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.

Cricket: Sachin Tendulkar’s Twenty20 ‘debut’

The huge Melbourne Cricket Ground would have been an ideal locale for the Master Blaster to make his Twenty20 debut. But he ended up watching the match along with the 85000 spectators.

Dhoni’s explained that he asked Sachin whether he wanted to play and the great batsman said he would rather rest. Some senior players could be offended by such questions. Obviously Sachin was included in the team for the one off encounter to play. In my opinion a Captain’s job includes making decisions on who should play instead of going around asking the players whether they like to play.

Dhoni was clueless from the beginning of the match to its miserable end for India. At least when early wickets fell he should have stepped in and taken charge. Instead he went in at No.6 and slipped into Test match opening mode scoring 9 runs off 27 balls!

This young man with potential has much to learn. It takes more maturity to carry victory (like the Twenty20 World crown) than to accept defeat. When things go wrong, a captain’s facial expressions, body language, decisions and actions should inspire his players.

Flippant statements do not add to stature. Drop senior players if you want but there is no need to say things like ‘his absence would not be felt’. Don’t talk when there is no need to. It is not mandatory for a Captain to answer all questions by the media.

A team that included Tendulkar, Dravid, Ganguly, Laxman and Kumble could have possibly done better. But then of course there is the ‘in theme’ – give the youngsters chance. Today’s senior players were young once. They got their opportunity, performed and keep performing even today.

Pick the team to win the match on hand. Deserving youngsters would automatically get their chance.

End.

Also see: Cricket: Rahul Dravid’s ‘colonel’ bogey

Cricket: A great victory

It was an honorable win for India at Perth. After the unfair treatment by the umpires and the Australians at Sydney, India had two options – call off the tour or take the bull by the horns. Team India chose the second alternative and proved its mettle.

It was a combined effort, no doubt. But some individual performances do deserve mention. Dravid’s fighting return to form was heartening, and his catching superb. Sehwag seems to be getting back on the track. Tendulkar and Laxman were indomitable.

Coming to the bowlers – I was impressed by Ishant Sharma. How old is he? 19? He keeps the seam of the ball straight till it reaches the destination. Apart from him, only Sreesanth seems to have this quality among India’s current fast bowlers. With the pacers in the team performing so well, Sreesanth may find it difficult to get back into the Indian side.

It was good to see Pathan bowling beautifully. He seems to have learned his lesson. When he hit a bad patch, well-wishers including Imran Khan had suggested some corrective measures. Pathan spurned them saying that there was nothing wrong with his bowling action. Now he knows better and that is good for him and India.

Where was Kumble all this while? Of course he was always there as a great bowler, fielder, and occasional batsman. But what I meant is, as Captain. He is a leader all right. Bringing in Sehwag to bowl in the Australian 2^nd innings was an inspired move.

Good show, Kumble, Team India.

Ends.

Also see:

Cricket: Rahul Dravid’s ‘colonel’ bogey

Bangalore Memories: Cricket, hockey and the tragedy of Len Dial

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.

Cricket: Board games and bucks – Rahul Dravid out!

Rahul Dravid would have seen it coming. Others too, who were alert enough (I was not one of those). In the retrospect it would seem that the indications of a move for Dravid’s ouster started when the pack of pundits opened up after the third Test against England at the Oval.

For the first time in the history of Indian cricket we saw a captain being criticized for the margin of victory on winning a Test series in England after a couple of decades. It sounded so absurd to me who has often seen the headlines ‘India goes down fighting’ (in almost all sports). Instead of congratulating the winning captain along with his team, a group of armchair critics went for Rahul Dravid’s jugular veins – he should have made England follow on, the wise men said.

What was the captain’s objective? To win the series or take even a remote risk of the series ending on an even note? If England following on managed to get even a small lead (they scored 369/6 in 110 overs in the 2^nd innings) and the Indian batsmen buckled on the fifth day pitch, what would the critics have said? In the second innings the Indians were 11/3 at one stage.

The verbal diarrhea continued on to the ODI series. The pundits quoted all kinds of reasons why Dravid should have elected to bat first in the 1^st match. The fact that in the none too distant past India had successfully chased targets 16 consecutive times was quietly overlooked. And no body asked how Dravid could have foreseen three of his batsmen getting themselves run out in the chase.

Do all these mean that there was a concerted effort to put pressure on Dravid? With the BCCI politics, Zonal equations and the money involved, anything is possible. It is not really performance that counts in Indian cricket. Take a look at the results achieved by three successive captains:

ODIs success rate: Dravid 56%, Ganguly 53.9%, Tendulkar 35.1%

Tests Win-loss ratio: Dravid W 8 –L 6, Ganguly W 21 – L 13, Tendulkar W 4 - L 9.

Dravid’s batting:

ODI: as Captain, AVG 42.19, as player 39.38, overall 40.05. Tests: as Captain 44.51, as player 60.12, overall 56.50.

Well, the figures speak better than words. But none of these matter in the murky world of Indian cricket. We have lost a decent and dignified captain with an astute cricketing mind. For the time being there is at least one consolation. I would like to quote a message that appeared on the famous Mumbai Marine Drive hoarding when JRD Tata stepped down as Air India Chairman, “TATA does not always mean goodbye”.

Dravid would continue to be available to play for India if the powers be deign to select him.

Ends.

Indebted to Deccan Chronicle for the statistics.

Also see:

When strong men cried...

Cricket in remote areas