'Ganguly can't field' and 'Dravid looks a bit slow', all of that stuff will come out."

When will we be looking forward to a Test series again?

Agree on some points raised by Mukul Kesavan here. Especially that Rahul Dravid is riding his CV, and that we will probably have a sleepy hollow in Tests in the next few years, or a year at least.

However I think things will be a little more positive than the 'Test will no more be the best' future predicted by Mukul. Yuvraj can still go on to become a very good player if he gains better control on the top six inches of his body. Dhoni, I have always maintained, is likely to be our next great Test batsman. He has already come a long way since I wrote this piece on him and I would like to see him leave the job behind wickets to someone else by the time he is 30 if we are to utilise him fully. Sehwag is no less than the Fab Five (It should always be Fab Five and not Fab Four - 'coz the fifth one is Kumble and he is the greatest of them all). Rohit Sharma will surely be a very good Test bat if he keeps his head in the hour of impending success. Suresh Raina looks like a good all-conditions batasman. The pace bowling should be good in the hands of Ishant, Zaheer, RP Singh & Munaf Patel for the next 3 years.

Yuvraj, I guess, should be the one to make a difference to the future of the Test team. The only question that keeps rearing up in our heads is: will these players consider Tests as worthy as the Fab Five did? I suspect not (other than Dhoni, who I think considers all forms as sacrosanct - inspite of his absence from Tests in SL). And it will be no fault of theirs if they do not give top rating to Test matches. They are not Gods, but simple humans who cannot keep fighting against the tide (dictated by money) over an entire career.

If the new generation of players give in to the demands of the day then we cannot expect to see them playing in Test matches as if there pride depends on it (won't say their 'life depends on it' because it does not). And that, after getting used to the toils of the Fab 5 for 12 years, will be sad.

Update: Going through the post again, I felt the 2nd line of the post gives wrong signals. It suggests I have given up on Rahul Dravid. Far from it. I still believe that he can play well in top flight Test cricket and can claim his place on performance alone for another 2-3 years. It is just that he is not doing so at this point of time, which at age 35 can mean curtains.

The Deity and the Idol

We visited Dakshineswar Kali Temple in the afternoon today. The sun was out full blast. Heated stone-paved floors of the temple complex were making us hop alternately on each bare-footed leg as we queued up to have a 'darshan' (view) of the deity inside. The queue was split in two halves - my parents joined me in one of the queues while Titli (my daughter) & Sarmistha (my wife) somehow ended up joining the other queue coming around the shrine. My queue moved quicker and we entered the shrine soon. Queue-driving shoves from the temple folk ensured that the 'darshan' was over in about 10 seconds and I was coming out of the shrine when Titli & Sarmistha were entering.

A little earlier we had spotted a very familiar face outside the Dakshineswar temple complex. I drew the attention of my family, particularly Titli, to a tall lady visiting the temple with her friends / colleagues. 5 year old Titli did not recognise her. Unsurprising. None others in the multitude seem to recognise her either - quite surprising! In a nutshell I explained to Titli the lady's claim to fame and how I knew her.

The lady was Jhulan Goswami, a formidable player in international women's cricket who, proudly for us Bengalis, hails from Chakda in Bengal. And here I was looking at my little daughter, who I would love to see loving cricket some day, obliviously queueing up next to the idol of many budding woman fast bowlers around the world.

The sight was both amusing and intriguing. Amusing, because of the contrast in heights between Titli & Jhulan. Jhulan is very tall. She towered over all the men and women around and was easily taking a peek of the deity over the heads queueing up in front.

Intriguing, because it led me to a question - what would have been Titli's thoughts if she had been older, in love with cricket and wanted to be a fast / seam bowler? The answer was easy. She would feel the same as I would if I ever got a chance to stand next to Curtly Ambrose or Wasim Akram in a queue. She would be going through a moment of unfathomable reverence as both her deity and her idol would be in front of her.

The closest I had with that feeling was when I met Adam Gilchrist at the Mohali airport nearly 2 years back.

"Damn - not again!"

That memory now inflicted more misery as I realised that I was again missing a camera today, missing out on another chance to store a priceless moment.

I simply had to make this post.

[Footnote, perhaps unrelated: I had mentioned Jhulan's hometown, or Chakdaha, in an earlier post on Paara cricket in Bengal. I will remember that place forever as I played my greatest match there!]

Update: Checked and found just now that Jhulan is already the stand-in captain of the India Seniors cricket team for the Women's Challenger Trophy. Here's hoping that she works this opportunity to her advantage after a not-too-successful English tour.

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".

Write men in the wrong end of a game of cricket

Delicious.

Anantha's rankings place Sachin on top of all-time ODI batting heap - and then...

I wrote an email to some of my friends a while ago, opining on the ODI all-time batsmen's ranking published by Anantha on It Figures, the cricinfo stats blog. I want to share that email with my other set of friends - you:

A cricket writer called Anantha has tried to judge the ODI greats on all counts and arrived at a conclusion that Sachin is the greatest ODI player, just above Richards.

I had once declared to Abhijit that Sachin was the greatest ODI batsman - but I was nowhere near sure I will be able to prove that against that mountain called Viv. I started collecting data in 2006 but then the efort lost steam. However I never thought (and have my doubts) that Sachin is this comfortably ahead of Viv.

It appears Sachin went past Viv quite comfortably based mainly on the fact that he did his stuff for 400 ODI's, a signifcantly greater number than matches played by Viv. And also by those MoM's unfairly awarded to Sachin in the late 90's when Ajit Agarkar took 4 wickets to restrict opposition to 220 and Sachin got the MoM by scoring a facile 100.

And Sanath - he is almost up there with Viv. Wow. Many people may have their reservation about that but I do not. In fact, I am very happy with that because practically the only occasions when an ODI in the last 30 overs has not had the excruciating middle overs were when one of these 2 guys (ranked at numbers 2 & 3) were at the crease after over 20.

Look at the number 10 on that list, by the way. Anyone having doubts on that? Reply to SRK with phone number to talk to King Khan.

Could not go through the long basis of judgement text, frankly. Will be nice to know about that from some of you.
http://blogs.cricinfo.com/itfigures/archives/2008/09/tendulkar_and_richards_swap_pl.php

-- Angshuman

PS: I just checked - we have an update. The writer has made some corrections based on feedback and also on his own quest on the wide gap betwen Sachin & Viv. Now he has done corrections and with those Viv is 77 & Sachin 75. If you allow me to be the decider, I think that is not fully correct either - Sachin should be just ahead. Why - no answer. Just feel so.

Number 10 has gone down to number 17 and Dravid is above him at number 16. More controversies - stats are difficult. Makes me happy for Dravid though - and if we go through the details we are more likely to find that his peerless ability to anchor chases in his heyday brought him up that far.

The heavyweight at number 8 though could not be moved an inch by these trivial stats tweaks.

Footnote: Concerned at that part of Anantha's closeout note where he says a reader should learn to look respectfully at the many cricketing greats other than his idol instead of trying to belittle them: It surely has come from the comments Anantha has received, and it is quite sad that people need to be told that. Commenting from readers in cricket sites has unfortunately deserved reactions like Anantha's for a major part of the past few years.

Update: In response to Anantha's posts, Ric Finlay comes out with ANOTHER analysis putting Sachin on top once again. However the gap between Sach & Viv is too wide for comfort, much like Anantha's 1st Sep list with Sachin on top. Let's back off from the analysis heat for the time being with the thought that even perfectly logical ratings of these greats can be as numerous and unique as fingerprints.

How many miles can a man walk...

...to be a great left arm bowler? Not much at all, I believe. "Fifteen Paces" should be enough. Or even less, if we pick Wasim Akram as the model instead of Alan Davidson.

Left arm bowlers are rare, and great left arm bowlers are counted on a finger or two. Chaminda Vaas is one of the finest bowlers in our era and certainly the best non-Wasim left arm swing bowler this side of Davidson. He completed 400 wickets in one dayers today. Striking, isn't it?

Striking not because of the number 400 but because that zone of 400+ ODI scalpers now has a population density of 50% for left armers!! Only Murali and Waqar have more than 400 wickets if we count outside of Wazzy & Vaasy. And there are 15 right handers in this world to each left hander, they say! This ratio does not apply to batting - batting is essentially a double handed skill with separate roles for each hand. It should apply to bowling though.

And that amazing left-right ratio in 400+ wicket takers does not look like fading away anytime soon because all right handed bowlers who could have crossed the line are now retired. Only Brett Lee with 303 wickets looks like making it to 400 in the coming few years.

At last lefties have a chance to take their rightful half, right?

Wrong. The date belongs to the summit of right handedness and hence spoils all fun derived by us 'wrong uns' to celebrate our peculiarity. For today is also the 100th birth centenary of the greatest right handed sportsman, Don Bradman. And even leftie Alan Davidson making his observation on the much right handed Don today hardly pleases us.

Damn, did Vaas have to do it today?

- A non Sri-Lankan left arm medium pace bowler & a non-Australian right-handed batsman

The quintessential T20 folk

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

R Kaluwitharana 8(3) b Illingworth

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

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

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

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

T20 slowly but surely spreads its tentacles...

"Pakistan have to score 2 runs off the last ball to qualify. Indian quickie Samit Dravid charges in and delivers the ball....it's a good yorker and goes straight through big hitting Suleiman Khan to keeper Aryan Khan. The batsmen run desperately to force a bowl out but the Pakistan dream ends as Aryan hits the stumps. India were already out of the main event and now in their final qualifying match they have shut their arch rivals out of the 2031 T20 world Cup at Italy.

These are strange scenes. Both teams look gloomy after the match. This is the 2nd consecutive time that no sub continent team other than Sri Lanka has qualified amongst the final 32 for the world Cup. It is so tragic for the millions of cricket loving people in these two countries that even the presence of big ATL* stars like Suleiman, Samit and Arjun Tendulkar could not help them break the jinx. Another two years of painful wait has already begun..."

A futuristic bad dream? Not really....

Some things like Indo-Pak rivalry will never change but the famous sub-continent needle has every possibility of decaying into a clash of the minnows in another two decades if Twenty20 has its tentacled way across the global marke and if subcontinent cricketers are not smart enough to keep pace.

I can hear a few curses for the sad ending at the qualifiers there. Come on, it can happen in ball games with 32 teams playing in the showpiece event. Take the following piece of information as a message of hope: France failed to qualify for two world cups (1990 and 1994) but then won the next one at home. Of course, that was in soccer which would be ranked second after cricket as a global sport in 1930.

So we can still expect India to win the 2033 T20 world cup at Tibet (T20 world cups come every two years). Perhaps they will manage to overcome pre-tournament odds even higher than 66-1. That would be a nice way to celebrate 50 years completion of Indian cricket's first world cup win.

* ATL is American T20 League

Goodbye Kolkata Knight Riders

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Who's better - T20 or ODI?

"It's so boring. You watch the start and then the overs from 20 to 40 are like pulling teeth." Says Chris Cairns on 50-over cricket.

How right Cairnsie. No wonder Twenty20 is becoming hugely more popular [warning: I have this sneaking feeling that evolution of this game too will also see a 'lean period' of 3 or 4 overs in the middle of a T20 innings!] I have a million dollar suggestion: ODI's should have 10 of the 20 powerplay overs fixed between over numbers 20 to 30 as an experiment.

Come to think of it, will that be interesting!! Like Cairns many of us bloggers have opined that T20 gives a cricket lover most of the funs expected from an ODI minus the vices. In other words, you either watch a Test or a T20 match 'coz ODI's do not offer anything unique. With this million dollar change ODI's will never be the same again. They will start off like T20s (as players will think of only 10 over field restrictions), then give us a taste of Tests (as they have still have 40 overs to bat out after the 1st 10), then they go back to T20 mode, then back to 'teeth pulling' mode for 10 overs before the final slog!! This is great variety - you cannot get this either in T20's or in Tests!

Besides, the end slog (overs 40 to 50) will then be a natural progression from the field restrictions of over 20-30, separated by a 10 over window that will potentially decide the match.

Care to try this out, Cairsnie? Talk to Subhash Chandra of Zee now!

WG_T20

17th May, 2058

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

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

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

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

17th May, 1908

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

He looks pleased to have me back.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Adding the extra 20 runs & Dizzy's double

Charles' Davis discusses Brain Lara's 400* and comes up with an interesting stat - probability of a Test batsman scoring the extra 20 runs from 100 to 120, then 120 to 140 and so on. It is based on all Test scores by top order batsmen (almost - perhaps the figures include no. 7 & tailender tons but exclude their scores below 100) in the history of cricket. It shows that approximately 1 out of every 3 batsmen falls before scoring the next 20 runs at each stage.

We have all heard about batsmen scoring bigger in the last 10 years than ever before. That stat would have been even more interesting if broken up in pre-1996 and post-1996 groupings.

For the 0-99 stats we can see that (33822 + 2942 =) 36764 top order batsmen have gone out to bat in Tests till date. Taking the figures from Charles' charts, a top order batsman scoring a double century is achieving a 0.76% probability task for any top order batsman.

Wonder what the figure is for lower order batsmen (nos. 7 to 11). We do not have the figures in Charles' analysis but for the job at hand we assume that 3.5 lower order men get to bat for every six top order batsmen getting a hit in Tests (Teams often do not bat till the last wicket, epecially in 2nd innings). So that 36764 for specialist batsmen will roughly be 21445 for the clan of all-rounders + tailenders.

Charles discussed Brian's highest score. Let me make a point on Dizzy Gillespie's double against Bangladesh in 2006 which turned out to be his last for Australia.

Dizzy's double century works out to a feat of 1 in 21445 i.e. 0.0047 % probability. I wonder if anyone in any sport has had a chance to go out on that kind of a high!

Footnote: Dizzy maximised a bonus that most tailenders get only a few times in their career. He was a nightwatchman in that match. But amongst non-allrounder lower order batsmen who made significant contributions to match results (and even series results) with their batting Dizzy will perhaps rank right near the top. He deserved it all.
Since Charles' stats included batsmen number 1 to 6, this particular Gillespie effort has perhaps featured in it. I only tried to put in a more accurate perspective.

More of the 1996 Indo-Pak QF

While on that 1996 World Cup QF match, check out at 06:35 min of that same clip referred to in previous post for that memorable altercation between a gallant captain who lost his temper before losing his wicket and a calm but competitive bowler who turned a slipping win into a grand memory for himself and Indians with a great spell of one-day bowling.

One of the memories of that match was the Aamir Sohail-Saeed Anwar opening partnership. While the Indians rode Tendulkar-Sidhu's steady opening stand and Jadeja's famous Waqar-bashing 25 ball 45 to set the old foes a rather big target of 288 (in those days) , that advantage was nullified barely forty five minutes into the Pakistan innings (*). Faced with a big ask, the Pakistan duo took their team score to 84/0 after 10 overs. Saeed Anwar got out in the 11th over to Srinath after scoring the classiest 32 ball 48 you will ever see anyone score under pressure (barring a 32 ball fifty scored by a Sri Lankan number four some days later against the same opponents). Thereafter the QF match gradually turned in India's favour.

A little over an hour and a half later, when 38 year old Miandad's slowing legs ran out of steam and failed to respond to that quick single pioneered by the great man atop them, the cricket world saw the last of Javed Miandad on that 9th evening of March 1996 as Pakistan were eliminated. It was his 6th World Cup spanning 21 years.

You can get a glimpse of the euphoria created by the match in this report.

How sadly incorrect the 2nd para of that report turned out to be four days later. Most Indian cricket fans remember the pain of that tragic semi final encounter with Sri Lanka more than the joy of this memorable win. I, having been a spectator in the Eden stands on March 13, am no exception.

(*) - Here we need to rack our brains and recall that in 50 over games 45 minutes used to constitute roughly 20 percent of the innings instead of 60 percent.

Rashid Latif at his best

If you ask me to vote for the best keeper in the last 2 decades I will perhaps overlook even the towering Ian Healy and point the index finger at Pakistan's Rashid Latif. He was not only neat and efficient but attractive and magnificent too. He was the Brian Lara of wicketkeepers.

Only a few cricketing feats stay as clear in my memory as his breathtaking diving effort to see the back of an accelerating Mohammad Azharuddin in the 1996 World Cup quarter final at Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bangalore (for young kids: it is the same place where IPL's Royal Challengers have been unable to win a single home game). The catch was off the bowling of Waqar Younis near his peak and the deliberate edge was passing by the vacant first slip . Rashid did it like it was everyday work.

Catch up on that brilliant moment at 1:46 minutes of this youtube upload.

Fielding: The single biggest gift of T20 for Tests

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Correction: Steyn caught Shahid Afridi yesterday, not Rohit Sharma

A lesson on T20 bowling from Polly's handbook

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

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

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

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

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

That Malik wicket decisively tilted the game towards Mumbai.

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

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

"And then there were none..": Pictures speak louder than words

While searching cricinfo for those pictures of Greg Chappell in the previous post I came across a rare photograph showing 3 Australian greats Rod Marsh, Dennis Lillee and Greg Chappell on March 14, 1986 after their last match. Like everyone else I too have always known that Australian cricket went into a downward spiral for better part of a decade after an exodus of that magnitude. But this picture told the story with greater precision and impact than all I read on it earlier.

And it reminded me of a similar issue closer home that hit me harder. It is a sad and horrific thought that we are getting closer to the inevitable day when cricinfo uploads a similar pic showing any 3 or 4 of Kumble, Sachin, Dravid, Laxman and Ganguly.

Again I have read on the imminent Indian exodus more than once. I have even touched the issue on some of my blogs. But the visualisation of that future picture is far more grim than all the words I took in or churned out.

Afterthought 1: March 14 may be a jinxed day for cricket followers across nationalities. Look what happened 12 years later - Richie Richardson retired from all cricket after that scarcely believable semi final elimination in the 1996 world cup. Wait - this one too had come up in the previous post! Isn't that proof enough that I am getting repetitive even outside of crying about missing Brian Lara? Now you get why I post so less these days.

Afterthought on afterthought 1: While on that 1996 semi final, I suppose Curtly Ambrose still rues the way he and Courtney failed to get the skipper back on strike in that fateful last over. No wonder he compensates amply by supporting his erstwhile boss in another sphere by playing base guitar to Richie's rhythm guitar in their famously named band - The Big Bad Dread and The Baldhead. I would sincerely love to see Steve Waugh float a band sometime soon and get Tubby Taylor to lead it. Imagine what a clash it will be when the two bands perform some day on the same stage for the "World Beater" tag (unofficial). Especially after Steve shares some entirely personal thoughts to Dreads' base guitarist on what he should be doing.

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.