International Cricket must recognise Nations

In 1976, as class six student in what is now Jharkhand,I faced quiz question: where are the Indian cricketers playing cricket right now? answered Trinidad & Tobago.It was in the middle of the 404 match at Port of Spain and the quiz master gave that one to our team even though he had West Indies on his answer sheet.Though I was aware of the Test Series, I also knew that the Indians could not possibly be in the West Indies.They could be in Jamaica, Barbados,Guyana in South America or even in those many countries who field collective first class teams.

The next twenty years or so the West Indies had a very good time cricket wise.Today things are different.They are ranked 9th in ODI rankings.If they are allowed to start like afghanistan in Divison Five, in less than a year, several National teams including one from the South American continent will be vying for full ODI status.In fact their Caribbean Four day tournament could be given the status of Division II Tests or they may continue as one team for Test matches.If Soca Junior can be at the World Cup,T&T and Jamaica have every right to be playing at cricket's World Cup.
Imagine Bangladesh running into Jamaica or Barbados at Durban or Perth.The match would be interesting.
The added advantage of having over twenty ODI playing nations besides at least four reasonably big 20:20 leagues, we have a sporting world next only to the Football.Instead of hoping for the west Indies to recover,this would be better way forward.They are small countries but they have bigger playing base than Ireland or even Afghanistan.

A Contest shaping up in Mirpur

The three matches between the current Test sides were rather tame.while the dutch produced some excitement at Nagpur,the Irish are playing a rather good game in Mirpur.With some tight spin it is possible that Bangladesh may somehow pull a win, but instead of eliminating Associates from the next World Cup, it might be a good idea to let only the top six have automatic places and the remaining sides may play a qualifying tournament to bring two remqining teams for the final eight who can play three weeks of interesting cricket as in 1983.

1983 produced some great drama in retrospect.The wooden spooner of 1979, India and qualifier Zimbabwe saw to Australia's exit at group stage and India went on to win going on to prove that past performance don't quite matter in a short competitive tournament.

Some Scheduling

On a Friday,Australia vs New Zealand has been kept as a day game.Makes one long for the scheduling of the first three World Cups.The first two were almost pre television in India and we saw the India semi final and the final on Doordarshan in 1983 and the rest as they say is history.However so lowly was the one day World Cup rated that 1979 World Cup was not covered on All India Radio while the test series with England that followed was covered ball by ball by AIR.The BBC Test Match special which at that time broadcast on the world service as well was what kept us in India clued in to the World Cup.The BBC coverage of up to four matches a day was good. AIR used the BBC feed after India started doing well in 1983 and it was the all Indian team of Ashish Ray and Farokh Engineer who were on the air when india went throughto the Finals.
Of late All India Radio has consigned the overseas test Matches to off tube commentary mode even though India as number one side in this form has a considerable following.All India Radio is covering the India based games live but AIR is absent from the Internet. Even as I write this NewZealand vs Australia game is being broadcast live on Radio sport NZ.

ICC Cricket World Cup

In November 1975,as pre teens waiting for our turn to bat in an evening compulsory cricket game, discussion veered on the Ranji Trophy.Some who were from calcutta had actually seen a few of Ranji matches and they even spoke of the great Eden win over the WINDIES in 1974-75.Amidst all that somebody spoke about the West Indies having won the Pudential Cup June.One particularly well informed kid said," But it wasn't first class cricket." It wasn't and at that time even ODI was not so well known abbreviation nad List Awas many years away.

It has been a long time since then and as the West indies begin their challenge in the 2011 edition of cricket's Worldcup,one cannot but feel about the depths that they have plummeted.Even so for a team which has Gayle, Chanderpaul,Sarwan and Roach must put an extraordinary performance,so that North Americans followers of the game can have more than just Canada to cheer about and the Worl Cup will be really about the world as more than a dozen nations comprise the West Indies cricket team.

To go back to our chat near the Pig sty on the edge of the Junior Small Field in 1975,when a football fanatic said that 1978 World Cup in Argentina will be the real World Cup as only eight teams had taken part in the prudential Cup, our knowledgeable friend counted all the Carribean and East African counties and added them to the six and Pudential World Cup had more teams participating than the Football 1974 World Cup held in West Germany.The Prudential Cup was "the" WORLD CUP.QED

Anand and Ganga

From Trinidad to India
“Trinidad was no more than a stage in the journey that had begun when Pundit Tulsi left India. Only the death of Pundit Tulsi had prevented them from going back to India, and even since they had talked, though less often than the old men who gathered in the arcade every evening, of moving on, to India, Demerara, Surinam, Mr. Biswas didn’t take such talk seriously. The old men would never see India again.” (From V.S. Naipaul’s A House for Mr. Biswas)
Trinidad’s connection with India dates back to the 1840s, when the British encouraged Indian to migrate to this Carribean territory as indentured labourers on sugarcane plantations. However this nation has been a part of our consciousness mainly as a constituent unit of the West Indies, the regional Carribean Cricket Team. Indeed, Port of Spain’s Queen’s Park Oval has been India’s happy hunting ground and part of Sunil Gavaskar’s saga of graduating from a rookie to a great cricketer within weeks. The old men of the novel would never see India again or Mr. Biswas either. The novel and some other of Naipaul’s early novels like The Mystic Masseur and The Suffrage of Elvira offered the only insight into the Trinidadian Society to people in India. These novels presented the rural and semi-urban Trinidadian life in the context of migration, post-colonial struggle to find roods and mainly East Indian characters from Ganesh to Mr. Biswas holding centre stage.

Naipaul’s world was limited to those who read serious fiction in English and more Indians have read Naipaul’s non-fictional work than his novels. Naipaul moved on in his later novels and they are not set in the West Indies. However mainstream Indian consciousness, especially the cricket aficionados have known the exploits of Test Cricketers like Constantine , Hall, Ramadhin, Gomes, Bishops and above all Brian Lara. While Indians have followed India’s matches at Queen’s Park Oval and listened to India chase 403 at Port of Spain in 1976, the West Indies Cricket team was the home team.Indians in general associated Trinidad with the West Indies. That Trinidad had a Prime Minister called Basudeo Pandey or a cricket captain called Darren Ganga, did not excite the Indian much.
It is the shortest version of the game, twenty-twenty that brought the Trinidad and Tobago cricket team to India. The Champions League 20:20 had one slot for the West Indies Champion team. Ganga’s Trinidad team has been doing well for the past couple of years and is current holders of Stanford 20:20 title and are here in India because of this. T&T arrived in India unsung but will leave India as heroes and after having established Trinidad firmly in the consciousness of the Indians, whether they read Naipaul or follow the West Indies Cricket team or not. For the average Indian above the age of eighteen, the West Indies Cricket means little more than Zimbabwe or Bangladesh, mainly on account of the collective performance of the West Indies regional team in spite of having some very good players including Brian Lara, Chanderpaul , Sarwan and Gayle.
The Trinidad and Tobago team is the only national side playing in the CLT 20 tournament , the others are provincial or county teams or club franchises like the IPL Teams. T&T are a national side. A young team led by a shrewd captain Daren Ganga, they have shown remarkable unity and have brought back to cricket ,the joy of playing. And all of India has adopted it as a team to support now that all IPL teams have gone out of the tournament.
The fifteen men squad has eight players of Indian origin and one Navin Stewart is the only player from Tobago. The team represents the two major ethnic communities-the people belonging to African and Indian origin living in Trinidad. The picture that Indians are seeing on TV night after night is vastly more complex than the novels of Naipaul. William Perkins and Adrian Barath, Dinesh Ramdin and Dwayne Bravo give a picture of the world created in Trinidad in a way, a one off representation of the East Indians cannot. Anand, Mr. Biswas’s son in A House for Mr. Biswas leaves Trinidad for England like the novelist V.S.Naipaul had already done. The picture one got was that at there was not much of a future in the Caribbean Country for the “East Indian” community, especially the ones who tore down the cricket pitch in A House for Mr. Biswas. Those who chose to stay in the Trinidad and led ordinary lives have via the Champions League Twenty Twenty presented to Cricket Viewers all over the world and particularly India of a multicultural society playing together as a team and just like their football counterparts Soca Junior, capacble of causing an international appreciation. Only in case of T&T Cricket Team, the two major communities have joined together to announce the arrival of Trinidad to the comity of nations, the way the erstwhile West Indian teams did to bring West Indies to the world stage.
This is surely the beginning. TV channels bring the news of Ram Paul and Ram Din celebrating Diwali and overnight Kieron Pollard is pronounced correctly as “Kyron” and not “Kiran” and Navin Stewart as “Nevin” and not Naveen. Trinidad and Tobago, the “and Tobago” brought into focus by Navin Stewart is now a country that Indians over the age of six will always connect with. And this is a huge population and CLR James was right when he said:”What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?” The Tulsis of A House for Mr. Biswas were unable to feel truly a part of the society in which they lived. And over the decades, the connection with India became slimmer. The succeeding generations of the East Indians made Trinidad their home in a way,the eponymous Mr. Biswas of Naipaul’s novel never could or his son never tried. And now it is with the T&T cricket team’s campaign in India that Trinidadians from the cricketers and their family to administrators and the journalist Vinod Mamchan of the Trinidad Guardian, who have made the connection with India, epitomized by the sponsor’s logo “Venky’s” on their shirt. In so doing they represent a proud small country and unlike Mr.Biswas , his son’s generation even from England can see that the community have gone back to india, not to live but to make a permanent relationship.

* Anand is Mr. Biswas's son in A House for Mr. Biswas and Daren Ganga is Trinidad & Tobago cricket captain.

Never was so much owed by so many to so few

These words of Churchill describes perfectly how much of India's victory,enormous though it was depended on the two openers. Sehwag of course went there and as he said after the match enjoyed it but Gambhir was part of the partnership on which the Indian team built its attack.

There have been many instances when a lone ranger stands amongst the ruins like Laxman at Sydney on the tour of Australia in 2000.But when we think of great indian wins there have been two of record breaking levels. In 1976, at Port of spain Gavaskar and Viswanath both scored centuries and in Kolkata in 2001, Dravid played a stellar role with Laxman.And in 1976 there was that longish 85 from Mohinder Amarnath and in 2001 there was Harbhajan and his wonderful bowling.

This time at Galle Indian bowling demonstrated a good team work with Harbhajan in the lead role and Sharma and Kumble and even Zaheer havingtheir moments but except Gambhir nobody even looked to be playing in the same match as Sehwag.

This series is now wide open.India has won without its famous batsmen scoring big.There is that stirring example from 1981 when a hopelessly out of form vishwanath walking in after India had lost two quick wickets batted as if from memory and scored a century in the first innings.Gavaskar and Chauhan batted well in the second innings and with a fine bowling performnace from Kapil, india managed to bowl out Australia for 83.And India never lost a test in which Vishwanath scored a century.

Some of our legends can irrespective of their form bring forth a sublime innings and put India in the right frame for the final battle against Australia with most of India's alltime best team still in action.

The Heir apparent

This is no pretender. His bat answers the critics and the doubting Thomases.He was looked at by many to succeed Ganguly.Things did not turn that way but there is no reason that Virender Sehwag who has been as crucial to India's test match wins this century just like Anil Kumble was in the last decade of the previous century should not be Kumble's successor.The great troika of Tendulkar,Ganguly and Dravid will no doubt resurrect themselves but for some time now it is clear that Sehwag and Laxman need reinforcements.
Reinforcements or not Sehwag has become to Indian cricket what gavaskar was in the seventies and eighties.He carries the Indian batting on his shoulders.His one day form should not mislead us. He is right up there with Gavaskar and Tendulkar in the pantheon of test batsmen, averages notwithstanding. I hope dravid in the next two or three years proves me wrong by breaking into the league.
The market value of MSD will take a beating no doubt as Sehwag is a twenty overs specialist too and India should develop Parthiv patel in the A B De Villiers mode as a specialist test wicket keeper who can open and bat lower down.However in ODIs Sehwag would remain sporadically successful as the game does not challenge as much as the other two versions.A career with Dehi and India in whites and Delhi Dare Devils in coloured clothes will suit him just fine. ,

Chetan Bhagat's three Mistakes

Chetan Bhagat gets his plot for The Three Mistakes of my Life from an e mail he receives from an Ahmedabad businessman who is trying to commit suicide even as he is typing out his suicide note to the author. This is the author’s third novel and like his previous novels stays close to E M Forster’s basic prescription for a novel : “ Yes-Oh dear yes-the novel tells a story.” The story told by The three Mistakes is a first person narration by Govind, the sender of the e mail that brought the author from Singapore to Ahmedabad to find out the reason for his attempted suicide.

The novel is a record of events that occurred in little over two years as math tutor Govind and his two friends, the local pol cricketer Ish and Omi ,the son of the temple priest go about setting their business. There are three historical strands around which the story is woven: emerging of Indian cricket in the 21st century, the Gujarat earthquake of 2001 and the post Godhra riots of 2002. While the storyline develops in a manner that would keep the reader riveted, the treatment of what is the central point of the narrative is shallow and simplistic.

The Gujarat riot is used as the finale. The novel has a character Bittu Mama, Omi’s uncle who is trying to find his feet as an up and coming politician of the ruling party in Gujarat. There is Parekhji, the Mercedes using patron of the socio cultural initiative to address the Hindu angst and the Kar seva in Ayodhya and the returning sewaks are central to the narrative. Still the characters at the centre of it all are too detached to notice what they are getting into. And when they are faced with making a choice the main reason is that the boy will play cricket for the country.

It is therefore to cricket that we must pay a closer attention as the book presents it as an alternative religion as it were. Unlike academic writings on cricket, this book deals with it through a sub plot of an avid cricket fan who once played for his municipal school and is a local hero amongst the children and has discovered a gifted child Ali who can hit sixes at will. To build upon this, the narrative takes us through several matches quite closely. However it is quite evident that not only Govind but also Chetan Bhagat is not quite a cricket buff. While Govind has a business built around the sport, Bhagat builds a novel around it .But both of them get the facts of the Eden Gardens Test match horribly mixed up. Harbhajan’s hat trick was in the first innings and not the second and apparently Bhagat has not heard of S S Das who opened with Ramesh. Editing and research could have been better.

The book ends like other of Bhagat’s books with a contrived happy ending and there is a love story thrown in for good measure. Both cricket and communal riot get only a superficial treatment in the book. Where Bhagat excels is in portrayal of the lower middle class Ahmedabad “Pol” which comes alive in the pages of the book. This for Bhagat, the writer is forward movement as both the IIT and the call centre were mere back drops in his previous novels. Here the pol is a real community going about its routine humdrum existence while at the same time having numerous plots and sub plots building up.

The three mistakes by the author then are his not following cricket,simplyfying communal strife and not building on the alternate cultural force in a convincing manner as at the end even govind wasn't convinced.

CB Series in perspective

India has done well in the CB Series 2007-08. This column was not so optimistic when last visiting this topic. Therefore dressed in sack clothes and smeared in ashes and tongue firmly in cheek we would like to remind the Indian team about the aftermath of the CB Series victory for the winner of last year ever since.
England won the series 2-0 and almost as dramatically. They struggled in the initial part but qualified over New Zealand for the finals. Their victory was some kind of solace after a five nil Ashes drubbing. Since then, England has had a mediocre World Cup, lost to the West Indies and India at home and New Zealand away. Their one and only victory was in the away series in Sri Lanka late last year.
Therefore while we must celebrate a well achieved victory, we must not get carried away.

Rengineering Race

In an article "Wake up and smell the prejudice "published on cricinfo website, soumya Bhattacharjee writes that"In the wake of Monkeygate, Indians must confront the ugly fact that they are racist - unconsciously or otherwise". It transpires that the writer happened to be dark complexioned and is carrying the hurt from childhood when others referred to him as moila.
It is true that in India colour prejudice works but so does prejudice against the bald , they are called takla, which is hardly a complimentary or an endearing term. And there are many other groups. In Bihar the bus conductors refer to women as sawari if they are traditionally dressed and lady if they are slightly urbane looking.
It is therefore surprising the writer take Indian unconscious reaction as racist. they are anythingbut racist.they may have called the West Indies players kaloo but they also called the English players Gora.Now which of the two response is racist? If we go by what the writer wants us to believe Gora is complimentary. I think both are neutral words and mean no more than what they signify.In our country where every one with legal literacy has a PIL ready, the advertisement for fairness cream is not taken to court.It fulfils a need.If in a team which has players of different race, caste , colour and religion without realising their difference, it means we are race neutral.This is what angers the politically correct brigade.Why do Indians not recognise race and go paranoid about race relations? If they have no race talk them into believing. Those making monkey faces in baroda were creating nuisance against a player who they thought was arrogant.It must be viewed in the light of public show of hate that we experience often and what Arun shourie called our national pastime, "abuse".

Absent Thee Felicity Awhile

The one off twenty 20 may be a one off low key performance or it may be a sign of the malaise of blow hot blow cold performance of the indian team. Dhoni in his arrogance said they would be treating this as practice.This in a situation when most of the glory these players have been basking in are in this form of the game.

A well Fought Draw

The draw was mde possible by a very composed knock played by Sehwag. Australia have won the series.If only....A good series nevertheless.there are two exciting testseries coming up this year. If India builds on the positives from this series we can have a making of a successful challenger for Australia.

An Old Fashioned Test Shaping Up

The Adelaide test is shaping up the old fashioned way. Runs are being accumulated by the tail after the team's best batsman did well and the wicket is slowing down and Australia will have to play good cricket over the next few days to stop australia from winning their second consecutive win at Adelaide. Everyone has not scored.Why was Karthik not selected for the test. I hope Sehwag rediscovers his batting form and take over from Kumble whenever he quits.making Dhoni a captain will queer the pitch for the ever improving patel and Karthik.

A Vindication

This blog's faith in the Indian team proved prophetic. The end result have confirmed that we were on stronger wicket on account of Sehwag and the medium pacers and their ability to swing.It is great when a result like this happens. Adelaide will be around soon. The entire media is speculating.It will hopefully be a closely fought contest. The last time India played at Adelaide, they won. As Anil kumble said at the presentation, india fancied their chances at Sydney and Adelaide.With a fine tuned team at Adelaide ,India must aim to draw the series and win the home series come october.

That Second test Match in Perth

India is on course to achieve a creditable victory at WACA. We have been optimistic about India's chances here from some time and the columns below would bear us out.However without repeating any well worn cliche, we would like to keep ours fingers crossed regarding the outcome of the match.

In 1977, WACA had hosted the second test.The first had been played at Brisbane and inspite of some good bowling performances and a century from gavaskar, India had lost. Perth marked the comeback of chetan Chauhan, who had last played in 1972-73 against Tony lewis's England team. he made a good 88 and gavaskar scored another hundred and india set Australia 338 runs to win and they did it by a narrow margin of two wickets. Though Australia was weakened by the Packer exodus the bowling still was formidable with Thomson, Gannon, Dymock and wayne Clarke. the overs had eight balls and on the final day India under bedi could have slowed down bowling rate but did not. Also, even at the bouncy Perth India chose to play three spinners rather than both Ghavri and Madan Lal. Madan lal had taken a five for at Brisbane and playing both of them together would probably have changed the series results. But changing from decent spin to mediocre medium pace was still not a thought to be countenanced.

In 1977, it would have been considered a sacrilege if Ishant Sharma was picked ahead of Harbhajan Singh.More about this later.We must enjoy this weekend irrespective of the result. the Australians will try to force a win. India has a chance to level the series and wait for Australia in india later this year.

Why Dhoni is No Gilchrisht

The evidence is there presenting to all of us.Facing similar situation while Gilchrist attacked, Dhoni is defending.A combination of attack and defence will take him to the league of Marsh ,Knott and Boucher. He will have to be more fluent and authoritative to be in the A league with Sangakkara and Gilchrist.Dhoni should aim to become a competent number six with Pathan on seven and Piyush Chawla on eight.That would be a decent mlower middle order for the days after Ganguly and Tendulkar. Hopefully Laxman will be around till a few more batsmen are groomed.

The March has been halted

For the time being at least, Australia has to fight hard to win their seventeenth test on the trot. their sequence at 16 last time was broken by India at Kolkata.This time round australia narrowly reached 16 at Sydney.The chances of stopping them again is available to the Indians.They go into the third day with nine wickets remaining and a healthy lead of 170 runs, and the match looks to be heading for an interesting finish. even if australia are chasing upwards of 450 runs they will try to get them. This will therefore turn out to be a cracker of a match.

Australia on the march

Australia has reached tea with five wickets still left.how often have teams loked forward to wrapping up the opposition only to run into a rampaging Gilchrisht. India will remember Mumbai 2001 while England would still be nursing last year's wounds when Symonds had also joined the party.The catch dropped by Tendulkar may prove costly.