A Common Fan’s Sports Diary

I have always thought very highly of Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi’s feat of playing cricket at the highest level with just one good eye. It remains for me one of the best examples of a human being refusing to bow down to the dictates of fate and overcoming the curse of deformity with unflinching perseverance, dogged determination and sheer indomitable spirit.

And now Vijay Patel is ready to join Tiger Pataudi. For this one –handed guy has prevailed over all odds to play the game of basketball so well, that he’s been called for the selection trials to the Los Angeles Lakers.

If you don’t think that’s good enough just try it out for yourself. You will be soon tearing your hair out with both hands.

Will another Indian ever make the same mark in county cricket?

In his book, “Sometime I Forgot To Laugh”, Peter Roebuck provides some insight into a perplexing quandary that has long lingered in my mind- why haven’t Indian players done well in county cricket? The definition of well here is to have an outstanding season, good enough to be at the top of the average

s and strongly influence the fortunes of your county – something which a lot of South Africans, Australians , West Indians, Pakistanis and Kiwis have managed to do.

Except for Anil Kumble’s 100 plus wicket season, there isn’t a single performance which can fall into the ‘outstanding’ category. Rahul Dravid, Mohd Azharuddin, Javagal Srinath and Virender Sehwag are others who have had good seasons but not really great ones. I can’t remember an Indian county pro leading his team to multiple titles or anything. Think of the countries mentioned above and many players come to mind for gaining legendary status thanks to their stellar contribution.

Most Indians would actually fall into the category of flops - And not that the great ones haven’t played in county cricket. The likes of Sunil Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Kapil Dev, Yuvraj Singh and Manoj Prabhakar have all had fairly mediocre seasons.

This fact becomes even more difficult to digest when you consider that county lore is replete with legendary tales of non-international overseas players – players who have made no impact on the international scene but set the county scene ablaze. Then how come Indian players with glittering international records have failed to do the same.

A point could be made about familiarity and comfort with the conditions – Indians being more at home on slow dry tracks as compared to players from the other nations. But there are two arguments against this theory. One, is the success Indian sides have had on tours of England. Many batsmen and bowlers have distinguished themselves on these occasions but the same guys have then flopped when donning the county cap – case in point being Sourav Ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar. Second, is the phenomenal success enjoyed by our cousins from Pakistan –players who have a similar preference for sub-continental conditions as do our players. You could argue that Pakistan has had a far more impressive array of fast-bowlers and these guys have been hugely successful in the pace and seam friendly environs of England. But how do you explain the superior performance of Pakistani batsmen?

Another county legend from Pakistan

It was in this confounding situation that Roebuck came to the rescue. At Somerset, he played with some of the finest international cricketers – Garner, Viv Richards, Sunil Gavaskar and Martin Crowe - and therefore is somewhat qualified to offer expert advice on the matter. He says of Gavaskar that the routine of County life was deadening for a man so reliant on his spirit. He goes to the extent of generalizing the theory by stating that Indians generally don’t enjoy the dull and drab life of a county professional. Sounds promising.

Let’s try and extend the hypothesis. Indian players are mostly used to being treated as superstars and playing in jam-packed stadiums – one-dayers and test matches alike. They hardly play in their own domestic tournaments - doesn’t excite them. Also ex-cricketers have enough opportunities to make a decent living. In this regard, they are surely different than their Pakistani counterparts. There have been many Pakistani cricketers who have built a post-cricket life in England. So obviously there are fewer opportunities for cricketers in Pakistan and they have to develop a mercenary mentality so important to succeed as a professional in county cricket.

In a nutshell, the Indian cricketer has little motivation to grind it out in the county circuit - he is used to a more exciting cricketing existence and doesn’t care for the monetary incentives either.

But is that all or is there more to explain the county misadventures of Indian cricketers. What do you think?

After the 2-0 series defeat against India, Mathew Hayden had blamed the poor ground conditions and inordinate delays during the matches for his country’s poor performance calling these reasons as stuff ‘that happen in Third World countries’.

Now the Aussies are at home against South Africa. So ground conditions and delays should no longer be an issue. But Mathew Hayden continues to stink and the Aussies had their butts kicked big time by the Proteas – the so-called chickens showed more character and a greater stomach for a fight.

Obviously there is something else afflicting the mighty Aussies – something which is directly or indirectly related to ‘Third World Countries’ (to be called TWC from now on). Let’s investigate

Thinking of new reasons?

One factor could be the cricket fans from TWC who are watching the series on TV. They are probably moving too much in front of the TV or staring at the screen too hard when the Aussies are batting, affecting their concentration.

Or is it because there is too much talk of a Cricket League that happens to be organized in the TWC? Almost all the players from these two developed countries are panting for an opportunity to participate in this league, delays and poor ground conditions notwithstanding.

The presence of Hashim Amla (whose forefathers came from what is now the TWC) could be another discomforting reason. If the bearded South-African can cause someone watching from the television box (Dean Jones) to lose his mind, then imagine what standing next to him could do to the Aussies.

There is also the possibility that all the cricketing gear (made in sweatshops in the TWC) is becoming too uncomfortable for Hayden and his team-mates. They should try playing without them for a change to see if that is a factor or not.

And finally, we cannot ignore the fact that there are 3 match officials from the TWC – both umpires (Aleem Dar and Ashoka de Silva) and the match-referee (Ranjan Madugalle). Does that confuse Hayden to believe that he is still playing in the TWC and not at home in Australia?

For all our conjecturing, we might be nowhere close to the real reasons or at least the ones that Mathew Hayden will come up with once the series gets over. As we have already seen once, he can come up with ones that no one else can think of.

Shane Warne finally has something positive to show for his colourful life – a musical based on his adventure-packed life. The musical has been well received and even the portly spinner has managed a few laughs at his own expense – he’s always been a good sport. The film-making aspects have got a lot of favourable reviews but it’s undeniable that a lot of the success of the musical has to be attributed to the story itself.

That also raises the interesting prospect – that cricket has some more musicals to offer. After all, there is no shortage of lively characters with interesting tales. So let’s look at some other storylines which could definitely set the box-office on fire.

First a disclaimer - These musicals may or may, in full or in parts, have a striking resemblance to characters dead or alive. Such similarities are purely coincidental.

Vinod Kambli – Till the interval, we see a classic ‘rags –to- riches’ story, with a ‘Yeh Dosti’ song thrown in with Sachin Tendulkar. Then fame gets to his head, he starts wearing too much jewellery and ends up losing his wife and his job. He then starts a second innings in the movies, unsuccessfully trying his hand at singing and acting. This will give us enough scope, though, to add lots of songs and dances in the musical. Then when all seems lost, our hero emerges with a super hot wife in tow and then sets another record. He slaps every person who whistles or comments on his wife and ends up scoring 10,000 in double quick time. There is a final scene where Kambli and Sachin come together and cut a cake in the shape of ‘10,000’ together. I can think of three names for this one – 1) Meri Biwi Ka Jawab Nahin 2) Desi Babu English Mem and 3) Bandar Ke Sir Par Chameli Ka Tel. And there are no casting issues with the failed actor and model wife totally available to play themselves on screen.

Beauty and the bum

Imran Khan – This tale of a cricket playing Casanova is actually the most obvious one to make – sadly Shakespeare and Neville Cardus are not around to jointly script it. It will have to be made in English as ‘Romeo goes to Lords’ and in Hindi/Urdu as ‘Sabse Bada Khiladi’, pun intended. The producer will need to get all the participants from the Miss World contest to complete the casting. There will be one song and dance sequence with Imran playing cricket with 21 other women, 2 lady umpires, an all women ground staff and 20,000 women watching. The musical could be released on Women’s Day – after all it is about one man’s life- long passion for loving women. This musical would have helped Imran with the lady voters, but I don’t think the Taliban will allow its screening in Pakistan.

Mohd Azharuddin – A little creative liberty will make this script a sure shot winner. Azhar has a happily married life and Sangeeta is going steady with Salman. Then Azhar gets banned for match-fixing –and some local rowdy tattoos ‘Mera Baap Chor Hai ‘on his son’s wrist. Unable to take the humiliation his wife leaves him and Azhar loses his clarity of speech – it becomes worse than his post match interviews. There will be scenes where he vents his anger by exercising too much. On the other side, Sangeeta gets fed up of Salman’s semi-nakedness and fascination for hunting and leaves him. Then two tortured souls met and hook up. Sangeeta is bowled over by Azhar’s love for fine shirts. With time love heals everything.

I love the fabric of the shirt

Shahid Afridi and Hasan Raza – This one is a parody on how someone passed a fatwa against celebration of birthdays in Pakistan and therefore people stopped aging – on paper at least. How Afridi and Raza had to remain 16 –year olds for a long time. We could call it –‘Abhi To Main Jawan Hoon’. The song and dance will be in a school setting (obviously) with Afridi and Raza in school uniform, with water bottles around their necks dancing away with hot teachers. The closing scene will show the characters lying on their death bed still doing their school home-work

Love on the cricket field

Harbhajan and Sreesanth – A multilingual based on the love –hate relationship between two nut-cases. First there will be great friendship – the two will be shown sledging away in tandem. Love will blossom when they are serving a suspension together. Then too much cricket will take its toll and cracks will appear in their relationship, leading to a slapping, crying and makeover episode. The final scene will be from the ‘Ek Haseena EK Khiladi’ program with the two battling it out for first place. But in the end there will be no winners, only two lovers. It will be a coming out of the closet musical called ‘Cricketana’. (Remember Dostana)

The Boycott family out for a game

Geoffrey Boycott – Remember Colin Cowdrey being recalled as a 43 year old to play against the West Indies. This one will feature a 90 year old Mrs Boycott being recalled to play for England after her grandson has been sent home for batting too slowly. We will also have a flash back scene where a younger Miss Boycott will be shown playing against Bradman in the Bodyline series. This time however, Jardine will use her (as cricket’s equivalent of Mata Hari) and not Larwood to keep the great Don in check. This one should surely shut up Geoff Boycott for good.

Cricket's femme fatale

Just before the India- Australia series began, an English friend of mine commented that it would be great if the Indians could beat the Aussies. “It would damage their psyche and their confidence would be low, when we meet them in the Ashes”, he argued. He got his wish when India thumped the Australians 2-0.

But he forgot to account for the India-England series which was to follow. He feared the worst as India raced to a 5-0 lead in the one-dayers and was thankful that the series was called off prematurely. A 7-0 whitewash wouldn’t have helped the English confidence, obviously.

And then he was over the moon as England established a stranglehold over the first test. Beating the side that had just overpowered the old enemy was the best confidence boost ahead of the Ashes. But just before he could raise a toast, Sehwag and co changed everything. The Chennai test will continue to haunt the English side for a long time to come – up to the time of the Ashes series, at least. And I wouldn’t be surprised if the third-world country haters (Australia) have suddenly started liking one

India is suddenly the biggest factor in the Ashes battle – they just keep changing the balance of the series from one side to the other.

Watching the Ashes will be very different this time – like a winner watching the losers battling for a consolation prize. There will be no awe-inspiring moments, nothing to get too impressed by – how can you when you so recently kicked the same guy’s butt big time.

The two losers are more deserving of the pot on the right

How good are the hallowed Ashes with two losers battling it out? England and Australia might as well play for something else, lest they de-value the importance of something so prized – they could fight for an Indian earthen pot with filled with some sub-continental dust perhaps.

And while they are at it, they better hand over the Ashes urn to its rightful winners

Pakistani bowler Zaid Mir bowled 10 consecutive no-balls, conceding 31 runs, without bowling a single legal delivery in a domestic Twenty-20 game. He ended up with the most amazing bowling figures of 0-0-31-0. That is surely one performance he won’t be telling his grandchildren anything about

This bowler (if we can call him one) had to be finally taken off; the official word being that he was suffering from a leg strain.

I wonder what took his captain so long.

This incident (or shall we say accident) reminds me of a horror story from football

Remember when Martin Palermo of Argentina missed three penalty kicks in the same game

If not, then this will surely make you want to pull your hair out

Dear Mr. Vengsarkar,

What is the plan?

When are you planning to give Sourav Ganguly ‘more than he asked for’? You were originally planning to do so after the India-Australia series got over, so that there was no undue discord in the team. Thank you so much for that. Because of your noble act, we managed to avoid the discord and win the series. But the series got over on the 10th of November. Today is the 28th. By now, Sourav Ganguly would have got his provident fund and gratuity money also from the board. But he is yet to get what you were supposed to give.

What is keeping you so long? After all you made the announcement on the 10th of October and it’s been almost 50 days since. Are you working on a literary masterpiece for him? The likes of Gulu Ezekiel would have completed two different versions of Sourav Ganguly’s autobiography by now. We don’t need your elaborate prose. Just give us a simple explanation. You can do that in Marathi in case you have suddenly forgotten all your English and your Hindi.

Dada has every right to give Vengsarkar a taste of his bat

I am not too surprised that Mr. Manohar and Mr. Pawar have conveniently forgotten to remind you. I had anticipated that. And I wasn’t expecting anything from our lousy media.

I am wondering what has happened to the others – the pundits – the likes of Sunny Gavaskar, Ravi Shastri, Harsha Bhogle and Ayaz Memon – the so-called expert voices. Have they all suddenly got a sore throat? Are they really fair and unbiased?

Forget about giving us a good explanation. I don’t think you have even a bad one.

I think it’s pointless to wait any more - because you never had a case in the first place. You were simply out on a slandering mission, taking a chance on Dada failing in the Australia series.

I hope this cowardly act becomes your lasting legacy and people keep asking you for an explanation for the rest of your life.

Actually, it would be better if your name could be added as a phrase to the English lexicon and be associated  with doing such an act. So whenever, someone makes a false and baseless accusation against an individual, it should be called doing a Vengsarkar.

Wish you the very best for your future career as a card carrying star campaigner of the Maharashtra Navnirman Seva

This one really has me stumped. We have seen the media in England and Australia wage psychological battles against the visiting cricket teams including ones from India. The Indian media on the other hand pays foreign cricketers to write guest columns – ones which criticize our cricket and berate our players. And sometimes it helps these foreign players promote their books as well. I can understand the rationale of guest articles written by knowledgeable former players but cannot fathom the reason for ones written by the current ones.

Is there such an acute shortage of sports content in this country that we have to rely on these visiting players?

Or, are these newspapers still suffering from the ‘white man’ complex – letting these white cricketers preach us on the game?

As for getting the opposition’s side of the story, we don’t need that. That is all we get when we travel abroad. Is there no cricket patriotism amongst the newspaper people?

And if this wasn’t painful enough, now we have guest columns from our great sports administrators as well. Mr Suresh Kalmadi waxed eloquent on how the Delhi half – marathon was the perfect build-up for the Commonwealth Games. On one hand the media conveniently forgot to report the trouble the 2010 games are facing and on the other hand they give the culprits an opportunity for self –praise.

Don't be surprised if an Indian newspaper publishes a guest column by this guy soon

I wonder what could better this – a guest column from Osama Bin Laden perhaps

Dear Ricky,

As an Indian cricket fan, it gives me tremendous pleasure in writing to you now. I was pleased when you got berated in the home series by your own fans but at least you had the full-fledged support of Cricket Australia then. Now that the public is baying for your blood for being over –defensive and trying to save yourself a suspension at cost of the match and the series and your cricket board seems to have joined them with Cricket Australia CEO James Sutherland asking you for an explanation, I am over the moon. Wonder how you are going to handle this now.

I am surprised that you and your team called the Indians defensive for their approach on Day 3 of the final test match. Didn’t you recognize the same stifling tactics that Australian sides have so successfully used ever since they got a bowler called Glenn McGrath? It started on the historic tour of the West Indies in 1994-95. Now you can’t take it just because you are on the receiving end. I guess that attitude is part of your DNA. You have to define the boundaries of sledging. You have a right to decide what kind of match-fixing is OK and what kind is not. And the same goes for your so-called gamesmanship. You guys pride yourself on playing cricket the hard way, right. So what is all the fuss about now? Guess sometimes it gets too hard for you.

We are looking forward to the 2008 edition

You guys (the likes of Adam Gilchrist ) have perfected the art of selling books. You always come up with some controversial nonsense to get the public intrigued. You seem to have done the same with your last memoirs. I was wondering what your next memoirs would be called- Now that you have added another feather in your captaincy cap. You became the first Aussies captain to lose the Ashes in 20 years and now you have become the first guy to lose a series by a two test margin in 25 years. That is quite a legacy you have there. You could call your next memoirs – A rare Australian captain – that would be fitting, considering your record and your popularity. Or you could call it – Losers and Cry-babies too

All the best for the upcoming Ashes. Last time you kept complaining about the substitute fielders. This time you have will have to lock horns with a real bully in Kevin Pietersen. I cant wait for the series to get started. It’s not everyday that you see ‘A rare Australian captain’ in action.

Siddhartha Vaidyanathan has spoken beautifully for me and many others – twenty somethings who have spent their entire adolescent and adult lives watching the Fab Five in action.

How different will cricket be for me; without this extraordinary bunch?

Will it wane my interest in the game?

I think hard and another exodus comes to mind

I was a tennisaholic in the glory days of Becker, Edberg, Courier, Sampras, Agassi and Ivanisevic

Now I only watch when Federer plays Nadal

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