The squabbling conjoined twins

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I have never met Mr. N Srinivasan. In fact, I have never even had a conversation with him. But I do enjoy hearing him talk at press conferences or in those rare television interviews he agrees to do. He appears unflappable, speaks in perfectly constructed sentences with a voice that exudes calm, intelligence, logic and authority. I am reliably told he has a raging temper but his public persona is admirable. He is the sort of erudite man the BCCI presidency sits well on. Yet, he finds himself boxed in a corner these days - a corner of his own making. It is ironic that the 'conflict of interest' Mr. Srinivasan has been reminded of over these last few years is now chewing away at his authority as BCCI president. Consider recent events. As his board's most valuable commercial partner was throwing a tantrum and walking out in a....

The convenient IPL bogey

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Let me get this straight. Every time a ball crashed into Rahul Dravid's stumps this Australian summer, it was because stints with the Royal Challengers Bangalore and Rajasthan Royals had corrupted an otherwise flawless technique. And when those edges flew from VVS Laxman's bat into the slips, it was safe to assume that his static feet were a curse from the Deccan Chargers and the Kochi Tuskers. Gautam Gambhir has become so accustomed to dabbing the ball for a single to third man in his Kolkata Knight Riders uniform that he can't resist the temptation against a red ball with a slip cordon waiting. And surely it has been ingrained in Virender Sehwag's head that replicating his dashing cameos for Delhi Daredevils while taking strike against a rampaging attack is the only method to open a Test innings. Yes, even these wretched Mumbai Indians have sneaked into fortress....

In Adelaide, shock it up and shake it up

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I know a man who was once ravaged by a vicious depression. His doctors tried it all. Tweaked the dosage of his medication. Attempted various combinations of mood stabilizers and anti-depressants. Sent him off for therapy. Offered counseling. But to no avail. Left with no alternative, they advised a radical step: Electroconvulsive therapy. In common parlance we know this as ECTs. To the uninitiated, that is just a fancy medical term for 'shock treatment'. The idea is to pass electric currents through the brain, deliberately triggering a brief seizure. The intention is to cause changes in brain chemistry that can immediately reverse symptoms of the illness. It often works when other treatments are unsuccessful. In this man's case it didn't really, but that is beside the point. For the Indian cricket team, and in particular it's much feted batting line-up, Adelaide is the ideal setting for....

Why the 100th is a worthy obsession

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Television news is the whipping boy of choice these days. It gets accused of every possible digression. Of playing judge, jury and executioner. Of stoking unrest. Of reducing public discourse to a farce. Of ignoring issues of substance for frills and celebrity. Of reducing news to theater. Some of this of-course is true and this is meant to be no defense of the chaotic world this writer is very much part of! For the past few months venom has been spewed on our ilk for the obsessive wait for Sachin Tendulkar's 100th international century. Every time the great man has arrived at the crease and failed to reach the landmark, fingers have been pointed in the direction of breathless news anchors. The burden it seems rests heavier on Tendulkar because news channels simply can't stop talking about it. Every time the milestone nears, it is almost as if his....

Losing with the winners

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Chew on these numbers for a minute. Just re-read them. Rub those eyes and do your own searches for confirmation if you are still in disbelief. When the last wicket fell on Day Four of the Melbourne Test, here's how they stacked up. India's top seven batsmen between them had played 685 Test matches and scored 52,328 runs. So we are clear, that is fifty two thousand, three hundred and twenty eight runs. They had scored 140 centuries and 256 half-centuries. Go on, munch on those figures again. One can conclude with a reasonable amount of certainty that a batting line-up of such monster feats hasn't featured in a Test XI before. Now the stark contrast. Australia's four-man bowling attack had played a grand total of 57 Test matches, claiming 202 wickets between and sharing eight five-wicket hauls among them. Yet India lost. Australia won. How? At its....

Damn you Vinod Kambli, we are believers

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Aakash Chopra likes to call himself the '245th Indian to represent India in Test cricket'. It is a statement of fact. But it is also a medal, a badge of honour. The aspiration to wear an India cap is spawned every second somewhere in this country. That dream is pursued with vigour and purity. So merely accomplishing it is an Everest. Fail or succeed, the cap is yours. For keeps. Forever. Vinod Kambli is Test cap number 198. And he has been spitting on it. The cap attracts a magnetic awe and places the individual who wears it on a pedestal. He is beyond a skilled batsman or bowler. He is the gate-keeper of the tireless devotion of aspirants to the ambition of accomplishing their own number. The cap earns him a livelihood well after the playing days are over. He is awarded commentary deals, newspaper columns and....

The Peter I knew...only too little

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As the spot-fixing trial was ending, I was starting to waver in my loathing for Salman Butt, Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Asif. So they had bowled a few intentional no-balls. Cricket had forsaken if not forgiven them. Perhaps jail terms were extreme. Perhaps Butt should be allowed to hold his newborn son. Amir should be allowed by the side of his wailing mother. And then I read Peter Roebuck: "Sport itself is sincere or it is nothing. Seeing and believing must be bedfellows. Cricket can no longer make any such claim." There. Three sentences. Not a fancy word among them. Not a twist of phrase as a contrived attention-grabber. Three sentences to re-affirm why these men were criminals. Why they deserved to go to jail. Roebuck wasn't merely a gifted writer. He was the keeper of cricket's morality. Almost a lone ranger in a game over-run by deceit, greed....

Is cricket the new porn?

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First, an admission. I have never really enjoyed pornography. Contrived situations all leading to a familiar climax (pardon the expression!). There is never doubt about how it would end. While you pretend to enjoy the voyeurism, I am quite convinced there is relief (pardon that expression too!) when the inevitable closure arrives. Cricket is hurtling down the same road. A billion dollar industry replete with contrived scenarios and pointless climaxes. The practitioners of a sport aren't professional entertainers in the strictest sense. While their art form requires toil and passion to refine over time, their stage offers no second chances. Failure is a constant companion. Dusting off defeat and rising from its gloom to savour in the fruits of victory is an entrenched routine. Cricketers are no different. But I wonder if the modern game is numbing them to the raw emotion of both extremes? Is the game merely....

When the child was... and the parent is

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I have often wondered why I wept at the birth of my child. Tears are usually logical. When my favourite uncle passed, his body ravaged by a vicious cancer, I wept in regret and pain. When my sister said goodbye on getting married I wept in trepidation, in fear of the new life that awaited her. But why was I weeping now? Why did this miniscule lump of meat have such an impact? A stranger who didn't as much as wonder who I was. A little human being I hadn't ever met, never shared a bond with, never as much as set eyes on before. Why was I weeping? As my son has grown from infant to toddler, I've let those unexplained tears slide from memory. But they grabbed me by the collar again when I heard of the horrific crash involving Mohammad Azharuddin's son. For want of a....

Douse the DRS fire

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For those of us who have been vehement supporters of the Decision Review System, the last few days have been illuminating. Incidents at Durham and Galle have highlighted flaws in the technology being used to operate the DRS. Worse, in the case of Phil Hughes it contributed to a glaring error rather than correcting it, defeating in the process the very reason for cricket's subscription.  At Durham, DRS contributed towards exaggerating the confusion. If Rahul Dravid had indeed edged it, then why didn't Hot Spot show a mark? If he hadn't, then on what evidence did the third umpire rule Dravid out? If he did in fact hear a sound from the stump-mic then what prevented Hot Spot from confirming that edge? Was enough evidence available to the third umpire to deny Dravid "the benefit of doubt?" And if Hot Spot does indeed struggle with feather edges then is....