Gambhir's Crown of Thorns

Serious cricket takes a hiatus, fun cricket takes over. The IPL clock on the right corner mast of The Times of India web site announces that the ultimate slug-fest with a bat and ball is about to begin in less than two days time. There have been some heated discussions over the usefulness of such a tournament, not without reason either. Starting from the concept of 20 overs match to the semi clad cheerleaders, nothing has been spared the cynics scythe. The idea of auctioning international cricketers, hitherto revered as national icons has also arched many eyebrows. People are at peace with the idea of footballers being bought and sold, but somehow the whole thought of applying the same business principle to the holier than thou cricket players seems a little outlandish. Well, no more. The evil(?) of Lalit Modi has enticed commodity and consumers alike. Not only has Cricket been finally brought to the same level of other sports after numerous false starts in the past (read Kerry Packer), but the very idea of owning cricket stars has become vogue. Every yesteryear star of Bollywood can now beam himself or herself into millions of TV sets live just by loosening the purse string and buying the company of a young Cricket lord for a season. This may be called being "Famous by Association".

Shahrukh Khan though is neither a star of the era gone by nor does he need the company of anyone to make his face appearance more frequent. Hence it was quite reliving not to see him cheering his team as often as he did in the inaugural edition. Not that the team gave him any great reasons to. Lesser boss influence and the humbling of the last three seasons has resulted in the team management going absolutely brutal in team selection. The list of international stars has been brought down drastically. In the previous editions, the KKR management had shown an unreasonable propensity towards buying up stars rather than performers. Most of such star purchases glittered only to fade. The fire power of Brendon McCullum and Chris Gayle proved insufficient to power them anywhere close to the top. Neither could Ajantha Mendis spin them out of their woes. Even the talismanic Shoaib Akhtar or the incisive Shane Bond could do little to inspire them. Hence, though shocking it was not surprising to see the KKR management going for a total overhaul when they picked their team this time.

But what knocked the air out of almost all KKR fans was when the Maharaja was dropped. The average Kolkatan can let go of his Illish Machh fetish but to find Dada missing from any team line up ever conjured that had Kolkata/Bengal/India as its domicile would be impossible to digest. There were the general shows of displeasure with a few Shahrukh Khan dummies being incinerated and another bunch of ministers clammering up to Kolkata's favorite son's defence. But it is about time, Sourav Ganguly is let be. He has done enormous good to the cause of Indian cricket and these petty celebrations of his achievements belittle his contributions. We saw him commentating during the World Cup. He brings a dignified presence to the TV studios and the commentator boxes otherwise sullied by self indulgent word spewers like Navjot Sidhu. From whatever we have seen of him in this new avatar, we certainly want more. Its time he hung up those overused bats, gloves and pads and initiate us to the chess game of cricket that he reads and plays like none other. This is a Dada fan speaking, back to KKR though.

The KKR team of 2011 has retained very few faces of the past. Barring a Laxmi Ratan Shukla and a Manoj Tiwary, no other name sounds familiar. Having said that, it must be  admitted that the present team is far better balanced than the teams of past. One of the major advantages is the inclusion of Jacques Kallis. It has been proven beyond any doubt that this man can win any cricket match in any form of the game. One of the reasons why South Africa did an encore of their World Cup suicides was his indifferent form. He not only brings balance to the team on the playground but also is a great influence to have off it. This man stands shoulder to shoulder with all the all time greats of world cricket without the fuss or aura of any. He is a superstar in the garbs of a handyman. It will be his form that will prove key for KKR.

Battingwise, KKR remains slog heavy. You put Yusuf Pathan, Eoin Morgan and Brad Haddin into the same mixing pot and if you see the pot not exploding within nanoseconds then it is time to believe the pot had poison gas inside of it. But such explosions also come with the bill of collateral damage. On their day, any one of these can blast any opposition out. But how often do such days come is a problem of the probabilistic statistician. Hence the calming presence of Ryan ten Doeschate and Shakib al Hasan would be crucial to KKR's success. The batting line up boasts of very few local talents, Shukla and Tiwary being the only ones. Since it is expected that these two will feature more frequently than the foreign imports, a lot would depend on them too.

O Gentlemen, where art thou?

The World Cup has come and gone. It has lived up to the expectations of one and all and given the final result has also left the largest fan base absolutely elated. The euphoria of India's victory refuses to die down. The Indian fans world over have finally got the one moment that they had been waiting for to let go of their miserly kept victory hurrah. More than anybody else, it is these common people who feel vindicated in their faith. Hardly any other team in any other form of sport has more than 18% of world population rooting for it. As the party comes to a more sober level and as the surreality turns to quiet realization, there is a perceivable shift in the confidence level of the average Indian supporter. May be, when India travels to the West Indies and England later this year, the fans would be more surprised if this team does not post outright victories in the test matches than pray for life saving series draws. Anyway, those are things of the future. For the time being, let's concentrate on the recent events.

The World Cup final has been discussed, dissected and eulogized at length. And it has not stopped yet. The most unusual thing about this tournament is the fact that the expected has happened. The most fancied team has come out victorious, the fall of the mighty Australians has come through, playing in the subcontinent the subcontinental teams have maximized their home advantage and South Africa for reasons that even God cannot explain have made an earlier than expected exit. Some spectacular players have also emerged. Among the associate member teams, Ireland and Netherlands have sprung two potential stars; Kevin O'Brien from the former and Ryan ten Doeschates from the later. While O'Brien has captivated all with that brutal innings against England, ten Doeschates has stamped his authority by posting two hundred plus knocks and claiming a handful of wickets. The regular suspects from the bigger teams have not disappointed. Jonathan Trott carried his spectacular form from down under and gave one of the most consistent performance. South Africa had the good service of AB de Villiers and co. Australia visibly missed a quality spinner with neither Jason Krejza nor Steven Smith coming close to threaten anyone. Inspite of that, their pace attack and a durable batting line up managed to carry them through to the quarter finals.

New Zealand showed a lot of heart and courage. The four over turn around against Pakistan courtesy the murderous Ross Taylor would have remained the prime highlight but for their spirited performance against South Africa in the quarter final. They keep performing beyond expectation so often that it is time the expectations are pushed up. May be, what they lack is a talisman, a player who can inspire and create awe.

By far, the major most surprise in the tournament have been Pakistan. Here was a team shredded to the core by match fixing, ego wrestling and what not. Yet, they reached the semi-finals. Afridi, though mediocre with the bat, more than compensated with his bowling. He ended up the joint highest wicket taker of the tournament. Batting did let them down on a few occasions but Umar Akmal has come out as a rare find. He has shown intent and aggression and is screaming through his performance to be pushed up the order. The other Akmal though has made a case strong enough to be axed.

The Punter of OZ

“Glory is not a conceit. It is not a decoration for valour. Glory belongs to the act of being constant to something greater than yourself, to a cause, to your principles, to the people on whom you rely and who rely on you in return.” – John McCain

Ricky Ponting is a man of extremities. He evokes emotions ranging from slavish respect to prejudiced resentment. A man any lesser in stature would probably have been buried by the amount of criticism that has been salvoed upon Ponting. Yet he stands tall among the ruins of individual disgrace distinguished by his talent, aggression, achievements and above all, a general disdain towards all the lesser mortals that seem peeved by his indifference to their opinion. Such men polarize all around them, either to take the flock to divinity that they themselves are ordained to or to perdition that is never too far away from their horizon. There is no half measure in the acts of these antiheroes, its either the full monty or monty be damned.
Ponting’s batting exploits are in the zones of Sir Don and Sir Don Jr, read Sachin Tendulkar. In fact, he has the second best Test batting average after Sir Don for Australia. Technically adequate and temperamentally aggressive, he has been the best batsman for Australia for over a decade now. His hooks are elegant, perhaps the only elegancy that is about him. His pulls are ferocious. For the modern cricket, he comes with all the armour, weapon and power. His rise from the Tasman countries to the Australian dressing room was all the way cheered through by the cricket greats of Australia. Initially carved out as a replacement for the ferocious David Boon, it became clear within a short time that it was the number three position where Ponting belonged. His first test innings saw him scoring 96 fluent runs against the likes of Chaminda Vaas and Muralitharan. Since then, he has been supremely consistent. Bear it in mind that from 1995 till 2010, he has never averaged below 40, year on year. In fact, he has averaged less than 50 in only 2 years and over 60 in 8 years. Coming to locations, barring India where he has an inexplicable average of 26, everywhere else he has performed well above the par. As of now this man stands with 95 international centuries and more than 25000 international runs. It is for him, that the multiple choice question of Best Batsman Ever will have 4 options. 1. Donald Bradman 2. Brian Lara 3. Sachin Tendulkar and 4. Ricky Ponting.

This article however is not to extol the virtues of this radical. Nor is it to bemoan his vices. It is but to find out what made the Punter what the Punter is. Was he a born nonconformist, aggressive at the risk of being a hedonist, a dissenter who would not acquiesce with the rules that bind him. Or did he grow into all this learning all along the way what his senior peers did with a conscious restraint. Ponting made his debut in one of the most controversial and infamous test series of our times. It was in this Australian tour of Sri Lanka, that the later to be legendary Muralitharan was called for suspect action. The acrimony between the Australian umpire and the Sri Lankan cricket administrators reached a fever pitch. The debutant was being exposed to one of the most heated frictions of world cricket. If this were not enough, the following ODI series saw more moments of madness with Sanath Jayasuriya raising the racism ghost against Glenn McGrath and the two almost starting a fist fight. Ian Healy joined the raucous not much later, shouting to the stump mike that Arjuna Ranatunga was too much of a fat bloke to be playing cricket. Australia won the match and the two teams walked out of the stadium without shaking hands, one of the most basic formalities of the Gentleman’s Game. The 1996 World Cup begun soon after and the impolite hostilities between these two teams bridled further till the finals. What was Ricky Ponting learning from all this? Remember that Australia had yet to attain their invincibility. This team was still getting beaten by the Pakistans and the West Indies. They had to toil every bit as hard as any other team to win a match. And they played rough. The desperation for victory did sometime tip the balance against the favour of decencies. When the elders of the pack decide to go beggars on fundamental mannerism the younger cannot be faulted for not removing their hats to the dames on the street. In fact, Ponting did exactly that. He was thrown out of a certain night club in Kolkata after misbehaving with some women. Surely, the effects were showing.

Further disgraces came at home with another fistfight and a black eye in a club. Add that to his admission of alcoholism, this career was going astray. But his batting skills and mental resolve on the field saw his sailing past these inadequacies. From the batting mainstay, he graduated to the roll of the captain. The Australian Invincibles were now being moulded. By the time India landed in Australia for the 2007-08 tour, many personal milestones aside Ponting had led the team to 14 consecutive test victories, one short of Steve Waugh’s previous record of 16. The first test went on expected lines with Australia winning comfortably. But the second saw the Indians give Ponting’s men a hard chase for their money. Victory came, so did the record of 16 consecutive victories. But Ponting descended to a new depth of behavioural low when he argued with the umpires like a mad man railing at his constraints to get Sourav Ganguly out. In the restlessness to celebrate, they forgot to shake hands with the opponents. A misunderstood invective from Harbhajan was taken by the Australians to create mayhem out of nothing. It took severe beating from the home media for the frenzy of Ponting to admit that something was wrong with this team. May be, success had just begotten them. The decline would follow soon. What would baffle cricket historians for times to come is why did one of the most successful test team of all time had this extreme penury of manners? Why did their captain have such rank pathetic view on decency?

Since the unsavoury incidents with the Indian team, Australia has had reduced success against the top test playing nations. Ponting has had the ignominy of suffering two Ashes losses. His personal form has also come under fire. But the Punter still has not lost his impatience with etiquettes. The last Ashes again saw him boiling up to the umpires against a decision of not out for Kevin Pietersen. The World Cup has seen Australia tasting humiliation after a long period of dominance. But the fire within the nonconformist has not blown out yet. He has sung his swan song to captaincy with a century of class. Grace, which had eluded him forever, caught up with him finally when he decided to step down as soon as the selector’s made their intentions clear. May be we will see a few more years of cricket’s arrogant kindergartener’s antics. May be he will give us a few more innings where irrespective of our team allegiances we will stand up and clap for a shot. May be he will rewrite a few more record book entries. But in-spite of all this, the Punter shall remain one of the most controversial geniuses of world cricket.

Till the next post…Au Revoir!!!