Congrats! I bow down to "The God" Sachin Tendulkar

Today is the day when Sachin Tendulkar completes 20 years in International Cricket.


And since we all know that everything has already been said, written and documented very well about Sachin Tendulkar by almost everybody, it is futile for me to write something that has not been already said or written. So this will be a short but interesting post.


It is difficult to believe that it has been 20 long years since the small, curly haired boy was seen playing for India! Any one who saw this cherubic boy with a spark in his eyes could not help but be mermerized. Such a small innocent boy taking on the Pakistanis in their home land would be nerve wracking for anyone but who can forget the incident where he was hit on the nose? And then to stand up again and continue and score a half century as a 16 year old was what made the whole world take notice and really grasp the magnitude of what he really was. And then to take on the wily, experienced Abdul Qadir and to hoick him for 3 sixes announced the world that he was very special indeed; something that happens once in a century or even more. But one thing is sure, there can never be another Sachin Tendulkar. Ever! It is not for nothing that he is called "God" in Cricket.

So many have come, played with him and long gone, but here he is! Still there going strong into his 3rd decade!


It is very emotional for me because I too have revered him like God. I feel I am lucky that I was born around the right time. He started playing for India when I was 5 and it has been my privilege to watch him for 20 years and I remember that I loved him since that time. I have grown up watching him all these years, reading everything about him, collecting thousands of his pictures and making albums of them, putting up his posters in my room, copying him and what not, just like millions of kids in India. My life revolved around him and Cricket to quite some extent. There have been days when he has played well and it made our day. When he succeeded, we succeeded. When he failed, we failed.


I just thought about this today and it made shudder that how am I ever going to be able to watch the game when finally the day comes when he retires. Because no matter what, it is going to come some day. Though I feel there are quite a few years still left. Indeed this is going to happen to a lot of people who have been switching off their television sets when he gets out.


Over the years, he has been one main reason for joy for the nation, even uniting people across states and religions. For me to a great extent, Cricket starts and ends with him. He is the soul and essence in the game. Indeed no one is greater than the game but the game definitely looks incomplete without him.


I am often amazed at existence for producing such a human being! How can a man have done everything that he has and still remain the amazing human being he is? It was very generous of God or existence for giving us Sachin Tendulkar. There is no greater joy than watching a Master at his work and Sachin is the Master in this game. I can't imagine how physically, mentally and emotionally strong he must be to continue this long and do what he has managed!


I even find myself in my everyday life imitating his facial expressions or other small things unintentionally! Indeed almost everyone in the current Indian team has grown up watching and imitating him and today they are playing with him. One thing I have noticed while he plays is this- Whenever a batsman hits the ball, specially a fast bowler straight back towards him, it is a natural reaction for a fast bowler (don't know why?!) to throw the ball back towards the batsman or the stumps. And I don't know if people have observed this but Sachin Tendulkar handles these situations the best of all the batsman. Do observe this the next time it happens that after Sachin has hit it straight towards the bowler and when the bowler is raring to let go the ball, Sachin calmly just puts up his hand, puts his bat in the crease and doesn't even look at the bowler or ball because if the bowler throws it, it could easily hit or hurt the batsman but Sachin exudes such calm from his presence that the bowler immediately calms down and doesn't throw. It is similar to an enlightened one like Gautam Buddha in whose presence even wild, ferocious animals became calm and tamed! I just love to watch this everytime it happens.


And finally just before stopping, I thought about one thing- Sachin Tendulkar must have run so many runs. The total number of runs he has scored considering First Class and List A Cricket is 42392. Plus let us assume he has run equal number of runs for his batting partners, so it comes out to be 84784 across the pitch which is 22 yards. So it comes out to be 1865248 yards of running. But assuming that 50% of the runs are scored in boundaries (fours and sixes) so it makes it 932624 yards ( The means Sachin Tendulkar has run more than 853 kms on the offcially recorded or statistically maintained matches on a Cricket field alone!). And the average circumference of Earth in yards is 43788837.6. Thus it means Sachin Tendulkar must have run around 2.13 % of the earth's circumference! And that is just while batting. Not fielding or bowling! Digest that!


And all those of you who must have got tired perhaps of the whole Sachin completing 20 years in International cricket going on and on in TV and newspapers and perhaps might have thought because of that by this time that his must have been the longest career, are wrong. In fact he is 16th on the list of the longest Test careers! The highest is of English all rounder Wilfred Rhodes. He represented his country for 30 years 315 days from June 1 1899 to April 12, 1930 playing his last Test Match at the age of 52 years 165 days! And he played just 58 Test Matches. In the modern era, only Sanath Jayasuriya is close to him at 19 years 275 days and Javed Miandad at 20 years 272 days, which is the highest for ODI career. And that's why Sachin Tendulkar completing 20 years in the modern era is a huge thing because of the amount of competitive, fast Cricket being played these days and the number of both ODIs and Test Matches that he has played!
May he never stop!

Metamorphosis of Cricket (Sport, not insect!)

Cricket sport which originally started as a five day affair, has been changing with time over the years and in today's fast paced world with everything being fast and instant, Cricket too has a new face in the form of Twenty-twenty game, so much so that the previous formats seem no longer relevant.

It is a tough time for Cricket, for the people associated with the game over the years, for the audiences who have been watching and loving the game and its various aspects. It is a clash between the old and the new. For Cricket game as it started, some are advocates of "that's how it's meant to be". It is like the Bible or religion, the first word..the way it's meant to be. They cannot accept it to be changed or even to bring modifications to it. Some on the other hand believe that the time of the original Cricket formats is up and they should be scrapped and a few in the middle suggest bringing in some modifications and changes to make the game more up-to-date and in tune with today's time while avoiding both the extreme options.

Is Test Match the problem or is One day Internationals the problem? And the meaning of 'problem' here is less audiences and less interest meaning less money. And the biggest factor behind this is the IPL. It is only after the tremendous success of IPL format and the way it is presented and the glamour factor, that people have started thinking about the game this way. Bollywood and Cricket have always been the 2 major things in an average Indian family and now IPL is the product of Cricket like movies are the product of Bollywood. IPL and movies are counterparts in that respect. When so much effort and money, colour and glamour has been put in to make it so interesting for the audiences for 3 1/2 hours, it is natural that hardly few of these audiences would like to watch the 'boring' Test Matches played in whites over a period of 5 long days which is in total contrast. But since there is so much of a difference between T-20s and Test Matches, they are considered almost different games, targeted to different audiences, they aren't really being compared and thus One day internationals being more closer and similar to T-20s have been caught. So the popular opinion as of now is to keep Test Matches, and obviously have more T-20s but to scrap off ODIs.

In the analysis of the weakness of the ODIs, one of the main things talked about is the lull in the game after the first Power Play till the last 10 overs. To combat it they have brought in batting and bowling power-plays but it hasn't really made so much of a difference. Matthew Hayden has said that this is the time that is actually tougher for batsmen because it tests their skills. But of course he is talking from a player's point of view and now the most important factor is the audience. If there is no one to watch, there isn't really a player's worth then.

Another suggestion that has come and which cannot be ignored, simply because it has come from Sachin Tendulkar himself. He might be a man of few words, but when he talks, the world listens. He has suggested to convert 50 over matches into 2 innings of 25 overs each and he thought of this years ago in 2002, after the final match with Sri Lanka in the Champions trophy.

This is what he has to say about it- "Today, we can tell the result of close to 75% of [ODI] matches after the toss. But [splitting the game] is not too dependent on the toss." And regarding that match in the rain-hit final in Champions trophy in Colombo, where India and Sri Lanka were declared joint winners, " First, they played 50 overs and we played two before the rain interruption, The next day [a reserve day], Sri Lanka again played 50 overs and we played eight. In the end, we were declared joint winners. I thought, 110 overs and still no result. That's when I thought we should have 25 overs each for both sides and then 25 overs each again. If, for example, it's a day-night match, then both the teams will have to bat under lights. In those 25 overs you can use your 10 wickets the way you want. Suppose if it rains, then also you can plan. The conditions change very dramatically, but this would ensure that it's the same for everyone."

A few of the things which have made the Cricket administrators really sit up and think and take some actions include the England and Wales Cricket Board announcement about the decision to drop domestic 50-over cricket in favour of a 40-over competition and instances like Andrew Flintoff turning down the offer of an incremental central contract with England and remaining a freelance cricketer which many say is because he wants to play in the lucrative IPL. The contract would have been worth around £30,000 but in rejecting the offer Flintoff is free to commit to his Indian Premier League employers, Chennai Superkings, who would pay him a full annual fee of $1.55m (£935,000).

So what should really be done? Should changes be made to the ODIs? Should Test Matches be removed? Or is it just too much of T20s?

Before we search for solutions, we need to first see if the problem really exists. Before you start treating a patient and administering him medicines, you need to ascertain whether he is really ill. And perhaps the only means of that is the audience. The people watching at their home on their television sets and the people that come to the stadium to watch the match. People want entertainment and they have many ways to have it. It is for the people in charge and the Cricket lovers to ensure that it remains one of the most sought after means of entertainment and that is possible by scheduling it correctly, not having too many unnecessary tournaments and matches.

I have come up with some points which I think can help Cricket get through this turbulent times.
1) Better stadium facilities - If you want audiences, you need to provide them comfortable and pleasing environment and not just make them sit under the hot sun!
2) Reducing days/overs, variations of Power plays - One of the things suggested is reducing Test Matches to 4 days and ODIs to 40 overs or bringing in some variations of Power Plays.
3) Hitting Zones for batsmen - I feel Cricket can actually become better if it takes up some of the laws and practices of informal Cricket played all over the world which can include marking zones on the ground where, if hit, the batsman might get 2 bonus runs. It might tempt many batsmen to hit predetermined shots to those areas no matter where the ball is bowled. It will increase the mind games between the batsmen and bowlers and make it risky and entertaining. Also adopting from informal games- the single-handed one bounce catch can make it interesting.
4) Bringing more colour and glamour - This is of course from the success of IPL in it.
5) Proper scheduling of tournaments and preparation of pitches - Many times we have seen that matches are held during the rainy season with frequent rain interruptions or extremely hot climates. Scheduling should be done considering all these factors, weather and local conditions and pitches should be prepared such that matches shouldn't be one-sided. There should be an even contest between bat and ball.
6) Day-night Matches - Even Test Matches can be held day-night as can be ODIs and T-20s so that people can come after their office work and enjoy matches in the coolness specially in Summer
7) Free tickets for school children - For any sport to go on, the interest of the children and the youth in the game is essential. They need to look up to players to be like them. That is how the greats in the game are born like Sachin Tendulkar grew up watching and wanting to be like Sunil gavaskar and Viv Richards while the youngsters and even current Indian team players grew up idolising Sachin Tendulkar. Thus providing free tickets will encourage them to come and generate interest in the game and encourage them to take it up as a career as well.
8) Discount for families - This is also among similar lines to attract more people and appeal to other target audience- women and children. It can be made a fun and enjoyable experience with facilities.
9) Promotion - Of course, everything needs promotion and Cricket needs to be promoted properly. In Test Matches, it is the Ashes that generates the most interest and is of some significance. Similarly they can develop matches and rivalries along similar lines as they have tried with Pakraman for India vs Pakistan matches.
10) Test World Cup - This might seem to be a crazy idea but perhaps 4 day Test Matches with a knock out kind of World Cup might just work. But they need to keep track and not bring in too many tournaments though, as it reduces interest -with World Cups, and IPLs and Champions trophy and Champions League etc. Audiences should not be over-burdened and tournaments should be evenly spaced.

Cricket- The illogical Game

One of my pet topics is definitely Cricket and so far, under the topic of Cricket I have written about particular matches, or about a tour, or the various formats of the game or about a Cricketer. But this time I decided- Why not write about the game itself?
So here it is - a post on the game of Cricket.

What is it about this sport that drives the whole nation of India mad? What special does this game have that has given it the unique distinction of being elevated to the position of religion in India? What is it about it that drives most of the subcontinent countries, unites people across religions and places?

If you take a look at what the game is simply, it is actually quite illogical and might even look stupid. If the intellectual, logical people like Aristotle and Socrates had known about this game, they would have simply laughed at the people who play it and would have laughed even louder at the stupidity of the people all over the world watching it so keenly and getting all worked up over it and yet they would have missed something very beautiful because this game, as indeed other games are not for the intellect. It is not logical and it is not productive indeed. Just see- a group of around 22 players on a ground doing something as stupid as one of them at a time hurling in a ball and another one trying to hit it and and rest of them so focussed on it, just running after it so desperately! For what? It is simply counterproductive. It is just like the joke on football that someone who saw the sport of football for the first time saw so many people going after one ball and wasting so much energy just for the want of kicking it, he remarked- Why not have one football for each of them so that they can all kick to their heart's content!

If you see from one point of view, it is simply a waste of time for those players and even greater wastage of time for the people watching because at least the players are getting paid for it and it is their livelihood but the people who are watching, they are infact not even getting anything! These groups of players against each other is just like a person wrestling with his left arm and right arm. He is simply wasting his own energy no matter which hand wins.

In this game, it is the rules that make the game and it is the final result that decides all. No matter how well a player has played, if the team has lost, even by 1 run, everyone of that team and its supporters will be sad and someone from the opposition even though he might have not played well at all, if he is in the winning team, he will be happy. So it's not how it was played that matters but what the final result is. The journey is more important than the destination but in sports it is not so. If a team has lost, it will be sad and if everyone realizes that there was a mistake in calculation and infact it has won, suddenly the mood will change. That is one thing that is not very good about the sport that everything hangs on the final score. Games are meant to be played for enjoyment and enjoyment should be derived from the very process of playing.

So, yes this game is illogical, meaningless, nothing productive is coming out of it and there is no point to it but yet in spite of all this or because of these, there is something magical about the game.

This game would be even more meaningless without the rules of the game. Just see that if there were a group of players who came together to play but did not accept any rules, than anyone would bowl any number of balls, batsmen wouldn't run, everyone would do whatever they wanted and of course there would be fights too. And I have a feeling that if the enlightened people were to play this game, this is how they would play it - without any rules. And they would enjoy it as well.

Also recently, Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev was present at the IPL match between Mumbai Indians and Chennai SuperKings at Port Elizabeth, South Africa. And he was also supposed to present the a prize to the batsman who hits the maximum sixes. The Sadhguru, a swashbuckling spiritual leader known to roam the Himalayas barefoot and in jeans with the same ease as he zips down international expressways on superbikes, believes that Cricket is beyond religion."This sport brings people together and is a spiritual process." he is reported to have said. Thinking about this gave me an idea and thus below is a small description of a funny event of Cricket that would take place if The Gods, enlightened Masters, Scientists etc took part in it.

Here, I will pick up various famous people from various fields though - you a particular reader might not know all of them. Readers from India might understand about the Indian Gods and not about the western famous people and vice versa. I am tempted to put in a reference of all the characters that I will be using with a small background but it will take up too much space.
And I will actually match one of the main feature or characteristic of each person to this game.

FUNNY CRICKET SCENARIO :

* Disclaimer- This is just a work of fiction and is not meant to make fun of any religious or well known figure of any other field. No religious offense is meant and people whose religious or other sentiments might be hurt should refrain from reading further.

- Moses would declare himself the captain of the team and give 10 commandments- one to each of the other 10 players

-Gautam Buddha would be made the third umpire and he will go on looking with his half-closed eyes, sitting in the lotus posture and every decision referred to him would be 'The Middle Way'- neither out, nor not out

- Mahavir would come in to bat naked with no protective equipment either and deliberately let the ball hit him as a means of self-torture.

- Jesus would be spotted 'hanging' out around the stadium.

- Mohammed would carry the messages to the players after every over.

-Krishna would steal the player's clothes from their dressing rooms and cover up the stadium light towers with his 'Sudarshan Chakra' to delay the match and bring in Duck-Worth Lewis in the favour of his team.

-Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev would turn out professionally dressed and would be the fastest between the wickets but would be given out wrongly by the opposition because they would know that he can't get angry

-Osho would play spoilsport and disrupt the match any which way

-Swami Sukhbodhananda would enthusiastically be the captain and coach and use various jargons to explain the strategy to his team

-J.Krishnamurthi would oppose all traditional methods of playing

-Mahatma Gandhi would refrain from hitting the ball as it would be violence and when a bowler will uproot one of the stump, he will show him the other stump.

-Bruce Lee will take a nunchaku instead of a bat and since one bowler would be nothing for him, he will ask multiple bowlers to bowl at him at the same time, and still he will hit all those balls out of the boundary.

-Rafael Nadal will ask for a clay pitch whereas Roger Federer will ask for a grassy pitch

-Isaac Newton would be stationed on the boundary and as the batsman would hit the ball in the air and it would be coming down towards him, instead of taking the catch, he would start explaining the concept of Gravity acting on the ball to the audience

-Edison would be so engrossed in his bowling that he will forget how many balls he has bowled in the over and go on to bowl 10,000 different deliveries without success of getting the batsman out and finally remark that he has not failed but he has found 10,000 deliveries that don't work!

India in New Zealand

My Perspective

This was always going to be a very interesting tour and a kind of a crossroad for the Indian Cricket team. On one side was the absolutely dismal past record of the Indian team in New Zealand and on the other-the form of the present Indian team. So what do you choose? Perhaps the logical conclusion from this can be that this current Indian team may not dominate or clean sweep the series but at least can be expected to fare much better than the previous tour.

So far, two T-20 matches have been wrapped up and the result has been 0-2 against India. India is the T-20 champion and can be expected to win in this form of the game more than the other forms. And specially on this tour, more people would have expected India to atleast win the T-20 matches, expecting the ODIs and Test Matches to be much more sterner tests for the team.

My analysis of both the games so far- Starting with the first Twenty- Twenty match.

If I am not wrong, M.S.Dhoni called 'Tails' both the times at the toss and lost it both times (I too always go for a 'tail' during coin toss, with friends or on online games etc) maybe he calls it Tails everytime! I will have to observe more closely now. I wonder though whether it was an indication that things are not going your way, and when it does, usually nothing goes your way. The same thing happened in the previous series India played with the opposing captain Jayawardene losing atleast 4 tosses in a row! M.S.Dhoni has usually always been lucky with the coin toss but here it was just a formality as Dhoni said because any ways New Zealand wanted to field first and India wanted to bat first. By the way, I wonder whether it is 'field first' or 'bowl first'? I don't think there is an official term for it as such but it would be interesting to see what word the captain uses because it can tell a lot about what he is thinking. Perhaps a confident captain would like to use the word 'bowl' suggesting they are eager to bowl out the opposition whereas one using the word 'field' might have it at the back of the mind that thay are going to have a long hard day in the field!

In the first match, India got off to a flying start, all thanks to the destroyer Sehwag. He is someone whom the whole world has now acknowledged that nothing can be done about him. He is just a kind of a freak, in a positive way. Opponents never know what to expect from him, and are perhaps just happy to see his back, whichever way it comes. In that match, it was one of the smallest grounds I had seen and with the kind of big hitters India had, it was always going to be a dilemma. And Indians tried to be positive but perhaps overdid it. They tried to hit their way out of everything, neglecting the other important aspects of the game because this was a talented, confident bunch of players who hadn't really needed to change their game, their agressiveness so far. In this game, they almost forgot to take the singles, and perhaps never even gave a thought to building partnerships. In the batting, I was only disappointed with one dismissal- that of Rohit Sharma. You might argue about the others but I don't blame the batsmen so much for the other dismissals. Gambhir and Sehwag have the responsibility of giving a flying start and with Gambhir not getting the timing right whatsoever, the onus was all on Sehwag to blast away and both perished. They might be a bit guilty, considering the way they got out, but since this was the first match and they were the openers, If I was the concerned authority- the coach or whoever else, I wouldn't have said much to them.

It was the responsibility of number 3 and 4 to carry on the innings steadily after the openers had given them a good enough start and then gotten out. It was then that Raina and Rohit Sharma should have played steadily at something like 7-8 runs per over for the next 4-5 overs and then the others would have completed the task. But Rohit Sharma showed his inexperience and it was disappointing the way he got out and the way he has been playing for the past few months, I would rather consider him playing only in the Test Matches. He has played nothing like he should in T-20.

Raina played wonderfully well, Yuvraj was just consumed by the brilliance of Vettori and Dhoni- the pitch. I knew that after this match, the team had understood where they have gone wrong and I was sure they wouldn't commit the same mistake. And in fact, they did not and played better to a plan. I was surprised to hear the commentators etc, who are supposed to be experts of the game that Indian have not learnt from the previous match. That was definitely not true. This time there was a bit of a restraint and they had thought it out. The only thing was- they still hadn't gotten the hang of the pitch. The stroke players who are so used to the ball coming on to the bat nicely, were just not able to time the ball properly and thus got more frustrated and tried to hit it even harder which made it all the more difficult. This showed the inexperience of the side in these conditions.

M.S.Dhoni in action against New Zealand

And I wonder whether people- the commentators in particular, have not noticed that fact that Dhoni's game has really changed in the past few months. He is no longer the hitter, but more the anchor and the grafter. I don't even remember the last time he hit a six whereas earlier he would end the game by hitting the winning runs with a six. And people accused Sachin Tendulkar of not remaining the same for someone who has been playing for 20 years whereas they have almost not even noticed that Dhoni's game has changed so quickly. And in the second match, after he hit a 4, I heard the commentator say that one shot can change things and perhaps this was the shot that Dhoni required, as if after this he is going to hit the remaining balls for sixes! It was absolutely clear that he was clearly struggling to get the ball away and couldn't hit even a single six even though the boundaries were short here too. He is clearly no longer the hitter down the order and after the match he said that Yusuf's wicket was crucial because such batsman who can hit the ball well are needed in T-20! Well, he himself was there, and he was there till the end! So what was he doing then?!! Can't he hit them!

Even though I was not able to see the second match completely, I felt India tried well. It was the spinners who brought India back into the game and the fact that the match ended on the last ball clearly means that it was a close match, a thrilling one, to be enjoyed irrespective of the fact of who won it.

For me right now, Yuvraj Singh is clearly the best player in our team. I am not considering Sachin Tendulkar because he is just a legend whose every moment, that you are lucky enough to view, is to be enjoyed and savoured. Just like in the IPL, he along with others were the Icons and there was no bidding for them. It is unfair to include him in any comparison as he is beyond it, just like Lata Mangeshkar did not allow her name to feature for any award after some time and Arnold Schwarzenegger stopped contesting in Mr. Olympia!

It is such a joy to watch Yuvraj bat. True Sehwag at the top of the order is just awesome but I would rate Yuvraj above him right now. He was always a talented player when he came in but it is great to see the way he has evolved. Once he gets in, he can really accelerate at any time and according to me, he is the cleanest hitter in the game who depends on his timing. It took all the ability of Yuvraj, who played a very good innings, to give India a chance in the second match. He might soon become the best ODI player in the ICC rankings.

Yuvraj Singh- one of the cleanest strikers of the Cricket ball

And as I post this blog, India has won its first ODI match quite easily and there has also been an attack on the bus carrying the Sri Lankan Cricket team in Pakistan with a few of the players suffering some injuries and the players will be going back home to Sri Lanka immediately.

It will be interesting to see now what decision they take about the World Cup which is supposed to be held in Asia!