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