Outside The Line

Dada To The Very End

 

Dada was envisioned as an art movement to reject every other art movement. It was meant to be anti-art -- challenging the established norms and rules by completely discarding them. It was a statement, a protest, a political act of defiance.

In the end, however, anti-art becomes nothing but another outdated artform. Another rung in the dialectical ladder of creation.

In this sense, Sourav Ganguly showed himself truly worthy of the Dada moniker. His career proved significant not for what he contributed, but for what he represented. And what he was supposed to represent was never exactly clear. Therein lies his genius.

Ganguly's greatest skills were always political. He knew how to appeal to a constituency; to create wedges among the base, and build his nest within them. He tricked his followers into believing the value of his myth even though, when you looked real close, you'd see there was little behind the image.

He defined himself by his "leadership" and by, essentially, sticking it to the Aussies. He took advantage of the common cricketing trope of judging a player's worth by how they perform against the best in their era, and by nothing else. And at that, he was successful. Few people knew how to get under the Australians' skin better than Ganguly. Again, that's a purely political victory. In the actual important matters, the day-to-day grudge work of scoring runs, building partnerships and winning matches, he was always absent, leaving it to the Dravid's, Laxman's, Sehwag's to do the dirty work.

His last moments in Test cricket were pure dada. You'd think getting out for a golden duck would prove an ignominious end to a career. Not for Ganguly. It will only mean that he will always get compared to that other player who also got out for a duck in his last innings. His greatness will be achieved by literal proximity, if nothing else.

An indication of who he truly was, in the things that matter (in the anti-dada, if you will) was also clear to see in the Nagpur test. When Matthew Hayden got run out trying to steal a single on the the second day, he was dismissed because he confused Murali Vijay for Ganguly at mid-on. The only reason Hayden even went for the run was because he thought Ganguly was the one doing the fielding.

No one will ever mentioned that in the history books. It gets in the way of the narrative, the hagiography of heroes. But those of us who are there at the time notice it. It's the kind of detail that makes the time we waste on the game valuable to us. It illuminates true value.

It's the difference between the legends and the myths.

Between the leaders and the monarchs.

Between the fountains and the urinals.

Wrong As I Wish To Be (Like Simmons With Oden)

I hate to bring it up, since I know we're all trying to ignore the topic, as if avoiding it will somehow make the thought go away. But it won't.

Even Rahul Dravid himself must know he's a goner.

Why else would he begin his writing career even before his cricketing one has officially ended?

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.

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.

 

Picking Nits Off Weeds

Someone should tell Harbhajan Singh that if his aim is to convince the cricket world that he's truly moved on and learnt from the Slapgate incident, this is not the way to phrase it:

I've learnt a lot from whatever has happened in the last few months, and I can promise that I'll still play with a lot of passion.

I think what he meant to say was that "I've learn a lot from what has happened...". His use of "whatever", though, implies he either a) doesn't know what happened, or b) he doesn't care what happened. And if he doesn't know and/or care, how the hell can he have learnt anything from it?

Putting The Torch Out With A Single Tear

Do the Indian curators regularly inject their pitches with Rohypnol? Because that might help to explain how often they seem to produce these utterly lifeless tracks, in which one man alone can rape and pillage and score 250 runs in a day. That is not to take anything from Sehwag's effort, which I'm sure was everything people have been saying it was, and more.

Sehwag has always seemed to me to be the one modern batsman both capable and worthy of snatching Brian Lara's record. Not every great player has that combination of attributes. Some definitely seem capable (e.g. Jayawardene, Dravid, Gayle) but, as much as I love them, I couldn't envision them as ultimate record holders. It just wouldn't feel right. Others (e.g. Tendulkar, Sangakkara, Gilchrist) are more than worthy of holding the honour, due to their personas and status in the game, but for varying reasons the task seems beyond their capabilities.

Lara always made sense as the guy to be in the record books... his talent was obvious, immediate, and blindingly brilliant. He was an athletic freak, possessed with gifts few of us can even fathom, not to mention a killer instinct and determination. Matthew Hayden, on the other hand, was a stodgy bully with great conditioning and an endless supply of stamina, but little else. That's not who you want standing the zenith of recorded Test batsmanship, is it? (Especially when his high score came against an emaciated third-rate bowling attack like Zimbabwe's.)

I have to admit, though, I was a little disappointed to see Sehwag looking a lot fitter, tighter, and sans stomach paunch as he scored his masterclass yesterday. I know that improving his fitness is bound to help his game -- and I bet it was contributing factor in his recent comeback -- but I can't help but feel a tinge of regret that he couldn't manage to do it through talent alone. After the retirements of Inzamam, Warne, Lehmann, etc., it seemed that Sehwag would be the sole carrier of the Arjuna Ranatunga Memorial "Lazy, Unfit, Overweight Player Excelling Solely Due To His Natural Abilities" torch that has burned brightly throughout cricket's history. But then Viru went out and got a gym membership and, alas, it was not to be. Although I guess triple-centuries at a run-a-ball are a decent compromise, right?





[On a different note... you have noooooo idea how glad I am to see Graeme Smith's South Africa take over England's mantle as the "Team Most Likely To See Opposing Batsmen Score Record Innings Against Them." I'm giddy. First it was Chris Gayle's 317, then Sangakkara's 287 and Jayawardene's 374, now Sehwag's 319... can we expect something magic from, say, Dhoni and Tendulkar in the next couple of Tests?]

As Good As Wigs And Catchphrases, But A Win's A Win

                           

This is probably a sign of how bleak and grey things looked in the cricket world: last week, on the eve of the third Test match between Australia and India --€“ a crucial match from a still-competitive series, already full of controversy and tension, between arguably the two most popular teams in the world at the momeny -- the entire Outside The Line brains trust chose to go road tripping and camping by the beach, rather than staying at home, following the action on TV, and writing about it.

It wasn'€™t that we didn'€™t care about the outcome of the series (we did), or that our continual wish to see Australia derailed from its record-breaking tracks had somehow abated (it hadn'€™t). It was more an act of protest. (Against what, we'€™re not exactly sure. Against Australia and the arrogance of incumbency. Against the subjective dogmatism and hubris of modern umpiring. Against bigotry as the refuge of the hack. Against bullying tactics and high school jock ethics. Against business as usual.)

Regardless of our original plans, we still ended up following most the action in some form or another: radio updates as we played poker inside the tent, selective portions of inspired Indian batting on the widescreen of the nearby pub, cricinfo reports, etc. Cricket seems to permeate the air of coastal Australia in the summer, and even if you go out of your way to avoid it, you still can't stop yourself from absorbing some of it: 

• We couldn'€™t help but notice, for example, how seriously Stuart Clark is taking the "New McGrath" moniker these days --€“ shaking his head on the way back to his mark after every delivery, trying to stare batsmen down on his follow-through, always looking awkward and out of place in post-wicket celebrations, etc.

• The first three wickets of the Australian innings: three left-handed batsmen being dismissed by two left-handed Indian bowlers. Given that only between 7-10 % of the population as a whole is left-handed, that series of dismissals must represent either a freakish statistical oddity... or the future of world cricket.
  
  It's no secret that left-handers have dominated the batting scene for the last decade. In the past few years, however, we'€™ve also seen a lot of southpaw bowlers rising in the ranks. Except for the West Indies, every major international team nowadays includes at least one left-arm bowler. Three teams (Australia, India, England) include two left-armers on a regular basis. One team, Bangladesh, is often seen going in with three lefties in their lineup (as well as a few part-time left-arm spinners). It's clear that a lot of those players are not "natural" left-handers, but instead developed their skills with practice and at some point discovered the untapped potential of left-arm bowling in a landscape dominated by left-handed batters with iffy techniques. As such, expect the trend to continue.
  
  
• At one point, my friend Geot referred to Shaun Tait as “lumbersome,” which I’m pretty sure is not a real word, but somehow seems remarkably accurate in his case.
  
  
• Before any Indian fans get ahead of themselves, and start believing that their team's spirited fightback in this series is a harbinger of great times to come, may I just remind them that for most of last week's (and probably this week's) Test match, India had Virender Sehwag standing at point in the field. Sehwag! You're building a dynasty on that foundation? As Ricky Gervais' alter-alter-alter-ego, Mr. Stokes from When The Whistle Blows, would say, "Are you 'aving a laff?!?!"
  
  

Heraclitus To Hillary, And Everything In Between

There seem to be as many cable news channels as there are sports channels, so in between all the cricket this weekend, I caught some of the coverage on the recent campaigning and debates in the US presidential race. The Republican side, chock-full of belligerent whackos and schmaltzy panderers, is a lot more interesting to watch (for the freakshow factor), but this time I was caught by a theme on which all the Democrat candidates seemed to focus – change. The idea of change, the nature of change, who the most efficient agents of change would be, etc.

It made me think of Heraclitus and his theory of constant flux. Sometimes it seems as if the lack of permanence is all that is real in this world; as if everywhere you look, all you can see is change:

• Brisbane, e.g., has greeted me with an entire week of grey, rainy days -- I don’t know what to do with myself. If it wasn’t for the mosquitoes, the constant traffic on the streets and the creepy procession of shirtless joggers by the river, I’d think I was still in Dunedin.

• Just wondering…when did Rahul Dravid become Aakash Chopra?

• The emergence of Brad Hogg as the new anti-hero of the masses is just about the only positive I could gather from the first couple of Tests. He truly is a repulsive creature. I was a little concerned, after Glenn McGrath’s retirement and the post-World Cup player exodus, that there’d be no truly odious player left in the Australian team -- no one to affect you on a visceral level, keep you glued to the screen and force you to truly hate, with every fibre of your being. The weights-room eunuchs and statistical oddities of the new generation -- the Michael Hussey’s and Stuart Clark’s -- could never do that for you. You need someone special; someone working at a whole different level of repugnance.
  
  Enter GB Hogg. From the tongue, to the puffed-out chest, to the rodent face, to the forced jocularity on the field, to the Left-Arm-Grubber approach to spin bowling, Hogg seems almost designed to make your bile rise and get you screaming abuse at your TV as yet another wicket falls to his name. It’s a shame he’s so old already, because I could see him fueling my hating fantasies for years to come.

• I wasn’t fully aware of this, but it seems that the Australian cricket team is quickly morphing into some sort of talent agency/marketing firm/touring entertainment troupe. Every ad throughout the game’s coverage on TV involved some combination of Australian cricketers looking discomfited and acting wooden, selling everything from mobiles phones and utility trucks to fizzy drinks and chicken sandwiches. I’d call the whole bunch of them cheap whores, but that would be an insult to dedicated sex workers everywhere.
  
  (As far as unintentional comedy goes, however, you can’t go past the ad for Wolf Blass wines, where Stuart McGill, Mike Hussey, and Brad Hodge are standing  inside something that looks like either the set of a ski lodge from a bad 1980s teen movie or the underground lair of the cheapest Bond villain in history. All three of them are wearing tuxedos, and appear to be in somewhat of a festive mood; but there are no girls around, no music, and all they seem to be doing is sipping chardonnay and complimenting each other on particular highlights in their careers. It couldn’t look any gayer if Rufus Wainwright was sitting at a piano in the corner, playing a selection of Broadway showtunes.)

But what cricket this week has also shown us is that, all things considered, Heraclitus and the Democrats were wrong. All is not change, and change is not all. Some things are just bound to stay the same:

• He’s been away from the international scene for about 4 years, but it’s nice to see that Neil McKenzie still looks as awkward, uncomfortable and unreliable at the crease as always. He’s like the anti-Steve Waugh – a man you would NEVER trust to bat for your life. And yet he remains strangely endearing, with that furrowed muppet face of his, and the collection of nervous tics and idiosyncrasies.

• And speaking of idiosyncrasies … when all is said and done, I think there’s a good chance Shiv Chanderpaul might end up as one of the top-5 batsman of the decade. To do what he has done, and continues to do, for a team like the West Indies, is nothing short of spectacular. And he just keeps getting better: since Brian Lara retired last year, Chanderpaul has batted 9 times in Tests, been dismissed only 5 of those, scored 3 centuries and 5 fifties, and averaged 139. In one-dayers during the same period, he averages 129. For the whole of 2007, including the World Cup, he averaged 76 in ODIs, with 4 hundreds and 4 fifties.
  
  
• Another view that’s clear and unchanging: there are few experiences as joyous for a cricket fan as watching a Laxman/Dravid partnership. They have now become a genre in themselves. It doesn’t matter what form they take, what context they are in, who the dominant player is, they seem to go beyond normal categories of the mind. They trigger thoughts, memories, feelings; all unique, and all related only to each other. As the sportswriter’s cliché goes, they are transcendent. They go beyond the normal and the expected. When those two are at the crease, there are no predictions -- they’ve stretched the plausible, so they’ve made everything possible.

• Forget about the talent gap, or the preparation gap, or the psychological gap… the biggest factor assisting the Australian team in their domination at the moment is the Appeal Gap. Simply put: Australia is getting an unfair advantage from the effects of their constant, exaggerated appealing. They are intimidating umpires into ruling in their favour, and forcing them to base decisions on the harmony of choreographed hollering, rather than the merit of deliveries.
  
  Normally, this gives the Australians a one- or two-wicket advantage. This time around, it was closer to four or five, which made it all so much more gut-wrenching. Dravid’s should never have been a wicket, nor should Ganguly’s. Hussey and Symonds both hit balls off the middle of the bat into Dhoni’s gloves, but were given not-out simply because the Indians haven’t quite learned how to scream in unison.
  
  Sadly, it seems as if that’s how cricket is being decided these days: who can yell the best. If that’s the case, count me out -- I’ve got better things to do with my time. And I’m tired of waiting for change, when it’s clear that none is on the way.
  
  

Some Announcement Or Something

India have announced their squad for the tour of Australia starting later this month, with Virender Sehwag's recall, after almost a year away from Tests, causing some controversy. Given that a) about 86.3% of the cricket blogosphere, even on a normal day, consists of a bunch of guys arguing over who should be in the Indian batting lineup, and b) I have nothing particularly salient or insightful to say on the matter, I'll just mention something that pissed me off about Ricky Ponting's reaction to the announcement.

Ponting was asked what he thought of Sehwag's inclusion. He said:

I didn't think Sehwag would make the final touring party but he's here and he had some successes against us last time. A terrific 195 or something.

Or something? Come on, Punter. You know it was 195. You were there. You remember it well... you remember that it was in Melbourne, that it was exactly 195, that he got it on the first day, and that he got out caught in the deep trying to hit a six. Everyone knows it. So why the fuck do you have to add that dismissive "or something" to the statement? Like it was just some random lucky innings in Bangladesh that someone mentioned to you in passing a while ago. Come on, you yourself scored a 257 later that same match. You can't tell me that you barely remember that game, or Sehwag's innings -- you know, the same innings that competed with yours for Man of the Match on the most competitive Boxing Day Test in years. Surely you remember, Ricky. Surely.

(The strange thing about it? I remember that 195 vividly, and yet I had completely forgotten about the 257. I only discovered it a few moments ago when I was checking the archives to see who dismissed Sehwag that time. Has Australia been dominating for so long that I'm starting to repress memories of their success like they're Freudian childhood complexes? Has Australia fucked me -- and my psyche -- up that badly? Damn.)

Dropping Weight To Keep The Tour Afloat

I've been thinking for a few days now about how to tackle the news of Rahul Dravid's recent drop from the Indian one-day squad. It just seems like an issue that I should say something about, since a) I am a cricket follower, b) I write for a cricket blog, and c) I have always been a big Dravid fan (and public booster), never quite getting enough of his humble orthodoxy with the bat, his utter implacability as a leader, or his narrow shoulders and sunken chest. Isn't this the kind of issue that made me start this blog in the first place? The kind that I can sink my teeth into and ruminate on for weeks, debating the pros and cons, with just the right combination of hard data, holistic team analysis, and soft-focus rhetorical nostalgia?

And yet I find myself curiously indifferent about it all. Dare I say... I just don't give a shit about it? In a way, I don't. Because when it comes right down to it, none of this is about Rahul Dravid at all. He's just the fall guy – a victim of expediency in uncertain times. If he had the ruthless drive or Machiavellian streak of, say, a Sourav Ganguly, Dravid would still be in that Indian team, living to play another day. But he doesn't, so now he's the one being put out to slaughter, regardless of his extensive contributions to the team in the past, his not-that-bad-when-you-really-bother-looking-at-the-numbers form in recent times, as well as his obvious ability under pressure and mental strength in a batting lineup typically beset by psychological frailty.

Normally, I'd be screaming Injustice! from the rooftops, but in this case I'll just say to Dravid what Mork from Ork once said to Will Hunting: "It's not your fault. It's not your fault. It's not your fault." This has nothing to do with Dravid or the objective merit for his presence in the Indian one-day squad. It is about Sachin Tendulkar, and what is probably destined to be one long-ass, protracted Farewell Tour he is embarking on. As far as Indian cricket goes, it’s clear that their team will never really be able move forward until Tendulkar – the man, the symbol, and everything it represents – goes. In the history books, this is still Tendulkar's India, just like the Australia of the 1930s and 40s was Bradman's Australia. The man has been too huge a monster (in athletic, symbolic, and cultural terms) to just allow the team to 'move on' while he's still around.

So all you can do is wait and work around it. I mean, what else are you gonna do? Huh? Drop him? Drop Tendulkar? Who's going to make that phone call?

(Unfortunately, that means you might have to drop this by the wayside):

Australians... If You Lick Them, You Hallucinate!

Comedian Louis CK used to have a bit in his stand-up about racism, in which he wondered:

"Why can’t we have racism that’s ignorant but nice? You could have stereotypes that are positive about race. You could say, 'Those Chinese people, they can fly!,' or 'You know about the Puerto Ricans… they’re made of candy!'"

I've thought of that while following the recent 'monkey chant' controversy regarding Andrew Symonds. It's not so much that the people in the crowd who did it are bigoted, it's that they're hacks. C'mon, it's 2007... and monkey chants are the best you have? They were doing that in the '50s, for godssake. If you're going to be the designated Angry Player-Abuser in the crowd, at least get yourself some fresh material.

It's like Michael 'Kramer' Richards' yelling "nigger" at a pair of hecklers in one of his shows last year. It was sad more than anything -- proof of a tragic dearth of spark and originality in his work, rather than actual bigotry. The taboo language comes out because it's the only thing left to reach for; the only way to keep the spotlight on you; because there's no comeback left, no witty put-down to lean back on. You're out of shit, and you know it.

So the monkey chant comes out. Just like it did in the second Test between South Africa and Pakistan,  and in South Africa's tour of Australia last year. And just like it will come out in the future, when some pandering assclown in the crowd gets sloppy-drunk too quickly and uses up his quota of effective Ya wanker, and You're a cunt! too early in the match, so he's forced to reach into the pantomime bag for the monkey material to top himself. If the media treated it like they do streakers and just ignored it, it would go away in a few weeks. Now all they're doing is building up the issue and fueling the copycat effect in future series.

(We'll ignore the underlying irony, which I'm sure was lost on the offending crowd members, of a bunch of stadium rubes -- who usually tend to have a very unevolved look about them, all hairy-backed and scraped-knuckled -- taunting Andrew Symonds, about as close to an athletic Übermensch as the cricket world has ever seen.)

Also, since it's a bit of a slow day in cricket, some more Louis:

 

Joined At The Snub

I’ve been wondering: is Murali Kartik the Indian version of Nathan Bracken, or is it the other way around? You wouldn’t think so just by looking at them (or their records: Bracken has one of the lowest one-day bowling averages in history, while Kartik’s is higher than Matthew Hayden’s bra size) but they do share a lot of qualities. They both only came to the fore in their late twenties, they always do exactly what is asked of them on the field, and yet they continue to be overlooked in favour of flashier bowling rivals. Kartik for some reason is always brought in to share the punishment when India have to play Australia, yet he always manages to performs well, as if he belongs in there, and has been known to give the Aussies quite a few headaches. Bracken has been given a few more games, but continues to be a fringe player in the Australian squad -- in this series alone, he's already been dropped and brought back in twice. 

Another thing they both share, although harder to define, is a measured calm on the field. They have a  phlegmatic look about them that suggests a) balance, b) gratification, and c) an appropriate amount of blowjobs in their recent past. Neither of them look like their worlds would crumble if cricket wasn't there. They seem like, well... happy people. If I were running a cricket team, that's probably the kind of person I would want to enlist. But maybe the Australian and Indian selectors disagree.

(A Colbertian Tip O' The Hat to Joey for first putting me on to Kartik's skills. Where some might have seen just an unremarkable 1 for 49 three years ago, he saw the way of the future. Except, um, not... since Kartik will probably be dropped for another year now.)

Right Next To Some Hockey Fight

Back in 2004, after NBA star Shaquille O'Neal was essentially forced out of a (winning) Los Angeles Lakers squad due to Kobe Bryant's constant hissy fits, ESPN columnist Bill Simmons tried to work out how angry and vengeful Shaq would be in his comeback season with a new team, the Miami Heat. In trying to answer that question, Simmons came up with the Vengeance Scale, drawn from the worlds of sport, movies, music and (somewhat excessively, I think) pro wrestling.

The Vengeance Scale ranges from 0 to 10, going up from least to most vengeful (0.1 being "O.J. Simpson's valiant attempt to find the 'real killers,'" 5.0 being "Crazy Joe Davola vs. Kramer and Seinfeld," and 10.0 being "Keyser Soze in The Usual Suspects.")

I've been trying to think where Andrew Symonds' recent performance against India would rank in the Vengeance Scale. Think about it: 107 not out off 88 balls with the bat, 10 overs for just 39 runs with the ball, in the fifth game of a (still competitive at the time) series against India, after losing to them in the Twenty20 semi-final just weeks before. That in itself would already merit a decent rank, but when you factor in all the 'monkey chants', Sreesanth's schoolyard mind games, and all the extra sauce that has been added -- from both sides -- to this series, Symonds' feat starts to look more and more impressive. (The fact that he was also dropped by Sreesanth when he was on 2 can only add add points to his score.)

I'd say it definitely has to rank higher than "Snoop and Dre taking shots at Easy E in 'Wit' Dre Day'" (at 7.1), but still a little lower than "Cartman's revenge on Scott Tenorman" (at 7.8). Let's just split the difference and give it a 7.5.

He's Only A Specialist Bowler, After All

How's this for an endorsement? Indian chairman of selectors, Dilip Vengsarkar, speaking about endomorphic offspinner Ramesh Powar's future:

Ramesh has to get fitter and field better. He also has to improve his bowling.

Other than that, he's great, really.

How Long Till The IPL Again?

Am I the only one who is already feeling underwhelmed about the current ODI series between Australia and India? Maybe it's because it's coming so soon after the excitement of the World Cup, or maybe it's because my mind has involuntarily stopped caring about the one-day game ever since it realised that the format will soon be phased out, I'm not sure. Even though I get the feeling that it could end up being quite competitive, it just feels like a giant non-sequitur to me. Will it change the balance of power in the game? Doubt it. Will it tell us anything special about either team? Probably not. It's just there to... well, fill the time, I guess. And make a little money. Other than that, without any enduring context or storyline, I can't really see any purpose for such a series at the moment. (And "seeing Matthew Hayden's career end prematurely after being struck by a full-blooded cut shot to the face" doesn't count as a reason, since that's pretty much what I hope to see in every Australian series.)

Catching Our Breath, In Bullet Form

There is little point in recapping India's win yesterday, since anyone reading this will most probably have already seen it for themselves. (The Cricket Watcher's Journal has a pretty comprehensive round-up of news and reactions from the final, in case anyone missed anything). Here, though, are some random thoughts/observations I made during the match: 

• Something that must be noted about Misbah-ul-Haq's little paddle to Sreesanth to end the match: it probably wouldn't have even happened had the game not been played in Johannesburg. The previous delivery was a straight pull for six that I'm pretty certain would have been caught inside the boundary in any other ground in the world.
  
  
• It's a little funny how, out of the entire clan of immensely gifted cricketers who have dominated Indian cricket for more than a decade, the only two who ended up victorious in an international tournament were the two biggest underachievers of the lot -- Virender Sehwag and Ajit Agarkar.
  
  
• I wonder what that final would have been like had Pakistan's best bowler not been injured. Mohammad Asif was clearly below his best yesterday, and it was obvious that there was some little niggle causing him discomfort. Would India have even gotten to 150 if Asif, Gul, and Afridi were all firing? I doubt it. (Incidentally, did Asif's injury have anything to do with his pre-tournament altercation with Shoaib Akhtar? What an interesting sub-plot it would be, if that's the case.)

• So my pre-World Cup predictions ended up, not surprisingly, being completely wrong: I initially had both India and Pakistan going out early. However, I wasn't as far off as it would seem. My reasoning was mostly correct -- I said I didn't expect teams with bad fielding to get very far. And they didn't, really. Except India and Pakistan were actually great fielding teams, all tournament long. (That's right, kids... it's a brave new world we live in.)

• My buddy George has a simple, yet brilliant suggestion for any cricket played in the future: keep the stumps as loose in the ground as they were throughout the World Cup. Seeing them fly off the  and almost decapitate the keeper every time someone was bowled had to one of the coolest enduring images of the past two weeks.
  
  

A Glitch In The Matrix

Not a good time to experience technical difficulties, I guess. Maybe that serves me right, and all of us who griped and bitched about the other World Cup's excessive length... this time, instead, we get a competitive, storybook tournament that just whooshes by in a whirl. I mean, an India v. Pakistan final? You're kidding me, right? And that after a full fortnight of tight, lively games, one of which just happened to be a farcical tie-and-bowl-out between the very same two teams that are playing in the final? That sounds so spectacularly like some crooked bookie's wildest morphine wet dream that I'll discount any sinister motives; it's just too good to be true.

If anyone out there still had any doubts that Twenty20 was destined to sweep through and change the entire cricket landscape in mere months, the events of the last couple of weeks should surely convince them otherwise (well, it should eventually -- I'm sure there will be some denial in many at first). 50-over cricket is a thing of the past, and if the traditionalists want to salvage anything, I suggest they focus on the Test game. It's not untouchable.

Too Busy Posing, Y?

Yuvraj Singh got out for 1 today against New Zealand, after being dismissed for 4 against Pakistan two days ago. Does he not realise that he could be making a serious case for the captaincy, in all formats -- and a steady place in the side -- by really shining in this tournament? He could be showing the fans, and the selectors, a glimpse of a bright new future for India; an exuberant, athletic, young India, missing none of the raw talent of some its predecessors. He should be trying to fill the current leadership vacuum, while at same time finally starting to define his place in his country's cricketing history.

I know that the Indian selectors tend to be quite conservative with their choices, but I think they should take a leaf from the Australian playbook on this one. In 2004, they had a number of options available when naming Steve Waugh's successor, but they went with Ricky Ponting because they saw a certain ineffable quality in him; a hint that they were dealing with a real winner here, someone who was capable of rising to the challenge and excelling under the responsibility. Which Ponting has done, at least with the bat (he's lucky that his limited tactical acumen does not hinder the Australian juggernaut too much -- as Chris Cairns once said, "even my mother could lead this Australian side"). Maybe Yuvraj could become India's Ponting. I'd say it's worth a gamble.

I'd be happy as long as they don't give the position, as Anand Vasu suggests they might, to Tendulkar, Laxman, or especially Ganguly. (If you want a perfect case study of how the captaincy can break a man, look no further than Sourav's last six months at the helm in 2005. He was aging faster than Lindsay Lohan at that point, with deep furrows of worry constantly etched on his once-boyish face -- after he was dropped, he looked a deeply wounded man, physically and psychically, and I have to admit I gave him no chance of ever making it back into contention.) They should allow the Golden Generation to bow out in style, without any added pressures, to make sure that India's transition into the new decade is smooth and seamless... and to maybe provide the fans with a lasting memory of the undeniable greatness of that batting lineup.

Not Only Rats Jump Off

Earlier today Rahul Dravid resigned his post as Indian captain. I can't say I really blame him.  The Indian cricket captaincy must be one of the most volatile, stressful jobs in the civilised world. Dravid should be proud of the accomplishments under his lead, and grateful that, in his whole tenure, only a handful of his effigies were burnt in protest. That's as good a measure as any of performance for an Indian captain.

Here is some of the great man (even it's just as part of old Test highlights, I could watch the purity of that technique all day long):

Random Notes on a Truly Consequential Match

It wasn't even full. The stadium, it wasn't full. That's the image that struck me the most from the India v. Sri Lanka game yesterday. It wasn't India's umpteenth under-whelming performance in a major tournament, or the clinical flamboyance of a Sri Lankan team that is looking more dangerous and more confident by the day. It was the empty stands. Queen's Park Oval is not a huge venue -- it holds about 25,000 on a good day. We are being told all the time that India is home to the largest market and the most rabid cricket following in the world, and yet you're telling me they couldn't manage to pack a few thousand bodies into a picturesque Caribbean ground for the most important one-day game their team has had since the 2003 World Cup Final?

So now both the big Asian teams are gone, an outcome some might call disappointing if it wasn't at the same time so predictable. Does it really matter though? Probably not -- the Pakistanis have way bigger issues to worry about now and can't seem to want to hop on a plane out of the continent quickly enough. The Indians haven't looked like they could threaten New Zealand, let alone Australia, in years, so an early exit at least helps to keep their national agony prompt and gives them a few extra weeks for the inevitable processes of soul-searching and re-building.

Anyway, here are some scattered live observations made during yesterday's massacre:

-- Here's a great (non-bowling) reason why Muttiah Muralitharan is such an entertaining, indispensable character in world cricket: after he took a blinder of diving catch to get rid of Ganguly, he threw the ball in the air to celebrate, like all cricketers are wont to do; but then he got scared that the umpires might believe he threw it up too early and without being in full control, so he ran in the opposite direction to re-catch the ball, went for another full-length dive and ended up dropping the ball comically. The ball was definitely out and all his teammates were already running in to congratulate him, but Murali ended up looking like a little kitten who kicks a ball of yarn but then gets surprised by its movement and starts chasing it frantically. Priceless.

-- Arbitrary ICC Regulation Put In Place For The World Cup That Only Serves To Kill The Fan Experience of the Day:

No paying spectator can leave the stadium's grounds during a World Cup match. If you want to leave at any point, they expect you to buy another ticket to come back in. If you ask me, that is just blatant discrimination against those fans who are unwilling to stand in line during the lunch break to get overpriced buckets of KFC or lukewarm roti at the concession stand, and who'd rather pop out to the park for a quick joint to liven up the afternoon run chase.

-- It's nice to see Russel Arnold keeping alive the long-standing Sri Lankan tradition of "fielding at least one player who looks like he has recently been through a famine." Arnold has taken the role over from Upul Chandana, who had held title for years with a face that seemed almost custom-built for a World Vision ad. I think his bio picture was even Photoshoped to remove the buzzing flies.

-- Sachin Tendulkar has really mastered the art of the memorable entrance. He comes out of the pavilion and onto the field at the just the right moment, strolling at a perfect pace; slow but determined. He crosses the outgoing batsman early, close to the boundary, so he can bask in the lone limelight for as long as possible. He seems to time it so that his name is announced over the P.A. about halfway through his walk, a steady roar building around the stadium as spectators turn their heads to see a diminutive legend in the flesh. It doesn't matter how badly his form may be, or how old he might get, he makes every trip to feel like a special occasion for the fan; a true experience; an event.

And then… he gets bowled for a duck by Sri Lanka's fourth best bowler.