Denial

by Anuranjan Roy

There was the slouch and there was the swagger. The open top button of his cricket playing uniform be it Tests or ODIs, the amulet around his neck he let hang out to watch his 'supple wrists' come into play. The TV commentators' repeated use of the words 'soft hands' when he was batting and 'sharp catch' when he was on the field. The unique all-white helmet he wore and the routine "The boys played really well today..." nature of his post-match presentation talk irrespective of the match's outcome. My first clear memories of watching Indian cricket sometime back in the early 90s didn't feature victory too much. Yet they have staying power as if bound to my psyche with strings of silk.

-

Then came that dreadful night of 1996. Why? Why would anyone choose to chase under lights at the Eden Gardens, notorious for being the wrong place to chase runs under the lights? Why in the World Cup semi-final? The whispers grew louder. Psssttt... do you know what happens in the Sharjah matches? Psssttt... did you not wonder why so-and-so played in such-and-such manner? The accusations were horrifying, the crimes were unspeakable. Whether that particular match had any undue influences exerted in its sad result will remain a debate quite irresolveable, rearing its head up even recently but the fact was our way of looking at and investing real emotions in Indian cricket would change forever in the next few years to follow.  

-

I refused to believe. No, no. Not him. I thought of the reluctant ease with which the bat was held, almost unwillingly and the casual flash it took to reach the ball. The unlikely angles created when a fullish delivery outside off stump was dispatched to any of the leg-side boundary boards. I remembered the time when, on his favourite ground of the Eden Gardens, Lance Klusener, taken for five consecutive Hyderabadi fours in the first over after lunch, looked flabbergasted. How he walked up to the youngster  immediately after the over to tousle his hair, smiling and offering his commiserations to the beleagured debutant. Once when he didn't catch Curtly Ambrose cleanly in the slips, even though the batsman had walked, he called him back to the batting crease. He the ever cheerful sportsman, a gentleman cricketer, supremely and dominantly competitive in the arcs traced by his bat but never a trace of ugliness in his on-field behaviour.

-

Children are creatures of instinct. Swinging conditions or sharp bounce or footwork were fancy terms too much for an immature brain to process. The appreciation of those handling such conditions via technique would come as I grew older. All I understood and appreciated in the beginning was the flair. And that, he had plenty of. Our heroes, sporting and otherwise tend to be put up on high pedestals, especially the ones that drew us in our formative years, aiding the belief that they were not subject to other worldly human flaws. To the unbiased logical mind, the facts of the enquiry were clear-cut and so was the decision. But in a place where there should be searing anger, there is only a dull pain and a lasting refusal to accept reality. No, no. Not him.

Connected World of Cricket

We witness empty stands.

Scattered applause of the precious few echo off the vast acres of vacant seats. Yet Test matches keep being scheduled on weekdays. The prices of the tickets remain ridiculously high, or are perhaps subsidised in some venues on second thought. The facilities for the spectators continue to be farcical, bordering on the insulting.

Which leads me to a perplexing thought: Are administrators really interested in the number of people who turn up for the matches?

The question, on careful scrutiny under the light of the current day, does not seem all that rhetorical.

In the modern times, we have seen electronic and digital communication play havoc with industries worldwide. The fibre optic cables have extended their far reaching tentacles, circumvented the old fashioned establishments one by one – choked them with communication channels that have flattened the earth and connected the Antipodes with the Alaskans at the rate of the instantaneous.

In such a world, are flesh and blood turnouts really important? Are they not just nice to have garnish around the extensive treasure troves that lie for the taking in the connected world?

There are indications of change every way one chooses to look or listen.

The music industry has been turned upside down in ways that have struck jarring chords. Companies dealing with mobile communications are now tuning themselves to the changing beats and leading the score, while the erstwhile behemoths are swaying to their own death knell in loss incurring music stores.

In the world of the fourth estate, newsprint now occupy the backseat as the power, potential and promise of the electronic media rewrite business plans. There is a very fine line now between bylines and blogs, and with the advent of the citizen journalist and fan-speak, with the consumer turning contributor, the news channels are engaging in a mad rush of introspection and innovation. The thud of the rolled up newspaper on the porch is now all but passé, with the world being downloaded without editorial censorship on seven inch laptop screens and even smaller smart phone handsets.

When we look at the publishing world, brick-and-mortar bookstores with limited shelf space and traditional publishers in their own smug, complacent ivory towers have been rocked and jolted by the advent of electronic readers. Amazon now sells many more Kindle versions than hard copies. Borders have disappeared from the map, and similar monopolising bookstores are fast following suit. Readers are growing increasingly used to packing their 3000 book libraries in handy featherweight six by four inch devices. Who needs crates of shop-soiled stuff shipped across the world to be pulped when inventory can be virtual – reproduced and delivered at the click of a button?

In such a world, does it really matter for organisers whether some paltry thousands turn up to watch the cricket in the giant stadiums?

Unlike in the 20th century, now the cricket watching delights are not restricted to the city hosting the match and its suburbs. Millions of viewers across the world tune in to watch on their television sets, interrupted by local advertisements after every over, wicket and pulled hamstring. Tens of thousands of office workers in cookie cutter cubicles click their way to follow each and every ball on the hundreds of cricket websites while banners ads blink away at the top of the screen and Bet365 beckons tantalisingly from the side pane.

The same millions watch and re-watch the action in their respective time zones, live or recorded as suitable, on the hundreds of television channels, streaming web sites and social media applications, after waiting a brief while for the mandatory advertisement to play itself to conclusion.

In light of all this, the sweet timing of the phenomenon of scheduling Test matches on week days synchronising with the launch of bcci.tv seems more than significant. Why target the insignificant thousands in the ground when one can easily capture the market of hundreds of millions across the World Wide Web? Ask yourself, on which days is it fairly certain that more people will follow the action on web sites streaming or reporting the match than live in the ground?

On one side lie the few thousands of prospective diehards, prepared to brave the baking sun and dirty pouches of water supplied at the grounds to catch the action live. On the other hand is the gateway to the infinite – a viewership unbounded by the archaic limitations of time and space, not checked by the turnstile even if they want to enter the virtual arena again and again ad infinitum.

It is the same reason why Harper Collins looks at capturing the Print on Demand market while pulping last year's bestsellers. This is why Sony ties up with Nokia and Apple creates more music applications for the iPhone. This is also why Rupert Murdoch enterprises are more interested in linking their sites to Facebook and Twitter than wooing local newspaper stores with expensive square feet of space.

Looking at it from the other point of view, it cannot be ruled out that maybe the fans of the day want to watch the matches in the comfort of their air-conditioned cubicles, listening to the expert commentary of a battery of celebrity ex-cricketers, sharing their own views in online discussion forums, updating their Facebook status and tweeting opinions with every major and not so major incident.

The times have changed. The audience is global and infinite across space and time. The local few are limited, and therefore, an eminently expendable fraction.

One may argue that a sport cannot exist without live spectators. However, we live in an era when books sell themselves without bookshops, newspapers are distributed without paper and music pours into the ears without being packaged into cassettes and compact discs.

Perhaps in today’s world, the empty stands reflect not the diminishing popularity of the sport, but the evolution of the cricket enthusiast to fit into the demands of the modern times, behind the digital cover of a connected world.

Charters and Caldicott - A Cricket View of a Hitchcock Movie

by Abhishek Mukherjee

The Lady Vanishes shall possibly qualify as one of Hitchcock's best. Hitchcock, as we all know, was a great director, more so because he never selected Fardeen Khan in any of his classics. Of all his classics, Dial M for Murder has the best storyline in my opinion, but The Lady Vanishes holds a special place on the list for me.

Why?

Because of Charters (played by Basil Radford) and Caldicott (played by Naunton Wayne). Between them, they added a new dimension to the movie. The plotline takes its own course, racing through the hotel and a train and thereafter, culminating in an impressive climax.

Charters and Caldicott remain in the side throughout, providing (for most people) comic relief of sorts. But of what sort?

The entire team gets stranded in a random hotel in a place called Bandrika, goodness knows where. Until then C and C look like simple, ordinary characters. Until... there's a call for a random Mr Seltzer, and the manager goes to find him.

Charters overhears that it's a call from London. He was already looking crestfallen at the lack of radio coverage and at the fact the newspaper is from last month. But now, his expression changes: he picks up the phone, and - I couldn't believe my ears - asks the person on the other side about what's happening to England at the test match at Manchester.

WHAT?

I sat straight. And when the person on the other side responded that he wasn't aware, Charters responded, to my delight, the following:

I fell in love with him that very moment. Haven't I felt like that like, say, a million times over the years?

The movie progressed. When Iris (Margaret Lockwood) and Mrs Froy (May Whitty) were having a meal in the salon, Charters and Caldicott were seated at the next table. The following conversation followed:

Charters: It wasn't out. But for the umpire's blunder he'd still be batting.

Caldicott: What do you mean?

Charters: I'll show you. I saw the whole thing.

(pours the sugar cubes on the table)

There's Hammond, there's the bowler, and there's the umpire.

Waiter (at next table): Sugar?

Iris: Two please.

Mrs Froy: Dear me. There's no sugar.

Meanwhile...

Charters: Now watch this very carefully. Grimmett was bowling.

Iris: May I trouble you for the sugar?

Charters (dumbstruck): What?

Iris: The sugar, please.

(A speechless Charters passes it over)

Thank you so much.

I couldn't believe my ears. I really couldn't. A movie. Two characters. Discussing Hammond and Grimmett.

Of course, I needed to look up - how many times did Grum get Wally out in all?

I checked. Six times, in all. One of them bowled, one caught in the field, so ruled out for bad umpiring, in all expectations. However, there were two LBWs, both at Trent Bridge in 1930, and two caught by the wicketkeeper, at Headingley in 1930 and again at Trent Bridge, in 1934. We shall never get to know which of the four this was, but then, I was so terribly excited at the mention of Grum and Wally that the plot momentarily escaped my mind.

Of course, as the title suggests, Mrs Froy vanished from the fray. Iris joined hands with Gilbert (Michael Redgrave) in a frantic search inside the train. They bumped into our duo, and the following conversation followed:

Iris: I was having tea about an hour ago with an English lady. You saw her, didn't you?

Charters: Well, I don't know, I mean, I was talking to my friend, wasn't I?

Caldicott: Indubitably.

Iris: Yes, but you were sitting at the next table. She turned and borrowed the sugar. You must remember.

Charters: Yes, I recall passing the sugar.

Iris: Well then you saw her.

Charters: I repeat we were deep in conversation. We were discussing cricket.

Iris: Well, I don't see how a thing like cricket can make you forget seeing people.

Charters (furious): Oh, don't you? If that's your attitude, there's nothing more to be said! Come, Caldicott. "A thing like cricket!"

Gilbert: Wrong tactics. We should've told him we were looking for a lost cricket ball.

Aah, yet again. It was me all over again! Charters was echoing my voice - in exactly the same tone when anyone dared to utter anything as blasphemous as "a thing like cricket!"

And then, when they landed in London, eager to catch the train to Manchester, they got to see this:

Was a test really abandoned at Manchester due to floods? The movie was released on 1st November 1938. Of course there was an Ashes that year (Hutton scored 364, England scored 903/7 and won by an innings and plenty, remember?)!

But what happened at Manchester? This.

Thank you, Hitchcock, for providing me with the only movie whose events coincided with a real test match. I now know that the movies events were from 8th to 12th July 1938.

Yes, The Lady Vanishes is my favourite Hitchcock movie now.

The Gilbert Jessop Mystery - A Review

by Aisoorya Vijayakumar

If you’d been thinking that mystery writings, sport writings, and art writings, are all a world apart from each other, then here’s how you change your mind –- Read ArunabhaSengupta’s The Gilbert Jessop mystery novella, serialized by the Cricket Country here.

To begin with, the novella ‘bowls’ you over, pun intended, with all the fastidiously collected data points on art and cricket that have been so beautifully woven into the threads of the underlying mystery.

The plot revolves around Professor Anand, a middle-aged, but nevertheless sharp-on-wits-and-skills academician and part-time cricketer, and a self-confessed cricket historian. Kumar Mangalsingh, who sponsors the cricket club that Anand plays for, summons Anand out of the blue to a sudden meeting in Calcutta that forces Anand to traverse the country. What awaits Anand at Calcutta is a bizarre but exciting prospect of finding an invaluable art-cricket hybrid artifact, in the form of a strapping British art history researcher Sylvie Pemberton. Anand learns that Sylvie specializes in Geometrical associations of art. But the prospect, though alluring, needs painstaking analysis and needs Anand to bring out his sleuth powers. How does an art history research student fit into this maze? Do Anand and Kumar succeed in getting their hands on the priceless artifact? These form the rest of the story, and the reader is in for no disappointments, whatsoever.

The Gilbert Jessops mystery novella is gripping, and can easily be rated one of the most captivating multi-genre novellas. Sengupta’s characters are ever so endearing with their ingenious and witty lines. Some lines which linger on in the mind are:

Sylvie Pemberton(about Paul Hackensmith): He wrote and painted for pleasure.

Professor Anand: Perhaps the best way to do it.

Professor Anand (to Sylvie Pemberton): I’ve seldom had such singular attention from someone so attractive.

Sylvie Pemberton (to Professor Anand): I heard you play cricket too.

Professor Anand: I do, but I am much better at its history. And no history of cricket will ever talk of me.

Professor Anand (lamenting): In 1996, while we had stepped on the jet age with one foot, the other was still stuck in the bullock cart.

The author’s language prowess comes to fore in the lovely narration, where he transports us into the bygone English era, when he gives us a peek into one yesteryear artist’s letter trove. The meticulous details which Sengupta uses to differentiate that language from contemporary English are laudable. Although the reader feels a bit lost towards the end of the 1998 episode, when the suspense unravels in the next one, five and a half years later, is worth waiting for.

Sengupta’s wry humor, the thought-provoking tale twists, and the overall irony of the entire tale, all make this novella a must read.

Cricket in the Mirth - An One-Act Play

by Arunabha Sengupta

 

Dramatis Personae:

Spectators:

William Shakespeare

P.G.Wodehouse

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

George Bernard Shaw

Charles Dickens 

Rabindranath Tagore 

Richard Bach 

Vikram Seth

Matsuo Basho 

D H Lawrence 

Oscar Wilde  

Samuel Beckett

James Joyce

Neville Cardus

Joseph Heller

William Wordsworth

Samuel Coleridge

Matthew Arnold

O’Henry

Goscinni and Uderzo

Walter Scott

Dante

Sidney Sheldon

Margaret Mitchell

Jane Austen

Barbara Cartland

J.K. Rowling

Players:

David Gower

Geoff Boycott

Ian Botham

Numerous English Batsmen

Eleven Australian Fieldsmen 

Scene:

A Cricket Match being played between England and Australia.

David Gower and Geoff Boycott are at the wicket.

Gower plays at a ball and misses.

Shakespeare: Will all his ventures fail? Not one hit?

Wodehouse: I say, Bill, I put it three to one against the Poms. How about taking me on for a fiver?

Shakespeare: Thou speak’st my mind, Plum, for-

There’s a tide in the affairs of men

Which taken at the full leads on to fortune …

Five be it then. More of this hereafter.

Wodehouse (aside):

Poms have as much chance of putting this across as a one armed blind man has of putting a red hot pound of melting butter on a needle through the left eye of a cat.

Jane Austen: Miss Cartland, how do you fancy the gentleman in the county cap?

Barbara Cartland:

Oh, Miss Austen…he looks as if he’s bowled many a maiden over. Tall , dark and handsome is his action.

Bernard Shaw: Why can’t the English teach their children how to bat?

Conan Doyle: Elementary…they haven’t got the basics right. From the way he holds his bat, it’s obvious that he’s an avid Cigar smoker.

Shaw: How the hell do you know that?

Conan Doyle: Elementary, Shaw. You should read my monograph on cigar ash. There comes the Aussie bowler with a nose like a beak. By his gait he looks left handed. Come on Gower, you are either a man or a coward.

Shaw: A little of both, my dear Arthur, like the rest of us…a little of both. Damn man, go for the runs.

Cartland : Such language!!!

Shaw: We only said that England were batting poorly, didn’t we Arthur?

Cartland: And what about hell and damn!

Shaw: Really Miss Cartland, such language from you….

Jane Austen: Margaret, you see how the gentlemen tease poor Barbara?

Margaret Mitchell:

Frankly, my dear Jane, I don’t give a damn.

Gower goes for a drive through cover and mid off. It flies off the edge between the slips for four.

Charles Dickens: Never could a batter be more sure of the destination of the ball than

good Gower. Look, how he stands, bat tucked under his arm, a master

of deportment. Well hit, sir.

Gower cuts the next ball for four.

Cardus: Just dismissed the ball from his presence.

Joyce : Plock Plock Plock

Gower slashes at a ball and is caught in the slips.

Dickens: It was the best of shots, it was the worst of shots.

Wodehouse: You’re on sticky wicket, Bill.

Shakespeare: Methinks there’s reason in your words. Gower –

From the extremest upward of thy head,

To the descent and dust of thy foot.

A most toad spotted traitor.

Has English Cricket lost all Grace?

Vikram Seth: “The swinging ball kisses the careless bat –

The team down under has poms on the mat”

DH Lawrence: How like a false woman the ball kissed the bat to end up in the hands

of another man!

Barbara Cartland: Oh David, how could you?

Jane Austen: There there, Miss Cartland

Barbara Cartland: Oh David, how could you? After such a show of promise, how could

you be so wanton as to stoop to the lowly slash? Oh David, you have

made me lose my faith in all (bats)men.

Shaw: Woman, cease this detestable boohooing instantly or seek the shelter

of some other place of worship.

Cartland: Oh Bernard!!! How can you do this to me?

Shakespeare (aside):Et tu, Bernard?

Shaw: Heavens, what a noise. By the way, Sir Arthur, English batting will

keep them in the gutter for ages.

A figure approaches with a bat.

Rabindranath : Dekhe jeno mone hoy chini uhare…

Walter Scott: Here comes brave Botham, the knight in shining armour. The noble tilt of the head, the valiant brandishing of the willow. Come on sir, do not be waver-ly.

Dickens: You’re a man of independent character, Ian Botham, give it to them.

Botham hits the first ball for six.

Richard Bach: The ball sails on wings … flight into the free skies. The ball went up, up, and then sailed over into the crowd.

Rabindranath : Into the heaven of freedom.

O’Henry : The next few runs will come on rosy wings. Forget the hashed

metaphor.

Scott : That’s a noble hit, Ian. Carry on the joust. Go for the motherland.

For you will minstrel raptures swell.

Oscar Wilde: Difference in approach. The Importance of Being Earnest was so

lacking in others. The idea is to bring out the Hellenistic nature

that every batsman possesses. It’s only the freedom of self expression that hinders an English victory.

Botham is out to the next ball playing a careless shot.

Scott: The wretch concentrated all in self.

Shakespeare : Owe be to the sons of the soil,

What if all men bat with this air of merriment?

Joseph Heller : Well, then Botham would be a fool to bat any differently, wouldn’t

he?

Matsuo Basho: Hopes that soar in skies –

In one wink embrace green earth .

Ebb and Flow of Life.

Wodehouse: The wickets are falling with a rapidity that would make nine pins drop their heads in shame. The young men in flannels are not good enough. Making Heavy Weather of a simple game. The entire team is in Hot Water. We want Something Fresh to bring back Joy in the Morning. Bring on the Girls. Bill, you owe me fifteen.

Shakespeare: Most wager is mere folly.

Wodehouse: Too late to back out, Comrade Shakespeare.

Shakespeare: Sorrow to my bosom, thou speak in sooth.

Another wicket falls.

Sidney Sheldon: All this excitement is making me hard.

Samuel Coleridge: Batsmen Batsmen everywhere, not a one to score.

Scott : Alone stands Sir Geoffery among the ruins.

Wodehouse: The Old Faithful. However, if only he could run as well as he stands ….

Dickens: Pecking and sniffing at balls. Sir Geoffery, we still have Great Expectations from you even in these Hard Times.

Shaw: All over, Arthur.

Conan-Doyle: There’s still hope, Shaw.

Shaw: Impossible.

Conan-Doyle: Most of us make the mistake of confusing the improbable with the

impossible. There’s a Mathematical possibility, and hence hope.

Matthew Arnold: Still nursing unconquerable hope.

Dickens: Something might yet turn up.

Oscar Wilde: Something’s dead in each of us…

And what is dead is Hope.

Dante : Abandon hope, all ye who enter this Inferno.

J.K.Rowling: Hopabandorrus

The last wicket falls.

William Wordsworth: Is this England?

This the team –

On which my fortune cherished?

Shakespeare: Owe, owe. Out is the damned spot of bother…

Never hast all England seen this day of destruction,

Not a grace, not a true man in the land?

Gone is the sunny May of noble wall-y batting,

When scarce would a man score barring tons,

The key to the lock of success hast gone under wood,

Will is lacking and winter falls with snow –

Much vaunted batting butchered in no time,

False knights nothing but mere hick-coughs of game.

What is amiss comes back to harm ye sons for

Crawley worms infest thy game, tough nail in thy coffin –

Tho’ it’s been long since your cricket hast seen the dawn.

English cricket is dead and only birds and shepherds remain –

Foreigners, thou takes’t away the Ashes of our Sport

To adorne your chapels and the English to be warned,

Fragile thy batting, to be knocked dead by a lily –

For ages to be plundered with wars across borders,

By all and sundry - millers and tailors alike.

Wodehouse: All very high and mighty, but you still owe me fifteen.

Shakespeare: (gives money) Why then – farewell fifteen farthings,

Most friendship is feigning.

Cartland: Oh England, how could you!

Shaw : I am an atheist, but thank God it’s over.

Conan-Doyle: Now that I know the result I’ll try my best to forget it. It takes needless space in my memory.

Goscinny and Uderzo: These English are crazy.

Beckett: Boycott, Gower, Botham, Willis ….

(Sound of a distant umpire calling stumps)

All gone. No one. All gone.

[Curtain]

Pull of Laxman

by Senantix

Lots have already been written about the sublime grace and clockwork precision with which VVS Laxman manages to take India to wins in crisis situations, more than once snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.
His wizardry with the willow – often described as a sight fit for the gods – has provoked poetic plaudits even from the modern day media more prone to writing about the peripheral sound and fury rather than the game on the greens.

Hence, instead of repeating the much deserved eulogies that have flooded the print, sites and blogs with each new sparkling gem in his glittering career, I will limit my article to one solitary stroke that has, for me, demarcated him from all other stalwarts of this and other generations.

 Having matured into a cricket aficionado in the eighties, the sight of a batsman pulling a fast bowler evokes romantic images – mainly because of the pitifully limited number successful executions of the routine by Indian batsmen during my formative years of cricket watching.
Many of the top batsmen of India had eschewed the shot totally, weighing the risks it brought into the game against the probable benefits. Brought up on domestic pitches, where the most backbreaking effort of the bowler more often than not failed to bounce a new ball higher than the knee, batsmen lacked sufficient practice against high class pace to employ it with confidence and consistency.
Dilip Vengsarkar seldom played it against fast bowling during his best days, preferring to evade or defend the short balls at his body. Mohammed Azharuddin resorted to it only as an afterthought during his madcap years of the mid nineties, and for someone who wielded the bat like an artist's brush, he suddenly seemed to trade it for a sledge hammer every time he went back to cart the ball past the square leg. Both these maestros failed more often than not whenever they tried the shot on the faster, bouncier tracks overseas.
Sunil Gavaskar, famously bringing the hook back into his repertoire during his 29th century that morning twenty eight years ago at the Feroze Shah Kotla, nevertheless confessed that the pull was one stroke he never mastered. Television did not beam the famed counterattack of Mohinder Amarnath in the West Indies in 1982, but back home in India, his performance against the best fast bowlers of his day was less than ordinary to put it very mildly.
Among the lesser luminaries with the bat, Kapil Dev did execute a Nataraja shot in which the bat scythed across the body, but, effective and exciting in an agricultural way, it was not exactly a sight for sore cricket loving eyes. Krish Sirkkanth did have a peculiar pull shot of his own, but as his averages of 30 in test cricket and 29 in ODIs testify, seldom was he too long at the wicket to play the stroke with regularity. Probably the only time his pull brought forth success was when he holed out off Imran Khan in the Sialkot test in Pakistan, 1989, thus denying Wasim Akram the distinction of getting his wicket on every occasion during the test series. Akram, however, had both his hands in the dismissal as he took the catch at long leg. Ravi Shastri and Navjot Sidhu were too stiff around the lower back to swivel around and pull a super fast delivery. For all their six hitting ability off slower men, their scoring became distinctly slower and painstaking whenever the balls became faster and shorter.
With the coming of the nineties, the phenomenon called Sachin Tendulkar walked in and stamped his mark on all departments of the game, including the pull. Even as the expert in Sunil Gavaskar harped on his lack of inches which made it difficult for him to keep a pull on the ground, we were exposed to the thrills as he played the shot again and again, against every mighty fast bowler and with disdain. Yes, many a masterpiece in the making or on the way to becoming an opus were cut short by the stroke –his 88 in Napier,122 in Birmingham,169 in Capetown and 155 in Bloemfontein are the ones in immediate memory. But, the discerning never complained of his dying by the sword, having been witness to the delightful heaven of his living by it. Versatile as he was, while his straight drives were just about gloriously timed pushes, delectable and effortless, his pulls were violent and merciless, executed with powerful disdain for the fast and famous bowlers around the world. As Andy Caddick will remember forever, they could travel far.
Then came Rahul Dravid, a master technician, who went about playing every stroke with the approved stamp of the MCC Coaching manual. In his pull, as with every other stroke of his, he looked unhurried, composed and infallible, as the Wall which has been his alias ever since. Here was the first Indian batsman who could pull fast bowlers on pacy, green foreign wickets without allowing for the slightest risk that generally creep in even for the best masters of the stroke. This was in sharp contrast to his fellow debutant Sourav Ganguly, a peerless stroke-maker on the offside, whose pull off fast bowlers was often an act of futile self defence, eyes closed, bat held at a periscopic angle, with frequent, fatal and flimsy results. Dravid's pull had an elegant efficiency about it, which was the hallmark of his entire game. The ferocity associated with the stroke was eliminated as was the uncertainty.
Virender Sehwag, with the bludgeon of a bat, prefers to cart the short balls in the region between extra cover and thirdman. While initially he suffered some discomfort with the balls aimed at his body, he has developed a pull, which like most of his other shots, is belligerent and fierce, but the audacity and confidence while he plays it does not quite match the rest of his strokes around the wicket.
Enter VVS Laxman. Styled in the Hyderabadi gharana of wristy willow wizardry, stepping into the large shoes of Mohammad Azharuddin, he shuttled up and down the order for a few years, but soon outgrew the illustrious footwear. The world sat up to take notice of someone who had bettered the esoteric template he was built on. While possessing every bit of the silky elegance of the wrist on the onside, he was distinctly more assured than Azhar through the covers and could play the same ball to mid wicket or extra cover based on the whims of his will and wrists. At the same time, on faster wickets, he outshone the earlier artist almost to the extent that the sun outshines pretentious street lamps.
A significant reason for his success overseas was that while Azhar negotiated the short balls with a jump and a duck or a cross batted swipe more reliant on luck and wager than timing and placement, VVS Laxman did have an impeccable pull shot which kept the fastest bowlers from pitching too short too often. Even when India was bundled out for 83 at Bridgetown while chasing 120 for a win in 1997 and Laxman was still going through the phase of floating up and down the batting order, a languid short arm pull off Ambrose remains etched in the memory as he top scored with 15 while opening on that treacherous wicket.
While the pull embodies exuberant energy in the case of Sachin, elegant efficiency in the case of Dravid, in Laxman's case curiously it is an extension of the exquisite artistry in all his other shots. Timing and wristwork all the way.
When Laxman essays a pull shot off the fastest bowlers, there is none of the savagery associated with a bludgeon by a Mathew Hayden or an Adam Gilchrist or the arrogant ferocity of a Ricky Ponting. The body moves into position with the customary lazy elegance and the stroke is as wristy as his flick through the mid wicket – and as effective and devoid of risk.
In the 2010 Mohali test against the Aussies when he famously won it for India by one wicket, the transcendental brilliance of the stroke was in evidence. During the later stages of the innings when he was batting with Ishant Sharma and Pragyan Ojha, with the field allowing singles, fielders placed on the furthest ropes, he kept taking twos with élan, using those malleable wrists to place the ball at will, just a wee bit on either side of the men in the outfield. With two people on the mid wicket fence to cut off his celebrated flicks off the pad, Hilfenhaus pitched short. Laxman laid back and rolled those wizard wrists over the ball, placing it with impeccable precision between the two deep fielders, the patrolmen almost running into each other as the ball mocked them, slipping through undeterred into the fence. It was a masterly demonstration of an unreal mix of artistry and efficiency in the face of utmost pressure.
People often wonder how he manages to turn out these poetic yet potent offerings in the face of peril. Some have compared his rescue acts to symphonies conducted with ambulance sirens in the background. However, I don’t think that it is strange. The most poignant of art, we must remember, comes from the dark pits of distress. We often see this same very, very special soul struggling for self expression when the going is smooth and there are lots of runs on the board as he walks into bat. On these occasions, he drops his paintbrush for the more austere workman's tools and sometimes looks like a fish out of water. It is only when the stakes are raised to tipping point and the opposition places demanding challenges for his creative batter's mind that he is motivated into mystical brilliance, a sight fit for gods.
One thing that probably works for him in his rearguard actions is that it is very difficult to set a field for him to limit his scoring or even keep them down to a single. Those wrists can always find the gap in the most crowded of fields. And while people like Sachin Tendulkar are wont to back their big hitting ability to try and aim for the maximum when the batsmen at the other end are busy taking part in a relay race from and back to the pavilion – something that brought about his demise in the heartbreaking so near yet so far affair in Chennai against Pakistan in 1999 – VVS Laxman, with all his genius, knows the limitations which keep him from clearing the fence too often. Even when six runs are needed with the last man in, there is no desperate attempt to aim for the stands. Unlimited in versatile artistry, he is fully aware of the boundaries of his calibre which has limited his over-boundaries to five in all test matches. In fact, the only occasions when Laxman looks ungainly at the wicket are when he tries cross batted cow shots.
However, genius is rare. There will hardly be another 281 in a lifetime. And Laxman may not hit another six in his career. Even then, let me recount one of these rare occasions which stick to the memory. There are strokes that a cricket lover cannot forget. The straight drive of Sachin Tendulkar off Shoaib Akhtar in the 2003 World Cup face off. The pull of Brian Lara, with an almost vertical bat, two feet off the ground. And that moment of mesmerising magic by Laxman.
It was a short innings of 32, made from 30 balls, a miniature masterpiece if there ever was one, on the fast and furious Bloemfontein wicket against Pollock, Hayward, Ntini, Klusener and Kallis. In the 9th over, with India at 17 for one, Pollock ran in and bounced. Laxman, with a seeming eternity in his hands, swivelled, languid and lissom, and dismissed the ball off his face. It was a cross batted stroke off a short ball, experts undecided whether to call a hook or a pull. Almost a cross batted counterpart of a Tendulkar defensive push which often blazes away to the fence. The effort was minimal, the fuss non-existent, the batsman's eyes hardly followed the ball once it had been removed from his presence. The red cherry sailed all the way, over the boundary board behind square leg and into the crowd. A short ball by one of the fastest men in business almost lovingly caressed away for a six. A contradiction in terms?
But it is precisely this distinction that makes Laxman the very, very special magician that he is, a conjurer who can brighten the drabbest of days with a wave of his willow wand, an artist who carves masterpieces on the canvas of a green oval with beatific brushes of his bat.

A Nation Walks with Sachin

by Senantix

It began when I started sneaking surreptitiously out of the strict confines of a Roman Catholic institution – to follow the exploits of a fellow schoolboy whose blazing trail had just been sparked off in neighbouring Pakistan.

More than a couple of decades later, the trail continues to blaze along pristine paths where no mortal has treaded before.

Now, as a supposedly responsible manager, I creep behind the forbiddingly workmanlike windows with a careful ALT+TAB, and peep at his continuing saga of success on the pages of the cricket web sites. While he sustains the insatiable appetite to score more and more, I retain the childish craving to break the rules and follow his awe-inspiring achievements. The ageless wonder has also managed to keep me mentally young.

The tale of Tendulkar has for long been intertwined with the story of the young Indian growing up in the eighties and nineties. His meteoric rise in the late eighties and early nineties was an unusually brilliant representative of the spark of genius which shone on painfully rare occasions in the field of Indian sports and games, rising from the shadows of despondence that defined the arena of a developing nation. But, even as a country battled with the remnants of bureaucracy, the adamant refusal to embrace computerisation and open economy, and chugged along with drastically dated information about the world, a teenager showed that change was around the corner. It was reflected in the audacity with which he stroked the ball, throwing caution and the baggage of the past to the winds, carving the revered Abdul Qadir for consecutive sixes, hitting the knighted Richard Hadlee inside out over the covers, taking on the might of the Aussie pace bowlers at the fast, furious Perth while established pillars of batting crumbled around him like bits of brittle bread. Impossibility was just about to be redefined, limits re-laid.

With the coming of globalisation, slowly but surely, India emerged as a force to reckon with on the global map. Along with the newfound confidence of being a player in the world in her own right, Team India too underwent a metamorphosis. The 27 for two specialist of the side no longer had the enormous responsibility of carrying the entire burden of batting on his shoulders. He was no more forced to ensure that India qualified for the finals at Sharjah before proceeding to loft those sixes off Kasprowicz and Fleming to try for an impossible win, bearing the brunt of the media if his single handed attempt at the impossible did not come off.

There matured a Wall to secure the innings, a very, very special artist to paint it in peerless patterns, a big brother to stand up against the bullies of the world and a nuke from Najafgarh to blast opposition attacks to smithereens. Sachin evolved from the one who specialised in fighting losing battles, the engineer of ephemeral dreams, to the quintessential torchbearer who could plant the flag of the nation on the highest pinnacles. In boom time India, Sachin was that extra yard, that final frontier, that elusive peak which the Indian woke up to realise was within his grasp. The country no longer followed the crumbs dropped along the way by the Hansel and Gretel of the West, it cut furrows where no other nation dared to venture. It was this boy who had by now grown into a man who taught the nation how to.  Taught them to live in the way he went about scoring runs.

Through his straight drive, one was taught the art of persuasion, the ball coaxed to the fence with the minimum of forceful negotiations. In his paddle sweep was the schoolboy who continued to live, finding cheeky non-existent gaps in patrolled confines to sneak out of the restricting oval into the forbidden boundary. In his upper cuts one came across real innovation, the new Indian who knew to take risks that amounted to audacious calculations. And his pull spoke of colossal confidence in self that defined the emerging superpower.

And now, one less than100 centuries and 33000 runs later, he still goes on and on. Passage of time has probably rounded those rough edges of excitement that used to accompany every foray into the middle. The fractional fraying of the hand eye coordination has probably curbed the fearless arrogance of stroke-play, now passed on to the more than capable hands of Virender Sehwag. But, for each small diminution of the treasure-store of ability, there have been replenishing pearls and diamonds from the many splendored vaults of experience. Time's erosion has been replaced and secured with timeless foundation. Having shown the way to take on the world, he is now the wise general who knows the virtue of consolidation, of accumulation. He has never looked so invulnerable, so impregnable ever in his lustrous career.

He is now the Bhishma Pitamaha of Indian cricket, who cannot retire until the last sling and arrow of fortune is shot in the war that he had started waging decades earlier. Be it regaining the number one slot in Test Cricket, a series victory in Australia or whatever it is that seems to him eligible to be that final feather in his congested crown, he continues to battle on. The one who has perfected his batting to resemble the benchmark of the Don, has perhaps the last personal frontier to conquer.

While Sachin Tendulkar has without doubt been the crowning achievement of the sport of cricket and the rejuvenated nation of India, what follows in the wake of his gargantuan glory brings to light the ancient Upanishadic teaching – everything positive comes with its own inbuilt negative.

There are hordes of so called followers of cricket in our very nation who lift their hind quarters to pee their quaint peeves on the monumental achievements of the man. These consist of the self proclaimed defendants of the society who try to hide their irrational envy behind righteous indignation at a man making money for his phenomenal contributions; the zonal yellow journalists, with a flair for statistical ignorance, who try to cut down each and every exploit of the remarkable cricketer with reasons and ratios that redefine ridiculous; armchair metaphysical scholars who vociferously object at a mortal man being given the sobriquet of 'god' by his following. A most pathological bunch of losers if there ever was any. If the master symbolises the height of Indian achievements in the past couple of decades, these callous critics probably underline all that is wrong with the nation, bringing alive the celebrated history of colonial divide and rule, the propensity to wallow in the muck of one's own making, of being satisfied with glorified mediocrity.

However, the collective contamination of these social stinkers can do little to tarnish the halo that has been the result of two decades of resplendent brilliance, etched with one hundred glittering gemstones. Whatever is the final goal, I await it with an amalgam of hope and trepidation. While nothing would be dearer to me than this giant of a little man to conquer whatever peak he sets sights on, summits the less of ability can hardly make out with the naked eye, a part of me dreads the day when he will make his way to the pavilion for the last time.

I have not known adult life without Sachin Tendulkar at the crease. Without the little man walking out at two drop for India, a whole generation of Indians will start walking alone.