Category Archives: Cricket & Sports

Ban The Punter

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Former Australian captain Steve Waugh started the mental disintegration of international cricket a decade ago with his brand of sledging, a strategy that has been taken to the very depths of dirt by his successor Ricky Ponting. For years the Aussies have been abusing players and intimidating umpires. Strangely the ICC has kept mum. Very few Aussie players have been banned or even warned. It gets even curiouser with the fact other players doing a fraction of the same get summarily banned, Harbhajan Singh being the latest victim.
The Sydney Test fiasco was just waiting to happen, a result of years of bad blood. The only way to end this sordid saga which threatens to get worse and worse is to issue a warning to Cricket Australia to rein in it’s “pack of wild dogs” and ban Ponting for life.

Here’s why Ponting should be banned based on the Sydney Test alone.

1. He broke the captains’ agreement with Anil Kumble
Before this tour, Ponting and Kumble agreed that in clase of a doubtful catch, the fielders word would be taken. Despite giving that in writing, Ponting still backed Michael Clarke’s controversial catch against Sourav Ganguly. Worse still, he was later shown vociferously claiming a clearly grounded catch. Pakistan captain Rashid Latif was banned for five matches for claiming a catch he didn’t take. The match referee then was, surprise surprise, Mike Procter. Why didn’t Procter ban Ponting for doing worse?

2. He has been proved a liar
You can argue that a lot of things happen on the field in the heat of the moment. But if you stick to your lies and argue with everyone (including a senior Indian journalist at a Press Conference) long after the end of play when the TV replays have shown you a liar, then where does that leave your integrity? The result is that no international player trusts or respects Ponting anymore and the least Cricket Australia can do is remove him from captaincy.

3. The sledging stalwarts can’t take sledging themselves
By Ponting’s own admission, if Harbhajan called his player a monkey he deserved the three-match ban. Then what about all the F*** and other swear words that the Aussies have been using for ages? In the last couple of years they’ve used words more offensive than monkey hundreds of times. By the same logic, all Aussie players deserve bans of atleast 10-20 matches. How can you sit and qualify a swear word? This is less offensive and that is more so? Or maybe ICC should come out with a dictionary of swear words and define which are acceptable on a field and which are not. Any swear word can be deemed racial or non-racial depending on how you judge it. The whole issue smacks of sickening double standards.

4. Bringing disrepute to the game
One image stands out in the Sydney, that of Ricky Ponting raising his finger arrogantly to the umpire to claim the dubious catch. If any Indian player had done the same, he would have been banned for sure. Coupled that with his refusal to walk and Andrew Symonds brazen public admission that he knew he was out on 30, their final celebrations without even waiting for the umpire and many others. What kind of a trigger-happy team is Ponting leading?

5. Take a look at Ponting’s past
Ponting has used an illegal graphite bat, hurled abuses at the England dressing room in Trent Bridge, been fined for dissent many times and rudely told BCCI chief Sharad Pawar to leave a victory podium. How much more can the cricket world take? The Sydney Test was the last straw. His personal life has been no different. He has brawled outside a pub and been thrown out of a night club.
Look at legacy that Ponting is sitting on. Who can forget Michael Slater’s showdown with Indian umpire Venkatraghavan over a catch he didn’t take cleanly? Or Justin Langer’s tipping of the bails of Hashan Tillekratne and then appealing. (He was amazingly cleared of the charge) Aussie greats have called sledging a cultural issue, but which individual likes to be sweared at in the first place? It’s high time Australia was shown its place starting with the ban on Ponting.

(This article appeared in Metro Now newspaper on January 11, 2008)

Cricketers then and now…

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Then: Used to count the runs they amassed
Now: Count the money they mint

Then: Spent hours daily in practice sessions
Now: Are fussy about their style of clothing, armbands, headbands and blackness of sunglasses

Then: Came in a clean white attire wearing their Test cap with pride
Now: Come unshaven in dirty T-shirts, wearing any old hat

Then: Were on the run in every Test and series
Now: Complacent for the series with one good innings and for the year with one good series

Then: Visiting teams occasionally blamed umpires for their defeat
Now: Umpires now are always blamed

Then: Loved to sport their country’s colours
Now: Would rather wear the sponsor’s logo

Then: Used to blame their bad form on things like lack of concentration
Now: Now blame it on things like smog and prawns

Then: At times victims of the establishment
Now: Invariably, victims of themselves

Then: Fast bowlers used to rely on the ball’s speed and swing
Now: A distorted seam and disfigured ball now relied upon

Then: Spin bowlers used to rely on their ability to spin
Now: Only a dead pitch is now relied upon

Then: Test matches were played to be won
Now: Today they are played to be drawn

Then: Symbolised the Raj
Now: Symbolises nothing

(This piece appeared in the Letters to the Editor section of Sportsworld magazine on November 3, 1993)

Boycott Welcome

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India’s decision to boycott Sharjah 1992 is most welcome. In Sharjah, the true glorious spirit of the game is absent. The organizers are interested only in two things: a) Making money and b) Ensuring that Pakistan wins. India has no business to be the sacrificial lamb year after year.

Sharjah, in the end proves to be a morale shatterer for the Indians. In Sharjah 1991, an excellent all-round display by the Indians ensured that we won the first three matches, but thanks to some shocking umpiring, it al came to naught in the end. In the fourth match the Indians lost under questionable light while the final really took the cake. Aquib Javed got an outrageous hat trick of LBWs making him give the greatest ever bowling performance in the history of one-day cricket. All three decisions were given when the batsman had run half way through for making a run. In a game, where even one vital wicket can change the tide of the match, handing three on a silver platter is just too much.

Also, rather than stopping playing with Pakistan, India should stop playing in Pakistan. When the Pakistani players come here, they get VIP treatment, though the converse is not true. Some time back an Indian cricket captain’s shirt was torn and in the same season, the Indian hockey captain was chased by an angry mob. Is this how captains are treated? Also, in the same season, the Indian flag was burnt. The stadiums are filled with slogans of Kashmir and politics.

(This appeared as a Letter to the Editor in The Times of India in 1992)

Is there life after cricket?

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cricket-166794_1280Come the World Cup and a cricket-crazy nation like India is bound to go berserk. Now, with the World Cup reaching its climax, life’s a hollow emptiness without the willow. Nero might have fiddled while Rome was burning, but no one is going to budge from the TV room while cricket is being played.

Newspapers and magazines write cricket. Companies and business establishments think cricket. The TV buffs see nothing but cricket. And what about the cricket nuts? They see cricket, think cricket, talk cricket, walk cricket, eat cricket, sleep cricket and dream cricket. In fact, they breathe cricket and live cricket. Parks and open spaces are filled with crowds and heated debates. If there is anything mightier than the bat, it is the ball. Restaurants resonate with the names of cricket stars and offices reverberate with endless figures, statistics, numbers, overs, runs and matches.

Azhar doesn’t know a thing about field placing. Ask the bloke at the grocery store, he knows all that there is to know. Gooch doesn’t know what’s in store for him; the chap behind the restaurant counter smugly knows all. Shastri can’t understand what’s going wrong with him. The pan-patti wala can comprehend that quite easily. “Scindia can’t even select a team of the Nineties; I could choose one for the 21st century!”

“All this — and much more;
at your local grocery store.”

One ice-cream shop in Fraser Town proudly offers a 5 per cent discount the day India wins a match. Another shop in the same locality gives a similar discount when any ‘fan’ wants to talk to a ‘star’ Down Under. One innovative service centre on Langford Road declares in the paper” “Watch the World Cup live in AC comfort while you buy our tyres or get your wheel balancing, wheel alignment and engine tune up,” and hence the newspapers seem to be filled with little else, with most dailies devoting one full page to the pyjama game. Letters to the Editor are numerous on the rights and wrongs committed on and off the field. “Ah! Azhar could learn a few things from me!” Everyone seems to think.

Can companies fall far behind? Kapil and Tendulkar prefer Boost while Manjrekar prefer Complan. From Complan boy and Complan girl to Complan star. Boy, you’ve come a long way. However, Kambli would settle for something new from Nestle. Power might be an old favourite and Action the official for the Indian squad in the World Cup, but Prabhakar clearly prefers Status from Lakhani.

Eveready changes its tune from ‘Give me red!’ to ‘Give them power’ ‘n ‘Charge ‘em up’, a scheme to courier messages to the Indian team Down Under with an autographed acknowledgement in return.
Another ad in the paper screams:
“Listen to Sunil Gavaskar’s views on India’s chances in the World Cup, call…”

The magazines too leave no stone unturned with the fullest tournament coverage and all sorts of ‘Guess who?’ contests. Bush is back yet again with its great catches, hooking everyone from Tom Alter to Kabir Bedi.

As one commentator keeps on saying in every match; “It’s all happening here.” Well, it’s all happening here too!

With the latest satellite TV witnessing a full boom, cricket maniacs shouted, fretted, fumed, and clamoured in the latter part of February to get their connections fitted on time, from the ‘friendly neighbourhood Star-man’, who instantly has become a superhero overnight. For in Star TV lies salvation from frustrating blanks like ‘Sorry for the interruption’ and ‘Break in satellite link is regretted’, hallmark of Doordarshan, India Ltd.

Come a win and jubilations and fairy lights all over, with merrymaking galore, but come a loss and gloom casts it pale shadow over the country. A newly married youth commits suicide in Surat “in total despair and frustration following India’s defeat.”

However, the cricket fanatics of this nation are always on the hunt for a scapegoat and Ravi J. Shastri, erstwhile ‘Champion of champions’ fits the bill perfectly. He is now ‘Slowcoach of slowcoaches’ and hence must go. Residents of Girgaum, Bombay, garland his cutout with chappal malas. The nation proves that it can raise any mortal to the pedestal of demi-God and bring him back down to earth with equal ease. Effigies of Shastri are burnt with the same zeal and enthusiasm and hatred as one would set ablaze dummies of political leaders.

Posters in Malleswaram advise Scindia to do away with Shastri. Four enterprising youths on two motorbikes ride through Bangalore with posters of ‘Shastri Down Down’ to make their point. Manmohan’s budget wouldn’t budge them. The Punjab polls won’t interest them. Bush’s pre-election jitters couldn’t shake them. Russia’s latest update can’t affect them. Shastri’s performance, however, is enough to give them sleepless nights and he must go.

Another cricket crazy nation appears to be South Africa, fresh after 20 years in the wilderness. Someone suggested that F.W. De Clerk hold his referendum on the day of the S. Africa-Australia tie as very few people would turn up to say no! One Cabinet Minister said at the beginning of a press conference, “Let’s keep this short, I want to get back to the commentary.” With the news of its victory over Australia, South Africa virtually came to a halt. Financial markets went on hold and radio stations broke into their normal programmes to announce the victory. Even the president himself was interrupted from a weekly Cabinet meeting, which he stopped and then sent a telegram, a congratulatory message to the team.

With the countdown to the World Cup final beginning, the question everyone must be asking is; “Is there life after cricket?”

(This article appeared in Deccan Herald newspaper on March 23, 1992)

Clean Bowled?

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I bet no country in this world has slipped back so badly in sports as ours.

In the Fifties, our football wizards entered the semi-finals of the Olympics and narrowly missed a medal. Today, we get thrashed by some Dutch team. Olympics or the World Cup, it is a distant dream.

Thanks to players like Dhyan Chand & Co., we won an amazing seven consecutive Olympic golds. Truly record breaking. World Cup, 1986, Indian and Pakistan battled for the 11th place in a 12-nation tournament. More than a half-century back, winning the Olympic gold medal was routine. Now, even if we “qualify” for Barcelona ’92, we’ll be ecstatic.

A trip down memory lane. Ramanathan Krishnan makes it to two consecutive Wimbledon semi-finals. Vijay Amritraj makes his presence in the tennis world, at his peak is ranked 13th in the world. Wimbledon 1991, rising star Leander Paes is out in the qualifying rounds. Quo Vadis, former national champion Zeeshan Ali? He can’t even qualify for the qualifying rounds! What an anti-climax.

On to the Asiads. In the inaugural games as well as in 1982, we got more than 10 gold medals. 1990? One lone Kabaddi gold medal. Our national anthem was heard just once. That gold was also due to the ignorance of the game of other countries, which turns out to be our bliss. Now even Kabaddi is out in future meets.

Whither cricket mania? In 1983, India won the World Cup. In 1984, India won the Benson & Hedges. In 1985, India won Sharjah. 1986? Miandad blasts a six and India is out. Clean bowled: If we don’t win with Pakistan this season, it’ll be ‘Six’ dismal years since we last won with them. That’s the effect of just one ball, a Javed Miandad-Chetan Sharma combine. Oh for those good old days.

How does one react when one reads of an a) Asian gold medallist bus conductor? B) Asian silver medallist watchman? C) A 1980 Olympic gold medallist unemployed?

These are not three fictitious characters, but cold hard facts of Indian sports today. All one can do is either hold one’s head in frustration or pray to God for India’s sports salvation.

(This appeared as a Letter to the Editor in The Times of India)