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Friday, March 30, 2012
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Saturday, March 26, 2011
This Just Isn't Cricket
It is about time we got a bit serious on this, because cricket is serious business. Either we want to go and play in Pakistan this spring, or we don’t, either way, let’s decide only on cricketing reasons. If we do, we should place our trust in Pakistani security, pray for good luck off, and on, the field, and carry on. If for whatever reason — tired players, tight itinerary and, most ludicrous of all, the likely effect of a bad performance on the precious feel-good factor — we don’t, we should be honest about it and say a quick no. We know that this is a government of security junkies. But to use security as an excuse for not playing cricket in Pakistan when our prime minister was not shy of spending the better part of a week there two months earlier would convince no one. It would make us look like a nation of wafflers, our cricketers like a bunch of wimps and our diplomacy wishy washy. Who is to guarantee, then, that the security situation in Pakistan would get better by May, the month now being suggested for a post-election series? Unless, indeed, the argument is that then the snows begin to melt and so all the bad guys would be sprinting across the LoC and getting busy with their own fun and games in the Valley.
Over the years, besides the perils they face on the field, India’s cricketers have had to live with a scourge unique to their country: the mixing of cricket with diplomacy, of being used as pawns in foreign policy. This takes away the focus and concentration which our players must have while confronting the opposition in such keenly fought engagements. This also clouds our judgement. In 1978, Morarji Desai’s government decided to signal a thaw with Zia’s Pakistan by sending a team under Bishen Bedi there. You ask any member of that team and they will tell you of the pressures this additional diplomatic responsibility brought them under. They had to constantly look and behave like good guys, stay locked up in their rooms, with social outings entirely curtailed, and had to swallow the most horrendous umpiring decisions with straight faces.
The only one not to be weighed down was late Lala Amarnath but he was not on the field but in the commentators’ box while two of his sons played for India. He gave all diplomatic restraint a go the moment Mohinder was given out in his nineties, caught in the slips when his bat was hidden well behind his pads. Asked by his Pakistani co-commentator to speak about the decision, Lala said, sorry, "I will not comment on that decision because (and then he paused for a long while) because Mohinder is my son." Many years ago, I reminded Lala of this slip-up and he said, of course, it was okay, it was such a lousy decision. Except that he was pulled up by three different officers from the Indian mission, besides by "the high-ups in Delhi". Then he added in a manner so typically forthright of him: "They would never leave it to us cricketers to find an answer to the Kashmir issue. Then why must they tell us how to play the game so their bloody friendship business is not affected?"
My recollection of this conversation is pretty good, except that I have been careful to translate some of Lala’s Punjabi into more diplomatic English. And he had a point. A modern-day cricket series is hard ball. You cannot mix it up with the subtle, cynical needs of diplomacy. You play the game the hard way,to win, are angry when you lose, jubilant when you win. Don’t confuse all this with the niceties of diplomacy. God knows we take our cricket much too seriously in these parts but you still don’t want to carry the additional burden of knowing that your larger national interest hangs by the slender thread of your performance on, and off the field. Other Indian cricketers have felt similarly weighed down on other occasions. Ask Kapil Dev. He is too much of a nice guy to say this but had the 1992-93 series in South Africa not been billed as Friendship Series, loaded with the baggage of bringing the first opening to post-apartheid South Africa, would he have taken that infamous knock in his shin from Kepler Wessels’ bat with such equanimity? Imran Khan once said to me that to him that one single incident confirmed that Kapil was, deep down, a wimp. But if Kapil tells you the truth, he was also probably weighed under the responsibility of keeping the "friendship" spirit of that series alive.
In the 1982-83 series in Pakistan once again the team was being beaten, bored, confined to their hotel rooms and homesick as hell. The umpiring was, well, nothing unusual, crowds wanted your blood, and no social outings except stiff official receptions. One of the all-time great stories of Indian cricket folklore goes something like this. Both teams, in their blazers and ties, had been lined up to be introduced to General Zia at his official reception. He had done his homework. He knew that one of the Indians had missed the match India had just lost probably because of a pulled hamstring. As he shook hands with the player, Zia said something like, Hullo, how is your leg? The story goes that unable to take the farce any longer, the player looked the general mischievously in the eye and said, "Hairy."
I don’t know if this Indian team has somebody with that kind of wit, or cheek. But if you asked them, they will tell you to keep politics out of their lives and let them get on with the game. It is good enough for them that the government has decided there is no ban on India playing Pakistan in Pakistan. The rest, where they play, when, the itinerary, the details should be left to the world of cricket.
The last thing you need is poor Amrit Mathur and other BCCI dadas sniffing around the Pakistani cricket grounds for hidden mines and explosives. They would rather be left to worry about the lethal stuff that may be thrown at them across the 22-yard strip in the middle. In any case they would be better equipped to prepare to counter the cricketing threats and perils their boys would face rather than anything Maulana Masood Azhar’s boys might fling at them.
Postscript: On the eve of the Test match against the West Indies in the fall of 1983 at Ferozeshah Kotla Bishan Bedi was speaking at a function in Pragati Maidan for the release of Sunil Gavaskar’s Runs and Ruins. This is when terrorism had just picked up steam in Punjab and there was a threat to the match too. Also, the West Indies had come in to avenge the World Cup loss a month earlier, with Marshall and Holding bowling like demons. Somebody asked Bishan if he feared a terror attack at Kotla. "There will be a massacre, alright," he said. "But more likely on the field than off it." It is a different matter that India saved that match quite honourably with Vengsarkar and Gavaskar scoring hundreds and the latter turning out, for the first time, in his skull cap and unleashing the hook shot after more than a decade of self-denial.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Johnson , Hughes and the Ordeal of Cricket
July 29, 2009
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| Related Links Analysis : Wayward Johnson poses dilemma News : McGrath wants Johnson to keep things simple Jason Gillespie : A small hitch for Mitch Analysis : What has happened to Mitch? Players/Officials: Phillip Hughes | Mitchell Johnson Series/Tournaments: Australia tour of England and Scotland Teams: Australia | ||
Every cricketer knows the feeling. The game has become impossible, a curse, a blight, a torment, a tease, a provocation, a creation of the devil; goodness only knows why it was ever invented, or why poets write so richly about it or children take it up. Academies? Fie on them! Umpires? Blind and deaf! Reporters? Are they watching the same game? Captains? Blithering idiots! Wives? Ripe for rejection. Children? What was wrong with workhouses? Cars? Unreliable. Governments? Inept. Averages? Overrated.
Luck? And what pray is luck? In these periods everything goes wrong that rests in human hands. Every mistake is punished. Before long it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Batsmen poke around without conviction, bowlers endure dropped catches. Everyone around them can scent blood.
Of course it can only happen in the stretched areas, where the batsman or bowler is taken to his limits. As man inevitably rises to the level of his incompetence so cricketers keep rising till the game starts to find them out. After that they live on their nerves, constantly worried about impending doom, aware of their frailties, relieved by their successes. Some, it is true, dare to look failure in the eye, defy it to do its worst, realise they can live with it and then turn away towards the bright lights of achievement. Kevin Pietersen belongs to this school. More than most, he decided to succeed. And he knew how, understood that success was in part a gamble and a bluff, watched people whose very careers told him that, surrounded himself with them.
But Pietersen is an uncommon man, a fellow who did not retreat or cut his losses or take the safe course. He learnt not from failure but from success. It is an unusual mindset, one that makes Roger Federer say how well he has been playing without sounding arrogant, merely sincere. Most of us live in constant fear of failure and the humiliation it supposedly heralds: the low score in the papers, the lowering of reputation, the disdain of peers, and most of all the shattering of hope. And, of course, the worst of it is that cricketers know how closely failure and glory sit together, plotting and planning. Denis Compton once failed for a month, was clean bowled first ball in his next innings, watched amazed as the bails fell back onto the stumps and promptly scored 200. The gods kill us for their sport.
Cricket is an isolating and yet public game. Soccer players suffer when they miss a penalty. Cricketers risk that collapse every time they go out to bat. It is not a sport at all, it's an execution. Watching a man walking smartly to the crease, looking impervious, sometimes imperious (did you ever see Viv Richards' regal saunter to the middle?) is to see a man feeling not joy at the prospect of scattering the bowling to the corners of the field but a doomed dreamer, a desperate craftsman hoping that the gap between his going and coming back might be long enough to permit fruitful activity.
| Only batsmen of spectacular incompetence and vivid imaginations can write lightly about batting. They can waffle all they like about Ranji's leg glance, Walter Hammond's cover drive, Frank Worrell's late cut, David Gower's caress, but it's all warm talk | |||
Batting is an ordeal. The rapturous cannot have held a willow, cannot actually have gone to the crease to face the massed ranks of hostile forces waiting with wicked intent, cannot have felt the dismay that comes with ducks (no right-thinking batsman ever ordered duck a l'orange in a restaurant). Only batsmen of spectacular incompetence and vivid imaginations can write lightly about the activity. They can waffle all they like about Ranji's leg glance, Walter Hammond's cover drive, Frank Worrell's late cut, David Gower's caress, but it's all warm talk. None of these blokes cared about prettiness; they just wanted to score runs, to please their dads or wives or selves, or even, occasionally, captains and colleagues.
Batting takes courage. Certainly the physical aspect of the game has declined, but that is true of life itself. Covered wickets, helmets, thick gloves, chest guards and so forth have reduced the game's rawness. Not the least value of Andrew Flintoff's burst at Lord's was the way it reminded the crusty of the abandoned ferocity that appeared periodically last century and reached its peaks in the 1970s and 1980s.
But it still takes psychological courage to take batting seriously. Admittedly it's much easier for tailenders with low expectations and allrounders, a breed that (it belatedly emerged) can lay about themselves with intent, and when everything goes wrong can grab the ball and redeem themselves. Most allrounders burst a gasket as soon as they are forced to focus.
Specialist batsmen, and bowlers as well, take an enormous risk every time they take guard or mark out their run. It's a nerve-wracking game. I've seen professional batsmen be sick as they wait their turn in the pavilion, seen bowlers unable to land the ball on the cut strip once the nets have been removed. David Gurr and Fred Swarbrook count among fine bowlers broken by the yips. Sportsmen know it can happen to anyone. No proper cricketer condemned them, or those enduring depression. In 1978, Swarbrook, a previously reliable left-arm spinner of generous girth, suddenly started sending down head-high deliveries and triple bouncers. County batsmen patted them back.
Only the masters of the genre can relax, and not for long because the game can easily elude even their grasp. Cricket is a game of cold facts and figures. A soccer or rugby player can recover from a mistake, might even emerge as Man of the Match. A tennis player can drop a set and still prevail. Everyone forgets about the early mishaps. Did not Retief Goosen recently fluff a drive at the first hole and still shoot 67? Cricket permits no such luxury. A fellow might get another chance, it is true, but he cannot depend on it; that is the point. He walks into the unknown, and does so willingly.
And it can all go wrong. Phil Hughes and Mitchell Johnson could confirm the point. Every article written about every top player ought to begin with "This chap is a terrific cricketer". Instead it is taken as read. Not long ago Brad Haddin was asked about criticism of his glovework in his first few Test matches and replied that he was happy with it as it proved that he was now judged by higher standards. It was a mature response that ought to be pinned in every dressing room. Johnson and Hughes are superb cricketers and have proved as much on the game's greatest stages.
Just for now, though, these young Australians are feeling as vulnerable as elephants on ice. Neither has performed to raised expectations in the fist two Tests of the Ashes series. At first sight it can be put down to the sort of bad patch sooner or later endured by all cricketers as the game temporarily (as it usually turns out) forsakes them. But these cases are a little different. Bad patches befall players with completed games that develop little weaknesses that cause internal panic and eventually prove instructive as the player reminds himself never to get lazy and always to keep a close eye on his game. Hughes and Johnson are not that far down the track. They are not suffering from bad luck so much as technical flaws. In short, they are not yet the finished product.
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Hitherto Hughes' habit of sliding his back foot to leg had been observed but was not regarded as fatal to his prospects. Every bowler in Australia and South Africa had tried to exploit it, only to find the left-hander cutting gleefully. Hereabouts it appeared that he might be able to work things out as he went along, as did Virender Sehwag, Navjot Sidhu and other dashing openers blessed with wonderful eyes and bold spirits. Now Hughes has been forced to confront and correct in the middle of an Ashes campaign. He is a remarkable young man and has the determination needed to score runs in any company. Most likely these struggles will be his making not his breaking.
Nor is Johnson enduring a genuine bad patch. His problems run deeper than that. Instead his action has been found wanting. Twelve months ago the Australians realised that their bowling needed a pick up. Most of the established flingers were injured or aged. Among those still standing, Johnson was the best hope because he offered pace, bounce, stamina, athleticism and angle, but he could only cut the ball away from the bat, an approach that might work on hard pitches in Australia but has seldom been effective in England.
Accordingly bowler and coaches worked hard to add an inswinger to his repertoire, a delivery unleashed in the first Test in South Africa, and sporadically later in the series, and subsequently misplaced. Previously he had seemed to be lucky to take so many wickets, as batsmen repeatedly nibbled at wide deliveries. Now he was formidable. Adding the inswinger, though, meant changing his action, at least for that delivery. Perhaps it was more than he could absorb. Now he is in the worst of both worlds.
Hughes is young and deeply committed to the game and will learn as he goes along. Johnson is a genial, sensitive fellow, who hardly played for a few years, between his discovery and rediscovery, a sportsman with less to fall back on than most internationals. Experience teaches a man how to reduce the impact of bad spells. Having missed some of his formative cricketing years, itself an attempt to avoid pain, Johnson lacks the depth of knowledge needed to identify faults. And a man needs to be comfortable with his game before taking to these fields. Hopefully this splendid cricketer will bounce back, but for now he has to embark on the second of a cricketer's three stages.
The path is the same and it depends where a man stops. It begins with natural ability that takes a fellow as far as it can. Then comes a period of introspection in which the complications of the game are encountered and, to a greater or lesser degree, resolved. Finally the player reaches the final stage of a hazardous journey, beyond complexity, towards full understanding. This third stage is called simplicity, but it is profundity.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
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