If I were Rohit Sharma..

Once upon a time there was an Indian cricketer called Devang Gandhi. Don't worry if that name doesn't strike a chord in your brain, because it means you are normal and, in any case, brains don't have chords. However, if you are one of the 9 people who still remember him and you are not his family, then I'll strongly recommend donating your brain for research (I'm contemplating on doing the same).

Devang Gandhi made his test debut for India in 1999; scored 75 in his second innings, and was the top scorer for the team in his next innings, with a score of 88.
This is when his life took a really interesting and unexpected turn ..... Ian Chappell made a prediction about him. Chappell predicted that India had finally solved their opening problems (remember that those days Sidhu was considered the best Indian opener since Gavaskar; and Sehwag was a name yet unheard of). Chappell, on the account of those two innings from Devang Gandhi, was convinced that he had the makings of a successful opening batsman and could go on to play for India for a long long time. Gandhi scored 6, 4, 0 in his next three innings and looked so out of sorts against Australia that he was dropped from the team. He never played for India again. Last I heard of him, he was also dropped from his domestic team (Bengal), announced his retirement from first class cricket and was busy giving tips to youngsters on how to become a successful test opener.

A similar inflection point came in JP Duminy's career in 2009. Chappell, wrote a long piece, on how Duminy is a great in making. Read that article and count the number of times he compares Duminy to Tendulkar and Ponting. Well, Duminy, till then had a decent test career; 10 innings 389 runs and average close to 50. In the 10 innings of post-Chappell-prediction-era he has scored 129 runs and his career average has dropped below 30 (check this out). His vulnerability against spin is now well documented and his stock has fallen so much that he was ignored for the first half of the IPL this year (admittedly, initially few matches were due to injury), despite top scoring for his team in last year's edition. There are question marks about his continued selection in the SA team now and one wonders if his career is going in the same direction as Devang Gandhi's (On a serious note, I hope not. He is a fantastic player to watch and I hope he rediscovers his form).

This is the reason why I would be really worried, if I were Rohit Sharma. Chappell has been calling Sharma a great player in making since that last one day tournament India played in Australia.  Chappell, during that series, mentioned on air that Rohit Sharma was a strong contender for carrying India's middle order in test cricket and take over the mantle from Tendulkar. One wonders if this is what is preventing Sharma for getting selected in the test team. But Sharma was still scraping by, since Chappell hadn't put that prediction down in writing. All of that changed this week, when Chappell wrote this piece.

He says:
"And here was Rohit, a young Indian batsman of abundant skill, displaying the complementary nerve that is required to succeed at the highest level. The question is not whether Rohit has the skill to make it as a batsman in all forms of the game but whether the selectors will ignore his talents for so long that his best years will be past when he's finally chosen."

So, what "best years' Chappell is talking about? Sharma has player 42 ODIs for India with an average of 25; an average that's closer to Agarkar's than Tendulkar's; and a strike rate of 72; more Dravidian than Dhoni-esque. The question we need to ask is why he is still part of India's ODI team and why he is picked for India's T20 world-cup squad, over Virat Kohli (but, then we are forgetting that it is Srikanth who selects the team these days). In any case, Rohit Sharma shouldn't worry too much about his position in the current team. What he should be really concerned about is, now what happens to his career, now that Chappell had made the prediction and, this time, in writing. Out of all the things that can damage a batsman's career, Chappell's prediction is the worst; way ahead of a Shohaib Akhtar's beamer, Darrel Harper's finger or even the cheerleaders.

The aftermath of the "IPL snub"...

The "IPL snub", as Pakistan likes to call it, has come back to haunt India again. I mean, what were those private franchisees thinking, not spending thousands of dollars on players who may never show up. How can they refuse to just give away money to Pakistanis?  They never thought their actions would have such serious repercussions. How naive one can be? A nation, whose entire economy is based on receiving charity from others, was deeply hurt.

The first big causality was, wait for it, kabbadi; when Pakistan's kabbadi team refused to tour India. You would think that should have taught us a lesson. That decision by Pakistan alone should have convinced all those IPL bosses to apologize to them. But, Pakistan had moved on. One of their ministers, I forgot which one, while speaking to a news channel said that the time of saying sorry was over. India should send a delegation, personally apologize to the cricketers and take them to play in IPL. I thought that was a very fair ask. I mean, sure, the two countries may not be willing to send delegations to share information on terrorism, help in investigation; but when it comes to such important matters as IPL, how can you not send your best and brightest representatives to sort out the issue.

And now, just when India was about to recover from the "kabbadi snub", comes the killer blow. Pakistan's national cycling federation has decided not to invite Indians to the biggest athletic event on the planet; an event, which completely overshadows the Olympics or the soccer world cup in terms of the fan following; an event, which every Indian child, growing up, one day wants to be a part of; an event known as Tour de Pakistan. The secretary of the federation showed tremendous clarity of thought and rational decision making when he said "As a protest for the IPL auction we have decided not to invite Indian cyclists for our event,"  

To understand what our countrymen are missing, you have to picture a 12 day journey that goes from Peshawar to Karachi; a journey that takes you through a great land full of suicide bombers and terrorist training camps. Indian cyclists miss the once in a life time opportunity of getting up close and personal with the Taliban leaders, the Al-Qaeda members and who knows, if they were lucky, they might even have been at the receiving end of a drone attack. Name another sports event in the world that provides so much adventure and learning experience. 

The critics might point out that the Sri Lankan cricket team got attacked while touring Pakistan. But they only stayed in the high security hotels and traveled, escorted, only between their hotel and the ground. How can one even compare that to the safe environment of the Tour de Pakistan, where the participants have to pass through the mountains and forests of the Pakistan on their cycles. And particularly if the participants are from India, a country against which Pakistani terrorists have never even raised a finger.

I guess this "cycling snub" has demonstrated what the scientists called "the butterfly effect". I'm sure Lalit Modi and the IPL owners never saw this coming. They all should be held responsible for the disastrous effect it would have on our nation. Let this be a lesson for all of us. If you are a corporate, forget making profit for your partners and shareholders, forget the sentiments of your customers; if you have money, give it to Pakistan. Else who knows, may be the great game of kho kho is next in the  list of causalities.

IPL is India's most innovative company

Fastcompany.com just released its list of most innovative companies across the globe and across multiple industries; and surprise, surprise IPL is at number 22. It's the no # 1 Indian company in the list and it's the 2nd among all the sports companies. I am not aware of the criteria used in coming up with the list and I'm sure most of the readers would disagree with some of the rankings (For example, what exactly did Facebook do in the last one year to jump from 15th position to 1st?). But the point to note is that from India IPL made it to the top-50, not the infosys-es or the TCS-es ("process innovation", anyone?). IPL finds itself in the company of Googles and Apples of the world and they beat Microsoft and twitter by some margin (ok, "Microsoft" and "innovation" are two words that are generally not uttered together, but still they are on the list). Let's appreciate them for what they have achieved so far.

More on this later..

Under-pressure Bangladeshis and the unlucky Pakistanis

Bangladesh is once again staring at one of their customary test defeats and for some reason, which is not clear to me, their coach, Jamie Siddons, is angry. Siddons says "I'm not sure what went wrong, whether the boys felt the pressure of the big occasion or if they thought they could go out and actually get the runs, but it was certainly not in the plan". What big occasion? Is Bangladesh taking on New Zealand in a test that would ultimately decide the world no #1? No, wait, that's the other match that just ended. Or may be Siddon's is referring to the fact that Bangladesh is batting in the 4th innings of the match. Generally, matches involving Bangladesh don't enter the 4th innings, so this must be an overwhelming experience for them. Only if their No # 7 and #8 hadn't spoiled the first innings, they all would have been relaxing in their rooms by now. And yeah Siddons, the real problem is that your batsmen thought they can get these runs, since they have been chasing the 400 plus scores in test matches so frequently.

Now on the other side, 44% of the Pakistanis taking part in a survey blamed their team's defeat in Australia to poor cricket.  Let me say that again, only 44% of the Pakistanis believe that poor cricket is the reason why they lost all 9 matches to Australia in that tour; 3-0 in tests (two with margins of 170 and 231 runs each), 5-0 in ODIs (again twice with 100+ margins) and 1-0 in twenty twenty. 13% thought the team was unlucky (only if the cameras hadn't caught Afridi biting the ball, or only if Kamran had hurt is ankle during practice) and 20% of the respondents were not sure why the team lost.

However, for me, the most surprising aspect of the survey results was that, in a show of tremendous maturity, not even one of them blamed BCCI, IPL, Lalti Modi or Narendra Modi for their team's defeat. Or may be the surveyor, in a surprisingly foolish oversight, forgot to provide these options, which would also explain why 20% were unsure.

From Oval to WACA ....

"I am disgusted with the way the laws have been interpreted. You cannot tell whether the ball was scratched, unless you catch somebody in the process. It's a needless controversy." This was Ramiz Raja's on air comment in Aug, 2006 during the oval test, a match in which Pakistan was accused of ball tampering and as a result they decided to forfeit the game. Now flash forward three years, a Pakistani cricketer was actually caught "in the process", as Ramiz would call it. And this time what's Ramiz's reaction? He sits back and writes a lengthy piece about how we should leave the culprit alone. Some interesting lines from Ramiz's article

".. it is also time to remind ourselves that this madness stems from a certain mindset and a background. Afridi comes from an era, a cricketing culture, where ball-tampering is considered a normal cricket activity, the done thing on flat Pakistani pitches - an art form and not a sin. It's been a part of the Pakistan team's standard operating procedure."

He then goes on to compare the ball tampering practice of Pakistanis to the sledging by Aussies and the "moaning" by England when they tour subcontinent. Wow Ramiz. So Pakistanis are justified in tampering with the ball because English players complain when touring sub-continent? What next ? Pakistani bowlers are justified in chucking, because Indian batsmen are wristy ? Asif is justified in taking drugs because Sreesanth knows how to dance (or at least claims to)?

Ramiz is not done yet.
"Calling ball-tampering unlawful and an offense is regrettable...shouldn't the authorities stop looking at the practice with suspicion and instead look to bring it into the cricket syllabus so that we can all move on?"

That's a good suggestion. Now that a Pakistani is actually caught in the act, we should legalize ball tampering. May be we should also change the doping laws so Asif doesn't have to feign injury before the next big ICC event.

Interestingly, it's suggested that Ramiz's outburst on air is what flamed the Pakistani players to protest and eventually forfeit that game in Oval. Cricinfo had the story. They should have known better to base their action on such a man's word, who at best can be called inconsistent or at worst a hypocrite.

The Humble Aussies

It was interesting to read Andrew Symonds’ reaction to the team India's celebration after the twenty-twenty world cup. Apparently he had a problem with it. He went on to add “We have had a very successful side and I think watching how we celebrate and how they celebrate, I think we have been pretty humble in the way we have gone about it.”

Yes Andrew, I couldn’t have agreed with you more. We Indians are an arrogant bunch, whereas you Aussies are as humble as they come. Why, I remember the last time you were here; after winning the champions trophy you guys gave the BCCI president a nice shove off the stage and just before that your captain made a humble gesture to him to handover the trophy, while you entire team watched and giggled at the background. You might want to check out this video to refresh your memory.

So I guess the message is loud and clear. One shouldn’t get carried away after victory and celebrate it by dancing for the fans. Just push the guy who is handing over the trophy and then you are on your way for the next match. Thanks Andrew, for this lesson.

I’m sure we have a lot to learn from the Aussies when it comes to both on-field and off-field behavior. Your three most successful cricketers of present era; Shane Warne, Ricky Ponting, Glen McGrath have set so many decent examples for the youngsters; whereas in comparison India’s three legends Anil Kumble, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid look so rude, arrogant and spoilt.