Budhaditya Roy and his parallel life

A commentary on commentators

2011-03-03T14:17:00.000+05:30

25th of June, 1983, was a momentous day in the history of not just Indian cricket but India as well. There is no denying the fact that those men went where no Indian had gone before. What I do not like, however, is when some of those men come on to news channels as broadcasters with nothing to contribute, but to remind us that they had won a world cup.

When I look at cricketers analysing cricket for me, I look for insights, I look for very interesting anecdotes, I look at them for stating things that are beyond the obvious. Apart from Sunil Gavaskar, none of these ’83 players say anything insightful or even entertaining. They keep repeating themselves on and on and on. All they talk of is the 1983 world cup. They have been doing this now for over a decade.
Imagine somebody tweeting something great one day and then retweeting the same thing for the next 10 years. It gets irritating. Here is an analysis of the most irritating characters of the 1983 squad on the tube.

K. Srikkanth: An ODI great despite a grand average of 29, swashbuckling despite a career strike rate of 71. Rahul Dravid has a better strike rate than him. I do not mind the superlative adjectives used for him, but what I do mind is that as a cricket analyst he doesn’t know his face from his ass. His scientific name is ‘selfus contradictus’. Here is a pearl from when we was doing live commentary – ‘great shot over the top and OH! He is caught on the boundary. What a stupid shot’. Just that to say this Cheeka style, please ignore the spaces between words.

Since those halcyon days of Cheeka the commentator, we now have Cheeka the expert. He comes on news channels to explain the ‘poishun’ of the game. Ok, ‘position’, but then that’s not the way Mr. Srikkanth pronounces it. He has now become the most forgetful of all ex-cricketers. ‘Whaddyoucall’ has become his favourite phrase. These days his lines go like this – ‘that was a great, whaddyoucall, catch, by, whaddyoucall, Yuvraj.’

Madan Lal: He embodies simultaneous translation. He is constantly thinking in Punjabi and simultaneously translating it in Hindi. If you are unfortunate, you will catch him translating it to English. A simple man, he strongly believes that all one needs to win matches and tournaments is ‘josh’. Here is how his expert analysis goes:
Q: Tendulkar did not quite look like himself in the last 2 innings. What should he do?
Madan Lal: He must play with more josh.
Q. What would a team like Zimbabwe be thinking when they are up against the might of Australia?
Madan Lal: They must come out with belief and with Josh.
Q. The finals. What would the teams be thinking?
Madan Lal: That come what may, we must play with josh.

No wonder, whenever he is asked what the team thought in the mid-innings break when they went out to defend 183 he replies, you guessed it, that they thought they will play with josh.

Kapil Dev: A lot of unjustified fun was poked at his English when he was a cricketer. His job then was to win matches for India. However, he cannot ignore his awful English when he comes on the tube as a cricket expert. He better be eloquent. But the Haryana Hurricane does on TV to the viewers what hurricanes do to trees.

He once asked after an insipid Indian performance in a match – ‘are we the problem balling, or is we the problem batting?’ I’m sure former cricket writers must have turned in their graves after hearing this, just like a few fans might have smashed their TV sets after this. For a bowler, it’s amazing how he pronounces bowling as ‘balling’.

Mohinder Amarnath: Courage thy name is Jimmy, is what Gavaskar once said about this brave-heart. But out of his cricketing whites, beaming from the tube, he turns his viewers into brave-hearts. Those people who do not have cable at home and are forced to watch matches on DD, start taking cable connections just so that they do not have to hear Jimmy paaji singing on ‘Fourth Umpire’. He is the only cricket expert in the world who’s mid and end innings analysis is songs with changed lyrics.

When he bowled, so slow was his run-up that he would put batsmen to sleep by the time he reached the bowling crease, and then hurl a ball to get them out. As an expert, he talks insipid stuff that puts viewers to sleep and then he suddenly sings to give them insomnia for weeks.

Syed Mujtaba Hussain Kirmani: By far, the most inattentive cricket expert. Maybe, not inattentive, but handicapped. After all, he was last seen advertising Widex hearing aids. But whenever I have seen him in a studio, he is sans his hearing aid, and hence the absolutely unrelated answers to questions.

Q: So, Mr. Kirmani, a tough total for Dhoni’s team to chase?
Kirmani: Dhoni has a reputation of drinking 4 litres of buffalo milk every day. So you never know what will happen.
The line above is usually uttered in even more unintelligible English and followed by a guffaw from the former keeper. If a buffalo was to hear Mr. Kirmani utter this, milk would curdle in her udders.

So, batch of 1983, we are grateful to you for having won a world cup. We shall, however, be forever indebted if you stop coming on the tube.

The right to smoke

2010-10-08T15:11:00.000+05:30

This is something that I have been thinking about for quite some time now. There was a ban some time back, and rightly so, on smoking in public places. However, this ban was not thought through properly and hence was a draconian system that really hurt smokers. Let me explain why I thought so.

Just like non-smokers have a right to not inhale cigarette smoke, smokers have a right to smoke. If there is a ban on smoking at the airport or the train stations then there ought to be a smoking zone demarcated at those places that allows smokers to smoke. Well, it is not an illegal activity. Every adult above the age of 18 has a right to smoke tobacco.

If one were to walk into an airport, and pee near the check-in counters, the person would be fined or put behind bars. The person would be told that ‘there are loos in this airport and that’s where you need to go and pee’. So to ensure that a person can answer the call of nature, all airports and stations have loos. After all, it is everybody’s right to go take a pee.

Somehow, this sort of consideration is not shown towards smokers. We need to go and indulge from time to time. It is legal. What is not acceptable is that smoking zones aren’t always given to indulge in a perfectly legal activity. Till the Bombay airport was refurbished, there weren’t any smoking zones. I am yet to hear of any train station having a smoking zone. The Calcutta airport does not have a smoking zone. Most restaurants and pubs have been dictated to ban smoking on the tables, but they have not been dictated to ensure that an area is given for smokers to smoke. I would certainly feel like a wretch smoking on a restaurant table and a kid sitting nearby inhaling that smoke. But why couldn’t Ramadoss feel like a wretch when I could not indulge in a perfectly legal activity?

There are also some who get into the MORAL of the whole thing. I have read and heard time an again, senseless things like ‘smoking should be completely banned in India’; ‘Cigarettes are the causes of so many deaths’ and so on and so forth. Well, let me put some statistics forward. Out of the total revenue that India earns, 8.8% is earned from excise duty of cigarettes alone. Bidis, cigars etc. contribute a further 3.3% to the government’s coffers.

Furthermore, the tobacco industry employs 62 lakh people in India. Bidi manufacturing is the biggest cottage industry in the country. So all those who want to ban smoking completely in India, please consider these facts. Banning smoking would not only lead to a huge dent in India’s revenues, it would mean 62 lakh jobless people in one go, just for some nonsensical people’s so-called high-moral ground.

Some might cite the fact that smoking leads to cancer and that needs to be a reason enough to ban smoking. This argument is rubbish. Firstly, smokers who get cancer are extremely heavy smokers and even among them not all get cancer. Secondly, there are more people in India who suffer from diabetes and high cholesterol than cigarette related diseases.

So, first ban sugar so that diabetics can live. Ban butter and cheese so that nobody in India suffers from cholesterol problems. Then talk about banning cigarettes. And, may I add, cigarettes give more employment and revenue to India than butter and cheese and sugar.

The same NGOs and saviours of the earth will not move their bums to ensure that a Govt. of India ruling – cigarette shops should not exist within 200 meters of any school – is stringently followed. They will not ensure that a person selling a fag to an underage kid is put behind bars. They will not work to ensure that there are no cigarette shops within 200 meters of a school. I can show you many cigarette shops in India that are within a few meters from a school.

Well, I hope the right of smokers is preserved. They are old enough; they are indulging in a legal activity; and they should be given their space to smoke. There should not be a draconian rule like what exists in places like, say, Phoenix mills in Bombay – where one cannot smoke anywhere in acres and acres of place.

Punish the irresponsible smoker who smokes at the airport. But also ensure that he has an option of walking into a smoking room somewhere nearby. That way both smokers and non-smokers would remain happy.

The best in the world

2010-08-25T16:51:00.000+05:30

An attempt at a short story.. Inspired by a true incident that came flooding back when I heard the song ‘The Greatest’ by Kenny Rogers.

It was raining, and the 11-year old could not go out to play cricket. He was restless and kept looking at the clock, for there was only an hour’s day-light to go. Sadly, Mother Nature didn’t seem considerate enough to relent. The boy’s restlessness was understandable. After all, he wanted to hone his batting skills, he wanted to drive and cut and pull; he wanted to be Sachin Tendulkar, he wanted to be the best.

His mother saw him forlorn and lost and asked him to play in the garage instead of waiting in the veranda. The boy saw sense in the suggestion. He picked up his bat and a tennis ball and walked in to the garage. He switched the light on and prepared to battle. The moment the light was switched on, he was transported to another world. This was no longer a garage, it was Eden Gardens. And he had to practice his craft here for the day; he wanted to be Sachin Tendulkar, he wanted to be the best.

The rules were simple. The garage shutters were pulled down behind him; stumps were drawn on the shutter using crayons. The boy would stand with the stumps (garage shutters) behind him and hurl the tennis ball at the wall ahead; and when the ball came back, he would hit it with his bat. It was a new bat and a heavy one at that. His father had suggested that it might be a tad too heavy for him while buying it, but the boy was adamant. After all, his idol used a heavy bat and so should he; he wanted to be Sachin Tendulkar, he wanted to be the best.

He threw the ball at the wall, and the tennis ball quickly bounced back at him. By the time he gripped the bat and swung it, he heard the sound of the ball crashing into the shutters behind him. Well, the bat was too heavy for him to lift and swing, in a little more than a second; for that was the amount of time the ball took to come back to him after being hurled at the wall. He could have under-armed the ball to the wall very slowly, but he wanted to face the fastest bowlers in the world. That’s why he insisted on throwing the ball with full force instead of gently under-arming it to the wall. He had to learn how to face the fastest bowlers in the world; he wanted to be Sachin Tendulkar, he wanted to be the best.

The boy composed himself and launched the ball again. He swung the bat at the ball and again heard the sound of tennis ball on garage shutter. He walked down what he imagined was the pitch, tapped it like the batsmen did. He kept a running commentary on, and at that time the commentator said that this was a very fast pitch. It would require immense grit and skill to save this one for India and the boy had it. After all, he wanted to be Sachin Tendulkar, he wanted to be the best.
This process kept going on and on for half an hour. Swing, miss, ball crashes into the shutter. Not once did the boy lose hope. Not once did he throw the ball a little gently on to the wall. But every single time he swung the bat, he did not hear the sound of the bat hitting the ball. Each time the ball hit the shutters, each thud louder than the last one. Then finally, his mom called. It was time for homework. He raised the shutter and crawled out, walked into the house with bat and ball. His mom smiled at him and asked him if he batted like Sachin Tendulkar. The boy gave a wide grin and said “no, Ma! I didn’t. Today I bowled like the best, I bowled like Allan Donald.”

Of goodbyes and comebacks

2010-04-16T13:37:00.001+05:30

I have seen people, aged 60, finding their world coming apart once they retire. The day seems to be a continuous challenge to keep oneself active, to still remain important. It is not that they miss an active working life because that is what they were best at. They might have been better singers than architects, better painters than soldiers, but still they really missed their jobs once they retired. Just imagine what retirement means to sportsmen, keeping this thought in mind.

These retired sportsmen are young people, most of them in their 30’s. In our corporate world, people that age will still be young men with a lot of potential for growth. However, we aren’t that kind when we're talking of a sportsman in his 30’s. We refer to them as old, await their imminent retirement. And retirement would mean that they give up, unlike us, the one thing that they are best at. For most of them, that is the only thing that they can competently do, something that has been part of their lives once they crossed infancy.

Of all things that we comprehend when we watch sport, there are some things that we can never associate with as viewers. We can comprehend skill, strength perhaps, for that can be seen. We can never comprehend physical pain, and emotion. When our favourite sportsmen retire, we are dejected, but we learn to move on, find other sportsmen to idolize. But can we ever imagine what goes through the mind of a sportsman who gives up everything that mattered to him?

Once they leave, over a beer or a cup of tea we wonder if that chap had one more season left in him. For the great ones, we usually ask why they have retired and wonder if he can just come back once. Can he, just once more, drive through the covers? Can he, just once, curl in the free kick into the net? Can he, just once, pull that stunning overtake?

Over time, I have realized that the retired sportsman thinks of this every waking hour of his life. Perhaps, he sleeps just because he can dream of that comeback. Some of them then start to work on the comeback after retirement. One does not know how differently they train, but probably they put in harder yards to get an obstinate ‘older’ body back into competitive shape. And then, some of them come back.

Why do they come back? There is a reputation that they would put on the line, they would constantly be reminded of the fact that they already know – that they are past their peak. They might reduce themselves from being champions to also-rans in their second avatar as a competitive sportsman. These are arguments followers of sport would put across, and rightly so.

But the sportsman is not programmed to think like this. Their thought process is driven by a will to win, to excel. They have spent a lifetime thumbing opponents in the nose, scrambled to emerge victorious, and trained to become the best in the world. Perhaps that is why they hold on to their dreams. Body and mind are divorced, but they let their minds keep custody of their dreams. Body says – ‘can’t do it’, mind says – ‘give it a shot’. They have lived a life living their dreams, and excelled at it, probably they need to hold on to that dream a little longer and thus they come back from retirement to active sport.

This could be the reason why Michael Jordan came back, or why Michael Schumacher is racing, or why Lance Armstrong would compete in the Tour De France, or why Warne and Ganguly and Gilly are playing one last IPL.

Or perhaps, none of this is true. Perhaps they never come back to hold on. Perhaps they come back one last time to say goodbye. When they first retired, they said their goodbyes to their fans. When they come back after retirement, maybe that journey is just for them, to marry mind and body and get them in agreement – an agreement to say goodbye to their dreams for ever.

IPL: Of captains and owners

2010-03-13T02:48:00.000+05:30

It’s just one match. It’s probably too early to say it, but I will say it. The team that won today belonged to India’s greatest war-time general. Shah Rukh Khan owns Kolkata Knight Riders, true. But once they step on to the field, the team belongs to the captain. Shashank Manohar or Sharad Pawar never own team India, it is Dhoni’s team. The Australian team is Ponting’s team, not ACB’s. The team that won today, belonged to Sourav Ganguly.

Does this mean that there is no meaning to what Dav Whatmore and Wasim Akram would have done? It’d be incorrect to say so. But what ultimately matters is what the men do on the field, when there is no second chance. That performance is driven by the captain.

Rewind by a year. South Africa, IPL-2. Shah Rukh Khan thought John Buchanan was the guy who’d lead KKR to victory. The natural leader of the team was Ganguly. SRK had no guts to be forthright and say that he wanted to sack Ganguly. They came up with silly things like 4 captains for the tournament, and then the captaincy was taken away in a very wrong way. Yes, it is the owner’s prerogative as to who the captain should be and who should be given the sack. But things need to be done with dignity and as a man.

I saw KKR lose matches that they should have won. McCullum as a remote-control leader was uninspiring. The real leadership resided with Buchanan, who was sitting in the dugout. Players can’t look beyond the boundary line for leadership, they need to see it on the field. Coming to this match, now.

KKR looked like they’d lose this match, quite a few times. But the difference was that this year they came back from the brink and won a match they should have lost. The difference was probably in the leadership. Probably Whatmore and Ganguly have an arrangement that beyond the boundary line, Whatmore is the leader and when they step on to the field, Ganguly is. I saw the man make 3 bowling changes, and all of them produced wickets. I saw a charged-up team. It’s just one match, but I saw a change.

I don’t know if they can make it to the semis this year. That’d mean that they have played most of their matches well, leading up to the knock-out, and then they can hope for 2 good games. KKR finished last in the previous edition of the IPL, and that had nothing to do with the then captain. The owner screwed things up. This time, SRK has left his team in his captain’s hands. If KKR does better, it is because of Ganguly. If they don’t then the captain should take the flak.

And the self-proclaimed No.1 should realise that in a cricket match the heroes are the ones who are sweating it out on the field. Not the ones beyond the boundary line. Team sport is different. It is not like a film or a soft drink, for which you select a team to make a good product. In a team sport, the team is the product.

P.S. On 24th April, nothing would please me more than seeing Sachin Tendulkar lift the trophy on his 37th birthday. He represents the city that is my home. If not him, then it should be Sourav Ganguly. After all, he is the best person to have led my country in cricket

Looking for a hero

2010-02-20T00:55:00.000+05:30

As I saw Tiger Woods reading out his apology to his fans, for his extra-marital affairs, I couldn’t help but wonder if he needed to do it. One school of thought said that ‘he better have done it! He cheated his fans’. The other school of thought said ‘hold on! Why does he need to apologise to us?’ The former thought is probably something that would be more acceptable to fans, than the latter. The refrain would be – ‘he was a hero and a role model to so many, and he let them down’. This is what I am uncomfortable with.

I had read an article written by Rohit Brijnath (the best sports writer in the world, in my humble opinion) that said that these top sportsmen are sporting champions, not necessarily heroes. I so agree with him. What I fail to understand is the need to crucify Woods for cheating his wife, the need to crucify John Terry for having an affair.

How well did we know Tiger Woods? Yes, we may know about the majors he won; we might know of the incredible shot he pulled off at the 2005 Masters; we might know that his first name is actually Eldrick; but what else do we know about him as a person? Precious little! That is the truth. On the golf course, he is a champion; outside it, we do not know him. So, why does he need to apologise to his fans who know nothing about Tiger Woods the man?

Don’t we all hold sports stars and film stars to an extremely high moral standard? Now, just think that you had a friend, and he or she cheats on the partner. Would we expect that friend to apologise to the partner that was cheated upon or would we expect that friend to call all of us over and apologise to all of us? I don’t think we’d feel aggrieved if the friend did not offer us an apology. We might feel bad, though, if the aggrieved partner has not been apologised to.

That is what should have happened. The press and the fans should have just let Tiger Woods be. Let him apologise to his wife, let him sort his life out, the one he leads away from the golfing greens. And once he comes back to swing his club, let us welcome back and cheer the champion that he once was on his turf.

And I hope that we all realise that not all sporting champions are real heroes. They are people who can go wrong, who can be insecure, who can be obnoxious, who we should accept as human. If we are to look for real heroes, let us search a little closer. Well, I did that and found my real heroes.

I think of that wonderful lady who sat next to me and helped me with my homework, and did not even make the slightest mention of her back spasm that badly needed rest. I think of that caring man who rushed me to a doctor when I had a 101 fever, and did not even bother that he was himself running a temperature of a 102. When I was old enough to realise this, I realised who my real heroes are. Believe me; some of my sporting heroes have let me down in one way or another. That why I looked for real heroes. And they weren’t difficult to find.

So the next time people mention Tiger Woods or Terry, let’s accept them for what we know them for; their prowess in the sporting arena and nothing else, for that is the only part of them that we intimately know.

My Name Is Khan: Review

2010-02-16T16:37:00.002+05:30

One has seen lots of spoofs, funny ones, of big Hollywood films. Top Gun was spoofed in Hot Shots; Scary Movie series spoofs almost all the big Hollywood hits. Austin Powers spoofed James Bond and Star Wars. But these films are not by big directors and big actors. Tom Hanks and Russell Crowe and Denzel Washington do not star in them, and people like Martin Scorcesse, Speilberg, Tarantino do not direct them. Switch to Bollywood! Here things happen differently. The biggest directors and actors make extremely expensive spoofs. I saw one recently, it was called ‘My Name is Khan’. It starred Shah Rukh Khan and was directed by Karan Johar, for those who don’t know.

The movie was unintentionally funny, as was the whole premise behind the same. KJo usually reduces his heroes to simpering and crying retards in his films, albeit unintentionally. This time, he intentionally made SRK a retard. Well, those suffering from Asperger’s Syndrome (or autism) aren’t retarded. But King Khan played an autistic like a retard. He ran KKR like a retard in IPL – 2, made sweeping and retarded statements leading to the release of a movie, in which he acted like a retard.

Coming back to the spoof. Well, to begin with, one of the films this one spoofed was ‘Harold and Kumar escape from Guantanamo Bay’. That was a comedy, so the spoof was serious. It’s natural. After all, serious movies are spoofed comically; so it makes sense if comic films are spoofed in a so-called serious way. The story of Harold & Kumar goes like this – These are 2 care-free American citizens of Korean and Indian origin, who love smoking weed. On the way to Amsterdam, on an American flight, Kumar decided to light a bong. That raises alarms, and the plane goes back to America. There, they are detained by authorities (the HOD is an arrogant dumb-ass) where typical racial profiling happens. They are sent to Guantanamo Bay, from where they escape. Then begins their journey across America to prove their innocence and meet the President to get a pardon. Also, Kumar is doing it for love, because the girl he loved is getting married to a douchebag.

I’m serious!! This is the story of that hilarious comedy. So very familiar to MNIK. There are other similarities. Rizwan Khan finds a sleeper cell in MNIK, Harold and Kumar find the Ku Klux Klan in their movie; Rizwan is sent to a detention center, so are Harold and Kumar; Rizwan’s family face troubles, so do Harold & Kumar’s parents; most importantly, Rizwan meets Obama (who knows all about him), H&K meet George Bush at his ranch in Texas (where they smoke weed with him).

The reason H&K was better (besides the comedy) is that the duplicate Bush really looked like Dubya. In MNIK, KJo cast the first African-American that he found as Obama. Haven’t we all heard that – ‘sab kale ek jaise dikhte hain’? KJo probably thought people are serious when they say that.

This movie has proven one thing. Just like the illustrator of Savita Bhabhi cannot be expected to paint The Last Supper, the maker of utopian rubbish like KANK and K3G cannot be expected to make a good film on racial profiling. And, one feels bad that an actor who played Mohan Bhargav and Kabir Khan had to reduce himself to a caricature called Rizwan Khan. And no, SRK wasn’t Dustin Hoffman (Rainman) and Tom Hanks (Forrest Gump) rolled into one. Not in a million years!!

Mithun was a better desi James Bond in the Gunmaster G-9 movies, than SRK as Forrest Gump or Raymond Babbitt.

Saving Our Tigers: Exploiting a dying animal

2010-02-05T13:54:00.001+05:30

Looking at the ‘Save Our Tigers’ campaign evokes a lot of mixed feelings. For the uninitiated, it is a campaign that Aircel has taken out. On one hand, I am happy that there is a lot of awareness that is being created which highlights the plight of our national animal, the most beautiful creature in our forests. On the other hand, I am not too sure if Aircel is in it for the long haul. Would this campaign last for very long?

I believe, if a corporate has come in for a long term then the cause being promoted is honorable. However, if they intend to use the tiger as a way to create goodwill for themselves with a short burst of publicity, then this is simply not done. We have seen, in the past, many celebrities and companies using a burning issue just to promote their films or products.

I do not know how much is being spent by Aircel to protect the tiger. What I definitely do not know is what the way forward with this campaign is. There are a couple of outrageously stupid links on the website that Aircel is promoting–

1) Speak up: This is what the text is on this link – ‘Write a letter or an email to editors of popular newspapers and magazines, asking them to support the cause and highlight the urgency to save our tigers. The more people we can reach and inform, the stronger our roar will be’

What I fail to understand is that why there are no articles by people actively involved in tiger conservation? Isn’t it important to highlight what people like Belinda Wright, Dr. Raghu Chandawat and Valmik Thapar have been writing and doing?

2) SMS, contact an NGO responsible for tigers, Preserve our natural resources, Be a responsible tourist.

Well, all is this utopian rubbish. SMSes do not help stop terrorism, where humans are killed, how is it going to save tigers? What NGOs do we get in touch with? All of us know that we must preserve natural resources and be responsible tourists. This is told to us right from our school days in moral science classes. But, almost all of us buy air-conditioners, use plastic bags without looking at the microns and litter when we travel. What is the use of writing this rubbish?

3) Donate: And here, they have provided a link to the WWF India website to make cash donations.

The third point takes the cake, in terms of stupidity of suggestions. Let me try and explain why.
As per the Project Tiger website, there are 38 reserves in the country which are project tiger reserves. There are other forests too, where tigers can be found, but these are not project tiger reserves. The government gave a grant in the 2009 union budget this year, to protect the tiger.

The generous grant was of Rs. 50 crores. That’s all the union budget of 2009 could spare for the national animal. This means, that just the 38 project tiger reserves would get Rs. 1.3 crores each, per annum to protect the tigers. And what all is needed to have a stronger tiger task force? Here is a very concise list:

Equipment to monitor tigers: This includes radio collars etc.
More number of people need to be employed to patrol the reserves day and night, so keep poachers out. The reserves are under-staffed and many vacancies are yet to be filled, and even if they are filled up, the number of rangers and forest guards still needs to double
Proper fire-arms and weapons: Today, the poachers have more sophisticated weapons than the forest guards. It is the sad truth• More vehicles to patrol the forests
Need to create more motorable roads so that the forests can be patrolled and guarded even during the monsoons. Currently, the forests are not guarded for 3 months of the monsoons and 50% of poaching happens then

This is a very small list, probably missing many more things that go in to save the tiger. But would Rs. 50 crores suffice to provide even half of the aforesaid? I seriously doubt it. This is where I find a disconnect. If Aircel is indeed hell bent on saving the tiger, the crores spent on making brand-films and plastering cities with campaigns could have added to the Rs. 50 crores of pittances the govt. has given. It would have done the tiger more good had a few extra equipments been bought out of that money than ensuring that a person in Juhu sees a Save Our Tigers hoarding.

Some may say, Aircel is not into charity. They are in the business of mobile services. That is exactly my point. If they are in a business, then run a business. Do not try and be clever and create awareness about your brand, using the plight of the tiger to your advantage.

And, there are many more pressing issues that concern the tiger’s existence that people need to be made aware of. The biggest issue is the one that concerns passing of the Tribal Bill in the parliament that has literally sounded the death knell for the national animal. Why don’t these corporate houses join hands with Wright and Thapar in revoking that bill?

If, after a few years, we realize that these campaigns about ‘Saving Our Tigers’ has resulted in the govt. waking up, I would take back all my cynical words about Aircel, and write an apology on this very space. I so hope I have to. I hope I am made to eat the pie, the one found in the ‘humble’ bakery, a few years from now. But, in my experience, online petitions and smses do precious little for causes, especially the ones that do not involve rights for some human being.

Pakistanis not welcome!!!

2010-01-24T02:44:00.000+05:30

Two things have been irking me for some time now, and both of them are in some ways related to each other. Firstly, the hullabaloo about Pakistani cricketers not being part of IPL; and secondly, the Aman Ki Asha campaign that The Times of India has been running (it is an event, I’m told. I do not read the squalid little rag). There have been these so-called broad-minded and accommodating voices that have been talking about both and my narrow mind feels they are irritating noises, not talk.

First, let me talk about the so-called injustice meted out to the Pakistani cricketers by not allowing them to be part of the IPL. Many have said that it was wrong and unfair, and that politics and sport do not mix. I have no clue which world they live in, that they make statements like these. Politics and sports have mixed since quite some time now. Through sports, statements are made about the political scenario.

When South Africa was banned from sport it was for political reasons, apartheid. The players suffered because of this ban, and I am not too sure if all the players that did suffer were perpetrators of apartheid, or racist. But, as a country South Africa went wrong and was ostracised from sport, thereby rendering the sport buffs slightly poorer for the fact that some wonderful sportsmen from that country could not display their talents to a world audience. Barry Richards is an example. And had the ban continued for another 10 years, we’d not have seen Jonty Rhodes and Allan Donald set the field alight.

Even if we look back at 1936, the Berlin Olympics, Hitler allowed only the people of the Aryan race to compete for Germany – for it was his belief that they were racially superior. We all know Hitler’s role in world politics. And closer, to 2008, the Olympics at China was taken up by the Chinese to make a statement to the world that China is the new super-power. This statement was made by the way the Olympics were organized and due to the fact that China won the highest number of gold medals.

Well, now will the pundits stop talking about politics and sport not going hand-in-hand? India’s relations with Pakistan are at its lowest ebb. Why should Indian franchise owners fund players from the country that funds terrorists to conduct 26/11 in India? Also, they do not know if the Pakistani players would be given a visa to play here. Most importantly, it is the owners’ bloody money and they have the right to not spend it on Pakistani players.

The Indian government has said that it has no role to play in what transpired. Yes, that is true. They did not have the guts to say that a country that is full of terrorists has no right to play any sport in India. They should have disallowed the Pakistan hockey team from participating in the World Cup too. Pakistan is a country where terrorists were allowed to attack a bus carrying Sri Lankan cricketers, it is an anarchy where democracy is a sham. What stops India from stating that Pakistanis will not be allowed to participate in any sport, or cultural programs, until they get their act right? It happened for South Africa and apartheid, didn’t it? Once SA got their act together they came right back in to the fold. The same could happen for Pakistan.

Which now brings me to Aman Ki Asha. Well, how can we hope for peace when Pakistan has shown no urgency to bring the perpetrators of 26/11 to book? How can we accept peace with a country that houses Dawood Ibrahim? Some will say that ‘that is for the politicians, citizens want peace’. That is rubbish. The 26/11 terrorists, and other terrorists, are treated as heroes in Pakistan. So much for the common people there wanting peace with India.

Yes, the Pakistanis are the T20 World Champions and have some very good players in their ranks. But this slap in their face should read as a statement to the Pakistani policy makers, and to the world, that till Pakistan gets its act right on terrorism and extremism their sportsmen and artists have no hope of any sort of participation. No asha of any sort of aman.

P.S. And TOI should refrain from such canard like Aman Ki Asha and do what they are best at. Reporting on the front page about mundane Bollywood stuff, passing them off for stories of national importance. At least, they would not be making any bigger fools of themselves than what they have been able to manage so far.

Sporting spectacles in 2010

2009-12-25T03:41:00.000+05:30

2010 is just days away. And the purest form of human expression, sport, is all lined up in what promises to a wonderful year for the sports buff. Well, there exists an outlet for every known human being; a road that brings immense joy when travelled. For some it is films, for some it is music and for some it is reading. All of the aforesaid are activities that I indulge in very regularly, besides travel, friends and……sport.

Sport, to me, embodies the most supreme form of human expression. Victory and defeat, emotion and passion, courage and commitment all are unbridled and pure in sport, because sport is not scripted. And because of this truth being stranger than fiction, I have been a devotee since ever. So where, in 2010, would this devotee look forward to worship? Let me list it down for you.

Roger Federer Vs. Rafael Nadal:

2009 was a great year for Fedex. He won the French Open for the first time and regained Wimbledon. He also regained his world No.1 ranking. Now, I am a big Federer fan, but somehow I would have been happier to see him accomplish the aforesaid with Rafa being around. Injury put him out for the better part of 2009, but he is back and would come all guns blazing in 2010. I look forward to these two supreme gladiators slugging it out, for the No.1 ranking, for titles, making it a wonderful treat for lovers of this sport.

T20 Cricket World Cup:

Yes, the previous world cup of the shortest edition happened 9 months back, so another world cup sounds weird. Well, India playing 2 tests is also weird. IPL – 3 is certainly happening. However, there is no greater thrill than seeing the cricketers of India don the national colours and play for flag and country. Playing for a franchisee owned by cement barons, liquor barons, barons and movie stars is one thing; playing for the tri-colour is something else. C’mon India!!!

World Cup Football, South Africa:

The beautiful game would be played in its most superior form, in South Africa. The best nations would compete against each other to become crowned world champions. There will be passion, there will be thrill, there’ll be the agony of defeat and the joy of victory. All in all, it will be sport at its competitive best; and I will be watching it with the whole world. P.S. I am supporting Germany.

Michael Schumacher:

This is a dream come true. The greatest is coming back, after a gap of three years. Yes he would not race in a Ferrari, but I’d overlook that so long as Schumi races. It didn’t happen in 2009, but it will happen in 2010. Welcome back, Schumi, have the time of your life. The fans will surely love every moment; for Michael Schumacher gunning past the racing line is a sight for the gods.

These would be the sporting moments I look forward to in 2010 and, once the year is over, remember fondly. Bring it on!!!

The Nobel prize is noble

2009-10-13T18:56:00.002+05:30

Barack Obama wins the Nobel Peace prize. It is richly deserved, after all the Nobel committee says so. Therefore, it must be fair and just that Obama got it. After all, politicians get elected on promise alone. And they needn’t merely be promises. They just need to make some sort of noises that would suggest that they are trying to look as if they are trying to do something. That ensures a presidential seat in the US, the prime-minister’s chair in India.

I do not know what the big deal is about Obama getting the peace prize. Especially, to us Indians. It was denied to Gandhi, big deal. Some may say that this makes the prize as prestigious as the Nobel look ridiculous. Well, Pratibha Patil as the President of India is no less ridiculous. We have accepted it and moved on, the same would happen with Obama.

And while we are at it, may I suggest a few more awards that fall in the league of the Obama Nobel and the Pratibha Patil presidency?

Here goes:

ICC Spirit of Cricket Award: Andrew Symonds & S Sreesanth
Best ‘Original’ music score: Pritam
Filmfare award for best performance in a lead role (Male) for 2009: Rani Mukherjee for Dil Bole Hadippa
Pulitzer prize for Fiction, 2009: Letters to Penthouse, whatever volume comes out this year
Magsaysay Award for Journalism: Shared equally by all the Bombay Times journos for cutting-edge journalism; Next year, it belongs to India TV
Bharat Ratna: Mohd. Afzal Guru; we are paying for his upkeep after he attacked the parliament, he deserves it
Oscar for best film in a foreign language: Deshdrohi
Human documentary of the year: Rakhi Ka Swayamwar
Best country to live in: Afghanistan
World’s favourite tourist destination: Baghdad

And may I add that I am forwarding my name for the Nobel Prize for medicine. After all, I have discovered that brandy and warm milk cures a cold in a jiffy.

Some dreams do come true

2009-08-02T17:47:00.001+05:30

All good things do come to an end. I’d heard this adage many times, and I have seen it come true in ways big and small. There were times I did not realise that something wonderful would come to an end. In my naivety, I took them for granted. And when those times would come to an end, I’d realise suddenly what I have lost. At times, what I’d lost was irrevocable and the loss of it has left voids that would never be filled. The greatest grief has been the fact that I had taken those times, those people, those moments as a given. I never believed it would end.

I was away from home, staying in a different city, a carefree student. There was a phone call for me in my institute’s canteen, and I was called to attend it. I was playing table-tennis at that point of time. I walked out of the room to take the phone call, with my TT bat and the TT ball in hand. I was leading 19-12 (I remember the score clearly) and did not want anybody to take my place on the table, so I took the ball away while going to attend the phone call, and did not realise that moments later I would be told on the phone that my grand-father had left me for ever.

I do not remember what I did after I heard of it. I thought of the walks with him during my vacations, the way he would want me to study hard but play harder. But most of all, I thought of the wonderful stories he had told me, the unparalleled stories about people and life that this grand-child had heard sitting on his Dadu’s knee. He was is the greatest person I knew and never did it cross my mind that he would be taken away.

Many such great things came to an end. I finished my studies, and my days as a student came to an end. Till some time back, I stayed with my parents & my brother in the most beautiful house in the world but those days came to an end as well. Till 2006, I worshipped a sportsman more than any other and he retired.

What was common to all these ends was that there was always a new beginning. Three years after Dadu left us, Didi had a baby boy. In Rishi I saw, and still see, the everthing that is beautiful on Earth. When I left home, I formed a family with a bunch of people who had left theirs. We formed a bond for life, the kinds that I have with my folks. When my days as a student were over, I started a wonderful life as a working professional. I met new people and made some more wonderful friends for life. Along the way, I fell in love and then fell out of love to fall in and out again.

All of this made me realise that sometimes an end is a new beginning, though not always is the end linked to a new beginning. I realised that almost all voids can be filled. But even after being filled, I kept (and still keep) dreaming that I would be given back a few moments of my past. I dream of spending an afternoon with both Rishi and Dadu in tow. I keep dreaming that my house and my hostel are a 100 yards away. I dream that my friends from school, college and MBA are also working in the same organisation along with my new friends. And, I dreamt since 2006 that Schumi races again… just once.

All of my dreams were impractical and improbable, mostly impossible. Dead people don’t come to life, days gone by do not come back and inhabit with the days we are living. And sportsmen usually do not come back to active duty at the age of 40. Out of the scores of dreams, one dream has come true. Michael Schumacher will race again. I don’t know if he will race like the world beater that he was, but what I do know is that he will make me live my dream.

Once again I will wear the scarlet shirt. Once again I would wear the cap with the 7 world championship stars, once again I will say a silent prayer as Schumacher lines up at the starting grid, and once again I will scream “Go Schumi” at the top of my voice when he roars off the starting line. Maybe, I’ll also jump for joy if he wins.

And after all this is over I’ll still dream of walking in a park with my nephew in my lap. I’ll point at a rose to and say that “this is a crimson rose”, and while saying this I’ll turn to my right and tell Dadu “you remember, you told me about a crimson rose when you told me the story of The Nightingale & The Rose by Oscar Wilde?” The Schumi dream has come true so maybe this dream would also come true, just maybe……

The unlikely hero

2009-07-13T02:58:00.001+05:30

Heroes turn up in unlikely places. They are heroes because of their deeds, not necessarily because the world (the media, primarily) talk about them, but because they make a difference. A difference to our lives, be it directly or indirectly. There emerged a hero yesterday, not for the first time, but he did emerge. This hero was responsible (as he claims) for the death of 6 people and serious injury to 15 others. I still call him a hero. Perhaps an explanation is due.

I’m talking about E Sreedharan, the Managing Director of Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC), who resigned yesterday owning moral responsibility to an accident. An under-construction bridge of the Delhi metro collapsed, killing 6 and injuring many more. The reason this gentleman resigned, and I quote him, was – “For me even one casualty is too many. My colleagues advised against the resignation. Normally I listen to them but this time it is different. I have been in-charge of the project for 10 years. We have maintained a high safety mechanism. The first jolt was the Laxmi Nagar accident but this is a bigger setback".

I had heard of Sreedharan sometime in 2007, I suppose. He was the architect of the Delhi metro. This was one of the very few government projects that had been completed efficiently and well before time, quite unlike the Bandra-Worli sea link. Of course, this was not a first for Sreedharan. He had earlier achieved the near impossible, i.e. setting up the Konkan Railways. It was believed to be impossible and he did it in 7 years. The results are there for everybody to see. As a result of that, he was thrown the challenge of giving the capital its metro service. A challenge he accepted, on the verge of retirement, and achieved with distinction.

He had kept a reverse clock in his office, while the metro project was on, to keep people on their toes to meet the deadline. He was the one who made sure that this work ethic was imbibed among all that worked in DMRC, and they worked to achieve the deadline. And quality of work was not compromised. Yes, he was a hero.

Yet, this man resigns. Perhaps, because he is truly a leader. He did not rest on his laurels, and he has many. He could have come out stating that these things, however unfortunate, do happen. Given his impeccable record most would have swallowed it. But probably, he had his conscience to answer to, and that made him take the step he has taken.

I cast my mind back to the security lapses that have happened in India in the recent past. The last being the 26/11 incident. Shivraj Patil, with already a lot of blood in his hands, never resigned. He was sacked. The same with Vilasrao Deshmukh. The latter, though, has been rewarded with a minister-ship for failing in his primary duty as Chief Minister; that of protecting his citizens. The list of politicians is endless, who have failed miserably over a long period of time. Yet, they have no moral fibre that would make them own up a failure. Though they are responsible, they point fingers at others but hold on to their exalted positions. The never resign, but shamelessly stand for elections again.

But Sreedharan is different. In the past, he has given us a lot to be happy about. He has helped us save time, he has made distances disappear, made travelling a joy. Not just for us, but for the generations to follow. Yet, he could not take this lapse. It is an irony that a man this just and efficient and upright reports to a politician, the Chief Minister of Delhi.

He has taught us a lesson. He has taught us that we are just as good as our last performance, and not our past laurels. That there is a moral dimension to everything. What Sreedharan has done reminds me of a saying about a waterfall I read some time back – falling down from a somewhere so high has never looked as graceful or glorious. Well, Sreedharan has decided to fall with dignity. I guess this does make him an even greater hero.

There was a winner, and I didn't see a loser

2009-07-06T16:07:00.003+05:30

Sport teaches. It enriches. And this isn’t restricted just to the people who play it, this extends to the people who watch as well, in fact the followers learn more. As I watched yesterday’s Wimbledon men’s singles epic final culminate to Federer lifting his 15th Grand Slam, a message was re-emphasised to me. The message was that in sport there is always a victor and a runner-up, but never a loser. This is not shown by a way a sportsman plays, but by the way the sportsman behaves after ending 2nd best. That is what Andy Roddick showed yesterday.

Roddick was the better player in the final, who never looked like his serve would be broken. Well, Federer won because he knows what it takes to be a champion, that he needs to stick around. He won because he hung on, because he refused to be a runner-up, because the grabbed the slightest opening (the only one in the whole match) that came his way. He did not win because he was the better player, for that was Roddick.

I cast my mind back to 2006. Michael Schumacher was racing like a dream, in Japan. It was his last season and he was fighting Alonso for the title. More than any of his fans he wanted to sign off as a world champion, for Michael Schumacher could never accept defeat. Then the unthinkable happened. His reliable Ferrari engine blew, with Schumacher leading the race, and with the engine went his chances of ending as a world champion. He’d never ever regain it. I thought that I’d see Schumacher walk out of the car disappointed, dejected, and walk into the Ferrari garage. After all, for no fault of his a championship, that was his for the taking, had gone away.

But there was a different script being written. Schumacher stepped out of his car, had a smile on his face. I don’t know what emotion hid behind it, but he was waving to the crowds as he walked back to the Ferrari pit, saying goodbye and thanking people. The Ferrari pit was a picture of dejection. The engineers and crew were heartbroken, because they had let Schumacher down at such a crucial juncture. But Schumi walked up to every one of them with a smile and hugged them all, consoling them. It seemed that he told them ‘forget about today, what you have done over the last 6 years is immeasurable. What happened today is a part of sport’.

As I saw that bit of magic unfold, this heartbroken fan learnt a lesson. That I should thank Schumacher for winning 7 championships and 91 races and not feel bad because he’s lost this one. The heart did not seem that broken then. I saw on screen a man who didn’t win, but who by no means was a loser.

A bit of that magic unfolded on Wimbledon’s centre court yesterday. Roger Federer walked all over centre court, carrying his trophy. In his corner, quietly sat the valiant Roddick. Teary eyed, with the runners-up plate, wondering what went wrong, but there was a difference. With those teary eyes he was looking at Federer parade and Roddick was giving his conqueror the most generous applause. It was genuine, it was dignified, it was tragic, and it was magical. He wasn’t moping and grumpy. He took his defeat like a sportsman. He lost to a man who did not play better tennis than him, but that did not stop Roddick from applauding one of the greatest feats in modern day tennis, 15 grand slams.

Maybe, Roddick’s day in the sun will come. Perhaps he would be a champion one day. He taught me the old lesson sport has been teaching me since forever, that why a defeated sportsman is not a loser. Maybe, he's a champion already...

Greg Chappell, lies and cover-ups

2007-11-14T13:15:00.000+05:30

When will it ever end? These rabid comments by that abject failure of a coach, Greg Chappell, is what I am referring to. In his latest salvo, Chappell has said that he was the victim of a racist attack. The former failed coach has also said in an under-arm, oops! Sorry, below the belt attack that the BCCI had suppressed the whole story by the BCCI where the media was led to believe that it was a push in the back. Saint Greg has also said that the attack wasn’t on any Indian cricket player and he wasn’t a selector (who kept players out), so the attack can be deemed to be racist.

What a liar! Of the many things that we are proud of in India, one of them is that we have a free press. Sitting at our homes, we got the news that Greg Chappell was ATTACKED by a lunatic because the latter felt that Chappell kept out players from his state. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, was happy with what happened to Greg Chappell. And the Indian media is not stupid or foolish to swallow whatever the BCCI feeds it. The lunatic is cooling his heels in prison now.

Coming back to Chappell, does he forget the way his middle-finger salute at Calcutta was tried to be covered up by the media manager of the BCCI? Nobody in the media fell for the futile attempt for a cover-up when the manager said ‘Chappell had injured his finger during the team’s practice and was showing it to a team-mate’. The same BCCI that Chappell accuses tried to cover-up in vain for a stupid act by the coach of the national team. He should have been thrown out of the job then and there.

There were so many more instances of the BCCI trying to cover-up for Chappell. Two of them come to mind straight away: 1) When Chappell said that the parliamentarians were paid to hurl accusations at the coach because the team was losing; 2) When he said that Sourav Ganguly was the captain because it was important to his finances. As the recent past would show, when the Indian ambassador to the US, Ronen Sen, called the parliamentarians headless chickens, he landed in a soup. Chappell went scot-free despite hurling these baseless accusations, he was saved by the same BCCI that he accuses today. In both the aforesaid cases the BCCI tried to cover up and the media reported the cover-ups with smirks and sarcasm.

If the victim Greg Chappell is so disheartened by this nation of racists, why is it that he has come back to this country? Why has he landed himself a job with Rajasthan Cricket Academy? The person who gave him this job is Lalit Modi, the Vice-President of BCCI. Why is he employed with somebody party to a cover-up? Whatever documentary Chappell comes out with, he needs to realize that he was an abject failure as a coach and he conducted himself miserably. And one is so prone to hearing lies from this person, that it is hard to believe that he is speaking the truth this time around.

The soap opera of appointments and rejections in Indian Cricket

2007-11-12T13:52:00.000+05:30

When the news of Anil Kumble being appointed captain came in, it seemed like this old warrior has been given his due and has been given it very late in his career. There are two things that make one a little uneasy about this decision; firstly, that he has been given the job for three tests only against Pakistan and, secondly, Kumble was given this responsibility only after Sachin Tendulkar refused.

It is never easy to produce miracles in 3 matches. The last thing a national team needs is instability at the top. India does not have a coach and if one does not know who will captain the team against the best team in the world, it does not augur well for a national team. Yes, there have been reports, and Kumble has himself said in an interview that he thinks that he is not a stop-gap captain, but the plain fact is that Anil Kumble has been appointed for 3 test matches only. One does not know if Jumbo has been informally told that the appointment is till the Springboks visit India, but if he has been(that is what some media reports claim) why couldn’t the selectors and the board make it official that he is the skipper for three full series and not just three tests?

Very few things that the selectors and the board have done have been right. I just simply cannot understand these short term announcements. Appoint teams for 2 games, appoint captains for 3 tests or one series. It would be a jolly good idea to appoint selectors for 2 games and based on the performance of the selected players the selectors’ would be retained. I know that it is a preposterous idea, but that is the very same theory that the selectors seem to be following as far as team selection goes. And I do not understand why the selectors give in to media rhetoric.

Each and every time the team is about to be selected, and that is almost thrice a month these days, one wonders about what would the future of the senior batsmen be. But our batting does not seem to be the problem and certainly not the three seniors that have been targeted, but the bowlers. To elucidate, if one were to look at the Australia series and this series against Pakistan, whenever India has bowled 50 overs, they have conceded runs at the rate of 8.83 in the last 10 overs. That has usually been the difference in winning and losing. If the opposing team scores close to ninety runs in the last ten, it leaves the batsmen with a mountain to climb while chasing or it becomes extremely difficult to defend what the batsmen have put up.

Does this small fact not irk the selectors? Especially when we have a bowling coach? Somehow, the media is obsessed with big names. The selectors have needlessly fallen prey to the rhetoric. They have dropped Rahul Dravid needlessly just because he did not fare well against Australia (he has scored 823 runs at 37.4 in 31 ODIs in 2007). The other two batsmen that are being placed under needless scrutiny are Sachin Tendulkar (who has scored 1298 runs in 31 ODIs in 2007 at an average of 46.35) and Sourav Ganguly (who has scored 1235 runs in 31 ODIs at 45.74). The two Indian openers are numbers 2 and 3 in the highest scorers’ list in 2007. And in the top 10 run getters of 2007 there are 4 Indians and three of them in the top 4. The problem is clearly not our batting.

But then the selectors have only been giving in to rhetoric. They are trying to fix something that isn’t broken. And the thing that is mutilated is not been looked into at all. There are 3 things that need to be fixed in Indian cricket. 1) Give the captain a long rope; 2) Don’t touch the batting till the South Africa series gets over and fix the bowling quickly; 3) Get the board mandarins and the selectors to shut up and work for Indian cricket, and not try their best to give the media stories, get their faces on the tele and their columns in the papers.

Kimi Raikkonen was the only deserving winner. Not Lewis Hamilton, nor Fernando Alonso

2007-10-23T16:48:00.000+05:30

Everbody has said, and quite rightly, that Kimi Raikkonen is the deserving world champion in 2007. I totally agree. Where I disagree entirely is when one says Lewis Hamilton would have been an equally deserving world champion. Kimi did not only have to fight Hamilton and Fernando Alonso, he also had to fight the FIA that looked like it was trying its best to ensure that Hamilton wins. Let me explain in greater detail.

Cast your minds back to the European GP. Hamilton beached his car in the rains. He was crane-lifted back on to the track so that he could resume racing and score some points. This was absolutely uncalled for. Did this not seem to be some sort of favouritism in favour of the new-comer?

Let’s move to Monza now, the Italian GP. He overtakes Felipe Massa on Lap 1, turn 1 by cutting the chicane. But the stewards and the FIA decide to look the other way. Had any other driver cut chicanes they would have been put under scrutiny, but with Hamilton it seemed like Caesar’s wife is beyond suspicion. He can do whatever he wants on a race-track.

More recently, at Interlagos, during the first free-practice session. Hamilton, Honda's Jenson Button, and Super Aguri's Takuma Sato were deemed to have used two sets of wet weather tyres during the first free practice session at Interlagos, in breach of the Sporting Regulations. Article 25.3 of the F1 Sporting Regulations states: "No driver may use more than one set of wet and one set of extreme weather tyres during P1 and P2." There was no grid penalty for the Golden Boy, he was fined $15,000. There was no way the FIA would ruin his chances of winning the championship. Moral of the story? If you want to break the rules, break them with Hamilton to ensure no penalties.

Now, for the Japanese Grand Prix. Hamilton comes up with a beautiful and novel way of keeping his tyres warm. He might not have done it intentionally, but he did something that could have ruined some other drivers’ race. It was a mistake for which he should have been penalized. After all, other drivers have been penalized for making the same mistake. But no penalties for Hamilton.

How would this person have been a deserving world champion? Another big reason why neither Hamilton, nor Alonso should have been allowed to compete for the world drivers’ championship was that they both gained unfair advantage over the other drivers because of what McLaren was involved in. Because McLaren cheated for an advantage, they were docked off all the constructors’ points. Why not the drivers too? If I were to use this yardstick in cricket, this thing’s equivalent would have been had the South African players been allowed to play international cricket for their individual records when the country had been banned from cricket due to apartheid.

It is poetic justice that the deserving driver, Kimi Raikkonen won the championship. And it is poetic justice that Ferrari won the constructors’ championship. They would have won it even if McLaren would have been allowed to compete. Let me explain how. Ferrari got 204 points (Kimi 110 + Massa 94) and McLaren would have had 203 points. Hamilton 109 + Alonso 109 = 218; minus the 15 points that were stripped off McLaren for the Hungarian GP qualifying fiasco, that would bring McLaren’s score at 203 after the Brazilian GP, one point lesser than Ferrari.

The only deserving team and the only deserving driver won the titles. Neither McLaren, nor Lewis Hamilton, nor Fernando Alonso deserved anything this season.

Racism in cricket, replacing the oldies, being aggressive: Indian cricket has questions but no answers

2007-10-17T00:10:00.000+05:30

The one-day series between India and Australia is throwing up more questions than answers. The problem is that the questions that have been thrown up do not seem to have answers. Let me try and list the questions down.

1) Have the Indian media and fans realized that T20 is a different form of cricket than ODIs?

2) Have the young Indian cricketers understood that aggression does not mean snarling without substance and that the definition of an aggressive cricketer is not that of one with most theatric stunts?

3) Do some people know what racist taunts are?

Let me try to answer, rather introspect, these questions. A successful team in an abbreviated form of the game’s tournament is not the panacea for what ails Indian cricket. None of the T20 stars, and I mean NOBODY, has the wherewithal to challenge the place of Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly, for their places in the side. Apart from these two players, only Yuvraj Singh has scored 1,000 runs in 2007. So till some young players perform, let us stop speculating about the oldies’ future. If one were to look at recent performance, forget past records, these two cannot be touched. The ample proof came twice in this series. In the 4^th ODI India won because these 2 put up 91, and in the 6^th ODI, till these two were going it looked like India would chase down 318. On current form, there are only two match-winners for India in ODIs and both are in the autumn of their careers, if not winter.

The second question has bemused me more than other questions. Sachin Tendulkar is among the most aggressive players I have ever seen. And never have I seen him open his trap to talk needlessly to the other players. And that, despite having a record and performances to boast of. By acting like a bunch of theatrical drunks, and not backing it up with solid performances, is making the likes of S. Sreesanth look stupid. The person Sreesanth has picked on has responded in the most brilliant way. By performing. Andrew Symonds has been a joy to watch for a cricket lover. The prancing up and down idiotically only makes Sreesanth look like he is imitating a monkey.

Oops!! Oops!! Did I say ‘monkey’? Is that racism? Hell no! And that brings me down to the third point. If the crowds at Vadodra did indeed call Symonds a monkey, they were being blatantly stupid, but not racist. Either-ways, such people do not deserve to watch this noble game. But I must say, these people are neither cricket lovers, nor racists. I can say with a lot of conviction that monkey is not a racist remark in India. We, in India, worship the monkey-god Hanuman. The life-form that we worship cannot be a racist slur. This is a clear case of making a mountain out of a mole-hill. Looking at the form Symonds has had, be probably has had a divine hand that is making this wonderfully aggressive cricketer smash bowlers like seldom before. So, just lay it off. ICC, sections of the media, some of the cricketers.

India is in for a tough series against Pakistan in a month. And then, off to Australia. Thankfully, India can thank its lucky stars that it still has a few players who could make a match out of a few of the duels that would be played out. Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, Anil Kumble and one Very Very Special player. The joke is that these people are the oldies who some sections of the media feel should give way to the likes of Suresh Raina, S. Badrinath, Venugoopal Rao, Robin Uthappa and Gautam Gambhir. Well, I did say in the very beginning, that there are questions but there are no answers.

Replacing Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid

2007-10-04T12:44:00.000+05:30

I hope all and sundry would have now realized that T20 was a different format altogether. That is a format that relies heavily on talent and that was the reason why India and Pakistan, the two most talented teams in world cricket made the finals. The moment the game lengthens, apart from talent, temperament comes to the fore. That is one area where we are lagging behind by a long shot.

After the first two ODIs, the question of playing Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid has come to the fore yet again. It’s a clear case of not being able to plan well for a series as big as this. A good example would be to look at the opponents India is playing. Matthew Hayden, Adam Gilchrist and Ricky Ponting aren’t exactly spring chickens. They seem to be perfectly fitting into a side. That is because there is a clear plan. And players like Michael Clarke seem ready to take over from them after they have left.

The reason they can is because they have the weight of runs behind them. Not just on the account of being young or having performed well in a T20 world cup. India had just the right people to succeed the big three. Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh and Mohammed Kaif were doing well. Today we have Sehwag out of the team and Kaif out of the selectors’ minds. Yuvraj had a good 2006, so looks like the only certainty.

One reads reports and sees some ex-cricketers on the tele making it seem as if it’s the fault of Ganguly, Tendulkar and Dravid that they youngsters are not being allowed into the team. It is quite the opposite. Just because the likes of Suresh Raina and Venugopal Rao fell flat on their faces did the old brigade walk back in, and stayed put as they were performing. One needs to turn the clock back to 1996 when two youngsters announced their arrival. Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly. They did not have a pig-headed coach backing them to keep out some players and neither did they have a chairman of selectors subservient to the coach. They walked into the team on the account of their performances and consistency only. They did not knock on the doors; they smashed the doors and made India not miss the likes of Mohammed Azharuddin, Navjot Sidhu, Ajay Jadeja etc.

The current crop of Robin Uthappa, Rohit Sharma, Gautam Gambhir need to do the same. A 40 odd score in the odd match is not really enough. They need to do well consistently, as the older brigade had done when they were young. They did not have the country’s media pushing their case, quite the opposite, actually. They need to look at Mahendra Singh Dhoni. He smashed the door and made the India cap his own when there were Parthiv Patel and Ajay Ratra, as young as him if not younger, in the reckoning. The yardstick for team selection needs to be performance alone.

Turn the clock back to the just concluded series against England. India won all 3 ODIs where the old firm scored 100+ for the first wicket. The top 5 scorers for the series had Ian Bell leading, followed by Sachin, Yuvraj, Paul Collingwood and Sourav Ganguly. Tendulkar scored 4 fifties and Ganguly scored 3 of them. It is true that we need young players, but what is more important is that we need young players capable of replacing these performers.

Appointing a young captain is not the panacea that India needs to win the 2011 world cup. India needs to have a pool of 20 cricketers who can call the place rightfully theirs. And the best way to groom them is by making them push out the big three on weight of their performances alone, and not because they are all turning 35 next year. That would prove the temperament of the young brigade. Else, the die is cast.

Timeo danaos et donna ferentes, Dhoni

2007-09-19T12:03:00.000+05:30

Mahendra Singh Dhoni is India’s skipper for ODIs now. While most of India’s press has been talking about this being a message sent out by the BCCI, that India is looking towards the future and towards the youth, I am not so sure if that is the case. I agree that this is perhaps a move in the right direction, but it seems to be a tad premature and the tenure seems to leave some important questions unanswered. Let me try and explain my predicament.

Preparing for the 2011 world cup from now seems to be the right thing to do. For winning that world cup, planning needs to be done now. But it does not seem to be planned in the right way. To win the 2011 world cup India needs a team. A TEAM. A captain is part of the team. The board first needs to identify 15 players who will be capable of winning consistently. The decision of selecting a captain who is likely to be around till 2011 is more symbolic than strategically thought out.

That is why the ‘sources in the board’ (that damned phrase again) have been hinting from behind the curtains that the holy trinity of Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar need to think of their ODI future. Nobody from the board has come out in the open and said that they will replace them by April 2008, however good their form is, as they will not be around to form the nucleus of the side in 2011. ‘Senior board officials’ have only been giving veiled sound bytes to try to look as if they are trying to do something.

One might be temped to tell Dhoni, ‘Timeo danaos et donna ferentes’. While the appointment has been made keeping the youth in mind, the youth has been given just 12 ODIs to prove his mettle as captain against two very competitive sides, one of them being the world champions for 10 years. This is certainly not looking towards the future. One needed a 1 year appointment, at the least. Another reason why Dhoni has been given a raw deal is that the 3-year veteran would be leading a side with probably no coach against two very strong teams. If MSD proves himself in these two tough series, it will be against the odds.

The board first needs to put a succession plan in place. They need to say that they will ease out the holy trinity that forms the nucleus of this side, in the next 18 months. They need to put up 15 players who will ensure that these players are not missed, and by that I mean that the 15 should be able to consistently win matches for India. That is the only way one shall not miss these three great players with 37,000 ODI runs between them. Out of those 15 players India needs the best man to lead the side. If it emerges that Dhoni is the person most capable of doing it, so be it.

This was the best chance to put somebody like a Ganguly at the helm. He should have been given a clear mandate to build a team and groom 2 people as successors. Irrespective of the results, Ganguly should have been given tenure for 18 months. Even if India would have won every series, he would have had to step down as captain at the end of it as his job would be to make a team that can compete for another 4years after that. Yuvraj Singh, Zaheer Khan, Virender Sehwag, Harbhajan Singh and even Dhoni were players that came into the reckoning and made their marks under Ganguly. He has a proven track record and he should have been asked to build a team, especially in the absence of a coach.

People might argue that this would be taking a step down. Well, I agree. But it is necessary. Just like the hill-climbing approach, there should be provision for downward movement to be able to reach the peak. Dravid said that the shelf-life of a captain is becoming smaller. And he was captain for 2 years. Dhoni will have to be in the hot seat for 4 years till the 2007 world cup. Would it serve India’s purpose if there were to be another skipper in 2010, a year before the big tournament?

India needs to clearly chalk out succession plans and build a new team, and give timelines by when it would be achieved. The appointment of somebody with 3 years’ experience is not reason enough to bring out the champagne and celebrate the board’s forward way of thinking. They first need to appoint a good coach and build a good team. If one has a good team, an average captain can look great, but a bad team can even make the best of captains look pedestrian. Dhoni’s appointment will fall flat on the face unless a good side is created.

Carry on, Murali. Let the whining Bedi keep howling

2007-08-17T15:35:00.001+05:30

Is it not extremely unfair to call a bowler a cheat after he has taken over 700 test wickets? Bishen Bedi’s continuous, unprovoked outbursts against this genius called Muttiah Muralitharan is not only unfair, it is also uncalled-for. The perennial whiner, Bedi, has not been able to see anything great in his achievements. Murali has so unfairly been labeled a javelin thrower, a shot-putter by the jealous whiner. I fail to understand what does Bedi have against Murali? Is he jealous that he was never as feared in his heydays as Murali is feared now? Or is he jealous for the fact that Murali might end up with a thousand test scalps as compared to his 266?

As things stand, the ICC has cleared Murali. End of story. However inept and incompetent the ICC is, it is still the governing body of world cricket. They have given Murali the clean chit. The first problem was that Murali was examined by the ICC after he had taken over 200 wickets. And he had not taken these wickets in a clandestine manner; he had done so in front of cricket lovers all over the world and with TV cameras broadcasting every frame of his bowling action. If Murali was indeed a chucker, why was he first reported 3 years after he started playing? Wasn’t something wrong somewhere?

He underwent a trial by fire, in front of the world’s prying eyes, and came out clean. He was allowed to bowl by the powers-that-be and how well has he bowled since then. Some may indeed argue that the rules were bent to accommodate his bent arm. But the fact that these critics omit is that when a test was done on all the international bowlers, it transpired that there was some degree of flex in each and every bowler. Even a bowler with such a classic action, Glenn McGrath, was found to be flexing his elbow. That was visible only on ultra-motion cameras and not the naked eye. If we, just for the sake of argument, agree for a minute that Murali is a javelin thrower, I put a question to everybody: How many bowlers would be able to bowl like a genius even with a 25 degree flex?

It is proven that Murali has a physically deformed elbow, and cannot straighten it. It is not a crime to bowl with a bent arm, it is within the laws of the game. The problem arises if one straightens the bent arm at the moment of the release of the ball. Bishen Bedi is probably not conversant with the laws of the game. Fine, the laws are made and carried out by ICC, but that is still the governing body of world cricket.

Coming back to Bedi, none of his comments are ever constructive. He comes out with this needless drivel from time to time. Never ever has he said anything positive about anybody. Possibly to be noticed and offered the role of an expert in the many news channels in India. It is a shame that a person like Bedi, like Sarfaraz Nawaz in Pakistan, is taken seriously by sections of the media. After keeping quiet for all these years Murali has filed a case against him. About time, I must say.

Muralitharan is a genius. He is an exemplary example of what a cricketer should be like. Whatever controversies he has been surrounded with, are not his own creation. He has conducted himself beautifully over these years. There is no doubt in my mind that he deserves to retire as the highest wicket-taker in the world. Ahead of Shane Warne, the other spin genius. The reason he deserves this place is because Murali did not do any of the wrongs that Warne did off the field. And Murali, for sure, has conducted himself gracefully against a petty and frustrated former cricketer called Bishen Singh Bedi.

Sachin Tendulkar: The heart wants you to go on, but...

2007-07-27T00:43:00.000+05:30

It has become a little distressing. After almost every big series that India plays, and also during the series, one question invariably pops up: “Are Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman already well past their sell-by date?”. The distressing part is that while this question has been asked very often, one does not have an answer to the same. The more the fans of Indian cricket think about this, they more they shuffle uncomfortably. Probably, our heart says one thing and our head says another. The one person that has really made us most uncomfortable is Sachin Tendulkar, more than Rahul, VVS and Sourav. The main reason for that is not because he has been the mainstay for Indian batting for nearly 2 decades, not because he has been at one time the best batsman in the world. Let me try and explain, dear reader, why.

As per the census conducted in 2001, the average age of Indians is 24.8 years. And how many years has Sachin been playing for? 18!! This is the reason why we get so uncomfortable, because we have a huge population that has grown up with a certain Tendulkar being an integral part for 80% of our lives. We may have never thought of the same but it is true. Sachin has been part of our childhood. Very few things have been common thru childhood, teens, adolescence and adulthood for most of us. And one of them is Sachin.

Sachin started playing when I was nine. My friends and I would watch, on TV, a fantastic batsman playing and then walk out to the grounds wanting to play like him. We have grown up from then on. We have moved on to different careers because we were never good enough to play cricket at higher levels, but each one of us still want to walk out to bat like him. That is why when we watch Sachin play now there isn’t one but 2 of us watching him simultaneously. One being the working adult that cerebrally analyses the pale shadow of a world beater and wishes that he either shapes up or ships out soon. The second being the child in us, gratified by the countless moments of joy this champion batsman has given, disagreeing with the head and wanting him to play like the young Tendulkar. We really need to ask ourselves this question: are we wishing for the young Sachin, or are we striving for some wonderful moments of our childhood?

Past series have shown that SRT is not likely to regain the form of 1995-2002. Those days of glory might never come. Do we really wish to see a champion become an also-ran? It is true that we haven’t seen anybody who can take his place. Frankly, nobody can. But he needs to be replaced, sooner rather than later. People had this apprehension when Kapil Dev was about to end his career, India’s first world-class fast bowler. True, we have not had another like him, but post his retirement we have had a line of good, competitive pacers. Srinath, Prasad, Zaheer, Sreesanth, Pathan, Munaf etc. Maybe the floodgates will open once the big three call it quits.

The problem is that around 5 top performers will leave the stage together and Indian cricket would then face a crisis that might last a few years. Replacing 5 champions is never easy. But, for the betterment of Indian cricket, it needs to be done. While all of us are grateful to these great servants of Indian cricket, we all switch on our TV sets to see India win. A Sachin duck and an India win is a lot more acceptable than a 100 for Sachin but an Indian loss. I think it’s time the fans of Indian cricket tell themselves that the end of the greats is here, and the greatest batsman India has produced is also in the winter of his cricketing career.

If Tendulkar walks out and scintillates again, a childhood would be vindicated. I hope that day comes soon, as the noises in our heads are getting louder. I think even Sachin Tendulkar would know that he has been a very important part of the ‘Wonder Years’ of most Indians. That is something nobody can take away from him. I hope he makes 2007 memorable as well. If not, we shall have no complaints. This warrior can walk away into the sunset, ending the most glorious career ever. A new generation shall then look for another hero from 2008. But what he should now know is that most Indians living now shall go to their graves with memories of SRT of 1989-2002, grateful for having grown up watching the best that ever was.

ICL Vs BCCI: Mountain out of a molehill

2007-07-13T11:58:00.000+05:30

BCCI and ICL! This is turning out as a long-drawn soap opera. The underlying factor here is that every party involved is taking oneself and the other way too seriously. What is funny is the fact that the BCCI and ICL are trying to tell the world that each is doing things for the betterment of the game. Even Kapil Dev is trying to deceive the world at large by saying that nobody can stop him from doing a great service to the game. This statement is far from the truth.

It is extremely clear that Kapil Dev has joined ICL to make money. Absolutely nothing wrong with that. Almost all of us are looking at making money and we move on to more lucrative and better prospects. Kapil Dev has every right to do so. I couldn’t fathom why he was talking rubbish earlier by saying that he had joined ICL for the betterment of the game, create a pool of players to represent India, so on and so forth. He has now come out and said that he has a right to look at greener pastures. That is the very fact. Most of the ex-cricketers look at commentary and at being experts in the TV studios, not to give back to the game what they got from it (and that is the usual self-righteous drivel they dish out), but to make money. Why would they want to feel shy admitting to that fact? Some would also love to be cricket coach of India, but would not coach state teams.

Coming back to ICL, I fail to see how and why BCCI should feel threatened by it. They are planning 20-20, for starters. It will comprise of a pool of retired cricketers and others who haven’t worn their national caps. Would you or I want to watch too many matches involving have been cricketers and might-be-one-day cricketers? Your guess is as good as mine. In case they are dishing out quality cricket, and quality players, the BCCI would do well to take them into the India 20-20 side or the ODI side.

There are a few things about this new league that I am not sure about.

1) What are the chances that a young cricketer would want to turn out for ICL and not for their state Ranji sides? Every promising cricketer dreams of wearing the India cap, and that is not something that ICL can do.
2) Would we get quality cricket at ICL? I mean, it would contain players past their prime who cannot make it to their national sides, or young players that do not have the capability yet of making it to their national sides. The thing with Kerry Packer was different. He managed to draw players who were playing in their national sides, if I remember correctly.
3) How can a 20-20 tourney make test cricketers? I am not even sure if it would create a talent pool of ODI cricketers. They are entirely different forms of cricket and Ranji trophy, organized by the BCCI, is the right breeding ground. To think that a 20-20 specialist is a prospect for test cricket is like saying that a pool player will play the billiards world championship. It is theoretically possible, but is practically highly unlikely.
4) Would any current India cricketer want to turn out for the ICL? I mean, Harbhajan, Pathan and Sehwag have been dropped but would they ever consider playing for ICL? They would rather concentrate on getting back to the regular Indian side.

This is why I feel that the ICL is taking itself too seriously and even the BCCI is taking the ICL too seriously. Well, one thing is definitely likely that the ICL would be better managed the BCCI. That is why we see Niranjan Shah shooting off letters on BCCI’s behalf, the BCCI asking their associations not to ally with the ICL. This stems out of its own lack of self-belief. I guess the BCCI knows that it is incompetent and has a long way to go in order to run the game properly, and the ICL might expose BCCI completely. But at the end of the day, the players want to represent India in recognized internationals. And the viewers want to see the India flag. The viewers want to see the current international stars meet in the stadium and fight it out.

That is why I feel that Kapil and team are taking themselves, ICL, too seriously and the BCCI is also doing the same. The ICL is creating entertainment. Let them not propound the fact that they are doing it for the good of the game. And the lesser we say about the BCCI, the better. It has succeeded in making a mountain out of a molehill. They have no right to try and remain the sole custodian of cricket in India. Let them see how the events pan out. We shall be watching for sure. We shall be waiting to see if at all a Sachin, Sourav, Dravid or Kumble will every play in the ICL. Let’s see Kapil and More and team earn some extra money. Oh! Sorry. Let’s see Kapil and More do supreme sacrifices for the betterment of cricket. This soap-opera has just started. Its not going to end soon.

Sania Mirza: The most eulogized loser

2007-07-06T15:05:00.000+05:30

I opened the newspaper this morning and turned straight to the sports page. I needed to know what’s happening at Wimbledon. I read two bits of news, both were predictable. Rafael Nadal won his match in a grueling 5-setter; and Sania Mirza lost – again. This time she bowed out of the mixed doubles in the second round, and she drowned with Mahesh Bhupathi. Yes, the same person who had won mixed doubles titles at various Grand Slams with other parthers.

I do not understand India’s obsession with Sania Mirza. Yes, when she broke thru for the first time, it was really commendable. The first woman from India to make it good at tennis tournaments. Yes, she broke into the players ranked in 30’s. But what happened after that? I am not an expert on tennis, but I can safely say that she has made little, if any, progress as far as her tennis goes. She has been slipping in rankings, she has not progressed beyond the fourth round in any Grand Slam, yet she gets adulation in India.

Why don’t we look at Wimbledon this year itself? She lost in the second round in singles, and mixed doubles. She lost in the women’s doubles also in the 3rd round. Sania’s performance at French Open and the Australian Open was also nothing to write home about. So why it is that she is the recipient of so much adulation?

I know people would jump for my throat for whatever I am going to say next, but I need to say it anyways. I might even be called sexist, which I am not, I am saying things as I am seeing them. Sania Mirza’s breakthrough to the world of tennis was commendable. After a few glimpses of promise many moons back, she has faded away. But she has been marketed well. The endorsements that she gets in India, the needless columns that she writes, is more because she is a product now and not a player. Why don’t the press flock to Paes and Bhupathi? They are the champions in the true sense. They have won innumerable slams and look good for winning a few more. But their achievements appear in the Indian media as footnotes after the main tennis news that Mirza has lost again.

Why is there this big thing about celebrating mediocrity? Sania Mirza is, at best, a mediocre tennis player. A player who has not progressed beyond the 4th round of a slam does not deserve any mention unless s/he really does something commendable. And a loss in the second round of a slam isn’t a commendable thing. I know, I know. People will pop-up the questions about cricketers asking, why do the cricketers who lose in the first round of the World Cup get so much adulation then.

Three reasons, really. 1) When the cricketers step out on to that field, they play for India. Sania Mirza walks out as Mirza. 2) This cricket team is capable of winning tournaments and beating the best in business. Mirza is not capable of the same, as far as current form goes. 3) The Tenduklars, Gangulys, Dravids and Kumbles are world class players on merit. Mirza is not. How many, if any, top 10 players has she beaten in her career? The fact that India’s first round exit in the cricket world cup was a shock is ample proof that we expect so much more from this team. Sania crashed out in the first round of the French Open, and I am sure that our reaction was –“ho, hum!! What more do you expect?”. The Indian team had the capability to bounce back and beat South Africa. But Sania, well, she talks and talks and loses by round 2 at Wimbledon.

I wish that the press does a better job of covering tennis. Please give us more news about the real champions, Paes and Bhupathi. Not only have they won many tournaments, and look like winning more, they have also played some wonderful tennis at the Davis Cup, particularly Leander Paes, and played for India with pride and distinction. Paes has won us an Olympic medal and the Lea-Hesh combo has just also won us the Asian Games Gold medal. They have beaten the best in business, be it the Woodies or anybody else. Now, they play with other partners but still are capable enough of winning, and have been winning slams.

I hope we hear a lot more about them and their progress. I really hope Sania matches up to whatever these two big-hearted players have achieved. Till she does, could we please have news about her losses in the foot-notes? Let her win something big or at least reach the last 8 of a slam to merit space on the main page or the headlines. And lastly, a big thumbs-up to her PR and marketing people. They have done a fantastic job of glorifying a loser.

India Vs England: Let the real games begin

2007-07-04T12:27:00.000+05:30

I don’t know what I should do - bask in the glory of India’s win over South Africa or lament on the futility of this series?

After the World Cup debacle, India did need a series win against a tough side in order to get that belief back. It is good that the series victory came about in alien conditions against, arguably, the No.2 side in ODI cricket, albeit without Shaun Pollock. Graeme Smith not playing either was a boon, really, as he doesn’t have a great record against India. But still, India’s win was commendable, though the timing of this series does beg the question: Was it necessary?

India now take on England in what will be a tough tour. England are a very good side, especially on home turf, and particularly in Tests. Instead of needlessly playing against Bangladesh, Ireland, South Africa and Pakistan, India should have played the English counties in a few three-day warm up games. As it is, they will play only two before the Test series starts.

They should have played at least three, so that all 15 squad members would have had the chance of playing at least two full games. The current scheduling, by including Ireland and Scotland, really put India in a situation where they were struggling to put 11 fit players on the field. If this does not serve as a wake-up call to the BCCI, I don’t know what will.

Then there is this needless ODI against Pakistan, celebrating 60 years of independence. Now, this is not a celebration. This is a needless match that was planned in advance so that the BCCI, under the presidency of Sharad Pawar, could show value to those who bought the neutral venue rights for a hefty fee. There is no sense of patriotism attached to this match, and it is poetic justice that the match looks like being rained off.

Coming back to the England tour, there is yet another mystifying thing in the schedule. India play only three Tests at the home of cricket, but also an excruciating seven ODIs. This is extremely unfair. Test cricket is real cricket, and that is what the focus should be on. I am not saying that we do not need ODIs. Play a best of five, by all means. But a three-Test series means that any side losing the first Test have their backs to the wall. To win the series, they would have to win both remaining matches. Playing four Tests would have been fine, and five would have been just right. This would have been possible had the needless ODIs not been scheduled for Ireland and Scotland.

Some might argue that this series has been a shot in the arm for India. I disagree. India played and beat West Indies and Sri Lanka before the World Cup. Did that help? Even more pertinent, we are playing England at home and not South Africa. England are going to be a different side altogether, and precious little is going to come out of the South Africa series as we are playing Test cricket first. The ODI series follows later. This ODI series win is going to have no bearing in the test series against the hosts. All the ODI series in Ireland has done is ensured we do not get to see more Tests.

Again, well played Team India. The real fans always are with you, win or lose. But the BCCI are still suffering from a mental illness. This illness makes sure that the people scheduling tours look at money only, and do not give two hoots about the players, the viewers and, sadly, no thought to the fact that it’s a sport. The Afro-Asia Cup, Bangladesh series, Ireland and Scotland tours were cash cows. They are over. At least we can look forward to some real cricket now.

Sanjay Dutt: Only 'Bhai', not Munna

2007-06-14T13:04:00.000+05:30

I sit and wonder what is it that the TV news channels take us for? Are they really here to do social good, as they constantly keep proclaiming? At times I think, yes. Then incidents happen that completely change my opinion on the noble channels. Two incidents are standing out, and both involve Sanjay Dutt. The honourable court has already pronounced that Sanjay Dutt is guilty of possessing illegal arms. In short, the bollywood actor is a criminal. But the media seems to be trying so damn hard to ensure that he gets away scot-free.

The two instances that I am talking off occurred once on CNN-IBN and the next is about to appear (or has appeared, not sure because I read the transcripts on the net) on NDTV 24X7. Before the judge pronounced Sanjay Dutt guilty or not guilty in the Mumbai bomb blasts case, Karan Thapar had interviewed him on his program Devil’s Advocate. There the actor tried to build up so much sympathy for himself, talking about his dead father, about the good work he does so on and so forth. One felt that he was trying to influence the judiciary using the media. Now, I just read the transcripts of his interview with Sreenivasan Jain of NDTV. Not surprising, the interview has come about just about when the honourable court is about to hand down the sentence to Sanjay Dutt.

The actor has said the same things. ‘God is great, I love my country, I respect the court, I work for a cancer foundation’ etc., etc. Jain asked Dutt if he was favourably treated. Come on!! He is being treated extremely favourably by the media, for sure. I might even go thus far and say that the media is trying to build a sympathy wave for Sanjay Dutt. It happened when the judge was about to pronounce him guilty. The media raked up stories of him being ‘Munnabhai’, a person with a heart of gold. Are they so naïve that they do not realize that the on-screen persona is rarely what the person is off-screen? Some of his colleagues of Bollywood even proclaimed, and the news channels shamelessly carried the stories, that Sanjay is ACTUALLY like Munnabhai. The role that he played in the two wonderfully entertaining movies has, in some way, seeped into the real Sanjay Dutt and that Munnabhai was not a fictitious character, it was the convict.

What a sham! If real life influences a screen image and vice-versa, why can’t we look at it this way? If Sanjay Dutt was Munna, then he also was the person he portrayed in Vaastav. In fact, he is closer to his character in Vaastav. In reel life and real life, Sanjay Dutt was an errant child/person, he was a druggie, and he possessed illegal arms. Why don’t his friends draw a parallel to that Sanjay and not confine themselves to Munnabhai? And why does the media not highlight this part of Sanjay Dutt’s life, when he is about to be sentenced? If they can bring out favourable stories about this villain, they can jolly well remind the people and the courts that possessing illegal arms to use upon his own countrymen is not the only blot on this super-star’s canvas.

The minimum sentence for Sanjay Dutt’s offence is 3-years’ imprisonment and a maximum of 10 years. The person who supplied Sanjay Dutt with the AK-56, Samir Hingora, has been awarded 9-years’ rigorous imprisonment. The person who removed the rifle from Dutt’s place, Dhakla, has been awarded 10-years’ rigorous imprisonment. It will be a shame if the person who actually possessed these arms is given any less a sentence. It will be disaster if he is let-off on probation. Let’s hope that justice prevails. Unlike Manu Sharma, if Dutt is convicted then it will not be because of the media. It will be despite the media. Why was it so tough for these holier than thou channels to tell the truth, that Sanjay Dutt isn’t Munna, he is simply ‘Bhai’. Jail is the right place for him.

Graham Ford snubs the BCCI: Serves them right

2007-06-12T13:37:00.000+05:30

Yet again, the incompetent BCCI has managed to put one foot in the mouth and shoot itself in the other foot. Graham Ford saying ‘No’ has now shown how inept and incompetent the people running the board are. Everything about the selection process of the coach has been a sham and has been done extremely professionally. In fact the BCCI, in general, and this regime, in particular, should be used for case studies in business schools across the world as an example of how not to run an organization.

Ford declining the post of India coach is something that cannot be held against him, and should not be, as some voices in the press and television in India seem to suggest. One of the so-called experts has even gone on to say that ‘if Ford cannot join due to family problems why did he come to India for the interview?’. What a stupid statement to make. Everybody has a right to assess future prospects and everybody also has a right to decline an offer. Haven’t we all done it? Why can’t Ford do the same? Some sections of the press also allege that Ford has used the package that BCCI offered him to renegotiate a higher pay package at Kent. Well, good thinking, Graham Ford. Almost all of us have done the same in our lives, or will do the same at some point in our lives.

The villain of this whole piece is the BCCI. Let’s look at the way these events have panned out since the start. Dav Whatmore had indicated a willingness to coach Team India. Even before Whatmore met the committee that was supposed to appoint a coach for Team India, Niranjan Shah, the Secretary of BCCI proclaimed that the Aussie was going to be the coach of India. The unprofessional and incompetent Shah did two grossly wrong things here. He undermined the authority of the selection process and the selection committee that was supposed to appoint the coach, and he also seemed to send a message out saying that he is the last word on these matters. When Whatmore was turned down by the committee, Shah would have realized that it was not his job to appoint the coach.

The next chapter was even more ridiculous. After rejecting Whatmore, none of the BCCI mandarins even had the decency to call him up and thank him for showing interest in the coaching job. Then the BCCI decided to project Ford as the front-runner, obviously thru media leaks. Haven’t we all read the quote “sources in the BCCI”? John Embury was called in so that it looked like the committee was appointing out of various options it had. What a sham, yet again. The last chapter is the most ridiculous of the lot.

The BCCI should have known that an appointment is announced after an offer is accepted. BCCI had made the offer to Ford, but the latter had sought time to get back to the board. But, the treasurer of BCCI, N. Srinivasan, went ahead and spoke freely to the media proclaiming that Ford is the next coach. And that Ford was to get back as to “when” he would join as the coach of India. The honourable treasurer should have kept his mouth shut. Had he wanted to open it, he should have said “Ford will get back to BCCI on “IF” he would consider joining as India’s coach. And sections of the media make it sound as if Graham Ford played truant.

We now have some fantastic situations in Indian cricket. The players’ contract isn’t finalized nearly a year after the previous contract ran out. The BCCI decided on some knee-jerk reactions on player endorsements that were based more on rhetoric and less on sound judgment. The Indian cricketers have not been paid by the board since October, 2006. We have no clue as to who the next coach of India is going to be. The team selectors are dictated by the board for choosing a side. And then, the BCCI wonders why is it that the team doesn’t do well. People of the world, are you laughing or are you laughing hard? Don’t tune off from this, its going to get even more ridiculous.

P.S. The biggest joke is that there was, supposedly, going to be a clause in Ford's contract that would have barred him from speaking to the media outside pre and post match conferences. Will anybody gag these big-mouths in BCCI first?

Amitabh Bachchan - The farmer is reaping what he sowed

2007-06-08T16:32:00.000+05:30

Well, well, well. Amitabh Bachchan is a farmer these days. I'm sure that everybody has understood what kind of fraud he has indulged in. What has left me aghast and shocked is some of the reactions I have been hearing and reading for the actor, and the premises of those reactions are, to put it mildly, silly. Let me, first, give you a list of the reactions that I have been hearing in Bachchan's favour.

1) He is not the only person who has committed a fraud. Why pick on him alone?
2) The Congress and the BSP are maligning him because; a) He has fallen apart from the Gandhis, and; b) He is close to the Samajwadi Party.
3) Just because he is a big superstar, the media is picking on the 'Oh so victimised Amitabh Bachchan'.

Let me, try and squash these silly views. Firstly, about him being not the only person committing this fraud. I agree that many politicians commit frauds of probably larger magnitude. But that does not give Amitabh Bachchan a license to do whatever he has done in Uttar Pradesh. Big B should have realised that given his stature in this country he should have shown extra caution and gone that extra mile to be on the correct side of law. He is a tax evader anyways. Now he is a land stealer too. Just because some unscrupulous politicians are doing somethings wrong, Bachchan does those misappropriations as well. Is he so naive at 60+? Probably his closeness with Amar Singh is showing. I don't know which fraud is affecting the other.

Now for the second point. The Congress and the BSP could not have touched Bachchan had he been on the correct side of the law. Amitabh Bachchan had been using the Samajwadi Party for all his gains. Be it for making his movies tax-free in UP, or fudging documents making him a farmer. This actor also tried to mislead the people of UP by telling a pack of lies before the elections. Can we forget 'UP mein dum hai, kyunki jurm yahaan kum hai'. What a pack of lies. And he cannot plead ignorance. All he should have asked for were records of crimes in UP. I mean, he claimed after the Dairy Milk ad that he had asked the Cadburys people if he'd get 'Man ki shaanti' after doing an ad that sells chocolate (because of the insect scare). If he could be so judicious and such a good man for selling chocolates, how could he not take care when the future of the people of UP was at stake? His supposed home-state. But, all he was doing was quid pro quo for Mulayam and Amar Singh. Probably, as a return gift. Moreso, his wife, Jaya Bachchan would address rallies and give interviews to TV channels during the UP elections, saying 'the Congress uses and dumps people, but Mulayam and SP don't'. They were the ones who started throwing stones at others when they were themselves living in glass houses.

Thirdly, about the point that media is only picking Bachchan because of his stature. Well, he has made his money because of the media. He is the one who had used the media so utterly cleverly. Be it for his son's wedding, or promoting his films. I completely disagree with the theory that the media is being unfair to him. Why did nobody object when Amitabh Bachchan's name was given in polls choosing the "Role Icon of India" and other such gibberish? It was all so fine then? How, if the role icon finds himself with his trousers down, why blame the media? The coverage that the media gave to his son's wedding was uncalled for. It didn't deserve 1% of the coverage that it got. But the Bachchan scam should get much more publicity.

This is one chance of the media to redeem itself. Let the citizens of this nation see that the high and mighty cannot get away by committing crimes. If they could get justice for Jessica Lal, the media can jolly well bring Amitabh Bachchan to jail. And for that matter, Salman Khan and Sanjay Dutt. If Amitabh Bachchan goes scot-free this time, he might as well say that all his income from endorsements are because of selling produce from farming. If the land fraud flourishes, might as well allow tax fraud to flourish. We, the stupid middle class are there anyways to be ripped off by the Government.

Does the world need Superman?

2007-05-29T18:04:00.000+05:30

The world of sport has had its share of greats and a large collection of all time greats. They have had the world at their feet at some point or the other. Then, in every sport, came a sportsman or a team that did not seem from this world. It looked like Kal-El’s planet sent more than just one Superman to the earthly world of sport. Their performances thrilled and delighted. But they just kept getting stronger and stronger. So much so, that they almost killed the sport they were excelling in. While the world watched them in awe, a certain thought crossed the minds of the followers of sport: Why do we need to watch? We know who is winning!

Does the world need superman? This thought crosses my mind far too often. Sometimes I think, yes, sometimes, a resounding no. The truth, however, lies somewhere in between. Let me take you thru my confusion for a bit. Roger Federer is a superman. The only Grand Slam that he hasn’t won is the French Open. After beating Nadal in Hamburg, Fed has announced his intentions and stamped his form loud and clear. We know there’s no beating him at Wimbledon, Flushing Meadows and Melbourne. Only the red clay at Roland Garros acted as Kryptonite for Roger Federer. It seems that superman has started becoming immune to kryptonite too.

Yes, Federer deserves to win the French open and join Laver & Budge as a winner of all four slams. But after that we might see, for quite some time, only one smiling face at the end of each slam. The story was so similar with Lance Armstrong and the Tour De France. The story was so similar with a Michael Schumacher from 2000-2004. My goodness me! Schumi almost killed the sport in 2002 and 2004. Such was his dominance that Simon Barnes wrote a column titled: Michael Schumacher, The serial winner who murdered Formula One. He wrote there, "He is one of the great serial champions of all time and he killed his sport with his brilliance, murdered it with the thousand cuts of excellence". Simon Barnes went on to further add "the most exciting thing in Formula One is the question of when Schumacher is going to stop for petrol."

That was so damn true. Fans like me loved Schumacher winning, but even his die-hard lovers like me would agree that we enjoyed the 2006 season a lot more. And no, we never wanted Schumacher to retire. But now that he has, the sport has had a breath of fresh air. For the first time in many years, there are 4 drivers that look like taking the drivers’ championship. Who cared if there was scope for 4 drivers coming 2^nd in the championship? Now that Superman is gone, earthlings can compete.

Cricket has gone thru this twice. With the Windies in the 70s and 80s and the Aussies in the 2000s. We all knew who’d win the cricket world cup this year even before it began. Such a fantastic team deserves to win whatever competition they participate in. But would others want to watch supermen take on earthlings again in flying contests? But then, does this mean we wish for the champions to stop playing for the sake of the sport? Well, yes and no.

Like I said earlier, the answer lies somewhere in between. We need others to play as well as Superman. Be it a Rafa/ Roddick to counter Federer, the superman of tennis; we finally found somebody to take on the superman of F1, Schumacher, 5 years after his ruthless dominance, Alonso; we also need some teams to stop the supermen of cricket, Australia. We are lucky chaps. We have seen the best of almost every sport in our lives. But, for the good of the sport the world needs to see superman stopped.

Till that day comes, let us celebrate something unique. Let us celebrate those who have taken their sports to a different league. Let us celebrate these supermen who have given us so many moments of joy, pride, and awe. Lastly, for Federer, all the best superman. Conquer kryptonite at Roland Garros. How I wish that you win, and how I wish that you are beaten. You deserve to win, but then, if you do, at Wimbledon, we’d be cheering your opponent every time you miss your first serve and every time you hit an unforced error. And if your opponent wins a game, forget a set, we shall give him a standing ovation. Those are the only small things they’ll win. You are going to take the Championships anyway.

Heads I win, tails you lose

2007-05-21T16:13:00.000+05:30

Is it not a no-win situation for people like Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly? When they score century against the minnows, Bangladesh, one can clearly see smirks on the faces of cynics, thru the articles they write and the sound bytes they give. Their rant is ‘what good is a century against Bangladesh?’. I can bet my life that the same people would have taken their knives out had these two batsmen fallen after scoring 40 runs. They’d have said that Sachin and Sourav cannot score big against the minnows as well. Clearly, a century also doesn’t help these two fine batsmen, possibly the greatest ever opening partners in the history of ODIs.

I fail to understand a simple thing. If Bangladesh is so worthless a team, why were these players considered unworthy of playing against them in the ODI series that just preceded the tests? The board and the selectors had clearly thought that they weren’t good enough to play the ODIs. They needed just one innings to assert themselves again. So what if it was against Bangladesh? Gambhir will cement his place to Ireland and England to play the Proteas and the English because of his century against the same Bangladesh. But when it comes to Sachin and Sourav, critics will say that they should still be kept out as they score against the minnows only.

This statement that, SG and SRT score against minnows only, is so flawed. If we look at their ODI records, Sachin has scored 82% of his runs against the major nations and Sourav has scored 75% of them against the major nations. By the major nations I mean, Australia, England, Pakistan, New Zealand, South Africa, Sri Lanka and West Indies. How flawed and hollow all those minnow statements look. And each and every great batsman in the world has fantastic records against the minnows, be it Jayasuriya, Ponting or Inzy. The reason why they are great batsmen, is that they have heavily scored against the other major nations also. I simply fail to understand why critics in India look at the stats of Sourav and Sachin so dogmatically.

Isn’t it a heads I win, tails you lose situation for Ganguly and Tendulkar? Despite being performers, they are ridiculed. Man of the series awards against the Windies and Lankans also counts for nothing. A century against Bangladesh counts for nothing. But when Gambhir scores a century against the same team, he is hailed as the opener for the future.

Technorati

2007-05-16T13:05:00.000+05:30

Well, a friend of mine just happened to tell me that some of my blog posts show up when they search my name on Google. A few of the results are on Technorati, an engine that monitors tags and keywords on blogs. I tried searching for them and, 'voila', it was there. The only thing that put me off was a phrase that said that 'nobody has claimed this blog'.

And presto, I created an account to claim what is rightfully mine. As part of the procedure, I have been asked to paste this link Technorati Profile on my main text box, and that's what I am doing. Now, the ball is in their court. Or should I say, the spiders are in their court. I hope once they let those crawl my blog and see this link, they won't say that its unclaimed.

So, all you bloggers out there!! Own up your blogs and make it legitimate :D

Gilchrist played fair and, boy, did he play well?!?!

2007-05-08T14:26:00.000+05:30

A lot of prose can be read, many emanating from the island nation, about Adam Gilchrist’s use of a squash ball. Some have also foolishly likened it to the Trevor Chappell underarm delivery. The last thing that Gilchrist’s act can be called is underhand tactics. I’d still like to believe that he was within the rules and deserves only the greatest accolades for playing one of the best ever one-day innings.

For starters, the underarm delivery that Trevor bowled was akin to an F1 equivalent of team orders whereby one driver is asked to forego his lead so that his team-mate can get higher points. While both these situations were within the rules of the sport, it was not within the spirit of the sport. Gilchrist using a squash ball was a different matter altogether.

Batsmen around the world use extra padding inside the gloves, some have also used extra protection around their wrists on bouncy tracks. Gilchrist did something that was just an extension of this, so that he could grip the bat better. He did not use a broader bat, though he made it seem so because of his phenomenal stroke-play. Bowlers cut out their boots so that their big toe’s nails are protected when they put that extra effort on the delivery stride. All these things are done so that the players are comfortable and able to give their best.

Let’s add another dimension to this. How many batsmen in the world could have played like Gilchrist had they also been allowed to put a squash ball in their glove? Would Sri Lankan authorities and fans been crying foul had Gilchrist been dismissed earlier, when he offered a caught and bowled chance, albeit a sharp one? Also, its not that Gilchrist became this demolisher of attacks only when he put that squash ball in the glove. His innings came as no surprise. Had Pigeon put a squash ball, he wouldn’t have been able to play like Gilly.

Everybody knows for sure that Sachin Tendulkar’s pads are made of a material that is a lot lighter than the conventional pad. That, for sure, is not unsporting. Jayasuriya wastes an enormous amount of time (by tapping the pitch umpteen times, looking right, touching his helmet, after each delivery so that he can concentrate), nobody ever said anything about it.

I hope that some sense prevails. Or else, the next time a cricketer even wears a lucky charm, and succeeds, even that will be called unsporting. The Lankans should not make their progress to the WC final hollow by crying foul about Gilchrist. That devalues the way the Lankans played. Yes, Gilchrist’s innings turned the tables, but even otherwise Australia was a far superior team. This team can beat Sri Lanka nine times out of ten. And if all Sri Lankan batsmen are asked to keep a squash ball in their glove and walk out to bat, they shall convincingly lose ten times out of ten. Well played Gilly and the Aussies. And well played Lankans. But what some of the Lankans are cribbing about outside the field is just not cricket.

The World Cup Final - May the best team win

2007-04-27T13:46:00.000+05:30

The battle royale begins on the 28^th. The battle for the crown of the champions of World Cricket. What has been a very damp world cup so far, a supposed carnival that was played out in front of empty stands and without a Caribbean fanfare of trumpeting and drumming fans, has gotten a final between the two most deserving finalists, the Australians and the Sri Lankans.

For the sake of World Cricket, one hopes that this would be a cracker of a match. If there is one team that deserves to be world champions, it’s the Aussies, but the game of cricket badly needs another world champion. And if any team can dethrone the wizards of Oz, it is the Sri Lankans. Australians in cricket have been what Lance Armstrong had been in Tour De France, what Pete Sampras had been at Wimbledon, what Roger Federer has been at Tennis at large and what that mighty Michael Schumacher had been for formula one. What makes this Aussie team special is that they have been able to work magic as a team, and not as an individual, except for Schumi who was in a team sport of sorts.

Its only poetic justice that a team would have to be world champions by beating the Australians at the finals. The greatness of this Aussie side lies in the fact that they have made a mockery of the phrases, ‘cricket is a game of glorious uncertainties’ and ‘the law of averages’. It will take more than uncertainties to dethrone the champions, it will take a miracle.

And the Sri Lankans have a few miracle workers. Murali, Jayasuriya, Malinga, Jayawardane, Sangakkara. If they were to work a miracle, they need to take a leaf out of the book of their amazing opponents, i.e. to raise the levels of their game when the big occasion arises. The Lankans did that against the Kiwis, and there is no reason to believe that they cannot do the same against the Aussies. But it will not be easy. It will not be easy to dethrone a team that has annihilated every opposition in this world cup and that too by not even breaking a sweat.

As a cricket fan, who do I want should win the world cup? I haven’t been able to find an answer, to be very honest. Should I support a team that is unbeaten for 28 matches, or should I support the most improved and skillful team of this tournament? I don’t really know. A Sri Lanka triumph should be good for world cricket, but do the Australians deserve to, forget losing, have even a thought of losing? I don’t have an answer to that either.

For sure, Glen McGrath deserves a victory in what would be his swansong in what has been a fantastic career. His last ODI match in Australia ended up as a defeat for his team, he surely doesn’t deserve that one more time in his final international match. But the Sri Lankan nation also deserves this win. This is a beautiful island nation which is now embroiled in a civil war. Innocent people are losing their lives, and the only thing that can bind them together again is a world cup victory.

Whatever happens on the 28^th, we shall all be watching. Before we hold our breaths, let us spare a thought for the people in the Caribbean who couldn’t enjoy this cricketing carnival because of the insipid organizers, despite being the most colourful of cricket followers. And whoever lifts the world cup, be it Ponting or Jayawardane, would be deserving winners. So, let s say a small prayer so that we get a match worthy of a final, and let the battle royale begin.

Alistair Pereira - Yet another trial by Media

2007-04-25T12:24:00.000+05:30

A local court had sentenced Alistair Pereira to 6 months' imprisonment and a fine of Rs. 5 Lakhs. What happened the same day, in the subsequent days was that the media rabidly started to tom-tom how a 'murderer' has gotten away with such a light punishment. The media also said that the 'murdered' people deserve justice, the ones that Alistair's car ran over. Yet again, in its efforts to sensationalise, the media completely missed the point. And so has the High Court that has taken Suo Motu cognizance of the matter, by giving in to the media's rhetoric.

Alistair Pereira is an irresponsible wretch who deserves to be punished for drunken driving. But to call him a murderer is not right. Agreed, that when one drinks and drives one's senses are not in place and that could lead to catastrophy on the roads, but then Alistair didn't drive out with the intention of murdering people. I hate to say this, but the people that were run over were also to blame for this.

A footpath is not meant for dwelling. If one dwells or sleeps there, it is illegal use of public property. They had no job sleeping there when the irresponsible Alistair lost control of his car. Let's imagine a different scenario. A person who has not consumed any alcohol is driving back from work. His tyres burst because they run over some nails on the road and his car swerves towards the footpath where a few people are illegally dwelling. His car runs over a few people. Do we fault this person and call him a murderer too? Who is to blame here? The driver or the illegal occupants?

Alistair's crime was that he was drinking and driving. His crime isn't murder. Its human nature to attack soft targets, and the media is doing just that. Howcome the media is not taking up cudgels against Salman Khan? Even he has committed the same offence, and some greater offences. And that too when he was nearly 40. Years have passed on and we hear nothing about that case except for the fact that Salman Khan is being tried out for killing other innocent animals and is still out despite a sentence being given to him. Why doesn't the media rake up these stories? Salman Khan is a murderer, who used his gun on endangered animals and also got drunk and drove over some people, killing one in the process. The media still glorifies this person.

Alistair needs to be punished. But not tried for murder. His crime was that he was drinking and driving. Nothing more than that. This was one case when the media could have really done something constructive by promoting road safety and by getting the Govt. to form stricter road safety norms. The fault of the system is far more than Alistair's but when we all have a scapegoat, its easy to make him a sacrificial lamb and wash our hands off things that would impact road safety in a positive way. Once the media is free from its important work like covering an Aishwarya wedding or Elizabeth Hurley wedding, it can try and take up some stories that will help the citizens of this nation. And Alistair being called a murderer is setting a bad precedent. We are only legalising illegal dwelling by demanding compensation for the victims. Its sad, but true, that the unfortunate people who lost their lives were only bringing it upon themselves.

Breaking News: Hooligans destroy the Star News office

2007-04-17T13:39:00.000+05:30

Never has the phrase ‘breaking news’ been more apt. When the members of an obscure outfit decided to pronounce themselves to the world by demolishing an office and breaking everything that came their way, ‘breaking news’ was just the right way to put it across. It was grave injustice to Star News, and to the media at large, but one wonders if the media have not brought all this upon themselves.

The news for which this deplorable protest took place was not worthy of reportage anyways. A couple decided to get married. So what? How does it alter my life or yours, or the lives of the reporters who decided that this news needs to be beamed out? Far too many Hindus and Muslims get married to each other. Why is this worthy of news? Reports seemed to suggest that the girl was a minor also. They eloped because their communities were against the marriage. So what? Why did Star News have to beam it all into our homes? Despite that, we all agree the Hindu Rashtriya Sena did an act of cowardice.

Lets look at what the media has been reporting these days. Richard Gere kisses Shilpa Shetty. That has made news for 2 days running now. A forgotten bollywood actor and a retired Hollywood actor decide to do an act on the stage and the news channels ran the story as something that is against the ‘ethics’ of India. And to protect these ‘ethics’ they beam those pictures over and over again. What double standards this reeks of. Abhishek Bachchan getting married to Aishwarya Rai is not news. But all we seem to be reading in the press, and seeing on the news channels, is news about their wedding cards, Amitabh going to Tirupati, the might be guest list, I’m sorry but this is not journalism. The news channels keep beaming this and say that people want to see this. But this is far from the truth. We have no option but see this drivel as there is nothing else they are reporting. The only choice we have is either switch the sets off or see only this.

The reason I mentioned the aforesaid is that today, with so many news channels, they need to show something sensational. Then what happens is that anything trivial is sensationalized to drive ratings up. What was the need of showing the Surat couple news at all? Such incidents happen everyday. Why does the media need to twist the story with a Hindu-Muslim angle? The media has learnt the hard way that by reporting such non-events, while our lives are not affected, the media is being wrongly and brutally attacked by cowardly lynch mobs.

There is another angle to this as well. Why, in India, do protests mean smashing of cars, breaking window panes and also endangering innocent lives? Well, what do we see on TV? Some retired cricketer who proclaims to be an expert spews venom on the cricket team. This instigates good-for-nothing hooligans who stone cricketers’ houses, demolish the boundary walls of a cricketer’s house – all in the name of a protest. And all this is carried by the media throughout the day as ‘sentiment of fans’, and some in the media also try to condone the act after indirectly bringing it upon the innocent families of cricketers.

Who has let loose the mob like this on the streets? The media! Who glorifies these despicable protests? The media! Who has made ransacking and demolishing a synonym for protests? The media! Who never reports protests that are made in a way protests should be made in a civilized country? The media! Just because civilized protests do not look as dramatic, they are never reported. What the media has therefore done is glorify the work of these cowards who come in mobs and try and harm the harmless. This has backfired in the worst way possible. The media was attacked. Now, we hear voices from the media that says that this is a very pathetic display that tries to curtail a free press. The media and the press are right. But why don’t they introspect a bit? Do they deserve to be free? Free to report a bollywood wedding for 1 whole month? Free to talk of Shilpa Shetty, who was forgotten by her own fraternity, just because she won a contest in England?

While the media should unite against this deplorable act by a bunch of goons, this is also the right time for them to put their heads together and ask each other, are they a responsible press/ media? Do they really do any kind of justice to journalism? While the media has the power, duty and right to stand up against maniacs like the Hindu Rashtriya Sena, they have a greater duty to the citizens of this country, duty to journalism. Please look at yourselves in the mirror and ask yourselves, how much of their reporting is sensationalising of trivial issues and how much worthy news is reported?

This is not the time for self-pity. ‘Oh we the poor media, we carry stories and get beaten up’. Unite and bring the goons of Hindu Rashtriya Sena to the courts, put them behind the bars and then show the world pictures of them languishing badly in jail. That would send a flutter down the spines of these cowards. Images of hooligans demolishing cricketers’ houses only encourages them and this is what the media has been doing so far. The media has created this Frankenstein and it is up to the media to kill it. For the good of journalism and for the good of the people of this country. The choice is really the media’s. Do they want to consciously put an end to this and report worthy stories or do they want to keep reporting Rakhi Sawant and Abhishek Bachchan and Liz Hurley and Shilpa Shetty, and unknowingly blow up some trivial news to invite these lunatics again.

Lunatics are running the asylum...

2007-04-11T18:59:00.000+05:30

Let’s peep into the BCCI, for a bit. Just a little bit. In my previous article, I had written that the major decisions taken during the meeting on the 6^th and 7^th April were nothing more than appeasement of those who believed that the only way to move forward was by capping endorsements made by players. This is the best sports body in the country; they have managed to market the game beautifully. But that’s just about it. I think they have completely forgotten that the performance on field needs to match up to its growing coffers, and its paramount to keep the cricketers foremost in mind, and not serve the interest of the mandarins in the board. Here is a bit of news that readers from India may have come across. An Indian daily, DNA, reported and I quote:

“BCCI President Sharad Pawar has cancelled a yacht party that he had planned to give the Indian team on April 3 in anticipation of their entry into the Super 8 stage. Pawar was to leave for the Caribbean on March 27 and watch three of India’s Super 8 matches on March 29, April 2 and April 7. India’s 69-run defeat to Sri Lanka has also led to the cancellation of the 30-member BCCI team’s trip to the West Indies. “What’s the point? Our boys will not be there,” BCCI Secretary Niranjan Shah told DNA.”

http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1086963

Now, the team that is supposed to play and perform has 15 members and the board wanted to go with a team that is double of the national team. Isn’t that some kind of a joke? There is something that is an even bigger joke. A tournament of this magnitude is of paramount importance, and the BCCI wanted the players to attend a yacht party. Which other team participating in the world cup is even thinking of having a party while the tournament is on? Teams need to focus during any tournament. The parent body thinks otherwise, it seems.

The same BCCI thinks that players’ commitment to sponsors means that they are shooting for commercials, and not focusing on cricket and hence, they should be restricted. Aren’t the people in the BCCI being hypocritical here? Wouldn’t attending a yacht party be loss of focus on cricket, and that too during a series?

Now we come to some other people in the board. There is a certain Shashank Manohar, who is a vice-president in the BCCI. He has championed the cause of restricting players’ endorsements. Manohar is from the Vidarbha Cricket Association that prepared a green-top at Nagpur, for India’s test against Australia, so that India’s defeat embarrassed Dalmiya, the then president of BCCI and a man Manohar was strongly against. He didn’t care two hoots if India lost by not playing to their home advantage, and the same person talks big on the players.

Much before the meeting happened on the 6^th and 7^th, there were reports that Chappell would be offered a position of a consultant. This bit of news came from “sources in the BCCI’. Before hearing out everybody, the BCCI had made up its mind. The person, who was part of all the cricket controversies ever since he took up, could not build a cohesive side, and was a failure as a coach was being reported. How come the BCCI did not conduct meetings with the players? And why were the ‘sources in the BCCI’ leaking information before a meeting that was supposed to serve the best interests of Indian cricket?

Enough is enough. We need a professional board. It needs to be corporatized. We need a CEO, who will be responsible for everything. There needs to be a corporate communications team for the board and the media should talk to them and only them. We need accountable and paid selectors who are full-time. It seems that the board is giving directives now to Vengsarkar and Co. for the team that is supposed to be selected on the 15^th. This needs to stop. We need empowered selectors, who would not face interference from the board. And finally, please appoint a full-time media manager for the team. Will the BCCI clean up its mess first before?

BCCI takes popular decisons, not the right ones!

2007-04-09T13:50:00.000+05:30

Two days have gone by since the BCCI met up to discuss the future of Indian cricket। One thought that probably this would result in some forward steps for the sport in India. Sadly, the major decisions taken are contrary to the same. Well, I shall try and list them down one by one.

1) There is to be a cap on endorsements: Players cannot do more than 3 endorsements. Which genius arrived at the number of 3, and what are the reasons that the cap has been set to 3? This decision has been taken purely because many people watching cricket and large sections of the media have been insinuating that the cricketers’ means of livelihood should be strangled. In my previous article I had written at length about the public and the board having nothing to do between a contract between a player and a company.

2) Sachin Tendulkar and Yuvraj Singh have been sent notices: Well, the board has hauled up two cricketers who have given their lives to cricket because they wanted to clear the air about accusations flung at them by a pig-headed coach. Why didn’t the BCCI give showcause notices to Chappell when he (a) Showed his middle-finger to some Indian supporters (they hushed it up saying that he had injured a finger) ;(b) When Chappell gave an interview to the Guardian saying that the former Indian cricketer wanted to stay in the hot seat because of the money; (c) when Chappell had made it a habit to leak team plans and his thoughts on selection to his subservient legion in the press; (d) When he started leaking like a sieve on cricketers after the world cup debacle. Why hasn’t the BCCI issued a show cause notice to all the board mandarins who have been giving sound bytes to the media even before an important meeting was held?

3) We hear no commitment on the number of days an Indian cricketer plays: Why haven’t the BCCI given blueprints on the maximum number of days that Indian cricketers will play per year? We play too much cricket, especially one-day cricket, and that needs to be stopped. Why doesn’t the board say that these are the maximum number of matches that the team will play per year?

The board seems to have misread the whole thing very badly. They need to realize that the players don’t exist because there’s the board but we have a BCCI because of the players. The points on endorsements and on the notices to players will have a serious effect on the players’ morale. By all means, have performance related contracts. This is a very good step, in the right direction. Apart from the appointment of specialized coaches and Shastri’s appointment as manager, and the performance graded contracts. But to rap the players on their knuckles so badly, because of two defeats is really in very bad taste. Bangladesh just beat South Africa, the No. 1 team in the world, so Indians losing to them is actually no disgrace. For God’s sake, the Bangladeshis played better cricket than we did. Why is that so hard to digest?

There are decisions that are taken, some are popular decisions and some are right decisions. Unfortunately, board has taken popular decisions. Banning endorsements would be very popular among those so-called fans that are baying for blood. But this is not a right decision. We need to look at things objectively. The board needs to have performance-related contracts, appoint a CEO who’d be accountable and responsible, ensure player welfare by seeing that they don’t play too much cricket, appoint a full-time media manager, and give specific timelines by which the selection process would be overhauled.

What does the board do instead? Needlessly give in to incorrect opinion and thereby wrongly punish those who have given their sweat, blood and emotion for the Indian flag, and taken pride in representing their motherland, for 2 days where another team happened to play better cricket. What a shame! Or should I say, What a Sham!! That’s what the administration and sections of the media are, at the moment.

The Fair-weather fan

2007-04-02T14:12:00.000+05:30

There are some ridiculous comments doing the rounds these days in India, about the Indian cricket team. Sack the players! Kick out the over 30s! And the most ridiculous of the lot – ‘Ban these cricketers from endorsing products!’ & ‘Don’t pay them their match fees”. While all the aforesaid comments don’t make too much sense, the ones that are the most ridiculous of them all are the last two comments.

Cricketers are marketable properties. If we see their ads 25 times a day, doesn’t mean that they had been shooting for those ads for 25 days. Its outright stupid to assume anything of that sort. They are multi-millionaires, but that is because of their own abilities. What the cricket lovers (what a loosely used term!) in India need to know for a fact is that none of us, yes, none of us, are paying the cricketers their salaries out of our own pockets, so who are we to question their salaries?

Why is it that the people, propelled by the media, are so angry with the team? Yes, they didn’t play well. But the cricketers are not on top of the world themselves after such an insipid performance. If we put things in perspective, they played one bad match against Bangladesh that cost us the Super 8. How come nobody is complimenting the Bangladeshis for a fantastic performance? And the Sri Lankans too? Did the team promise to come back with the world cup? Did they ask the media to run tickers, take signature campaigns, launch special programs to get more viewers? NO!! The answer is an outright, NO! Just because they played one bad match we seem have gotten a right to stop them from earning. If a surgeon cannot cure a patient, and the patient dies, does he/she still not get paid? That is a matter of life and death, and cricket is just a game.

Come to think of it, we hardly pay to watch a cricket match. It’s broadcast on a channel, out of the 100s that are beamed to our homes for which we pay 250 bucks a month. The cricketers never ever asked us to watch them play by switching to the channel that’s carrying the cricket broadcast. The endorsements that they signed were between the company and the cricketer. What the hell are the media doing, running stories and asking ignorant fools on whether they should stop doing endorsements? Nobody knows it better than a cricketer that if the performance dries up, so will the money. Let’s leave it at that.

The meaning of a fan should change. A fan, these days, stands for fair-weather friends. Where are the fans supporting the team when it’s down in the dumps? These are the times when the team needs its fans, but they are nowhere to be found. Maybe, this team didn’t deserve the world cup. But do we, the fans, deserve the cup? Well, we got what we deserved. A first round exit is just what fair weather friends deserve.

We have a right to be angry with the team, but in a civilized way. Not by wrecking their houses, endangering their young families, and certainly not by demanding that they should stop doing ads and not get salaries. Spare a thought for guys like Sachin, Kumble Sourav and Dravid. They have represented their nation with pride, had glittering careers, but do not have a world cup to show for their efforts of more than a decade’s representation. This was the last world cup for all of them. To crash out of it, the way they did, didn’t cause us a fraction of the pain it caused them. So let some sense prevail in the Indian fans and the Indian media.

The Cricket Experts Start Commenting Again....

2007-03-28T11:37:00.000+05:30

Ah, the joys of being an expert! As far as India is concerned, anybody who has played a little bit of international cricket qualifies as one.

The powers-that-be in the Indian media don’t care if the experts understand the sport at all. There is a big difference between playing the game and actually understanding it -- and the same jokers who proclaimed that this was a wonderful Indian team are now castigating the World Cup failures.

It’s so easy when one has the benefit of ‘hindsight.' Bishen Bedi and Kapil Dev were proved wrong. The former said that minnows don’t deserve to be in the World Cup and the latter proclaimed that India were a fantastic team. Nobody has forgotten how Kapil dragged himself in the team from 1991-94 to get 31 wickets. And that bloke talks about the Indian team’s commitment, weeks after he said that this was a very good side.

He ceased being Kapil and became a mere statistic when he plodded around needlessly to achieve that personal milestone; and his comments don’t matter much these days because everybody knows about his commitment for the country between 1991 and 1994.

And now we come to Sunil Gavaskar. He is the only person who had said from the very beginning that Greg Chappell’s appointment would be disastrous for the team. Well, he didn’t have the benefit of hindsight, but he’s been proven right. Come to think of it, Chappell was not a success when he was coach of a local Australian side.

Coming back to the experts here -- Kris Srikkanth, Madan Lal, Atul Wassan, please, enough! Srikkanth had a wonderful average of 29 in both forms of the game, and he has the cheek to talk big. Madan Lal got around 70 Test wickets with a mind-boggling average of 40 runs per wicket. Atul Wassan has a staggering 21 international wickets. And they talk about the changes that should happen in Indian cricket. All of them talk with the benefit of hindsight and none of them have the guts to serve as selectors or talent scouts or coaches.

It's time to bring in some real experts who know this wonderful game. Peter Roebuck, Harsha Bhogle, Vijay Lokapally, these are the people that matter. They are the real experts, they have covered this beautiful game for decades. When people ask, ‘How many international matches have they played?’, they need to know that one doesn’t need to be a good cook to understand good cooking. Indian cricket needs to change, but not on the lines of what these dime-a-dozen experts talk about.

Missing the woods for the trees... Gavaskar Vs Ponting

2007-03-15T18:17:00.000+05:30

We are all missing the whole point. Tempers have flared, egos have been hurt and a lot of unnecessary talk has happened between a yesterday great and a modern day great, Gavaskar and Ponting. While the latest salvo from Gavaskar, on the death of David Hookes’ death was uncalled for, what amazes me more is how conveniently we have ignored, or chosen to ignore, the remarks that Ricky Ponting made.

The issue at hand was not ‘who is the champion team’. The issue was more to do with ‘how do cricketers conduct themselves on the field’. A very recent article on www.Sportingo.com made me wonder a little. There were two parts to it. Firstly, the writer talked about the Aussies having a more colourful language in their culture ; and, secondly, about the Aussies losing to England in 2005 because of their seemingly good behavior. Before I discuss these points in detail, let me add that this is nothing personal against the writer, whose articles are always informative and extremely well written.

A colourful culture does not mean that they get a license to abuse on the ground. Look at the way the Aussie players and crowds have behaved in the past. Here are a few examples:

1) Darren Lehman, on being dismissed, refers to the Sri Lankans as ‘Black C****s’.

2) Dean Jones called Hashim Amla a terrorist on air.

3) Aussie crowds haul racist abuse at the South African players.

The list, if one may go on, is extremely large, and colourful. I am no expert in the Australian culture, but I don’t think that any culture encourages people to pass racist abuse, and that too at sportsmen. And, I don’t think that Australia lost to England in 2005 because they were good blokes. The fact is that England had an in-form pace attack, and batsmen in form. Australia had McGrath unavailable for 2 crucial matches, Gillespie was woefully out of form, as was Michael Clarke and a few more Aussies. For once, can’t we all admit that England played better cricket? Did Australia lose to the Kiwis 3-0 recently because they were good blokes there too?

Now for what Gavaskar said and what Ponting retaliated about. Just like Gavaskar had no business bringing David Hookes into the whole issue, Ponting had no business talking of India’s record. In sport winning counts but what also counts is the manner in which teams conduct themselves. What Gavaskar talked about was simply the latter. Why have writers and commentators all over missed out on the fact that Ponting talked rubbish by dragging records into the fray and personally attacking Gavaskar, when that was not the point at all? Agreed, Gavaskar is not the epitome of good manners himself, but the point he was making isn’t incorrect.

People who read this column, please ask yourselves this question. When we read reports of the Aussie crowds showering racist abuse at players, what do we think? Do we think that ‘no, these are just a few lunatics (which is what the fact is)’ or do we incorrectly generalize by thinking ‘well, look at how their team behaves. Its no surprise that the crowds behave like that, that’s how all Aussies are’.

While cricketers have a duty to win for their nation each time they step on the field, they have a duty to behave themselves because they are ambassadors of their countries. Sadly, Gavaskar at times used to forget the same in his playing career (as was demonstrated at Melbourne, 1981), but Ponting probably doesn’t even know that they are supposed to be ambassadors of Australia and that they need to behave. Or else, he’d have thought again and asked his team to behave or, at least, behaved himself.

Minnows in the cricket world cup

2007-03-08T16:24:00.000+05:30

A lot has been said about the so-called minnows participating in the world cup. Eight of them. Here’s my take on them participating in the World Cup and why I feel they should. A lot of people, including the former India captain Bishen Singh Bedi (the guy who declared the side’s innings because he was scared that he might get injured), have said that it lowers the standards down. Well, if they weren’t to play the big boys of international cricket, how would they ever learn? I don’t think any cricket board would organize official or unofficial tours with the full-strength national teams against teams like Bermuda or Canada.

It’s up to the ICC to ensure that they play some international cricket, and why not the world cup? It would help the bigger teams to acclimatize, and give the minnows some exposure to the rigours of international cricket. The recent defeat of the Kiwis in the hands of the Bangladeshis proves that there are some very capable teams who can beat the big boys on their day.

Bedi also says that ‘India is not allowed to play in the football world cup, so why allow these minnows to play in the cricket world cup’? Well, the informed cricketer probably missed out on one small fact that football is being played in nearly 150 countries. They cannot have a world cup that has all of them playing, and hence, have a qualifying system whereby 32 teams qualify and participate. But there are probably just about 25 countries playing cricket, and if cricket is to become a mass sport, the smaller teams should play the big guys.

I am not for one moment suggesting that all that the ICC is doing is right. Getting the smaller teams to play only the world cup and then not helping them to play any further is criminal. The world cup is just the beginning. After the WC, the ICC should ensure that the small teams get at least 2 home and away tours with a major test playing nation. Also, there should be regular tours of the A-teams of the test playing nations to these smaller countries. There needs to be a serious step taken to ensure that these smaller countries get the right infrastructure that enables them to raise their standards.

A beginning needs to be made somewhere. If that means the World Cup, so be it. I so wonder where do these cricket pundits go when it comes to developing sport in these smaller countries? Why don’t they go ahead and help in developing the sport in these nations? They talk big of giving back to the game what the game has given them, but all they mean by it is that they’ll mane asinine comments on the game and want to get paid big bucks for the same. Sandeep Patil showed the way, when he took up the job of coaching Kenya. As far as I remember, those minnows made it to the Semi-finals of the previous world cup. But does Mr. Bedi remember?

It’s so easy to sit on the other side of the fence and criticize the happenings, but how many of the former cricketers would want to get their hands dirty and develop a team? They’d want to get tons of money to criticize the ICC and everything else, but when it comes to real work they back out. And most of the comments that these former cricketers make only proves that there is a big difference between playing international cricket and in actually understanding it. God save the fan, who is fed all this daily.

MPs and Greg Chappell ..... In Defence of our MPs

2006-11-27T15:30:00.000+05:30

Yet again the focus has shifted away from the playing field. We see a pig-headed coach saying rubbish about the politicians of India, or, more specifically, the members of Parliament. There are a couple of things that astound me out here. One being Chappell’s fetish with money; and, second, the reactions of sections of the fans and the sections of the media. I shall try and tackle them one by one.

Firstly, Greg Chappell. He was a fantastic batsman and a wonderful captain. It is a fact that he is a very lousy coach. Forget the results, we don’t look like competing in any match. Some time back, he had said that Ganguly wanted to stay in the team, and as a captain, for money. Now, he says that MPs are ‘PAID’ to decry him. There is one thing that he must realize. For most Indians, cricket is a passion. We watch the team play because of the tri-colour and insipid performances on the field. It does not matter to us how much is a player or a coach paid, as long as they play well. And we Indians don’t need to be PAID to cheer our team and criticize them.

The second, and more important issue, is the reaction that I see by sections of the media and fans. They say that politicians should shut up about cricket, they anyways don’t run the country well, so on and so forth. I humbly ask, if politicians opining about cricket is so damn pathetic, why is a respected politician the head of BCCI? India is not the only country where politicians have taken interest in the most popular sport of the country. Agreed, they fair miserably on the jobs that they are actually supposed to do, but that does not mean that they cannot raise an issue that the whole country is talking about.

At least the politicians of our country are lamenting the fact that our team is not winning matches. Go back a few years, and the prime minister of Australia had called Muralitharan a chucker. He holds the highest office and had the cheek to make a comment on one of the greatest bowlers of all time, and the remark was uncalled for. There is a governing body in cricket that looks at issues like chucking and he actually made a statement on what he believed was right. At least our MPs, however bad they might be, have been lamenting the fact that our team has been performing pathetically. It is surprising that why are sections of the media covering up for Greg.

As fans, we have a right to expect our team to perform brilliantly on the field. The fact that the team is not doing well is something that the coach should accept and rectify. I read that ‘the coach can’t bat or bowl or field, the players have to do that and hence they should be blamed and not the coach’. Well, if everything is to be done by the players, then why have a coach at all?

Geet Sethi - The song we forgot to sing

2006-06-08T16:34:00.000+05:30

There are things that are surreal and then there are things that are beyond explanation. Let me tell you the surreal bit first. There exists an Indian sportsman who has been winning world titles since the early nineties. This sportsman has won the highest number of world championships in the world, in his discipline. He won his first world title in his twenties and then won his eighth title at the ripe old age of 43. He has set world records galore. He is also an Asian games gold medalist for India. This surreal phenomenon’s name is Geet Sethi.

Now for something that is beyond explanation. A country that starves for its sportsmen to succeed does not bother to felicitate the greatest and winningest (pardon the incorrect English) sportsman it has ever produced. A man who has been bringing glory to his sport for nearly two decades. A man who is India’s best hope of winning a championship, when he is nearing an age when the candles on his birthday cake might cost more than the cake itself. How conveniently have we forgotten, or chosen to ignore, Geet Sethi.

People probably would say that Geet Sethi is not the greatest sportsman that India has produced. How many people know him? How many people know Billiards? Tendulkar or Kapil Dev or Sunil Gavaskar should have that honour. I have a few points to make here. The first is the fact that people do not know of billiards is not Geet’s fault. It takes an equal amount of hard work and practice to be a champion, be it in cricket, shooting, tennis or billiards. And the greatest sportsman of the country can never be decided by consensus, as that weighs way too much towards the most popular sport in the country.

The second point is that most people of our generation know billiards because of Geet Sethi. Sachin or Kapil, had they not played cricket people would still have been crazy about it. Players like Geet Sethi have had an impact on the sport they play in for years. Sethi’s impact has been felt for nearly two decades. I can safely say that had Geet Sethi decided to be a corporate executive, people after Michael Ferreira’s era would not have known anything about billiards, and unless Pankaj Advani comes up in a big way the generation after ours wouldn’t talk of it either. Lance Armstrong, Michael Schumacher, Chilly Rathore and Geet Sethi have made their discipline popular; they are synonymous with the sport they play. Does anybody bother to know whose record did Lance Armstrong beat to be the highest winner of the Tour de France? The absence of Sachin does not make cricket any less popular, Dhoni and Pathan would do, but Geet’s absence might kill billiards in India.

Thirdly, Geet Sethi is probably the only champion to have come out of India. He is the only person who has won eight world titles. Kapil’s Devils won India a world cup, Geet Sethi won India a gold medal in the Asian Games, and more countries participate there than in a cricket World Cup. Add to that the fact that he has world records for the highest break in the cue sport.

But the thing that makes Geet Sethi the greatest sportsman in my mind is the fact that he has done so much for the sport. I think it was 1997 when Gold Flake decided to stop sponsoring the billiards world championship and due to lack of sponsorship the event couldn’t be played that year. Come 1998, Geet Sethi roped in a sponsor, Florsheim, and organized the world championship in Ahmedabad single-handedly. By the way, he also won the championship beating the then world champion Mike Russell.

One can keep writing about the great man. But today, a week after he has won his 8^th world title I very humbly ask: isn’t Geet Sethi a champion we should have celebrated? We, the citizens of a country thirsty for sporting successes? Shouldn’t the media talk more about him? We should have been singing paens, celebrating this hero. But alas, Geet Sethi is a song we have all chosen to forget. Sorry, Geet!

Aamir's concerned about NBA? Yeah!! Right!!!!!

2006-05-03T14:56:00.000+05:30

I don't know if the word hypocrite does justice to a person like Aamir Khan. The issue isn't about whether some star should put her or his weight behind the displaced poor in the Narmada valley, it never was. The real question is that do the people, like Aamir Khan, walk the talk?

Let's look at Aamir Khan the person. I am a huge fan of the actor. He is second to none. So, this great actor is now doing on TV what he does best! Acting. Let's go back a few years.

Aamir had shunned press because he felt they weren't good to him, in not as many words. I have issues with some sections of the press who report unworthy things such as the news.

But good journalists exist, so do good newspapers and also good news channels. What the great actor had done is shunned them for good. He refused to talk to them because they wouldn't write good things about him.

Now, Aamir Khann has movies lined up for release. He needs to promote those movies and badly needs the press, the 'demons'. The people he abhors and had refused to speak to.

If he were to go to these people say "I want to talk about Rang De... or Fanaa", we all know what the response would have been. He wouldn’t apologise. So what does he do? Make a smokescreen.

Tell the press that I want to support an issue. He may not care two hoots about the issues, but he needs to be seen so that the press says 'Aamir khan spoke about the NBA people. By the way, his movie is due for a May release, the promos have started appearing. That's exactly what he wanted and that's exactly what he has done.

He started supporting Khushboo before Rang De... released and to every question by the youth he brought up Rang De Basanti.

Now's the time for Fanaa and he wants to empathise with the displaced villagers from a room in a 5-star hotel in Delhi.

He never followed up about Khushboo? He has said that he may not be able to give NBA his full support. That means, once the movie has hit the screens he’ll show everybody the middle finger and go into his shell.

Then would be his new film's release in the near future and he'd look for an issue.

He says he was driving in Delhi and saw these people and then wanted to join them and raise the issue after spending one day (what a long time) to understand their problems.

Thank god he wasn't in Kolkata. He’d have seen a few people oppose Sourav’s exclusion from the team and then started batting for the southpaw. And had he been in Jodhpur he might have sided with the Bishnois or, god forbid, Salman killer Khan.

I don’t understand!! Is the media so naïve as to not understand the motives of this crusader by convenience? Celebrities like Rahul Bose have shown the way.

He has been helping in the Andamans even after we seem to have forgotten about the Tsunami. Highlight his efforts. Highlight the efforts of Valmik Thapar who has been fighting for our national animal for 30 years.

Fight for Medha Patkar who has always fought for the rights of the poor in the NBA.

People like Aamir Khan don’t deserve to be heard if they have vested personal interests like being seen while his latest release’s promos have come on air.

Commonwealth Games, Dawood's Party, what's the difference?

2006-03-28T13:22:00.001+05:30

I firmly believe that Mallika Sherawat should have been the mascot for the Delhi Commonwealth Games, 2010. What all TV channels were raving about as a spectacle that has ignited high hopes for Delhi was nothing different from a movie awards night. People who have nothing to do with sport graced Melbourne. Who the hell is Aishwarya Rai? Rani Mukherji looks like an overweight belle and the only sport Saif Ali Khan has been reported to indulge in is SHIKAR. People were talking about Kapil Dev, Sunny Gavaskar, Ajit Pal Singh, Prakash Padukone and Michael Ferreira but the only people I saw were Priyanka Chopra and Lara Dutta, and a few glimpses of Vijay Amritraj.

But we don’t need these bollywood clowns dancing. They do not represent what India is all about. I have never seen film stars dance at any Olympic Games or Commonwealth games outside India. Singers? Yes. Theme songs should be sung. Have you ever seen even Tom Cruise perform> Which Hollywood actor danced when the US staged the Olympics and the FIFA World Cup? But when the Olympic torch was brought to India, Bipasha Basu carried it. PT Usha was not even invited to do the honours. Has a sportsman ever been asked to perform in their farcical awards function?

During the 1996 world cup opening ceremony at Eden Gardens we saw Saeed Jaffery address the English team as Zimbabwe and many more such bloopers. What a ham that guy is!! I thought others would realize from then on and keep these people out of sport. But, alas!!

The bollywood stars would never say no to all these. They work if they are paid. They care 2 hoots about India’s honour. None of them would have done this for free. But at the end of the day they are nautankiwalas and nautankiwaalis. It’s all about buying them. Be it LN Mittal’s daughter’s wedding or an awards function or a Commonwealth Games ceremony, or Dawood’s party, pay them and you can buy them, to sing and dance. I can only thank the heavens that at least the singers were good. But hold your horses, come 2010 and you might even hear Himesh Reshmiya’s nose singing.

That’s why I felt that in a mujra like this, it’d have been apt if Mallika Sherawat were to be the mascot for the Delhi Commonwealth Games, 2010.

And so many news channels, I did not hear even one of them castigate this! Bloody shame!

Is it fair?

2006-03-16T15:03:00.000+05:30

I have no bloody clue. I am dazed. LN Mittal? Well, I once happened to read a column that wrote about the return of a prodigal son. The story, as it goes, is about a farmer. He has two sons who he managed to bring up with a lot of difficulty and happiness. The older son, one fine day, left home to earn somewhere and lead a life more comfortable than what he’d have at the village by tilling his fields. The father was shocked and shattered. The younger son held the family together. He toiled in the fields. He worked hard so that his old parents live comfortably. He provided. Food, comfort, peace of mind for years. He felt he needed to fulfill his duties as a son because he owed so much to the ones who brought him up.

One morning, the prodigal son returned. Was it because he became unwanted somewhere or he now needed his family after deserting them for years? Nobody knew. The father, who was longing to see his son for years - the son who went to lands afar without even telling anybody – was thrilled to have the prodigal child back. Amidst tears of joy he hugged his son and said it was no nice to have him back. Now the family is complete again. That night he called the whole village for a feast to share this happiest moment in life with them, his son had returned.

In one remote corner stood the younger son. He kept wondering – “I could have left my old parents in the lurch to seek comforts for myself in lands new, probably greener, but I stayed back and did my duty. I was never acknowledged and never did seek it. What is my fault that my father has forgotten me?”

The same is the story of a LN Mittal and his bid to take over Arcelor. He is an NRI. He has employed very few Indians. He has made himself a fortune, living in England. He buys steel companies abroad and makes even more money by his amazing business acumen. He now wants to buy a French company that, probably, in no way would help India or Indians. Why do we need to highlight this prodigal tycoon’s business ventures so much? Dr. Manmohan Singh also brought this up with Jacques Chirac. I fail to understand why.

After all these years Mittal has now shown an interest to do something in India. But that’s too little too late. Nothing’s happened yet. Why does our PM need to discuss something that is the personal financial interest of an NRI? Racism, one might say. One may say that what has happened to Mittal today might happen to other Indians tomorrow. Well, something even worse had ened some time back in France. Sikh children were banned from French schools as they were wearing patkas or turbans. The French had said many silly things. Don’t show your religion. It would damage the French. They might be terrorists. Cut your hair. Those people are still oppressed, because of racist and religious reasons. Our media is mum about a greater number of people. Our Sikh PM didn’t find this a moving enough thing to tell his French counterpart.

It is shameful. Probably Manmohan had his reasons. The Sikh in France don’t have Mittal’s money. Or probably Sonia Gandhi had asked him not to. Minority vote bank politics is ok in India, rather it is a must. When the reasons are right, we should shut up. LN Mittal is a very rich man. Let’s please him. Let’s pretend to appease Muslims. Sikhs anyways are a smaller vote bank, unlike Muslims. Probably, these were Congress’ thoughts.

And shame on our free press. Really, Mittal winning or losing another bid is not going to affect Indians in India in any way.

On Cricket Pundits!

2006-03-14T16:54:00.000+05:30

I sit on my bean bag in front of the idiot box and look at “experts” analyse cricket. I listen to the drivel dished out by the ex-cricketers and say, “blessed be thy soul of the wise man who gave J L Baird’s invention the name - idiot box.” I happened to read Mr. Rajdeep Sardesai’s blog on his very interactive website and a few lines stuck out like a sore thumb. He said “At one level, the cricket punditry is valuable. Would you rather listen to someone whose played 50 tests or someone who has never scored a run or taken a wicket in his life?” and I could not help but feel let down that a comment like that should come from one of my favourite journalists. Please let explain to you why did it hurt so bad.

I, the average cricket follower, do need expert opinion on cricket matches and cricket, in general. But anybody who has played 50 international matches does not qualify as an expert on the sport. I would listen to someone who has not played a single match, if s/he speaks sense. I cannot get myself to believe that journalists like Sonali Chander and Rajdeep Sardesai aren’t experts but people like Aaqib Javed and Madan Lal are. That Salman Butt is pushing at deliveries outside the off stump and that Sehwag lacks footwork isn’t something an expert needs to tell me. Anybody who’s watched this beautiful game would know. And what is nowadays is passed off as analysis needs to be re-looked at. Painting a Shahenshah, analysing post match conferences or what a coach said, sic ad nauseum, is not what one calls analysis. And all that load of rubbish is dished out by ex-cricketers. To top it all there’s a world cup winning hero, who aspired to be the Indian coach, who starts singing the moment he is on TV. For heavens’ sake, please get them off the tube. Its no better in print. Moin Khan got a slap on his face when he wrote so insightfully about Sachin being a spent force, and was proven wrong. That shows how well our experts can analyse. And believe me, all hell breaks loose when somebody pits two ex-cricketers against each other for analysing a game. It seems less like analysis and more like a confederation of warring tribes.

I would, and I am sure that the majority of cricket lovers would, love to see people like Harsha Bhogle, Sharda Ugra, Ram Guha, Vijay Lokpally, R. Mohan, Sanjay Jha, Ayaz Memon etc. analyse for us. None of them have taken a wicket or scored an international run but they understand the sport better and analyse it wonderfully. If anybody were to ask - “how can they criticise Sachin for playing a bad shot? Has that person played a single international match?” – I believe that person should be asked to shut up. Going by that yardstick, if one happens to go to a restaurant and finds that the gravy tastes like grease and complains to the manager and if he or she were to be told “how many cook books have you written? Only a Tarla Dala or a Sanjeev Kapoor or a Jiggs Kalra have a right to criticise”. How would you feel? I don’t need to be a cook to give my views on food. Rajdeep Sardesai and Prannoy Roy have not been in any economic review committees but are they questioned when they analyse the budget? They haven’t stood for elections but does anybody question them when they give reasons as to why Nitish won and Lalu lost? The same should apply for cricket. I am not saying that all ex-cricketers are bad. Nobody can analyse the game as well as Richie Benaud, Sunil Gavaskar, Ravi Shastri or Geoff Boycott can. But to think that all ex-cricketers would be able to reach that level, is being foolish.

Nobody seems to have a problem with a bunch of buffoons selecting the cricket team as selectors. How many have played international cricket? This is just analysis that is happening on our TV sets, why can’t we have some real experts, who’ve dedicated their lives bringing cricket to us – thru their pen or thru the camera? That is why I feel let down when I surf news channels and am forced to choose between the awful and the rubbish ad infinitum. People like Prannoy Roy, Rajdeep Sardesai, Karan thapar, Barkha Dutt etc have really raised the bar as far as reporting news and current affiars goes because they didn’t get into the trap of letting the so called “experts” analyse it. Please use the same yardsticks as far as this analysing this beautiful game goes. Please choose real experts and ex-cricketres extremely carefully. Or else the die is cast as far as cricket analysis goes. Alea jacta est!!!