What's ailing Indian Cricket?

My Mom used to tell me as a kid growing up in scarcity, "Money can't make you happy. In fact, rich people can't even use their money to get the things that they want." "Really Mom?" I would ask. "How sad one can be when he can buy all the chocolates and ice creams in the world?" "That's the sad part son, coz once they get rich, they get all the bad habits and then diseases. All rich people are fat and diabetic and can never eat chocolates." As usual I didn't give much importance to her words then. I don't know about others, but an interesting part of growing up process for me is the realization that the stuff your Mom said years ago often starts making sense to you years later. Indian cricket had started getting richer in the late 90s. But ever since IPL came along, it really started booming. The riches were unlimited, the sources were numerous, comparisons were with the richest sports bodies and the richest sportsmen in the world. With all of these , came along the bad habits which are now probably taking the shape of a disease. Our batsmen and bowlers are losing their techniques. The stars of tomorrow don't even want to learn any real technique.

However, players with bad technique can't be the real problem for us. With such a huge pool of players, it can't be too difficult to find and groom players for different formats. Especially, when you have the richest board which can hire the best scouts and coach. The real problem is when the bad habits and the diseases enter into the head which controls everything. With more money and more avenues, BCCI is no longer a body with cricket at it's heart. Cricket administration was never India’s forte, but the current situation has to be the worst ever. Now we just see politicians and businessmen running amok everywhere. When a stalwart like Dileep Vengsarkar loses Mumbai Cricket Association election to a former chief minister who may not even have a watched a full cricket match in 10 years, just because he didn't have the proper political and corporate back up, you know how bad things are. We always had zonal quota in selection which always led to lobbying. It has been like a chronic disease for Indian cricket. But now there are new diseases. People talk in hushed voices about player agents pushing the board to select certain players especially for important tournaments. New players find hard to make it into the team since watching all new faces on the TV can affect TV revenue. Cricketers are happy to ensure that they play an injury free IPL even if it means missing national duties. I can't say all of this happens all the times. But there are enough evidences to show that some of it definitely happens some of the times.

So where do we go from here? Really bad diseases like this might lead to eventual downfall of the BCCI empire some day. Without international success people’s interest in cricket is bound to reduce. One big reason for so much cricket love in this country is some success at the international level. Cricket is the only sport that makes Indians, proud to be Indians. Supporting a club can't give you such levels of pride. Already many youngsters are just happy to choose to support a Manchester United or Barcelona over one of their cricket teams. This can be a sign of times to come. This disease can be nipped in the bud or can be cured, but the patient needs to realize that he has an ailment and is willing to do the hard yards to fight it off. Probably, getting your pride dented can be the biggest motivation to fight. There is nothing we are more proud of than our home record. As Gambhir and some other players proudly proclaimed even after England and Australian whitewash, "It's all good, we can still beat them at home, and be demigods again." Losing to England at home must have hurt the players and even the BCCI. As a fan, it hurt me seeing England spinners take 19 wickets on a Mumbai pitch. So what if it was turning square, we used to tame spin kings like Murali and Warne regularly at home. Last time India found them on such a low was the 1999-2000 season. Getting white washed in Australia was bad but more or less expected. Coming back home and getting white washed by South Africa hurt everyone real bad. The match fixing scandal and Hansie Cronje testimony happened soon after taking Indian cricket into its biggest slump ever. As diseases go, this was a situation where a doctor in a Bollywood movie would say, "Inhein dawa ki nahi, dua ki zaroorat hai.(He doesn't need medicine, he needs prayers)". But, from there Indian cricket started to fight back, surely there was no shortage of prayers from the fans at any time. And just like Bollywood movies, the biggest hero had to play some part. Sachin Tendulkar knew it was the right time to step down and hand over the captaincy to Ganguly. (Few years later, it was again him who recommended Dhoni as the captain). Ganguly started with winning two easy series against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh. And then the miracle happened. Steve Waugh's Invincibles were beaten in Kolkata and later at Chennai. Many Indian cricketers have said that this was the start of their climb to Test Number 1 ranking and World Cup. It brought about an attitude change, a belief, an amazing ‘bouncebackability’.

Eternel skeptic in me thinks that a fight back will be tougher this time. The disease has affected the DNA of Indian cricket this time and a fight back seems unlikely. Perhaps this isn't the rock bottom yet from where we fight back. But the wheels will turn, surely and inevitably. As Shahrukh Khan said in a Bollywood movie, "There is always a happy ending, else Mere Dost, Picture abhi baaki hai  (The film isn't over yet, my friend)".

- rajesh@cricketbakchod.com

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If BCCI goes the AITA way

 In the wake of some recent tantrums thrown by Bhupati and Bopanna, two of our premiere women players, I came to realize the importance of an all powerful bunch of jokers (or the selection committee, sorry Jimmy Amarnath). Obviously in tennis it's easier for a couple of big stars to throw their weight around to get things done their way. I am using the term "star" here pretty loosely. In my book doubles tennis is like an amateur sport which no one in the world cares about. In a few days, we will see Wimbledon doubles games played on court No. 14 contested in front of 20 people (including officials). Anyhow, I digressed. These men are still stars in the country. Dating Mahima Chaudhary and marrying Lara Dutta should be proof enough of their stardom.

Thankfully, our cricketers despite being sporting Gods in the country have to abide by the selection committee which in most cases sends the best available teams. Although we still have a rich history of feuds starting from Maharaja of Vizianagaram vs Lala Amarnath, to Kapil vs Gavaskar, to Ganguly vs Dravid to the latest Sehwag vs Dhoni. Still end of the day, these grown up men generally keep their differences to the ocassional press outburst and manage to get along on the field of play. So, a cricketer with an ego of the size of Ganguly would happily make a come back to play under the Dravid/Chappel regime. It might be interesting to imagine our team selected via a general body meeting with all cricketers and selectors participating. Here is what the minutes of meeting might look like:

"Tough to keep him out Greig"

General Body Meeting for Indian Cricket Team Selection
Attended By: Selectors, Players, WAGS, Agents.
Summary of points discussed:

• Sreesanth and Munaf Patel are unanimously ruled out for selection. None of the players want to be a part of the team where these two are playing. One of the esteemed WAGs present at the meeting Miss Sheela (name modified to conceal identity) accused that her husband has started using more hindi abuses which he learned from Munaf and after making love to her, beats the ground with his hands and breaks into stupid dance routines ala Sreesanth. The selectors have accepted the plea and banned Sree and Munaf for 20 years.
• Sehwag has refused to play unless he gets a written guarantee from all the players for not making fun of his hair or the lack of it. Sehwag couldn't hide his emotions while making his plea, "Bhencho, saare endorsements ke paise uda diye baal ugaane mein. kitane doctors ke pass gaya. Ajkal to naye ads bhi nahi mil rahe hain. bolte hain pahele baal ugaao. ajkal to yeh harsha bhogle bhi mazaak udaane laga hai. This has to stop, else I can't play my natural game." The board respects Sehwag emotions and has warned the players to refrain from jibes at his baldness. Anyone found guilty will have his hair shaved off and be forced to spent 3 hours alone in a room with Sreesanth. Similar pleas were made by Nehra about his teeth and Ishant about his Adam's apple both of which were rejected. They were heard murmuring, "Yea its a batsmen's game after all".
• The other Delhi stalwart Gautam Gambhir raised his usual concern about Dhoni and the team leaving it for too late amidst loud boos and jeers. He was cut short in his speech as Dhoni's agent signed a blank cheque and put it on the desk of board's president.
• Board and all the players have unanimously agreed that Sachin Tendulkar should be allowed to move from 89 to 100 directly on taking a single. As usual, Rahul Dravid has agreed to debit the runs he has scored to ensure all of Sachin's 90s can be counted as 100s. Board president thanked Rahul for this sacrifice and assured that the whole country will be extremely grateful to him. The board will take up this matter in the next meeting with ICC. All cricket boards except ECB have already entered an MoU with the board to support whatever crap they come up with at the ICC meeting in exchange for a 9 match bi-lateral ODI series.
• Among other prominent demands from the players were: "Rule change to reward extra runs only for style and shadow practicing" from Rohit Sharma."I will bowl fast only in the match and off breaks in the nets" from Zaheer Khan, and "Ban leg stump wide rule" from Harbhajan Singh. All of these were rejected after the due voting process.

The next meeting will be held in August where the all important issue of how to maximize profits and kill test cricket will be discussed.

- rajesh@cricketbakchod.com 

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Sachin Speaks: Applying cricketing wisdom to 10 political Issues

CricketBakchods(CB) finally caught hold of Sachin inside the Parliament restroom and he couldn't say no to us (We all know about the legendary male bonding inside a restroom). Here goes his exclusive message on politics and politicians for our super exclusive news bulletin CB-Live. 

Over to SRT:

CB wonders if SRT is visiting Viru's hair therapist?

Here is my message for UPA and friends:
1. Depending on Mamta Banerjee is a bit like depending on Ashish Nehra. At crunch moments, they both tend to forget whether they are in your team or the opposition.

2. Kapil Sibbal's zero sum Mathematics makes as much sense as the Duckworth Lewis system.

3. Still on Kapil Sibbal. Expecting him to do justice to both HRD and Telecomm ministry is like expecting your wicket keeper to also bowl 8 overs in a one day game.

4. Manmohan Singh is well, your Sachin Tendulkar. He is your star performer. You make him the captain and you loose one of your biggest assets.

5. And finally, you never take a club cricketer and make him the test captain. Rahul Gandhi should do a lot more than his half yearly rounds of Amethi before he can be your Prime Minister.

And now my message to NDA and friends:
1. Narendra Modi is going the Saurav Ganguly way, you either make him the captain or he is going to take the team down with him.

2. Expecting Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev to get you back to power in 2014 is like expecting your coach to make a hundred in an important final.

3. Don't bank on Narendra Modi to win you 2014 elections single handedly. RCB made the same mistake in IPL by banking totally on Chris Gayle. To win, your whole team should be organized.

4. Expecting Advani to retire is a bit like expecting me to retire. He is your only leader with nationwide appeal. He may not be your next captain but he is still your best batsman. Play him at number 3 on tricky pitches.

5. Nitish Kumar is your rising star but he is still playing Ranji Trophy in Bihar. He can win you the whole of North India if you get him in the national Team. He should be your captain/vice captain and opener.

And finally my only message to everyone else, "Scratch where it itches, I always do."

CB:
Wow. we did it. In your face all you news channels.... Signing off. dekhte rahiye CB-Live.

- rajesh@cricketbakchod.com 

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Ganguly Vs Dada

Pune vs Mumbai, the Maharashtra Derby. Sachin vs Saurav. Ambani vs Sahara. As is usual in the IPL, this was a game of many head to heads.

This is Dada at the toss: (Source: Cricinfo match commentary)

"The pitch looks good, the ball comes on to the bat and 160-170 is achievable."

This is Dada in the post match presentation: (Source: Cricinfo match commentary)

"This was not an easy wicket, the ball did not come on to the bat. We lost a few wickets early, when I got out was the turning point of the game."

Forget about the game, Dada's credibility for his future commentary stints took a nosedive. I was pretty sure that Harbhajan and Dada had entered an agreement before the game to criticize the pitch as the only face saving way to explain their inept batting performances. From the evidences on TV, I didn't see one ball keep alarmingly low or move in the air or turn sharply. Batting of Mithun Manhas and Bhuwanesh Kumar proved beyond doubt that this was more about batting ineptitude than just a bad pitch.

Ganguly's attitude is a tale of two eras. That of before and after the Chappell fall out. Or, as I like to say it, the pre and post Dadagiri era. Ganguly in the pre-Dadagiri era was still a hard nosed cookie. There have been rumors of him refusing to be the twelfth man or carry drinks right from him junior/under-16 days. Later on, he popularly earned the sobriquet of "Lord Snooty" from Freddie Flintoff when the two shared the dressing room for Lancashire. But that was more of a cultural mix up than anything else (much like the Shilpa Shetty episode on The Big Brother).

After getting dropped from the Indian team (deservingly so), in came the Dadagiri era. (Did it coincide with what is called the attitude era in WWE wresting? okay lets leave that). It was my way or highway from here on. Dada realized his Bengal power and a certain CPI party member even raised a question in the parliament about Ganguly's place in the team. After the comeback, Ganguly would continue to have a good batting average but unsurprisingly winning fewer and fewer matches since he would be mostly content to just keep his place in the side. Before all the Bengalis start shouting, I do remember some of his important test innings from this period. His innings in South Africa, His double hundred against Pakistan and the one he played again against South Africa on a rank turner in Kanpur. But these were not innings where he had to make a self vs team choice. His divisive influence in the 2007 world cup was apparent when despite being a senior player he was content on just doing enough with the bat to retain his place. In that disastrous match against Bangladesh his slow batting (66 of 129 balls) was mostly responsible for India's low total and eventual defeat (probably he had realized that we being a stat obsessed nation can't blame the highest scorer of the game for losing that match http://www.espncricinfo.com/wc2007/engine/current/match/247464.html)

His real Dadagiri came to the fore in dressing rooms where he was not made the captain. From Team India to Team KKR, if you don't make Dada the captain, you can't hope to have a cohesive team. Making Dada the captain of Pune Warriors mitigates this issue but his attitude of him being beyond questioning still remains, and despite showing some initial form looks bound to eventually keep Pune Warriors out of the playoffs race.

Today as I wait for the Dada homecoming match at the Edens, I hope that he for once can just be Ganguly. Pune tonight just want Dada to be their inspirational leader on the field. He still has the natural stroke playing instincts left in him. He can be a floater or a lower order batsman who can just express himself with his shot making. Here's hoping for the victory of a cricketing brain over the political brain.

Sincerely.

A Saurav Ganguly fan.

- rajesh@cricketbakchod.com

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