As DuckingBeamers put it, Bangladesh cricket needs help.
Here’s a single Cricinfo screenshot that summarizes the absurdity:
For sixteen years, Tendulkar could afford to be Tendulkar, Ganguly could afford to be Ganguly, Sehwag could afford to be Sehwag and Dhoni could afford to be Dhoni, because Dravid was always Dravid.
Ganguly and Dravid making their debut at Lord’s will long be remembered as a Test match that changed cricket for the better.
Rahul Dravid, take a break. Then come back, and we’ll talk. There’s a lot of work to be done in Indian cricket.
Dravid at Eden Gardens, 2001: the match that changed what was possible.
Previously on DeepBackwardPoint:
There is a very 21st century term to describe what happened to Cricinfo yesterday. To use the jargon of the internet age, they were “pwned” – statistically, athletically, temperamentally, and comprehensively, as a DNS error chose the occasion of pwnage to subject their victims to one of the most resounding marmalisations in Internet history.
∞
You remember this headline?
Some of us won’t forget it soon.
I left India in 2001, the year of the Kolkata Test. The Australian team from that match has one player left in the team– Ricky Ponting.
India have five– Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Harbhajan Singh and Zaheer Khan.
That is remarkable.
∞
Later this year, it will have been ten years since the Natwest Trophy Finals.
England has no players left from that eleven.
India have six left in their ODI setup, and seven overall.
That is remarkable.
∞
By the end of of 2012, a lot of this will change: VVS and Dravid will be gone, and so might Tendulkar. On the international scene, Ponting and Boucher may be gone. Perhaps Kallis, Sangakkara, Jayawardene not far behind?
So far, the Indian team has had an unbelievably strong connection with the team I grew up watching. Tendulkar made his debut under Srikkanth, and played with Shastri, Vengsarkar and Kapil Dev. Dravid made his debut under Azhar, and against Atherton. Elsewhere, Ponting made his debut under Mark Taylor, in a team that included Healy, Boon and McDermott.
So far, we have been only one degree of separation away from the past, from my childhood. After 2011, we will be two degrees of separation away.
∞
Goodbye, Dravid.
Four of them will sit out the match.
And since the team is almost identical to the Asia Cup team, each of those four will have only recently returned from Bangladesh. And will have perhaps three days plus jet lag to get in the groove for the IPL.
It was ridiculous to take eleven players to South Africa for this match. It’s a tragedy to take fifteen.
∞
Fair warning, BCCI: you can screw with other boards, with your sponsors, with franchises or with money all you want and I’ll shrug my shoulders.
You screw with the players or you screw with the fans, and it’s war.
A while ago, I quoted a passage from Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back to make a tortured analogy about T20 and Test cricket. Here’s what Ben Affleck (playing himself) says to Matt Damon:
Ben Affleck: You’re like a child. What’ve I been telling you? You gotta do the safe picture. Then you can do the art picture. But then sometimes you gotta do the payback picture because your friend says you owe him.
Back then, I said T20 is the safe picture– the one you do for the money. Test cricket was the art picture– the one you do for love of the game.
And this crazy, detestable one-off match between India and South Africa?
That’s the payback one you gotta do because your friend says you owe him.
Previously on DeepBackwardPoint:
India will travel all the way to South Africa for a single T20 match on the 30th of March. Nagraj Gollapudi writes:
The Twenty20 takes place three days after South Africa finish their tour of New Zealand with three back-to-back Tests. It is also a week after the end of the Asia Cup, and five days before the start of the IPL in Chennai.
In a recent episode of the podcast CouchTalk, Gideon Haigh suggested that this match was a you-scratch-my-back-i’ll-scratch-yours gesture.
And they’re calling it the Mandela Cup. If I was Mandela, I’d start some uncivil disobedience right about now.
When our teams lose, it changes who we are. It changes our self-image. Our teams are a part of our identity.
Instead of being the guy who roots for a fighting, winning team, I have become, as an India fan, a guy who roots for the team that has rarely put up a fight.
And it changes my self-image.
Sure, we shouldn’t be so shallow. We shouldn’t wear our hearts on our sleeves. We should have a thicker skin and not let the fates of young men we will never meet affect us so deeply.
We should.
But then again, there are moments like this. When Virat Kohli single-handedly rips a match apart and stitches it together again to his own design.
Moments when we again, perhaps briefly, become the guys who root for a fighting, winning team.
We may be hopeless romantics, begging for abuse. But on Monday, in Hobart, Virat Kohli made us feel better about ourselves.
∞
Which reminds me of an article I wrote 11 months ago. About how Tendulkar pulled an ObiWan Kenobi in the World Cup Finals:
[When Tendulkar got out] even though he didn’t intend it, Tendulkar gave the rest of the team a reason to win it. They had said that they would do it for Tendulkar. Now they had to prove it. Tendulkar wasn’t going to do it for them.
By not holding their hand across the victory line, Tendulkar effectively ushered in the next generation of Indian cricket.
And that’s what was reiterated on Monday.
In an old Hindi film, I believe Ashirwad from 1968, the venerable actor Ashok Kumar is trying to entertain kids in a playground. Somebody suspects that he is trying to kidnap a kid, and there’s a big ruckus.
The camera shifts to the edge of the field, where a man on a bicycle stops to watch the hullaballoo.
He asks someone, “What’s going on?” The reply, “Some man was trying to kidnap a young girl.”
To which the bicyclewallah replies, “Yeh sarkaar nahi chalegi!“
Again, in English, “This government is unacceptable!“
∞
While this little sideshow may seem familiar to people from all around the world, it is particularly familiar in India and Pakistan. The countries birthed through Satyagraha, civil disobedience, are perpetually railing against the man.
Even when the man is not personally responsible for their problems.
∞
One side-effect of perpetually railing against the man is that many Indian writers are constantly in this mode. The evils of BCCI are lurking behind every corner. I’m yet to hear a good, solid, researched article on what parts of the Indian system were responsible for the three successful years under Dhoni/Kirsten, but I’ve seen thousands that explain every defeat.
∞
Take Misbah-ul-Haq, the latest victim of the yeh sarkaar nahi chalegi syndrome. Poor guy just led Pakistan through one of their most successful years in history, their most successful Test series in memory, but a few lost ODIs later he’s the man.
Relax. Misbah is, quite literally, playing the long game. And lest you forget, the past 20 years have been a tumultuous time for Pakistan captains.
In the past, I have written about how Miandad was a microcosm for Pakistan cricket. Everything good and bad about Miandad, represents my impression of the Pakistan team. Which is why when they’re not playing India, I’m rooting for Pakistan.
But imagine a future where Misbah was that microcosm. Where everything good and bad about Misbah, was what is good and bad about Pakistan. Slow, measured progress with bursts of brilliance, with calculated risks. Medium-term goals. Stability. Imagine that.
Pakistan has had 15 ODI captains since Imran (to contrast, India have had 7), and most of their fates have not been pretty.
Pakistan, this could be your Pax Romana. Your long stretch of Roman Peace after rough times.
And you didn’t even have to kill Caesar to get here. Just two Butts.
Nirmal Shekar writes for The Hindu:
Sachin has done enough to deserve the right to choose his own time of departure.
While I don’t think there’s enough evidence to drop Sachin yet, the time may be soon. But this line of thought from Nirmal Shekar (and shared by many) is patently ridiculous.
I foresee new rules for the selectors. Select the players. Then replace them only when a player chooses his time of departure.
If this was how our selectors worked, one Kris Srikkanth may still be in the playing eleven.
