Test Series in Southern Hemisphere Winter

One had nearly missed this contest..Bangladesh-Zimbabwe Test series beginning next week is a sobering reminder of what Test cricket once was.Low intensity professional sport with some amateurs thrown in.Though most countries have t20 leagues and it would be hard to find a batsman of the calibre of William Porterfield of Ireland, who made a remarkable season opening century, albeit in Abu Dhabi, this series will be more of a contest than Australia- India series that concluded recently.. It is an indication of the times that the customary Champions County vs MCC match is played not at Lord's but at Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi.

Those of us who were cribbing about the IPL not being quite cricket, this series should come as a balm.The competition between not the bottom teams but actually between teams ranked nine and ten and with several teams from Dublin to Kabul wishing to be where they are.It is therefore a full fledged Test series and the fact that in this global consumer age 150 million Bangladeshis matter with their 300 million eye balls, this series is a mainstream event surely with more people seriously interested in it than in the fortunes of the Pune Warriors.Tigers are the team to follow in April before Newzealand arrives in England.

Another World

Craig Ervine has reportedly refused a Zimbabwe contract as he would be getting only US$ 100 per week against nearly twice he can earn playing club cricket in the UK.The wages a professional cricketer playing internationally across so many formats in Zimbabwe are so different when compared not only with the developed or BRICS countries but also compared to Bangladesh.India can absorb only limited numbers in IPL, but an international cricketer ready to go to England for US$200 per week should be lapped up by our private school system as Coaches and DPEs .Surely, Schools can afford Rs.30,000 per month which works out to more than 120 Dollars a week for 52 weeks.Besides an English speaking Test Match cricketer can obviously get other coaching and speaking deals.Time, perhaps for an agent to step in.

And that also brings us to the happy state prevailing in India for years altogether where a national player even in a minor sport gets a regular job in the Railways or the Services earning decent wages and housing.If they are good and go on to become PT Usha, they grow out of their jobs or rise within the organisation like the 1982 Asian Games Hockey Captain Prem Maya and the more famous Mohammed Shahid. Indian cricketers, of course,  have it quite good from very old times. even in the seventies, they were making close to US$300 per test and had a full time job as well.Even Gundappa Vishwanath who did not go past high school,  found comfortable bank jobs moving up the Security hierarchy.

Beyond the IPL

A few hours after the close IPL match at Bangalore, another match went to the wire, almost as the T&T team defeated Jamaica at Sabina Park with two balls to spare in the Carribean One Day Competition.The match was close even without the likes of Gayle and Narine. The IPL has now become the major cricket league and scouts go everywhere to find talented cricketers everywhere.However, it is really good to remind ourselves that good cricket can be played without superstars and exciting cricket is being played in the world outside the IPL as well.
On a day that Chris Gayle was the most prominent Jamaican, spare a thought for young Jermaine Blackwood , who scored an impressive eightyfive and with Andre McCarthy helped Jamaica put up a challenging total. The more well known Lendl Simmons guided T&T to a nail biting win. 

The Long season draws to a close.

The First Class cricket season in India has come to a close.It has been a very long season with the first match being the Test Match between India and New Zealand in August 2012.Fittingly the last was the Test at Kotla. In between there has been a series loss to England followed by a first time 4-0 win which hopefully augur a new phase of cricket for India.

 Cheteshwar Pujara scored over a thousand runs this season and Rahane looks to follow Amol Mazumdar as very heavy First class scorer who could not play tests. Rahane of course played a test toward the end of the season.He however has not given any indication that he will have a long first class career. Pujara is on course to become the first batsman to have the best list A average before playing his first ODI.

As IPL takes over the off season in India, we have a few Regional 4days matches from the Carribean and the soon to commence English cricket. The English season will probably begin amidst sleet and snow but there is the series against NewZealand  too look forward to.By the time IPL draws to a close at least some of the Indian eye balls will shift to the test series in England. So while IPl tries to dissuade us from agreeing with Eliot that April is the crullest month what with zillions of exams all over the country cricket will accompany cricket in Chaucer's land with its "shoures soote". 

that brings me to the General prologue of The Canterbury tales and even while wading through Chaucer, often with Neville Coghills wonderful Penguin Classics translation in verse, I would be transported to england in april where cricketers from all over the world from Richards to Border and Barry Richards to Imran Khan would come to England as if on a pilgrimage in April at the start of the English season, something as regenerative than the pilgrimage Chaucer talks about.The beginning of the Prologue to bring all the non Eng Lit types up to date.

Whan that Aprill with his shoures sote° The droghte° of Marche hath perced to the rote,° And bathed every veyne° in swich licour,° Of which vertu° engendred is the flour; Whan Zephirus° eek with his swete breeth Inspired° hath in every holt° and heeth° The tendre croppes,° and the yonge sonne Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne; And smale fowles° maken melodye, That slepen al the night with open yë°— So priketh hem Nature in hir corages— Than longen° folk to goon° on pilgrimages, And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes, To ferne halwes,° couthe° in sondry londes; And specially, from every shires ende Of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende, The holy blisful martir for to seke,° That hem hath holpen,° whan that they were seke.° So, while everybody who is anybody in cricket have come to India this April, let us rejoice with a Zimbabwean by the name of Craig Ervine who will come half way around the world to england to play club cricket at about 200 US Dollars a week.The pilgrimage still continues.

sweet showers dryness / root vein / such moisture By power of which the west wind Breathed into / wood / heath sprouts . birds eye(s) . Then long / go . far-off shires /known .

The Best of Times, the worst of Times

Not long ago, this columnist bemoaned the fact that under Dhoni, the Indian team plumbed the depths never encountered before by losing back to back 4-0 defeats overseas.And in little over a year since Australia beat India 4-0 in Australia, India has beaten them 4-0.And Dhoni has taken India to heights it had never been before. In between was a little matter of a home defeat to England.That was by no means a one sided defeat and when two teams play defeat is always a possibility.After all, England are battling at 90/4 with a day to play and 391 runs still required to win the test at Hamilton.Such are the uncertainties of the game.At another end of the spectrum, West Indies have just won six test matches in a row, four of them at home and two in Bangladesh.The three teams they defeated include Zimbabwe and Bangladesh.While not much can be read into the wins against these teams,it surely gives the west indies to be a fighting opponents on their spinning tracks.There are so many spinners bowling in regional 4 Day contests that the west Indies are now a true inheritor of the great tradition of Valentine and Ramadhin. The great fast bowlers look to have come out of some other universe.

Looking Ahead

India is well placed in the series against Australia, 2-0 up at the half way stage and having taken an unassailable lead. this is a movement upwards especially after the defeat against England which after the first playing day's performance, looks even more catastrophic.That a debutante left arm orthodox took four wickets on a surface on which Panesar looked ordinary means that Ojha missed an opportunity of a life time. Jadeja not playing earlier perhaps proved costly.Yet, it was not such a bad series. India rediscovered Pujara, discovered Jadeja , Dhoni and Kohli regained self confidence and belief. these assets will be needed in this series but will really be needed in South africa and NewZealand later this year and early next year.

Cricket on the Go

Even as Australia and India are playing an important series with the first match having commenced in Chennai, it is time for us to think how cricket has reached its prime sporting position in India and how it has retained a significant foothold in the UK and NewZealand and a pervasive presence in Australia and the West Indies.In A Corner of a Foreign Field: The Indian History of a British Sport, Ram Chandra Guha describes the arrival of the MCC team in India on S.S. Mooltan. The ship made a short stop-over in what was then Bombay before leaving for Karachi where the team deboarded. Microphone was placed on the deck for the captain Douglas Jardine to address the public on All India Radio.Besides, the people who went to the matches, there was a considerably larger number following cricket and learning about it on the radio.It is this media which has been ignored by the BCCI when it asked for Broadcasting Rights and ABC Grandstand chose not to broadcast the series live in Australia.The TV rights in Australia are held by a pay channel, which means the casual listener or viewer has been kept out of the equation.

Radio was an important medium for cricket to grow and is still a meaningful medium for it to keep growing.Those of us who have grown up on rich diet of cricket commentary over medium, short and long waves(Radio 4LW, the current home of the Test Match Special on the radio) have moved on to the radio commentary on the net and internet radio via the smartphone.The treasure trove to be found is immense.Last Night there was the T&T vs Windwards thriller from Arnos Vale.Tonight one hopes there will be the ODI from Grenada.Listening to the Carribean t20. Regional 4 day and the International matches, the impression is that cricket has managed to remain important culturally with significant support of the radio coverage.It is time that BCCI and cricket broadcasters allow access to the matches to radio stations covering it live.During the last few months I have been follwing South Africa vs Pakistan on PBC during evening walks while listening to the Carribean t20 and NewZealand- England matches during my morning walk.There is also All India Radio chipping in on 106.4MHZ and one does not even need to pay for the internet.Cricket on the go with the radio cannot be matched by TV and the Desk top audio in the background at the workplace can only popularise the game even further.

Winston Derrick via a Cricket Match

Looking for a live match on the radio via tune in, I found ABS radio from Antigua broadcasting the Leewards Island versus Guyana. Tagnarine Chanderpaul, Shivnarine's son made his first class  debut in this match.The Leeward Islands'side managed to draw the match.This was the regional 4Day tournament.While listening to this match reminded me that even Ranji finals and Irani Cup does not have live ball by ball coverage on All India Radio.There was a time though that one heard the commentary of plenty of matches live on radio in India.Cricket has moved into the realm of commerce rather than something to be engagede with.
The Leewards match on Antigua Broadcasting Service made way in the afternoon for coverage of the funeral procession of Winston Derrick, the media personality in Antigua.From a small island in Antigua, it is only through cricket that one can learn about their society, culture, media and even history all over the world.The audience may not be large but it can be significant.Cricket is only the medium to make an entry into a society or a nation.

Cricket, lovely Cricket

Even as I was following the West Indies- Australia series and hearing about the drubbing that the West Indies were receiving, I could not but remember that for most of the eighties, the great West Indies were great because of their exploits in the Test match arena not in either the ODI whites or coloured clothing. The last time the West Indies won any significant one day tournament before the Champions Trophy in 2004,  was in 1979.They won the World Cup for the second time.By then they were on course to becoming the finished product of the nineties.Yet, that was the last one day achievement of the team led by Lloyd or Richards or even Richardson, the last leader of that vintage.

The West Indies in Tests were just recovering from a test series loss to India, albeit with a Packer depleted side. That team led by Kallicharan was effectively a developmental one and included Malcolm Marshall who was to be the West Indies spearhead in much of the eighties.The West Indies through much of the eighties did commendably in ODIs but were hardly the force that they were in Tests.We remember the rescue act of Richards and his partnership with Garner or the semifinal loss in the WCC at the SCG when Mudassar Nazar ran through them in 1985. There was a little matter of the 1983 World Cup as well.They were competitive in 1996 World Cup as well.However all through this period they were very good in tests.Only Pakistan managed to scare them once in a while.

The current West Indies though no match for the Test side of yore are perhaps better in Tests than ODIs.They play t20 best and Tests second best.They should build their cricket around it.Money to individuals will come from t20s and the west Indies can play tests in Philadelphia to target the expat Carribeans and the Indian origin cricket followers and play so much test cricket in North and South america that cricket becomes a major sport in the largest English speaking country in the World.Not knowing the joys of Cricket is not quite in tune with the language spoken in North America.

Post Script: The West Indies were defeated 5-0 in ODIs and bounced back remarkably in the only T20 match against Australia.They won it confidently and with the confidence of being world's best, which they are.

Days Cricket

The result of the ODI series being played in three continents have confirmed that the ODIs give an equal opportunity to weaker teams.Indian ODI squad, though can hardly be called weak and they are entirely in a world of their own.For them ODI defeat in 2007 World Cup is more significant than the loss in series after series of Test matches.Therefore defeating England 4-1 is a mission which will wash away the embarrassment of having lost at home to them after 28 years.To this end they have persevered with retaining Pujara and Rahane for the last match even though the series is won.A five day final would have given Pujara some practice for the series against Australia next month.But to BCCI and its captain ODI is the form of the game to cherish.

The view is not shared by South Africa, England and Australia.They have euphemism to camouflage resting in place for keeping the best players ready for the Test series ahead.They can also bring in bigger audience for tests and have their cricket revolving around their Test teams.Australia has a successful t20 League but there is no window and the Test players usually miss the tournament.In India the IPL reigns supreme.The ODIs come next and Days cricket comes last.

The decent following of Ranji  Trophy this year shows that In India too decent following of Tests and days cricket is possible if planned well.

Small World

Kevon Cooper was missing from the T&T's line up in this morning's Carribean T20 match( last night's actually)between Barbados and Trinidad & Tobago.He has gone to Bangladesh to participate in the Bangladesh Premier league.Chris Gayle, Kemar Roach and Marlon Samuels are missing from action in this edition of Carribean t20 as they are playing( Samuels is injured now)  in the  KFC Big Bash in Australia.Nationalities and distance matter little in the world of the t20 leagues.Players play across continents and for different franchises.So much so that a player is often eligible to play for two or more sides in the Champion's League t20 meant for top teams from different leagues.This gives the cricket leagues a following which is more flexible than in football. It also makes a small world in cricket where followers follow the various national teams, provincial  sides and clubs and franchises wherever they exist.This makes for a phenomenon where many neutral international matches are watched on  TV and enjoyed on the radio by the supporters of not teams per se but of Cricket.It is therefore that I remember Alok Chakraborty playing for Bangladesh Central Zone against the MCC much before Bangladesh gained Test status and when I see the Bangladesh Central Zone scores on the net, I am immediately reminded of the last ball from Wilson which Alok played to draw the two day match coming in at Number 11.

Added to this is the joy that one can experience when one  finds a player looking like Sehwag playing against Rohtak Road Gmkhana at the Siri Fort Ground and discovers that the player is indeed Sehwag playing in DDCA Super League.

Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark

Saurashtra are playing Punjab in the Ranji Semi final at Rajkot.They had lost the match up with Punjab at the league stage and would find it difficult to offer strong fight to Punjab.Punjab are without Yuvraj Singh.Jiwanjot Singh is in such good form that Yuvraj will hardly be missed. Saurashtra however will miss their runmachines, Pujara and Jadeja.The duo are in the one day team for the ongoing One day serie against England.Ravindra Jadeja is doing a star turn out there and his bsence here is reasonable.However, Pujara does not make the final XI and is hardly likely to play in Ranchi. The management ought to have released Pujara to play the semi final unless they want to replace Gambhir at Ranchi.

It is first time in many years that Ranji Trophy is attracting  attention it desrves and the Board should have scheduiled the semifinals after the England series to allow Indian players to get into shape before the Australian series..Saurashtra playing without Pujara is like Hamlet being staged without the Prnice of Denmark

Commentary from Trinidad from Radio St.Lucia

I started following the Carribena T20 through  a serendipitous surfing of Internet radio stations.At a little after 5.30 in the morning I tuned into Andrew Mason and another commentator talk about batsmen called Sarwan and Chanderpaul. Guyana was playing Barbados at the Queens'Park Oval and Barbados managed to lose the match chasing 110.They also lost their next match to Combined College and Campuses after being reduced to 0/3 after the first three balls. Laments about the once strong Barbados side aside, this tournament gives me hope for the West Indies Cricket.The West Indies have an advantage in the form of friendly time zone for radio and TV for Cricket's biggest market India and the passionate following in Australia and another potentially large market Bangladesh.

A T20 match played at 8pm and another from  5.30 amIndia time would siuit the Indian Television and radio audience perfectly.A series involving top four Mushtaq Ali Trophy Teams( Indian t20) and top four regional Carribean taeams will have a large following in India.Moreover, full houses at the Queenspark Oval gives hope that sufficient people could watch these matches.In a tournament like this, plenty of Indian first class and List A cricketers can get used to playing fast bowlers by running into Tino Best, Jason Holder,Kemar Roach, Andre Russell and the odd pacer the Campuses throw up.A tournament like this would take little over two weeks and the ideal time would be in summer, when with schools closed, lot of youngsters can see these matches.

I am looking forward to the next week of the tournament in St.Lucia. At least the second match is prime time for me with cricket over the earphones in the warm quilt playing on even as I keep falling asleep and waking up to Ramsaran bowling a hattrick ball.

Where is the logic, Mr. Bhogale?

Harsha Bhogale in an article on the ESPNcricinfo website, on the topic of Smaller contingent for home ODIs has wandered on a subject that is illogical to say the least.He feels that India has too many first class teams playing and that is the reason why the Ranji Trophy standards are poor.He reaches that conclusion based on Amol Mazumdar's ability at age 38 to score century on demand.( He scored five this season playing for Andhra Pradesh.) Chemical Engineering and PGDM at IIMs are hardly the training required to inculcate critical reasoning and Harsha Bhogale may be excused for reaching a conclusion based on  context which is not logical.

That Amol Mazumdar can at this age score runs at will is no indication that he has lost his ability to bat well. Sitanshu Kotak,Jacque Kallis, Shivnaaine Chanderpaul amongst others are scoring runs pretty much with a similar average against different bowling.For a country with more than 1200 million people, Mr.Bhogale , 27 first class teams are not more but less.What Harsha Bhogale fails to see  is that the teams don't represent the country's demographics. Bihar and Chaatisgarh between them have a population bigger than all Test Match playing nations.Cricket is played and followed everywhere from Baccheli to Raipur and Gopalganj to Araria.Yet, the BCCI does not find it odd that such large states are unrepresented in First Class cricket.At the same time a combined Gujarat or Maharashtra team will be stronger and have a bigger catchment area.Having 27 teams perse only means that the game is thriving and not limited to a select few.Cricket will grow and more first class teams will find a place under the Indian skies.A country with 28 states and seven Union Territories can have possibly 35 teams.Players from bigger states could move to smaller states.Players from Maharashtra representing Arunachal pradesh or from Bihar representing Manipur or lakshdweep will only add to a feeling of a large but united country.

The Indian Bench strength

After a small break, the English Team is back for the ODI leg of the tour.The two List A Games have demonstrated that Cricket is thriving in India. The India 'A' side that played the visiting England XI had plasyers who were not involved in the ODI against Pakistan or the four Ranji Quarter finals. Similarly, the Delhi team which beat England did not include Sehwag, Gambhir or Ishant Sharma. This augurs well for India. The bench strength is pretty good and the only worry seems to be in the spin department.However for all the clamour being made, We must recall that Ravi Shastri, Maninder Singh, Shiv Lal Yadav and several others held fort after the great spinners and Dilip Doshi faded out and before another golden age dawned in the form of Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh.The gap between Doshi's last Test and Kumble's first was nearly ten years and in between while Kapil Dev and the seamers bowled well and winning series in England as well besides the World cup in England, Hirwani, Sivaramkrishnan and Maninder Singh did win us matches at home.So this is not the first time and will perhaps not be the last.In Ravindra Jadeja, We have found a Shastri and from the wide pool of talent available, India will remain competitive.

If a team cannot accommodate Pujara for ODIs, it must be very good. Pujara's One Day average is next only to Michael Bevan's. Therefore,India's dip against Pakistan is not very relevant and India starts favourite against England.

CMJ to Akashvani

Reading about CMJ's(Christopher Martin-Jenkins) sad demise brought memories not only of all the evenings spent in North Bihar village, every summer listening to TMS on Shortwave Radio.Later TMS moved off Short wave and I discovered it on the net in 2000. CMJ had been a firm and lucid in his comments and his loss will be mourned by all his listeners.

However listening to All India Radio commentary this season has been a revelation. Not only the commentators give you their opinion on subjects ranging from Ganguly as India coach and Kumble as Team Director, they also inform us on how M J Gopalan played both Hockey and Cricket and chose the1936             series over the Berlin Olympics.This is a world far different from the TV commentary, which includes a former AIR commentator, but refuses to call a spade a spade while the Radio commentators do not even hesitate to call it a shovel.The TV feed is usually late by  a  ball than AIR's and while this sustantiates s AIR's claim to be the authentic and the only radio news provider it becomes difficult watching TV with sound switched off and radio commentary playing along. For a change though it helps in seeing things with the knowledge of what is to happen.

I wish All India Radio finds a home for its commentary on the internet and refrains from doing off tube broadcasts.Sponsorship will follow and a core team like TMS will help.

Ranji Trophy

For the first time since I have been reading newspaper in Delhi(More than 30 years), Ranji Trophy is getting a very good coverage. Cricket followers who use ESPNcricinfo are also able to follow session by session highlights on the ranji Trophy Live Blog.Twenty seven teams are playing and except for the disfranchised 100 millions from Bihar, most cricket followers are able to follow their team or teams.The followers will grow into committed Test followers, so the  more people following Ranji Trophy augurs well. for the future.
The followers of First class cricket this season seem to have grown. A decent coverage in the papers and the ESPNCricinfo Live blog has brought Ranji Trophy to the consciousness of serious cricket followers in this country and that itself is a multi million population.

The effect has been that Jiwanjot Singh and Ishwar Pandey are respected names and possibly sending more positive vibrations than several international stars.Indian Cricket has the strength to tide over the current misfortunes and build towards a course correction.

Greying of the Indian Test Followers

Steve Waugh tried to breach the final frontier and failed.Australia was able to win the series in 2004 in India but the series was won only because rain ruined India's chance of winning in Chennai. And after the series normal business was restored in Indian conditions.The team looks so ragged at present and bowling options so limited that it is really good that the BCCI does not invite Bangladesh to tour India because the Bangladesh spinners are way better than ours and we do not have the pace of Roach and Best.

The Indian team needs to rebuild but the problem is of the entire cricketing world.With Hockey, Badminton and football competing for Indian eyeballs, it is difficult to imagine that the IPL alone will be able to keep cricket a major TV draw in India for long if the Indian Test team becomes weak.The elderly and the retired are premium TV audience and with growing prosperity, they are also likely to attract advertisers.However the next few decades will see the generation who grew following  Tests retiring.In sheer terms these numbers will match potential viewers anywhere in the world.They will need a strong Indian test team rather than any IPL franchise.Cricket needs a strong Indian team to remain afloat in the world amidst Basketball, baseball, American football besides football itself.

Where Angels Fear to Tread

This Indian team led by Mahendra Singh Dhoni has gone where no Indian team has gone before.Never before since India played its first Test has India lost eight consecutive tests abroad.They drew a Test against Bradman's australia and even in 1936.It had come to seven in a row against England and Australia in 1967-68 but a victory against Newzealand,incidentally India's first overseas win,stopped further damage.Even when India were poor tourists with mainly amateurs  players being who were often rewarded with  lowly paid clerical jobs in Banks, Indian cricketers held out for some memorable draws.

We have moved from amateur cricketers to another state of economic situation when the BCCI contract is not a major part of the cricketr's earnings.The BCCI has other means but match fees or the Bank job is not dependant on performance in one form alone. Suresh Raina is a celebrity with ordinary  test record and Rohit Sharma is a household name without having played a Test.Limited Overs cricket and club based t20 has the possibility to keep cricketers well paid even without playing a test. Saurav Tiwari earns more by playing cricket than perhaps Cheteshwar Pujara does simply because he has played a few ODIs for India and talented first class performers with reasonable IPL records have their IPL match fees capped at 30 Lakhs.The endorsements for Indian cricketers can come inspite of team performances as their IPL performances will also keep them in public consciousness.

Time has come therefore to move ahead on the Supreme Court decision in Zee Telefilms vs BCCI case.The team playing for BCCI is not a national team in the strict sense and BCCI therefore does not come in the ambit of instrumentality of the state under Article 12 of the Constitution. BCCI and its cricketers can no doubt ply their wares for the consuming public but just like the scenes where actor smokes in fil;ms have to show that smoking is harmful, every broadcast of matches involving India should have a ticker running with the message that the team playing for BCCI is not representing India and is a private team representing a Registered Society.This will therefore distance the atists that the BCCI cricketers really are from the national representatives who may be participating in other sports from Khokho to Wrestling.

"plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose"

The French critic and novelist Jean-Baptiste Alphonso Karr's well known epigram "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose"loosely translated as"the more it changes, the more they stay the same " has acquired a significance to those of us who were old enough to follow the Eden gardens Test of 1977 involving the same two teams playing the Test  Match this week at the same venue.We were cheering, then for Brijesh Patel when he scored 56 to make England bat again and we were cheering for Ashwin when he ensured that England will bat again.More than 60,000 people came to watch England knock off the 16 runs required to win.Few thousands will no doubt turn up tomorrow morning.Yet, two world Cup and a t20 world cup win, a number 1 ranking in tests, a place at the ICC high table and India's becoming a talked about economy which have happened in the interim have still not impacted on the essential malaise of cricketers not taking cricket seriously enough.The cricketers were essentially amateurs then and remain essentially amateurs now.The difference is that they are substantially wealthier now and make money from endorsements and are in effect models or actors who also play cricket.The consistent performance which is required is not really important to these endorsers and cricket's nature where we can laud Ashwin even in our hour of defeat as we lauded Patel then in 1977. Even a below par performance in the Asia cup got eclipsed by Tendulkar's hundredth hundred.What is even more galling is that in 1976-77, the team had bowlers who could bowl England within 350 regularly.At present, both bowling and batting talents look in short supply and the West Indies Bangladesh fifth ODI will end with a better viewership than some days of this Test match.In spite of a decent run since that series in 1977 till the fateful series in England last year, the Indian team has come to resemble "the tag rag squad of bootleggers masquerading as a team called India" which certainly the Indian team of 1979 who were described as such which lost the series 1-0 and almost chased 230 to win was not.