How India fares in Tests at home and abroad

cricket-5251804_1280The last time a visiting team won a Test on Indian soil…
Sri Lanka: Never.
Bangladesh: Never.
Zimbabwe: Never.
New Zealand: 1988.
West Indies: 1994.
Pakistan: 2005.
South Africa: 2010.
Australia: 2017.
England: 2021.

The last time India won an away Test…
Pakistan: 2004.
Zimbabwe: 2005.
New Zealand: 2009.
Bangladesh: 2010.
Sri Lanka: 2017.
South Africa: 2018.
West Indies: 2019.
Australia: 2021.
England: 2021.

What was it about Dhoni then, eh?

cup-1015644_1280As captains…

Sourav Ganguly won exactly Zero finals in tournaments that involved 4 or more teams.

MS Dhoni won 12 finals in tournaments that involved 4 or more teams.

Virat Kohli won exactly Zero finals in tournaments that involved 4 or more teams.

The Dhoni list…

2007 T20 World Cup

2010 Asia Cup

2010 IPL

2010 Champions League Twenty20

2011 ODI World Cup

2011 IPL

2013 Champions Trophy

2014 Champions League Twenty20

2016 Asia Cup

2018 Asia Cup

2018 IPL

2021 IPL

That’s 6 leagues and 6 international tournaments.

Dhoni was also the first captain to take India to the ICC No. 1 rankings in Tests, ODIs and T20s.

Fun fact…
Number of cricketing finals won by Team India in tournaments featuring 4 or more teams from 1996-2021 without Dhoni
= ZERO

Olympic Gold Medal won, now time for a World Cup

tokyo-olympics-4784972_960_720There was a peculiar jinx when it came to sports and politics in India. Every Olympic Gold Medal and Cricket World Cup was won when there was a Congress Prime Minister.

Just look at the list…
1948 Hockey Gold: Nehru.
1952 Hockey Gold: Nehru.
1956 Hockey Gold: Nehru.
1964 Hockey Gold: Shastri.
1980 Hockey Gold: Indira.
2008 Shooting Gold: Manmohan.

You can argue that most of our hockey golds came early on when only the Congress used to rule. But even if you count from 1977, when the continuous Congress rule ended, then the only 2 golds had been under Congress PMs.

The same was with the cricketing World Cup.
1983: Indira.
2007: Manmohan.
2011: Manmohan.
The only hockey World Cup was also won under Indira in 1975.

Apart from the World Cup, the ICC has been hosting many other global tournaments from 1998. 1998-2021, the Congress has ruled for only 10 years. But even here they score.
ICC Knockout Trophy 2000: India lost in the final when Vajpayee was PM.
ICC Champions Trophy 2002: Final washed out. We shared the trophy technically, but didn’t win the final outright.
ICC Champions Trophy 2017: Final lost when Modi was PM.
2019-21 ICC Test Championship: We lost the final when Modi was PM.
The only ICC Champions Trophy final we won outright was when Manmohan was PM in 2013.

In a way you could call it a 70+-year-old jinx.
But now Neeraj Chopra has shattered this jinx in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics by winning the Javelin Gold. This is a stupendous achievement because athletics is probably the most competitive arena around. Forget every country: It is intensely fought over in every school in the world. Billions have tried their hand at some athletic discipline or another.
To make matters even greater, this was our greatest Olympics ever with 1 Gold, 2 Silvers and 4 Bronzes for a total of 7 medals and many hard-fought fourth positions in diverse sports like women’s hockey and golf.

Now it’s time to break the World Cup jinx and India should win the ICC T20 World Cup later this year.

Why Djokovic’s the ultimate all-time great

Roger Federer & Rafael Nadal have 20 men’s Grand Slam singles titles each. Novak Djokovic is close on their heels with 19 titles and is the youngest of the troika at 34. He has plenty of time on his side to go way beyond both of them.

Here is a list of things where Djoko has already outdone Fed-Rafa…

Djokovic1. Djoko has beaten both Federer and Nadal in all 4 Grand Slams.

Federer has never beaten Nadal in any French Open. The two never met in the US Open. But what of Djokovic? He has beaten Federer in at least one match in the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open. Fed-Djoko have met 3 times in Wimbledon finals. Djoko leads 3-0.

Djoko beat Nadal in three straight final line-ups: 2011 Wimbledon, 2011 US Open and 2012 Australian Open. Later he beat Nadal in the quarters of the 2015 French Open and then again in the 2021 semis. That’s 4/4 Grand Slams for the 2/2 of the “greatest” players!

2. Dominates the trivalry in terms of one-on-ones.

Federer’s nemesis is Nadal. The two have met 40 times and Nadal leads a good 24-16. However it is only Djoko who has the better of all of the rivals he has played with after he came into form (he had a few failed rivalries only at the beginning of his career). Djoko and Nadal have met 58 times, which is an Open era record and Djoko leads 30-28. Anyone having 30 wins against anyone is also a men’s tennis record.

With the all-time great Federer, Djoko leads 27-23. Interestingly in 2011, he met Federer-Nadal 11 times, winning 10 of those matches! More importantly in all finals, Djokovic leads Federer 13-6 and Nadal 15-12. Did you know that only one person in Grand Slam men’s singles history has 11 losses to one player? No prizes for guessing that it’s Federer who lost to Djoko. Overall with Andy Murray its 25-11, Stan Wawrinka 19-6 and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 18-6.

Tennis balljpg3. Held all four Grand Slams at once.

Rod Laver was a legend who did a calendar Grand Slam first as an amateur in 1962, then as a professional in 1969. However after that for decades, nobody managed to win all four at a stretch. Andre Agassi became the first to do a career Grand Slam in 1999. He was emulated by Federer in 2009 and Nadal a year later.

Djoko won the following titles back to back: 2015 Wimbledon, 2015 US Open, 2016 Australian Open and 2016 French Open. In the process he became the first person since 1969 to hold all four Grand Slam titles. That’s after a good 47 years! He is also the only player in men’s tennis history to hold these Grand Slams on three different surfaces at the same time. In more all-round records, Djoko is the only player with 9+ semis and 72+ wins overall in each of the Grand Slams.

4. Two Grand Slams each.

Djoko is the only men’s player in the Open Era to have won at least 2 each of all 4 Grand Slams. He will play for a few years more and if he picks up one more French Open, then he would have won 3 in each and that could be one record which could stand for really a long time. He is also the only person in history to have entered at least 6 Grand Slam finals each.

5. Highest ATP ranking points ever.

Djoko has these short bursts where he looks near invincible. Like the time he won four straight Grand Slams. The same is with the ATP ranking points. He is the only person in history to have crossed ATP ranking points of 16000 in 2015 (if you win each and every tournament you play in a year, then you can go to 21000). To put things in perspective, when Djoko had 16950, that was more than the No. 2 + No. 3 combined (Andy Murray and Federer).

In 2015 Djoko won 3 Grand Slams, 6 masters and 11 titles. He ended the year in style winning the World Tour Finals title and became the first to win 4 straight end-of-year finals tournaments. He also created another world record that season, beating 31 Top 10 players. Earlier in 2011, when Federer and Nadal were at their peak, he won 41 straight matches, the best after John McEnroe’s 42 in 1984. He had another such burst in 2018-20.

6. The only man to win all 9 ATP World Tour Masters 1000.

After the Grand Slams and ATP Finals, these are the most prestigious tournaments and Djokovic is the only man in the world to have won all 9, called a Career Golden Masters. In fact in 2015, he won 6/9 in a single year. In the terms of ATP finals Federer has the most with 6, but Djokovic already has 5 and so well could go past him.

Dollars7. Became the first to get $100 million prize money.

There was a race between the three to get $100 million in professional tennis earnings and you never knew who would get there first. Finally it was a race between Federer and Djoko and the latter prevailed. Currently Djoko is in the range of $150 million as against $130m by Federer, which is the highest ever. In 2015 he became the only man to cross $20 million prize money in a year. Nadal’s yearly highest is $15+ million and Federer’s $13+ million.

8. Most weeks as World No. 1.

In the 1970s/1980s, Jimmy Connors spent a record 268 weeks as World Number 1. Ivan Lendl narrowly went past that with 270. Pete Sampras, who won his last singles Grand Slam in 2002, did 286. Federer did 310 and now Djoko has gone past him and is still counting (324). For year-ending No. 1s, the record 6 jointly shared by Sampras and Djoko, but the latter has time on his side. When you look at the 2010s, then weeks at No. 1, it’s Djoko 275 weeks, Nadal 159 and Federer 48.

9. King of the Hardcourt.

Nadal has a whopping 13 French Opens. Federer has 8 Wimbledons. Both stand alone there. Additionally, Federer has 5 US Opens, a record he shares with Jimmy Connors and Pete Sampras. But Djoko has made the Australian Open his own with 9 titles. At the end of his career, could he touch 13 or beyond? Who knows! Djoko also has 3 US Opens, so he could also join Connors-Sampras-Federer for the most there. If Federer is the King of Grass and Nadal the King of Clay, Djoko is the undisputed King of the Hardcourt.

(This blog first appeared on July 16, 2018. This is the updated version of the same)

You don’t speak a European language? You can’t win the Football World Cup!

the-ball-488700_640Number of FIFA World Cups won by official national language…

Portuguese: 5.
(Brazil: 5)

Spanish: 5.
(Uruguay: 2, Argentina: 2, Spain: 1)

German: 4.
(Germany: 4)

Italian: 4.
(Italy: 4)

French: 2.
(France: 2)

English: 1.
(England: 1)

EuropeMoral of the story: If your national language isn’t European, you can’t win the FIFA World Cup!

Also, co-incidentally, the languages that the countries come from…
Portugal, Spain, France, Germany, Italy and England are all neighbouring countries sitting in the map together!

© Sunil Rajguru

(First written after the 2014 edition, updated after 2018)

6 ideas to promote women’s cricket in India

silhouette-3378576_1280Had India won the 2017 Women’s World Cup, then there would have been great celebration in the nation. Social media would have been ecstatic and the prize money, sponsors and jobs would have flowed like water for our women cricketers.

There might even have been an open bus city rally to welcome to them and the images would have been played on TV for days on end inspiring a generation of budding women cricketers. The way 1983 launched the ODI revolution and 2007 launched the T20 revolution, 2017 may have well launched the women’s cricket revolution.

But that was not to be and the opportunity seems to have been lost. But maybe not! The 2017 edition received great attention, higher TRP ratings and trended big time on Twitter. Why not take this interest and carry it forward?

Here are some ideas to make women’s cricket in India even more popular…

1. Launch a women’s IPL in 2018: Millions were glued to TV sets during the WWC and the likes of Mithali Raj and Harmanpreet Kaur became household names. In fact Harmanpreet’s semi-final knock of 171* is one of the best of all time even if you include men’s ODIs. Smriti Mandhana also caught the imagination of Twitter at the beginning of WWC.

The time is right to launch a women’s IPL in 2018. The infrastructure and format is in place and what’s the point of having the most cash-rich board in the world if you can’t launch such tournaments?

The women’s IPL would unearth greater talent and keep women cricketers in the limelight every year instead of every four years. In fact in the 2013 edition we got eliminated early and by the time most people realized a WWC was going on, India were already out.

Since the men’s IPL is in the first half, you could keep the women’s edition in the second. IPL founder Lalit Modi had visualized two IPLs a year and that can be realized in this fashion.

The T20 WWC takes place in November 2018 and it would be great if the BCCI could fit in an IPL just months before that.

2. Aggressive promotion of women’s series: Did you know there have been six women Asia Cups? Did you know that India has won all of them, giving no chance to the likes of Pakistan and Sri Lanka? We are already a colossus on the sub-continent, but just haven’t been able to translate that globally.

Did you know that 19-year-old Deepti Sharma blasted a 188 in the Quadrangular in South Africa just before WWC? The problem is that the BCCI’s efforts at promoting women’s cricket have come a cropper in the past.

We have to now increase the ad campaign budget and push for all the international series that women play aggressively. It shouldn’t just be a once in four year affair. The T20 WWC takes place in West Indies next year and that should receive great coverage.

3. A high-profile coach: Why shouldn’t a Ravi Shastri or an Anil Kumble or a Virender Sehwag coach the women’s team? What’s wrong with that? Women’s team should also have a high-profile Head Coach and a coaching staff that rivals the men’s.

4. Hike the salaries: The total prize money for the 2013 Women’s World Cup was $200,000. For the men’s version in 2015, it was 50 times more at $10 million. They rectified that a bit in 2017 and the women’s cup in 2017 had $2 million in total prize money.

Still, Yusuf Pathan, Robin Uthappa and Dinesh Karthik each got more than that for a single IPL season! While games like lawn tennis have worked out the parity between the men’s and women’s game, cricket is a long way away from that.

We need a better contract system for the women players and definitely much more money.

5. Bettering the Test-Ranji ecosystem: The men’s team has played more than 500 Tests. In contrast the number is just 36 for women! The Ranji Trophy is also a strong tournament for men’s First Class cricket. But the focus is more on the shorter formats and the three-day version for women.

Domestic cricket needs a women’s IPL and that’s for sure. However there is no harm in strengthening First Class cricket for women too. Women’s cricket in India is treated on an ad hoc basis and maybe we need a White Paper to change it through and through.

6. Many more inter-school/college tournaments: Boys start playing cricket at an early age and there’s no shortage of coaching camps and inter-school/college tournaments for them. In contrast the opportunities are limited for the girls.

The BCCI doesn’t need to for the men’s version, but maybe it should start getting into organizing inter-school and inter-college tournaments. In fact last year the then BCCI President Anurag Thakur had talked of starting something which he called the University League.

Well women’s cricket needs that more than the men’s version!

(This article appeared in Sify.com)