Opening for India

Jaime Alter's piece on India's sorry trend of making the most unlikely of batsmen open, kinda set me off. A couple of weeks ago, when the Indian team to Pakistan was to be announced, I wondered whether the possible exclusion of Gambhir from the squad was going to be another notch in the "drop them like a hot brick" attitude that seems to have plagued the Indian selectors. And using Cricinfo's Statsguru as a reference, I came up with this analysis.


I considered the career averages of the seven regular openers (including Sehwag) and the number of tests they played before being dropped for good (Wasim Jaffer has not technically made a comeback). The inference I hoped to make was that any struggling batsman was bound to succeed given a long run, something that openers in India haven't been having for a long time now. I certainly could make that reference, as you can see, with Sehwag having the best record. And then Multan '04 came to mind and then I realised that Sehwag's 55 plus average is also the result of a few huge scores, something that he has not had in sometime now (well I certainly hope that this 96 at Lahore is built up to something more substantial, since India needs it). Which is when I decided to take Sehwag out of the equation and look at the career progression of the rest of the six regular openers that India has had in the recent past. And what I came up with, was this.


So we see that every single opener had been the middle of a lean run when they were dropped like hot coal, as the drop in their averages shows. So is their dropping justified? Well, I still don't think so. And that is because I believe in the inference that I made when I started this analysis.

And if my inference was true, then what else would justify this trend? I suspect that that dreaded word - technique, might be used. Ramesh for one was said to possess a less than perfect technique. And recently Gambhir has been talked about in similar breath. But then Sehwag is the best proof to debunk the technique theories. So is it hand to eye co-ordination that's the clinching factor? That Sehwag has and IMHO Ramesh had more than a fair bit of that as well. So, is it that other quality that has been thrown about, i.e., attitude? Chopra seems to be a level headed guy (his writing demonstrates that) , so that may not be the only reason.

So, I am unable to pinpoint a reason for this trend. But wait, let us see. I can probably see one more reason. We have a long history of accommodating people just because we have to. Most of our cricketers do not have proper exit strategies chalked out. So we end up accommodating them on the team way past their expiry date, sometimes to enable them reach personal milestones and in others, just because we think we should let them take that decision when they feel like. And in some other cases, the reasons are more political.

Speaking of politics, I think Ganguly missed an important play in what seems to be his endgame, a play that could have earned him a few brownie points from everyone concerned. I feel that Ganguly could have backed himself on this pitch and put his name forward for the opening slot. Or maybe he did and Dravid did the unthinkable, i.e., refuse Ganguly's request. But regardless of what happened. I hope we DON'T lean about what transpired, at least not until the kingpins of the Indian top order call it a day. For, regardless of our posturing, intrigue and deceit are never an Indian's strong point. The truth (or something like that) always leaks out.

(Cross-posted on Different Strokes, Cricinfo's group blog that I contribute to. Please do visit me there too and read posts by more people and I think this post pales in comparison to any other post on Different Strokes.)

Indian cricket's Mexican stand-off

This is an old story, a story that started almost five years ago and will make some people see red, for it seems to paint a picture of colonialism perhaps. But I see more to it, a sorry story soaked in media callousness and irresponsibility. Half way through reading what I am about to say, I anticipate that you will ask me the standard "Why now?" question. Well, I guess I have more unsuspecting victims who can silently suffer my ranting, more than the one or two that used to read earlier. Also I believe strongly in what I have to say.

Anyways, fresh out of engineering college, I was then waiting everyday with sweaty palms, waiting for the Mahatma in maroon to bring in warm tidings about the various applications that I had put in. With nothing to do and having won at both the Knock-out and the Tournament modes in Need For Speed II (Special Edition), I found myself reading more about cricket than I had in the past. And that was when Australia landed in India for what is now considered a turning point in Indian cricket.

Soon, I started reading more and more about the Australian team's preparation. So much that I started expecting to see babes in bikinis and surfer dudes off the surf at Beasant Nagar. At one point of time, the sidebar in the cricket section of a major Indian website sported links to columns by at least three (then current) Aussie cricketers not to mention regular interviews and columns from former Aussie cricketers who, as expected turned on the heat against the Indians. Of course, that was to be expected, given that the Australians were then in the midst of a record run of victories (before flying out of Kolkata with their tails between their legs). In contrast, the Indian repartees (if you want to call them that) came from the likes of the current manager of the team who sought to raise the Aussie captain on a high pedestal that others had not put him on. But then Laxman (and Dravid) happened. Soon after that, Harbhajan decided to join in the fun. And the world turned on its head, in spite of the negativity thrown at the Indian team by its own media outlets (by the opposition in proxy).

Well, that was in 2001. So this is where you get to ask the one question that I have allowed you to ask. The answer is perhaps Indian media’s worst kept secret. Since the Indian media talks very little sports other than cricket, it is definitely fair to pin the blame on the whole media than just the cricket specific outlets only. You see, I don’t think any media outlet in India cares about the game. Otherwise why would they go and talk to a Pakistani about India’s chances. And why would they highlight a Aussie cricketer’s visit to a slum while simultaneously claim (quite illogically, I should add) that Indian cricketers don’t do something similar (or raise money for the Tsunami victims!)? So finally I come to the point of this rant.

From the time Australia landed in 2001, till this day, a couple of hours before Dravid and Inzy go out to toss at the Qaddafi Stadium, Indian media seems to get the most explosive of statements from every Sarfaraz, Javed and Khan. That’s not to say that the Singhs, the Lele’s and the More’s have been spared from an opportunity to insert a footwear less appendage into their mouths, though in his defense, I should say that Mr. Lele became a star performer in this category much earlier.

So, why am I riled what a lot of people (outside the media) term minor? Because I think it is not minor. If it was minor, then you would see the likes of Sidhu write columns in papers such as the Dawn and we would hear Kapil Dev speak about how strange it is that Shoaib Akhtar has had only one series when he has bowled more than 100 overs (a stat that I read somewhere). I think the Indian media is being disloyal and irresponsible by repeating comments by washed out ex-cricketers who are not Indian. And they seem to do more disservice by pushing the mics in front of our own men and forcing them to react to words that they rather ignore.

If I were to play Devil’s Advocate, I’d argue that one of the key qualities that international cricketers should possess would be the ability to get into a zone and push distractions like the media out of their mind once they step onto the turf. But my defense would go along these lines - Is it too much to ask of the media to get behind their own team and support them? Why should the media take perverse interest out of making a cricketer’s job any more difficult than it is? Why would a Mid Day or a Hindustan Times go to a Sarfaraz Nawaz for quotes every time India lands in Pakistan? Do we expect cricketers and officials from other countries to turn against their own just like we do?

Oh, I get it. It’s the money. Bold text sells newsprint, just like breasts sell Bollywood movies these days. All through these past few years, I see this same vicious cycle unfolding – the media opens up a Pandora Box by breaking news about something and carping about it like nobody’s business. Then the Indian public jumps on the cricketer concerned. The cricketer loses whatever sanity he must have had and goes on the defensive. Then the public slowly start losing interest. The next thing you know, the media turns all preachy and starts hoping that in the best interests of Indian cricket, the events of the preceding days could be avoided in the future. But wait! Didn’t the media fuel the flames with the inflammatory commentary? All that is conveniently forgotten. So at the end of it all, the poor cricketer (who, by then has started feeling that the worst indiscretion that he ever committed was to start playing cricket in the first place) is in the dumps. The public, by now has lost interest and the media has earned its few cents.

So has Indian cricket gained anything from all this? From where I am looking, it doesn’t seem so. It just seems like every time Indian cricket is on the verge of something big, we find that the media, cricketers and the public participating in their own version of the Mexican standoff. And in few of these occasions, one of the nervous parties pulls the trigger and then we have mayhem. So who is to blame? All three, I would say. But the party who has the best chance of defusing the situation and guarding against history repeating itself would be the media. But does the media realize this? More importantly, does the media want to do something to change this status quo? Sadly its seems that this will continue forever and that, my friends is a shame. Because for all that we Indians talk about patriotism, we seem to forget that while cheering for the opposition is defined as sportsmanship, dissing the home team is not exactly in sync with the concept of patriotism in a country that wants you to respect your national colors so much that till recently, you were forbidden by law to fly your own flag without “official permission”.

Yum Yum - a Murder by Music (A four act celluloid experiment)

Act I

Time: The afternoon of 18th of December, 2005
Location: An apartment in Jersey City
Key Protagonist: The hero
Background prop: Abhishek Bachchan grooving in that wannabe "Right here, Right now" video in some random desi cable channel playing on the 30" Sony Vega
Scene: The hero watches the video with interest, and suddenly notices the gorgeous Pri'nka Chops and the funky rhythm from those hip hop fakers, Vishal and Shekhar.

*Cut*

Act II

Time: The next two weeks
(*1st note to cameraman: Do rapid cuts to show passage of time. This unit cannot afford an editor*)
Location: Everywhere - in a car, in the office, in the living room, in the kitchen, in the bedroom and in the shower
(* 2nd note to cameraman: Please focus on upper torso face only. This is a family picture and will not be available in MMS video format*)

Scene: The hero is listening to both versions of the "Right here Right now" number everyday on car stereo, lap top and on his desktop. One particular instance the song is played 6 times in a row before the hero figures out that that in the groovy hip hop version, Abi Jr. throws "heys" at "playah" Ritesh D, Big Pop (Big B???) Pri'nka Chops and Chuckmaster Sippy too. The hero is afflicted with a bad attack of ear worms in the process.

(*1st note to sound guy: Add jarring background noise at this point*)
(*2nd note to cameraman: Alternate the camera between focus and out of focus modes*)

*Cut*

Act III

Time: Late morning on the 3rd of January 2006
Location: The comments section of a well known blog
Scene: Still affected by the earworm, the hero leaves a Season's Greeting in response to the aforementioned blogger's New Year post.

Seasons Greetings....
*windy windy one time*
Have a wonderful year ahead!!
*windy windy two times*

*Cut*

Act IV
Time: Late night on the 4th of January 2006
Location: The comments section of the same blog

Scene 1: The blogger replies to the comment from our hero enquiring if his was a PJ and if so, could he please explain.

*Cut*

Scene 2: Hero replies thus:
[*Insert random blogger here, preferably played by someone capable of being the high priestess of templates and the kookiest character in the known blogosphere and beyond*]:

Right here right now,
hai kushi ka sama;
(Windy windy one time)
Right here right now,
ho gayi swarg jahaan,
(Windy windy two times)

*Cut*

Scene 3: Above mentioned blogger while "holding tummy and laughing away to glory" corrects our hero thus,

Right here right now
Hai khushi ka samaa
(Wind your body one time ..)
Right here right now
Hum hai is pal jahaan
(Wind your body two time ..)
Bhool jaao, muskuraao
Reh na jaaye baat baaki

*Cut*

Scene 4: Flashback to three years previously..... Hero sitting in front of a desktop (in his erstwhile role as a researcher in the intense field of production planning) doing his best imitation of Alka Yagnik (??) in a crowded research lab.

Mujhse mohabat ka ikrar karta,
kash koi ladka mujhe pyaar karta...
kash koi ladka mujhe pyaar karta;

(*Insert canned laughter as screen fades*)

(*Insert handwritten note that reads "The beginning....")

*Shoot Wrap*

[Disclaimer: Names, characters, places, and incidents featured in/on this post are either the product of the blogger's imagination (well somewhat) or used fictitiously (somewhat again). Any resemblence to actual persons (living or dead), events, institutions, or locales, without satiric intent, is coincidental (God promise!).]

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Speechless in Singleville

Jane Austen once wrote (and I have recycled this number of times) that It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife (or something to this effect). I don't know if any of her descendents married into desi families, but one of them just might have, because most middle aged women with sons of marriageable age seem to share this sentiment to the last "T". Particularly those Random Conservative Desi Moms (henceforth referred to, as RCDMs) who seem to inhabit the by lanes of Tam land down in the south of India.

The moment their offspring come in possession of a paycheck or two (the aforementioned fortune), their maternal instincts kick in and they plug their antennae into the neighborhood grapevine to look for a Ms. Right for the poor guy. Of course this being the digital age, the Sanskrit phrase Vasudaiva Kutumbakam seems particularly relevant and so this so-called neighborhood extends over the whole of the known world and beyond. By the time the poor guy gets first hand knowledge about the whole thing, there have already been a couple of enquiries in his name in his firm's HR department. [1]

All this while, the guy who is in the dark regarding concerted efforts to get his "legs tied" (Tam translation being Kaal-kattu which is the colloquial Tam term for marriage), finds it strange that the whole of his city has been in involved in activities that involve the term "holy matrimony" in one way or the other. And he finds it strange that his mom seems to have met every friend of his who he hasn't seen or talked to in a long time. What's more, each of these friends seem to be on personal endeavors to rid themselves of their single status, or which is what they seem to talk to the mom about.

It is a well known fact that most RCDMs would be automatic shoo-ins for Republican party membership, with a large percentage of them being "anti pro-choice" advocates. Before you get me wrong, I mean they'd like their sons leave the choice of life partners to them, the moms and the dads. So it is not un-common to see them give their sons the standard talk on the virtues of arranged marriage. I got one myself the other day too and I was totally amused. It's also funny that none of them would participate in any discussion about the "birds and bees" with their sons. The daughters seem to be well educated in these aspects, which is natural, I guess, but the boys get their education from the darkened movie halls in the bylanes where the movies played don't match the posters pasted on the gates of the halls. Personally, an amusing incident was when, on the brink of my departure to the US, a grand-uncle of mine sent me off with the words - Thaniya pora. Thaniya thirumbi va (You are leaving alone. So you come back alone). Sadly, it looks like his words might be prophetic. Anyways I am digressing.

Then there are the soothsayers. To any Random Son of a Random Conservative Desi Mom (henceforth referred as RSRCDM), the talk of the stars and the signs coming from the mouth of his mom are as unclear as the Linda Goodman's words that he had once memorized to impress (rather unsuccessfully, I should add) a few gals. And the really close amatuer star gazers (they do this for fun, it seems, which totally leaves them devoid of any accountability and so you can't catch their collars for predicting that the future wife of the RSRCDM in question would be the heiress of the Hilton fortune), pitch in with a few bits of free advice and a few warnings too, resulting in awkward conversations like the one that I'll detail now.

*RSRCDM is in the middle of a game of 8 ball with a few buddies. Sean Paul and Beyonce are crooning in the background as a few glasses of chilled coke (your mental image is brought you by Pixar and has been touched up by Industrial Light and Magic to remove the ubiquitous smoke and the 500ml bottle of Kingfisher from the frame) sit on a side table. As RSRCDM mentally exclaims "Quarter Ball, matter solved" and contemplates rolling the cue ball off the side wall to angle the 3 ball into the side pocket, his cell phone rings. RSRCDM abandons the shot and picks up the cell phone to find that it is RCDM.

RSRCDM: hello ma.
RCDM: Hey da. What are you doing?
RSRCDM: Playing pool with my friends, ma.
RCDM: Pool? What is that?
RSRCDM: oh, it is like billiards.
RCDM: Oh, so. Why are you playing, this late at night?

*RSRCDM decides that he has a long night ahead of him and hurriedly changes the conversation as he finds 3 other pairs of eyes boring into his face while his friends wait for him to play his shot.

RSRCDM: What are you doing ma?
RCDM: Nothing da. I just thought I will call you.
RSRCDM: Oh, ok.
RCDM: How are you? How was work this week?
RSRCDM: Work was fine ma. I am thankful that it is the long weekend.
RCDM: Oh ok. So what are you doing this weekend?
RSRCDM: I am going to look around for a car ma. I am spending a lot on rental cars. I am buying a used car.
RCDM: Good. What are you going to buy?

*RSRCDM gives RCDM a quick low down on the used car buying methodology. Seeing daggers in eyes of his buddies, he keeps the descriptions really short and tells her that he will be online in half hour once he gets back home. As soon as the game ends, RSRCDM heads back home and as expected his phone rings almost immediately after he walks in. And it is RCDM.

RCDM: Hello. Are you coming online?
RSRCDM: I don't know ma. ItÂ?s already too late. I think I want to go and sleep.
RCDM: oh ok. I wonÂ?t keep you long. I just spoke to this astrologer last month and he had some advice for you.

*Instantly RSRCDM's senses are all heightened and a light goes on inside his head.

RSRCDM: What did he say?
RCDM: Nothing da. I went to him because things seemed to be difficult for you career wise.
RSRCDM: Ohhhhh kkkk?
RCDM: He told me some things that have come true in the past two weeks or so. Now your career prospects are better right?
RSRCDM: Yeah?
RCDM: So then, he told me to pass on some advice to you.
RSRCDM: ok?
RCDM: You are a hardworking boy. And you are earning well.
RSRCDM: So?
RCDM: No. That means you are an eligible bachelor.

*RSRCDM now knows where this is going

RSRCDM: Ma, itÂ?s barely weeks since I started working, so stop!
RCDM: No. No. Just listen. He told me that boys like you are an attractive choice for Indian families in the US looking for a match for a daughter or two.

*RSRCDM decides that this is a conversation that is moving into unknown territory.

RSRCDM: WHAT?
RCDM: No, No.. The man told me that these families might want you to be their son-in-law and try to TRAP you into marrying their daughters.

*When RSRCDM's friends wake up the next morning, they find him on the couch, sitting still, open jawed in shock. Last known, RSRCDM is still trying to recover from the shock of this new angle that seems to have stumped him, mute and defenseless.

So, it turns out that these days, every single desi guy needs to be wary about Entrapment. While the mention of the word conjures up images of Catherine Zeta Jones, a single look in the mirror reminds every RSRCDM that he is no Sean Connery and hence he resigns himself to the inevitable with a sigh and gets back to his life.

*Sigh*

All characters and incidents featured in/on this post are the product of this blogger's imagination, well almost. Any resemblence to actual persons (living or dead) or events, is purely coincidental (well almost, again).

1. In fact there have been so many similar enquiries in IT firms that a few firms seem to have norms in place, governing responses to such enquiries.