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The tiny dots in World Cup universe

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Wikipedia tells me the city of New Plymouth lies on the west coast of North Island in New Zealand. It is apparently named after the city of Plymouth in England from where the early immigrants arrived. I scroll down the page and read about the history of New Plymouth, its government, the demographics, transportation and industries. I skim through the tourist attractions and glance at climate data from 1981 to 2010.

The page contains plenty of information. However, it does not mention the only thing I have known about New Plymouth for 27 years: on February 23, 1992, Zimbabwe racked up 312 in a World Cup match there… and Sri Lanka went on to overhaul the target to become the first team to chase over 300 in ODIs.

I didn’t watch the match – I am not sure if it was even televised live in India – but I remember staring open-mouthed at the scorecard in the newspaper. A debutant called Andy Flower had made a hundred. His namesake Andy Waller had thumped 83 in 45 balls – which, back then, was ridiculous. The musically named Athula Samarasekera had made 75 in 61 balls. Roshan Mahanama had raised a fifty. And Arjuna Ranatunga had smashed 88 off 61.

Two relatively weak teams, each playing their first match of the 1992 World Cup, had combined for an all-time classic somewhere near the edge of the world. The venue, Pukekura Park, had never hosted a men’s international match till then. It hasn’t hosted one since. But one mention of New Plymouth is all that it takes for the memories of that game to come gushing forth.

I have forgotten much from high school Geography. I took notes when my teacher lectured us on terraced farming in South America and told us of the powerful winds that blew across Africa. But I was more interested in cities that were absent from my syllabus. Gujranwala. Arnos Vale. Paarl. Kandy. Bulawayo. Such delightful names. Each with cricket grounds that had left so many memories. What winds blew in these places? What were the lives that people lead here?

To follow cricket, as with most sports, is to pick up lessons in Geography, to be introduced to parts of the globe that one would have never encountered otherwise. It’s unlikely that I would have known about Table Mountain in Cape Town if it hadn’t served as a stunning backdrop for Newlands Cricket Ground. I am yet to visit Brisbane but I have known, since I was 10, that Vulture Street and Stanley Street are two major roads that run on either end of the cricket ground at the Woolloongabba.

I know close to nothing about the city of Tunbridge Wells… except that the pink rhododendrons that bordered the Nevill Ground were in full bloom on June 18, 1983; that the BBC cameramen were on strike that day; and that the ball flew to the marquees set up beyond the fence. I have come across quite a few references to Tunbridge Wells over the years – in the Sherlock Holmes story Valley of Fear, for instance, as well as in the movie Lawrence of Arabia – but the mind always switches to the memory of Kapil Dev: bareheaded and mustachioed, swinging his bat with such force that he would bend the arc of cricketing history.

Most cricket grounds are architecturally distinct. Lord’s has its slope. The City Oval in Pietermaritzburg – where India played Namibia in the 2003 World Cup – has a tree within the boundary ropes. If the ball hits any part of the tree, the umpire declares a four. The WACA in Perth is famous for the Freemantle Doctor that blows across the stadium.

Kingsmead, in Durban, has end named for the adjoining Umgeni River. Kingsmead also carries a myth: the stadium is close to the sea and the changes in tide supposedly dictates how much the ball swings in the evenings. Ashish Nehra nabbed 6 for 23 on an electrifying night in 2003 (when the English batsmen couldn’t handle the banana-swing he served up and when Nehra’s tummy couldn’t handle the banana he ate). It remains the best Indian bowling figures in a World Cup match.

There was a time when international teams traveled to play big games in tiny venues. In 1992, for their World Cup match against Sri Lanka, India’s made their way to the town of Mackay in Queensland. Play was held up for five hours. Srikkanth and Kapil Dev walked out for a 20-over match. Srikkanth defended the first ball and scored 1 off the next.. before the players were driven off by a downpour. A helicopter attempted to dry the field. No further play was possible.

That is all I know about Mackay but the memories are so rich that I remember the scenes from the Harrup Oval nearly three decades on. India’s players exercised in the middle of the ground. The crowd, which was close to capacity, cheered their laughably aerobic maneuvers. Mackay hasn’t staged a big game since. But those two balls… well, those are reserved for posterity.

The latest edition of the World Cup will soon be upon us. Just ten teams this time, playing out their matches (including the warm-up games) in mainstream venues. No chance for an unheralded ground to get on the cricketing map – as Amstelveen and Edinburgh did in 1999. No chance for history to unfold in a far-off venue like Tunbridge Wells – which to this day has Indian tourists visiting every year, to hear about Kapil’s unbeaten 175.

This time too, there will be much Geography to savour. Grounds, ends, winds and soils. Maybe even clouds on some days. Balls soaring towards the River Tone in Taunton. There will be schoolkids watching it all. Perhaps some among them will jot down names and trivia in the margins of their notebooks. Like this one schoolboy did close to three decades ago.

This piece was first published in Cricketnext.com

The allure of Rishabh Pant

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Twenty-five Aprils ago, a left-handed middle-order batsman was selected to India’s one-day team. Fans of a certain vintage will remember the frenzied anticipation surrounding the arrival of Atul Bedade – or badadve, as Sunil Gavaskar fondly called him, punning on the Marathi word for “smasher”.

Newspapers and magazines painted a picture of a monster six-hitter who habitually deposited cricket balls into parking lots of stadiums. Chakkebaaz, some reports called him. “Simply devastating,” said Ravi Shastri, about Bedade’s 112-ball 133 in a Ranji Trophy match against Bombay, an innings that contained a whooping 106 runs in boundaries.

“Just the guy Indian cricket needs,” said Bedade’s captain in Baroda, Kiran More.

Bedade didn’t live up to the heady promise. His international career was limited to 13 ODIs and barring that brief flurry on a sunny afternoon in Sharjah – against Pakistan in the Austral-Asia Cup final – his six-hitting powers mostly deserted him. Some attributed his modest returns to an inability to come to grips with quality bowling. Others blamed the team-management for failing to nurture his blockbuster potential.

Every time the IPL comes around, I can’t help but think of Bedade. What a superstar he could have been in this extravaganza, walking in at the 12-over mark and thundering a half-century. I also wonder what made him score at such a frenetic pace in the early 1990s. Did he think it was his best chance to get noticed? Would he have made as big a splash in the domestic scene had he restrained himself and focused on being consistent rather than smashing six after six? In other words, would Bedade have been Bedade had he not wanted to hit every other ball into orbit?

There has always been a class of Indian batsman who chooses to swing for the fences. This was true even before domestic cricket was televised. To play for a strong first-class side was to generally be assured of selectors taking note of one’s consistency and appetite for big scores.

Those like Bedade (Baroda), Amay Khurasiya (Madhya Pradesh) and MS Dhoni (Bihar, then Jharkhand) – whose teams rarely made the knockouts and whose matches were under-reported on – chose the road less traveled. It took four years for Dhoni to find a place in the East Zone XI. In the first four balls he faced – in the Duleep Trophy final in 2004 – he slammed four fours. The elated East Zone selector, who was present at the venue, would exclaim at day-end: “superstar”.

These batsmen are far removed from the Gavaskar-Dravid school of technical perfection or the Tendulkar-Shaw school of prodigious run-scoring or the Viswanath-Azharuddin school of artistry or even the Gambhir-Rohit school of first-class preeminence. This is the zone where Kapil Dev and Virender Sehwag run riot. Where a follow-on is averted with four consecutive sixes; and where a 300 comes up with a shimmy down the ground and a rocket into the stands.

This is the zone that Rishabh Pant inhabits.

Under normal circumstances, a batsman with five ODI appearances, with a highest score of 36, would never be discussed when selecting a squad for the World Cup. But there is nothing normal about Pant. Not in the belligerence with which he attacks the ball. Nor in the audacity and inventiveness that send the ball at angles that are inconceivable from the shape of his stance.

The decision to pick Dinesh Karthik ahead of Pant may have been a conservative choice but it was perfectly logical. Karthik is more experienced and understands the rhythms of ODIs. He can bat in multiple gears and is perhaps better suited to walk in after a top-order collapse. There was a case for picking Pant as a specialist batsman – and stick him in at No. 4 – but perhaps the selectors deemed him too raw for such a crucial role in such a big tournament.

Still, if India are 220 for 3 with ten overs to go in a World Cup game it’s natural to think up the delicious possibilities that Pant could offer. Sure, he could hole out for a single-digit score but what if it is one of those days when the stars align? When Pant is in such a rampaging mood – scooping, ramping, kneeling and scooping over fine leg, wind-milling his bat with abandon, lofting one-handed sixes over midwicket – there is no limit to what is possible.

Such optimism stems from Pant’s ability to conjure boundaries off perfectly good deliveries and the ease with which he scores all around the wicket. He has no obvious weakness against any type of bowler – or ball – and is the closest India have to a maverick like AB de Villiers. Pant in his element can neutralise lines and lengths.

In the game against Mumbai Indians last month, Jasprit Bumrah targeted Pant’s hips with a quick ball pitched back of a length. This was a judicious tactic at the death, giving the batsman no space to free his arms. Pant, though, created his own space with a deft tuck of his hip – giving himself enough leeway to judder a short-arm jab backward of square. Freeze the frame when bat strikes ball and you may think he will get a single. So sweet is the timing, so precise the placement, none of the fielders stands a chance.

Or take his innings against Rajasthan Royals on Monday. 48 of his 78 runs came in boundaries. The rest comprised 15 singles, six twos and one three. It becomes hard for a bowler to know what length to bowl when a batsman mixes brute force with judicious placement. Bring the fine leg up and cut down on pace? Pant slaps you over your head. Surprise him with a bit of extra pace and bounce. Pant swats you anywhere in the arc between midwicket and fine leg.

The downside to his aggression is that Pant is invariably blamed for his dismissal. He is rarely out playing a defensive shot and isn’t often outdone by an unplayable ball. Pant gets out either failing to connect expansive drives or miscuing it into the hands of a fielder. This can come across as poor judgement, or an inability to temper his aggression. But perhaps one must accept that a couple of low scores is the price one pays for the blinders to follow.

“I want him to go out there with pure freedom and with no other thought in the back of his head other than trying to hit the ball for a six,” said the Delhi Capitals coach Ricky Ponting. “I’m not going to tell him to slow down and settle down, because I know if he plays his best, he wins games for us.”

Ponting could have been talking about another batsman from Delhi who was in a league of his own in Tests but couldn’t find the same level of success in ODIs. Whether Pant’s career shapes up like Sehwag’s – or whether he can master all formats – time will tell. What we know is that when Pant bats, he comes with the promise of doing the unthinkable. To make us fly off our seats. To widen our eyes. To drop our jaws. To hope for something we have never seen before.

And for that we should be thankful.

This piece was first published in Cricketnext.com

One March morning in Auckland

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Twenty-five years ago, Navjot Sidhu woke up – in a hotel room in Auckland – with a stiff neck.

This is a critical detail in the history of Indian cricket.

For Sidhu’s last four ODIs had yielded scores of: 34, 26, 79 and 108. His second-innings 98 had helped India save the only Test on that New Zealand tour. To this add a fruitful home series against Sri Lanka, and you had a batsman who had bedded himself at the top of the line-up. Had Sidhu woken up painless that morning, he would have opened the batting in Auckland. No question. And he is likely to have opened in the final two games of the series as well.

Sidhuisms weren’t around then but one man’s neck-ache prompted another to put his neck on the line. That morning 21-year-old Sachin Tendulkar walked up to team manager Ajit Wadekar and captain Mohammad Azharuddin and “pleaded with them”, as he would later write in his book, to allow him to open the batting.

Tendulkar had never opened for India but something told him that he could make the most of the field restrictions in the first 15 overs. He needed to use all his powers of persuasion.

“I told Wadekar sir that if I failed I’d never ask him again.”

As of that March morning in 1994, Tendulkar’s one-day record was rather modest. He was well into his stride as a Test cricketer – leaving his mark in venues as varied as Manchester, Perth, Sydney, Johannesburg and Madras – but his 69 ODIs had brought 1758 runs at 30.84. Batting at No. 4 or 5, he invariably walked in with the field spread out and was either required to stem a top-order wobble or to nudge his way through the middle overs.

Only rarely did he find himself with the freedom to express himself. Like during his rollicking 81 against Zimbabwe in a World Cup game – when India decided to ask Kapil Dev to open. Or a near run-a-ball 82 in Jaipur in 1993 when Tendulkar took on the England bowlers with such ferocity that the Times of India reporter would write: “he reduced everybody around him to subservient roles”.

While recounting Tendulkar’s manic 82 in Auckland, it’s worth remembering that there was no need for such an innings that day. There was no net run-rate to contend with. No points table to worry about. New Zealand had been restricted to 142 on an Eden Park pitch that was challenging for run-scoring. They had inched past 100 as late as the 45th over. Some lusty blows had propped them up but at the break, India remained firm favorites.

It’s also worth noting that India wore white for most bilateral one-dayers back then, so it was still a novelty to see them in a different jersey each time they traveled to the southern hemisphere. Tendulkar was invariably in a kit twice his size. Like on this day, when he was seen regularly scrunching up the sleeves of his yellow t-shirt, which wouldn’t stop inflating itself in the wind.

Tendulkar took strike outside off stump. He waited for the bowler to deliver… and then moved across to cover he line of the ball. In the fourth over, from medium-pacer Chris Pringle, he caressed a classical off-drive, lofted another high to the ropes at vacant long-on and whipped a third off his pads to the boundary at midwicket. Each time the head was still, the balance impeccable, the timing expert and the follow-through classical. In the next over, bowled by Danny Morrison, he shuffled across the crease and glanced one past the fine-leg fielder for four. The fielder had to barely move a few feet. The ball struck the hoardings before he even tried.

Gavin Larsen, one of the canniest one-day bowlers of the time, asked the wicketkeeper to stand up to his medium-pacers. Tendulkar charged him anyway and kept lofting him over his head. Larsen had no choice but to change his length. And Tendulkar slammed them off the back foot.

Now remember that many in India were waking up to this heady fusion. Think of young boys and girls starting a relaxed Sunday, middle-aged men and women sipping on their coffees… only to be gobsmacked by this otherworldly assault in a remote corner of the world. Tendulkar was straight-driving like Gavaskar one moment, cutting like Kapil the next. He was bisecting the gaps and charging down the track. He was all batsmen in one. And one batsman in all. He was still Tendulkar, of course. Except he was showing us tricks he had never had a chance to reveal before. Now he had time and space. And he was bending them to his will.

To be so far away, and to rely on television imagery, is to miss out on much of the magic. It is to fail to hear the sound the bat makes on the ball on impact. It is to fail to experience the hairs standing up on end when Tendulkar was breaking new ground. The late sportswriter Don Cameron was fortunate to be at Eden Park that day and it is clear from his words that he witnessed something transcendental.

“Some batsmen on the rampage appear contemptuous of the bowler, dismissing the ball with the brutal arrogance,” he wrote in his report. “Not Tendulkar, even if the bowlers might not have noticed the difference… Rather Tendulkar seemed in some private communion with the great and godly arts of the game. As if he and the graces of cricket were in such harmony that anything he attempted would turn into yet another sumptuous stroke.”

About 18,000 spectators were on their feet, applauding Tendulkar off the ground – when he popped a tame catch to the left-arm spinner Mathew Hart. The commentators had no doubt that he had played one of the greatest innings in any format of the game.

The 82 may have come in a one-sided match in a bilateral series where there was little at stake. But it would go on to define an age. Tendulkar would open in 340 ODI innings and amass 15,310 runs. Other teams would ask their best batsmen to move to the top of the order. They wouldn’t need to rely on pinch-hitters for cameos; rather they would ask their superstars to bat through the innings.

For the next few years, every Tendulkar innings would be imbued with a sense of possibility. He would get more innovative over time and take on attacks more threatening in tournaments more important. He would chase down targets more formidable. On pitches more challenging.

Still in each of those performances, people knew vaguely what to expect.

Not at Auckland.

When the slate was clean.

And the story was unknown.

And anything – and everything – was possible.

This piece was first published in Cricketnext.com

The value of Dhoni

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Sometimes a player’s worth is magnified by virtue of his absence.

MS Dhoni was rested for the final two One-Day Internationals in the series against Australia. When India lost at Mohali – failing to defend 358 – the great Bishan Bedi wondered why they would rest their “half-captain”, a man whose calming influence could have made a difference in the climactic stages.

A piece in the Indian Express questioned Virat Kohli’s “cagey and pedantic” tactics – and contrasted it with the times he has relied on Dhoni to “tinker the field” and “conceive plans for the spinners”.

Several observers pointed to Rishabh Pant’s mis-stumping when Ashton Turner was on 38. Turner went on to pummel 84 off 43 balls, which swung the match Australia’s way.

On Wednesday, India lost the decider in Delhi. And the shadow of Dhoni loomed large during the pursuit of 273: which, given India’s chasing pattern in the last few years, can be classed as a typical “Dhoni target”.

Between April 2015 and the latest defeat, India had won 27 out of the 33 matches (One tie) when chasing a sub-280 target. Many of these wins were fashioned by their formidable top order but Dhoni played his part when the SOS went out.

In chases of 280 or less in the last four years he has three 30s, two 40s, a 54, a 59 not out, a 67 not out and an 87 not out. Only once has he fallen in single digits. There is a concern about Dhoni’s strike rate in 300-plus chases but when the target is in his wheelhouse – and when the top order shrivels¬– he is the go-to man.

Going by what his team-mates say, Dhoni’s scores are only a part of his contribution. After the first ODI of this series in Hyderabad, Kedar Jadhav had said of his unbeaten 141-run stand with Dhoni: “Every time I bat with him, I spend time with him, I learn a lot. I can’t put it into words. That’s the sort of person he is. You just see him and feel like you’ll deliver today.”

Jadhav could have been summing up Dhoni’s career when he said: “I can’t put it into words.”

Dhoni the batsman has been subjected to a glut of analysis in the last few months. Numbers tell us that Dhoni is not as good as he was earlier but that he is still very good in certain situations. Dhoni the wicketkeeper and Dhoni the tactician, though, have been woefully let down by the stats.

There is no metric to compare Dhoni’s wicketkeeping in the first three ODIs with Pant’s in the last two. We can count dropped chances and run-outs effected but that is as far as we can get. We don’t have access to reaction times for stumping attempts, or the number of fumbles when collecting throws. We don’t know how many times batsmen jumped out of the crease when each was keeping wicket.

Added to this are Dhoni’s intangible qualities on the field – especially in the later overs when Kohli fields on the boundary – and we are left with a cricketer whose value is hard to pin down.

What we have to make do with are the gif-able, meme-able moments: deflecting the ball off his gloves to run-out Glenn Maxwell; anticipating a lap-sweep and getting his hands on a chance from Peter Handscomb at leg slip; tipping off Kuldeep Yadav on what a batsman is likely to do next ball; saving himself from getting stumped by doing a near-split, stretching his feet a scarcely believable 2.14 metres apart.

And all these just over the last few months. Amplify that thousand-fold – going way back to when he asked Joginder Sharma to bowl the last over in the World T20 final, to smashing Shoaib Akhtar in a Test in Faisalabad, to launching a six in the vicinity of a selector when he wasn’t picked for a U-19 World Cup camp…and you straddle the line between a cricketing star and a mythical hero.

For ardent fans who have embraced this outsized image of Dhoni, it is hard to see him doing any wrong. Yes, he doesn’t hit as many sixes as before but aren’t there other batsmen to do just that? And what makes you think he can’t hit sixes as and when he chooses? What if his strike-rate is not that high? You need him to stay till the end to give his partners the confidence to accelerate. What if he doesn’t explode at the end of the first innings? Would you rather the team folds in the 45th over? Numbers and analysis and all are fine, but are you mad enough to bet against Dhoni?

Which is the nub of the matter, really. The devotion that Dhoni evokes is underpinned by the dizzy hope he arouses. This in turn is anchored in the incredible chases and unlikely victories that he has engineered– both as captain and batsman.

Most cricketers touching 38 have their reflexes slowing and speed diminished. Dhoni still pulls off lighting stumpings. Many ageing stars struggle to cope with the athletic demands of the shorter formats. Dhoni is still acing Yo-Yo tests. His form in 2018 suggested he was a cricketer on the wane. Then, just like a classic Dhoni innings, battling the odds, he started the new year with a mighty blast of hope.

It is now a given that he will play the World Cup. But perhaps there was never any doubt. To fall short of the big prize with Dhoni in the XI seems much more palatable than to do so without him. And to triumph with Dhoni playing a part seems so much grander than to win without him.

This piece was first published in Cricketnext.com

Two 153s, twenty years apart

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When Kusal Perera glided Kagiso Rabada to the third-man fence on the fourth day of the Durban Test against South Africa he was 153 not out.

Not 154. Not 152. But the coincidentally perfect 153 – just as Brian Lara’s score 20 years ago. For mathematicians, 153 is a source of endless fascination – including as a “narcissistic number” – but for cricket fans world-over it has come to embody the ultimate fourth-innings batting performance with the match all but lost.

Both Lara and Perera bat left-handed. Both walked in at No.5 with their teams chasing over 300. Both shared vital partnerships with the tail. Both oversaw nerve-shredding one-wicket wins. And both were up against the pre-eminent bowling attack of their time. “To bat… like that with guys of lesser stature, to nurse them along and win a Test match in the way he did, proves how great he is.” That was Clive Lloyd gushing on March 30, 1999. He could have been speaking about the innings played this Friday.

Numbers are a vital part of one’s cricketing memory. They are often the language in which fans of the game speak. Nobody needs to introduce the figures 375 and 400 not out. The mind has automatically switched on an image of Brian Lara batting at the Antigua Recreation Ground. The number 501 has its own grandeur. Lara scored 153 in a Test against Pakistan in Kingston in 2005 but that is hardly what comes to mind when people bring up the score. (Chanderpaul scored a 153 not out in the same series but that too has receded from memory).

Perera’s knock may well have been compared to Lara’s even if he had made 154 not out – after all, there was so much in common. But perhaps some South Africans would have called to mind Graeme Smith’s legendary 154 not out at Edgbaston in 2008, which sealed their first series win in England since 1965. “He left pieces of his soul all over the Edgbaston wicket,” wrote Patrick Ferriday in his book Masterly Batting, published in 2013. Much the same could be said of Perera at Kingsmead.

What if Perera had finished on 151 not out? Here too he would have had a historical parallel. For in 1950, on the very same ground, another left-hander walked in at No.5 and piloted his team to a 300-plus target. Unlike Perera, though, Neil Harvey dealt with a potent spin threat on a wearing (uncovered) pitch. “For five hours and a half Harvey disciplined himself to the battle and by a literally flawless innings… carried Australia to victory,” said a Wisden profile. Harvey was to later rate it as his finest innings.

There have been 32 instances of a batsman making 153 in a Test innings. It is a number rich in folklore.

The first time a captain scored a Test hundred – Billy Murdoch at The Oval in 1880 – it was to turn into a 153.

Neil Harvey’s first Test hundred was a 153 (against India in Melbourne in 1948). It made him the youngest Australian to score a Test hundred – a record that stands till date.

Allan Border made a second-innings 153 on the heels of a 150 not out in a Test in Lahore.

Graham Gooch made a 153 on the first day of a Kingston Test (in 1981), which contained a “cut-drive-steer” six off Colin Croft that flew over the slips and cleared the boundary.

Mark Waugh too made a 153 – his only Test hundred in India – and he reached his hundred, in Bangalore in 1998, with a towering six that cleared the sightscreen.

Over the last ten years, India’s batsmen have taken a liking for the 153. Sachin Tendulkar notched up the score in Adelaide in 2008 while Murali Vijay cracked a memorable one-five-three in Mohali in 2013. Cheteshwar Pujara has two 153s – one in Johannesburg (in 2013) and one in Galle (in 2017) ¬– and Virat Kohli joined this group early last year with a smashing 153 in Centurion. It was a 153 out of a team total of 307 and he finished with a strike-rate of over 70.

Only two 153s – of the 32 so far – have come in the fourth innings. Both unbeaten. Both sealed with a four. Both anointed as among the greatest Test innings of all time. Both against the odds. It is beyond the scope of this column to analyse which among these was the more superior innings but there is no doubt that these will be mentioned in the same breath from now.

Just as Basil D’Oliveira and Kevin Pietersen are both intimately associated with the iconic 158; just as Gooch and Chris Gayle have become synonymous with 333; just as Martin Crowe and Don Bradman come up at the mention of 299…… Lara and Perera have captured the 153.

Lara “batted through from first ball at 10 past 10 to the last at 4.26 when he stroked the winning boundary,” wrote the late Tony Cozier in his match report for The Independent. If we were to change the start time to 10 and the end time to 3.15, the same could have been said of Perera. Two grand monuments. Across continents. Taking the breath away. Twenty years apart.

This piece was first published in Cricketnext.com

‘There’s nothing wrong with being gay’

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This was supposed to be a piece about Joe Root’s Test-match batting over the last three years. I wanted to highlight the alarming decline in his output since he took over as captain, and visualise the outrage that may have been directed at the national selectors – not to mention the attendant hysteria on social media – had an Indian captain returned similar numbers.

Root has scored five hundreds in his last 27 Tests, two of which have come in dead-rubbers. Of Root’s 16 hundreds, only five have come abroad – which, had he been an Asian batsman, are numbers that scream: “home-track bully”. There was a time when Root was bracketed with Steve Smith, Virat Kohli and Kane Williamson among Test cricket’s elite but, given his steady decline, he has perhaps fallen below even the second rung of leading batsmen in Test cricket.

That piece can wait.

For during the course of his 16th century, on the third day of the third Test at St Lucia, Root uttered six golden words that were caught by the stump microphones. It’s unclear what prompted him to say so, but viewers heard Root telling the West Indies fast bowler Shannon Gabriel: “There’s nothing wrong with being gay”.

The ICC has subsequently charged Gabriel with a breach of the Code of Conduct. The matter is now in the hands of the match referee Jeff Crowe and his verdict may provide a hint about the extent of Gabriel’s transgression. Whether we will know what was said is yet unclear.

Cricket is rife with players going on about the “heat of the moment” and how things get “out of hand” in the middle. We are told that a cricketer’s oafishness, or sudden outburst, is a result of the intensity of the competition. What happens on the field is apparently best left out there. Play hard but fair, the Australians love to tell us. Players say things, yes, but come on, they don’t mean it, do they?

The easiest thing for Joe Root to have done is to have ignored whatever was said. Here he was, batting against the fastest bowler in the opposition. England had already lost the series and Root had come under pressure for both his tactical choices and poor scores. Here was his chance to shut everything out and focus on piling on the runs. Batsmen rarely talk back, least of all to a bowler firing it in at 150kph. The power equation is well-established. A fast bowler can bowl any number of poor overs but all it takes is one good ball to get a wicket – or to break a bone.

Had Root kept quiet – or shrugged off the comment – nobody would have likely become aware of this. The umpires might have warned Gabriel but one wonders if matters would have been escalated further. Root’s response was seen on television. It was replayed over and over. Root was asked about it after the day’s play. Several former cricketers singled him out for praise. And the issue was rightly highlighted in the major British newspapers.

There have been several calls for stump mics to be turned down – from players and coaches, both former and current – and there is some merit in this suggestion. Nathan Lyon has spoken about players throwing out an expletive or two when they bowl a poor ball or miss an easy catch – which could then be misinterpreted as abuse against an opponent by millions watching on TV.

The flip side, though, is that turning down the mics will shove serious matters under the carpet. Both Sarfraz Ahmed’s racially-charged comment – in a recent ODI in Durban – as well as Root’s current response have come to light only thanks to the stump mics being turned up. And the hope is that these instances will come to serve as deterrents.

For players to know that they are being closely watched can only be a good thing. Just as no cricketer will likely shove sandpaper in his or her pockets from now on, there is hope that players will be prudent about the words they use and the jokes they crack. That they will be more sensitive – even with the game on the line – to matters pertaining to race, gender and sexual orientation.

Root could have waited for the end of the day’s play to highlight the matter but the fact that he chose to respond then and there – on the field – lent the moments its gravitas. He was not playing to the gallery. It was a spur-of-the-moment rejoinder – an anti-sledge if you will – and he let it out like it was the most natural reaction. There was an elder-brotherly admonition in his tone and yet, he didn’t say much more than was necessary. Message delivered, he was back to chatting with his partner. Back to the Test match on hand. Back to scoring runs.

Brendon McCullum has spoken about how he wanted to build a team true to their national identity – to “identify with strong silent types”. He instituted a no-sledging policy and made sure they treated cricket like a game, “not a life or death struggle”.

Root, perhaps unwittingly, has picked up the baton. He has heard something offensive and chosen to shut it out with a firm response. He has refused to stay silent. And for that, we must be thankful.

We come down hard on players who cross the line – and crucify them for being such poor role models for children. It is equally important to celebrate those who speak up. Their words and actions can inspire those at an impressionable age. Their message is likely to have a far more stirring effect. Print the words on a T-shirt if you must. Next time they hear a homophobic slur, they have a response ready.

Six words.

Sometimes that’s all it takes.

This piece was first published in Cricketnext.com

Chennai 1999 – a retrospective

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It’s 20 years since India and Pakistan played out a terrific Test in Chennai. The 18-year-old me watched this game on television – in between trying to study for my 12th standard board exams. I am pretty sure I only caught bits and pieces of days one, two and three – and once Afridi got a rambunctious hundred and gave Pakistan a handy lead, I assumed the game was up. Venkatesh Prasad picked up a bagful of wickets to bowl Pakistan out in the second innings – including a surreal spell of five wickets for no run – but, still, a 270-run lead was formidable. Especially given that Pakistan could call upon bowlers of the calibre of Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis and Saqlain Mushtaq.

India went into lunch on day four at 86 for 5…

… and then came a most extraordinary denouement. Passages of play that burnt itself into my head and continue to haunt me at random moments. I remember waiting for a bus on a freezing Chicago winter day in 2008, replaying some of the shots that Tendulkar and Mongia played in that superb partnership, then replaying the way each was dismissed and feeling so bad how the tail had crumbled without scoring 17 runs. Nearly ten years after the match, I was close to tears in a bus stop in a land so far away, surrounded by men and women who had very little idea about cricket – let alone the match that I was feeling so pathetic about.

I have seen several matches of cricket in my life but somehow it was this one that came back to me most often, uplifting me, depressing me and putting me in a sombre mood. It was also perhaps the match most responsible for my cricket obsession. For up until then, I was in love with cricket – played it, watched it, talked about it – but it was only after January 1999 that cricket began to occupy my every waking hour. There was something so glorious about that Tendulkar innings… yet something so incomplete in there. There was something so gut-wrenching about the end of that Test… yet something so moving in the way the crowd gave Pakistan a standing ovation. Everything was mesmerizing… until nothing mattered anymore. Everything was lost… until so much more was regained.

This was the Test that took so much away. Yet this was a Test that gave so much back.

Something had to be done to understand why I felt so strongly about this game.

So I decided to speak to fans, players and journalists who were at the ground on January 31, 1999. If I – who had watched the game from so far away – felt so passionately about what had happened, what of those who were at the ground? Surely they had suffered deeper scars?

Here’s an excerpt from the piece:

The college students in the Indian Oil Stand were high-fiving so hard their palms hurt. Their throats were sore. “The atmosphere in the stadium: oh man,” remembers Venkitasubban. “Whenever the ball went up in the air, whenever Sachin came down the track, whenever they took a risky single, my heart would stop. You want him to score but you don’t want him to get out. Every ball: like a rollercoaster ride. We kept screaming instructions to Mongia. ‘Just calm down.’ ‘Relax.’ ‘Take it easy.’ If there was a risky single, we would go, ‘Don’t, don’t, don’t.’ We were worried Mongia will get Sachin run-out. Or do something very silly. We kept shouting: ‘Sodappadhe!‘ [Don’t mess it up].”

You can read the whole piece, published in The Cricket Monthly, here.

You can also read another piece I wrote on this very Test back in 2011.

The reactions to the piece have only confirmed what I have suspected: that this game has left a mark on so many people across India and Pakistan. I have been overwhelmed by the stories that readers have shared and the sharp memories that they retain.

Here’s @eigzackly on Twitter:

Remember being on a Mumbai suburb street as the electricity went off at home between lunch and tea cobbled around a Radio on a chappalwala’s stall hooked to the ball by ball commentary with every other passing auto rickshaw slowing down near us and asking Sachin aahe na?

And here’s a set of tweets from @MirSuhailssm recalling his memories of that day.

Here’s a poignant memory from @theprobabilist:

This was one of my most distinct childhood cricketing memories. I was 15, “far away” from Chennai, in a rain-soaked Trivandrum, competing in a tennis tournament, huddled around a 14″ television with about 50 others in a tiny room

And another from @KK_Ilkal

I was 11 at the time. No ESPN. Udaya News at 1 pm – India 87/5. After that, every 30-40 min I would check the score with ITI students who were staying near my house (in Ilkal), listening to radio. Tendulkar out, still thought India would win easily. Next time I asked them the score, they said India lost by 12. That was the last time I saw those ITI students, still remember their names and faces. Hoping one day I would connect with them again and relive that day.

I am sure I will think of of this match again. But I will do so with a sense of solidarity. There are so many, many others on whom this classic Test has left a mark. At least now, I have this piece and all these accompanying memories. At least now I am not alone.

Windies rekindle emotions of yore

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In among the glorious highlights of West Indies’ 381-run shellacking of England in Bridgetown, were some sights unrecorded in the scorecard:

… on day one, a bare-headed Shimron Hetymer – yes, hatless, capless and helmetless – shimmied down the pitch and lofted Adil Rashid for a massive six over long-off. This was a googly from Rashid. Hetymer, swinging with abandon, arced his bat in a sizzling flourish. Next ball, he rocked on the backfoot and slapped a legbreak backward of point for four. The gold-chain bobbed from his neck to chest.

… Hetmyer soon called for a wide-brimmed white hat. One of the commentators dredged up memories of Roy Fredericks and Clive Lloyd – two great batsmen, also left-handers, also from Guyana, who often sported this style of hat.

To watch cricket in the Caribbean is to see the present constantly intermingle with the past. Each island, so rich in its history — the grounds, the players, the unforgettable performances.

Hetymer’s six had landed in the 3Ws stand – named after a trio of extraordinary West Indies batsmen from the ’50s and ’60s — Worrell, Walcott and Weekes. The next ball was late-cut to the boundary ropes in front of the Greenidge and Haynes Stand, named after arguably the greatest opening pair in history.

Hetymer is 22 and was only in his 11th Test, but in his choice of headgear, in his style of strokeplay, in his footwork and in the parabolic arcs that his bat described, he was constantly evoking images from the past.

… on day two, Kemar Roach shifted from the Malcolm Marshall End to the Joel Garner End, used the stiff cross-wind to bring the ball into the right-handers, and razed England for 77.

Included in here was a devastating spell of five for four. Ian Bishop was on air and Colin Croft in the press box.

Present and past, past and present. In the commentary box, they spoke of a Marshall, another Bajan, built like Roach, near-unplayable when the ball took off from a length.

Back in 2006, I traveled around the Caribbean to cover India’s Test and one-day series. One evening in Kingston, in a watering hole not too far from Sabina Park, I chatted with a man, a “friend of cricket” as he called himself, about the state of cricket in the region.

He admitted that interest in the game had dropped off but went on to add that every once in a while, a West Indian cricketer or team will do something so extraordinary that everyone will take note.

I wish I had jotted down the man’s name. For what he said that evening has stuck with me. He had articulated why West Indies remains the second-favourite team for so many around the globe.

It wasn’t just sustained success that brought them so many admirers, it was the ability, every now and then, to stretch the limits of what was possible.

Ask any Indian cricket fan over 50. He or she will talk in hushed tones about Kanhai’s falling sweep, Lloyd’s sixes that soared out of stadiums, Holding’s silken run-up, and the day Marshall forced Gavaskar’s bat to fly off his hands. To dismiss Gavaskar was one thing but to expose such a masterful technique! Now that was the sign of a truly great bowler.

… on day three, Jason Holder and Shane Dowrich meticulously shredded the record books. They walked into bat first thing in the morning and resolutely batted England out of the match. Holder grafted here and blasted there. Dowrich sent full-length balls to the fence.

Both local boys. One six foot eight. The other almost a foot shorter. Every corner of the Kensington Oval was peppered with fours and sixes. Holder went past Viv Richards’ seven sixes in an innings in Antigua in 1986. Landmark after landmark. Slowly left behind.

… on day four, Kraigg Brathwaite completed a most nonchalant boundary catch to dismiss Rashid. There was something so unspectacular about this spectacular catch. Leaping for the ball, falling over beyond the rope, casually throwing the ball up and catching it with when he had re-balanced himself in the field of play. There wasn’t even a celebration to talk about. Another Barbadian. Completely at home.

This wasn’t a victory made possible by a freak innings or spell. It wasn’t a result of a heroic effort from one or two players. Hope and Chase and Hetmyer and Roach and Holder and Dowrich, all played a significant part.

The debutant John Campbell kick-started the match on day one, then took a blinding catch to get rid of Jos Buttler on day four. Brathwaite left judiciously in the first morning. Holder scored big in between leading the side, taking wickets and pouching catches.

On the final day, stationed at second slip, he watched Moeen Ali late-cut the ball straight into his hands.

And he burst out laughing.

Nobody had given West Indies a chance. It was the captain’s turn to have the final chuckle.

This piece was first published in Cricketnext.com

History!

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India have won a Test series in Australia.

Eight words. Never uttered before this day.

Just so that one can hear them again:

India. Have. Won. A. Test. Series. In. Australia.

Four years after 0-2.
Seven years after 0-4.
Eleven years after 1-2.
Fifteen years after 1-1.
Nineteen years after 0-3.
Twenty-seven years after 0-4.
Thirty-three years after 0-0, when thunderstorms in Melbourne and Sydney thwarted Kapil Dev’s team in their bid to win a first Test series in Australia…

… India watched the rain on the final day of the fourth Test in Sydney in 2019. Ravi Shastri, of course, will remember 1985-86. Perhaps he had a quiet chuckle at the karmic reversal at series end.

This is a terrific achievement for several reasons.

One: For a team that has been slammed for playing too few practice games in South Africa and England – and not acclimatising themselves to foreign conditions – India have controlled three of the four Tests despite playing a solitary warm-up match. (With first-choice opener Prithvi Shaw suffering an injury during that game, India can make a case that his loss far outweighed the gains in that fixture.)

Two: India won the first Test in the series – an unprecedented feat in Australia. They had come close on their previous tour – in another tense Adelaide Test – but couldn’t close out the run-chase.

Three: Not only did India get Australia to follow-on in a Test at home for the first time in 31 years – they were in a position to do so two matches in a row. Australia started the Melbourne Test with the series at 1-1. They didn’t win a single session thereafter.

Four: India won the series without Prithvi Shaw and Hardik Pandya: vital to their three previous Test wins. They managed just fine on flat pitches without R Ashwin. And a cricketer as skilled as Bhuvaneshwar Kumar sat out all Tests; so spoilt is the team for pace-bowling options.

Mayank Agarwal finished a Ranji Trophy match in Surat on December 17, flew to Melbourne, walked in to the coliseum that is the MCG on Boxing Day, and cracked an assured 76 on debut. No warm-up game, no chance to familiarise himself with the conditions. No problem.

Yes, Australia were depleted. Who knows what might have happened if Steve Smith and David Warner were in the side. Still, it is churlish to point to their absence and diminish India’s achievement. Hardly a series goes by without some vital absences. When England regained the Ashes in 2005, Glenn McGrath missed two Tests. When India drew 1-1 in Australia in 2003-04, McGrath and Shane Warne missed the series. When Australia won in India for the first time in 35 years – in 2004 – Sachin Tendulkar missed two Tests. When Australia toured India in 2001, Anil Kumble was injured… only for a 20-year-old off-spinner, with eight Tests under his belt, to take an astonishing 32 wickets in three Tests.

India went to Australia in 1977-78 and took on a side heavily depleted by the World Series. They lost 3-2. India’s opponents in 1985-86 were still reeling from the retirements of Greg Chappell, Dennis Lillee and Rod Marsh. Still, they held on for a 0-0 draw.

Virat Kohli’s side only needed to worry about who was playing, not who they could have played. They out-bowled Australia’s vaunted attack and batted them out of sight in the final two Tests. A score-line of 3-1 may have been a fair indication of the chasm between the sides. Even 4-0 was not out of bounds.

At the presentation ceremony, Kohli mentioned the World Cup win in 2011 and the emotions that had swirled. But he admitted he hadn’t felt it back then. Australia, on the other hand, he had visited thrice. He knew what it took. He knew what this means.

This is true for those watching, too. Some victories you witness. Others you understand. Others burrow into your head and set off a switch. Memories gush forth. They lend the moment layers of significance.

Thoughts of those quiet mornings before dawn, tuning the radio or television, shaking one’s head at the score. The consolation at each act of individual brilliance. Names and venues, names and venues. Patil in Adelaide. Chandra in Melbourne. Kapil in Melbourne. Azhar in Adelaide. Tendulkar in Sydney, then Perth, then Melbourne. A banner in 2008 that read “Sachin Cricket Ground”. Laxman in Sydney, then Adelaide, then Sydney. Dravid in Adelaide. Sehwag in Melbourne. Kohli in Adelaide. Kohli in Adelaide. Famous wins here and there. Oh-so-close draws. The endless wait for a series win.

Throughout the time, a sense of indignation. Gavaskar’s walk-off; Kapil’s quizzical stare at the umpires; Tendulkar’s shoulder-before-wicket; Bucknor part 1; Bucknor parts 2, 3, 4; Michael Clarke standing his ground after edging to slip…

So much baggage. All set aside for now.

This team promises so much more. Kohli, Rahane, Jadeja and Ishant are 30. Pujara will soon be 31. Shami is 28. Agarwal is 27. Rahul is 26. Bumrah is 25. Unlike the previous generation of Indian cricketers – who grew up in the time of West Indian dominance in the ’80s – these men would have watched Australia in their impressionable years.

Like many Indians who grew up in the ’90s, they perhaps watched the Waughs and imitated Warne and McGrath in gully cricket. They may have heard stories of Australia’s single-minded pursuit of excellence. Of the emu and kangaroo on the coat of arms.

As Indian teams struggled to win in West Indies, England and South Africa, Australia won everywhere. They chased 369. They beat South Africa in South Africa. They thumped England for practice. They obsessed over winning in India.

Now Kohli aims for India to do the same. He has called this victory not an end but a “stepping stone”. The last one year has shown what this side is capable of. They have been good on some days, very good on others and exceptional off and on. They have been beaten but rarely flattened. Lord’s was an exception. Cape Town, Edgbaston and Southampton were narrow defeats that turned out to be series-defining.

The next few years will tell us much. It could take us into uncharted territory. For the first time ever, a very good Indian side could turn into a great one.

This piece was first published on Cricketnext.com.

F is for Fast

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Ricky Ponting made over 13,000 Test runs but many Indian cricket fans remember the one ball when he scored nothing.

On the second day of the Boxing Day Test in 1999, Javagal Srinath let loose a short ball. It was short and leapt off the pitch. Ponting, of course, dealt with bouncers like they were mosquitoes to be swatted away. On the front foot, he was ready to pull it into the stands. A metaphorical slap across the bowler’s face. Except this ball, clocked at 135 kmph by the television cameras, flew off the bat’s top-edge and crashed into his helmet.

Srinath took a few steps towards Ponting, as if to check on his well-being. A gentle check to make sure everything was okay. He was met with a fury he may have scarcely expected: a helmeted Ponting waving a bat at his face and telling him to “go back and effing bowl”. Who had hit whom again? The victim had turned hostile. The aggressor was lost for words.

Sermon delivered, Ponting removed his helmet to check for a cut or gash. Srinath took four wickets in that innings. None are imprinted as vividly in the memory as this bouncer.

From the Wisden report on India’s 1967-68 tour to Australia: They arrived with obvious shortcomings for Australian conditions, primarily the complete absence of fast bowling.

From the Wisden report on India’s 1977-78 tour to Australia: Of the Indian bowlers, the three seamers, Madan Lal, Mohinder Amarnath, and Ghavri, all bowled well at times, but India suffered from not having a single bowler of anything approaching genuine pace.

From the Wisden report on India’s 1980-81 tour to Australia: Kapil Dev []… as a bowler[]… lived up to expectations. But the rest of the team’s seam bowling was mediocre.

From the Wisden report on India’s 1999-00 tour to Australia: India took early wickets in every innings of the Test matches – Australia’s highest opening stand was nine – but never managed to restrict the home side’s first innings to under 400, which was a clear reflection of their meagre bowling resources.

On Sunday, at the MCG, Ishant Sharma, Mohammad Shami and Jasprit Bumrah rounded off their annus mirabiliswith 130 wickets in Test matches away from home. They equalled the record of Garner-Holding-Marshall, which was set in 1984. No other fast-bowling trio has taken more in a calendar year. Not Morkel-Ntini-Steyn. Not Ambrose-Marshall-Walsh. Not Morkel-Philander Steyn.

Pause for a moment and read that again.

Three Indian fast bowlers.

Not medium-fast.

Not fast-medium.

Not fastish medium.

No such apologies.

Just fast. Full stop.

The most potent four-letter word in cricket. An f-word too.

F. A. S. T.

One-hundred-and-forty-five kilometres per hour fast.

Clatter-the-helmet fast. Keep-coming-at-you-till-you-lose-your-balance fast. Get-into-your-headspace fast. Can’t-take-your-eyes-off-the-ball fast. Not-sure-when-one-can-relax fast.

Marcus Harris has been clanged twice on the helmet in this series. It is safe to assume he has never once considered asking Bumrah to go back and bowl. In the first innings in Melbourne, he had two fielders placed close-in on the leg-side, waiting for a popped-up catch. Harris tried to pull himself out of trouble. All he managed was to balloon a top edge to fine leg.

India spelled out their plan to Aaron Finch by stationing Mayank Agarwal at short midwicket. Finch would have known that at some point, he would get one straight and full. Still, he couldn’t resist whipping one airily. And Agarwal held a terrific catch.

Shaun Marsh had one Bumrah over to survive before lunch. The first five balls were fast, fast, fast, fast, fast. He had to get his bat down quickly to keep out ball two. The fourth came with late away-swing. Why not try a slower yorker, suggested Rohit Sharma, from mid-off. Bumrah liked the idea. He felt Marsh was perhaps going at everything with hard hands. The rest is a work of art. So good that it ought to be framed and displayed at the MCG. Watch it. Re-watch it. Slow it down if you must. It gets better on every viewing.

Seeing what India’s pace bowlers have achieved this year might have disconcerted some Srinath-era fans. Back then, a bowler rumoured to hitting 140kph would have stopped the presses. Newspapers would have commissioned profiles. There would be quotes from Dennis Lillee and Frank Tyson. Someone would talk of “twitch muscles”. Maybe he’s the next Kapil Dev?

This desperate hunt for the saviour did nobody any good. The bowlers selected were bound to fall short of expectations – often spectacularly so. At which point they were duly jettisoned for another bright prospect… who was soon to be the next fall guy.

Atul Wassan had a spirited start to his Test career… until Ian Smith smashed him for 24 runs in one over. Wassan played just one more Test, his international career done at 22. Abey Kurivilla and Robin Singh were not picked when they were at their fastest. When finally chosen, they were criticized for being medium-pace. Dodda Ganesh was picked too early. When he started bagging wickets by the bucketful in domestic cricket, he was ignored.

Remember David Johnson? One South African commentator was so amused that he chuckled, during the Durban Test in 1996: Johnson, running in fast, but his bowling… not so fast.

Of course, you remember Manoj Prabhakar. A once-terrific pacer reduced to bowling off-spin by Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana in a World Cup ODI in Delhi in 1996.

Barely had Paras Mhambrey finished his opening spell in Test cricket when Geoffrey Boycott announced that his grandmum could hit him with a rhubarb. Then there was Debasis Mohanty and Harvinder Singh: near-unplayable on some days in Toronto but eminently hittable when conditions didn’t suit them.

During the 1996 World Cup, Michael Holding was asked for his assessment of India’s fast bowlers. His response: “Fast?”

The same Michael Holding. Earlier this year. In an interview to the Hindustan Times:

This is an outstanding Indian pace attack. I can go beyond, to the early 1970s, and certainly this is the best bowling attack India have had. Fast bowlers are very, very important. Everybody knows when you have three-four fast bowlers, good fast bowlers, not just people who take a long run up, they can win Test matches.

Few joys can match the sporting joys you experience when you are ten or twelve. Those are innocent days. You take it all in with wide-eyed wonder. You lose sleep over matches, idolize your heroes, and dream of impossible scenarios. The players are larger than life. Their feats give you a high unmatched.

When it comes to India and fast bowling, 2018 is the year we are all ten or twelve. Our first real sighting of a pack of terrific pace bowlers. Pulling off Test wins across four continents. Charging in day in, day out. Swinging the new ball, swinging the old ball. Keeping batsmen on their toes. Rushing them, fooling them, taunting them. From here on, every fast-bowling trio will have to match up to these three. Our Jasprit. Our Shami. Our Ishant.

And much like Holding, Marshall and Garner – the trio whose record they have equalled – these three have gone about their job with no fuss. No mouthing off. No rude send-offs. No theatrics. No over-the-top celebrations. Just high-quality fast bowling.

Enjoy them, celebrate them, watch them soar. For any Indian cricket fan over 30 will tell you: it’s been a long time coming.

This piece was first published in Cricketnext.com