Have been reading ‘The World According to Clarkson’ written by Jeremy Clarkson. He writes a weekly column in The Sunday Times and is better known to BBC viewers as the anchor of Top Gear. His writing style is witty, irreverent and (not atypically British) pulling down everything and every one. Many of his views/ opinions [...]
Let one start by admitting that this is not going to be the standard match summary/ report that one reads on haloed cricket sites. This is a fan’s account of the celebration, torture, hope, despair and sweat, which was the IPL semi final between the Rajasthan Royals and Delhi Daredevils.
The day [...]
Watching with interest the debate on T20s and Tests, I wonder if there is any right side at all.
Its all perspective - …
Jim and Edna were both patients in a mental hospital.
One day while they were walking past the hospital swimming pool, Jim suddenly jumped into the deep end. He sank to the bottom [...]
XYZ Newswire: May XX 20xx
Doctor Vijay Mallya hit the nail on its head, pierced the bull’s eye and put his finger on the problem all at once when he commented, “At the end of the day people need to understand that the IPL has a corporate side to it, and a very definitive corporate side [...]
Its not just a game, they say. Its an artefact which we must preserve. And they’re right, of course. Cricket is a game of immense skill and strategy. Of ebbs and flows. The essential cricket battle is not just about which side scores more runs - but the manner in which innings are constructed and [...]
If you’d been trapped in a time warp for a while now and haven’t noticed Asia’s growing influence in sport - virtually all sport ; well, its happening.
Rohit Brijnath, himself a symptom of this growing ascendancy, and writing now for, among others, the Hindu, the BBC and here in Singapore for the Straits Times, [...]
This is the best of times. That was the worst of times.
Indian cricket had let the nerves get the better of them. Pragmatically, winning the World Cup had been a fanciful dream - but a shock first round exit was an unjust blow. As those seniors sat looking into the distance, disconsolate and depressed, tied [...]
This is an excerpt from Geet Sethi’s wonderful book Success vs Joy. An unassuming book with lots of depth - much like the man.
On being highly strung.
There are certain sportspersons who hype themselves up with gestures, punching the air with fists and other such gesticulations, which they think will induce a rush of adrenaline. This [...]
Childhood was a wide eyed concept of reality. Every thing was 70 mm. Every thing was magic, everything was fantasy.
By the time one entered ones teens, one was still starry eyed about love, longing and life in general. Being a 17 year old was a challenge in itself. Being realistic [...]
With all the IPL auction dust settling down, the per ball income for Ishant Sharma calculated, the anguished cries of non Indian socialists the world over (How can a nation with so much poverty, display such obscene wealth) heard politely, reasons for the success / failure of the league analysed to bare bones, Ricky Ponting’s [...]
The finals of the CB series had to be between these two teams. There was a fatalistic predictability that it would be. Anything else would have been inadequate. Thats where the predictability ended.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s side is the new India. When they were chosen and others sidestepped, the justifiable feeling among many was that the [...]
A Dialogue from the Kill Bill : Vol 2 script.
It’s Bill speaking - the one who’s supposed to get killed as the title suggests. z
“I find the whole mythology surrounding superheroes fascinating. Take my favorite superhero, Superman.
Not a great comic book.
Not particularly well-drawn.”
“Mmmmm”
“But the mythology…
The mythology is not only great, it’s unique.
Now, a staple of [...]
October 14, 2007 - About 4 months ago - This was Andrew Symonds.
The feeling has come from the carry-on that surrounded India’s Twenty20 World Cup win. When we got here, it was just everywhere.
Our blokes thought it was over the top. Some of the things their players have been given and the way they are [...]
The silence on the blog has not been because one has been divorced from sport. Or too busy. Or too indifferent.
Truth is that the events surrounding the cricket in Australia have been numbing. And tiresome. Its not what one watches sport for and altho have spent a huge amount of time discussing the events and [...]
The day one had spent weeks and months waiting for finally arrived this morning.
Boxing Day at the MCG. You can click on the link to study its rich history but the more obvious parts are that the first ever Test match was held here in 1877 when Australia beat England by 45 runs. And then [...]
The markets have been kinda active and the year draws to a close and vacation starts and there’s the usual pressure and .. you know the drill ….But its not like I haven’t been watching, you know !
If you don’t believe me, read this blog.
And before you ask, the answer is “don’t ask”.
Regular blogging resumes [...]
The Million Dollar Question - Is it just me getting old fashioned or is sports really changing too fast ?
Is the modern day sportsperson chasing that dream so hard that its becoming difficult to make him the role model ? At some stage we are inherently uncomfortable with the concept of watching a sportsperson competing [...]
The good news is that we have some cricket again ! And by that I mean international cricket - the kind that seems to keep our hyperactive minds occupied. Because no matter how much domestic cricket we play (and there has been and continues to be a fair share), it does not seem to stop conspiracy [...]
When in 1991 Vishy Anand played his first Linares event he met a Spanish couple Maurice and Nieves. They were the reason Anand moved to Collado Mediano. They travelled with Vishy to many events over the years. Still when Vishy wins, Maurice is the first person he thinks of. He is by far Anand’s biggest [...]
Lets get this off to the realistic start it deserves. 4 matches into this series, we’re 1-2 behind and although we’ve won 1, it was our first win since 2004. Of the last 25 matches that we’ve played Australia, we’ve lost 17 (3 were No Results). Yesterday’s loss was Australia’s first in 15 games.
Now for [...]
I happened to be a proud recipient of a complimentary pass to the Kingfisher open Men’s singles final match conducted in Mumbai last Sunday. Now, I have always been a Tennis fan but never had the opportunity to watch a ‘live’ tennis match. Oliver Rochus v/s Richard Gasquet (I hope I got the spellings right), [...]
A few weeks ago, Shane Warne writing a column for The Times in the UK, started unleashing a list of 50 greatest cricketers he had played with or against. As with all things Warne, it was not without its share of the controversial.
The list opened and in its first ten i.e. 50-41 itself there were [...]
Knock Knock
Who’s There ?
Misba
Misba Who ?
Misba 5 runs .
Just for a brief while yesterday, surely, an old nightmare came back to haunt a few people. A young man named Sharma ran in to bowl to a determined, possessed Pakistan batsman . Thats when the comparisons ended. That was 21 years ago. I was older [...]
Six months ago - to the day - India, played its last game at the World Cup. Two days before that and a few hours after finding out about the death of their coach, Pakistan had played its last match at the World cup as well. Two great cricket superpowers brought to [...]
Last night, fast asleep at 0130, I got a phone call.
It had been a stressful couple of days at work. Sleep was desirable if not essential. There was no way it would be anything but toss and turn though. The caller knew it.
But I wish you could have heard the excitement in the voice. [...]
So today I have a scary question like that one above.
If Tests are the real thing, (and the Ashes will be the only 5 Test series ),
and
there is just too much one day cricket already
and
Twenty20 is Barbie Doll And Bobby Deol and yet there is so much of it mushrooming all over [...]
Today Rahul Dravid resigned as captain of Team India. Or offered to.
Typically I’d wait till the dust settled and things got clarified about what that means before I wrote a post on something like this but I feel strongly about Rahul Dravid. I even thought he was deserving of the highest compliment at the recent [...]
Ok, I’ll be the first to admit it. I struggled with the hangover all weekend. And tried to regain the positive frame of mind and all that. But nope. I didn’t manage it. I could not identify with everyone else’s “the better side won” and “our weaknesses finally showed up” bit. I can’t understand the [...]
There was a particular beauty to yesterday’s contest which underscores the times we live in. Everything is lightning quick. Everything is under the scanner and must be right. Every mistake is analysed. The run fest at the Oval showed that not all of that is bad.
A number of mistakes were made by a host of [...]
“At a dinner in Leeds on Friday night, Sachin Tendulkar talked about playing under pressure. Nobody is better qualified to do so. He said the only way to cope with the extraordinary expectation that has followed his career was to see pressure as [...]
Walking into the third ODI at Edgbaston of what was effectively now a best of 5 ODI series, India should really have had the upper hand psychologically. As it turns out, England have won what ultimately seemed like such an easy victory that India seem one batsman, a couple of bowlers and a team of [...]
So One All with 5 to play in the one day circus.
One suspects though that even if its coloured by hindsight, the Bristol game was decided as much at the team compositions stage as by the fantastic batting displays that were put on later.
India chose to drop Gambhir. His performances at this stage [...]
9.30 pm to 5 am.
Those are the timings of the day night games in Singapore. So yes - with a 5 am start to work everyday, I was dozing off just as Matt Prior was walking back to the pavilion. I woke up to India 8 for- and that was pretty much that. The markets [...]
Well done India. For all the BCCI baiters and slow-on-the-coach-bandwagon red rag wavers, this was a truly independent Indian performance. It does not matter that it was 1-0 and could have been 2-0 and it does not matter either that we got out of jail at Lords. All that matters is that we won. Fair [...]
This Oval Test first innings performance is a classic example of what one would like in a batting card. Not just in terms of the consistency, but more importantly because its done exactly what was required. From pace of innings, contributions of all batters, partnerships and contribution to the team cause for the series (and [...]
Even though I’ll say that I could see the Dhoni appointment coming a while ago, and I’ll even give the selectors a bit of credit for it, I’ll admit that the rest of the selections are beyond me.
For the record, this is our squad. MS Dhoni leads and Yuvraj Singh is his deputy. The rest [...]
Now I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. You won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country. Men, all this stuff you’ve heard about America not wanting to fight, wanting to stay out of the war, is a lot of [...]
Grappled for a while with posting about the Kapil Dev jab at Sachin. How does one call a World Cup winning captain’s judgement “hideous” ? It doesn’t matter. It is.
We should really be getting ready for a standing ovation for the guy. Shame on those who’re concocting reasons to boo.
Anyway, here’s another Brijnath piece… reproduced [...]
For many in my generation, Sharjah was long synonymous with a cricketing nightmare that started and ended with a Chetan Sharma full toss. Then, one evening, in April 1998, a desert storm blew across Sharjah and changed the landscape forever. The following is an article (from the archives) which captured the essence of that innings by a [...]
Luck with the toss and day one conditions notwithstanding (England had the same advantage at Lords), India were comprehensively the better side at Trent Bridge.
Whats worrisome for England is that the weak links from Lords - Bell, Prior and the lower batting order - have stayed weak and a few others have been exposed. The [...]
Most traders have (and live) a “losing positions” nightmare. This is roughly how mine goes.
old jeans - hole in pocket(s) - i don’t realize - i put sand in a pocket- it goes down my leg to my ankles - what do i do ? - i put more sand - its now up to [...]
Its not a prompt start to the Trent Bridge Test and sure enough the discussions wander off to the topic thats always kept on simmer these days. The fab four.
Ten days ago, just ahead of the Lords Test they were singing praises of Sachin Tendulkar again, for instance. ‘The Second Bradman says Tony Greig’ kind [...]
The Lords Test is over. Let there be light !
In my opinion, neither side quite knows what to take away from the sun and rain of London. If the English believe that the bowling was on par with what they had dished during the Ashes of 2005, I strongly suggest they look again (At the [...]
Just about the start of day 3 of the first Test.
A nervous start to the game - not that its acceptable by virtue of the fact that its been the norm - with the bowlers being guilty of a poor first day. Then a great comeback. So 268/4 at the end of day 1 becomes [...]
Everyone knows what this photograph is about. Whats less commonly known, perhaps, is that coming into the “final frontier” series, Michael Slater was grappling with a bipolar disorder. That bit is true. Its also true that he was also going through trouble (and ultimate breakup) in his marriage. There was also a bunch of tripe [...]
“To me, Curtly Ambrose was the supreme fast-bowling machine. He moved, with the ease and grace of a champion athlete across the ground, was beautifully balanced and coordinated, and could blast you out with pace if needed or revert to strategic assault. As well, he owned the trait everyone wants but few possess : the [...]
Call it the love of the underdog if you will. Or the sheer amazement that the superpower is the underdog. But I love it when the BCCI wins little battles. Even more when nobody acknowledges the victories.
Make no mistake about it. Its not like the BCCI is above reproach. I just think we sometimes rap [...]
I eat breakfast three television yards away from four thousand bloggers who are trained to pick me off. So don’t think for one second that you can come down here, flash a bit of cricket knowledge, and make me nervous.
Son, we live in a world that needs money, and that money has to be made [...]
Graham Arnold is coach to the Australian Socceroos. Apart from having played in 4 World Cup campaigns, he’s been assistant coach to the Aussie team when they were being coached by Guus Hiddink. Oh, and he’s also played a bit of cricket. Sydney grade. With a guy called Steve Waugh.
Steve Waugh’s done a few [...]
Am not sure why one reads of this little tour being a waste of time. And that too by some pretty astute thinkers of the game whose thought process one imagines reflects that of the team. Or is it the BCCI ? Aren’t they supposed to be the same ? I digress …
I thought the whole [...]
India play Ireland today … So here’s a true (I pommish) Irish story..
On a golf tour in Ireland, Tiger Woods drives his BMW into a petrol station in a remote part of the Irish countryside. The attendant at the pump greets him in a typical Irish manner completely unaware of who the golfing [...]
… as a reference to the “Sheikh of Tweak” for Shane Warne
or
The Montster
or
The Beard to be Feared
or
Parmesan Tony
or
The Python
or
The Spin Doctor
It does not matter what name you choose, Mudhsuden Singh Panesar is the flavour of the season. He’s Wisden Cricketer of the Year 2007. If you don’t believe me, check out his profile on his website. [...]
Graham Ford’s Runaway Bride act (for thats the politest one can be) has done this. Its turned the focus solely on Rahul Dravid. This is going to be his summer. It will have to be. It had to be that way the day he reconciled it all by saying “Coming to a place like India, [...]
This is another episode in the Steve Waugh series of this blog. Its also about captaincy and its associated calculated gambles.
“When you’ve got to drop a player as a captain you become emotional. You don’t cry, but you feel like crying. It’s hard to hold back. You’re very … different in your emotions. It’s hard [...]
“When we did the first walk from John O’Groats to Land’s End in 1985,” says his Beefiness, “there was a 20 percent survival-rate for people with leukaemia. Now that’s up to 80 percent and I won’t stop walking until it’s 100 percent. If we can beat one form of cancer, who knows what doors that’ll [...]
Tiger Pataudi and his (then) fiancé Sharmila Tagore watch a cricket game.
The scoreboard reflects a strong partnership brewing.
Photographer unknown
I’m beginning to lose count and will admit that I’m confusing ODIs and Tests - but lets see now … India’s list of vice captains in the not so recent past - Sachin, VVS, Sehwag, Yuvraj and in the Bangladesh series - Nobody. Somewhere Kumble and Ganguly felt good about it for a session or [...]
I’m speechless.
We’ve come up with Chandu Borde as the answer?
72 years young and long may he live… (Take care, sir. The game’s changed a fair deal and they say that the schedules are a bit tight these days. Apparently / Ostensibly that was a reason that the 46 year old extremely fit Mr Ford did [...]
Model T’s broken down !! Graham Ford’s turned down the BCCI offer ….
This is what the Kent website carried yesterday …
FORD RETURNS TO THE NEVILL
Following reports suggesting that Kent Director of Cricket Graham Ford has been offered and has accepted the role of coach to the Indian National side, Kent County Cricket Club can confirm [...]
Bodyline remains and will remain amongst cricket’s bigger controversies.
Douglas Jardine, central to that - drew extreme reactions from the two sides involved.
To the present day, Jardine is remembered throughout much of the cricket world as the architect of what some, particularly in Australia, consider the most vicious premeditated behaviour seen on a cricket field; but [...]
Been a while since posted any pictures on the site.
So here goes …
Its December, 1981. England are touring India.
And this is from the England team fancy dress party for Christmas.
Geoffrey Boycott (apparently) appears as Ranjitsinghji. (Altho I seem to remember that its the uniform that the durbaan at one of Delhi’s bigger hotels wear).
Ian Botham’s [...]
We’ve got a Board that justifiably claims to have a monopoly over the receipts of the game. The BCCI realises that Indian eyes on tv sets are what make Ricky Ponting’s Australia Yellow or Rahul Dravid’s India Blue. Without us, they’d all be (if at all) in white.
We are the colour of money.
Sometimes tho, one [...]
In all the debates about the roles about a coach in a cricket team, Shane Warne is associated with the prosecution’s opening remarks.
Do we need a coach at all.
Shane Warne - always good with the wrong ‘un - said this. “I’m a big believer that a coach is something you travel in to get to [...]
If anyone hasn’t read John Wright’s indian summers, please get it NOW. Its got sincerity in every word.
Anyway, here’s a passage from the book. This is just after his appointment and ahead of his first Test for India.
I made a point of talking to the former Indian all-rounder Ravi Shastri, who was part of the [...]
In the big picture, history will judge every captain by what his team achieved. Thats all it comes down to. Results . Wins. Losses. Stats. And how the players under him progressed.
In terms of pure results, Steve Waugh’s numbers are pretty straightforward.
Captained Australia in 57 Tests. Won 41. Lost 10. Drew 6. Thats a 71.92 [...]
India’s looking for a coach. They say Dav Whatmore’s a frontrunner and I have thoughts on that. I like Sandeep Patil too. And I have thoughts on why he could be the one as well. But thats not what this post is about. Hopefully its not even about an Indian coach.
A few days ago, I [...]
Sun Tzu said ………………..that if you see ground or position to be gained but do not act, you are weak.
I’m a huge Dravid fan. But no matter how I cut it, Day 4 and 5 of the Chittagong Test were not the perfect antidote to a skipper doubtless on the low end of [...]
I’ve often wondered if a sportsperson going out to perform at the big arena is actually just treating it like another day at work. Surely they are not. Surely the pressure is immense. Surely the chances of success are more limited. Surely the price of failure is higher.
So, if it isn’t a day at work, [...]
A few days ago , I wrote here of John Buchanan’s wonderful plans of having ambidextrous cricketers. Somewhere in there was a Roebuck article that spoke similar.
Cricket’s changing. And its changing fast.
Maybe, sometimes too fast.
Take a look at this post by Karthikeya.
Its a brilliant example of a sharp observation by a keen student of the game. [...]
End of day 2 and we’re 384-6 - its been 97 overs of play when there should have been about twice as many. We’ve got them at about 4 an over. The “rest” seems to have done Sachin and Ganguly some good with both getting centuries. One gets 100, the other gets 101. And they [...]
Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France seven consecutive times.
He’d earlier won against cancer in 1996.
Lance Armstrong knew about winning. This, though, is a bit about his first year while defending what he’d won. Its not the same thing. Like he said “I started the 2000 tour with a bull’s eye on my back. [...]
I know the title of this post sounds ominously like a blue pill - and will divert the wrong kind of people from search engines.
But this is whats going on.
This is a photograph of a variation of cricket - involving a tennis racket and six stumps . Its being played on Radlett Heath, July 1906.
And [...]
This may surprise a few of my friends. (Its possible to have opinions and friends).But Steve Waugh is amongst my favourite cricketers. To the point of being amongst my favourite men.
It doesn’t matter that his brother was by far the more graceful bat. To the point that there were jokes about Afghanistan. (yeah, “the forgotten [...]