The Hindi version of this article first appeared in Prabhat Khabar on March 19, 2012

He may have told Greg Chappell, then the coach of the Indian cricket team, that he has fewer friends in the country than the Australian himself. He may have nothing to do with the fluctuations that Sensex often undergoes. Nor, for that matter, does he impact the value of the rupee against the American dollar.

Yet, Sachin Tendulkar has given millions of Indians hope and joy. He reaches way beyond the sport that he so loves and touches the hearts of millions of Indians like few else have. It is a good bet that no one has held sway over such a vast majority of India as he has in the past 22 years with his devotion to cricket in general and batting in particular.

Do I hear you bring up the names of Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan and Rajnikanth? None of these entertainers is a live performer in the manner of a Tendulkar. The likes of AR Rahman catch our fancy often but not as consistently. And with regional parties holding the sway, there really is no politician either who has held a pan-India appeal for so long as Tendulkar.

If any proof were needed to convince us about how big Tendulkar’s emotional connect with the masses really is, it became available over the past year when he has been on the threshold of scoring his 100th international century. Egged on by the media, the nation seemed to hold its collective breath each time he batted and groaned collectively every time he was dismissed.

The wait for this one event has no parallel in Indian sporting history, at least from a mass-following point of view. Of course, Abhinav Bindra’s gold medal at the in Beijing in 2008 ended a wait for India’s first individual title at the Olympic Games but, given that Indian sportspersons found Olympic medals hard to come by, few would have agonised as much.

Talking of waits, public memory may be short but I remember the wait for Tendulkar’s first century in one-day internationals lasted close to five years and 79 innings. That wait was worth it as he made 110 off 130 deliveries against Australia at the R Premadasa Stadium in September 1994.

Come to think of it, he batted in 35 innings in Tests and ODIs after scoring his 99th hundred – a 111 against South Africa in Nagpur on March 12 last year. And even if he has often pointed out that every batsman has to start an innings with no runs against his name, Tendulkar has set such standards that expectations have only grown.

That brings us to the fact that his achievements have all come under an amazing amount of media scrutiny. It is also not surprising that social networking sites found some impatient folk discussing all that could happen before Tendulkar got to this milestone, ignoring his own plea that for him it is just a statistical landmark.

Given that India is so cricket-crazy, I do not think that players like Sir Donald Bradman or Sir Garfield Sobers will have faced such pressure of expectation and adulation. To have come to symbolise hope and humility, success and equanimity in the disarming manner that he has, Tendulkar has had to stop his mind from becoming a runaway train.

It would have been easy for him to lose focus in a nation where cricketers are idolised, with people waiting at airports, hotels and stadia for a glimpse, if not to touch them. The manner in which he has coped with all the attention – and some of it has nothing to do with his cricket – is a telling commentary of his ability to stay rooted.

It is this control over mind that sets him apart as the sportsperson’s champion. It is a given that his team-mates over the years have shared such sentiments. Sporting contemporaries like Viswanathan Anand and Leander Paes have enormous respect for what he has achieved and admire him for being able to deal with the pressure of expectation for so many years.

Some years ago, when India’s most popular hockey star Dhanraj Pillay reminded mediapersons: “I am no less than Sachin Tendulkar”, he could have been actually telling us that Tendulkar had become a yardstick with which to measure fame and achievement. It reflected an inherent desire that is manifest in most sporting achievers to be spoken of in the same breath as Tendulkar.

So what if he has fewer friends in the country than Greg Chappell? So what if he has little to do with how the Sensex varies or how the rupee performs against the American dollar? By getting to a milestone of a 100 international centuries, Sachin Tendulkar has shown again that there really is no one who captures the imagination of so many with his chosen craft.

Somehow, the catch phrase seemed to have escaped the attention of those who matter in Indian cricket. Else, we would not have been left dealing with a situation that with so little positive peer-pressure on the team now. Such pressure would have been among the factors motivating the team to higher levels of adaptation and self-confidence.

When it comes to the Indian cricket team, perhaps the succession plan remains focussed solely on leadership rather than every spot in the XI. It has led to the team losing seven overseas Tests and with no hint of who the next great Indian Test batsman would be. It is hard to imagine the line-up when Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman – and Sachin Tendulkar bow out in quick succession.

And this for a squad that is struggling to find a replacement for Sourav Ganguly more than three years after his retirement. For one reason or the other, the likes of Yuvraj Singh, S Badrinath, Suresh Raina and Virat Kohil have not been able to offer the assurance that they can hold their place for some time to come.

Now is a time as good as any for India to draw up a succession plan if India is to regain pride of place in Test cricket. For any succession plan for the Indian cricket team to succeed, it would entail developing a more aggressive and confident demeanour among the fringe and the emerging players. The playing standard of the fringe players is an essential ingredient.

The key people who have to define the goals of the succession-planning process are the selectors and the team management. While it is important to focus on the present and do well in the battle on hand, it is also critical that this bunch does not embrace only a status quo approach and indulges in some forward planning.

They must have the vision to identify and prepare cricketers to succeed in different position or to have ‘ready now’ players who can be inducted when the stars lose form or retire. If for some reason the selectors and the team management are unable to do that, an alternative succession-planning mechanism must be put in place.

Selection criteria and implementation, talent identification and player welfare and support are of critical importance to the system’s success. It would result in the emergence of a highly-competitive, stimulating and creative environment. Critically, the ‘middle’ group of players would be elevated to becoming consistent ‘top level’ performers in this dynamic structure.

It also calls for patience with the younger players coming in to the Test side. Obviously the selectors and the team management believe that anyone who is awarded an India cap is worthy of a spot in the XI. However, that belief has to be backed consistently over a period of time rather than employ an approach that makes the young feel that they are trapped in a revolving door.

We must also remember that there are no guarantees for a succession plan to succeed. Remember the West Indies has found it hard to replace the likes of Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Haynes, Michael Holding and Joel Garner, Curtly Ambrose and even Courtney Walsh – to name only a few – and Australia has found it hard to secure replacements for the top guns.

The closest Indian cricket came to defining such thoughts and act upon this was during Greg Chappell’s tenure as coach of the Indian team. In May 2005, he made a winning presentation titled ‘Theories and Ideas’ before key personnel of the Board of Control for Cricket in India and included his suggestion of a succession plan.

The Greg Chappell-Rahul Dravid-Kiran More combine kept the players informed about their plans. Of course, not always were the affected players ecstatic about their role or about being left out from time to time but they knew that the brains trust was trying to build depth and flexibility to cover any eventuality. It was slowly getting through and building some confidence and trust on one other

I remember talking to More, who was then Chairman of Selectors, about this planning.  “We made some tough decisions along the way – like dropping Sourav Ganguly and Zaheer Khan – but only with the intention of forging a solid team. It was not the easiest of things to do in this country and some players asked me hard questions. But it was really up to them to pull up their socks and come back with better fitness and an attitude that works for the team,” he said.

Greg Chappell had identified Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble, Virender Sehwag, Harbhajan Singh and VVS Laxman as the core group and sought to entrust this group with a role in the development of players in the learning-to-compete stage.  Of course, his succession plan came unhinged in the West Indies at the ICC Cricket World Cup 2007.

Somewhere down the line, since India rejected all that he preached, the men who matter haven’t paid heed to his idea of drawing up a succession plan that is so vital for the health of the national team.  Come to think of it, Greg Chappell was drawing on his experience of being a part of a similar decision-making process in the mid-’80s to raise standards in key areas that led to Australia’s current success.

Back in the early 80s when Greg Chappell, Rodney Marsh and Dennis Lillee quit international cricket at the same time, Australia’s stock in world cricket plunged.  It needed the likes of coach Bobby Simpson and Greg Chappell to come together to develop a vision and a strategic plan that brought together a group of cricketers who wouldn’t only challenge the existing West Indies dominance but also take world cricket to a new level. The results were there for all to see from the time Allan Border assumed captaincy of the team.

Yet, Australia paid the price for not having a succession plan in 2008-09 when it lost the Ashes to England. After dominating cricket for nearly a decade and a half under leaders like Mark Taylor, Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting, Australia slid from its pre-eminent position to be ranked fourth in the world.

The retirement of legends like Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Damien Martyn and Justin Langer first and then of Adam Gilchrist and Matthew Hayden left the Australian team short of experience and talent to the point that it lost Test series at home for the first time in 17 years. So it is not as if Australia has been consistent with its planning.

Yes, India’s woeful showing in overseas Tests needs to be addressed but let us not incite passion in doing so. It is critical that we remain collected as we sit down to find solutions to some problems that the Indian team is so obviously facing now. It is important not to become a part of the cacophony that follows each such defeat.

Let us remember that when the team was picked and when some cricketers left for Australia before the rest of the side to acclamatise themselves with the conditions Down Under, without exception, everyone said that this Indian side had the best chance to win a series in Australia.

Sadly, the team management did not respond to some signs that became obvious in the first two Tests in Melbourne and Sydney. For instance, Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehwag’s inability to provide the team with a good start should have made the tour selectors seek options. VVS Laxman’s failures called for a harsh decision, too.

It may be a good idea to have Ajinkya Rahane or Rahul Dravid open the innings in Adelaide with Gambhir so that Sehwag can bat at No. 5. It will allow not only Sehwag the chance to play an attacking innings after the ball loses its shine but also be the first steps towards building a middle-order that is capable of taking over from giants like Dravid and Laxman.

It is important to let the likes of Rahane and Rohit Sharma gain the experience of playing Test cricket in Australia. Together with Virat Kohli, it can be expected that they will figure in Test cricket for some years now. It may not be the ideal situation for India to have few players with the experience of playing in Australia when it travels there next.

Of course, there has been some stinging criticism of Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s captaincy, particularly with respect to his field placing. It does appear to his critics that he can’t seem to do anything right at the moment. I am not among those who believe that he has dipped as a tactician. It is just that his batsmen have let him down big time.

How can he be held responsible if the opening batsmen have been unable to accomplish the primary task of seeing the new ball through? How can he be responsible if experienced batsmen like Dravid and Laxman have been done in by late swing that the Australian fast bowlers have obtained?

Let us not get carried away by all the criticism by former players and others on our TV channels. Yes, as fans of Indian cricket, we are hurt, upset and angered by the dismal showing in Australia – in the wake of the disaster in England – but let us not get despondent and start castigating everything about the team and about Indian cricket.

Let me point out to those leading the lament on TV channels now that they have not devoted even two minutes of their time to talk about our top performers in Ranji Trophy, Rajasthan’s Robin Bist (885 runs) and Madhya Pradesh’s TP Sudhindra (40 wickets). Unless all of India – and I include the fans, media and former India cricketers in this – respects the Ranji Trophy again, we can be sure that its fortunes in Test cricket will sink to an all-time low.

And yes, even if Indians are an emotional and sensitive race, let us learn to remain calm at all times and not allow ourselves to be victims of herd mentality. It is time to let our minds overrule our hearts, embrace hope and remain confident that a system that threw up players of the calibre of Dravid and Laxman, Sehwag and Gambhir, Kohli and Dhoni will help us find solutions to the present set of problems too.

And when I sit down to think of game changers, my favourite image is of Yuvraj Singh going down on his padded knees, his left hand holding the bat aloft, a clenched right fist rising up and letting a guttural scream at the end of the quarterfinal against Australia. The screaming drive through covers signalled the end of the glittering trophy’s stay in an Australian shelf since 1999.

It is a fact that Yuvraj Singh has not played in any of the 20 one-day internationals that India has competed in after the World Cup final on April 2 and featured in two Tests against the West Indies when it became known that he had a tumor in his lung and needed rest and 55 tablets a day to recover from the ailment.

He is battling on a different pitch right now but with similar discipline and determination that he showed during the World Cup. The left-handed batsman held the middle-order together when necessary and provided the thrust at the finish. He showed he could deliver 10 economical overs, giving skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni the luxury of picking just four specialist bowlers.

Let us revisit the World Cup games and get some numbers out of the way. He not only scored 362 runs, including a hundred against the West Indies and four half-centuries, but also claimed 15 wickets, including a five-for against against Ireland and two wickets each in the last four games against the West Indies, Australia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. He topped the team’s batting averages though Sachin Tendulkar, Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehwag scored more runs than him. And among the bowlers, only Harbhajan Singh and Zaheer Khan sent down more overs than Yuvraj Singh did in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011.

His performances against Ireland, Netherlands, the West Indies and Australia helped him pick up four Man of the Match awards. Inevitably, he also edged out Sri Lankan Kumar Sangakkara, TM Dilshan and Muttiah Muralitharan, joint-top wicket-takers Shahid Afridi (Pakistan) and Zaheer Khan (India) as well AB de Villiers (South Africa) as the Man of the Series.

Yuvraj Singh is the kind of talent that made one stick the neck out a long way and pick him as the most valuable player in a squad that boasted of players like Tendulkar and Sehwag, Gambhir and Suresh Raina, Dhoni and Yusuf Pathan. And there was so much personal delight at the manner in which he justified the favouritism!

So what is it about Yuvraj Singh that makes him a game changer in 2011 ahead of men like Dhoni, Sehwag, Tendulkar, Virat Kohli and Test cricket’s most prolific batsman of the year Rahul Dravid? Oodles of talent, the right amount of self-confidence and a maturity that came because of time spent away from the Indian team.

Yet, above all this, Yuvraj Singh nursed a hunger to perform on the biggest stage. For years, he had been criticised for his flamboyance, for his life in the fast lane. And here was his best chance to show to himself, more than to anyone else, that he could aspire to be among the biggest contributors to Team India’s cause.

There was not much insight into his talents in the opening game against Bangladesh in Dhaka but the breezy half century against England in Bangalore was but a glimpse into what he could mean to the team. A five wicket haul and a workmanlike halfcentury against Ireland showed that he could adapt. A similar half-century against the Netherlands in Delhi came when the top order faltered.

Small wonder skipper Dhoni said he was a great fan of Yuvraj Singh for the way he batted according to the situation.  In some ways, he defined Yuvraj Singh as a gamechanger. “I always believed he is a big match player and performs well in the big tournaments and in the highly-rated bilateral series. It is good to see him scoring runs, getting wickets and put that extra effort in the fielding department also,” he said.

It is not as if such praise went to his head but Yuvraj Singh contributed precious little in India’s next game against South Africa in Nagpur. He made up with a century against the West Indies in Chennai and there was no looking back after that. He claimed the wickets of Brad Haddin and Michael Clarke and a half century in the quarterfinal and in the high-voltage semifinal in Mohali, he picked up the wickets of Asad Shafiq and Younis Khan in successive overs to scuttle Pakistan’s dreams of upsetting India’s applecart.

The final saw him dismiss Kumar Sangakkara and Thilan Samaraweera and it was fitting that he was in the thick of things, watching Dhoni from 20 yards or so away when the Indian captain launched a delivery from Nuwan Kulasekhara for six to seal a famous victory. Well before the ball settled in the stands, Yuvraj was sprinting down the track to envelop his captain in a bear hug. And that is the other freeze frame from the World Cup that has not faded away.

Come to think of it, some years ago, he was reduced to a bundle of doubts at the batting crease by Ajantha Mendis. He managed just 72 runs in six innings in Sri Lanka, being dismissed by Mendis as many as four times. But an hour-long conversation with Tendulkar ensured that the self-confidence would not be eroded.

“When the time comes, you’ll matter the most,” Tendulkar told him. And in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011,Yuvraj Singh’s performances as a gamechanger mattered the most. Didn’t they? And along the way, he gave us one moment that will stay etched in the mind for time to come.

(This piece was written for Prabhat Khabar)

The biggest sporting moment for India this year

The sands of time are trickling down on the world of sports too. And before we turn the hour glass around to start the year 2012, it would be nice to revisit some of the moments from Indian sport that made 2011 the year that it was.

They spilled on the roads, countless faces painted with national colours, waving the Tricolour, airing slogans as India broke into one large and spontaneous celebration of the conquest of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 on April 2. There have been few more telling demonstrations of outpouring of collective National pride than late that night. That cricket is one of the few refuges for nationalism was cast in stone that night.

There was so much to cherish. The emergence of Yuvraj Singh as Man of the Series in the World Cup, for instance. Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s blitzkrieg in the World Cup final against Sri Lanka and Sachin Tendulkar’s 99th international hundred – secured against South Africa at Nagpur during the World Cup caused much excitement.

The redoubtable Rahul Dravid and the mercurial Virat Kohli top the charts as the world’s leading run-scorers in Tests and one-day internationals respectively. Virender Sehwag world record score 219 against the West Indies are other examples. Of course, and the wait for the 100th century has caught the nation’s fancy. The surfacing of Umesh Yadav and Varun Aaron as fast bowlers as well as the rise of Pragyan Ojha and R Ashwin as the new spin twins augured well for India as it won the home Test series against the West Indies. Of course, the tour of England came as an eminently forgettable interlude this year, with the Indian team losing all the four Tests by enormous margins.

Similarly, the hockey team took us on a roller coaster ride this year. It came into its own by winning the Asian Champions Trophy at Ordos in China with a victory over Asian Games champion Pakistan in the final on September 11, 2011. Goalkeeper S. Sreejesh stole the limelight with two crucial saves as India defeated Pakistan 4-2 in the penalty shoot-out in the nerve-wrecking final that had ended goalless after extra-time.

The low came when India squandered a two-goal advantage and conceded a last-minute goal to lose 3-4 to Belgium in the final of the Champions Challenge I hockey tournament in Johannesburg on December 4. Striker Florent van Aubel caught the Indian defenders off-guard and scored the all-important winner for Belgium to not only hand Belgium the gold medal but also a maiden place in next year’s Champions Trophy in Australia.

There was plenty of good news from India’s bunch of elite shooters through the year. On April 14, Sanjeev Rajput emulated 10m air rifle ace Gagan Narang and rookie 50m prone shooter Hariom Singh in qualifying for the London Olympic Games by winning gold in the 50m three-position event in the World Cup at Changwon in Korea. Ronjan Sodhi, India’s top double trap marksman, won a silver in the World Cup at Beijing in April 26 to become the first Indian shotgun shooter to make sure of being at the London Games.  The next month, Vijay Kumar lost gold in a shoot-off to Germany’s Christian Reitz in the 25m rapidfire pistol event while Annuraj Singh won a silver medal in the women’s 10m air rifle event and Rahi Sarnobat bronze in the women’s 25m air pistol event at the World Cup in Fort Benning. Abhinav Bindra had to wait till June 18 to ensure a place in the Olympics. He finished eighth in the World Cup in Munich and put himself on course to retaining the Olympic gold he won in Beijing.

Indian trap shooter Shagun Chowdhary qualified for the 2012 London Olympics with a fourth place finish in the Women’s Trap event in the Shotgun World Championship in Belgrade on September 11. Ronjan Sodhi became the World No. 1 in August and retained the gold medal at the World Cup Finals at Al Ain in UAE on October 5 when he beat Olympic bronze medallist Hu Binyuan of China in a tie shoot. But that was not all. The 22-year-old Man Singh made history by becoming the first Indian to win the Asian Championship in Kuala Lumpur on November 30. What’s more he was also part of the squad that won the team gold. And if there was some disappointment, it has to do with 2004 Olympic Games silver medallist Rajyavardhan Rathore not being able to get his form back.

Four boxers (Devendro Singh in the 49kg class, Jai Bhagwan in the 60kg class, Manoj Kumar in the 64kg class and Vikas Krishan in the 69kg class) made our hearts swell with pride as they made it to the quarterfinals of the World Championship in Baku and thus ensured themselves a slot in the Olympic Games. The 19-year-old Vikas Krishan went a step further and claimed a bronze medal in the world championship, marking himself among the favourites from India to be among medal contention in London.

The women’s recurve archers Laishram Bombayla Devi, Deepika Kumari and Chekrovolu Swuro made it to the final of the World championship in Turin and booked three Olympic quota places. The recurve team outscored defending champion Korea in the semifinals 216-212 to make the maiden entry into the final. The best by an Indian women’s team earlier was a fourth place finish at the 2005 Madrid World Championships, where the Indian men’s team moved into the final and settled for silver. The men’s team had to face disappointment this time around.

Towards the end of a year in which she faced an ankle injury, Saina Nehwal made it to the final of the BWF Super Series Finals in Liuzhou, China. She did not win a crown this year but she entered the title round in four major tournaments and finished the year ranked fourth in the world. Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponappa won the bronze medal at the World Championship at the Wembley Arena in London on August 14. They became the first Indians in 28 years to win a medal at the World championships. PV Sindhu is emerging as a player to watch, having risen from 151 to 42nd in the world rankings.

Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi came together after a long gap, discovered their friendship, won three hardcourt titles on the ATP Tour and made it to the final of the Australian Open and the semifinal of the season-ending Finals but parted ways at the end of the year, leaving Indians guessing about the doubles combinations that would play in the Olympic Games in 2012. Sania Mirza

The 22-year-old Mayookha Johny became the first Indian woman to break through the 14-metre barrier in triple jump at the Asian Grand Prix in Wujiang, China on May 30. She won long jump gold with a 6.56m effort at the Asian Athletics Championship at Kobe in Japan on July 8 after Vikas Gowda won discus silver. She went on to become only the third Indian to make it to the final of an event at the IAAF World Championship when she finished ninth in the long jump in Daegu, Korea on August 28.

These performances came after we were made to hang our heads by topnotch athletes who tested positive for banned substances. Ashwini Akkunji, Mandeep Kaur and Sini Jose, all part of the celebrated Indian 4x400m squad, were among seven athletes who tested positive in May and June. After a series of hearings, they were handed suspensions on December 23.

There were some moments that caused lumps in our throats. Bhaichung Bhutia announced in August that he would not play any more international football, and gave us one such moment. For he had donned India colours with dignity and passion for 16 years and in more than 100 matches, scoring 43 goals and leading the team for much of the time. And, we will be deprived of the legendary Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi’s company, the former India cricket captain who gave our national team a common identity passing away on September 22 after a brief respiratory illness. He spoke little but commanded respect every time he said something.

India placed itself on a very elite map when it hosted the Formula One Grand Prix of India in October a couple of months after the 2010 FIFA World Player of the Year Lionel Messi showcased his skills in a friendly between Argentina and Venezuela in Kolkata. These events showed to the world that India would readily embrace sport and sportspeople who it has spent a couple of decades watching passionately on live TV.

Away from the field of play, news that sportspersons had become eligible for the nation’s highest award, the Bharat Ratna, warmed the cockles of many a heart even as the announcement sparked a debate about who should be the first Indian sportsperson to be given the award. The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports has worked overtime to move the National Sports Development Sports Bill but may have to wait for a while before that dream comes true.

Talking of dreams, we have plenty to look forward to in the coming year. As we speak, the Indian cricket team is in Australia with hope in its hearts. The hockey fraternity will look for the Olympic qualifier in Delhi as the first of several steps towards regaining a place among the elite. The genial V Anand will bid fair to defend his World Chess Championship in a match against Boris Gelfand of Israel in Russia from May 10 to 31.

The success of the Indian athletes in the Olympic Games in Beijing where Abhinav Bindra’s gold medal was accompanied by bronze medals for Sushil Kumar in wrestling and Vijender Kumar in boxing and in the Commonwealth Games and Asian Games in 2010 have spurred our aspirations. And we are hoping to surpass our best showing when the London Games are held from July 27 to August 12. Perhaps, there will be ample reason for all of India to spill on to the roads again. In celebration.

(This was a draft for a review of India’s  sporting year for a broadcast on All India Radio).

Studies in Contrast: Umesh Yadav (left) and Varun Aaron (Photo courtesy: hindustantimes.com)

They have shown that all it takes to succeed is an idea, a dream, a lot of hard work and an element of luck. The rise of players like Umesh Yadav, Varun Aaron and Ajinkya Rahane has come as a confirmation that dreams are no longer a prerogative of the metros likes Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad.

A little over two decades ago, when cricket telecasts were still being produced by Doordarshan, it was hard to imagine so Indian cricketers coming from such diverse locations. The selling of TV rights to cable and satellite companies has had a huge role in the spawning of such dreams in small towns like Rae Bareily and Jamshedpur, Kochi and Cuttack, Moradabad and Gadag, Allahabad and Ikhar, Jalandhar and Ranchi.

There was a time when players had to migrate to established pastures to be able to play for India.  Vinoo Mankad moved from Western India to Nawanagar, Dattu Phadkar from Maharashtra to Bombay, Bishan Singh Bedi, S Madan Lal and Mohinder Amarnath from Punjab to Delhi and Karsan Ghavri from Saurashtra to Bombay. Prashant Vaidya is another example that springs to mind. He had to move from Vidarbha to Bengal to gain recognition, first to play for the India A team and then to gain four India caps in one-day internationals.

Of course, Kapil Dev had shown that one could stay put anywhere – his home town Chandigarh in his case – and rise to the top. There have been others like Sunil Joshi, the left-arm spinner from Gadag in Karnataka, fast bowler Debashis Mohanty and his fellow Orissa team-mate and opening batsman Shiv Sundar Das, Andhra wicket-keeper MSK Prasad as well as Kerala paceman Tinu Yohannan who has followed suit, even if without much success.

And over the past decade, cricketers like RP Singh, Munaf Patel, and S Sreesanth have come to the fore. And, towering over all else, we have also had one of India’s finest captains – Mahendra Singh Dhoni, if you must know his name, come from the back of beyond. Son of Pan Singh, a pump operator in MECON at Ranchi, Dhoni has entrenched himself in the hearts of millions of cricket fans in and out of India.

There is no doubt that Dhoni’s success story has been an inspiration for countless youngsters in India’s hinterland to dream of playing for India and pursue that dream with single-minded devotion. Indeed, it all starts with a dream. Munaf Patel, for example, just wanted to play cricket outside Ikhar and Bharuch. Umesh Yadav and Varun Aaron, who have emerged as exciting fast bowling prospects for India this season, both dreamt of bowling quick – and consistently. They have repeatedly gone on record as saying they would not compromise on their pace.

One of the key elements in such careers is that their coaches – be it those who have imparted the fundamentals or those who have worked on the nuances – have not tampered too much with the basics. In Varun Aaron’s case, however, Dennis Lillee and TA Sekar helped him improve his action, making it more biomechanically correct. Yadav has worked with former India fast bowler Subroto Banerjee (who is now Vidarbha’s bowling coach).

Interestingly, Umesh Yadav’s formative years show a distinct contrast to those of Aaron and Rahane. While Aaron’s father C Paul Aaron taught him the first lessons of fast bowling and Rahane’s father Mayank took him to a coaching academy when he was eight, Tilak Yadav was quite clear that his son Umesh should work towards joining the police.

Hailing from Jamshedpur where his father was working for Mico Bosch, it was inevitable that sport was a big part of Varun Aaron’s life. His father was a club cricketer in his youth in Bangalore and his mother played basketball for Bihar. And what is more, his grandfather had played hockey for Bihar. Playing the under-15 tournament for the Polly Umrigar Trophy, Varun Aaron was picked up for grooming by the MRF Pace Academy in 2005.

Madhukar Rahane, Ajinkya’s father got his son to a coaching camp in Dombivili so that he would not break window panes at his home and stay fit. And then the family moved to Mulund so that he could attend coaching camps easily. As a junior cricketer, Ajinkya Rahane spent time as a ballboy during two international games at the Wankhede Stadium. That was enough for the lad from Mulund to dream of earning an India cap and back it up with a resolve to work hard for that.

By contrast, Umesh Yadav surfaced only as a 21-year-old tear-away in 2008. His father Tilak Yadav has worked as a miner in the Western Coalfields at Majri in Maharashtra’s Chandrapur district. The young man had to cycle a long distance to play his cricket in Nagpur. He had to content himself playing tennis ball cricket until he got picked up for the Vidarbha under-22 side.

Of course, Yadav is not the first Indian cricketers to come from such a humble background. Even the first few generation of Indian cricket saw diversity – from the wealthy Parsi Mehallasha Pavri, a doctor by profession, to the Harijan groundsman Palwankar Baloo to the middle-class Sanskrit scholar Prof. DB Deodhar.

In the early 60s, Eknath Solkar, later to be unarguably India’s greatest ever fielder at forward short-leg, learnt his cricket at the Hindu Gymkhana in Bombay (as Mumbai was then known) where his father was the chief groundsman. Solkar could not hone his skills against the trainees and members of the club and had to wait for them to leave to be able to work on his game until the great Vinoo Mankad spotted his talent and took him under his wings. Vinod Kambli’s story was no different. Son of a mechanic, he grew up with 18 people in a room in a chawl in Bombay’s Bhindi Bazar.

In the current squad, Virender Sehwag is the son of a grain and flour merchant from Najafgarh in the outskirts of Delhi while Ishant Sharma, one of the stars of India’s last tour of Australia, grew up in a household where his father ran an airconditioner repair shop. And, it is a well-known story that Irfan Pathan, who is now on the road to a Test comeback, is the son of a Muezzin in Baroda.

Yet, what we get to see is some great bowling and batting feats but what remains tucked away in the background is the sacrifices that families make to see that the dreams of their children come true. And, happily, this has no longer been the prerogative of those living in the metros. Dreams have their own way of actualising. Sooner than later, even if for every such wonderful story, there are dozens of heartbreaking tales too. That perhaps is the beauty of this sport that we love so much.

(This piece was written for Prabhat Khabar‘s Sunday supplement, Ravivar)

There cannot be a better example of how the evolution of media technology had brought English football – and many other world class sports events – home to millions of fans in Asia. The synergy and inter-dependence between broadcast media and sport, especially at the international level, has completely altered how we consume what has come to be called sports products from across the globe. All of us love watching a spectacle, irrespective of whether our athletes take part in it or not. And sport does provides great content for TV and earns stupendous revenue from the sale of rights.

Extending eminent cricket historian CLR James argument about cricket in his seminal work Beyond A Boundary to all sport, they reflect the society in which they are played. And today’s Asia aspires to achieve the evolution of the west – and its sport – without experiencing the pangs of development.  Clearly, the vast Asian market is a readymade and enticing target for such sports products from around the world. So what if we are becoming a consuming rather competing continent. And, there have been a number of Asian firms and individuals who have started investing in these sport and teams.

While it is a good wager that the media in the region has kept pace with its western counterparts in terms of technology, the same cannot be said of sport in the region, with the notable exceptions of China and Australia. It will not be wrong to say that sport that is played in Europe and the Americas dominate the sports media in the entire region – from the middle-east through the sub-continent to the far-east.

Sadly, one of the major fallouts of the evolution is the reduced time and space for national sport, let alone regional, collegiate and local sport, has got. In India, for example, archer Deepika Kumari has to win accolades at the international level before the media picks up her story and discovers that she is the daughter of an humble auto-rickshaw driver in Ranchi; Yuvraj Valmiki has to score a goal in the penalty tie-break against Pakistan in the final of the Asian Champions Trophy hockey in Ordos before the media realises that he has grown up in a shanty by Marine Lines in Mumbai. There is no greater pride and joy than in recognising talent and being the first to give it time or space.

Come to think of it, media development doesn’t have to be synonymous only with the financial bottomline. True development has to go deeper than that. It has to encompass evolution of sports media from being mere carriers of news and views to being catalysts which also enhance sports consciousness among the people. The use of sport as a tool than can build the character of the athletes – and therefore a country’s people – needs to be embraced and spread. It is only when it facilitates such wholesome growth of sport, can we say that sports media has indeed evolved.

It is undeniable sports development does not happen anymore without the active partnership of a variety of media. Be it the conventional products like the Olympic Games or FIFA World Cup finals or ICC Cricket World Cup or even new ones like the Indian Premier League cricket, print, TV, radio, internet and mobile platforms are all used widely to showcase sport.  Nowhere can the impact of technology be felt than when watching world class sporting events from the comfort of our drawing rooms.

Increasingly, this has kept us away from local sport. Even a cursory look at the day’s newspapers in the region will show that a vast majority of the sports coverage is international, based on what is being telecast. It ranges from cricket to European football league, ATP and WTA tennis tournaments to the USPGA and European PGA golf tours, Formula One to NBA. When we were growing up, we would wait for four years to watch world class football on TV but now we get to watch it ever so often.

The spin-off – and a bad one at that – is that a lot of sports, especially at the regional and national levels, face the threat of fading away because there has been so little coverage in the media. And such lack of encouragement can lead to the drying of resources, eventually leading to a smaller pool of talent to draw from in the years ahead.

On its part, while radio can contribute to the development of sport, it will find incredibly good content, rich in the human element, when promoting sport and sportspeople. The road ahead is challenging and interesting, but not impossible. And it does look like it will be up to regional stations to find local heroes and promote them so much that representatives of print media are forced to take note. I believe that if that has not happened already, a large part of it is due to lethargy on the part of the programming and marketing staff.

For someone who has grown up listening to radio broadcasts — running commentary, as we knew it – of Test cricket, international hockey, several national championships and even local sport – I believe that the medium would soon have to reinvent its sports programming, based on a connect with their audience.

There are some significant things that can be corrected quickly but with changed mindset and a little effort. I am sure that TV channels can produce interesting features around sport in the hinterland rather than just use the old-fashioned copy-paste techniques to showcase clips from events that have been beamed live. Or, get busy when controversies like doping or match-fixing rear their heads.

Radio stations, including privately-owned FM stations need to tap the sports market that reaches beyond sport that is aired live on TV. They will find champions from yesteryear who can inspire their audiences and budding champions who can also make the hearts swell with pride in the same manner as celebrities paying tribute to Army personnel on the border on Jaimala Gold, a weekly programme aired by All India Radio.

National Sports Federations as well as organisers of school, college and club sport must galvanise themselves into finding ways to regain time and space in the media if they are to remain relevant in the years ahead.  And when that happens, you can be sure that the stories Deepika Kumaris and the Yuvraj Valmikis will be well known even as they are winning laurels for their country.

I am an optimist and believe that the day is not far when sports producers both on news TV channels and radio stations will look for out of the box solutions to the conundrum they now face. And if they are in denial about it being a conundrum, I am sure they will stop embracing a status quo approach to sports. It just needs a different mindset for the benefits of development to reach a variety of sports at all levels across the region that houses the largest market for sports products.

This article was written for Namaste, the souvenir that has been brought out by Prasar Bharati, to commemorate the 48th General Assembly of  ABU (Asian-Pacific Broadcasting  Union in New Delhi from November 2 to 8, 2011

Sports Scan – Nov 6 2011

And, at once, many started using this information when painting a prototype of the cricketer who could fall prey to temptations. The sketch that emerged was one of a rustic cricketer who was poorly educated and could be easily manipulated. We seemed to forget that greed does not look at the upbringing or sociological, educational or economic background of the cricketers.

Perhaps the likes of Salman Butt, Mohammed Asif and Mohammed Aamer had not heard of former South African captain Hansie Cronje, let alone his warnings. Back in June 2000 when he confessed to accepting money from bookmakers, Cronje hoped his experience would serve as a lesson to all other cricket players and administrators.

“I think a serious effort should be made to educate and warn players of the dangers posed by sports betting and gamblers. Most young professional cricket players have little experience of the hard realities of commerce and the gambling world. They are easy prey,” he said.

Talking of prey, just as a lioness spends time identifying the weakest deer in a herd before setting off in pursuit, those who indulge in sharp practices look for the emotionally most vulnerable. As Cronje admitted, the level of temptation placed in front of a cricketer for doing, or not doing, what can easily be presented as furnishing information is enormous. Once money has been accepted, even for what appears to have been something innocuous, one is compromised and it becomes difficult to turn back.

After all, cricketers are a part of such a society in which the game is played – and, in the sub-continent, they are drawn from all strata of society, irrespective of social background. It must also be remembered that cricket is not played in a vacuum and reflects the society in which it is played.

When he first propounded this line of thought in the epochal Beyond A Boundary, cricket’s most famous sociologist CLR James may not have anticipated such a turn of events that led Justice Cooke to wrote: “The image and integrity of what was once a game, but is now a business is damaged in the eyes of all, including the many youngsters who regarded three of you as heroes and would have given their eye teeth to play at the levels and with the skill that you had.”

The instances of match-fixing have come to light only in the past 12 years, though the first known instance of players’ association with bookmakers was in 1994 when Shane Warne and Mark Waugh received money from one such in exchange for information passed on to him. The growth of cricket from a mere game to an industry, coinciding with the evolution of technology, has also opened avenues for the corrupt to try and influence the flow of events. As Justice Cook said what ought to be honest sporting competition may not be such at all.

Yet, given the nature of the game, it is hardly surprising that cricket was conceived to delight and be the despair of bookmakers and plain fans, innocent of such vice. In fact there is evidence that The Laws of the Noble Game of Cricket, published in May 1809, provided for bets to be laid.

The law declared: If the Notches of one Player are laid against the another, the Bets depend on the First Inning, unless otherwise specified. If the Bets are made upon both innings, and one Party beats the other in one inning, the Notches in the First Inning shall determine the Bet. But if the other Party goes in a second time, the Bet must be determined by the number on the Score.

The Financial Action Task Force, an inter-Governmental body that plays a key role in the development of policies to combat money laundering and terrorist financing has said sport, just like any other business, can be used by criminals to launder the proceeds of crime or to perpetrate illegal activities for financial gain.

“Sports that could be vulnerable to money laundering problems are either big sports (worldwide like football or on a national basis like cricket, basketball or ice hockey), sports like boxing, kick boxing and wrestling (sports that have traditionally links with the criminal milieu because of the relationship between crime and violence), high value sports (such as horse and car racing where there are ample opportunities to launder big sums of money), sports using (high value) transfer of players, sports where there is much cash around, which give criminals opportunities to turn cash into non-cash assets or to convert small into large bills. This fact means that virtually all sports could be targeted by criminals, although for different reasons,” it said in a report in 2009.

A careful look at the past will reveal that the never-say-die efforts of bookmakers to protect their own money dates back more than a century and a quarter. Back in 1879, when Lord Harris was touring Australia with an English team, there was trouble at a Sydney ground over an umpire’s decision that did not satisfy the barrackers.

Led by bookmakers who were losing money over a decision, they swarmed onto the pitch and tried to lynch the umpires. Ringed in by the two teams, the mob attempted to overwhelm the players. The game had to be stopped and the umpires escorted indoors. When an Australian ringleader followed, he was picked up and flung bodily through the committee room window by English batsman A.N. Hornby.

It can be now said that the efforts of Salman Butt and company have once again sought to throw cricket – and its tenets – out of the window. Hopefully, cricket will pick itself up and regain its place in the social circles so that the adage “It is not cricket” continues to have significant meaning.

Freeze frames of the events that shook the very foundations of cricket in the year 2000 came rushing back to the mind. And, at the same time, it was tough to stop oneself from wondering what would have happened had the cricketers been trapped by a sting operation in the sub-continent.

Justice Cooke’s reference to the underworld is shocking but not new because it is in keeping with the Central Bureau of Investigation’s findings. It is a good wager – and one uses the word quite consciously – that a court of law would never been called upon to hear such a case. So what is the primary difference between what Scotland Yard achieved now, with help from the News of the World, and what the Central Bureau of Investigation did in the year 2000?

First and foremost, there was irrefutable video evidence of bookmaker Mazhar Majeed setting it all up and receiving cash from the News of the World’s undercover reporter. Then, there was hard evidence in the form of marked currency notes that was recovered from the bookmaker himself, Salman Butt and Mohammed Aamer. Above all, Majeed and Aamer pleaded guilty in court when they were booked under the Gambling Act 2005.

The Indian investigation never reached a court of law. The Preliminary Enquiry that Central Bureau of Investigation conducted in 2000 was unable to make much headway, at least from a legal perspective. CBI did not take the Tehelka video tapes seriously and relied to a great extent on depositions by bookmakers and some circumstantial evidence to draw its inferences.

CBI – and its legal adviser – analysed the provisions of IPC Section 120-A, dealing with criminal conspiracy, and Section 415, dealing with cheating. They concluded that the facts of enquiry did not constitute an offence under these sections of law. “However reprehensible the conduct of the players concerned may be, it cannot be brought within the parameters of ‘cheating’, as defined in the (Indian Penal) Code,” Justice (retd) Monoj Kumar Mukherjee wrote to CBI. He also examined the case under the Public Gambling Act 1867 and Delhi Public Gambling Act 1955 and wrote that it must be kept in mind that the punishment provided for the offence is lenient – six months jail and a fine of Rs 1000 – and not at all commensurate with the magnitude of the crime.

CBI also discussed its findings and the report with the then Solicitor General of India Harish Salve. It indicated that he was in broad agreement that no criminal charges under cheating or under the Gambling Act could be filed against anyone because of the nebulous position of law in this regard.

The other reason put forth by CBI for not filing criminal charges was an admitted improbability of obtaining sufficient evidence that would pass muster in court. CBI also concluded that the facts as disclosed in the enquiry do not constitute any offence under the provisions of Indian Penal Code.

It is clear that our lawmakers are not serious about ensuring that our sport has the chance to be clean – and to be seen as clean. Else, they would not have ignored the warnings from CBI that there were clear signals that the underworld had started taking interest in the betting racket and was expected to take overall control of this activity.

“It does appear that what may have been small-time wagering (which to some extent is inevitable) has now been replaced by an organised syndicate, and this syndicate has started interfering with the purity of the sport. It has been the negligence of the police and the other regulatory authorities,that has allowed wagering to turn into an organised racket, particularly with the involvement of the underworld,” the CBI said.

Worse, the CBI held out a warning. “With a large amount of money at stake in the betting racket on cricket, it makes sense for both bookies and punters to manipulate results of cricket matches. This has resulted in their developing a close and unholy relationship with cricketers,” it said, adding that the game had lost a considerable degree of its credibility already, and it would be a matter of national shame if the problems which, to some extent apparent form the evidence gathered and narrated in the report, are not immediately and decisively resolved.

Shockingly, even though 11 years have passed since Superintendent of Police MA Ganapathy scripted that interim report, India’s position remains the same. We still do not have a law to try anyone – player or bookmaker – on a criminal charge. We have left it to the Board of Control for Cricket in India to prevent and, if necessary, punish the players while the bookmakers walk away scot free.

There has been so much focus on how the cricketers awarded jail sentences are from Pakistan. There has been a rush to vilify Pakistan cricket. And in that quest, we have overlooked the fact that we have done precious little to instill the fear of the law in the minds and hearts of those who can perpetrate the crime of taking the joy away from the wonderful game that we love so much.