The best in the world

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

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

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

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

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

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!!!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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...

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.