T20 and Tests: A Strange Parallel

It has been almost one and a half decade since the inception of cricket's newest format the T20. And as we stand today at the brink of the birth of an even shorter format - "The Hundred", I have a few ramblings about the comparisons between the longest format of the game and the current shortest format the T20s.

It has always annoyed me when I see many self-proclaimed purists of the game dismiss T20s as being too simple or being too heavily loaded in favour of batsmen. I am here to argue that T20 cricket should be played on the flattest possible decks and with short boundaries. (I can already sense the rage of the "purists"). However, please give me a chance to explain. The crux of my argument is that the traditional lovers of the game do not give enough credit to quality bowling in limited overs. Think about  Yuzavendra Chahal for instance. For the most part of his IPL career, he bowled on the flattest deck in the country with the shortest boundaries - the Chinnaswamy a.k.a "Bowler's Graveyard" (I know the conditions have changed now).  It requires an enormous amount of skill from the bowler to end up with an economy of less than 7 in those conditions. It irks me to no end that people still do not see such a bowling performance with the same eyes of appreciation they would a batsman playing out a new ball in bowler-friendly conditions. To me, they are very similar. 

My argument is that there is a direct correspondence between playing on a first-day green pitch on a cloudy day with a red-duke ball and playing on a flat deck with 65m boundaries in final five overs with the white ball. In the former, all the cards are with the bowler. Only the very best of batsmen can survive. Bowlers with even limited skills can thrive if the batting is of poor quality. In the latter, the tables have turned. All the cards are with the batsmen.  Only the very best of bowlers can survive. Batsmen with even limited skills can thrive if the bowling is of poor quality. In the Test Match, all the eyes are on the batsman. The questions being asked are ... does he have the technique? Does he have the temperament and patience? What separated Rahul Dravid or Jaques Kallis from the rest? They could survive on the greenest of surfaces on a cloudy day and against quality swing bowling. Even when all the aces were with the bowlers, they could find a way not just to survive but even to score. Where else can they showcase their skills but on a green top? On a flat deck, everyone scores. How can the best batsman show the world, why they are the best? 

In the last five overs of white ball cricket, all the eyes should be on the bowlers. It is a test for the bowlers when all the odds are against them. What separates Bhuvaneshwar Kumar and Jasprit Bumrah from the rest of the pack. Even if you give them a flat wicket, even if the boundary sizes are small, they have the skills to go for less than 7 an over. This is a very rare skill. How else will they be able to showcase this skill if not for a flat deck? If the surface is not flat and it is hard to score, then almost every bowler would be hard to get away. How can quality bowlers show-off their skills? How can quality bowlers stand apart then?

The correspondences don't just end here. Just like only, the very best bowlers can make full use of the helpful conditions and take a five-for in the morning session, only the very best batsmen can make full use of the conditions and score at around 15 runs per over. 

Just like the morning of a test match is a time for quality batsmen to show off their skills and stand head and shoulders above the rest, the death overs is a time for the quality bowlers to show off their skills. Just like flat decks in Test matches would result in lesser batsmen not being found out, bowling-friendly decks for T20s/ODIs would result in lesser quality bowlers not being found out. 

Kohli in South Africa

So the tour has ended. It was after a long time that I had watched a tournament so closely and with so much interest. I have woken up at 3 AM on almost every match day and it has been extremely fulfilling.  This blog is about the freak in the Indian team who goes by the name of Virat Kohli. This tour confirmed for me the greatness of "Virat Kohli, The Player".  As far as his captaincy and tactical prowess go, I think there is a lot of work to be done. In this blog, I will talk only about Kohli - The Player. 

After the third and final test match at Johannesburg, Kohli moved up one spot in the list of all-time great Indian batsman that I have seen. He pipped my boyhood hero Rahul Dravid to get to the second spot in my list. My list now reads Tendulkar, Kohli, Dravid, Laxman. The two innings at Johannesburg were not his biggest innings in terms of the number of runs. He merely scored 54 and 41 in the first and second innings respectively. It was, however, batsmanship of the highest order.

These two innings were a follow-up from incredible 153 that he had scored at Centurian. The pitch was not easiest to bat on. Most batsmen struggled to get going. Though not a quintessential South African wicket with pace and bounce, the slowness of the surface had made strokeplay incredibly difficult. While every other batsman struggled to get their timing, Kohli thrived. It seemed as if every other batsman was driving in the bylanes of crowded metropolitan while Kohli coasted along on an empty highway. India had lost the test match; a number of decisions as a captain were under question, but as a batsman, Kohli was in a different league.

Now cut to Johannesburg. India is 2-0 down in the series. Kohli is getting all the criticism for his captaincy - perhaps rightly so. Leaving Rahane out was blunder which has cost him the series. Leaving Bhuvaneshwar out was a bizarre decision. Kohli probably knows it. He won't admit it though. Graeme Smith says he has doubts about Kohli being a long-term captain. A green top. Kohli wins the toss. Bats First. A rare tactical brilliance. Importantly Rahane and Bhuvaneshwar are back in the team. While most captains would have fielded first after looking at the pitch, Kohli-Shastri combination figured that batting would keep getting tougher. KL Rahul and Murali Vijay started batting. Rahul looked clueless. Within seven deliveries Philander got him. In walks Pujara. But, Vijay leaves him. Out to Rabada. It all looks so familiar now. Kohli walks in. Has batting first back-fired? What will he say in the press conference? Is it heading towards another 3-0? Yet another overseas whitewash? Was Graeme Smith correct in his judgment?  What about all the macho-statements before the series? He doesn't have time to think about all this now. He has a job at hand. India is in serious trouble. Like in Centurian, the onus is on him, once again to bail India out of trouble. Rabada bowls him a full delivery. Kohli has the full stride forward - drives him past cover for four. Incredible Stroke. On a green pitch that is some courage.  Meanwhile, Pujara has faced 51 balls and he is still batting on zero. Just puts into perspective how difficult the conditions are. Kohli gets another full delivery. He is no mood to let them go. He drives it again. Connects it again. Four more. Moves on to 15. Rabada pulls his length back. Kohli cuts it past point. Four more. Plays a fierce pull-shot to get past 50. This time he will not get a hundred. Gets out for 54. Kohli had spoken about "intent", in the press conferences. He was mocked for it. At the Wanderers, Johannesburg, he showed what he meant. As he walks back, I think this must be his best under-100 innings. The freak is not done yet.

Cut to second innings. Kohli comes in at 58-3. A slightly better position. Still precariously placed. The Indian ship is barely floating. It is up to Kohli again to steer it - to take it to the other shore where victory resides. The sea has become extremely rough though.  Philander bowls. Gets an absolute snorter first up. Somehow survives it. Once again as soon as the ball is pitched up. Kohli drives. Drives past cover. Get off the mark. The pitch has become a snake-pit. The bowlers are Rabada, Morkel, Ngidi, and Philander. Three of them are bowling at nearly 145 km ph. There are whispers that the game might be called-off as the pitch has become dangerous. The batsmen have been getting hit as the balls are awkwardly rising from a good length. The commentators are criticizing the pitch.  Rightly so. Micheal Holding says he would give the pitch 2 marks out of 100. Kohli is not concerned about all this. He wants to win the game at all cost. A ball from rises from a good length and smashes on Kohli's gloves.  Kohli however, is not flustered. He is in pain for sure. He will not show it. Murali Vijay enquires if he is okay. Kohli waves at him. He will continue to fight.  Anything pitched up Kohli will come forward and drive. On a pitch like this, where the balls are jumping off the good length and smacking the gloves, most batsmen would hang back on the back-foot and miss out on scoring opportunities. Lesser mortals would think survival. Not Kohli. There is not a negative bone in the man. You pitch short. He will pull. You pitch it up, he will come forward and drive. He gets hit, he will wear the bruise with pride. He will not complain. At every moment he will let you know that he is the contest. Kohli moves on to 41. Already an incredible knock. It takes a vicious fast off-break-like delivery from Rabada to get him. In one match he has played two gems. In my book, he is just one step below Tendulkar now.

Postscript:  There was another incredible knock played in the same innings by Ajinkya Rahane who had scored 48 golden runs. 

The Kohli-Kumble Saga

I am writing a cricket blog after a really long time. Truth be told, I had not really followed the game for a while now. There are several reasons, first being a busy PhD programme. Perhaps the more important reason was India had such an amazing home season and the games were so one-sided for the most part of the season that I did not have the patience to beat the time-difference and watch/follow the game. The Australia series was the only series where I kept track of the scores on Cricinfo. However, I am in France right now, doing a rather relaxed internship and I not just followed but watched the entire Champions Trophy. I had had my heart broken in the final and actually felt sad about it for almost two entire days. However, that is not what I am going to write about. I am going to write about the entire Kohli-Kumble episode that has unfolded in the past few weeks. Before I give my opinion on this, I must tell my readers that I am huge Virat Kohli fan and in his playing days I used to adore Anil Kumble. Thus, when he became the coach I thought it was a match made in heaven. For me to see this partnership fall apart has been a truly difficult experience.

It is extremely hard for us, sit outside and pass a judgement about who was right and who was wrong. Typically, we tend to bring our likes and dislikes about a certain people or a perception we have built about the players and then come to a conclusion which may be so far from reality. In the past few weeks, I have read so many anecdotal stories which try to corroborate the guilt of either the captain or the coach. Since we are so far away from the "action", we can only speculate. 

This incident, in fact, asks a more important question. What is the role of a coach in a cricket team? And how are the responsibilities between the coach and the captain divided? I find it rather hard to answer this question. One of the things that one needs to recognise is that cricket is a very different game from most other sports. Here the captain is a far more important character in the team than in most sports. Most of the strategic decisions have to made by the captain. It is the captain with whom the buck finally stops. A captain with a strong personality might want to run the team both on and off the field. Thus I could imagine that a strong personality like Anil Kumble (who may not be comfortable taking a back seat) might have created two power centres. Consider the past coaching partnerships that worked and failed. Saurav Ganguly - John Wright was a great success. Ganguly - Chappel was a disaster. Dravid - Chappel was not bad. Dhoni - Kirsten was a success. And now Kohli - Kumble has been a failure. The pattern that I notice is that, whenever both the parties involved seem to be people who would not be ready to play a second-fiddle anywhere, the partnership just broke down. My sense is that, during the Chappel-era, Dravid did play a bit of second fiddle and it was Chappel who ran the team which is probably the reason why the partnership was not a failure. For this latest incident, I think it is entirely possible that neither Kohli nor Kumble are actually at fault. But the partnership was just not meant to work. I have no doubt in my mind, that if there is coach-captain conflict in cricket, the coach has to go. This is just due to the nature of the sport where the captain is a far more important cog in the wheel compared to the coach. It is very essential for the smooth running of the team that the team gets a coach with whom the captain is comfortable working. Although I am extremely disappointed that this match did not work, I think the right thing has happened. Now that Kohli has got his way, it is up to him to perform. Things will not be easy for him with a barrage of away tours coming his way. I'd be curiously watching how he fares.

 

I'm back ... hopefully

For the past two years, I have been off the radar and have not been posting anything. In fact, it is strange that after Sachin Tendulkar retired, I have not posted anything. It may seem that I have lost interest in the game after the great man's retirement. However, that is not the case. A rigourous Masters Program in Computer Science and ill-health have put me away. I hope to be back soon! A lot a has happened in the world of cricket. A lot of catching up to do.


cheers,
Adithya

Joy of Sachin

On Thursday - 10th of October, Sachin Tendulkar announced that he would retire from all forms of cricket after his 200th test in November. His announcement was not a shock but it did leave a sense of sadness. The fact that, after November we won't see those exquisite straight drives is a really hard pill to swallow. To be honest I have absolutely no idea how Indian cricket would be without Sachin. In fact by the time I was born Sachin had already scored a test match hundred to save a game. And by the time I was old enough to appreciate the game he had become great. And yet, I could enjoy around 14 to 15 years of his cricket. Thus for my generation of cricket fans - cricket meant Sachin and nothing else. Thus, we have never seen Indian cricket without Sachin Tendulkar. For my generation of cricket fans, a conversation about the game of cricket was always incomplete without discussing Tendulkar's contribution in the game. A question about India's score had to be always followed by, asking Sachin's (perhaps in many cases it preceded).

It is a great time to reflect back on all those wonderful memories that Sachin provided. One of my first Tendulkar memories was when he played an absolute blinder against Pakistan in the 1999 Chennai test. I remember seeing the game with my father. We continued to watch the game even when we lost 5 wickets for 80-odd on the board. Sachin was still playing and there was still a hope. He conjured 136 magnificent runs enduring pain and the Chennai heat. He made us forget about everything else. It almost felt as if the world came to a standstill and all it mattered in the world was the way Sachin plays. He literally hypnotised us with his batting. He took us tantalisingly close to the win. As Tendulkar fell to a doosra by Saqlain Mushtaq, at home we were heart broken. It almost felt as if we had encountered some great personal failure. I remember the disappointment I felt as an eight-year-old watching that game. The disappointment was more because of the fact that Sachin could not take us over the line than the fact we lost. The fact that his valiant effort went in vain hurt more than anything else. My another favourite Sachin memory is the World Cup innings of 98 he scored against Pakistan. It was just two days before my 10th Class board exams were beginning. I saw that innings without any worry about how I would write my exams. Such was the magic of Sachin that he took you into trans and made you forget that there existed the world which was not centred around him. I saw the double hundred in my hostel TV room. It was another breathtaking experience. Watching the games in the hostel had a special effect. So, many people watching the game together - shouting and cheering used to almost recreate the stadium atmosphere for us. The 175 against Australia at Hyderabad was another innings I had seen in the hostel TV room. I remember the heartbreak we all had. We spent hours cursing the rest of Indian batting lineup for not taking us above the line.

The Tendulkar-effect I have had is so hard to describe in words. Whenever I read a praise of Sachin, it brings an instant smile to my face. There is a sense of joy I experience - a sense of joy as if the praise was directed towards me. There is a difference in the levels of happiness I get when Sachin gets a hundred and when some other Indian gets a hundred. A Tendulkar failure has a completely opposite effect.  Harsha Bhogle once said, 'Sachin effects your senses' and that is completely true. And as he also said, India truly slept well when Sachin played well. Tendulkar could never be "just another cricketer for India". In the dark years of the nineties, Sachin was India's proudest possession - and he still continues to be. He gave Indians a sense of pride. The fact that the best batsman in the world was an Indian made us feel proud of belonging to India.

As Tendulkar retires, the 5th ODI between India and Pakistan at Kanpur on 15th April 2005, where Sachin scored 1 run becomes very important for me. I was there at the Green Park stadium for that game. I had endured a very sluggish Indian innings followed by a Shahid Afridi blitz in the Kanpur heat. But, that was the only occasion I saw Sachin Tendulkar bat in flesh and blood. Probably, 50 to 60 years down the line, I could tell my grandchildren and great-grandchildren with pride that I saw Sachin Tendulkar bat in flesh and blood - although that experience lasted for only 10 deliveries.

It is a pity that I cannot make it to the stadium for his final game, but I am sure the kind of reception he would get in Mumbai, no other sportsman in the world would have ever got. I am certain he is the most loved sportsman in the world. To me, the most astonishing thing about Sachin Tendulkar is how he could impact so many people's mood just by playing a game.

So, would there ever be another Sachin Tendulkar? I think there is always a possibility of the emergence of some other player who could match the numbers of Sachin Tendulkar, albeit that the possibility is quite remote. But, I can hardly imagine any other player being born who will capture the imagination of such a large number of people.

The greatness of Sachin transcended all jealousy. We lived in an era, where no one would have been ashamed to say that, he always remains in awe of Sachin Tendulkar. Consider yourself really lucky and privileged, if you had the opportunity to enjoy the Joy of Sachin.

The Find of the Series - Richard Kettleborough

So, finally series has finished. India completed the 4-0 whitewash. It was not really a huge surprise that India did so well in the series. It was a very inexperienced Austrilian team. 4-0 victory is a nevertheless fantastic achievement. As people normally do at the end of a series, I was thinking who is biggest find in the series? Ravindra Jadeja? Mittchel Starc? Steve Smith? Bhuvneshwar Kumar? No. For me the biggest find of this series is not a bowler or a batsman. He is not a wicket-keeper either. He is the most important part of a cricket match but is very scarcely noticed. He is an umpire. Richard Kettleborough was the find of this India-Australia series as far as I am concerned.

It is often we wonder if Pujara is the new Dravid? Some news channels called Kohli the new Sachin. After Dhawan's innings we thought if he can be the new Sehwag. When Irfan Pathan came into the Indian team, we all wondered if he is the new Kapil Dev. We are all obsessed with labeling people as the "New" someone. I will also venture along the same lines in this post. I will stick my neck out and call Richard Kettleborough the new Simon Tauffel. After Tauffel retired from umpiring I thought he left a void in cricket. It is not common to have such young umpires. I can hardly recall Simon Tauffel making an error. In some ways Richard Kettleborough reminded me of Simon Tauffel. Maybe because, he too like Tauffel has started at a very young age. Also the fact that he got almost everything right, expect probably one LBW shout against Sachin.

The most impressive thing about Kettleborough's umpiring was that he was having the most difficult conditions to umpire. With ball turning and bouncing so sharply, and with all the close-in fielders around with the amount of appeals going around and to add to all that, with the amount of noise in the stadiums, it can become a nightmare of the umpires. India playing three spinners meant that there pressure always there on the umpires. The amount of concentration that goes into while umpiring in these conditions is immense. In the LBWs, they have to decide in a few seconds if the ball had hit the pad first or the bat. In the backdrop of all the noise in the crowd, they have got to listen very carefully to  the sounds from the bat hitting the pad, bat hitting the ground, ball hitting the pad, ball hitting the bat and decide exactly what happened. They cannot loose their focus with all the appeals going around. It must be one heck of a job. After 90 overs of work, the umpires must be completely exhausted. They must mentally drained.

Now just to put everything into perspective it was Richard Kettleborough's first tour of India. Here everything is different from what he finds back home in the UK. Just like the players, it must be really tough for umpires to adjust to different conditions. But, Kettleborough did manage to adjust and did extremely well.

I think it is just like when we see a young overseas player play really well in his first tour of the sub-continent or a young Indian player in his very first overseas tour finds no problem with the bouncing and the swinging ball. When we see something like this, we get excited and tip him as the next big thing for that team. In similar terms, to perform so well in his first tour of the sub-continent I reckon Richard Kettleborough is the next big thing in the umpiring world! 

About me...(A Cricket Lover)

Favourite Format of the Game: Tests!
The Cricketer I admire the most:  Rahul Dravid
The Best Test Batsman I have seen: Brian Lara
The Best ODI Batsman I have seen: Sachin Tendulkar
The Best Test Bowler I have seen: Shane Warne
The Best ODI Bowler I have seen: Wasim Akram
The Best Wicket-Keeper batsman I have seen in ODIs: Adam Gilchrist or MS Dhoni
The Best Wicket-Keeper batsman I have seen in Tests:  Adam Gilchrist
Favourite Captain I have seen (Tests): Micheal Vaughan
Favourite Captain I have seen (ODIs): MS Dhoni
Captain I wish I had seen: Imran Khan and Arjuna Ranatunga
Favourite Art of Bowling: Classic Leg-Spin
The Greatest Test Match I have seen: Kolkata, 2001 India versus Australia
The Greatest ODI  I have seen: The 434 chase South Africa versus Australia at Wanderers
Indian cricketers I wish I had seen play: BS Chandrasekhar , GR Vishwanath, Kapil Dev
Foreign cricketers I wish I had seen: Gary Sobers, Malcom Marshall, Don Bradman
Cricket Matches I wish had seen: Tied Tests (both Chennai and Brisbane),  and  1981 Headlingly Test (Botham's Test Match)
The Greatest Test Match innings I have ever seen: Laxman, 281
The Greatest ODI innings I have ever seen: Gibbs, 175
The Test innings I wish I had seen: GR Vishwanath 97* versus West Indies in Chennai
The ODI innings I wish I had seen: 189*, Sir Viv Richards
Favourite Cricket Writer: Ed Smith
Favourite Cricket Book: Out of my comfort zone, Steve Waugh
Favourite Moment on a Cricket Field (Indian): Harbhajan getting Glenn McGrath LBW and India winning the Kolkata Test, 2001
Favourite Moment on a Cricket Field (non-Indian): The end of the 2nd Test, Ashes 2005- Flintoff putting his hand over Lee after England's two run victory 
Favourite Commentator: Harsha Bhogle
If I could change a result in Cricketing History: 1999 World Cup semi-final; I wish South Africa had won
One thing I wish had not happened in Cricketing History: In fact, there are two: one, Mohd. Amir spot fixing ; two, South Africa being ostracized from Cricket
My Cricketing Wish: West Indies regaining cricketing supremacy; Bangladesh becoming a competitive cricketing nation
Favourite Test Series:  Australia's tour of India 2001 and the 2005 Ashes
The current young Indian player who I believe would become a great: Cheteshwar Pujara

View on DRS: Power of using it should rest with third-umpires; Should be used to remove absolute bloomers
Day-Night Tests: Brilliant Idea! Am surprised that despite so much technology we have not been able to come up with the ball with lasts 90 overs.

Views on IPL: Good for the game! (Despite being a Test Devotee)
Views on Switch Hit: Should be allowed; but even the bowlers should be allowed to change arms if they are ambidextrous
Views on no-runners in Cricket: Sad! I would rather have the authority to assign a runner or not with the umpire
Views on Spirit of the Game: Very important; I am against Mankanding (unless warned) ; In fact, I am also against run-outs (non-striker) of a straight-drive when bowler gets a finger tip



Please post your views on these (at least some of these) as comments. Would love to know