Cricket: Goodbye Mr. Dravid

Millions of words have been written about Rahul Dravid in the last few days after he announced his retirement from Test and First Class cricket. Accolades are pouring in on this gentleman player who is undoubtedly one of the greatest batsmen in world cricket history. The man has scored over 13,000 runs in Tests, more than 10,000 runs in the one day mode, and taken a record breaking 210 Test catches. His stature in the game is equal to or higher than that of Don Bradman.

Have the officials and the media been fair to this man who was a unique ambassador for the game and India? I would say no. Please see my posts  ‘Cricket: Board games and bucks – Rahul Dravid out!’ (September 16, 2007), and Cricket: Rahul Dravid’s ‘colonel’ bogey (November 2, 2007). An armchair critic once wrote that Rahul had to take up wicket keeping because his batting was not good enough to assure him a place in the Indian team. The rumours were that a powerful lobby was behind the ‘pull down Dravid’ campaign.

But they too knew what a great player the man was. The compliments paid to him verbally and in writing after he announced his retirement are genuine. And the tributes came from them all – officials, media, team-mates, players from other countries, and the public.

Why did Rahul Dravid retire at this point of time? Easy answer is his failure on the recent Australian tour. That is not correct, as the former India Captain himself has said. He can bounce back for more batting achievements. I feel, strange as it might sound, he decided to hang up his boots because of the three or four catches he dropped in the recent matches. That indicated the aging

Well Dravid, adios. You will always be a hero to millions. And, we still look forward to you playing in the IPL.

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Note: The photo is of ‘Rahul Dravid at the Bangalore test (7-Oct-2004) of the Australia v/s India series (Sep-Nov,2004). Picture taken by Geetanjali Chitnis and uploaded to Flickr under BY-SA license. Source URL: http://flickr.com/photos/geetanjali/475288920/’

Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic

Another Award for my blog

The Liebster Award has been presented to my blog by

Raji Muthukrishnan (http://rajirules.blogspot.in/). I am really honoured

and thrilled by this recognition. I thank my visitors who have brought up my blog to where it is today, Liebster (I believe

that in German the word means ‘Favourite) and

Raji Muthukrishnan.

Sports scan

[Blog activity had to be suspended temporarily due to a bad cold. Chennai weather – hot and cold, rain and sunshine – is to be blamed I suppose. A doctor joke – if you don’t treat a cold it will take 7 days to go away. But if you consult a doctor and get proper treatment it will disappear in just 1 week!]

The euphoria of the two great cricket victories – under 19 World Cup and CB Series in Australia – vanished with the news that India failed to qualify for Olympic hockey. Well, it has been on the cards for some time, because of the way the game was being managed. Nevertheless, failing to make the grade has come as a shock.

Why doesn’t KPS Gill resign as President of the Indian Hockey Federation? Is he taking a clue from Musharraf from across the border? The latter once said ‘Pakistan needs me’. Gill seems convinced that India hockey requires his services to rebuild and regain the lost glory.

Well, so much for ‘officers and gentlemen’.

After India lost the Olympic Hockey Gold in 1960 I wrote an article about a plan for restructuring Indian hockey. Sport & Pastime (a great magazine which just stopped publishing) carried it prominently. Wonder if The Hindu archives would have a copy so that I can see what I wrote nearly 50 years back and how relevant it is today.

Clouds are over the tennis courts too. But don’t blame the officials. The Bangalore open went off successfully. I don’t think anyone missed Sania Mirza. She lost without even playing. Whoever advised her pull out of the tournament did a disservice to her and the country.

The Davis Cup mess is unpardonable. There is no point sulking because Paes has been doing a great job for India. What right has a player who once opted out of the Indian team to revolt against the captain. He has set a bad example to the junior players.

Indian approach to sports seems to be highly subjective. The reaction of a former Indian Davis Cup player and non playing captain to Prakash Amritraj being ticked off by the captain for late night outing was something like this – the boy is the son of the great Vijay.

Of course India is proud of Vijay who is one of the greatest tennis players the country has produced. But that doesn’t mean his son should not conform to team discipline.

Ends.

Also see: Ramanathan Krishnan: India’s Tennis Legend.

Cricket: Umpiring blunders

Yesterday at Adelaide India struggled home after the hiccups, thanks to three run outs, including the unlucky one for Jayawardane, while Sri Lanka batted, and Yuvaraj Singh’s return to form. Team India is to be congratulated.
Dhoni’s team should have won the previous game as well. But before dealing with that let me tell you about a thought provoking post Empowering umpires by E R Ramachandran and an equally important comment by Dinakar KR.
Umpiring blunders have been there all along. Now technology brings the bad decisions to the public glare. Among other important things E R Ramachandran says, “With increasing commercialization , wrong decisions during critical stage of a match can indeed take the game away which is neither good for the sides playing the game, nor for the game and finally not for the paying spectator.”
Dinakar KR. points out that too much involvement of technology would take away the thrills. What I would suggest is that technology should be available to the field umpires if they feel the need. If an umpire is not clear about an LBW or a tricky catch, he should have access to the Third Umpire like in the case of run outs and stumpings.
There is a risk of field umpires becoming over dependent on this facility. That could slow down the game and make it boring. The problem could be tackled by grading the umpires taking into account the number of times they call on the Third Umpire for decision making.
Back to the current Australian tour. Dhoni has the potential to develop into a good captain. But he has to modify certain traits. It is understandable if he feels some discomfort with having senior players on the side. The latest indication of this is the exclusion of Sehwag. Dhoni should learn to take counsel of experienced players if he feels the need.
I have said this earlier – a captain doesn’t have to talk except when necessary. Dhoni might not have realized it, but he sounded subjective and not objective when he said after the debacle against Australia on February 17. “… (Yuvraj) will play all the remaining games.” Is it advisable for a captain to disclose his plans well in advance?
Arguably we would have won that match but for the 4 overs costing 22 runs Yuvraj bowled. He can be effective if used astutely. But in this instance we had gone in with five specialist bowlers and among them four overs were left. And, as Ravi Shastri said, “Sending Irfan Pathan at number three was a huge mistake.”
Instinct and intuition get fine tuned with experience. Dhoni seems to be on the right track when he said about the Adelaide defeat that ‘it was a good learning lap’.
All said and done, Dhoni and his boys are capable of winning the CB series. Let us wish them luck.
Ends.
Also see: Cricket in remote areas

Cricket: Rahul Dravid’s ‘colonel’ bogey

A captain has to salute a colonel. Every time. Rahul Dravid might have thought that the rule applies only in the army. When he decided to put in his papers, whatever the reason was, he should have gone to the ‘Colonel’ and not to the Chief. That is apparently the desired drill.

There are some weird things about dropping Rahul Dravid from the Indian ODI team against Pakistan. We saw a player management company defending the team selection. What is their business in this matter? Well, they handle ‘Colonel’ Dilip Vengsarkar’s column. That’s fine. But the problem here is that they also manage a few players who are up or selection. It could amount to conflict of interest.

This does not mean that Vengsarkar would play favorites. But it would have been better if the player management company had kept quiet instead of justifying the selection and the propriety of the Chairman of the Selection Committee and some of the contenders for selection being under the same flag. I can’t understand why the 'Colonel’ keeps this writing assignment when he the chief of selectors. Reportedly he gets a pittance for the column.

Another strange aspect is the reasons given for dropping Rahul Dravid. At first it was said that Dravid was being rested. Then it was something like old order yielding place to new. (Rahul Dravid is 34. I think Don Bradman retired at the age of 40.) Next, only two seniors out of the three would be in the team at a time. Then again, the team was selected on merit. Seems like setting the policy after the event!

Politics and zonal considerations, among other things, are making a mess of Indian cricket, notwithstanding the Twenty-20 win. We seem to be perpetually ‘developing a team for the future’. What about here and now? The policy should be to select the best team available, a squad that can beat Pakistan in the coming series. With such an approach, deserving new players would automatically get inducted.

Coming back to Rahul Dravid. He left or had to leave captaincy after winning the last test series, against England, and a fighting loss in the shorter version. Vengsarkar, a good batsman, lost the captaincy after a two year stint, when his team could not win a single match on the West Indies tour of 1989(?). When posterity looks at the history of Indian cricket, Rahul Dravid’s name would be right there at the top whether he is picked again for the Indian team or not.

In my post of September 16, ‘Cricket: Board games and bucks – Rahul Dravid out!’, I wrote, ‘Dravid would continue to be available to play for India if the powers be deign to select him.’ The position remains the same.

Ends.