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.

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)

The page in Prabhat Khabar where this article (translated of course) appeared

You may shut your ears to the raging debate on corruption in the country but there is no escape from the argument over the International Cricket Council’s recent decision to implement a watered down version of the Decision Review System in all forms of international cricket and over how the Board of Control for Cricket in India has called the shots in getting ICC to drop ball tracking technology (Hawk Eye) from the list of aids for TV umpires.

And I paused to think if anybody has been able to stop the march of time or the advent of technology. We have come a long way from using valve radios to transistors to digital radio; from using typewriters to computers; from telephones to mobile phones; from cars that guzzled fuel to machines that are fuel efficient. Yes, technology touches our lives in every which way possible and it is natural that it makes its presence felt in cricket too – not just with making the TV viewing experience a memorable one but also in ensuring that umpires make the right decisions.

Before anything else, let us try and understand why the Decision Review System (DRS) came into being.  A little bit of history of the advent of the TV umpire will help. Back in 1992-93, cricket embraced TV technology to help umpires with line decisions – stumping and run out dismissals as well. Gradually, umpires started looking at replays for catches taken in the close in cordon to see if the fielder caught the ball cleanly or if a portion the ball hit the ground before being scooped up.

With the quantum improvement of TV technology, umpires’ mistakes were exposed and scrutinised like never before. So, sitting in your drawing room, you would get to know the mistakes they committed. Even if the percentage of correct decision-making was 92 or 93 per cent, the wrong decisions would get noticed and talked about at length in various media platforms.

So the mandarins of the game felt a need to improve that percentage to 97 or 98 by using a system that allows television technology to be used in a way that would not result in too many delays, would not de-skill the umpires and would take some pressure off the umpires. They carried out some trials and when they noticed improved player behaviour and a significant reduction in the number of umpiring errors,

A number of technological aides are available for use to assist the third umpire arrive at a decision. These included slow motion replays, super slow motion replays and ultra motion camera replays from all available cameras, sound from the stump microphones with the replays at normal speed and slow motion, approved ball tracking technology, the mat, generated by the provider of ball tracking technology and not by the broadcaster, Hot Spot cameras and other forms of technology subject to ICC being satisfied that the required standards of accuracy and time efficiency could be met.

The ultimate aim was to make sure clear mistakes were avoided. And there was a firm belief that this system would help alleviate the problems created when mistakes – which appeared obvious on replays – were made. With feedback indicating that the majority of players and umpires were behind the system, ICC persisted with its implementation.

The popular New Zealand umpire Billy Bowden believed that having the DRS was the best thing since sliced bread. “From an umpires point of view I embraced it, lived it and loved it. The effect was all positive for me but I wasn’t surprised one iota. Why? Well, it gave me confidence to make good, strong umpiring decisions and I did not fall in to the trap of relying on the DRS to bail me out. I felt in control and relaxed. I didn’t lose confidence when two of my decisions were reversed in two Tests. Instead I felt good that the right decision was made. It also gave me strength to get back in the zone again and concentrate on the next ball knowing I wouldn’t be criticised in the papers the next day,” he said.

Why then has been there so much debate? The Indians – skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni, legend Sachin Tendulkar and the Board of Control for Cricket in India – have been quite vociferous in their opposition to the use of only technology for the DRS. Their line of argument has been simple. Hawk-Eye’s ball tracking technology is inadequate. “We don’t have any problems with the Snickometer or Hot Spot but Hawk Eye is yet to convince us. This technology is based on assumption,” BCCI Secretary N Srinivasan said. “We welcome technology when it is 100 per cent error free. In this case it is not, so we would continue to oppose.”

It is not clear how much research BCCI conducted into Hawk Eye’s technology. On the other hand, Hawk Eye Innovations, part of Sony Professional Solutions Europe, have spent considerable time explaining the system’s accuracy. The South African team had reservations about the prediction model, more so after Mark Boucher was ruled out leg before to Stuart Broad in a Test match in January 2010 but overcame them when Hawk Eye produced documentary evidence to back that the umpire and the TV umpires’ decisions.

Talking of skeptics being won over, it is ironical that Sachin Tendulkar – arguably one of the staunchest critics of Hawk Eye technology – took recourse to winning a verdict in his favour after he had been ruled out leg before wicket to Saeed Ajmal in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 semifinal between India and Pakistan at Mohali.

What are the solutions? The ICC has agreed that further independent and expert research will be carried out into ball-tracking technology and its accuracy and reliability. The continued use of ball-tracking technology as a decision-making aid will now depend on bilateral agreement between the participating Boards. But more importantly, it must be realised that it is not as if only the technology counts. The men who make, control – operate, if `you please – and use technology to make decisions matter a great deal.

Much as the cricket romantics would like the complete elimination of technological aids for umpires, it is inevitable that it will gain a larger role in helping umpires make the right decisions – and, more importantly, ensure that the cricketers and their teams do not suffer because clearly apparent wrong judgments have been passed.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s dimissal off a no-ball in the Bridgetown Test is a case in point. During India’s first innings, Dhoni was out caught at mid-on off Fidel Edwards. Umpire Ian Gould suspected that the delivery could have been a no-ball and sought confirmation from the third umpire Gregory Brathwaite. Upon review, Brathwaite was shown a legitimate delivery by the host broadcaster and so Dhoni was given out. It was subsequently established that Brathwaite had been shown the wrong replay and that the delivery that led to Dhoni’s dismissal should indeed have been called a no-ball.

“The host broadcaster for this series, IMG Media, acknowledged the mistake and has apologised,” ICC Match Referee Chris Broad said.  “Having looked into the situation, I am satisfied it was an unfortunate but honest mistake in what is a tense and live environment. It is worth pointing out that the umpires followed the correct procedures and are without blame in this matter. “

Indeed, we have to acknowledge human error will be a part of everything that we do – whether it is in space programmes or aircraft crashes or train accidents. And if, as many of us believe, cricket is a microcosm of life, it is inevitable that there will be an element of human error in the use of any technology to make and confirm decisions. Yes, technology has to be embraced because it can ensure a greater accuracy in decision making but it must not take away from the charm of the game or interrupt its flow.

It would be foolhardy to dismiss technological aids to enable umpires make the right decisions. However, it is imperative that event owners (host cricket Boards, ICC) tell the rights holders not to air footage that has not been available to the umpires. More importantly, they must stop the former cricketers from leading an attack on umpires based on slow motion footage that is made available to them well after a decision is made.

After all, the debate has been fuelled in the main by TV producers stumbling upon evidence well after judgments have been passed and by willing former cricketers dwelling at length about these umpiring decisions. Before the advancement of broadcast technology, any criticism of the umpires was based on feedback from the players involved in the contest rather than those who were earning a living by commenting on the game.

“Maaro!”

None of the many moments that have stuck in mind from India’s comfortable win over Bangladesh in the opening game of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 are more significant that the sight of Virat Kohli telling Yusuf Pathan “Maaro”.

Kohli had taken a single off the first ball of the final over and Pathan approached him in the middle of the pitch, ostensibly wanting to know what the young man would like him to do, especially since he was batting on 99. The answer was instinctive: “Maaro!”

True enough, Pathan carted the next ball to long-off and they ran two, with Kohli – running to the ‘danger end’ – sprinting across to complete the second run. Everyone would have forgiven the pair if it did not take the second run and allowed Kohli the strike to be able to get to his hundred on World Cup debut. After all, India had already made 366 runs off 49.1 overs.

The young man who has been in superb form in the recent months and edged out Suresh Raina to a spot in the XI got his chance to reach the milestone only off the penultimate delivery of the innings and chipped the ball to mid on to become the first Indian batsman to make a century on maiden appearance in the World Cup.

Kohli played some delectable strokes during his massive stand with Virender Sehwag but all those images were overshadowed by his selfless act in telling Pathan to hit the ball rather than rotate the strike. To me it captured the positive intent that this Indian team has come to embrace and showcase.

The 2003 Cricket World Cup was of vital importance to the participating countries. For India, a world cup triumph would make cricket the nation’s leading industry; for the host, South Africa, a successful campaign might realize its dream of political unity.
Dealing with themes of racial/political unification, commercialization, the media and globalisation, this book explores the role of cricket and sport in each of the competing nations.
Looking at recent developments such as match-fixing, the abolition of the quota system and the performances of the South African national team, the collection examines the importance of the Cricket World Cup in providing a unified political, social and economic stage from which a united South African identity can finally emerge. The book also explores the role of the Cricket World Cup in relation to West Indian unity, Pakistani economic regeneration, Sri Lankan, Kenyan and Zimbabwean peace.

And while there is still some time for the first ball to be bowled in the World Cup, Chawla’s showing in the final game he got to play in South Africa last week was anything but magical and did not do his cause any good. If anything it only added to the growing discussion about the Uttar Pradesh leg-spinner’s inclusion in the squad for the tournament that will hook all of India to ‘cricketitis’.

Coming on the heels of some frenetic bidding for him in the IPL auction when he was retained by Kings XI Punjab for $900,000 – the same as a certain Adam Gilchrist and a good $100,000 more than Praveen Kumar and Abhishek Nayar – Chawla’s selection to the World Cup squad has sparked a variety of emotions ranging from applause for the selectors to consternation. All of these will combine to place some extra pressure on his young shoulders when he gets to the bowling crease in any of the World Cup games.

He may find it heartening that former India captains like Ajit Wadekar and Dilip Vengsarkar have welcomed his selection as one that will give the captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni an additional bowling option. Yet, there are others who are hedging and some like Bishan Singh Bedi who wonder what really the selectors were thinking and call Chawla’s selection in the World Cup squad baffling.

“I am amazed that they preferred the leg-spinner who now bowls with a chest on action ahead of Pragyan Ojha, whose left-arm spin would have been really handy,” Bedi says. “I remember watching Piyush along with Erapalli (Prasanna) at the National Cricket Academy a few years ago and thinking that his was a lad with immense potential. But somewhere he seems to have lost the edge that a match winning leg-spinner should have.

The left-arm spinning great is from that school of thought which believes that it would have helped to pick an extra batsman like Rohit Sharma or even a Manish Pandey in the squad. “That would give the team management some insurance against batting failures or loss of form of some in the middle-order,” he says. “And with Yuvraj Singh bowling really well and looking good to bowl eight to 10 overs himself and with others like Yusuf Pathan, Suresh Raina, Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag, I wonder if India will ever play two specialist spinners in a match. The team may end up having both R Ashwin and Piyush Chawla in the reserves, even if Ashwin deserves to be looked at a first choice for the off-spinner’s place.

“If indeed, Dhoni and the others in the team management believed that Chawla can make a significant contribution, they should have played him in each of the matches in South Africa so that he could have got some match practice rather than in just the final game,” Bedi says, pointing out that the leg-spinner did not come close to making his presence felt in that game in Centurion where he was picked ahead of left-arm seamer Ashish Nehra.

Of course, Chairman of Selectors K Srikkanth suggested that his panel factored in expectations that the pitches could be dry and spinner-friendly, the opposition and Chawla being the most experienced spinner of the contenders. And, expectedly, India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni was quick to rush to Chawla’s defence. “It is good to have Piyush in the side as he provides that variety to the attack. He is one guy who can bat a bit. He has scored decent runs in Ranji and also while playing in county circuit. If we plan to play with five bowlers, then he can be a handy number seven or eight batsman,” Dhoni said.

Chawla has come across as mentally strong as he continued to work on his craft while the selectors kept playing musical chairs with the likes of left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha, leg-spinner Amit Mishra and Ashwin in the past couple of years.  To be fair, Chawla averaged 36.20 runs when scoring 1086 runs in 23 first class games in India and England in the past two seasons. In this time he has also claimed 97 first class wickets.

But the most question is what has Chawla done in the shorter versions of the game to emerge as one of India’s most valuable fringe players? In the two and a half years between his last two one-day international matches, the young man from Aligarh has taken two wickets in three T20 games for India, including two in the ICC World Twenty20 in the West Indies last year. Overall, he has 37 wickets in T20 games and 17 wickets in the 50-over format. Nothing much to write home about, his critics will point out.

More than anything else, critics of Chawla’s selection point out that Dhoni’s statement in Cape Town is a clear indication that the leg-spinner would come into the fray only if India thinks of playing five specialist bowlers. And it will take some effort to recall when last the team played with a full complement of bowlers – a top of the mind recall suggests that it was against Australia in the ICC Champions Trophy in South Africa in 2009.

So what other reason can explain Chawla’s presence in the squad? His being in the squad enhances Dhoni’s luck, suggests one former India player. “You see the captain believes Chawla helped by being part of the squad that won the ICC World Twenty20 in South Africa in 2007 and played the two victorious finals against Australia in the Commonwealth Bank Series in Sydney and Brisbane in March 2008,” he says.

Chawla’s selection may have baffled not a few but his real challenge will come when he is picked to play a World Cup game and is given the task of baffling batsmen with his brand of leg-spin. Indeed, the ball is really in the 23-year-old’s court. After all, in his Aligarh home, he is called Paras. Perhaps he can bring some magic to the table and ensure that the team makes the dreams of a billion plus come true on April 2.

This piece was first published in India Today (issue dated February 7,  2011)

Yet, there was one memory of Herschelle Gibbs that stuck in my mind when I picked up the book. It was of him playing for Deccan Chargers against Delhi Daredevils at the Ferozshah Kotla in Delhi in the inaugural edition of the Indian Premier League. He had hit a couple of audacious sixes off Glenn McGrath but charged down the track to hit leg-spinner Amit Mishra over the covers and was beaten by a googly to have the middle stump bent back. He found the lure of the flighted delivery too strong to resist. And left the wicket open for destruction. Since the greybeards have insisted that cricket – and indeed all sport – reflects life at large, I believe that one moment captures the essence of Gibbs’s approach to not just his cricket but also life.

Indeed, that memory from May 2008 kept floating back from the sub-conscious many times during the reading of Gibbs’ roller coaster ride in the world of cricket and refuses to fade away as I sit down to write these lines about To the Point. By his own admission, there are many aspects of his life where he has been lured by temptation – and ended up losing not just his wicket but also money, wife, friends and a lot else, not the least being his contract with Cricket South Africa.

One of the intrinsic features of the book is its apparent honesty. It does take a brave man to share the romps with women he and some of his mates had in Australia, his journey into an alcohol rehab centre and his having a son out of wedlock. Or, indeed, to delve into the reasons for the break-up of his marriage after just a year. For someone who spent a lot of time with his mates in the Proteas cricket side, he has also taken an enormous risk talking about a clique within the team. Is it bravery or bravado?  Not surprisingly, this question was relevant even to his cricket.

It is a pity that Gibbs has used the excuse of being drunk as an escape route to explain many memory lapses around key events in his life. His has been an amazing journey – both as a cricketer who broke into senior cricket when he was barely 16 and as a evolving human whose time in a rehab clinic taught him the immense value of introspection. Perhaps it is this growing maturity, stemming from a coming to terms with who he really is, that allowed him to risk writing a great deal of what went into the book.

Yet, for all the lack of fear and honesty in the book, there is much that he seems to leave unsaid. Even though, Gibbs has spoken of skipper Graeme Smith, Mark Boucher, Jacques Kallis and AB de Villiers as a clique, I was not left any wiser as to why someone with his experience did not seem to have a great equation with Smith. And it will be a good wager that he would have expected his contract with Cricket South Africa to come to a quick end after the publication of the book. There are glimpses of Gibbs leadership skills to be had in the manner in which he got the rehab centre to make changes and yet, strangely, he never considered himself for any leadership roles within the South African team.

Talking of Gibbs and his presence in the South African team – and that is what we have seen more than anything else – his perception of why the side appears to lack big match temperament and loses the key games like World Cup finals is engaging. His mates may not agree with his assessment of how the side panics and forgets that it may have designed a Plan B in the first place.

I paid only a little bit more than cursory attention to some of the chapters in the book and I have to admit that since Gibbs was close to the centre ofl’affaire match fixing in the year 2000 when South Africa captain Hansie Cronje’s flirtations with the murky came to the fore, I was looking forward to his take on what happened. I could not help breaking into a smile when he described Delhi’s Commissioner of Police KK Paul as someone who made his career out of him. “.. the case was high profile and often reported on in the media, which had made KK Paul something of a big deal and had resulted in several promotions for him…,” Gibbs writes. Even cricketer-authors get their facts wrong sometimes and assume a larger than necessary role in the lives of others.

I also found it interesting that the only serious reference to Sachin Tendulkar in the book seems to suggest that the little big man of Indian cricket – who he calls a total genius – was focussed on collecting records rather than play for his team. “… he slowed down in the final four or five overs to make sure he got the record,” Gibbs writes, “… if I was in Sachin’s position, I would’ve really gone balls-to-the-wall to try to see if I could get my team close to 480 or 500 runs rather focus on my own double century.” I guess there is more to Tendulkar than just a relentless pursuit of records.

The preface to the book by Gary Kirsten, now coach of the Indian team and Gibbs’ opening partner for many years, makes for an interesting read in itself. He writes that the projection of Gibbs as a maverick, prone to self destruction and always living on the edge is, on some levels, accurate. Kirsten also speaks of his friend as a genuine and generous bloke with an exceptional wit who would ensure that there would be no dull moments when he was around.

Come to think of it, reading Gibb’s entertaining and, often, no-holds-barred book has been quite a unique experience – it gave me some new insights into the mind of a mercurial cricketer who lived life in the fast lane, as it were. And it made it hard for me to stop myself from wondering if there would be any Indian cricketer who can write as candidly about his cricket and, more importantly, his life. I can think of many whose books can make very interesting reads but it is unlikely that any will step forward and be as candid as Herschelle Gibbs has been in opening up with To The Point.

To The Point

Herschelle Gibbs (with Steve Smith)

Zebra Press

pp236

This book review was first written for M magazine, January 2011

My focus is on the unadulterated joy caused by that genius answering to the name of V Anand whene he retained the World Chess Championship title with a fine victory over Veselin Topalov with black pieces in the 12th game in Sofia. For someone who endured a four day road trip to get to the match venue, he was simply the master.

I speak of the unbridled optimism when the Indian badminton men and women’s teams made it to the quarterfinals of the Thomas and Uber Cups in Kuala Lumpur. The fact that P Kashyap took a game off the legendary Taufiq Hidayat and that Saina Nehwal held her own in the face of the Korean onslaught on her team augured well for Indian badminton.

I speak of the hope that was sparked in our hearts that the hockey team had begun its arduous walk back to the top half of world rankings when it beat Australia in the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup tournament in Ipoh. It was a rare victory over a side from Down Under but that did not send me into a tizzy of ecstasy since the Australian squad was at best an experimental outfit.

Yet, there was a huge sense of disappointment that the Indian cricket team – which has the largest television viewership – caused by its inability to make it to the semifinals of the ICC World Twenty20 in the West Indies. For a side that was expected to be among the front-runners in the tournament, India stunned its followers with an early exit

A number of reasons have been put forth for India’s successive defeats to Australia, the West Indies and Sri Lanka. The biggest was the failure of the batsmen to come to grips with the challenge of playing on a bouncy track in Bridgetown against Australia and the West Indies or accelerate in the second half of its innings against Sri Lanka on a more comfortable pitch.

The selectors must take a large part of the blame for not giving the team management any choice as far as batting is concerned – Dinesh Karthik was the only one available and let us not forget he was on the squad mainly as a reserve wicket-keeper and not as a specialist batsman. It forced the team to play both Ravindra Jadeja and Yusuf Pathan as bits and pieces players.

It is not just with hindsight that I believe Piyush Chawla’s presence in the tour party was a luxury that the side could not afford. And then to have carried Vinay Kumar – and flown in Umesh Yadav as a replacement for the injured Praveen Kumar – without showing much faith in them suggested that the team management was not aligned with the thinking of the selectors,

Of course, the team erred in playing just two seam bowlers in Zaheer Khan and Ashish Nehra even on the bouncier tracks in Bridgetown. The ploy worked like magic against South Africa in the Beausejour Stadium at Gros Islet in St. Kitts. Mahendra Singh Dhoni challenged the South Africans with plenty of spin and reaped dividends.

Sadly, even after the defeat by Australia in the opening Group F game in Bridgetown, India persisted with the same plan instead of playing Vinay Kumar ahead of an extra spin bowling option. On a track that offered pace and bounce to the quicker bowler ready to bend his back, India did not have anyone with that quality.

But more than anything else, it was the much vaunted Indian batting line-up’s inability to cope with chin music in Bridgetown that let the team down. For all that, it is critical that we do not allow that one emotion called anger to surface. It is one thing to be disappointed with and critical of the batting performances but another thing to be angry with the side,

Perhaps the fact the matchless Anand won his fourth world title and gave the nation so much cheer about will temper some of the anger; may be the ‘revival’ of Indian hockey (and let me reiterate that I am not convinced that it is) will shift some of the negative focus from the Indian cricketers.  Yes, at least, some of us did not go berserk because some team won the Premiership.

The Indian team at the start of one of its FIH World Cup matches

One of the spin-offs in a career in which writing and commenting on cricket seems to have taken precedence – despite having been to Olympic Games, Asian Games, SAF Games and numerous other non cricket sporting events – is that I have not been in touch with a whole generation of Indian hockey players.

A quirk of fate offered me a chance to make some headway in that direction when I got to spend some quality time with some players last week. In fact, I got to chat up with a couple of them from the Indian squad that took the field in the Hero Honda FIH World Cup on a 15-minute drive and we were able to exchange notes on a number of contemporary issues facing Indian hockey.

One of the pet peeves of the contemporary player is that their predecessors keep insisting that they do not work as hard as they did in their time. “I believe that if we had played in their era, we could have played three matches in a day. Such was the pace at which hockey was played then,” one of the players told me.

Now, that may be debatable but the players – like the modern cricketers who believe that past players are making a living by commenting on their performances – do have a point about some of the former stars being a little uncharitable towards the present squad. For I have always believed that former players have a responsibility towards the sport that they played so passionately and follow with similar intensity now.

If I tended to agree with the spirit of that statement I was in disagreement with what came next – and it had to do with payments. “We don’t get compensated for the amount of work we put in at training,” the player said, pointing out that unlike in the past when National camps were not year-long affairs.

“Players could spend time with their families and turn out for their respective employers’ teams in the domestic circuit. Now, we do not spend much time at home and find it hard to play for our employers,” he said. I pointed out that money was not the reason they had picked up the hockey stick the first time and said I believed their recent strike was unjustified.

“You talked of dues when you were not contracted to get any amounts from your Federation,” I said. “I am not against you making money but I disagreed with your method. If you were seeking player contracts and graded payments, you should have got into negotiations with the Federation and convinced them like the cricketers did a few years ago.”

To their credit, both players did not show any signs of animosity and heard me out when I explained how the then captain Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble and Javagal Srinath spent close to two years convincing officials of the Board of Control for Cricket in India that graded payments needed to be introduced.

“I agree that we started playing because we were passionate about it and did not expect to be rewarded for pursuing our passion,” he says. “But having coming along and having proved ourselves to be the best in the land, is it unfair to expect to be compensated? And, don’t you think many youngsters would be drawn to the game if we make it lucrative enough?”

Of course, I said. And since we had arrived at our destination, it was time to drop them with promises to stay in touch and share notes and ideas.

This piece was written for www.stick2hockey.com

Kapil Dev remains forthright as ever (Photo courtesy: Laureus Academy)

I have always valued feedback – criticism and appreciation – as being essential to any communication and hearing from Kapil Dev was a humbling experience. The immediate feeling was not of elation that India’s only World Cup winning captain called but of satisfaction that the show was being heard and elicited feedback.

“I also call Rakesh-saab,” he said during the conversation, alluding to former India leg-spinner Rakesh Shukla who was on the show called Kaun Banega Vijeta? To hear a man who had played 131 Tests for India without ever missing one on fitness grounds use the respectful saab for a man who played but one Test match in 1982 was, simply stated, delightfully humble.

Kapil Dev seemed to have the time and we got into a discussion about how he would even today stand up respectfully in the presence of his seniors and about how such traditions are handed down in the dressing room. I have seen Mohammed Azharuddin rise from his seat and stay on his feet until Sunil Gavaskar who arrived later sat down.

“Bishan-paaji will always be Bishan-paaji for me… never Bishan,” Kapil Dev said of his first captain Bishan Singh Bedi. “I cannot think of any other way. We have been taught the importance of respecting our seniors, even if we have some differences of opinion once in a while.

“Somewhere in the past decade or so, it appears that such traditions have been given the go by,” he said. The tone did not have either disgust or dissatisfaction. It was a mere statement of his perception. Perhaps it is reflective of the way modern society has shaped up in the recent years when the spheres of influence have grown expotentially.

Our conversation also touched briefly on how money can be one of those spheres of influence. “I have never been against players making money,” said the man who was at the spearhead of campaign in the 80s to ensure players got what was rightfully theirs. “But I have always believed that responsibility comes along with money.”

He hung up but my mind kept lingering on those words – responsibility comes along with money. With a lot of young cricketers making big money early in their careers, they have had little time to sit back and reflect on how critical it is to retain humility as a vital part of their overall persona.