Outside The Line

So This Texan Billionaire Walks Into A Talent Agent's Office...

I know I really should be focused on the 3rd Test in Delhi, and I should probably be seeking answers to some of the many important questions it has posed -- from "Just how bad is Jason Krejza as a spinner that he can't knock Cam White off the position?" to "Is there a single fielder in this Indian team who knows which end to throw to, let alone how to score a direct hit?" -- but my mind has been distracted by something else.

No, not the American presidential election. (I think they lost me somewhere between the celebrification of "Joe the Plumber" and that of "Tito the Builder".)

No, not the start of the NBA season. (The prospect of the Houston Rockets' Rafer Alston as the primary point guard in my fantasy squad is causing to wake up in shivers.)

No, not the Super Series in Antigua. (A mediocre English squad playing a depleted West Indian squad on a bunch of half-baked pitches is hardly a recipe for fireworks.)

Instead, it's the English media's reaction to the Stanford-WAG controversy, and to the Super Series as a whole. For anyone who hasn't caught up with frenzy, the here's The Surfer rounding-up the week's coverage.

If you only read the coverage, you'd think the Jumbotron at the Antigua ground had shown footage of Allen Stanford blowing a load straight into the Ashes urn and forcing Emily Pryor to drink the contents, as Kevin Pietersen and Giles Clarke watched in the background and burned 50-pound notes just for shits and giggles. (Or something equally Aristocrats-worthy.)

It's like there's a competition to see who can come up with the most alarmist and hyperbolic conceit for their article. I can only imagine what the special weekend editions of the papers will bring us.

We Love To Say I Told You So

It's not often that Outside the Line can claim prescience in any way, so we might as well bask in the rare glory. As predicted in this space less than four months ago, Geoff Lawson did not make it to the end of the year as coach of Pakistan.  

Any odds on their next coach lasting longer than their next prime minister? Pakistan -- the gift that really just keeps on giving. Let the War Nerd tell you about it:

Pakistan is one of those places that won’t sit still long enough to write up. When that neocon professor said history was finished, they should have made him do a year as visiting professor at Karachi U. That would’ve sobered him up fast. History never gets done in Pakistan.

The whole country’s a disaster. One of those classic British-made disasters. One thing I’m learning in this business is the Brits messed up more places on this planet than anybody realizes, and somehow they got away with it. That’s what really amazes me about them, the way they got away with it. They realized after WW II that their power was terminally broke, and decided to quit India before Gandhi took it away from them—because if you’ve got any pride at all, losing to a little half-naked vegetarian who looks like the old “Keep on truckin’” cartoon is just not an acceptable outcome. But the Brits wanted to be sure they had two states to play with, not just a single united India. That was old colonial policy for them, and it worked time after time: set up two tribes that hate each other next to each other and let the games begin. (They almost managed to do that [to the US] in 1863—if Gettysburg had gone the other way, I hate to think where we’d be now.)

Now if only Greg Chappell can somehow get position, I would die a happy man.

On A Long Enough Timeline, The Survival Rate For Every Game Drops To Zero

Last week, I got some comment section flak for daring to suggest that the empty stands at Bangalore might reflect the fact that Indians don't give much of a shit about Test cricket these days. Now, here is Stephen Brinkley making much the same point -- only in a clearer, better researched, more sober manner -- for none less than the Wisden Cricketer.

The interesting thing is that no matter which opinion he considers, which avenue his mind wanders through, the future looks grim for Test cricket. There seems to be no silver lining, no guarded hope, no "and yet there's always the chance that..." In every direction you look, the prospects are dim.

(The only thing we might have left to hold on to is the fact that since cricket is so conservative and slow to evolve, the death of Tests will probably take decades, rather than just years.)

The Mohali Test In A Series Of Barely Relevant Ad Hominem Attacks

- Irony in a nutshell: Cameron White getting thoroughly deceived and bowled by the only legspinner's delivery he actually knows how to bowl, the wrong'un.

- Even though he must be an emeritus fellow at the Ian Healy Look'n'Actalike Academy, there's something Brad Haddin still hasn't learned from the venerable old Queenslander... how to appeal. I'd say that, regardless of the bowling attack, Australia will always have about 8.3% less decisions go their way whenever Haddin's behind the stumps. He just doesn't know how to sell it. (Remember, B-Had... coffee's for closers.)

- Prediction: India's Big 4 will fade out in the same order as their hairlines. First it'll be Ganguly, then Laxman, then Dravid, and finally Tendulkar. (It's a good thing Sehwag gets triple-centuries on a regular basis, otherwise he would've been the first to go.)

- Congratulations to Peter Siddle, for winning the Steve Waugh memorial "White Guy Whose  Face Is Really Not Evolutionarily Designed To Be Out In The Sun All Day And Now, After Years Spent Playing Sports Outdoors, Has Contorted Itself Into Really Odd, Unappealing Shapes" Award. Well done, sir. A worthy winner.

- Is Virender Sehwag's existence predicated on the idea of nullifying every easy Western stereotype about Indian cricketers? Is he there to make sure Sourav Ganguly and Gautam Gambhir can throw away their wickets as selfishly and stupidly as they wish after reaching a hundred, and yet the squad will never get into collective trouble for it?

- Other than Chris Rock's latest HBO show, the funniest thing so far in 2008 (if only cricket would grasp the concept of online highlights, you'd see what I mean):

62.3    White to Tendulkar, 5 wides, another gift, White tries to fire it in flat and quick but he misdirects it to where legslip would have stood, yes it was that wide, nobody was going to stop that.

5 Points On A Pointless Test

                        

Hmm... so I guess it's going to be one of those series, huh? One down, three to go, and not a single person out there has any idea which one of these teams is going to win. (Even the markets agree... the odds for the 2nd Test are equal at 9/4)

Did we learn anything from the first Test? A little, sure, but not necessarily what we wanted to know. In a way, every point made about it is pointless, since we have no idea whether it's part of a trend, or just an odd outlier. Either way, a few things still struck the eye:

• Mitchell Johnson looks like either a cockatoo, or a feather duster. Not sure which. I'd say the eyes give him the facial expressiveness of the former, but everything else suggests he might have the personality of the latter.

• I don't know if I'll ever get used to the fact that, in little more than a year, the Australian spin mantle has somehow passed from Shane Warne to Michael Clarke. Has there ever been a more dramatic reversal in the capabilities of a team's bowling department? (And yes, I did say Michael Clarke, not his tousle-haired retarded cousin, who'll probably get dropped in a week. Clarke bowled more overs, got more wickets, and had a lower economy rate than White in India. I'd say that makes him the frontline spinner now, doesn't it?).


• So it's settled, then... India have no chance of winning a Test match these days unless Virender Sehwag fires early, right?

• Look into the Australians' eyes, not even that deeply, and you'll see something you'd never have seen before. The Fear. I won't go all HST on you and describe it in psychotropic/biblical detail for the next 1,200 words, but it's definitely there, and they are not used to it. (Did you think you'd ever see the day when an Australian opener would plod along to 34 off 140 balls on the fourth day after his team secured a first-innings lead?)


• Not that it matters, since the Indians will match fear for fear with the best of them (and then might even add a little cultural anxiety, multi-personal insecurity and generation-deep chokeability to the mix).
  
  It's hard to overlook the fact that, though this may turn out to be the most exciting Test series we've seen in yonks, it still involves two very flawed, weakened teams. Neither of them is playing at their best, with most of their members uncertain about their spots and the team's direction in the future. This probably won't reduce the drama, but it might offset the pure aesthetic quality of the series as a whole.

A Question For Karnatakan Ornithologists

Are those birds that keep flying above the ground in Bangalore crows, hawks, or just vultures hovering above the fading careers of the Indian middle order?

What, me care? (Celine Dion All-Stars v. Jack Johnson XI)

 

                                                                

Yesterday, the most anticipated Test cricket series of the year began in Bangalore, between India and Australia. For the next few weeks, all the action will converge, all the attention will focus, and even begrudging observers will be forced to take a peek now and then. (I use my dad as the barometer of public interest in cricket in Australia. He's not much a fan of the game -- though he does love to walk around the house loudly baritoning the word "Tendulkar" over and over like a mantra --  so I know that when he starts mentioning cricket in casual conversation, it has caught the grip of the masses.)

So why is all this attention placed on this series? What is riding on it? Is it actually important, objectively significant in some way, or is it just noteworthy because the only alternative at the moment is an ODI contractual obligation series between New Zealand and Bangladesh. There might be plenty reasons to watch the Border-Gavaskar trophy, but are there reasons to care?

To answer that question, we need to divide it into smaller sub-questions:

Why do we care?
1st-placed team in the world vs. 3rd-placed team... economic hegemon vs. on-field hegemon... white vs. brown... spin vs. pace... weeds vs. monkeys, etc. The storylines may be a little hackneyed and blunt, but they work. It's easy to sell them and put them into kinetic, bite-sized snippets for cable TV promos.

The Ashes, as a contrast, survives as an institution and a product because it stands on the massively inflated foundation of tradition. It doesn't have to sell itself because it's already so enmeshed into the identity of cricket. Without the Ashes, there's no cricket. Simple as that.

The India v Australia bilateral is different. It needs characters and narratives. It needs farewell tours, career reversals, and on-field controversy. A few of those factors are around this time, but not all. (To any series, for example you can simply add "Shane Warne" as a subplot and it would, by rule, become more interesting.)

Why should we care?
This is a harder question to answer.  There is no finality to either result -- neither an Indian nor an Australian victory would prove much about the future. The balance of power won't really be affected since it is, after all, on the balance. It could go either way. But we won't know in which direction it's headed, and this series isn't going to illuminate it. India have chosen a nostalgia squad, and we won't learn much from whatever they achieve in the next few weeks.

What this series will probably measure, however, is the chance Test cricket as a while has of surviving (and thriving) in the future.

It's no secret that, in international cricket, as India goes, so does the world. (Allen Stanford may slingshot away his millions from his Caribbean lair, but he will never be able to compete with the burgeoning economy of an entire country.) Therefore, if Test cricket wants to prosper in the age of Twenty20, it needs to be driven by its popularity in India. And there's no single way to make a sport more popular in a country than by having that country win consistently at the highest level.

This series will show us how serious India can be about the Test game. They have a great chance to really hurt Australia this time, and knock them down yet another peg in the post-Evil Empire era. It's not a good sign, however, that even if they do win, it will be with yesterday's players, not tomorrow's. (More on that later.)

Will Australia care?
We know that the Australian players will, and we know the management probably will, but what about the fans? After the mass exodus of the Warne generation, it's hard to predict how much the Australian public will care about cricket for a while.

The national team has lost a few of its stalwarts -- the Gillys, McGraths and Warnes -- and the ones that are left -- the Pontings, Haydens, etc. -- are not really types to capture the public imagination. They're efficient, and admired, but they're not iconic. All we're left with is a bunch of very disciplined professionals with boring-as-batshit personalities. A team full of cricketing Jack Johnsons, if you will. (One of them ain't even trying to hide it.)

Will Australians tune in for that? Is there any point for them? After winning big for two decades, will anyone care about an Australian XI losing with dignity, or winning ugly, half a world away? I get the feeling that the Aussie fans may have gotten spoiled by too much dominance. There are plenty of other things to watch on Foxtel between 2 and 9 PM in the afternoon, after all.

Will India care?
Now here's the vital question. Will the local fans show up? And will they do so consistently, to watch the cricket, and not just to celebrate inspirational milestones from over-the-hill legends?

The crowd on the first two days at Bangalore looked incredibly sparse. And while that's somewhat understandable given that the Australians won the toss and batted (on a pair of weekdays) it's hard not to compare the scenario with, say, the first night of the IPL. On that occasion, we saw packed stands, fireworks, Bollywood starlets dropping down from helicopters, etc. As far as pure spectacle goes, Test cricket in India still seems to be far down on the totem pole. And we really can't afford it to be.

There is no way to stress this enough: if Test cricket wants to stay afloat, it needs to bring India (and the Indian public) onboard fully. There is a vested interest for just about all concerned in seeing India at, or at least near, the top of the Test ladder.

The problem is that the Indian leadership is not really building for an extended period of dominance. Take a look at the squad they pettled out for this series... you might be wondering if you had stepped back into 2003. I know that the symbolic attachment to the old-timers is too strong to let go, but the country will never get beyond where they are right now while riding a dying generation. The Big 4 have done an immeasurable service to Indian cricket, no doubt, but let's not pretend they're even a Big 4 anymore -- more like a Moderately-Sized 2.5.

I mean, Sourav Ganguly? That's what they're giving us, in 2008? Are you fucking kidding me?

You know what the sad thing is? We've already seen the future of Indian cricket, and it's bright.

Unfortunately, the future was a week ago, and no one was watching.

The Indian Board President's XI faced the Australians in Hyderabad and outplayed them comprehensively in a 4-day draw. This was virtually a full Australian XI, and they got spanked by a bunch of barely-capped young'uns with a lot of hunger and little experience.

Sadly, we're not getting to see any of that. All we'll get is another exhibition of the fading skills of yesterday's heroes.. (I can't say I really fault them completely. I too would love to see Tendulkar get those 77 runs, and to watch Kumble claim another match-winning bag after everyone doubted/ignored him, and maybe even to catch the magic of another Laxman-Dravid special, just for old time's sake.)

But surely, the party must end at some point. No one this side of Celine Dion has extended a farewell tour for longer than the Indian Test team.

Until it ends, it becomes awfully hard to care. Even for those of use who really do.

 

FYI, OTL @ QLD, IND v. AUS, etc.

For any of the seven people who still check this space regularly, here's a little update. The last month has been one of change and recharge for me personally, and by this extension, for this site. I have left the weather-vane watching and the breezy academic lifestyle of Dunedin and replaced it with the constant ball sweat and the uber-suburban placidity of Brisbane's southern localities. Based on previous experience, I know I won't be able to withstand the latter lifestyle for very long, so I will soon head out to do the only thing I am qualified to as a philosophy graduate... teach English to little Asian kids.

Before that, however, I might as well use my time in the land of Oz constructively. Therefore, for the duration of the India v. Australia series, I promise to eschew the tangential diversions and navel-gazing ramblings so common to this blog and just focus on the cricket. It'll be hard, believe me, but if there is any time to do it, it's now. This might be the only interesting Test series of the summer, after all.

[Full series preview to come...]

This Is One For The Good Days, And I Have It All Here In Red, Blue, Green (RIP, DFW)

                                                

                                                  

I hate to have to keep doing this -- eulogising completely non-cricket related heroes of mine in what is supposed to be a cricket forum. (What can I say? The fuckers just keep on dying.) In a way, I suppose this one can be justified by saying that since he had once appeared and been linked to in a post on Outside the Line, writer David Foster Wallace is more than worthy of tribute in these pages.

(Besides, it's not as if there's been anything noteworthy happening in cricket for a month or so. Just indulge me this once, and I promise I'll get back and treat this like an actual cricket blog during the India v. Australia series.)

It’s funny how, in the age of internet, the death of your heroes can become a joyous, celebratory event. Tributes and remembrances are written, highlight reels and old clips are posted, and the essence of the deceased’s genius is captured in the overlap of the various differing portraits presented about him/her. You come to be reminded of their greatness, and what it is that you loved about them in the first place, as it's put on your screen in simple, well-edited packages, with a concision and eloquence that might often escape you.

Wallace was known as one of his generation's most talented and precocious novelists, combining a mastery of postmodern form and language with a profound concern with the Big Questions of classical literature. And yet some of his most consistently brilliant work came from essays, journalistic pieces, and random magazine assignments, with topics ranging from porn industry award shows, to luxury cruiseships, to right-wing radio shock jocks. He came into all these bearing an outsider's perspective... playing the role of the hyper-sensitive analytical geek-genius, dissecting and cataloguing the minutia of everyday experience, hoping to pick at a deeper, moral core beneath it all; one which the tools and structures of our day were ill-designed to support.

What Wallace understood in his non-fiction -- better than any career hack ever could when tackling the same topic -- was how to look for the story beyond the story. That's why, for example, his 2000 profile of John McCain for Rolling Stone became in part an exploration on the role of the news media in the shaping and of political narratives; or why he used a visit to the Maine Lobster Festival in a piece for Gourmet magazine to launch into a ethical inquiry into the killing of animals and a search for an answer to the question, "“Is it all right to boil a sentient creature alive just for our gustatory pleasure?

This brilliance at non-fiction was particularly evident in Wallace's forays into sports journalism, which sadly were confined to the sport of tennis. Take, for example, his celebrated NYT piece, "Roger Federer As Religious Experience". Here, again, he tackles the subject from odd angles, from the metaphysical to the mathematical.

Tennis is often called a “game of inches,” but the cliché is mostly referring to where a shot lands. In terms of a player’s hitting an incoming ball, tennis is actually more a game of micrometers: vanishingly tiny changes around the moment of impact will have large effects on how and where the ball travels. The same principle explains why even the smallest imprecision in aiming a rifle will still cause a miss if the target’s far enough away.

By way of illustration, let’s slow things way down. Imagine that you, a tennis player, are standing just behind your deuce corner’s baseline. A ball is served to your forehand — you pivot (or rotate) so that your side is to the ball’s incoming path and start to take your racket back for the forehand return. Keep visualizing up to where you’re about halfway into the stroke’s forward motion; the incoming ball is now just off your front hip, maybe six inches from point of impact. Consider some of the variables involved here. On the vertical plane, angling your racket face just a couple degrees forward or back will create topspin or slice, respectively; keeping it perpendicular will produce a flat, spinless drive. Horizontally, adjusting the racket face ever so slightly to the left or right, and hitting the ball maybe a millisecond early or late, will result in a cross-court versus down-the-line return. Further slight changes in the curves of your groundstroke’s motion and follow-through will help determine how high your return passes over the net, which, together with the speed at which you’re swinging (along with certain characteristics of the spin you impart), will affect how deep or shallow in the opponent’s court your return lands, how high it bounces, etc.

(...)

Plus there’s the fact that you’re not putting a static object into motion here but rather reversing the flight and (to a varying extent) spin of a projectile coming toward you — coming, in the case of pro tennis, at speeds that make conscious thought impossible. Mario Ancic’s first serve, for instance, often comes in around 130 m.p.h. Since it’s 78 feet from Ancic’s baseline to yours, that means it takes 0.41 seconds for his serve to reach you. This is less than the time it takes to blink quickly, twice.

Can you imagine what Wallace could've done with a game as intricate as cricket? How much could he have written about a simple Tendulkar flick off the hips behind square? Knowing DFW, a hell of a lot. (And with a bucketful of footnotes to boot.)