A poor end to a wonderful year

It is the last day of 2007 and as the Indian team reflects on its poor performance in the Boxing day test, I too am reflecting on the year that was; and unfortunately on the most recent defeat at Melbourne which was Australia’s 15th test match win in a row. Let’s make no mistake about it, this has been an amazingly successful year for Indian cricket. The World Cup demise was a sad one and the inexplicable loss to England in the one day series a bit difficult to understand or explain, however the test series win in England, the T20 triumph and the home series win in both test and one dayers against Pakistan are land mark events that we should not forget in a hurry. Sadly the Boxing day test match was lost on an India friendly track in under four days by a margin of 337 runs and that has rubbed off some of the euphoria of the year’s achievements. But let us look ahead to the rest of the tour although sadly we cannot look at the future without looking back at what went wrong and learn from that.

A good opening
For as long as I can remember, after Sunil Gavaskar and Chetan Chauhan, India have worried about the opening positions and have usually got it wrong. Anil Kumble has got many things right in his brief tenure as captain but he has really done harm to his long term colleague and friend Rahul Dravid in making him open. Dravid seems to be different from the dominant batsman of last year and the last Australian tour. Many of his current problems seem to be in his mind and he has taken backward steps as a batsman after resigning from the captaincy. This is a new Dravid that we are seeing and he is not giving us the same pride that he so regularly gave us. I wish he would be more assertive about his batting and more importantly about his batting slot. Why should he be made to open just to accommodate Yuvraj, however good his form in other forms of the game be? Yuvraj too seemed nervous and ill at ease though he was done in by poor umpiring in the first innings. As for Jaffer, he made Dravid’s job more difficult with his two failures. Let us get Sehwag in, who knows what can happen? Certainly Sehwag himself will have no clue as to what is going to happen. In any case it cannot get worse and at least we will give Rahul Dravid, our most successful batsman overseas for several years now, a proper run in his normal batting slot. Surely he deserves that. Sachin, Saurav and Lakshman all showed glimpses of what they can do. Sadly they did not do what Mathew Hayden did. But I am sure they will all come good soon, hopefully together at Sydney. Yet I think we need to remember one thing. We need to score at more than 3 runs an over if we are to win. At the run rate we maintained in the test just gone by we will have to face the second new ball at 200 and usually we lose wickets with the second new ball as well.

We cannot change drastically
There has been a lot of talk about our poor fielding, our poor running between the wickets and our inability to rotate the strike. I believe the last is a big issue that we handle adequately in the one day version of the game and must do it here as well. After all, many of the players are common to both versions of the game. I do not think anyone has the courage to tell Saurav Ganguly to ground his bat while he is trying to make his ground, after all we do not have a coach. It is amazing how true is the dictum that people do not change and at best they change for the worse, but if he continues running in the same haphazard manner between wickets Saurav could beat Inzy at his own game and become the worst runner between wickets of all time! I wish Saurav would watch the footage of his running between the wickets in the last game. But to come back to our fielding, while we are hardly agile I think we should get in more substitutes in like England did in 2005 and Yuvraj can come in to field at Sydney with Karthik and we can rest our big three provided they make runs! But we do need to look at the positions of our fielders who are unlikely to become the fleetest of foot in two days. Maybe they should stand closer or walk in faster as singles are being taken so easily, there is no pressure on Australia who consistently scored at four runs an over. I think the Indians [particularly the younger ones] need to watch Brad Hogg’s hand better instead of shooting off their mouths about how he is no Warne or McGill. Something tells me that the Indians play classic leg spin better than unorthodox chinamen bowlers like him and he may be more successful than the bigger reputations of Warne et al. Lets just hope I am wrong and we will take him to the cleaners at Sydney.

So what do we do?
Lets just forget what happened at Melbourne and move on to 2008 and try to prevent the Aussies from equaling their own record of 16 straight test match wins. Let us get in Sehwag for Yuvraj. Let Dravid bat at three. Let us play Irfan Pathan, it will strengthen our batting, bowling and even our fielding. Let us hope that Ponting continues to be Bhajji’s bunny as the sobering thought is that Australia won by 337 runs even though he made only 7 in both innings put together. I am sure Kumble will win the toss this time, let us bat and put runs on the board, it is the only way to put pressure on Australia. Let us not be intimidated by Australia, Kumble showed us the way on the first day, the others just need to follow their leader. And finally let us hope and pray that the beginning of 2008 is better than the end of 2007 for Indian cricket.

(Ramanujam Sridhar is the CEO of brand-comm and the author of One Land, One Billion Minds).

Heads up Australia! Here we come!!

• Before you can say Woolangabba it will be time for the Boxing day test match. The Indian team has been announced and it looks like the Indian selectors are reading Ian Chappell’s column, for they have got back Veerendra Sehawag into the team. Of course how someone who is not in the original 24 can make it to the final 16 is explained by our motto and guiding philosophy, “We are like that only” (Rama Bijapurkar solpa adjust maadi). But back to the tour of Australia and our own team morale, clearly it must be at an all time high as we have beaten Pakistan (however depleted and however divided) at home after a small matter of 27 years and more significantly beaten England in England after 17 years. And if we are to beat Australia we need to be confident perhaps not of the brash Ganguly variety but perhaps the more understated Kumble variety, or so one hopes! Can we beat Australia at their den, where they have not been beaten since the Golden era of West Indian cricket? Yes we can, however audacious that sounds today if we do a few things right and how easy it sounds sitting in front of my Sony Vaio and sipping chai! But how do we do this?
  
  In transition
  Australia are a formidable team and perhaps more so at home in front of screaming fans in their sea of gold and yellow, who wish everyone goes down under the Aussie juggernaut. Yet they are not the same invincible team of 2007. Players like McGrath, Warne, Langer and Martyn cannot be replaced overnight. Suddenly after a decade of Warne magic Australia is talking about a four man pace attack. How boring! Isn’t South Africa already there with this sameness? I strongly believe that they will be hard pressed to bowl the Indians out consistently in pitches that have slowly and surely become so batsman-friendly that wins if not draws are actually a possibility if the Indians play to their potential. People like Michael Vandort and Kumar Sangakkara have demonstrated just last month that it is possible to score and score heavily against the Aussies. The Indians are batting as well as they have ever been. Ganguly is oozing with confidence and fit enough to bowl after scoring a century! Wonders as they say never cease! Sachin has a point to prove I am sure to himself if to no one else and Dravid must be smarting at his own recent lack of success. Throw in a VV ‘Special’ Laxman whom the Aussies dread and an irrepressible S Yuvaraj, then you have a batting line up (on paper at least) that is extremely reassuring. Yet I suppose our normal diffidence must assert itself. The opening pair is still uncertain and if we lose early wickets it could be back to our own sorry past. If Jaffer can get past his early jitters, I am sure he will score and score heavily and who knows what Sehawag can do, not even himself. They used to say that our great Indian match winner B.S. Chandrasekar did not know what ball he was going to bowl, which explains his enormous success. I dare say the same thing could be said about Sehawag’s batting. If he is emotionally fit, he can make a difference. Maybe our great comeback king Saurav Ganguly should have a chat with him. God knows what a Gary Kirsten can tell him even if he makes it to Australia before the series is decided! But all these ageing warriors make for a pathetic fielding side and an even more disastrous set of runners between wickets. We will bleed runs and must do the simple things right. Let me just
  explain how things can go wrong if not enough attention is paid to detail. In the recent test match at Hobart, Marvan Attaputta who is currently in Chandigarh with the ICL hooked Brett Lee and was caught on the fence. Neither he nor his partner Sangakkara ventured an inch outside their creases even though the ball hung in the air for ages. Of course he was caught as one would expect in Australia and yet because they did not have the cricketing sense to cross over, the right handed Jayawardene received a swinging yorker first up only to lose his off stump and watched his team lose the game and the series from the comfort of the dressing room. I am sure the well-settled left-hander Sangakkara would have handled that delivery if only they had the good sense to cross over. It is in moments like these that matches are lost and won. India must seize the moment every time. It is difficult to come back in Australia and a poor session could mean that we are on the back foot. Lets hope that it is the Aussies are on the back foot and they are not cutting or pulling!
  
  A Don’t Do list for the Indian team
  Do not read the newspapers while on tour.
  Do not watch TV. If you must watch TV then see “Desperate Housewives”
  Do not talk to strangers (if they are Australian)
  Do not engage in conversation with cabbies.
  Do not sledge with the crowd. That is a battle that you cannot win.
  Do not get sidetracked by sledging. Let the bat or the ball do the talking.
  Do not respond if they ask you where Sreesanth is.
  Do not send anyone who knows English to talk to the media. How about RP Singh?
  Of course if we do well Saurav should handle post match conferences and be late for the media briefing!
  Do not win the toss and field for God’s sake!
  Do not get run out.
  Do not bowl short to Ricky Ponting.
  Never, ever declare even if you are 900!
  And finally, do not come back if you lose! (Okay not even I can give all nuggets, can I. Just ignore the last one. We will always love you, but perhaps more if you beat the Aussies)
  Remember you have a billion people who want you to win and remember you have support from South Africa, Sri Lanka, New Zealand, Zimbabwe, England and the West Indies and even Bangladesh who might be a bit reluctant given the generosity of our aid!
  Yes, heads up Australia, we are arriving shortly on platform No.1!

(Ramanujam Sridhar is the CEO of brand-comm and the author of One Land, One Billion Minds).

Entertainment thy name is BCCI

It is common knowledge that the BCCI is the only cricketing board that resisted twenty-twenty cricket. But they seem to be great admirers of the format and follow it in their functioning to the “t”. A twenty-twenty game has at least twenty twists in it and provides completely unexpected turns and keeps the viewers on their seats and constantly entertains them. The BCCI has decided that since people like Veerendra Sehawag no longer entertain us, they must take it upon themselves to keep us spell bound. Let me explain and take you through the last few months of cricket in India and forgive me if I missed out on a few highlights. The worst performance we have had in recent times has been our ignonimous showing in the world cup which was followed by the Greg Chappel fiasco. Of course our colonel went hammer and tongs at the seniors and the poor performance of the team. All our BCCI officials talks are with the media and never with the individuals who need to be talked to. I wonder if anyone in Indian cricket ever talks to their family members before talking to the media. I am sure if Vengsarkar’s son does badly in his school or college exams his father would talk to the Times of India first about his disappointment with his poor performance. The BCCI of course would be watching silently while everyone talked nineteen to the dozen to the media. Then we had a wonderful tour of England winning a historic test series and again the BCCI was restrained in its praise, if at all, and our revered colonel went to town about why Rahul Dravid should bat at NO.3 and again to the media who had a field day. Rahul Dravid as any self respecting individual would do, resigned from the captaincy. In the meanwhile the young brigade had a historic world cup win at South Africa and the board went overboard in its celebrations and rewards forgive the pun! The IPL threatened to upset the apple cart and the BCCI realizing that its money was under threat threw the kitchen sink at it. IPL now seems to be going the ABCL [Amitabh Bachchan Corporation Ltd] way. God help it. Someone from the BCCI said Dhoni was the obvious choice for captaining the test team and then someone from the BCCI said he is not ready. Poor Dhoni must have been wondering whether he was coming or going. So the BCCI ran to Sachin Tendulkar who is no longer the naïve, wide eyed wonderkid of Indian cricket. He thought about it and politely declined. Our wonderful board got it right finally and still managed to mess it up. They appointed Kumble, but only for the Pakistan series. Sadly even the PCB seems to think more long term as it has appointed Shoaib Malik till 2008. Hopefully Shoaib Mallik will be a decent captain one of these days. In the midst of all this they dropped Rahul Dravid who batted brilliantly in the one days in England, based on a few matches against the Australians. They said they had dropped Ganguly for a game while poor Dhoni said the former captain was being “rested”. After all he is sensitive and that is something that no one can ever accuse the BCCI of being. Then the Board suddenly realized that a lot of the problems came from the out of turn and off the cuff remarks made by the selectors [read Colonel] and gagged them. The colonel was chafing at the bit or so the media told us. Then the BCCI said there was no need to have a selection meeting and said they could select the team over the phone. At the time of writing the colonel is sulking and may leave or so the media tells us. We do hope that the media is right for once. But the piece de resistance has been the appointment of the coach. The BCCI has excelled itself in appointing of all people “Gary Kirsten”! I am sure the only person more surprised than me is the dour South African opener. Only the BCCI could have come up with this masterstroke and what makes things even better is the fact that the new coach will visit the Indian team fleetingly in its most important tour of recent times: the Australian tour. He will start from March 2008 after which the Indian team will probably play Zimbabwe! I am sure Kirsten’s karma is good. Imagine getting the most high paying job (officially) in Indian cricket without even applying for it. And if media is to be believed Sunil Gavaskar is responsible for this. The player who has been a thorn in all other teams competing with India continues to be a thorn in the flesh of Indian cricket! How fortunate we are to have both Vengsarkar and Gavaskar in our midst long after they have outlived their usefulness!

More on the coach
I am sure the coach saga is something that must have consumed more tons of newsprint and television time than the progress of the Indian economy. Even Ekta Kapoor could not have come up with something which had such long legs! So many characters, so many applicants, so many meetings and finally whom do we have? An important member of the South African team that kept choking against the Australians in key encounters and someone who has never coached in his life will now join the team after the Australian tour. Will the BCCI ever learn? Will they stop entertaining us? The rest of the cricketing world must be watching all this with barely concealed mirth and thanking their stars that the greatest enemy of Indian cricket actually lies within. Imagine what a force the Indian cricket team would have been without the BCCI fighting tooth and nail for its decline! But then imagine how boring our lives would have been!

(Ramanujam Sridhar is the CEO of brand-comm and the author of One Land, One Billion Minds).

An Australian summer with a difference

It is 5.25 am on Thursday the 8th of November and I am up with a cup of hot tea in my hands, my eyes on the television screen waiting for the test season to begin. For as long as I can remember this is a ritual I have followed. The fact that it drives my wife up the wall has not deterred me from being up and ready to watch the first ball of the Australian test season for years now. In the eighties though it was more in hope, as till 6 am Indian standard time one could only hear the hiss and crackle of Radio Australia or the ABC and not the clear tones of Alan McVilgray’s commentary or the expert comments of Lindsay Hassett. The season of 2007-08 however could be different for Australia and the rest of the cricket following world as it would not be Glenn McGrath who would open the bowling, nor Justin Langer who would be running out to the crease ahead of Mathew Hayden and significantly there would not be the theatrical appealing of Shane Warne to follow when Australia had to bowl or the stylish stroke play of Damien Martyn. If the expectation was that Australia would stutter against Sri Lanka, they sadly did not at the Gabba. They won by a small margin of an innings and 40 runs and cantered to their thirteenth straight test match win in a row. Phil Jacques who has been waiting in the wings for ages for one of the openers to break a leg, scored exactly 100 and Mitchell Johnson who took the new ball took crucial wickets. Significantly Stuart MacGill got his 200th test wicket with a classic leg break that turned a mile with an admirable loop that would have gladdened the heart of V V Kumar, a bowler of my time and home state, yes Madras! Ponting, unlike some of his earlier counterparts enforced the follow on and the match went on till lunch after the fifth day thanks to the inclement weather and some unexpected resistance from Vandort, the tall, gangling left-hander. Muralitharan got two wickets closer to Warne’s record and is now within shouting distance, though Australia will resist his bid stoutly at Hobart and Cricket Australia has already blocked news agencies from covering the games at least till the time of writing. I am sure the Englishmen will oblige as they normally do when they tour the troubled islands later this month and photographers will be waiting in Sri Lanka to capture the exploits of the record-breaking off spinner. So the Australian dominance continues as they won the first test match without breaking into a sweat although they did get a bit wet. Australia have not lost a test match at the Gabba since 1988, a reflection as much of their dominance as the reluctance of the rest of the world to challenge them at home and outside.

On to Hobart and I had to get up half an hour earlier as the match started at 5 am Indian standard time. Australia won but not with the same embarrassing ease that they had exhibited at Brisbane. Sangakkara who was injured at Brisbane played a mind-boggling innings but still could not prevent an Australian win, which took their record to 14 consecutive wins in a row! The team that will complete the rest of the Australian summer will be our own team that is led by Anil Kumble and it looks on course to beat the Pakistanis quite easily. Here I am getting ahead of myself but clearly this Pakistan team is sad, striven by strife, unable to field to save its life and missing our brilliant runner between wickets –Inzy! Pakistan has to play out of its skins to win the remaining two test matches and India must play as badly as they can do in our worst nightmares to lose! Neither of these scenarios seems too likely to me today as Pakistan has just lost the first test by six wickets and unless we play really badly we should win the series quite comfortably.

Kumble the short-term captain
Typically the BCCI or is it the selectors, whoever it was, started with their grandiose long term thinking of appointing Kumble the captain for only the three-match test series against Pakistan. What a show of confidence in a new leader! What a way to treat our most committed cricketer and leading wicket taker who has shown more resolve in the face of adversity than lesser cricketing mortals in India who have received greater recognition. But such is the mettle of the man that he will take it in his stride and actually use it as an incentive to do even better. He has started brilliantly by being the leading wicket taker in the first test, batting responsibly and using Saurav with great flair.

We can upset Australia
Kumble can lead India to a great win over Australia and stop the juggernaut in its tracks like Saurav’s team did here at home. For that we need to make runs and a lot of runs. Australia struggled at Hobart with an unfit McGill on a good batting wicket. All the games we will play in will have good wickets, albeit with a little bounce, definitely more than what we are used to. But people like Dravid, Sachin and Lakshman have all scored heavily in Australia and can do so again. May be Sehwag too could rise to the occasion. Harbhajan in my view will have a limited role and at Sydney we should play Murali Kartik or Piyush Chawla, though how we will travel with four spinners seems to be a big question mark. Muralitharan’s limited success on the recent tour makes one believe that wrist spinners and left armers might have a larger role to play in Australia. Kumble has the experience and the maturity to not get drawn into pointless controversies or back off in the face of hostility on and off the pitch. He is a wily old fox and Australia will be wary of him. In fact the mind games have started. This could be our biggest challenge. Will we return as heroes conquering the Holy Grail or return like other teams with our tails between our legs? Write to me.

(Ramanujam Sridhar is CEO, brand-comm, and the author of One Land, One Billion Minds.)

Help! There’s a sneak in the dressing room!

Can you remember the bloke you hated most at school? The most reprehensible? The emperor of Pittsville? Surely you couldn’t have forgotten him! The class sneak! The guy who ratted on your most innocent [!] capers and turned them into federal offences. The guy who got you into trouble and who often ensured that you stayed late or wrote impositions. I always used to wonder what the motivation for those creeps used to be. Now I know. It is the royalty on the sale of books! Duncan Fletcher the former coach of England has turned out to be only slightly less diabolical than Robert Mugabe, the dictator of the country that he belongs to by ratting on England’s premier all rounder Andrew Flintoff in his forthcoming book, making him out to be a compulsive drinker who amongst other things came drunk for practice.

Duncan’s claim to fame

Duncan Fletcher was the English coach when England won back the ashes after 17 long years in the summer of 2005. He was rated by some Englishmen at least (not by Geoffrey Boycott definitely) as the greatest thing that happened to English cricket. He cocked a snook at the rattled Ricky Ponting by frequently having substitute fieldsmen for his tired stars and one of the substitutes actually had the gall to run out Ricky Ponting with, horror of horrors, a direct shy at the stumps. Yet my submission is that England won because they played out of their skins and Australia played a little below their best. England had an outstanding pace bowling quartet in Harmison (yes Harmison), Hoggard, Simon Jones and most significantly Andrew Flintoff. Australia dropped chances, had the worst of the umpiring and the rest was history. It is also probably worthwhile to recall the contribution of Troy Cooley the Australian born bowling coach who revived the oriental magic of reverse swing. Well all that changed in 2007 as England lost narrowly (0-5) in Australia. This was followed by an equally disastrous world cup campaign where England played marginally better than a hapless India. Duncan Fletcher who is alleged to be the highest paid English coach lost his job and some might say deservedly so.

An assessment of the coach

Enough has been written about the value or otherwise of the coach to a cricket team. It has been argued that the Australians could win even if Ricky Ponting’s mom coached them! Mind you no one said Shane Warne’s mom! But lets look at more mortal teams like England. The new regime of Fletcher and Vaughan which won back the Ashes certainly infused a lot of aggression in the English cricket team whether it was hitting Justin Langer on the head with a bouncer or striking Ricky Ponting on the cheek with a snorter or throwing the ball furiously at Mathew Hayden and hit him when he was within the crease. Aggression in batting and bowling is the way to beat Australia, not sledging and England got under the collective Aussie skin in 2005. How much of that is attributable to the coach is a matter of conjecture though Duncan Fletcher would like use to believe that he was the architect of this transformation. But what is not up for conjecture is that England definitely lost the Ashes in 2007 by such a wide margin because of Duncan Fletcher’s preference for Ashley Giles who kept Monty Panesar out of the team till the Ashes were almost lost. The reason? Giles batted better and fielded better! Fletcher was a defensive coach who did not have faith in his front line batsman. Hence his preference for Geraint Jones as well, who must be the worst international wicket keeper I have seen. The same flawed thinking is apparent in some of the twenty-twenty specialists like Darren Maddy who are so desperately out of their depth in international cricket and yet are lions in the domestic competition. Duncan Fletcher did not really care for the one day form of the game and it showed in the attitude of the entire English team who came to India to play the Champions trophy simply because they had been sent to play it. They played distractedly with their eyes on the Ashes which they sadly lost 5-0. Nothing can take away Duncan Fletcher’s achievements in being the coach for the Ashes winning English team. But it is only fair to talk of the poor one day record when he was coach, the world cup fiasco and the ashes disaster.

Is it the money?

I am certainly not going to read Duncan Fletcher’s new book because I think it is just not the done thing to bring the former English captain who has given his everything for English cricket, injuries et al and who probably had more to do with winning the Ashes than Duncan Fletcher ever had as an irresponsible drunk. I dare say we live in challenging times and everyone has choices which are often difficult to make. Yet some basic principles cannot be compromised whatever the likely gains. Clearly Duncan Fletcher would not be able to meet his school going grand child (if he has one) in the eye. Imagine having a granddad who is a sneak!

(Ramanujam Sridhar is CEO, brand-comm, and the author of One Land, One Billion Minds).

Tendu! My Tendu!

It was the fourth day of the Oval test and India surprisingly had decided to bat again. I was at the airport trying to take a flight to Chennai. As I had nothing to do, I parked myself in front of the TV set hoping to catch some action till some airline attendant physically pushed me on board. As my luck would have it, Tendulkar played on to James Anderson and was bowled. It was not a pretty sight with the stumps in complete disarray. I sat in shocked silence even as a couple of co-watchers or participants in my agony said “he has been bowled quite a few times in the last couple of years”.. “and lbw as well” added another. I was too stunned to react as I watched another immortal post war batsman make his way back at the Oval perhaps never to return to the same venue to play a test match. Bradman’s duck as he was bowled by Eric Hollies came to mind as did Bradman’s comment that Tendulkar reminded the great man a lot of his own playing style as a youngster. My mind went back to an Amul Hoarding which used to read “Tendu, Ten don’t” , a reference doubtless to the dependence of the Indian cricket team on Tendulkar to survive if not win matches. Luckily Saurav Ganguly did what many Indian cricketers failed to do in the past on that Sunday and India drew a match that they could have won. Or perhaps Rahul Dravid knew more about the Indian batting’s frailty in chasing a total than I do .Be that as it may, we won a rubber abroad against England, a team ranked higher than us and a team that has beaten almost every team at home in recent years including Australia. But let’s return to Tendulkar and his current standing. Is the immortal batsman who made bowlers tremble and gave captains sleepless nights merely a functional batsman today who will help hold the Indian middle order together? Are his best days behind him? Is he being plagued by the demons in his mind? Is he hanging in there refusing to see the signs of the effects of having borne a billion people’s hopes for so long? One thing is clear - he is not the same batsman who took Shane Warne to the cleaners at Chepauk on a wearing track or the same batsman who dismantled Shoaib Akthar at the World Cup in 2003.

The risk in having a different point of view

Writing about Indian cricket critically can be putting your hand into a hornet’s nest as Mike Atherton discovered recently. Writing about Tendulkar can be several times more arduous, or is the right word hazardous? People like Ian Chappell faced a lot of flak when they wrote about Sachin Tendulkar and how it was time for him to take a long, hard look at himself. When the BSE index scales 15,000 it is hardly seen as significant as Tendulkar’s batting record, such is the status of the little man in this country. Another recent article, again by Atherton is interesting. He feels that Tendulkar still continues to learn and adapt .On being caught fending off a rising delivery he has started taking deliveries on his body and on occasion his helmet. He has eliminated the hook entirely from his armoury. On being given out lbw a couple of times for not offering a stroke to Monty Panesar, he now makes a conscious attempt to play the ball. We must not forget that a younger ,more dominant Sachin Tendulkar had taken major precautions practicing against Warne’s fizzing legbreaks, pitched outside the leg stump by playing on similar worn out surfaces in Chennai before the Chepauk test against Mark Taylor’s Australians. Clearly he is the master of his craft and sensible enough to not let his ego get the better of him. If he has to buckle down to the task he will do it even if it is painful to watch.

Who is to decide?

Clearly a number of reasons can be advanced for Sachin to stay on in the game. He has been one of India’s most successful batsmen in the recent series against England. There are not too many talented young players banging at the door. Clearly India needs him in the dressing room and as a legend to lean back on. But still one feels a sense of unease. Is the great man lingering on? Is he being guided by his country’s needs? Is some sponsor milking him to the last drop, in the same manner that he milked bowlers for years? My reasoning is simple. Tendulkar has given me and thousands of other Indians enormous pleasure, joy and pride in our country. He represented the new resurgence of India which today has become a reality in the world of economics at least, if not always on the cricket field. My image of him is a dominant batsman who on occasion terrorized bowlers and who always made for great viewing.

He has broken every batting record that is there to be broken. But today he seems careworn and only exhibits his earlier exuberance when he is bowling. I would like to remember him as India’s greatest, most punishing batsman and the scourge of teams rather than a person who seems to bat from memory and seems a far cry from the young kid whom we keep seeing every day on Star Cricket. If only they stopped showing the best of Tendulkar things might not seem so bad!! I hope I am wrong .I hope he can treat Lee and Tait with the same disdain that he reserved for some other Australian bowlers .The answer as always lies with the little master. Will he or Won’t he walk away at the right time? Only time will tell.

The author is Ramanujam Sridhar, CEO of brand-comm

Is the “Wall” crumbling?

The Indian tour of England, at least the serious part will be over today. I know ourpre-occupation with the shorter version of the game in this part of the world, and yet having been born in 1952 and having seen, heard or read of some of the greatest test matches of all time, I believe that test cricket is the real McCoy. India had the opportunity yesterday of nailing England in what turned out to be dream conditions for seam and swing but ended up batting again. The result? A pathetic reply, headed by a captain who probably had his worst day with the bat for as long as I can remember. I am sure he would like to forget this day in his life. If only we had selective amnesia! But I think Dravid should be the last person to complain as he has taken the decision, (if not the think tank of the team) he is responsible for the collective mess that we almost find ourselves in. I know that it is no fun being captain of a cricket mad country like India where thousands of passionate and often underemployed (here I speak only for myself) people are waiting to scrutinize every action and analyse every decision till they are paralysed! But the move to bat again whatever the justification, to me at least seems to smack of negativity which incidentally was a feature of Dravid’s batting yesterday. Sadly his batting and captaincy till this appalling decision has been fairly positive. The results are there for us to see as well.

Why? Oh Why?

Dilip Vengsarkar the chairman of the selection committee in a statement later said sealing the series was the first priority. So who is calling the shots, the captain on the field or the Chairman of the Selection Committee? Or is the captain there just to call “heads” or “tails”? We need to remember that India was ahead by over three hundred runs with just two days of play left, with the possibility of rain which is as likely in England as Sreesanth losing his run up!!. At the back of the minds of captains who make decisions like these must lie the very special innings of our own VVS Laxman. But those were different climes and different times. Our bowlers were reasonably fresh yesterday. If media is to be believed, India had decided not to enforce the follow on Saturday evening itself. But surely there was scope for a rethink. Or is our strategy so cast in stone that we are impervious to changing conditions and new opportunities?

Negativity the bane of Indian cricket.

The problem with Indian cricket very often is the mindset. This is thanks to generations of cricketers who were happy to avoid defeat at any cost. Leading the pack is our own Sunil Gavaskar. I am quite sure that some of us do not believe in the philosophy of the Nike slogan “You never win silver, you only lose gold” (At least that is what I remember of it). We had the option of winning comfortably, ensuring that the team that was down was out, coming back heroes with a 2 nil victory, the chance to genuinely become the number 2 test team in the world, but are likely to come back almost second best. England has to merely draw today or the elements have to intervene as they did at Lords for England to feel “well it was a close series, we almost won at Lords”. Look at what a positive mindset has done to Surav Ganguly. I have been fairly critical of him in the past but today I have the highest regard for him. I wish some of his positive mental attitude would rub off on Sachin Tendulkar who runs the risk of ending his career as a struggler, striving valiantly to live up to his own high standards as body and perhaps more critically mind delve in the realms of negativity. I think Rahul Dravid should learn from Ricky Ponting. In 2005 when Australia gave up the ashes after 18 long years or more, so it seemed, Ponting’s leadership came under scrutiny. He was leading by committee. Frequent conferences were held in the middle of the overs even, amongst senior players. The results showed up. But what happened afterwards? Today Ponting is one of Australia’s most successful leaders in a country which has produced amazing captains like Mark Taylor and Ian Chappell who are there in the media boxes as well. Rahul is a wonderful batsman, perhaps the best we have produced. He is a gentle leader who leads by example. He can make a transition to greatness as a leader only by becoming more assertive and more positive. He should take a cue from his own one day batting of recent times. I still hope that Indian wins today. They well might. Much rather that I have egg on my face than Rahul Dravid. He is too nice a person for that!!

Ramanujam Sridhar is the CEO of brand-comm