Tag Archive for 'Cricket'

Not just cricket – Bollywood treatment gives India its very own ‘Superbowling’

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on March 12, 2010
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Click here to watch the IPL matches live on YouTube

The IPL, six weeks of razzmatazz and TV with a little sport, is predicted to double last year’s takings. Jason Burke in The Guardian:

It is already big and brash. It is about to get substantially bigger and brasher. At 8pm on Friday, hundreds of millions of people in India, from tea shops in Mumbai slums to plush Delhi suburbs and thousands of villages in between, will sit down to watch the Deccan Chargers play the Kolkata Knight Riders in the opening match of the third season of the Indian Premier League (IPL).

“If you thought the first two seasons were the ultimate cricket-meets-entertainment blockbusters then you haven’t seen anything yet,” enthused the Financial Express newspaper.

The IPL phenomenon cuts across all barriers of class, caste and income. At the exclusive Tollygunge Club in Kolkata – or Calcutta as it is often still known – staff will take a few hours out while members halt their golf, squash and riding. Both clientele and staff (more surreptitiously) will watch the fast and furious 20-over cricket shown on a big screen on the wall of the main bar. “It doesn’t matter who wins. It’s the game that counts,” said Sajad Mundal, the chief steward. For 10-year-old Anvam Najpal, sipping a soft drink that Mundal had just brought him, the tournament has already started. At his exclusive private school, a mini IPL, with just 10 overs played, is already under way. He is a Deccan Chargers fan. His dad however supports the Delhi Daredevils.

“But we will all watch it together,” he said. “Mum’s not that interested, but she’ll watch it with us. I really like seeing all the different people from all over the world playing together in unity.” More:

The 200 Club

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on February 25, 2010
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The Indian Express front page

India superstar Sachin Tendulkar superbly smashed one-day cricket’s first 50-over double century. Below, from The Indian Express (click on the image to read the Express report on how Sachin prepared for the knock):

In the end, there seemed to be only one force of nature that could have stopped Sachin Tendulkar from reaching the first double century in one-day internationals: Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s inability to get the delivery away for anything less than a boundary. That was apt. Tendulkar owns many records, but they have never been just a matter of numbers. So it is that he again affirmed his special place in cricket by not allowing, in those final overs, any anxiety about the record change the drift of play. His partner was straining to give him the strike, but Tendulkar’s batting did not betray a temptation to get the strike by passing up an opportunity for a run. More:

From The Times of India report headlined “Sachin Tendulkar immortal at 200″:

If devout worshippers had any reason to quibble, it was that there was no one record-shattering innings – Brian Lara has the highest Test score of 400 and Saeed Anwar and the little-known Charles Coventry shared the ODI record of 194.

Just 147 balls later, Tendulkar set the record straight in emphatic fashion. A staggering 2,961 matches and almost 39 years after the first ODI was played – and remember, many ODIs in the early years featured innings of 60 overs each, which gave batsmen more scoring opportunities – the Little Legend finally became the first cricketer to score 200 in a one-dayer, propelled by a record 25 fours in one knock. More:

Shah Rukh Khan vs Shiv Sena

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on February 12, 2010
in India, Movies, Politics, Religion, Sport and environment
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Update: Mumbai calls Sena bluff as movie opens to full house

Multiplex chains in Mumbai will have only a limited release of Shah Rukh Khan’s new film “My Name Is Khan” following threats of violence by the ultra Hindu-nationalist Shiv Sena party. As things stood on Friday noon, single-screen theatres will not show the movie.

Bal Thackeray, the leader of the party, has warned that he will not allow the movie to be released unless the actor apologises for opposing the party’s call to boycott Pakistani cricket players.

Shah Rukh Khan is the owner of the Kolkata Knight Riders Indian Premier League Twenty20 cricket team. He had said Pakistani stars should be included in the Indian Premier League teams. Shiv Sena supporters say that Pakistani players are not welcome in the city after the 2008 terror attacks.

Thousands of police were guarding Mumbai’s cinemas on Friday.

The movie is a classic love story set in the US after the 11 September 2001 attacks, and the Times of India’s critic has given it a rare five-star rating:

Ok, let’s get this straight from the very beginning. It’s Khan, from the epiglotis (read deep, inner recesses), not `kaan’ from the any-which-way, upper surface. In other words, it’s the K-factor — Karan (Johar) and Khan (Shah Rukh) — like you’ve never seen, sampled and savoured before. My Name is Khan is indubitably one of the most meaningful and moving films to be rolled out from the Bollywood mills in recent times. It completely reinvents both the actor and the film maker and creates a new bench mark for the duo who has given India some of the crunchiest popcorn flicks.

The froth of Khan

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on January 31, 2010
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Nadeem F. Paracha at Dawn:

What can one say about Imran Khan? A great former cricketer, a compassionate philanthropist … a sorry excuse for a politician. But his continuing forays into bad politics and tactical blunders can be excused, for he is yet to understand that politics is not a game of cricket, and that the democratic election process does not follow the selection policy he enforced as the captain of the Pakistan cricket squad.

The truth is, Khan’s penchant for picking up talented players seemed to have gone haywire when he decided to pick his early political mentors.

Coming from a highly educated, cultivated, and somewhat liberal background, Khan had slipped into reverse gear by the time he decided to enter politics in the early 1990s. In other words, instead of looking forward to becoming an integral part of a new, democratic, and General Zia-less Pakistan, Khan struck an ideological partnership with shadowy characters who were hell-bent on keeping the country stuck in the 1980s – a decade when Pakistan pulled and damaged all of its important political, economic and social muscles under the stressful weight of a myopic dictatorship and the damaging jihad that a dictatorship sponsored in Afghanistan. More:

Back to square one

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on January 29, 2010
in Cricket, India and Pakistan
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There is outrage in Pakistan over the exclusion of Pakistani cricket players from the latest IPL auction. But where was this sense of ‘outrage’ in the aftermath of 26/11, writes Rajdeep Sardesai in the Hindustan Times. Competitive rage is easy to manufacture in the context of Indo-Pak relations.

Indo-Pak cricket, like diplomatic relations between the two countries, suffers from schizophrenia. Rewind to January 1999 when a Chennai crowd gave a standing ovation to Wasim Akram’s men after they had just beaten India. Six months later, the two countries met again in a world cup match against the backdrop of the Kargil war and fans of both sides abused each other. In 2004, we were treated to a Pakistani crowd singing, “Balaji, zara dheere chalo” every time he ran in to bowl. Eight years earlier, I had watched a Karachi crowd hurl bottles on the field when their team lost to India in a dramatic last over. Two years ago, Sohail Tanvir was the toast of the inaugural Indian Premier League (IPL). Today, Tanvir and his other Pakistani teammates find themselves unwanted by their IPL owners. more

The case of the cricket snub

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on January 26, 2010
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Salil Tripathi in the Wall Street Journal:

Call it the curious incident of the forgotten cricketers. After nearly two hours of a keenly watched auction on Jan. 19, the Indian Premier League’s eight cricket teams bought 11 of the 66 players from 11 countries on offer. But not one Pakistani player was picked.

India and Pakistan have long been enemies on the pitch, but such a public rejection of some of Pakistan’s best players (who are also some of the region’s best players) represents a dangerous new low. The auction process is an important part of the Premier League’s “Twenty20 cricket,” an entertaining, made-for-television, abbreviated form of the sport played in 16 countries.

Twenty20 cricket is not the traditional, seemingly endless version where men in white take a break for tea. Here a match lasts around three hours, with each team playing only 20 overs, trying to amass as many runs as possible and using unconventional techniques. Busty cheerleaders encourage them. And international players are traded just like they are in Major League Baseball or the English Premier League. The changes have drawn new, younger crowds and attracted millions of dollars of television advertising and a recent deal with YouTube. More:

An even pitch

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on January 23, 2010
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Ayaz Memon in Mint-Lounge on India-Pakistan cricketing relations:

My late friend Omar Kureishi (whose crusty voice on radio brought Pakistan cricket alive for millions of followers from the 1950s till his death in 2005) had a simple solution for the subcontinent’s most vexing issue. “Keep the ruddy politicians out, and cricket will keep the people of India and Pakistan together.”

This came shortly after the Karachi one-day match had been disrupted by young men who had run on to the field and assaulted India captain Krishnamachari Srikkanth, ostensibly to advocate the “Kashmir cause”. Like a quintessential cricket romantic, Omar, despite his privileged education and understanding of realpolitik, could be reduced to utter dismay at the volatility of Indo-Pak relations, in which cricket would often become the first casualty.

“In 1961-62,” he related to me, after the Karachi incident, “Hanif Mohammad had his hand slashed by a ruffian’s blade. Why would anybody want to deprive millions of people from watching a master like Hanif, or a young prodigy like Tendulkar (who was making his international debut then) play unless they have been weaned on prejudice?” More

The editorial in Dawn, Karachi: The IPL uproar

It may well be true that reasons of politics sealed the fate of Pakistan’s T20 celebrities. Even so, there is no cause whatsoever for the Pakistani government to question the workings of a private venture in India that is first and foremost a moneymaking enterprise. And even if New Delhi is being duplicitous, as some allege, Islamabad should show more grace and refuse to mix politics and sports. Pakistani fans and players have every right to be outraged. Not so the Government of Pakistan. More:

Also from Dawn: News and comments from the Indian press in the aftermath of the exclusion of Pakistani cricketers from the Indian Premier League.

India-born Pirates pitchers ready to debut

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on July 1, 2009
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Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel, two cricket hopefuls from India who found their way to baseball thanks to a reality television show, are ready to make their debuts as minor-league professionals. An AP report in USA Today:

The Pittsburgh Pirates could soon find out if an investment of $20,000 can produce a couple of million-dollar arms.

Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel, their two India-born pitchers who had never seen a baseball game before being the top two finishers in a TV reality show designed to find potential Major League Baseball arms, are nearly ready to make their professional debuts.

Neither had picked up a baseball, much less thrown one, until little more than a year ago. Aspiring cricket players, they had no idea that American athletes could make so much money playing a sport they knew nothing about.

Now, after a busy year crowded with TV show appearances, basic baseball instruction, fitness workouts, constant throwing and adjusting to a pro athlete’s life in a new country, they are about to take the mound for the Bradenton Pirates of the rookie-level Gulf Coast League. More:

Breakfast with the FT: Nawaz Sharif

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on April 5, 2009
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From the Financial Times:

nawazsharifSettling back in his seat, a picture of calm in his light grey shalwar kameez, Sharif tells us he is much more satisfied as an opposition leader, pushing for true democracy, than he ever was as a prime minister. Sharif is a generous host. The scale of his entertaining is legendary in Pakistan. We were told about an irreverent joke that was doing the rounds in Lahore last month: even as the convoy of protesters drove through the outskirts of the city amid high drama, Sharif would have wanted to stop to point out to his companions his favourite provisioners. He is not, however, tempted by the food on the breakfast trolley. Rather, as we enjoy the savoury pastries and dainty sandwiches on offer, he digresses into his past.

First come the sporting memories. He is an accomplished cricketer, having played First Class matches including against a Rest of the World eleven. He recalls playing a match at the 1993 Commonwealth summit in Zimbabwe with John Major, the then British prime minister, and other ministers. “I was the highest scorer, 36 not out,” he says. He also remembers playing in the 1980s as an opening batsman against a West Indian side that included some of its famously fearsome fast bowlers.

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Imran Khan on Pakistan and politics, Taliban and terrorism

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on March 9, 2009
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In The Times, Alice Thomson and Rachel Sylvester meet Imran Khan, the former Pakistan cricket captain turned politician:

imrankhanFrom the moment Mr Khan heard the news about this week’s attack in Lahore, he was convinced that Pakistani extremists were being made the scapegoats. “Almost all the terrorism taking place here since 2004 when Pakistan sent its army into the tribal areas has been suicide attacks. Last year there were over 100 suicide attacks – but they have a pattern. They are always in retaliation.”

This week’s ambush by 12 gunmen was, he says, different. “They had an escape route – it was well planned. I certainly don’t think this was done by ideological terrorists, motivated to blow themselves up.”

In his view a “foreign element” was almost certainly involved. “It could be India, Afghanistan, the Tamil Tigers. The motive is to damage the state of Pakistan and end cricket here. The shocking thing is that there was so little security for the players.”

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Why cricker is better than sex

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on December 27, 2008
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Harold Pinter, who died on Tuesday, gave his last interview to Andy Bull, of the Guardian, on a subject very dear to the playwright’s heart: cricket:

pinter“I tend to think that cricket is the greatest thing that God created on earth,” Harold Pinter once said, “certainly greater than sex, although sex isn’t too bad either.” No harm, then, that the game should be the subject of his last interview, given in late October at his home in London. His health failing, Pinter was in nostalgic mood, recalling a childhood in Hackney, east London, during the blitz and his time as an evacuee. “I first watched cricket during the war. At one point we were all evacuated from our house when there was an air raid. We opened the door and our garden, with this large lilac tree, was alight all along the back wall. We were evacuated straight away. Though not before I took my cricket bat.

“I used to get up at five in the morning and play cricket. I had a great friend who is still going – he lives in Australia – called Mick, Mick Goldstein. He used to live around the corner from me in Hackney, and we were very close to the River Lea, and there were fields. We walked down to the fields; there’d be nobody about – it would really very early in the morning, and there would be a tree we used as a wicket. We would take it in turns to bat and bowl; we would be Lindwall, Miller, Hutton and Compton. That was the life.”

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Superstar Tendulkar writes the perfect script

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He’s 35 years old and owns practically every batting record in the game, but you couldn’t escape the feeling that this was probably Sachin Tendulkar’s finest hour. Dileep Premachandran in cricinfo:

sachinAs Graeme Swann prepared to bowl the second ball of his 29th over, more than 20,000 people in the stands abandoned their plastic chairs. They were on their feet, creating the sort of bedlam and noise I last witnessed at this very venue seven years ago, when Harbhajan Singh’s squirt past point clinched the most famous of India’s series victories. Swann bowled. The batsman came forward and patted the ball back with almost exaggerated flourish. The crowd was momentarily quieted but the primal scream started again as Swann went back to his mark.

Again, there was sharp turn, but the paddle-sweep that greeted the ball was emphatic. As it streaked to fine leg, the batsman ran down the pitch and punched the air in celebration, before being held aloft by his equally delighted partner. He’s 35 years old and owns practically every batting record in the game, but you couldn’t escape the feeling that this was probably Sachin Tendulkar’s finest hour.

To score the winning runs in a record-shattering chase was special enough, but when that last stroke also brought up your 41st century, it became ineffably so. Boyhood dreams are made of this, and it says a lot about Tendulkar that he has never lost that child-like passion for the game.

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How I finally passed the Tebbit test

The courage, poise and decency of England’s cricketers are irresistible. Tunku Varadarajan in the Times:

If anyone had any doubts that cricket is a magnificent game – or that England (as Britain is called when kitted out in whites) and India are magnificent, humane, manly, kind, resilient, fraternal nations – these were dispelled over the last five days in Chennai (né Madras).

There have been few Test matches more special than the one that concluded there yesterday, and cricket is only part of the reason for that. I write here as an Indian who moved to England as a 16-year-old, and who, even after becoming a subject of Her Britannic Majesty, cheered always for the Indian cricket team – especially when they played against England. Norman Tebbit, one of Maggie Thatcher’s less enlightened ministers, had contempt for my type; but with apologies to Kipling: what should they know of cricket who only England know?

And yet… as the Test match began I found that I was shouting for England. I had, for the first time in my life, passed the infernal “Tebbit test” – which, in a nutshell, decreed that immigrant Britons must not cheer for the land of their forefathers when teams from said lands were playing teams from Britain.

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Long playing record

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on November 1, 2008
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In an age of hype, more perhaps has been asked of Sachin Tendulkar than other greats of the game. In Tehelka, Suresh Menon examines whether the life on the field has kept in step with the myth:

IT IS POSSIBLE that Sachin Tendulkar can walk on water. That wouldn’t surprise a billion Indians, who also probably believe he can catch bullets in his teeth and has X-ray vision. When he was hauled up for ball tampering in South Africa (a technical, rather than a deliberate crime), the whole nation jumped to his defence, and it nearly split the cricketing world. Now Adam Gilchrist has dared to speak the unspeakable – suggesting that Sachin might be human after all, and subject to the pulls and pressures of humankind.

Of course, by the time you read this, order is likely to have been restored. Gilchrist will say Sachin is a great player and a personal friend, and everything he wrote about the player changing his version of what happened during the Symonds-Harbhajan fracas was taken out of context. He will blame it on the media for blowing up the story. And laugh all the way to the bank as his book sells.

What sort of a man is this who can do no wrong? I once read about the footballer Pele being hauled up by a referee – later, the referee was reprimanded for this act. Perhaps, some day an umpire might be officially chastised for giving Tendulkar out leg before. Future biographers might go out of their way to look for stories that show up Tendulkar in poor light, to balance the near-saintly qualities that are in the public domain. They might struggle. The stories they find might merely show that Tendulkar was human after all – and that’s not a bad thing to be.

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Beyond legendary

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on October 18, 2008
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Sachin Tendulkar has broken Brian Lara’s world record for the most runs scored in Test cricket. He has played for two decades, carrying the hopes of a nation, and done it with grace and class. Tendulkar has transcended every other cricket hero there is. Kumar Sangakkara at cricinfo:

I remember playing in a charity game in 2003 at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. Thousands of people turned out to watch the match and the familiar chant filled the ground as he walked out to take strike with Virender Sehwag. However, two overs later, Sachin’s dismissal was followed by pin-drop silence. As he left the field, the only sound was the murmur of the dispersing crowd. For me, that kind of pressure every single day, and the lack of a truly private life, would, I believe, prove too much.

But Sachin, somehow, has taken it in his stride for an incredible 20 years almost. To my mind that ranks as a higher achievement than the long lists of statistical records he has claimed. Playing for India is no easy task. The pressure to perform in every single outing, to win every single match, is tremendous. Magnify that a thousand-fold and that is what Sachin has to deal with.

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A player of two parts

Also in cricinfo, Suresh Menon on why the man who now holds the record for the most runs in Tests is two batsmen in one:

Tendulkar made his debut in Pakistan. Of his team-mates then, one has become an insufferable television commentator, and two others have become good ones; one was convicted of murder and sent to jail, another banned for life for match-fixing. One eliminated the line between whistle-blower and perpetrator, one ran a banned series of matches, another was chairman of selectors. One has dropped out of the public eye and another has turned television actor. But Tendulkar bats on. Longevity is intrinsic to greatness.

At 19, the Mumbai boy was already the world’s best batsman. Interestingly, Tendulkar seemed to agree with this assessment in a quiet, matter-of-fact way. This lack of arrogance possibly caused him to be less destructive in Test cricket than he might have been, but it was a crucial element in his becoming a national icon. Indians don’t like their sporting heroes to be conceited; they give their hearts to modest players who underplay their emotions while performing consistently.

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Saurav Ganguly: The prince with the common touch

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on October 8, 2008
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Saurav Ganguly has announced that he would retire from international cricket at the end of the upcoming home test series against Australia. In cricinfo, Dileep Premachandran says Ganguly’s enduring legacy will be that of a leader who took Indian cricket out of its feudal past.

Saurav Ganguly. / Reuters photo

Saurav Ganguly. / Reuters photo

In the end, the timing of the retirement was as impeccable as the strokes through cover with which he captivated the game’s aficionados in his heyday. Sourav Ganguly’s career will be defined by the games he played, and didn’t play, against Australia, and he will relish the chance to be part of an Indian side that has the opportunity to equal the feats of the team he led so famously seven years ago. As last stands go, this could be a memorable one.

Assuming he plays all four matches, Ganguly will finish with 113 Test caps. After his maiden tour with the Indian team – to Australia in 1991-92 – ended with an unfavourable report from a manager who would subsequently go on to be the BCCI president, even one cap must have seemed a distant dream. When we look back at the furore that accompanied his selection for the tour of England in 1996, it says more about the mindset of the time than it does about Ganguly the cricketer.

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‘I think I have taken the right decision’

Sourav Ganguly speaks to The Telegraph, Calcutta

Q: But why two days before the series?

A: I just wanted it off my back… I can understand the feelings of well-wishers, but I think I’ve taken the right decision. At the right time too. (After a pause) I couldn’t have carried on playing like this (always being under scrutiny)… I hope you’ll understand.

Q: How did you feel when you left the media conference after going public with your decision?

A: Felt light.

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Cricket, Lovely Cricket?

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on September 22, 2008
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Howzat! An enthusiast’s guide to the highs and lows of being a cricket fan. From The Independent:

Nick Hornby’s 1992 debut Fever Pitch, itself indebted to Frederick Exley’s 1968 meditation A Fan’s Notes, made the intelligent fan’s memoir a sort of sub-genre. Ever since, it has been difficult to write about one’s passion for a sport without inviting some comparison to Fever Pitch. Ask me: I’ve been there myself with my memoir, You Must Like Cricket?.

My hunch is that this occurred to Lawrence Booth, one of England’s funniest and most engaging cricket writers, when he was planning his own book. So he presents his memoir of an English cricket fan not as such, but as an addict’s guide to the game, with chapters on the teams, the umpires, the media and so on. He need not have bothered. First, because it’s no bad thing to be compared to Hornby. Secondly, because Cricket, Lovely Cricket? is a wry, self-deprecating and amusing look as much at the “world’s most exasperating game” of the subtitle as at the most exasperating experience of following it – especially if you happen to be an England fan. And I love that question mark, which encapsulates the dualities that underscore the life of a cricket fan – why, as Booth explains, the sport matters so much and yet not at all.

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Female commandos to protect cricketer from his fans

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Andrew Buncombe in The Independent:

Mahendra Singh Dhoni

Mahendra Singh Dhoni

When the India cricketer Mahendra Singh Dhoni went for a haircut in his home town of Ranchi a couple of years ago, so many adoring female fans showed up that the police had to be called.

So when it was announced that he would be returning home once again for three weeks’ rest, the local police decided to take pre-emptive action. Their solution for dealing with the unwanted attention? Give him his own team of female bodyguards.

The 15-strong squad of commandos that have been assigned to protect the player have recently completed training that included warfare and counter-insurgency tactics. Now they will be required to protect the cricketer from fans who will not leave him alone. “It’s certainly an enviable assignment,” one of the giggling female officers told The Times of India as they stood on guard outside the player’s bungalow. “Especially since many of our colleagues are usually assigned to escort politicians.”

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India takes cricket to China

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on April 2, 2008
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From The Times, UK:

It is a game so complex – nay, fiendish – that one would think its popularity among the Chinese would be assured, but for decades it was banned under communism as a pursuit of imperialist lackeys. Now India is taking cricket to China as it attempts to turn its obsession with the game into a global money-spinner.

A first consignment of bats, balls and other paraphernalia will be sent to China in a month or two, according to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). The move follows a request from the Chinese authorities for help in cultivating a game now presented as good for socialist solidarity – a team sport that bonds players.

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Indian cricket’s small town wonders

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on March 9, 2008
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Small towns are reaping the benefit of the BCCI’s initiative to take opportunity to the doorsteps of talent — regardless of where it is located, reports G Shekhar Luthra in Mail Today

Mushrooming private academies and government sports hostels at the grassroots level have also contributed the interminable supply of talent. Since the opportunities were already there, all the young cricketers had to do was lap them up. Take R. P. Singh or Praveen Kumar of Uttar Pradesh for example. The moment they got international opportunity, they seized it with both hands. Now, there is no looking back for these two Men in Blue. Manoj Tiwary of Bengal also comes from a lower- middle class family and had a hard time reaching a stage where he is recognised in millions of households across the country. Unlike in the past, when cricketers had to migrate to bigger cities to get recognition, the present- day players have no such problem, not least because the media has become hyperactive in unearthing talent from all over.

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Ajit Kumar travels to Meerut to find a town proud of its newest star, Praveen Kumar

LOOK dad, this is our SUV.” The extremely expensive, huge machine lies beside a pile of cow dung, right next to an open sewer. But daddy is a proud man. Praveen Kumar has risen to become the latest addition to Team India’s arsenal of hungry, aggressive, no- nonsense cricketers. Two man- of- the- match performances in one week in the recently- concluded Commonwealth Bank series have landed him right in the middle of frenzied media attention and overflowing public gaze. The 21- year- old is better known PK to those close to him. The son of a constable, this Meerutbased lad impressed everyone with his prodigious swing and immaculate control with the white ball.

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Sandeep Narayan finds out what Manoj Tiwary, the son of a class IV railway employee treasures most

A CHEQUE of Rs 58 lakh, an IPL salary of Rs 2.7 crore and numerous free gifts and prizes; yet, the most cherished item Manoj Tiwary says he possesses is a pair of gloves worn by Sachin Tendulkar on his final one- day international in Australia. Therein lies the irony of the whole story. The son of a class four railway employee has just been showered with more riches than he could ever imagine, but all Tiwary talks about is a pair of gloves gifted to him by his childhood idol — besides, of course, the euphoria he felt when he finally donned the Indian colours.

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Goodbye to the summer of spite

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on March 7, 2008
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In Cricinfo Peter English points out lessons for India and Australia following three months of controversy and drama that overshadowed some wonderful cricket 

harbhajansingh.jpg

The comedian Billy Connolly jokes the Queen must think the world smells of fresh paint because everything is new wherever she visits. Until the first week in January, Australia also felt they were adored throughout their country. Crowds always roar when they play, spectators crowd them for autographs and they are pestered for interviews and corporate deals. So they were stunned when the opinions of many dissenters emerged after the dramatic and spectacular Sydney Test victory.

Following issues involving umpiring, race, catching, walking, ungracious celebrations and Anil Kumble’s claim only one side was playing in the spirit of the game, the shock self-analysis began. Australia thought about their behaviour and their results started stuttering. Ricky Ponting, who nobody seriously believed should have been sacked after the second Test, has a delicate period ahead as he balances a win-at-all-costs outlook with his desire for the universal acclaim of his nation.

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Bend it like Ishant

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on March 7, 2008
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Harsha Bhogle in The Indian Express  

Indian cricket has taken giant strides in the world’s toughest testing ground. Some wonderful cricket was played on the ground and it was the attitude that fuelled it as much as the ability. This might be the turning point in our cricket, though the assessment must be made a little later — every event seems momentous in the hours immediately following it.

But as far as I recall, it has been a long time since a set of youngsters took the opportunity that was offered them so spontaneously and that is why I believe the reason for this success goes beyond training on a cricket ground. It has to be symbolic of a larger force, a greater movement. Something bigger than what we saw on a cricket field is taking place in India and that is what makes the present moment so terribly exciting.

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Power games

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on January 29, 2008
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He’s been here, there and everywhere this past week — holding noisy demonstrations against Pervez Musharraf’s meeting with Gordon Brown in London; speaking out against the regime at the Asia Society in New York and castigating the Bush government for propping up the Musharraf government at the National Press Club in Washington.

So why has Imran Khan remained on the fringes of Pakistan politics? Do sportsmen make good politicians and could Imran be the man to watch writes Tunku Vardarajan in a December profile for the Financial Times

Imran Khan is a very unusual man. An arrogantly wonderful cricketer – a former captain of Pakistan and candidate for any all-time cricket dream-team – he is now so immersed in his country’s opposition politics that he was thrown into jail for a few days last month by General Pervez Musharraf.

Khan’s singularity, firstly, has to do with the fact that not many sportsmen go into politics. They ply different trades, athletes and politicians, each demanding great dedication to get to the top. Who straddles the two seemingly unconnected worlds? Sebastian Coe, perhaps, in the contemporary era?

A former middle-distance runner, he is now a Conservative member of the House of Lords, though few regarded him as a serious politician (except perhaps William Hague, his one-time boss and jiu-jitsu sparring partner).

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