The Winds of Change

Cricket has forever been a colonial sport. For all the vagaries and intricacies of the game, it has not been able to register a beep outside the erstwhile British Empire. While the game and its fans have gone through some changes over the years, they remain largely the same. It is still prone to the possibility of neither side coming out on top and the fans, especially those of the longer version, are purists who wouldn't mind sitting through 5 days of mind-numbingly slow cricket before looking at the silver lining in a draw/tie.

Every ambitious entrepreneur looks to expand his business to new horizons. Every explorer looks to go where no man has gone before, from Columbus to Amundsen to even the fictional James T Kirk. Sadly, the torchbearers of cricket have not always shown the same zeal in taking the sport outside the Empire.

Cricket's encounter with the One-Day Internationals was just as accidental as Columbus's discovery of America. One has to thank the rain Gods for providing us the first Limited-Overs International during the rain-affected MCG test in 1971. The ODIs have gone through a whole lot of changes thereafter, with the emphasis being on entertainment for the masses. But increased workloads, a general sense of instant pleasure and competition from other sports have meant the ICC has to come up with a more "entertaining" brand of cricket. What's more, the ICC has finally awakened to the idea of making cricket a global sport. Better late than never,eh?

Twenty20 is the first real endeavour by the ICC to take cricket outside the Empire. There have been feeble attempts like the Sixes competition and Max Cricket in the past, but they were confined to the nations which introduced them. The early signs are encouraging enough. Twenty20 is already a rave in England and South Africa, and it was the most popular cricketing event in the Caribbean thanks to Allen Stanford, an enterprising and cricket-crazy businessman from America.

The basics of line and length and technically correct batting still apply, but the game moves at such a fast pace that the straight drive with the high elbow turns into a flamboyant lofted drive over the bowler's head. The cuts are more ferocious, the sweeps more cross-batted and the hooks become pulls. Twenty20 is a brand of cricket to which a fan can relate to, as we see international players play like most of us did in school or college.

It is also a more convenient form of cricket to watch. The game starts at 6 in the evening and lasts about 3 hours. It's ideal for a family to spend some quality time together, there is some popular music in the audio system, the parents can unwind after a hard day's work and the kids can watch and play some unadulterated cricket. There's something in it for those who're not at the stadium too, with player interviews from the dugout and real-time conversation with the on-field players. Channel 9 did something really interesting during the recent Twenty20 game between Australia and England. They actually got Adam Gilchrist to give ball-by-ball commentary for an entire over. It was truly amazing and if that were an interview with Channel 9, it's safe to say Gilchrist came through with flying colours.

While there is a lot of skepticism among the players, it is definitely more appealing to the casual viewer who only seeks entertainment from the game. While it is a wonderful effort to woo a target audience comprising people of all age groups, it also presents the opportunity to market the game in places like mainland Europe and America where the psyche of people is more result-oriented. The one complaint they have about cricket is how can two teams play for 5 days and still not produce a result? You can see where they're coming from, as they have grown up on penalty shootouts, overtime and extra innings.They would no doubt find the idea of a bowl-off in Twenty20 quite thrilling, although the Poms would be very jittery considering their record in Penalties.

There was a lot of opposition from all quarters when One-Day Internationals came into existence. The purists thought it didn't really test the qualities cricket was supposed to. Perhaps they were resistant to change, but One-Day Cricket was there to stay. But the "visionaries" who championed the cause of the shorter version of cricket are now skeptical of Twenty20 for the exact same reasons and it once again highlights our tendency to resist change. 36 years after the first Limited-Overs International, Twenty20 is threatening to replace 50-over matches as the most popular brand of cricket. Let it be known that both forms are children of the same glorious family that is cricket, and we need to embrace both for their different qualities. Twenty20 is here to stay...

One Step Forward and Two Steps Back

The Indian team concluded a testing tour of South Africa and their performance over the past 18 months have resulted in the side coming full circle since Greg Chappell took over.

Greg Chappell had a vision for the Indian team, and he seemed well on-course to make it a reality until last May. Sourav Ganguly had been condemned to first class cricket, Laxman and Kumble were considered test specialists, and the One-Day side had a youthful if not professional look to it. Irfan Pathan and Mahendra Singh Dhoni were the new pin-up boys of Indian cricket and Yuvraj Singh's exploits in the shorter version were Bevanesque.

But all this changed with one slower ball from Dwayne Bravo. Instead of registering a nail-biting 1-wicket win and a 2-0 lead over the West Indies, India crashed to a heart-breaking 1-run loss with Bravo bowling Yuvraj out with a slower ball after the latter had sent the ball screaming to the fence off the last two deliveries.

The rest, as they say is History. India lost the One-Day series 4-1 with Pathan & Dhoni being rendered ineffective (the former has still not recovered thereafter). That was followed by an historical yet unconvincing 1-0 test series victory over one of the weakest West Indian side in ages.

India have worn the tag of "chokers" for the past few years for their insipid performances in the finals of One-Day tournaments. In the next few months Rahul Dravid & co. set about eradicating that reputation by making sure they didn't reach the finals altogether. They had two do-or-die matches against World Champions Australia and lost both. They were in with a shout in the first one but Dinesh Mongia chose to put more faith in numbers 9,10 and 11 than in himself, and India remained winless when chasing in matches against Australia since 1998. The second defeat was even more debilitating as it came at home & in the Champions Trophy, a tournament in which India had knocked out the World Champions twice.

By now, the warning bells were ringing loud and clear with calls to bring back those who had for years served Indian cricket with distinction. A change in the selection panel saw a slight change in personnel, with Kumble getting the nod for the One-Day series in South Africa. The young brigade comprising the likes of Kaif, Raina, Mongia and Pathan were already under the cosh for their poor form over the past few months, and this tour was a baptism by fire for them, with the South African bowlers testing their technique and temperament with searing pace or subtle movement. Dhoni was the only one to give a good account of himself, the rest were promptly sent back & it was time to call on Laxman and Ganguly. Both played a couple of crucial knocks in the context & look set to make a comeback to the One-Day side.

The juggernaut that began with the sacking of Ganguly looks to have come to a halt and the Indian side bears a very similar look to the side that reached the finals of the 2003 World Cup against all odds. Expect the Indian version of Dad's Army to be the nucleus of the World Cup side. Only time will tell whether they will be as successful as their Australian counterparts.

Must the show really go on?

So the Indian team is in Sri Lanka for the third year in a row, and the fourth time in five years. I don't know about others but I hate to see India play there. The pitches are too sluggish, the bands in the aisles seem to be one of those cheap bands that play at weddings here and the women are just too ugly.

But the team had a case to cancel the tour this time round. With terrorism running rampant in today's world, the blast near the team hotel reminded us that the War on Terror isn't just one between the Western World and the Islamic Nations.

The South Africans first decided to go home to the muggings and rapes in their own country, then they were persuaded to stay back, and finally they decided it was better to go home rather than risk an embarassing performance in the Emerald Island.

The Indians, by contrast decided to stay back with the proverbial "The Show Must Go On" stance on the issue. It's anybody's guess as to whether it was the players who wanted to stay back or whether the BCCI forced them to. If indeed the former wanted to do what they did best, it would have been best to have a 5-match series, especially since rains have been the winners for four days in a row. A 3-match series with rain playing havoc virtually assures us of not getting 3 full games, and with the kind of weather conditions in Colombo there is every chance that one or more matches won't yield a result.

This brings us to the question: Why is the BCCI so apathetic toward its players? What was the need for India to stay back when South Africa went home? There was a blast just 3 Km from the team hotel and at a place which is a popular haunt for foreign players when they're in Colombo. How can any amount of reassurance satisfy the players? One goes by what one sees more than what one hears and there has to be some sort of apprehension in the Indian camp. Also, with the kind of security provided after the blasts and incessant rains, the players would be starting to feel a bit edgy as cricket has taken a backseat.

We seem to take pride in saying we're immune to these kind of incidents as they're more commonplace in our country, but South Africa is just as unsafe due to a whole different set of reasons. Do we want to think it's okay to pretend that life is normal in the aftermath of such attacks? I'm not ready to believe the BCCI ensured a series took place to send a message to the terrorists that they can't disrupt normal life through their antics. Do we really want to see half of our team massacred by terrorists just because the Board is too hung up on making money?? We just believe terrorists will not target the players but it's common knowledge that the likes of Tendulkar and Ganguly have received death threats in the past.While the events of the Munich Olympics are a distant memory, they're still a strong reminder of terrorists not dithering from targetting people from any walk of life.

Sport and and the Indian Sportsperson

The entire world was in the grips of Football Fever for the past month, with the cricket-crazy junta of India re-igniting its quadrennial affair with the game. While everyone was caught up in the enthralling performances of the usual suspects there was a team which ought to make us wonder what is wrong with India as a sporting nation.

The small African nation of Angola gained independence in 1975 and was still embroiled in a civil war when Ronaldo sported the most ridiculous hairdo ever at the 2002 finals. Through all these years the people of Angola somehow managed to learn to play the game well enough to qualify for the finals in 2006, and they didn't do too badly in the finals either. They held their former occupants Portugal to just one goal in their first ever game on the big stage, managed to hold group favourites Mexico goalless for 90 minutes and scored their first ever goal at the World Cup Finals in a 1-1 draw with relative veterans Iran.

This feat forced me to pose a very serious question about our people:
Are we genetically bad sportspersons?

I'm very sure the resources at the disposal of the AIFF are far greater than those available to its Angolan counterpart. And yet, we fail to even make it past the first round of qualifying in the Asian zone.

We embrace the mediocrity of Sania Mirza when she gets pummeled by glamour girl Maria Sharapova in just the 4th Round of a major event saying she's just 18. Someone forgot to tell these people that the shelf-life of women tennis players is very short, and the likes of Seles, Hingis, the Williamses and Sharapova had already scaled dizzy heights by that age.

Sure a Round of 16 performance at a Grand Slam in your first year on the tour is commendable, but Sania was supposed to build on it. Instead, she hadn't won consecutive matches at a tournament until a Tier 3 event just before Wimbledon. I've seen more consecutive commercials of her on TV.

Members of the Indian Hockey Team have always complained of the lack of facilities and money provided to them. They finally got a huge sponsorship from Sahara in 2002 and have since then reached lows never before imagined, the culmination of which saw India being relegated from the elite Champions Trophy last year by finishing last in their backyard. The scene of crime was Chennai and the last rites were performed by our kind neighbours Pakistan.

However, there are cases of Indians achieving excellence and they surely merit more than a few lines here.

Anyone who follows Golf would have heard the name Arjun Atwal. What most of us don't know is that the man LED the US PGA Tour in putting last season. We're talking about Atwal beating big names like Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els, Vijay Singh (The Indian media embraced him when he won his first Masters Title, the guy is Fijian and has never set foot on Indian soil) with the flat blade. He even managed to finish 2nd at an event Phil Mickelson won last season.

Sharpshooter Samresh Jung was the Golden Boy of the Commonwealth games. The man won everything left, right and centre and was voted the best athlete of any country at the Games. Unfortunately the lasting image of the Games would be our actors dancing to Bhangra Beats at the closing ceremony.

Perhaps India's best kept sporting secret is teeny-tiny MC Mary Kom. One could be forgiven to think she's a 14-yr old but she is the only world champion in any sport who stands in attention to the Jana Gana Mana. Now with what sport would you associate a barely 5-foot, 40-something kg lady from Manipur??? Obviously boxing is the first one that comes to mind.

The ability of these Indians to succeed inspite of the odds is more an exception than the rule. I think there is a lack of sporting culture that sees Indians underachieve at the world stage (And cricket doesn't count as a sport in India, if I might use a cliche, it's a religion).

Why is it that we show an incredible resilience to numerous aspects of everyday life, and yet it fails us when it comes to sport? We refuse to let the dirty politics and corrupt babus get the better of us when we need a ration card or a passport. We refuse to bow to yearly floods and famines and yet blame the sporting bodies for not providing the right facilities. We refuse to relinquish an inch of Kashmir but bow to Pakistan in just about every sport. We keep churning Engineers and MBAs by the thousands every year but can't find a fast bowler who can put the fear of death in the minds of the opposition.

India has the worst ratio of people per medal at every Olympic games. It's high time the people thought of changing it instead of waiting for sport to be a fashionable profession.

Let Angola be the yardstick...