Indian team playlist

And now for something completely different!

Sure, Sydney was depressing. So depressing, in fact, that talking about it would be like beating a dead horse, mincing it into tiny pieces, feeding them to a bunch of wild dogs, then beating them. It's horrible, brutal, disgusting, and brings to the mind a great horror and despair.

So! Instead of that, here's something to distract us:

While travelling over the last couple of weeks, I tried to keep myself occupied by thinking of songs that would go best with the current Indian line-up. Here's what I came up with. This is, of course, entirely my opinion and my music preferences - feel free to make suggestions/additions/deletions. I'd love to hear them. :)

Here goes:

1. Virender Sehwag - "Wanted Dead or Alive" -- Bon Jovi
2. Gautam Gambhir - "Little Lion Man" -- Mumford and Sons
3. Rahul Dravid - "After the Storm" -- Mumford and Sons
4. Sachin Tendulkar - "Eye of the Tiger" -- Survivor
5. VVS Laxman - "Marchin' On" -- One Republic
6. Virat Kohli - "Vienna" -- Billy Joel
7. Mahendra Singh Dhoni - "Float On" -- Modest Mouse
8. R Ashwin - "Feeling Good" -- Muse
9. Zaheer Khan - "When They Come For Me" -- Linkin Park
10. Ishant Sharma - "Hot 'n Cold" -- Katy Perry
11. Umesh Yadav - "It's My Turn to Fly" -- The Urge

Brilliance.

I sometimes feel out of place in cricket discussions: the upstart, the young girl who's followed cricket for barely nine years, the fangirl who hero-worships Dhoni like some people hero-worship Tendulkar. They speak of several years of supporting a faltering Indian team, watching it slump and then grow and then slump again; they talk of the choking emotion in watching it move from triumph to triumph after the turn of the century. Their heroes are slowly going out, one by one, except for that one man who's been a constant fixture in Indian cricket for more than 2 decades. They talk of the '83 World Cup victory with unbridled nostalgia; in '83 my parents were still five years away from even meeting each other for the first time. This World Cup win, then, is special for them in so many ways - ways that are scattered across cyberspace, freely - but for me?

My affair with cricket started with the 2003 World Cup, when I was a giggly 12 year old who barely knew the difference between 'leg side' and 'off side'. My grandmother was - and is - the original cricket buff in the family. She religiously watches every single match that India plays - and as many other cricket matches as she can - and her enthusiasm as the '03 Cup approached rubbed off on me, more than any amount of media hype. I remember studiously cutting out the colourful World Cup match schedule from the backpage of The Hindu, laminating it, and then checking it every morning to see what match was on that day. Much of my emotional investment in the game today comes from my memories of that tournament. I whooped and I cheered and I cried. I pestered my Dad with all sorts of cricketing questions. I remember enjoying listening to Sanjay Manjrekar and Rameez Raja commentating together. I remember giggling at all the jabs at Mandira Bedi. I remember the Tarot card reading before the Ind v Kenya semifinal. I bought an India jersey just before the final and sat in front of the TV, hoping, hoping, praying. Of course, the team flopped at the final stage, but long before Tendulkar fell, Ponting blitzed an amazing century and I think we'd all come to accept that India wasn't winning this one. But hey, we said, we reached the final. That's pretty damn good, right?

At that time, it was. I religiously followed the Indian team after that. There were periods - most of 2006 - where cricket was the last thing on my mind, but for the most part, I followed the team that I believed would do it, would do it next time. I acquired a working knowledge, played backyard cricket with my brother, devoured as many cricket-related articles as I could.

In 2007, I was the hormone-ridden 16 year old who believed "Dhoni's going to win the World Cup for us this time." I was in the throes of a crush on the man, what can I say? Those dreams, of course, came crashing down pretty quickly, but it was nice while it lasted. I had a copy of the World Cup schedule - this time, it was an already-laminated copy that came free with some magazine or the other - under my pillow, so when I woke up, the first thing I'd do was check the day's match.

One of the things I remember best about the run-up to the tournament was our ability to fool ourselves. Not all was well with the team - the unceremonious ousting of Sourav Ganguly, Chappell being an unpopular coach and media-handler and PR... well, just unpopular in general, home series losses to Australia and Pakistan, a godawful tour of South Africa, where we lost everything except that Test win in Jo'burg and our first-ever Twenty20 - but we won a couple of hastily-arranged bilaterals at home against SL and WI, which of course, assured us that we could still make a fist of things. It wasn't to be, and like the '03 final, we'd (or I'd, anyway) forgiven the Indian team long before the final wickets fell against SL and Rahul Dravid's tears broke my heart. I remember feeling a kind of malicious glee as reports came in about a tournament that was poorly organised and poorly attended, a tournament that had its final end with one of the most pointless and farcical finishes in the history of the game. After all, how can a tournament that had neither India nor Pakistan even make it to the second round ever be popular? But still I told myself: we would do it, we would do it next time.

That debacle prompted me to up my cricket obsession by several levels. I followed the exploits of the team more intensely than ever before. If you ask me, I can tell you anything you want to know about India's matches in between May 2007 to December 2008. Anything. I can even quote some of the scorecards. "Religious" didn't even begin to cover it. We were beginning to lift ourselves after that disaster, and I didn't want to miss a moment. A Test series win in England, a curious, good-now, bad-now, good-again sort of 3-4 loss to Eng in the ODIs (characterised by the most atrocious fielding I have seen from the Indians ever), and then: the inaugural Twenty20 WC.

Hah, that tournament. Full of dizzy highs. The thing that I found remarkable about that tournament - more than Yuvraj's six sixes, or Irfan Pathan's performance, or RP Singh's magic with the new ball, or even Rohit Sharma's emergence - was something that happened during our tie in our first match against Pakistan, and that ridiculous(ly awesome) bowl-out we had to decide the winner. Malik had no clue what was going on; he just picked five bowlers who'd bowled the best that day, and that included the likes of Umar Gul and Asif. Dhoni? Dhoni picked Sehwag, Harbhajan and Robin Uthappa, who'd never bowled an international ball in his life, much to everybody's astonishment. Result? India win that 3-0.

Why? everybody asked Dhoni. What was the rationale? And Dhoni said: they'd been preparing for just such a scenario. The squad had divided itself into 4 groups, and during practice sessions, they would have bowl-out tournaments. So, it was easy, he said. He just picked whoever had the best record in those little tournaments. In fact, he said, Rohit Sharma, who was not in the XI in that game, had a 100% record.

That, for me, was mind-boggling. Here was a guy, just appointed captain of the team, playing a tournament in a format of the game that was still in its infancy, coming into it just days after a long, draining tour of England, with no senior players, having played just one Twenty20 till that moment, no practice matches, no coach... and he was so goddamn prepared. He was at the top of his game, he had every base covered, right from match one of his captaincy. This was a keeper, I thought, and I didn't mean his role in the side. I hoped it was a portent for great things to come.

We would do it next time. Next time.

I watched this team with a sort of open-mouthed fascination over the next year or so. The superbly entertaining, if controversial -- oh, who am I kidding, it was that entertaining because it was so controversial -- Australian tour, the CB series of awesomeness, IPL, the Asia Cup, the Mendis menace and the SL tour, the Border Gavaskar trophy, Ganguly and Kumble's retirement, the captaincy going over to Dhoni completely, the whitewash of England in the ODIs and then that magnificent Test win at Chennai-- 2008 was a fab year, and I loved every moment, cherished them. I became more involved with cricket online -- I joined various forums, I'd check out cricinfo at least once every day, I started reading blogs, and late '08, I finally created one of my own.

'09 and '10 were what I like to consider the sobering years. I didn't follow cricket as closely as I moved to my college hostel which has no TV (it's an evil hostel, I know) but I made up for it with online commentary. One of my favourite memories was listening to Sachin Tendulkar score his ODI 200 on radio a year and half ago. A long lazy afternoon, but I was sitting in front of my radio, super-tense and practically vibrating with excitement. And when Sachin hit his 200th run? I ran out into the empty corridors - everybody else was either sleeping or reading or lazing about - screaming. I knocked at doors, screamed "Sachin scored a double-century!" and hugged everybody in sight, friend or enemy.

But yeah. Those two years gave us a better idea of what this Indian team was settling into. There was failure now, interspersed with success, and people were finally beginning to realise Dhoni was human (about time!) but not dealing with it very well (which sucked). We are a lot with our heads up our asses a lot of the time - the sense of entitlement we possess is staggering, and I do not consider myself an exception. But I love this team, and I understood they had to grow on their own terms. I ranted and raved when I could, and I defended them fiercely. We can still do it, was my constant refrain.

So. This World Cup arrived. My gut feeling was India's going to win this. I told my friends until their ears had fallen off: there can't be a better opportunity for India than this. We are perfectly placed. If we don't win this, then we don't ever deserve to win the World Cup.

My previous post elaborated my feelings on India's journey in this World Cup: I felt like they were saving their best for the last. We would do it, we would do it, I chanted. And how--!

The first striking thing was the fielding. My jaw dropped open! So quick, so fast, so dedicated! Not even in the T20 WC '07 did I remember them being this sharp. Yuvraj, throwing himself around and saving boundaries like a friggin' Superman on steroids! Raina! Kohli! Gambhir! Sreesanth, Zaheer, flinging themselves near the boundary rope! My house did not have current supply for exactly the period between the 44th over and the end of the Sri Lankan innings, and apparently that was the time the Indian plans came apart. Just as well for my blood pressure that I didn't see that, then. But still -- to come out with this kind of a mindset with a billion people breathing down their necks... my heart burgeoned with fresh admiration.

The prospect of chasing 275 was an interesting one. My grandmother had given up. It's Sri Lanka's day today, she said, with a shrug of her shoulders, All fate. What can we do? But I told her to just wait and see. Unlike a lot of the fans out there, I've seen this team slug it out a lot more times than I've seen it roll over in the mud.We would do this. We would do this. We ARE doing this.

Sehwag goes first thing, but I pushed down my trepidation, swallowed it like it was a particularly large chunk of bitter medicine, and thought: Okay, Sachin. Here you go.

Here's the funny thing about Sachin Tendulkar. He has played so many matches and played with so many generations, I bet he has enough to material to fill half-a-dozen very interesting books. He also means different things to different generations. To my generation, he's the Established Hero. We were what? 7, 8 years old when he played some of his most memorable innings? Hell, I was born a whole year after he made his debut. A lot of my contemporaries idolise him, of course. But for me, he's the kind of guy who you just have to admire, but not hero-worship. I can't. I'm baffled at the Tendulkar-devotion. Maybe I didn't live his greatness; after all, when I was starting to really get into cricket, he was struggling with his tennis elbow and run of poor form. So, no. Tendulkar is not god, at least for me.

But last night? I might've thought just that.

However, he was out, and it was upto the Unscarred Generation to get us through. I like Kohli. He has attitude - shit happens is just a few notches below we are performers at a circus for my favourite candid comment from a cricketer - and he has the ability. With experience, he can be a future leader. And Gambhir. With his advances down the pitch like a rampaging anaemic bull with ADD. He was brilliant, but it was upsetting that he threw it all away on 97. More than his century, I raged, he's allowed Sri Lanka a window of opportunity. But then Yuvraj came to join Dhoni, and I sat in my living room with my grandmother - nobody else, just the two of us, sweating because neither of us dared to get up and switch on the fan lest another wicket fell - and we hoped and prayed and watched.

What can I say about Dhoni? For me, one of the sour points of this tournament was that Dhoni'd had a very average tourney with the bat. It nagged me like a particularly persistent insect at the back of my brain. But I told myself he'll come through when it matters. It seemed like a selfish thing to wish for, that Dhoni get in and play big, match-winning innings, that I rarely discussed it with anybody else. But the hope lived on in my heart.

He delivered better than I ever thought he would in the final.

To cope with all those expectations, in anticipation of the massive backlash he'd receive for his selection decisions and strategic moves if he failed, to deal with humidity and noise and chronic back pain - at one point, he looked scarily like he couldn't move another inch - to do all this with the poise and grace that has become uniquely his - no amount of 'ice' and 'cool' metaphors can do justice, sorry - and hit the winning runs with that trademark shot for six (how many times has he finished off a chase with a six for us in his career?)... wow. I salute you, Mahi. It's not like I needed another reason to hero-worship you, but you were brilliant.

Brilliance. That's all I can say. Like a thousand brightly burning suns.

I screamed during the winning moment. Not for long, though. Not even as much as I screamed for our win over Pakistan. After that, I hugged my grandmother and sat down and watched the celebrations and heard the fireworks and grinned and grinned like my face would split open. And the only thought in my head was:

We did it. We did it, this time.

A Measured Post

Now that I've given myself enough time to recover from the India-Pakistan encounter, I think I can manage a decent-enough post building up to tomorrow's final. Or manage some level of coherency at any rate. In case you do want my reaction, which involved much CAPSLOCK and fangirling, you can check it out here.

Now. Tomorrow, India v Sri Lanka for the ultimate glory in the cricketing world: the world cup. I think it kinda fits, you know? Over the last three years, if there's been one constant, it's been: there's an India v Sri Lanka match 'round the corner. Right from the Asia Cup in 2008 - or is it even before? Our history goes way back, but I'll start with 2007.

In early '07, we played a four match bilateral with SL in India before the World Cup, which we won 3-1. We kicked their asses, I remember. However, it was SL that broke a billion hearts when we lost to them and crashed unceremoniously out of the '07 WC. Then the Asia Cup in '08, where we were on a high, rebuilding and recovering, just having beat the World Champions in their own freakin' backyard and destroying the Lankans on the way. We had a completely in-form, frighteningly awesome line-up. And yet in the final? We crumbled to Mendis' carrom-ball. Score to SL.

The Mendis nightmare continued as we toured them later that year. He bamboozled the likes of Dravid and Laxman and Ganguly as SL cruised to a Test series win. However, we came back and won the ODI series 3-2. I don't think it's possible ever to underestimate how important this win was. Almost as big as the CB series win. For me, this is where the Indian team began to show that it had the guts for a right royal scrap. This was as much a defining moment in recent Indian cricketing history as any other.

Then. Another ODI bilateral in early '09, 4-1 to India. SL touring India later that year, Tests and ODIs, both going to India. Then we tour them in '10, drawing the Tests and winning the ODIs.

In between. Five tournament finals: Asia Cup '08 (SL), Compaq Cup 'o9 (Ind), tri-series final in Bangladesh '10 (SL), Asia Cup '10 (Ind), the Micromax tri-series with New Zealand '10 (SL).

That's a lot of cricket in less than three years. I remember a lot of exasperation everytime yet another series was announced, and I even wrote a parody-piece about it. And to think that the biggest tournament in cricket also culminates in an India-Sri Lanka final? Is it the same old yet another, yet another? Can we expect things to be different this time? Especially when these teams know each other inside-out?

Let's have a look at SL's performances leading up to the finals. Well. I don't remember much of SL's matches this tournament, because they've been so efficient. I honestly can't remember a goddamn thing from their group matches, except their middle order had a funny propensity to make life tough for them. Huge wins against Kenya, Canada... a loss to Pakistan, I remember, their only aberration... a washed-out match against the Aussies... then? A win against New Zealand, I think? And Zimbabwe? I honestly can't remember without looking it up, because their campaign has been so unremarkable. Most of their plans have worked, and worked well.

Clinical wins against England and New Zealand in the quarters and semis, and you have to say Sri Lanka have peaked, yeah?

That's the funny thing. I can point out a particular stage in the tournament where each team has peaked, and say, "yep. That's about as good as they can get." Sri Lanka are in that stage right now. Dilshan on song, Sangakkara and Jayawardene in form, Malinga, Murali (if fit), Herath/Randiv/Mendis... everybody chipping in. Rosy picture? I think so.

But what's funny about it, you ask? Well, the only team that hasn't reached this 'peak' stage is India. In every match you get the feeling India is performing sub-optimally, doing just enough to get the job done. Our first match against Bangladesh is probably the closest we've gotten to playing to our potential. Is that scarily awesome, or scarily worrying? I don't know. But that we've gotten all the way to the final despite not being at our best adds some credence to India's apparent strategy of saving their best for the last. Maybe they don't want to get burnt-out before the Big One. God knows we've done that before.

A fairly comfortable win against Bangladesh, a hair-rending tie with England, wins against Ireland and Netherland, both games in which we made our chases a little complicated because of overconfidence at the top, then that last over loss to South Africa, and finishing off our group with another good win against the West Indies. A well-fought quarterfinal encounter with Australia... and then the win over Pakistan in the semi.

About the game...

I will not lie to you, I looked forward to that game like it was my next breath. I mean, I don't know how much of it is the media hype; I don't watch news channels anymore, particularly during a major cricket tournament. But even so: that morning I woke up and the first thing I thought was oh my GOD today's India v Pakistan! And then: oh my god today's my mom's birthday better go run and wish her. But, yeah. I was super-excited.

The match lived up to my expectations. A team is only as strong as its weakest link, so while everybody went on and on about how it was Pakistan bowling v Indian batting, the real battle was between the Indian bowlers and the Pakistani batsmen. And guess what? The bowlers won. It is very special, considering how handicapped the attack was without a second specialist spinner, and that neither Nehra nor Patel had exactly covered themselves with glory in the previous matches. But they came good, and that's just this Indian team all over again: they falter and they fight, but by god, they won't just lie down and take whatever crap's dished to them.

(A note of appreciation here: I raged and raged when I learned that Ashwin had been dropped for the game. The Nehra choice worked very well - he bowled superbly - and Dhoni could've just grinned and soaked up the "oh he's such an intuitive captain" praise. But he didn't. He had the balls to admit that he made a mistake in reading the pitch, and that he ought to have gone in with two spinners, while still appreciating Nehra and Munaf's efforts.)

A lot of talk's going around that it was more a case of Pakistan losing than India winning the game. They dropped Sachin Tendulkar four times, they say. That's criminal! Perhaps. If Sachin'd gone, what's to say Yuvraj wouldn't have performed? What about Kohli? What if Raina had gotten a longer stint? What if Dhoni'd settled in earlier? Maybe if Sachin'd gotten out early, would we be looking at a 280+ score? 220? Can anybody say for sure?

Ultimately, India took its chances better than Pakistan did. Isn't that all about what cricket is? Isn't a pitting of skill against skill? Particularly considering it's a no-contact sport and you're freakin banned if you so much as touch shoulders with an opponent player. India batted better, India bowled better, India caught better! End of story! Why undermine the performance?

I have to say, though, that the Pakistanis did have a great tournament (apart from a few mad overs against NZ) and Afridi was fantastic and super-gracious in defeat. That, though, brings me to one last grouse:

It is best exemplified by this article by Aakash Chopra.

Look, I've never been a fan of the guy. I can't judge his cricket-related articles - not my area of expertise - and I've heard they're pretty good, which, hey. Great for him. But this one? So much more broad-based - too broad-based, in fact, and I think have sufficient authority to comment on it.

"Is this really patriotism?" he asks in the title. No, Aakash, it's jingoism. Welcome to the party. You're, uh, about 60 years late.

The support for the Indian team bordered on crass, he says. Again: where have you been all these years? Then:

In fact, now that we have beaten Pakistan it's considered okay if we lose to Sri Lanka in the final, for we have been avenged. Don't you find it strange? What does it tell you about our evolution as a responsible nation?

Oh god no - pop!sociology or whatever the hell he's attempting. No, Aakash, don't do it!

Then:

Post independence and the division of the country, we just carried forward the same sentiment i.e. sport being the vehicle to assert supremacy. The relations between India and Pakistan remained sour for the longest time. We've fought wars and still continue to have other equally important issues plaguing us. Yet, there's enough reason to believe that we as people, have matured and come a long way in trimming down that animosity, especially via Bollywood and numerous other cultural exchanges, perhaps reiterating time and again that the rivalry is only political. Or at least I'd like to believe that India has definitely evolved and has become a responsible nation. Unfortunately though, all it took was a cricket match to topple that process of evolution. Are we not, in a sense, pushing ourselves back a 100 years?

Just look at that. Look at the histrionics there. I thought I was a drama-llama. "topple that process of evolution"... "pushing ourselves back 100 years"... it's a cricket match, man! Stop attaching more importance to it! You're kind of defeating your own case, y'know.

If there are issues between India and Pakistan now, it's got to do with a little something called "terrorism". I'm sure you've heard? It's got nothing to do with a bunch of guys in coloured pyjamas knocking a ball around.

Also: dude. Sport has always been a source of crass jingoism! Sport is not like real life, where there are a million shades of grey and there are no absolutes. In sport, there are a definite set of rules, a clear playing field, and a definite winner and loser at the end of it all. If we let ourselves go as far as sport is concerned, should it be considered a devolution of intelligence on our part? Bollywood and cultural exchanges are fine, but on the playing field, it's always going to be an Us v Them, and it's always going to bring out our basest instincts. This is the case with every high-profile rivalry out there. Or have you not been evolving with the times? It's a global village! Keep an eye out for crowd reactions every where.

Then he vies for our sympathy, by describing the pressure felt by a player during these kinds of matches. He talks of the reactions of fans and how the players fear them, citing the vandalising of Kaif's house in '03 and the super-hype that the Pakistan tour of '04 got as examples. "We are humans too," he says. "Will we be the nation's pariah just because we couldn't win a game of cricket?" No, just win the next one and you'll be their darling again.

Okay, I don't have much against this part. The pathos is heartfelt and completely understandable. I can't imagine how it must be to have millions of hopes hinging on every move you make on the field.

Then he ends it so:

It's about time that we, as a nation, answer these questions. Are we going to behave like this every time we play Pakistan? If we detest them so much, it may not be a bad idea to severe all cricketing ties with them, for a cricket match can't be used as a benchmark to prove our superiority as a nation. Every time we behave like the way we did this time, it pulls us down as a responsible nation. The choice is ours.

Oh, is it, Mr. Chopra. What exactly did we do? We detest them? Really? We're looking at cricket matches as our only parameter of success against them? India and Pakistan have a lot of history between them, and the antagonism comes from wounds far, far deeper than any random cricket match. Like everything else, every place else, emotion is allowed free rein on the field. We scream and shout and hate and love, and at the end of the day we go home and sleep and go to work the next day. So don't boil everything down to a cricket match, Aakash. You're kinda shooting yourself in the foot.

Also, one of the most memorable India-Pakistan incidents is the standing ovation the Pakistani team got from the Chennai crowd in '99. Or more recently, when we gave the second-biggest cheer of the night to the Pakistani contingent (after our own athletes) in the Commonwealth games opening ceremony. Maybe you could take those incidents and spin a spiel about how close India and Pakistan actually are, huh?

Oh, god. I went completely off-track, huh.

Anyway, tomorrow? Has every chance of being India's day. I remember watching this ad and thinking how appropriate it was. Notice the man wearing the Dhoni jersey and walking the tightrope. He falls off at one point, and the crowd gets worried and anxious. Collective gasp. But he hangs on to the wire, hauls himself back on, and continues walking, much to the relief of the crowd.

I thought: that's India. That's the Indian team in a nutshell.

Oh, what do we do with them?

~ The hills are alive
with the sound of muuuusiiiic.... ~

Play with the same freedom today and forever, guys, and there's nothing you can't do.

To be honest, I wanted to skim this. (Yes, I'm aware I'm being ironic.)

I've been lining up a few articles to take apart on this blog, and you'd think - given my oft-professed hero-worship of one Mahendra Singh Dhoni - that this one on Dhoni's captaincy by Ms Ugra would be on my list. You wouldn't be wrong, but, baaah. I don't know. I skimmed it - Dhoni's methods are instinctual, he should play more safe, Piyush Chawla Yusuf Pathan blah blah blah with some tangential yet cheeky references to his love of video-gaming and adventure sports (good god, woman, cricket captains have had worse hobbies in the past!). Ms Ugra's halfway snarky style also is not terribly becoming for the kind of sports writer she's supposed to be - I kind of want to keep saying, "A ha! Your grudge is showing, Ms. Ugra!" or "I C WHUT U DID THAR." as I read her stuff.

To me, it's just another example of the outpouring of the doubts that're emerging at this point in India's World Cup campaign. Oooh, Dhoni's haphazard approach to his team's composition has led to our ruin! Our ruin, I say! It's annoying, but par for the course. I trust my team. Even tomorrow, they can put up a crushing performance and these people will be falling over their feet in their rush for the thesauri to pen all the hyperbolic praises they can cook up. In the seven short years that I've been following cricket seriously, I've seen and heard enough to be pretty damn jaded.

HOWEVER.

I'm bored, and it's been a long time since I've really vented, so! I'm forcing myself to have a more in-depth look at Ms Ugra's article. *deep breath* Nothing for it. HEEERE we go. *pinches nose, takes the plunge*

The article is titled, "Is there madness in Dhoni's method?" Y'know, if you wanted to play on that expression, I'd've preferred a "to" instead of "in", but whatever. Nit-picking.

She starts off talking about a World Cup advert. Um, okay? There're about 43.8 billion of them on TV right now, but turns out she's talking about the one that goes, "The team doesn't win just like that, you've got to make it win." She then says:

Should Dhoni turn his attention away from his favourite off-field pastime of video-gaming and watch the advert, it might sound like an instruction directed at him as well.

Ahahahahaha. I must confess I haven't seen that ad, either, and my favourite past-time is watching cricket. But, hey. Whatever. It does sound like something the ad-people'll cook up this time of the year, so I concede that point. Also, not sure what to make of the reference to his love for video-gaming, or the fact that she makes some random ad sound like a freakin political documentary, but "instruction directed to him as well"? I'm not... sure what she means. Should Dhoni start inserting control chips into his players' minds so that he can make them play exactly according to his plans? Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if Dhoni does fantasise about doing exactly that, given how much of a control freak he is.

She then talks about how his captaincy has been a smooth ride so far, relatively wrinkle-free. Well. Nothing succeeds like success, and all that jazz. But now, she says, NOW:

Now, suddenly, over the course of a few weeks of the World Cup, creases are beginning to show both in the Indian team and its captain. India's World Cup is still alive, but already gloomy calculations are being made as to how their place in the quarter-finals is actually not secure. For the first time since his oxygen-depleting ascent, neither is Dhoni's as captain. On Sunday against West Indies in Chennai, he will be watched closer than he has been in a long time.

I kind of want to dig up articles from the '09 controversy over the T20 WC. Y'know, the bits about the so-called Dhoni-Sehwag spat? That epic, infamous press-conference? Then the tournament itself, where his every decision of his was criticised roundly (including, I think, by Ms Ugra herself)? Or, going even further back, his decision to skip the Tests during the '08 Sri Lanka tour? Hell, even Kumble has publically disapproved of that decision, going on record saying that he believed India'd've won that series had Dhoni played. What about the '10 T20 WC tournament? What about the '09 Champions Trophy? What about his decision to play Ashwin instead of Bollinger in the Super Over in the '10 Champions League - another decision not a lot of people were happy with? What about his SOOPER-SEKRIT marriage? What about the time where he was alleged to have threatened to resign if the selectors didn't include RP Singh in the squad?

That stuff is just off the top of my head. I understand that his campaign has been much smoother compared to say, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, Azharuddin - hell, any Indian captain, but looking at normal captaincy standards? That's pretty stressful. This is NOT the first time he and his methods have been criticised and doubted from all quarters, and it definitely will not be the last.

Then:

As startling as Dhoni's message may have been to his batsmen who played "for the crowd" on Saturday, it has not surprised them. Nor has it sent them, the India faithful will be relieved to hear, into despair or doubt. It is what Dhoni's modus operandi has always been: to speak directly, briefly and non-confrontationally to players; let them know what he believes needs to be done. In media briefings he does most of the same, but can frequently be snippy. Always, though, he will laboriously explain why he changed the batting or bowling order, chose to bat or chase, and then offer philosophical observations about hybrid fuel and life jackets.

Sweet mother of God.

I was a little surprised at the "play for the country, not the crowd" quote, too - ready with lame-ass snark about "what, people in the crowd are not part of the country, now?" but I do get what he means. The lower order seems too ready to give in to the lures of showmanship - particularly when the top order has been successful - instead of putting their head down and acknowledging when the going has gotten tough. It calls for a level of maturity that is admittedly tough to attain, especially since everybody starts complaining and whining loudly about it. Dhoni wants his batsmen to show that maturity. It makes sense.

"he has been frequently snippy"... ladies and gentlemen, I do believe we have out first "your grudge is showing!" moment. From what I've seen of Dhoni's press conferences (which, admittedly, is not much), he makes it a point to answer everything with a smile, even if he isn't forthcoming about everything. He has a cheeky way of avoiding stuff he doesn't/can't answer, and I have almost never seen him snap at any journalist/interviewer, no matter what the provocation. He doesn't drown himself in long-winded, pseudo-polite cliches, like, say, Rahul Dravid; neither does he go the "look at me! Aren't I measured and INTELLIGENT?" route of Kumara Sangakkara. If anything, he can be disarmingly to-the-point. And, as we know, reporters need vague fodder to misinterpret.

Oooh, and look, snark. I agree that Dhoni's philosophy can be bafflingly amusing sometimes, but they're harmless. And sometimes show a hell of a lot of insight. Plus, he's amazingly quotable, which I absolutely love about him.

Then she talks about some of his decisions in the World Cup so far: the ones that've provoked the most debate. The insistence on playing Piyush Chawla, for one. Yeah, yeah, I've criticised that decision roundly right from the beginning, but Dhoni has his reasons, as baffling and stupid as they are. I agree. The PC-over-Ashwin thing is a total brain-fade on the captain's part, not to mention Kirsten and the rest of the team management.

She also mentions a couple of decisions in the Nagpur match against the Saffers: the whole promoting Yusuf Pathan thing, and also choosing Nehra to bowl the final over. 'Kay. I dislike YP tremendously, but that's beside the point - he's in the team as a pinch-hitter. Period. Dhoni doesn't even ask him to bowl much; hell, Yuvraj Singh is ranked higher as a bowler, and gets mnany more overs. So, with 8-9 overs to go, several wickets in hand, Batting PP in progress, run-rate comfortably over 6.5, a guy who's been known to hit sixes at will, a guy who's had a lot of success recently against this very opposition - YOU DO THE MATH.

About Nehra bowling the final over - I remember going, "oh no. OH NO. Baaaad decision. BAAAD DECISION" at the TV while watching Dhoni hand the ball over to Nehra. Just a few minutes prior, I'd been willing to bet anything that Bhajji'd bowl the final over. Why?

1. He was smack-dab in the middle of a great spell
2. He was bowling three-four-run overs to batsmen in the slog overs even when his colleagues were getting hammered at the other end
3. It was Nehra's first match after an injury layoff.
4. Nehra had looked nowhere close to his best at any point in the match
5. NEHRA WAS NOT EVEN IN THE MIDDLE OF A SPELL. I swear to God! Zaheer finished his 10 over quota with the 49th over, bowling in tandem with Harbhajan. Bhajji had one more left in his kitty. Logic says "Harbhajan, you goddamn idiots!", but Dhoni had other ideas.

I get it, Nehra's experience in these kinds of last-over humdingers factored in Dhoni's reasoning. But what the hell, man? Don't play safe! If you'd taken a chance and gone for the spinner in the last over against a couple of bloodthirsty and desperate batsmen, there's a good chance we might've had a different result now!

I'll be expanding on this point after the next quote.

Until now Dhoni's has been captaincy by instinct over method, his own school of reasoning, and like with most captains once they gain greater control of their team, a healthy dose of obstinacy. In the last four years of his captaincy in the short game, if Dhoni had to be asked what was India's best ODI performance under his leadership, he would be choosing between the early CB Series win of 2008, an Asia Cup victory, or bilateral series wins in New Zealand and West Indies. Not such a tough choice, is it?

This "instinct-over-method" thing is a myth that irritates me every time I see/hear/read it. How is it so goddamn "instinctual" when you just said that he explains each and every decision in meticulous detail? Seriously, people! If anything, I believe that Dhoni reasons out his decisions way, way too much. He comes out to play with detailed plans in his head, and if it looks like it's not working, he builds - and executes - more plans. Not for him the "aah, whatever. Let's see what happens if I push this button." He's likely worked out every possibility, including contingency plans for if the button turns out to be a trigger for a nuclear-device. Sometimes, he just needs to say "whatever" to that brain of his and go with his gut.

"Obstinacy" - only recently? Dude, he's been a control-freak right from the beginning, and he's deeply possessive about his team - which can be a good thing and a bad thing. What about the time he insisted that seniors like Dravid and Ganguly should be dropped from the team to blood more youngsters? He was barely six months into his captaincy!

I have very, very fond memories of the CB series win - I rank it above the '07 T20 win, above the Asia Cup, above every damn thing India's won so far - hell, the crowning moment from that series is my banner for this blog. But that line's unfair to India's progress as a team over the last four years. We've won every bilateral series except the last, reached more finals than I can count, and are you forgetting the series win against SL in '08. Given the circumstances under which that came, I rank it much, much higher than our '10 Asia Cup win.

Besides, what was the point of that sentence, Ms Ugra? Dhoni's arrogance and obstinacy is somehow preventing India from winning tournaments? Their winning patterns haven't changed a bit over the last four years.

Now Dhoni's decisions, made using both reason and instinct, are backfiring often because their basic premises may be incorrect. Why should the cotton-woolling of Chawla not be interpreted as cricket's version of babysitting? [...] Or how about No. 4 being Virat Kohli's sacrosanct spot, before or after which he should ideally not be sent? Kohli is 22. Should he not be running loose wherever and whenever he is sent? Yuvraj Singh has spent all but 41 matches of his ODI career flitting between Nos. 4, 5 and 6, Rahul Dravid has kept wicket in ODIs, Sourav Ganguly broke one of the most successful ODI partnerships for India to go down to No. 3, Virender Sehwag went from being a middle-order batsman to an opener who has redefined the Test-match art itself.

Chawla is being babysat, and it sucks. I don't disagree. But it looks like that's ended, and Ashwin's comin' back, which, yay. \o/

The rest of the paragraph is giving me a headache. What IS that sentence about Virat Kohli? I don't know if my reading comprehension has broken down, or if it really makes little to no sense. Is she saying the team ought to be more flexible? Is that it? From the obligatory comments on Dravid and Ganguly, that's kind of what I can deduce. Whatever.

I DON'T UNDERSTAND YOU, MS. UGRA. One of the main complaints regarding Kohli was that he wasn't being sent in at number four often enough! He's not a pinch-hitter, he's not the kind of batsman that Yuvraj and Dhoni are - he's the type of fussy top-order player who needs to be assured of an early enough spot in the batting order where he can settle in and work his mojo. Have you seen him at 3 and 4 over the last year? No. 4 is the only option available to him, given Sehwag, Sachin and Gambhir practically walk into nos 1, 2 and 3! I mean, weren't you just complaining about YP being pushed up and down? Or Dhoni employing himself as a floater? Dhoni has said about a billion times that he wants this order to be as flexible as possible, to match with the game-situation.

Then - OH GOD WHAT IS THIS.

To move Yusuf Pathan up the order in a match against one of the best attacks in the World Cup on a wicket that was stopping was again based on a formula that the openers had given the platform and the pace of the innings needed to be amped up. [...] Against Ireland, Pathan (30 off 24 balls, two fours three sixes) was pitch perfect. Against Dale Steyn in the Powerplay, he should have been the last option. Like all captains Dhoni also has his players of choice who are given more licence, and his team recognises instinctively who those players are. Unfortunately for Dhoni his captaincy has not coincided with the discovery of new match-winners, like those found under Sourav Ganguly, for example.

I don't know, I guess the batting order was bein' flexible when they decided to push YP up the order? Aaaalso, let me remind you of YP's recent history: against the very same opposition, the very same 'he's-so-goddamn-unplayable' Dale Steyn, in said opposition's home ground, he has played match-winning innings! Even when the rest of 'em: Tendulkar, Yuvraj, Dhoni, what-have-you, had failed. How quick we are to forget. It was worth a shot, at any rate.

Also, the nonsense with "players of choice"... "given more licence." Suuure. Dhoni plays favourites every now and then. What a shock. Hold me, I think I'm going to faint.

Another underhanded comparison with Sourav Ganguly aside, Dhoni hasn't found matchwinners? Seriously? He's not nurtured the progress of Gautam Gambhir? He's not propped up Yuvraj Singh, unleashed the bowler within him? Virat Kohli? What the hell are you going on about? It's a great disservice to these players to say that they haven't been giving match-winning performances over the last few years, and to think that the budding players under Dhoni's captaincy can't blossom into match-winners later.

No, really. Think about it. You call Dhoni a Ganguly-discovery. But apart from the 148 against Pak, he only started to come into his own under Dravid, and only under his own captaincy did he grow into his potential! Yuvraj? Was going nowhere, until Dhoni gave him a bit of rope. Ditto to Harbhajan. And Irfan Pathan? Yeeeah, right. Who else? Ashish Nehra? Has just come from the wilderness. Zaheer Khan? Terribly erratic before he finally decided to get his butt over to England and play a couple of seasons of county cricket. Mohammad Kaif? I laugh at you.

When a captain's instinct starts to head off in a direction where things do not go the way he wants, they sometimes overwhelm and undermine reason.

She provides the example of Harbhajan not being allowed to bowl immediately at Duminy, despite Duminy's weakness against the former. That's not a failure of instinct; that's Dhoni being too rigid, like I've said before.

THEN she discusses the Harbhajan v Nehra decision for the last over in Nagpur:

The decision between Nehra and Harbhajan Singh became a 50-50 toss-up, with the spinner offering to bowl the 49th so that the team's most nerveless bowler, Zaheer Khan, could send down the 50th. If the 49th goes well - like it did for the Indians against South Africa in Nagpur, where Zaheer conceded four - the man bowling the 50th at least has a buffer. So far it had gone to Dhoni's plan. Nehra was the moment Dhoni gambled, because he has been India's best ODI bowler over the last year, the go-to man at the death.

[...]

Nehra has bowled the final over for India four times in his career, the two now forgotten instances being Karachi, the first ODI of the electric 2004 India-Pakistan series and against West Indies in a 2005 tri-series in Colombo, which took India to the final. Nagpur was the first time India lost. Before the World Cup he had taken 73 wickets since his comeback into the Indian team in June 2009. Why should Dhoni not have gone to him? Other than the fact that he may not have been warmed up not having bowled for 12 overs. It was a logical gamble that didn't work. Pathan and Chawla are the illogical gambles - they were perhaps doomed to tank.

(I can never forget that Karachi match, btw. Fond, fond memories. That Kaif catch to dismiss Abdul Razzaq, the way he smashed into Hemang Badani, practically tripped over his face but still managed to hold on to the ball? EPIC.)

I'm glad you have given it the Seal of Logical Approval, but this works against your argument that YP should not have been promoted. Wasn't Dhoni going by history there too? How are the two decisions different? Shouldn't Dhoni have been a little more reckless and thought about giving Harbhajan the final over?

We finally come to the end of the article:

As much as Dhoni wants his batsmen to "curb their instincts", it is the best time for his leadership to internalise the same message. Since his debut for India in 2004, he has changed his batting to eliminate risk, yet he will not bat higher up the order as Ganguly repeatedly beseeches him to do in both commentary and column. He has a better average and 100-plus strike rate batting at either No. 3 or 4, but has done so in only 32 of 162 innings. His keeping has vastly improved from the 2007 version, and he still remains one of India's better runners between wickets. The match versus West Indies may have to mark the moment that his leadership evolves in a different direction. Or it could take a route he would rather not contemplate.

Um. Y'know, I want to see Dhoni up the order, too. I really do. Who will he have to displace, then? Sachin, Sehwag, Gambhir, even Kohli - outta the question. Yuvraj? I don't know, he does play you-go-first-I-go-first a lot with Yuvraj, mostly when he wants a right-left combo in the middle. Thing is, it's a much tougher decision than it looks on the outside. He's fashioning himself as a finisher - the guy with the levellest head in the team, the guy who can come in, take stock of things and play according to it. To whom else can he entrust this role? YP? I don't think so.

Yeah, the match against the Windies is going to be pretty important. Probably not for the same reasons that a lot of people think, but yeah. Whatcha gonna do, Mahi? Throw caution to the winds for once?

(Hint: PLAY ASHWIN!)

Reaching for the sky

(from here)

I'm sorry. I think I just fell in love. ♥

... What.

Apparently, today was India's first World Cup warm-up game. I have no idea how I wasn't aware of that (except, maybe I do.)

Turns out the following things happened:

1. Collective Batting Fail from the Indians as we slump to 138/8.

2. Pathan and Ashwin (yay!) contribute in propping us to a decent 214.

3. Aussies rampage to 118/1.

4. Piyush Chawla picks up a four-fer.

5. Australia bowled out for 176.

6. We win by 38 runs.

7. The next warm-up is in Chennai.

What in the world is going on, people. Yet another win in this fashion... if anybody needs me, I'll be in that corner trying to recover from whiplash.

Why India v Sri Lanka = Star Wars

Truth be told, I wanted to post something about the whole spot-fixing business, but I found it was giving me a headache. And making me overtly cynical, which is the kind of stuff I want to avoid in this blog, so maybe I'll put in my two cents when I'm able to gather my thoughts better. Or, you know, not at all.

A friend and I were having a conversation the other day (yes, it's going to be one of those posts). She was bemoaning the sorry state of the Indian ODI team ("you know, with all this experimentation, I bet they'll have Rohit Sharma and Ramesh Powar open the bowling in the World Cup"), citing the recently played final of the Micromax Cup as an example.

I pointed out that with the number of times India and Sri Lanka played each other every year, the results were going to swing both ways equally. Including the 2008 Asia Cup, India and Sri Lanka have played in five tournament finals in the last two-or-so years - the '08 Asia Cup, which Sri Lanka won, then the Compaq Cup in 2009 (I bet you'd forgotten about that, huh), which India won, then the tri-series in Bangladesh in early '10 which Sri Lanka won, then the '10 Asia Cup final, which India won, and now, the Micromax tri-series final going to Sri Lanka, as per the well-established pattern.

After a few choice words delivered at my OCD (which, you know, it totally isn't), she said, "You know, you can say all you want about patterns - and don't you dare start some pop-sociology lecture, freak - but Sri Lanka had to lose."

"Why?"

"Because - because they're evil."

I merely raised my eyebrows.

"Have you seen Kumara Sangakkara recently? Those little eyes - that evil smirk?"

I wanted to protest - it wasn't that long ago that I was endorsing a "brown Mr. Darcy" description of the same man - but I could see her point. "You're right. Kind of like a James Bond villain."

"Come off it." She rolled her eyes. "He isn't that stupid."

"Then?"

"He was a nice guy once. Kind of like-" her eyes gleamed, "-Darth Vader."

"Clearly, then," I said, "someone has got to be Palpatine. You know, the eeevil pointless villain who turns Anakin Skywalker into Darth Vader."

"That's easy," she scoffed. "Mahela Jayawardene."

At this point I was practically out of my seat. "That's perfect! And Dilshan is totally General Tarkin."

"Yes! Now you're getting into it."

I was. Looking back, it was probably sinfully cathartic, but also. We were uncovering a Great Truth, so. "What about the good guys? The Jedi?"

"Pick your random Indian players," she said.

Considering the Jedi don't really exist for any purpose other than "battling" the Sith and vice versa, that made sense. "First off? Let's get Han Solo out of the way. M S Dhoni."

After a lot more choicey words about my "mile-wide bias" (which it totally isn't), it was decided that the Han Solo casting would be decided upon later. "Sachin Tendulkar," she said, "is obviously Master Yoda. Right from the size, to the English, to the nine-hundred-years-old part."

"That makes Dhoni Obi-Wan Kenobi!" I crowed.

"You do realise that makes Suresh Raina Luke Skywalker, right?"

That stopped me short, I had to admit. But hey. I could live with that, you know? "Then Han Solo is Yuvraj Singh. You know, irresponsible friend of the hero who's really, really good if he puts his head into it?"

However, when I started speculating about Chewbacca, she pretty much warned me not to broach the subject with a ten-foot pole. Huh. (Look, Harbhajan Singh would make an awesome Wookiee).

Then there was only one thing left to be determined.

"Who's Princess Leia?" she asked.

It turned out I didn't really have to think too much about that. "Ishant Sharma," I said.

India v Sri Lanka: because the Force Wills it to Be.

Couldn't even imagine

... that it would come to this.

Following the Lahore attack, there is now a distinct possibility that the IPL might not happen this year, with several foreign players and officials expressing their discomfort at the security situation in the subcontinent. It's not just about Lahore either, apparently. The unease existed right from the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai.

Now even the 2011 World Cup, scheduled to be held in the subcontinent, is under doubt.

I want to be cynical of the players expressing their doubts, I want to assert that something like Lahore can never happen in India, I want to sneer and laugh and pray. But yesterday's incident proved that cricket is far from immune to terrorism, and I still get the chills everytime I involuntarily imagine the Indian team in the Sri Lankans' position. Could this sort of thing happen in India? Maybe maybe yeah. Well.

Hell yeah.

Already there was talk of an IPL postponement before all of this, with the Home Minister suggesting the IPL clashing with the general elections might be a bad thing. While methinks he may have a point, I merely laughed and laughed when I first heard of it, because hello? Postponement of IPL might as well be translated into cancellation of the season, and that? Was so not going to happen.

Except now it actually might.

The players' attitudes (outside of India, particularly outside the subcontinent) regarding the IPL have always baffled, amused and mostly irritated me (because, hello, gleefully signing up for large amounts of money on one hand, and then taking some sort of perverse pleasure in extolling the Evils of Indian Money in Cricket on the other? So not on), and with this thrown into the mix, things have gotten a whole lot more complicated.

I can only somehow naively hope for restoration of some normalcy, because, dammit I want to see some IPL action this summer. I don't want to see cricket as a whole suffering from this, because the subcontinent? A pretty large chunk of land providing a pretty large chunk of cricket watching and playing population.

I don't even know anymore, and damn if I'm not getting overly melodramatic.

Not for the first time, I follow and love this game way more than I should be.

But... damn.

Fleeting Impressions and Post-Mortems

A week or so ago, inspired by the kazillion 'looking-back-on-2008's-cricket' articles to come, I sat down to write one of my own. It never got finished, distracted as I was by South Africa's exhilarating campaign in Australia, Bangladesh's attempts at renaissance against Sri Lanka, some entertaining domestic cricket, and the Gayle-show on as the Kiwis faced the Windies. Cricket squeezed the most it could out of even the very last days of the year, and right now, looking at the half-finished draft, I couldn't help but think, 'ah, chuck this'. The game transcends any attempt I could possibly make to sum it up, and 2008 was a more tumultuous year than most for this beautiful game. The normal Powers That Be on the cricket field are all out of whack, and therefore 2009 promises to be an exciting year for the game. I can only provide my fleeting impressions of how cricket this year affected me, because that's all my spectrum is limited to. I don't even play the game (hell, the only sport I took up seriously was tennis, and even that fell to the wayside for academics), but I adore it with an inexplicable passion, and therefore I sit here and type, despite the sleep tugging at my eyes.





The year started off interestingly enough, with the Eternal Drama Queens of Cricket presenting you their ultimate production: Sydneygate, Jan '08. More than anything, apart from all the accusations of racism, blackmail, threats, and the vitriol, it was the actual cricket that disappointed me most. Don't get me wrong - I thought Sydney played host to a fantastic Test match that week, but I was reduced to crying tears of bitter disappointment even as a confused Ishant Sharma gazed dazedly at his captain at the other end when he was the last Indian wicket to be dismissed with just five minutes left on the fifth day to be played out for a draw even as the Australians went completely - and undertstandably, in retrospect - berserk in delight. Mixed dangerously with the disappointment was anger and resentment, as the Test had also showcased every kind of blunder an umpire could possibly make on a cricket field, and the team most harmed by this incompetence from Benson and Bucknor was India. Sure, fine, the umpires make mistakes, we get it, but Sydney '08? Was too much to take in one go. Bucknor adjudging Andrew Symonds not out when he had clearly edged Ishant Sharma to Dhoni... I mean, what the hell? It was probably the only time I have ever seen Dhoni stare at the umpire in abject disbelief, and Ishant was left practically doubled over in agony, clutching his hair, and all I wanted to do was go and give the kid a hug. The bottomline was, at the end of the match, I was left feeling utterly cheated, and I suspected, so did many other Indians and that exacerbated every little ramification of whatever happened in that Test. The true extent of the BCCI's financial muscle was exposed, resentment built, Indo-Australian relations were almost irreparably damaged. I thought it was all great entertainment at that time, really, but this statement from Anil Kumble? Hit home in more ways than one: "Only one team out there was playing the spirit of the game. That's all I can say." in that firm, polite voice of his, barely glazing over a simmering anger... the first time I actually stood up and applauded. Kumble handled the fall-out of Sydneygate so well, and the way the team regrouped under him to record an unprecedented win at Perth... it was the absolute high-point of Kumble's captaincy stint. To have gotten his 600th Test wicket in the same game -the wicket being that of Symonds' , ha - was just a sweet bonus. What a man.





And after that was the triangular ODI tournament, and amidst all the furore about senior players being dropped in favour of younger greenhorns, the seemingly inexplicable faith being shown in a woefully out of form Yuvraj Singh, illegal gloves, verbal sending-offs, obnoxious weeds, shadow-boxing, streakers and rugby tackles, India shone through in the end, shored up by the brilliance of their bowlers and Sachin Tendulkar, and a batting line-up that finally managed to click. The finals were won, and the last-ever CB Tri-series trophy to be hosted by Australia was securely in Dhoni's hands, even as his ice-cool demanour was finally broken with a warm, proud smile as he asked the youngest member of his team to lift the trophy first. Talk about proving a point! Here was where we really got a feel of where he planned to take his team as a captain, and it was a portent for great things to come.



Despite all the euphoria however, our inconsistency as a team was once again highlighted as we struggled to draw the home series with South Africa that followed, leaving aside Sehwag's triple-century on a Chennai featherbed. Folding up for 76 on the first morning of the Ahmedabad Test within 20 overs has got to be one of Indian cricket's most humiliating moments.



Still! All was forgotten as soon after that, the IPL started. And everything else ended.



As a spectator, forgetting those two months ain't gonna be easy (not that I want to). Before the player auctions, I was half-considering ignoring the whole thing, faced as I was with the dilemma of whether I ought to support Dhoni's team or the Chennai team, Dhoni and Chennai being two things close to my heart. That was, of course, happily solved by the fact that Dhoni was bought by Chennai for an astronomical sum, but looking back now, I realise now that even if I'd wanted to, I could never have ignored it. The IPL was everywhere. On TV. On the ka-zillion news channels. On billboards. In TV ads. On the radio. In the newspaper. On the internet. My friends' conversations.



Just. Everywhere. It was mind-boggling. And a marketing masterpiece.



I watched and followed, open-mouthed, mind inundated with Twenty20. There was slapgate, there was glamour. There were half-naked cheerleaders, there was delicious controversy. Endless gimmicks. Great music. Horrible commentary. Non-stop advertising. Good-looking comperes (mm). And not to forget, some great cricket as well. Although admittedly, toward the end of the tournament, as a spectator I felt utterly exhausted and was relieved when it finally ended, leaving behind hungry cricket fans even where there were previously none (Nothing more frightening than having my hitherto cricket-phobic mother come with me to watch a match, and admire Adam Gilchrist's batting).



International cricket went inexorably on - the Indian ODI team, overworked in the unforgiving subcontinental summer, reached and lost a couple of finals, the final of the Asia Cup being the more significant of the two, as Ajantha Mendis rent the young batting lineup into pieces with his uber-mysterious spin bowling, announcing his arrival on the world stage as a formidable possible successor to Muralitharan. It was then that Dhoni decided enough was enough, that if the iterinary wasn't loosened, he was going to take matters into his own hands, and took a self-enforced break from the Test series against Sri Lanka, which was eventually lost 2-1 in a series that briefly exacerbated the whole seniors turmoil in Indian cricket, especially considering that the Middle Order collectively failed against the wiles of Muralitharan and Mendis. Dhoni returned for the ODI series, the bowlers shone with preternatural awesomeness, Dhoni almost singlehandedly held the threads of the fraying batting line-up together, the team made most of the little dollops of luck that came their way, and the ODI series was won, with India left a lot to think about.



Pakistan's terrorism-induced isolation in world cricket finally came to a head as the Champions Trophy scheduled to be held there was postponed (read: cancelled). India went on to win the Border Gavaskar Trophy after that, decimated England in the ODI series, won the Test series as well via one of the more memorable fourth-innings chases in Chennai, finally ending a mixed year with an anticlimactic Plod.

So? I don't disagree that it was a great year for Indian cricket, apart from the whole falling apart in Sri Lanka part. The reasons for this are manifold: things that previously used to be an uncertainty in Indian cricket are now our greatest strengths - a fantastic pair of opening batsmen, excellent up and coming pacers, a solid wicketkeeper-batsman, and an innovative, aggressive captain. Funnily enough, the previously rock-solid middle order turned out to be a little soft this year, though.

A lot has been written about how India finish the year as the no. 1 team. Uh, I'm not too sure about that. Like Sourav Ganguly said, we've played most of our Test cricket at home this year, and lost the only two overseas series that we did play (Australia and Sri Lanka). We have yet to play an overseas Test with Dhoni at the helm. With the Pakistan tour cancelled, his first overseas challenge will come in the form of a tour of New Zealand. I feel that India will falter there, but will hopefully come out of the experience a better team.

Moving on from India, the end of the year showed up who was truly now the best team in the world: South Africa. Topping off an excellent year with a first-time series win in Australia, with two absolutely phenomenal Test matches throwing up some fantastic names like deVilliers and JP Duminy, has given Graeme Smith plenty of reasons to smile, smile so hard his (non-existent) lips crack. 11 wins out of 14 Tests in the year? That's the freakin definition of phenomenal.

Australia, however, start the year playing the last Test of the series they've already lost - a position they haven't been in in nearly 16 years, 16 years where whole generations of cricketers have come and gone, either to bask in the glory of Australian dominance or to get spanked by it. Sure, Australia is in a tough position, presumably brought about by some mistaken belief in their old unshakable dominance, when clearly, with a retired Gilchrist, Warne, McGrath, an out-of-form Hayden, Lee and Hussey, lack of a proper spinner, a rash of injuries to key players, and the exposure of the limits to Ponting's leadership, they aren't. What surprises me, though, is the reaction of the Australian media. I mean, the death of Australian cricket? Over-reaction much? Sure the team had a tough year and it will be some time before they come close to being the team they once were, but these post-mortems from the Australian media aren't helping matters any. They seem to have firmly perched their rear on the panic button, and while that is admittedly funny and great to enjoy, it ain't pretty. And here I was, thinking only the sensationalist lookit-me-dammit Indian media did that. It is an international malaise, apparently, and somehow, that's not very reassuring. At all.

And the Australian selectors aren't helping matters any. Before the Border Gavaskar Trophy, I had no idea who Trevor Hohns or Andrew Hilditch was - to me the Australian selection board was just an anonymous bunch of suited men who had the most enviable job of typing out and selecting the best players in the world and sit back and watch them win match after match. Now, though? When faced with an actual crisis situation? They run around, completely confused. Australia have gone through a kabillion spinners for the Test team, some of them not even the first-choice spinners for their State sides, they have persisted with out-of-form players in Hayden and Symonds out of some apparent misplaced sentimentality, denying younger players the opportunity to play for the national team (hello, where's Marsh, Jacques, Rogers and the rest?). All this while, the Aussie selectors have had a team that they could put together like a complete jigsaw puzzle, all the pieces fitting perfectly against each other, forming a formidable team that demanded the highest intensity and great feats to be defeated. Now, though? Now, the jigsaw box has been upended, the pieces are all scattered and several are missing, and the selectors are trying to fill in the gaps with misshapen pieces of cardboard and glue.

So. 2009 promises to be a year which would finally decide who takes over from Australia, and my bets are on South Africa, although India seem to have a great chance as well. Exciting stuff. Also looking forward to the Twenty20 season this summer. I've enjoyed all the exhilarating Test cricket, now I think it's high time for some T20 action.

Oh, and because I couldn't help it, here are my 2008 teams of the year:

Tests
Virender Sehwag
Gautam Gambhir ( I know, I know, where's Smith? you ask. I say that while he's had a phenomenal year, I prefer to look at the opening combination as a whole rather than the individual batsmen. As a combo, VirunGauti have always been greater than the sum of their parts. A fantastic rocket-propellant at the start of the innings).
Ricky Ponting (Amla just misses out)
Kevin Pietersen
Shivnarine Chanderpaul (like, duh)
AB deVilliers (has had a great year with the bat, and is an awesome fielder)
Mahendra Singh Dhoni -wk, capt. (Need I even explain?)
Zaheer Khan
Dale Steyn
Ishant Sharma (sorry that Johnson had to miss out, but Zaks and Ishi have been so phenomenal, even on tracks least conducive to pace, and are one of the main reasons India has done so well this year)
Ajantha Mendis (all hail this special spinner. He promises even greater things for Sri Lanka in the coming years)

12th man: Hashim Amla

ODIs
Virender Sehwag
Chris Gayle (br... if I were a bowler, I would be afraid of this combo. Very afraid. )
Gautam Gambhir (highest run-scorer in ODIs this year, and has previously shown the temperament and ability to be a successful number three, as in Australia)
Kevin Pietersen (there's no getting away from this man)
Yuvraj Singh (ah ha ha, after I brainwash him to believe that every opposition he plays against is England)
Mahendra Singh Dhoni - wk, capt.
Andrew Flintoff
Daniel Vettori
Zaheer Khan
Nathan Bracken
Ajantha Mendis

12th man: Stuart Broad

Here's wishing everybody a happy and prosperous New Year 2009.

India: Bravado, Confusion and the R-Word

Yeah, so just two days left now, so let's get right into it, shall we?

There's been a lot of talk about how vulnerable this Australian team looks (comparitively, of course, these blokes are still an awesome team), and how India is totally going to smear them all across the proverbial wall and reclaim the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. Okay, that's not all that the talk's been about, but this is the general first impression that people get, comparing the two sides purely on paper. (Of course, by just records, stats and sheer weightage of talent, India would've almost always won on paper).

However the Indian team is going through tough times of its own, and the number one question on everybody's lips is: What of the Middle Order?

The Sri Lankan tour was a confusing one for most Indian cricket fans to endure. The magical triumverate (Ganguly, Dravid, Sachin -- I so totally don't believe in the Fab Four nonsense, 'cause Laxman still has so much to offer) totally flopped in the Test series against the Sri Lankans, mainly due to the wiles of an amazing rookie spinner, and the wily older one, who only grew more effective in the befuddling aura cast by his younger colleague, rather than being stifled by it. These two guys bowled in tandem, and the Middle Order was blown away. The Review System didn't help, sure, but nobody expected such an abject, collective failure. Their inability to handle the spinners (and looking totally undeserving of their 'best players of spin in the world' tag) was further accentuated by the successes of Sehwag (who was, who was, who was... can I say "brilliant"? *worships* ), Gambhir (Mr. Consistency, yo), and hell, even the likes of Harbhajan, Zaheer and Ishant (who is the best number eleven India's had in a long time)! While catches were dropped and the body language drooped, Kumble seemed uninspiring as captain on the field. He toiled and toiled, but wasn't producing many results (and he obviously couldn't match Jayawardene in shrewdly and carefully using the Review System). He was the least successful spinner in a series where all other bowlers thrived. End result? Series lost, 2-1. And then what happens? Dhoni and his merry band waltz in to play the ODI series against SL, the ODI squad containing only two of the Test eleven (Zaheer, Gambhir), and they win, 3-2. Not that they didn't have their problems, but at least most of them seemed to be able to put their hands up to work out the problem in times of need (headed admirably by the captain), made maximum use of the dollops of luck that came their way, and eventually took the trophy home.

Why this recap of what most Indian cricket fans will be familiar with anyway, you ask? Well, every drama needs a backstory, dunnit?

The R-Word (ahem, retirement) struck with full force, and the Middle Order, all of whom are well past the wrong side of 30, were being asked to 'gracefully hang up their boots' (which is a weird metaphor, if you think about it). They, of course, don't want to, and nor do their endless legions of fans. And so the debate raged. Have we allowed the batting order to grow old together? Is it too late to start blooding replacements? Are there any suitable ones? Or can they never be replaced (because, you know, people seem to think they're, like, cricketing gods or such-like)? Are the youngsters worthy, or are they all hankering after Twenty20, quick bucks and such-like, and refusing to enter the sanctum sanctorum of Test Cricket (please)? What about Anil Kumble? After all his Dignified Awesomeness in Australia, was he finally starting to feel the pinch of captaincy? Wasn't his own form dipping? With the dip in form, was he actually a good leader? Didn't he depend on the whole 'leading-from-the-front' stuff? Wasn't he 38, for Pete's sake? Was it time to let Dhoni take over the Test mantle as well? Or is Dhoni's not-so-impressive Test record going to work against him? Wasn't Dhoni burdened enough with roles of 'keeper, and saviour of the innings, ahem, I mean, lower middle order batsman? Is Sehwag a better candidate, or would it affect his game at a time we have finally hit upon a solid Test opening pair?

Whew! That's a lot of questions, there, people. So yeah, the Indian state of affairs are not exactly ideal, either.

My thoughts on the whole thing? Well, I'm not for a mass retirement or anything like that, but I feel if the Test team is to reinvent itself and not stagnate, like the ODI team did just about a year ago, then a transition has to take place, and I believe Dravid and Ganguly ought to be the first to go. Definitely Ganguly, for mine. Sure, he played some good innings last year and stuff, but his fielding, running, and even his footwork at the crease have all gone a little more rusty. Dravid seems to be going through one prolonged confidence crisis, and seems determined to stagnate at the crease (dude, I know he's called "The Wall", but in his heyday, he at least used to rotate the strike regularly!), but he's still the country's best slip fielder, and Kumble would never ever agree to the droppage of Dravid. So it had to be Ganguly. Right?

The Vengsarkar-led selection committee seemed to agree, and in their last act, dropped Ganguly from the Rest of India team for the Irani Trophy, which was supposed to a "virtual Test team". Surely, this was the end of Ganguly's career, 'cause at 36, even Sourav couldn't manage the Famous Comeback. Right?

Wrong.

Krishnamachari Srikkanth waltzed in with the new selection committee, and promptly selected Ganguly for the first two Tests against Aus, and somewhere in front of a TV my jaw clattered to the floor. I suppose he didn't want to disturb the team dynamics too much before such an important series, but seriously. Kris? Where did you hide your famous backbone?

But then again, maybe this might be a chance for the magical triumverate to retire in a blaze of glory, and gallop toward the setting sun, and other such cheesy cliches I'm embarrassed to admit my cheesy, romantic soul revels in. For one, I'm dead-certain Kumble will throw in the towel latest by the end of the Test series against England at the end of the year, after which Dhoni getting the Test captaincy should be a mere formality. I know it's a big burden, but I think he can handle it. Also, if he can pick up his Test batting skills and get a couple or so centuries under his belt this series, that'd really help in acheiving that end. The fact that Dhoni's Test record does not match up to his prolific ODI one has been the number one (and sometimes only) point of contention for his critics. I hope Dhoni destroys that bit of their leverage with this series. Sehwag is an option, true, but I feel it might affect his game. The key for India is for Sehwag to play with that seeming abandon, that simple philosophy of 'see ball, will hit'. We don't want his mind clouded with other stuff, and another prolonged form slump, do we? Just when VirunGauti were starting to become a phenomenon! (Besides, tactics isn't Sehwag's strong suit, either. Just saying.)

One thing I loved about the selection was that Badrinath was picked. Seriously, this guy's proverbial kuckles must be raw from knocking on the proverbial selectors' door all these years. He didn't impress in the Irani Trophy, or the BP XI match against the Aussies, though, and that worries me. Hello, totally bad time for bad form to hit! But the general consensus is that Badrinath would one day prove to the ideal replacement for Dravid and such-like, and we know that he has the full support of Dhoni and co., so here's hoping Badri, you know, becomes something like an Indian Mike Hussey. Because that'd be totally cool.

Yuvraj, Rohit and Raina, who weren't deemed good enough have totally impressed in the practice matches against the Aussies, though, and Hello! Awkward for the selectors.

Also, this whole thing about youngsters not being able to 'match up to the seniors' is starting to get on my nerves. Fine. Let's compare Badrinath's and Dravid's Test records, shall we? Or Rohit's and Tendulkar's? Wait a second! Rohit and Badrinath don't have Test records! So how in the whole wide world would we (dude, that was an impressive alliteration) know how they would perform as replacements without giving them a chance? And it's not like we're going to have a choice soon enough are we? I mean, yeah, Kumble and the Middle Order have given us some wonderful memories, and are among the finest players of their generation, but they're getting past it, and it's time to deal with it in a professional manner, like the Australians do. If the nostalgia becomes overwhelming, instead of cursing a youngster who 'has the audacity to think he can fill the boots of the wonderful/magnificent/godly Dravid/Tendulkar/Ganguly' (or something to that effect), go see a counsellor, okay?

Also, when the Middle Order made their first appearance together, I'm pretty sure they didn't hit their stride immediately. Give the new guys some time and patience too, yeah?

Bowling looks healthy with in-form Zaheer, Ishant and Munaf making up the pace attack. (I seriously doubt RP will get a game). Kumble is a tireless performer, and will no doubt only be fired up more after all the criticism, and Bhajji has got so much to play for, and of course, some bunnies (*cough* Ponting *cough*) to net. Amit Mishra's selection intrigued me - I thought Chawla/Ohja were the heirs apparent? However, I'm glad his domestic record and stints with the India A team have been recognised - I remember him being a very good lower order batsman too, so it's all good.

So, at the end of the uber long post, what do I mean to say? Things look mighty interesting at the Indian end of the spectrum, and the implications of this Test series on the national team could be more far-reaching than it appears superficially.

... Now, didn't that sound impressive?