A hungry fox noticed a juicy bunch of grapes growing high on a grapevine. He leaped. He snapped. Drooling, he jumped to reach them, but try as he might, he could not obtain the tasty prize. Disappointed by the fruitless efforts he'd made to get the grapes that day, he said, with a shrug, to comfort himself, "Oh, they were probably sour anyway!"
No prizes for guessing who the hungry fox is in this story. Ricky Ponting's comments after the Trentbridge test and an interview with Melbourne Radio has been nothing but a great example of this story. His stand on the England's substitute fielders usage, coupled with his blatant reaction after getting ran out at Trentbridge and his media talk later on have been shameful to say the least. But then he has never been put in such situations before which is why he isn't matured enough to handle them.
Ponting's claims about England's unfair use of substitutes may be justified. But what England is doing is strictly within the laws and Australia should be the last team talking about spirit of the game which they have so often violated while in the middle. His allegations could not have been more mistimed as his concerns were not arising from the current match, but over the whole series. Then why was he not whinning about it earlier? Or was he waiting for one of the substitutes to actually get him ran out?
Duncan Fletcher asked a very good question "If one of our bowlers is unfit, why will we bring someone on who doesn't have fleet feet?" And is it England's fault that Garry Pratt was the one who managed to hit the stumps when Damien Martyn and Ponting planned a suicide for themselves? I would like to ask another question. Would Ponting have been as outrageous if he had not gotten out to a substitute fielder's throw? I guess that wicket did not increase the severity of the issue of England's use of substitutes. And no one can claim that the run out was the cause of Australia's defeat. I don't know why they can not wholeheartedly accept that they were outplayed by a team that was far more spirited, if not necessarily superior.
Remember what Ponting did when the Aussies could not chase a paltry target of 107 at Mumbai? Instead of accepting the inability of his men while playing on dust bowls, he kept shouting all the way in the press conference about the dust bowl itself. Agreed the wicket there had many devils in it. But even Indians in the past have shown more maturity when they were made to play and were subsequently mauled on the cattle-grazing fields in New Zealand. The way Ponting acts and the arguments he makes in such situations, suits a child cricketer owning the only kit being used to play in gullies of a small town, not the skipper of the 1 st ranked team in the world.
If he really had a case and wanted to take it up, he should have taken it up right after the Old Trafford test, which the Aussies saved despite English dominance. But then it's hard for an Aussie captain to accept such defeats. Perhaps the last (and one of the very few) Aussie captain who would have reacted in a more amenable way was Mark Taylor. Ponting should have used the example of the Don himself, who complained about the balls being whirled at Aussie batsmen more to kill them than to get them out, right after the 2nd test at MCG which the Aussies WON and not after losing a test, during the defamed body line series. And that was an issue of far more magnitude than the trivial use of more agile substitutes. That's when yours appears as a valid case and not as just an excuse to a mediocre performance that costs you the game (not that this is an attempt to call the Aussie performance at Trentbridge mediocre). Otherwise the statements that you make will always be perceived as nothing but a tale of sour grapes.
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Monday, August 29, 2005
I wasn’t following it!!!
How could I be so cruel? I wasn’t there pressing my favorite F5 when the (de)famed Indian batting line-up was being 007ed by Bond … Shane Bond. I have been made up of a true Indian cricket fan’s irrepressible ability, hope. Even when they were 8 down for 44 (yes only India, of course apart from the Windies and the Zimbabweans can manage such a plight against the kiwis, Bond or no Bond), you would have found me banging the F5 hoping a rare crack from Harbhajan or Pathan, or whosoever it is. And yet even after knowing that India were due to play there 1st game against the kiwis today, I lost track of it, and entered cricinfo to get some ashes bites with the breakfast tea, only to discover “Bond Blitz floors India”.
I, for one, have been an ardent supporter of the men in blue, and their super leader, Sourav Dada and also the real dada, Jaggu Dada. I believed these people -for all the things they were accused of doing for themselves – did some serious things for Team India taking it in the right direction. But hope has its own limits. I was one of the few who did not lose patience when the crowd attacked Mohd. Kaif’s house in UP after India lost to the Aussies in the league match of 2003 world cup. Hope did not betray me then, as it had a firm basis to be alive. I could see them coming back in the groove, based on the CONSISTENCY they had maintained throughout the year preceding that tournament in the limited overs game. But as age is starting to show up on the Aussie team, so is impatience starting to show on me. I don’t know where India go from here. And I believe that now is the time to drop dada. He isn’t getting any younger, neither can I say any hungrier, nor any better. And Team India is going from bad to worse. Justine Langer once told Glenn McGrath that you got to hit the rock bottom to come back up again. But rock bottom standards for McGrath were quite high by Ganguly measurement scheme. All McGrath had done was missing one season due to an ankle surgery, and not picking up noticeable amount of wickets in around half a dozen appearances on return. Ganguly over the last two seasons has seen a considerable amount of drop in his average from 44 to 40 in ODIs, which is quite significant and I am not even dissecting his test form which has been, barring the sole Brisbane hundred touted as a tiger’s knock, abysmal.
There has been a lot of pondering done on India’s losing cause in the recent time. A point has been missed time and again though, which I believe lies in their dreadful ODI bowling. It’s there for every one to see that they have lost an important man in their world cup mission, namely Zaheer Khan. The man needs to rediscover himself somehow, if he has to fill in the shoes of even Javagal Srinath, forget Kapil Dev. Same can be said about Harbhajan Singh. I have to really stress my memory to recall when Harbhajan took his last 3 wicket haul, an achievement which should not be far beyond an Indian ace spinner’s capability. But he has literally looked incapable of picking up wickets recently and if he keeps going on the track he is now, we might need to force him to retire alongside Anil Kumble. Have I lost my marbles? Remember what came Saqlain Mushtaq’s or Mushtaq Ahmed’s way? And when they were kicked out, they were bowling at least a notch above the supremely straight stuff that Harbhajan bowls these days. I mean even Kumble spins it more than Bhajji these days. Is it not the worst abuse ever for a spinner?
Was it just a purple patch for a bunch of mediocre batsmen who would look potent of chasing any total against most attacks, if not all, that took them to the world cup finals 2 years ago? Yuvraj Singh, for a long enough period of time, has been ugly; bad could be a complement for him. And they still hope that he will get runs CONSISTENTLY. I don’t care about a solitary hundred that he strikes against a futile West Indies attack. When time demands him to bat, he’s either foxed by a spinner, or if he avoids it then he sweeps him into the hands of deep mid-wicket, or else he edges a quicky to the slip cordon. Virender Sehwag is the replica Sourav Ganguly of the early years of the millennium. While Sourav was prolific in ODIs and dismal in Tests, Sehwag’s the opposite.
They now realize the value of their batting champion Sachin Tendulkar. As his critics shout, he may not play a Brian Lara or a Steve Waugh or an Inzamam Ul Huq for his team, but I have seen him score hundreds on days when he hasn’t timed a single delivery and has been completely out of form, still at a reasonable strike rate, through some thoughtful and soulful stuff. Those knocks may not win matches for his team, but they never let his team be embarrassed to the extent of 8 for 44, that too against a soul Shane Bond, I don’t count Andre Adams a bowler.
That brings us to the question of where to start the cleansing job. I guess it starts at the top with an axe on the skipper. England can afford a non performing skipper, India cannot. The man to wear the hat should be the only permanent member of the team, Rahul Dravid. Or if they are prepared for the tough decision, then they should go with different men for the two versions, Dravid with the test squad and Kaif with the ODIs. Have I lost my marbles now? If Ganguly is to go and Dravid is not a long term option, then the only person that stands a chance is Kaif. He has batted more consistently in ODIs than anybody else apart from Dravid himself and, although at a junior level, has previously led a world winning team. The next axe falls on Yuvraj, who must be asked to win a place back in the team by doing some notable stuff at the domestic level. And for god’s sake I hope they don’t bring back an ever unfit VVS Laxman as a replacement. If Sachin manages to come back sooner rather than later, then they must think about whether Sehwag deserves a place in the playing eleven. I believe it’s better to lose by trying out young blokes like Suresh Raina, than by chancing continuous failures like Yuvraj.
And what about the bowlers? It has to be made clear to Ashish Nehra and Zaheer Khan, that the BCCI has wasted enough money on their fitness and travel tickets. It’s time they do something about it or accept that they were never made for the highest level, a sad realization that came very late in case of Ajit Agarkar. But giving it a second thought, is there an option? I fear that the answer is no. If strike-rate-wise the best ODI bowler to immerge from a nation happens to be called Ajit Agarkar (believe it or not he still holds the best strike rate for an Indian taking more than 100 ODI wickets), then god save that country. And if you drop Harbhajan, the only bowler who has averaged less than 4.5 runs per over since the 2003 world cup, is it not a suicide?
So do you really count it as the captain’s failure? Or is it the impotency of his men that’s responsible for the debacle? That brings me back to the original question, was it just the coinciding purple patch of a few ordinary people that gave us hope of a CONSISTENTLY high performing team? Well only time and (maybe) Greg Chappel could tell. For the time being, my breakfast menu has changed to English style to avoid tummy-aches like 8 for 44.
I, for one, have been an ardent supporter of the men in blue, and their super leader, Sourav Dada and also the real dada, Jaggu Dada. I believed these people -for all the things they were accused of doing for themselves – did some serious things for Team India taking it in the right direction. But hope has its own limits. I was one of the few who did not lose patience when the crowd attacked Mohd. Kaif’s house in UP after India lost to the Aussies in the league match of 2003 world cup. Hope did not betray me then, as it had a firm basis to be alive. I could see them coming back in the groove, based on the CONSISTENCY they had maintained throughout the year preceding that tournament in the limited overs game. But as age is starting to show up on the Aussie team, so is impatience starting to show on me. I don’t know where India go from here. And I believe that now is the time to drop dada. He isn’t getting any younger, neither can I say any hungrier, nor any better. And Team India is going from bad to worse. Justine Langer once told Glenn McGrath that you got to hit the rock bottom to come back up again. But rock bottom standards for McGrath were quite high by Ganguly measurement scheme. All McGrath had done was missing one season due to an ankle surgery, and not picking up noticeable amount of wickets in around half a dozen appearances on return. Ganguly over the last two seasons has seen a considerable amount of drop in his average from 44 to 40 in ODIs, which is quite significant and I am not even dissecting his test form which has been, barring the sole Brisbane hundred touted as a tiger’s knock, abysmal.
There has been a lot of pondering done on India’s losing cause in the recent time. A point has been missed time and again though, which I believe lies in their dreadful ODI bowling. It’s there for every one to see that they have lost an important man in their world cup mission, namely Zaheer Khan. The man needs to rediscover himself somehow, if he has to fill in the shoes of even Javagal Srinath, forget Kapil Dev. Same can be said about Harbhajan Singh. I have to really stress my memory to recall when Harbhajan took his last 3 wicket haul, an achievement which should not be far beyond an Indian ace spinner’s capability. But he has literally looked incapable of picking up wickets recently and if he keeps going on the track he is now, we might need to force him to retire alongside Anil Kumble. Have I lost my marbles? Remember what came Saqlain Mushtaq’s or Mushtaq Ahmed’s way? And when they were kicked out, they were bowling at least a notch above the supremely straight stuff that Harbhajan bowls these days. I mean even Kumble spins it more than Bhajji these days. Is it not the worst abuse ever for a spinner?
Was it just a purple patch for a bunch of mediocre batsmen who would look potent of chasing any total against most attacks, if not all, that took them to the world cup finals 2 years ago? Yuvraj Singh, for a long enough period of time, has been ugly; bad could be a complement for him. And they still hope that he will get runs CONSISTENTLY. I don’t care about a solitary hundred that he strikes against a futile West Indies attack. When time demands him to bat, he’s either foxed by a spinner, or if he avoids it then he sweeps him into the hands of deep mid-wicket, or else he edges a quicky to the slip cordon. Virender Sehwag is the replica Sourav Ganguly of the early years of the millennium. While Sourav was prolific in ODIs and dismal in Tests, Sehwag’s the opposite.
They now realize the value of their batting champion Sachin Tendulkar. As his critics shout, he may not play a Brian Lara or a Steve Waugh or an Inzamam Ul Huq for his team, but I have seen him score hundreds on days when he hasn’t timed a single delivery and has been completely out of form, still at a reasonable strike rate, through some thoughtful and soulful stuff. Those knocks may not win matches for his team, but they never let his team be embarrassed to the extent of 8 for 44, that too against a soul Shane Bond, I don’t count Andre Adams a bowler.
That brings us to the question of where to start the cleansing job. I guess it starts at the top with an axe on the skipper. England can afford a non performing skipper, India cannot. The man to wear the hat should be the only permanent member of the team, Rahul Dravid. Or if they are prepared for the tough decision, then they should go with different men for the two versions, Dravid with the test squad and Kaif with the ODIs. Have I lost my marbles now? If Ganguly is to go and Dravid is not a long term option, then the only person that stands a chance is Kaif. He has batted more consistently in ODIs than anybody else apart from Dravid himself and, although at a junior level, has previously led a world winning team. The next axe falls on Yuvraj, who must be asked to win a place back in the team by doing some notable stuff at the domestic level. And for god’s sake I hope they don’t bring back an ever unfit VVS Laxman as a replacement. If Sachin manages to come back sooner rather than later, then they must think about whether Sehwag deserves a place in the playing eleven. I believe it’s better to lose by trying out young blokes like Suresh Raina, than by chancing continuous failures like Yuvraj.
And what about the bowlers? It has to be made clear to Ashish Nehra and Zaheer Khan, that the BCCI has wasted enough money on their fitness and travel tickets. It’s time they do something about it or accept that they were never made for the highest level, a sad realization that came very late in case of Ajit Agarkar. But giving it a second thought, is there an option? I fear that the answer is no. If strike-rate-wise the best ODI bowler to immerge from a nation happens to be called Ajit Agarkar (believe it or not he still holds the best strike rate for an Indian taking more than 100 ODI wickets), then god save that country. And if you drop Harbhajan, the only bowler who has averaged less than 4.5 runs per over since the 2003 world cup, is it not a suicide?
So do you really count it as the captain’s failure? Or is it the impotency of his men that’s responsible for the debacle? That brings me back to the original question, was it just the coinciding purple patch of a few ordinary people that gave us hope of a CONSISTENTLY high performing team? Well only time and (maybe) Greg Chappel could tell. For the time being, my breakfast menu has changed to English style to avoid tummy-aches like 8 for 44.
Sunday, August 21, 2005
Lost in Baltimore (I hate mess II)
I complained and complained again about the kind of food that I would get in all my messes in Pune. But I will be extremely grateful to anybody who can bring Nana’s “Swami Samartha” or “Harikrupa” to Baltimore, let alone “SP’s Biryani House” or “Mahesh Lunch Home” or “Swarajya” (near Nilayam talkies), some of my hot favorites from Pune. The food here can be described in 1 word, amm… no I can’t think of one word. Let me describe it in 2 words, it sucks.
It all started when I boarded a British Airways plane from Mumbai. For all the good things it offered us, an ontime flight amidst deluging rains of Mumbai, a nice 5 hours halt at the busiest airport Heathrow and some good movies onboard and of course, no lost luggage, the food was a true test of one’s character. We were served some orange juice, which tasted like anything but oranges (and wasn’t even sweet), a horrible tasting pack of butter, and the contents that we had to use to make our coffee from, were extra-ordinarily different in taste for us to make a good one. To add to the woes, the London-Baltimore flight had a vividly smiling Jennifer Anniston look-alike attendant saying to us “Sorry, chicken is finished, we only have beef and salami”, thereby rendering us vegetarian (No, I have still not gone on with the red meat, apart from my favorite pet lamb). And by vegetarian, they literally meant vegetarian as the food had plenty of green plants and leaves. I don’t know what the hell it was that they served us as it was extremely painful to eat. I had to manage on the cakes that were on offer.
Down here in our School Campus, as currently summer is going on here and hence there are very low crowds on campus, there is only 1 place where we get some food. And that place only serves Pizzas. I could find the reason of the fact why the biggest human beings I have ever seen are after I came to the US, hidden right there in the cheese of those pizzas. It’s all bread poured in cheese, which these people can eat day in and day out and not consume the fat that it accumulates on their bodies. Ok, topic changed, I am not here to do some social work by doing research on the obesity problem of the US. But how can one serve every chicken dish made with a lot of sugar in it? I don’t ask you to consider the Indians who are going to eat it, but do some justice to the chicken at least by giving it a taste of some spices.
Yesterday, I had gone to a Chinese restaurant here and could testify an old saying, Chinese eat any crawling living being (probably apart from kids). They served us with hot and sour soup which was neither hot nor sour. There were some unidentifiable items, which we dared not try.
After seeing all this, I know that however I avoid it; I have to accept that I have to cook, and be really good at it. Not for Amit, not for Anubhav, not for Ajay, not for the new students who are temporarily staying with us, but for my own hunger. There is no other solution to soothe your taste buds when you come here. You got to bite the bullet and lift the pan and cut the onions and put the spices. Otherwise, you will end up spending all your money and eat pizzas and bulge your bodies like lot of the natives here, or you simply die of hunger.
It all started when I boarded a British Airways plane from Mumbai. For all the good things it offered us, an ontime flight amidst deluging rains of Mumbai, a nice 5 hours halt at the busiest airport Heathrow and some good movies onboard and of course, no lost luggage, the food was a true test of one’s character. We were served some orange juice, which tasted like anything but oranges (and wasn’t even sweet), a horrible tasting pack of butter, and the contents that we had to use to make our coffee from, were extra-ordinarily different in taste for us to make a good one. To add to the woes, the London-Baltimore flight had a vividly smiling Jennifer Anniston look-alike attendant saying to us “Sorry, chicken is finished, we only have beef and salami”, thereby rendering us vegetarian (No, I have still not gone on with the red meat, apart from my favorite pet lamb). And by vegetarian, they literally meant vegetarian as the food had plenty of green plants and leaves. I don’t know what the hell it was that they served us as it was extremely painful to eat. I had to manage on the cakes that were on offer.
Down here in our School Campus, as currently summer is going on here and hence there are very low crowds on campus, there is only 1 place where we get some food. And that place only serves Pizzas. I could find the reason of the fact why the biggest human beings I have ever seen are after I came to the US, hidden right there in the cheese of those pizzas. It’s all bread poured in cheese, which these people can eat day in and day out and not consume the fat that it accumulates on their bodies. Ok, topic changed, I am not here to do some social work by doing research on the obesity problem of the US. But how can one serve every chicken dish made with a lot of sugar in it? I don’t ask you to consider the Indians who are going to eat it, but do some justice to the chicken at least by giving it a taste of some spices.
Yesterday, I had gone to a Chinese restaurant here and could testify an old saying, Chinese eat any crawling living being (probably apart from kids). They served us with hot and sour soup which was neither hot nor sour. There were some unidentifiable items, which we dared not try.
After seeing all this, I know that however I avoid it; I have to accept that I have to cook, and be really good at it. Not for Amit, not for Anubhav, not for Ajay, not for the new students who are temporarily staying with us, but for my own hunger. There is no other solution to soothe your taste buds when you come here. You got to bite the bullet and lift the pan and cut the onions and put the spices. Otherwise, you will end up spending all your money and eat pizzas and bulge your bodies like lot of the natives here, or you simply die of hunger.
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