Monthly Archives: October 2008

EXCLUSIVE :: Excerpt from Tendulkar’s soon-to-be-written biography…

Posted on 24 October 2008 by | 27 Comments

Here is an exclusive scoop for i3j3Cricket!

This is an excerpt from Sachin Tendulkar’s not-yet-written, but hopefully soon-to-be-written biography. This is so exclusive that we scratched this straight from Tendulkar’s mind!

Chapter-23: Gilchrist: A funny bloke, good player, big ears!

I played quite a few games against Adam Gilchrist. Funny bloke. I laughed every time I saw him. Not when he spoke though. He wasn’t funny when he spoke. He did not have much humour. How can you if you live life with those flaps? He wasn’t funny when he batted either because the helmet would cover the flaps. Moreover, he would always bat Australia out of trouble. Good batsman. Strong hitter. So it wasn’t funny when he batted.

But whenever I saw him, I cracked up!

Gilchrist was always a great bloke. He walked funny. But he always walked when he was out. Never waited for the umpire’s decision. I once told him, “You are mad, man. If you receive decisions like I did from Bucknor in Brisbane in 2003, why would you walk? It all evens out in the end. There are Type-A errors and Type-B errors. Type-A is when you are not out but given out. Type-B is when you are out but given not out. In the end, you hope it all evens out. Why continue life with only Type-A errors? My hypothesis is that it all evens out in the end.”

Gilchrist replied, “What does hypothesis mean?”

I changed the topic.

But whenever I saw him, I always cracked up! Big ears. You know what they say, “Big ears, big nose, big do-da”.

So I asked him about it one day after a match. We had lost! Again! Gilchrist came around to the dressing room. He wanted to shake hands.

Shaking hands:

I don’t know why these Aussies always had an obsession with shaking hands. When I was in the field, I would constantly see Ricky Ponting spit into his hands. And then after the match, he would always want to shake my hands. I found it offensive. But what could I do. When we were brought up our parents always said, “Treat others with respect and do what pleases them most.” Shaking hands after spitting in it was a done thing in Australia. It rankled me. But I remembered what my parents said and just stuck my hand out. I’d then rush to the wash room to cleanse all the germs away! I did not wish to be culturally insensitive you see!

But this day I wanted to ask Gilchrist after a game that we had lost — again! — about the correlation between his flaps, nose and his do-da. He came into the dressing room.

Now my habit after a game, whether we won or lost is to first have a private conversation with my father. Then I would call my mother. In India, more than “cursing each other on the field and then making friends when one is drunk after the game”, we have a different culture. We first call our parents and tell them how the game went. They would have seen it too on TV and they would also be depressed that we had lost. Again! But we would still try and let them know how it went. After that call, we would then call the wife and our children and talk to them. Often I would have to also talk to Harbhajan Singh’s mother. She would be crying that we had lost. Again! Harbhajan Singh would be incapable of consoling her. So I would have to do that for my good friend. We would then have to call our uncles and aunts. And then we all sit down and offer prayers to God for helping us not lose so badly as we could have! We would then sit down cross legged and meditate. Finally, we would perform a dance-in-a-trance routine, which normally enabled us to forget the loss! That is our culture.

These rituals would take about an hour or so!

But then every time we visited Australia, there was a queue of hands to shake. Each hand would use that handshake ritual to cleanse the acquired on-field guilt — the mouth that owned the hand would have cursed the oppositions’ mother or sister or father on the field, you see. And this ritual was a quick guilt-cleanse; a ritual akin to a confession. At least, that is how I understood the handshake ritual. It was ok with me. After all, when visiting a new place, I was instructed by my parents to understand that cultures’ sensitivities and peculiarities.

And after the guilt-cleanse handshake these hands would also want to guilt-cleanse further by sitting down to cleanse the throat too with oodles of beer sliding down said throat! This would distract us from our normal cultural habits: phone calls, prayers, meditation and dance-in-a-trance. But then we used to say to each other, “Let’s just shake their hands, have a quick beer with these guys, assist them with their guilt-cleanse process and get these guys quickly out of the dressing room. We can then follow our rituals in peace.” Again, we had been taught to respect our hosts/guests and not offend their cultural sensitivities.

So in this match too, Gilchrist came around and stuck his hand out. I thought I grabbed his hand, but to my chagrin, I had his ears in my hand!

This then prompted me to ask him, “So is there a correlation between the size of your ears, your nose and your do-da?”.

Gilchrist asked, “What does correlation mean?”

I changed the topic!

I decided in the next series that I would not bother with the handshake-beer routine. I decided to bury myself in a hidden room within the dressing room to do my normal post-match phone calls, prayers, meditation and dance-in-a-trance routine.

On the 24th of October 2008, I read that Adam Gilchrist said in his autobiography, “In the Australian mentality, we play it hard and are then quick to shake hands and leave it all on the field. Some of our opponents don’t do it that way. Sachin Tendulkar, for instance, can be hard to find for a changing room handshake after we have beaten India. Harbhajan can also be hard to find.”

I am not surprised! If the Australians had waited an hour before the handshake-and-beer routine, they would have found more than myself and Harbhajan Singh! They would have found both of us, the entire team and about 3000 Indian expatriates who would suddenly lay claim to being our long-lost cousins or uncles or aunts. These 3000 expatriate Indians would often be waiting in a queue to take us to their plush homes to feed us the chicken curry that they had cooked the previous day! The Australians could then have shaken my hand, Harbhajan Singh’s hand and about 3000 other hands!

What better way to guilt-cleanse than shake a whole lot of hands! Right? Of course, our collective beer-bill would have gone up. But if they complained about the cost-increase, we would have got the IPL to pick up the tab!

Anyway, after the first two tours of Australia I said to myself, I can’t stand this handshake-beer routine with people who do not understand the “phone calls, prayers, meditation and dance-in-a-trance routine!”

I know I had incurred the wrath of my mother for not respecting the guest/host. However, I had done the handshake-routine for a long time with people who did not understand what the word “correlation” meant! It was getting a bit tiring. Moreover, the dressing room had younger people like Robin Uthappa, Sree Santh, Zaheer Khan, Ishant Sharma and others that started to say, “Let us follow our own cultural norms. Is it not up to them to follow our cultural norms too? Why should we be the only ones bending over backwards?”

I resisted this new-India initially. I tried telling these new guys, “Look they are like this only (head-shake). They have been like this only (double head-shake). They will always be like this only (triple head-shake). And we are like this only (head nearly fell off!).” However, this new-India force in the dressing room won. This was a new, vibrant and expressive India. One that I had to concede ground to. This new-India, unlike us oldies in the team, didn’t really care too much about people that did not care about her. This new-India was respectful only of cultures that respected her. It thumbed its collective nose at anyone else that didn’t make even a small effort to understand her.

So, I reluctantly agreed to do the “phone calls, prayers, meditation and dance-in-a-trance routine” and not worry about Gilchrist’s views and despondency at not having an Indian hand glued to the end of his own hand!

Thankfully, as a result of this team policy-change, I did not need to shake Ricky Ponting’s spit-filled hand!

Unfortunately, the Australians never really appreciated our cultural needs and differences. For many years, we had tried to (as the young ones in the new India team had said) “bend over backwards” but the only thing I got from all of that was a broken spine and not much respect from the Australians anyway!

Perhaps these young ones were right after all?

The post match beer routine:

I recall a funny story about the post match beer routine that Australians always like to indulge in.

This concerned the Andrew Symonds episode which has been termed “Monkeygate” by the press.

On that 2007-2008 tour, Harbhajan Singh wanted to get much closer to the Australians! Previously, all of our pre-tour cultural-briefings came from our parents. And they always used to say things like: Respect your elders, Stand up when elders talk to you, Touch the feet of elders even in Australia to offer your salutations and seek their blessings, Do not spit in your hands and then shake someone else’s hand, If you have a big flap hide it, and so on.

But then, in 2005 (I think) the BCCI started to get quite professional about it all. They started arranging pre-tour cultural-briefings. Just prior to boarding the plane for Australia in December 2007, we had our pre-tour briefing. This was the first time we were receiving a pre-tour cultural-briefing prior to a tour of Australia. So although I wanted to rush to my first class plane seat to start seeing the in-flight entertainment program, I was all agog! We were asked to try and be-friend the Australian players. We were also told that there were three sure-fire ways to achieve this objective:
(a) tap someone’s bottom — a sure sign of mateship,
(b) say something nasty about someone’s mother or sister — only mates have sledge-rights on mothers and sisters,
(c) wait for the post-day drink-frenzy to make friends over glasses of beer when one loses ones mind and hence, all sense of rational thinking. But whatever you take with you, for optimal results, the post-match drink-frenzy has to be an intellect-free-zone, which, by the way will not be hard for the Australians.

I thought this was pretty cool. I have always wanted to be close to Adam Gilchrist to ask about the correlation between the size of his flaps, nose and do-da!

Such sharing of beer and war-stories, we were told, are to be compulsorily had after the “what’s said on the field is left on the field” type “hard but fair” Australian way of playing!

Harbhajan Singh took that advice really seriously and set about sledging Brett Lee about his sister on the very first day!

Lee turned back and said, “Mate I do not have a sister, try someone else”! Bummer!

Harbhajan Singh then decided to dump that tack and went on several drink-frenzy trips at the end of the days’ play in Melbourne. He remembered from the briefings that he had to drink lots of beer, exchange war-stories and leave his mind behind in the hotel room too! He had an advantage in the sense that he did not need to try very hard to leave his mind behind. By the time the second Test of that series was on us in Sydney, Harbhajan Singh was already a bit tired of all the beer that had been consumed in the tour up until then.

Every word that was said up until then on the field had been drowned with these glasses of beer that just had to be consumed as war-stories were exchanged. Moreover, the drunken haze left him with not much money, a lot of friends — that he actually did not want — and not much memory of what was actually said the previous night!

It was working well, in one sense, but for someone with not that much money and for someone not used to consuming as much beer and for someone with not much mind-space to retain all the unnecessary stuff that he had heard up until then, it was all getting a bit too much!

After the Melbourne match, which we lost — again! — I saw Ricky Ponting and Adam Gilchrist rush to me. One of them had his hands-outstretched while the other had a large bodily object ahead of him! May have been his ears, but I couldn’t tell. I rushed into the dressing room and commenced my post-match, post-loss — again! — “phone calls, prayers, meditation and dance-in-a-trance routine!”

In Sydney, Harbhajan Singh told me that he wanted to try another tack at making friends with the Australians! He was batting well at this stage with me and, together, we had pulled India out of trouble after Bucknor had insisted on “putting us in our place”.

Emboldened by the amount of beer he had consumed the previous day, Harbhajan Singh was willing to risk option (a) of patting someone’s backside.

After surveying the field, his eyes focussed on Brett Lee’s well-appointed hind as a quick route to making friends with Lee — as his pre-tour cultural briefings indicated!

Rather than wait for the post-match drink-frenzy, he proceeded to tap Brett Lee on the bowlers’ well-appointed bottom. He may have chosen the right bottom to pat — especially since he actually got a positive response from Bertt Lee!. However, what Harbhajan Singh did not realise was that Andrew Symonds also had his eyes on that piece of choice real estate!

When Andrew Symonds saw the bum-tap, he saw red! He proceeded to claim exclusive, perpetual and royalty-free rights for performing said task on Brett Lee’s bottom!

He threw a sledge in Harbhajan Singh’s direction. And it sure was a nasty sledge that involved bottoms, tops and other body-parts of mothers, fathers, sisters and cousins. Now, I am not normally shocked by anything I hear on the ground when playing against Australia. But this one was quite a mouthful. It was also clever because Andrew Symonds — at best, you could describe him as a “somewhat simple fellow” — had managed to bring in a whole constellation of relatives into the one sentence and interspersed the whole construction with some choice four-letter words that involved body parts and body functions of these said relatives. As I said, I was impressed that Symonds was able to muster all his intellect to compile and throw that sledge in the direction of Harbhajan Singh. I was in the process of concluding my analysis with a, “Surely, this very simple man cannot have come up with such a clever construction unless he hated the recipient of the choice words utterly vehemently”, when I observed that Harbhajan Singh had grown red under the collar. Perhaps he was upset that Symonds had managed to even drag into the sentence construction, a third-cousin that Harbhajan Singh once had a mild dalliance with?

But Harbhajan Singh was upset. I know when Harbhajan Singh gets upset. He picks up his bat like a mace and wanders up and down the pitch purposefully.

He was quite miffed at being reprimanded for his quite legitimate bum-tap. He was quite annoyed at having to now wait for the post-day what’s-said-on-the-field-is-left-on-the-field drink-frenzy to make friends with this hard-but-fair bunch of muscular Australians. He may have also been upset that this third cousin and her various body parts had been the subject of ridicule by Andrew Symonds. I don’t know. It is often hard to read Harbhajan Singh’s mind even when he speaks. But given that there is not much in his mind, I know that he only operates in two gears: “cool” and “hot”! Right then, he was “hot” mode!

He proceeded to hurl the words “abey tere maan ki …” towards Andrew Symonds.

His pre-tour cultural briefings may have told him that if a bottom-pat didn’t work, an abuse would — especially if it involved sisters and mothers — only mates have sledge-rights on sisters and mothers! After all, play “hard but fair” is the national way of playing in Australia with this supremely muscular bunch of whats-said-on-the-field-is-left-on-the-field Australians who would forget everything in a drunken haze at the end of days’ play!

So, it is likely that Harbhajan Singh may have wanted to start proceedings early in an anxious bid to not wait for the post-day “what’s said on the field is left on the field” drunken stupor!

Unfortunately, Andrew Symonds heard “maan ki” as “monkey” and, the rest, as we say is history. We had “Monkeygate”.

It was Harbhajan Singh’s fault. He should have chosen Brad Hogg’s bum to pat. I doubt anyone in the Australian team would have been as protective of Hogg’s backside real estate as they would be of Brett Lee’s. And we would not have had “Monkeygate” either!

Leave it on the field:

Now this is one area where I have a real problem with the Australians. They are wonderful players. But this is an area where they have got it wrong.

They say that they are happy to “leave it on the field”. In fact, just the other day, I was reading Adam Gilchrists’ biography.

My copy of that book has a lot of dog-ears in it! I took a long time to read it. Also two of the pages are torn in it and stick out of the book like ears! Funny that!

Adam Gilchrist, in his book, says “In the Australian mentality, we play it hard and are then quick to shake hands and leave it all on the field. Some of our opponents don’t do it that way. Sachin Tendulkar, for instance, can be hard to find for a changing room handshake after we have beaten India. Harbhajan can also be hard to find.”

I have already talked about the handshake-and-beer routine.

Yes, there are cultural misunderstandings.

They misunderstand us! Simple.

But take this thing about “shake hands and leave it all on the field.”

I think this is rubbish.

I normally do not call anything black and white. But in this instance, I do.

For example, the other day an interviewer asked me “Is Shah Rukh Khan a better actor or is Amir Khan a better actor?”

I said “They are both good. One is Shah Rukh Khan. The other is Amir Khan.”.

The interviewers’ jaw dropped. She looked at me incredulously. And then persisted with her line of questioning and said, “Phew! What an answer! I hadn’t realised that Shah Rukh Khan was Shah Rukh Khan and Amir Khan was Amir Khan till you pointed it out! But on a boring afternoon, after a Test match finished really early after you lost — Again! — whose movie would you watch? A Shah Rukh Khan movie or an Amir Khan movie?”

I said, “I’d see them both on a split screen TV!”

Profound stuff, I thought! I stuck to my normal bet-each-way response. As I said, I normally do not like to call things as black and white. The whole world is grey to me!

But I do think that this “Leave it on the field” stuff that the Australians say is rubbish.

If it has all been left on the field, why did Andrew Symonds sulk for such a long time? Why was he kicked out of the Australian team for his fishing expedition. Surely, if he had “left it on the field” he would have just moved on. Words were spoken. We did not all agree. But surely if we had all “left it on the field”, we will not be sulking and bringing it up in every conversation! Why did Adam Gilchrist continue to rake old muck despite the time lapse and despite his retirement? It appears that he had not “left it on the field” as he has advised other teams and other players to do! Funny man. Funny walk. Funny ears!

My conclusion, therefore, is that I do not believe the Australians leave it on the field. Certainly they leave their stuff on the field. They certainly would like other teams to leave Australian stuff on the field. But they carry what other teams have said with them, as baggage, for a long long time, despite the handshakes of spit-soiled hands and despite the fact that we continually gave up our precious “phone calls, prayers, meditation and dance-in-a-trance” routine in order to do their handshake-and-beer routine with them.

Shall I tell you how we Indians really leave it on the field?

We invite two Australians to captain our IPL teams. We invite a whole bunch of Australians to play in the IPL. What’s more? We make the person at the centre of Monkeygate the second highest paid cricketer in the IPL. That is how you really leave it on the field. We do not beat our chest and promote this “leave it on the field” nonsense as a cultural stereotype. We do not need to. We demonstrate it through actions. Did the Australians play in the IPL and grab all that cash that was on offer? Yes they did. Quite shamelessly, I may add.

So, I think the best way to “leave it on the field” is not through empty words, cliches or words spoken through beer-filled mugs in smoke-filled rooms.

You “leave it on the field” through real actions.

Now, apart from Michael Clarke, all of the Australians came to the first grand season of the IPL. They earned lots of money. Went back. I do not begrudge them earning lots of money. Most of them deserved it. I made lots of money too. However, the Australians went back and started criticising the hand that fed. That is a slap in the face of your host. We do not do that in our Indian culture, but understand the Australian compulsion to do so. That is the way we are.

Adam Gilchrist is right. There are cultural misunderstandings. The Australians just do not understand us!

[To be continued...]

:-)

Ps: Watch this YouTube video and look out for Sachin Tendulkar [Courtesy: Prem Panicker's Blog]

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Strategies in Delhi for India and Australia

Posted on 23 October 2008 by | 19 Comments

We’ve written and read a fair bit since the Mohali mauling about India’s near-perfect game, about the contrasting tales of the two captains at Mohali, about the Poms already rejoicing, about biased Match Referees, about reverse swing, about strange parallels between Perth and Delhi, and much more.

On Cricinfo, Dileep Premachandran analyses the Anil Kumble situation rather crisply, while Ian Chappell has opined that M. S. Dhoni has to stay on as captain of India from here on in!

My own view on this is that Anil Kumble has to decide what is best for him and for Team India. He has earned his stripes to make that call, in my view. If he is 100% fit to play and if he wants to play, he must play at Delhi, where 74 year-old Radhey Shyam Sharma, the Feroz Shah Kotla curator who is a match away from retiring, has said that he has prepared a “present” for Anil Kumble! The Kotla pitch has always taken spin — slow on the first few days and quite a handful on days 4 and 5 (if the Test lasts that long)! Anil Kumble has presided over Kotla as its master and it is more of a “home” ground to him than Bengaluru is.

If Anil Kumble does decide to play Amit Mishra, who took 7 wickets at Mohali on debut, must make way. While it is quite seductive for India to go into the Delhi Test with 3 spinners, Zaheer Khan and Ishant Sharma — at the cost of V. V. S. Laxman — I do not believe this will (or indeed should) happen. I am not sure what an additional bowler will add. Moreover, in what could potentially be a low-scoring grind-game, the additional bat in Laxman will be useful for India to have.

This will be rough on Amit Mishra. But his time will come the moment Anil Kumble decides to hang up his boots — my sense and hope is that Kumble will decide to retire after the Tests in November/December against England. For now, Amit Mishra has carved his name into Team India team sheet in a compelling manner.

Australia does face a few headaches. However, apart from an adjustment to their mindset (too defensive in the first two Test matches) and their reverse swing art, I am not sure that the team needs to (or indeed, will) change anything else. Australia does not have a quality spinner in its ranks. I’d like to believe that Stuart Clark will come in for Peter Siddle if the former is fit and recovered from his elbow strain. This will be a blow to Peter Siddle, who bowled quite well at Mohali.

The one change that I would like to see is in the Australian batting order in the case of an early wicket fall. At the moment, Ricky Ponting is not at the height of his game in India. An early wicket causes him to freeze just a bit. At Bengaluru, his defensive approach set the tone for Australia batting throughout the game. At Mohali, he strutted and stewed for a while without casting any impression.

I’d instead think that Michael Hussey at #3 would be a much better option for Australia on this tour. He is positive. He bats confidently. He rotates the strike without looking to dominate the bowling. And he is not scared of either Ishant Sharma or Harbhajan Singh!

Delhi should present a wonderful opportunity for Australia to show that it is still a champion team that can bounce back from adversity. Much like India did at Perth — one of India’s most famous wins ever, in my view — Delhi is a wonderful opportunity for the Australians to dig deep and come hard at India in India’s own den.

I have a feeling that the game could be an absolute scorcher and can’t wait for it to begin!

– Mohan

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Viru tackles reverse swing.

Posted on 23 October 2008 by | 12 Comments

I read this piece in today’s Herald Sun by Jon Pierik, as representative a writer of that paper as can get, about Australia’s reactive plans on scuffing up the ball early in the piece.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24538494-11088,00.html

To which I must draw his attention to Australia’s own Shane Warne’s entry on Virender Sehwag who makes #35 in his list of 100 top bats.

Sehwag was batting with Jeremy Snape for Leicestershire and Abdul Razzaq, who was playing for Middlesex, started to reverse swing the ball, creating all sorts of problems.

“I have a plan,” said Sehwag and promptly hit the ball out of the ground so that it had to be replaced.

That’s what he does when the ball reverse swings.

Just so you are aware Jon.

Soundar

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ICC Match Referee system needs a serious investigation…

Posted on 23 October 2008 by | 6 Comments

[I started typing this in the comments section of the thread on the Indian Victory at Mohali in response to a comment made by regular visitor, Sampath Kumar. When it grew too large, I thought I'd post it here as an blog post!]

***

In that comments thread, I said: “Have you not seen Merv Hughes or McDermott or Mike Whitney or Brad Williams give Indian players send offs? They haven’t been fined. The cliche often used by the Match Referee in those instances has been, ‘You don’t want to curb aggression in the game.’ One example is enough to prove this point, ‘McGrath-Sarawan’.”

My question then is this: “Why is it only necessary to curb Asian aggression?”

My conclusion is that Match Referees are not used to aggressive Asians in the past. This phenomenon, which found voice mainly through the likes of Arjuna Ranatunga and Sourav Ganguly, is now expressing itself routinely.

Which is probably why a journalist like Malcolm Conn rarely writes an article these days wherein he does not use the words “serial offender” or “provocative” or “aggressive” when referring to Harbhajan Singh, Sourav Ganguly, Zaheer Khan or other new-age India players. Meanwhile, he does not deem Ricky Ponting, Shane Watson, Brad Haddin, Matthew Hayden (he of “obnoxious weed” fame), et al, worthy of such lofty adjectives!

I personally do not see the antics of a Sourav Ganguly or Harbhajan Singh or a Zaheer Khan as anything different to the antics of Ricky Ponting or Matthew Hayden or Michael Clarke or any number of Australian cricketers.

In the comments section of the previous thread, I added, in reference to the Zaheer Khan fine, “Now the shoe is on the other foot. And everyone has woken up around the developed world!”

Yes. It is true that Team India, like India herself, has found a voice. Gone are the days of servility and Gandhian turn-the-other-cheek. The new India talks back, stares back and meets fire with fire. Suddenly, the sledging genie appears to be out of the bottle. India is aping the Australians and then some. Suddenly Malcolm Conn finds it revolting, unacceptable and uncomfortable.

Read this article by Malcolm Conn, our good friend from The Australian, for example. It makes no reference to the antics of Ricky Ponting nor does it paint Brad Haddin as the provoker in Bengaluru. One would think that the Indians are cheats and the Australians are good, honest, Christian saints with halos around their heads.

But that is the media. And irresponsible media persons, like our recent friends, will write anything to sell papers! Objectivity is not really the issue here.

And Malcolm Conn, like a few other Australian cricketers and journalists are rushing to claim the moral higher ground!

India’s gentle players are on their way out. Sourav Ganguly will soon considered “gentle” in comparison to the new-India that is coming through the ranks. Players like Uthappa and Sree Santh will take no prisoners! And they will be emboldened by the in-your-face approach of players like Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan Singh! All of them want to win, and win well. They learned from the Australians and are repeating what they have been inflicted with in their formative years. Even M. S. Dhoni, one of the most decent cricketers I have seen for a long time, is being seen as a “cheat” by the Malcolm Conn’s of the world! And unless the ICC cleans up its act, I predict that there will be more Sydney-like trouble before things really settle down.

I have, for long claimed that the ICC has a major responsibility here; one that it is abusing; one that it is certainly abrogating.

Sunil Gavaskar claims that the ICC Match Referees are biased. In the comments section of the previous thread, I agreed with Gavaskar’s claims. In the same match we had Zaheer Khan and Ricky Ponting carrying on like pork chops. One was fined. The other wasn’t even mentioned in the Match Referees post-match missives! And I haven’t even mentioned the phrase “over rates” here! Why was that not even in consideration? I am not merely talking about over-rates in this match just concluded at Mohali. I am talking about Australian over-rates through the whole of last summer and these two recent matches.

You just cannot have a situation where Zaheer Khan is the only one that has his ears pinned!

In response to the comments that I made on the ICC Match Referees being biased, Sampath Kumar argued: “Finally, you have argued by comparing legal system in recent times — If an Aussie was not charged last time, then an Indian shouldn’t be charged as a balancing act. It is like saying: If my sister was raped by John, I should be allowed to rape John’s sister–no questions asked.”

Firstly, the above comment begs the question: What “legal system”?

The ICC seems to currently operate in a legal-free zone, in my view.

Try comparing the proper tribunal hearings — conducted by trained QC’s — that the AFL conducts to the manner in which the ICC operates its “picnic for the boys” routine.

Secondly, Sampath Kumar’s rape-analogy is too simplistic, apart from being a totally incorrect representation of my position.

While a sporting tribunal does not necessarily need to follow any specific legal formalities or processes, the ICC needs to get serious on this if it is to be taken seriously in the world.

Sports is competitive by nature and all sports people will look to get ahead! Some of them will adopt fair means and some will adopt other means outside the box of what is considered the “norm”. The “norm” is established by rules and regulations. The “norm” is also established by precedent! And here, therefore, precedent is important. You can’t have the carry ons of Brad Williams or Glen McGrath or Andre Nel, when taking a wicket being described as “good, strong, honest, aggressive cricket” and, simultaneously, describe Zaheer Khan’s carry ons as “unbecoming of the game”. The only difference is that one cricketer comes from a naturally aggressive cricket culture; the other comes from a hitherto non-aggressive culture! Precedent is important in any legal setting.

Moreover, it is the responsibility of the organisation to ensure that there is fairness, equity and natural justice in all of its dealings.

Organisations like the ICC, therefore, have a legal responsibility in relation to fair-play, reputable-play, anti-harassment, anti-discrimination, etc. The ICC also has moral obligations in relation to establishing (a) appropriate behaviour applicable across the board, (b) consistency in interpretation and application of the law and also (c) providing safe sporting environments.

An irrefutable necessary condition for any ICC Tribunal is that the very basic principles of natural justice must be followed to ensure that a totally fair and equitable process outcome is achieved, that is free of conflicts or bias (perceived or otherwise). The principles of natural justice include the following: (a) clear notification of the charge, (b) opportunity to respond, (c) perceived and actual unbiased decision making, that includes reliance on fact and the sourcing of irrefutable evidence when handing down decisions, (d) a clear, untainted and unquestioned opportunity to appeal a judgement that is handed down.

It is in the application of point (c), particularly, that I have most problems with the ICC. Even last year, we heard platitudes like “You don’t want to curb aggression in the game” or “It was all good humoured and good natured banter”, in cases involving Australian and English players. I refer to incidents like Mcgrath-Sarawan, or Ponting’s carry-ons after getting run out in 2005 by Gary Pratt, the substitute. I also point to the “jelly beans” episode in 2007.

I can go on and on. But incidents like these are sand-papered over with cliches and empty platitudes. This has to stop.

Perceived bias has to be eliminated. Otherwise, perceptions will become realities and who knows what will happen at that point in time.

– Mohan

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An interesting parallel

Posted on 22 October 2008 by | 8 Comments

Going into the Delhi test brings up an interesting memory…..

Several months ago, the visitors has been soundly thrashed by the completion of the second test. The third test venue was a fortress for the home team (Perth) and the only question at the start of the test was the margin of defeat for the visitors.

Sound familiar? Well, the visitors have called up a fresh opening batsman , just like the visitors had done back in Perth.

Dream on Oz fans :)

The Black Irishman

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What this victory means…

Posted on 22 October 2008 by | 26 Comments

Australia does have a terrific opening batsman who can’t bat at the moment and they do have an opening bowler who can’t get a bowl at the moment.

Cricket is played on rough maidans and not in plush couches in psychiatric clinics!

One thing about the Australian cricket team is its resilliance and strength. Australia will bounce back from this crushing defeat that India inflicted at Mohali. To come back strongly from this demoralising defeat will be hard for Australia though — the next Test is being played in Delhi, where India has not lost since 1993! Indeed, India has won the last 7 Tests played at Delhi since 1993! Admittedly, 3 of these victories have come against lowly Zimbabwe. But 7 from 7 is an daunting mountain for Australia to climb when staring down the barrel — if I am permitted to mix my metaphors! But that mixing is the least of Australia’s worries at the moment. There is a fair bit of mixing happening in Australia’s collective head spaces.

This was India’s biggest win ever in all Test matches (by number of runs) against all countries. In other words, even Bangladesh had been spared such a thorough spanking and humiliation! This was also Australia’s heaviest Test defeat since April 1991, when they were beaten by 343 runs by the then mighty West Indies.

The two main differences between this defeat and other big defeats that India has inflicted on Australia is that this was more of an ‘Australian pitch’ than an Indian pitch! Secondly, unlike Kolkata in March 1998, the previous ‘best’ defeat that India has inflicted on Australia, this Mohali victory was secured on a good batting track and by pacemen (mainly)! Although Javagal Srinath had a cracker of a game in that Test match (Kolkata 1998) that really was Kumble’s game on a traditional Indian dust-bowl.

Mohali 2008 wasn’t. It was a batting pitch. The victory was achieved by some splendid opening bowling by Zaheer Khan and Ishant Sharma in the first innings. Two spectacular deliveries from Ishant Sharma in the 2nd Innings (to remove Ponting and Watson) and by Zaheer Khan cleaning up the tail in the 2nd Innings. In saying that, I am not devaluing the contributions made by Amit Mishra and Harbhajan Singh. Not at all. However, from the moment Australia was pegged back in the 1st Innings, given Australias’ “defensive mindset”, there was only one possible result in this game. And this mindset was reinforced by the Indian pace bowlers who got the ball to reverse swing from the 8th over itself!

A few observations about the victory that need emphasising:

  • How come the Indian pacemen are getting much more traditional and reverse swing than the Australians! It almost looked as if the Indians and the Australians were batting on two different pitches! As Peter Hanlon says in The Age today, “How come Zaheer Khan and Ishant Sharma get more movement off the pitch than our spinners – at 140 km/h?”
  • Apart from V. V. S. Laxman, every other Indian player contributed strongly. In batting, the openers, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and M. S. Dhoni played strong hands. In the bowling department, all 4 strike bowlers played a solid hand. Laxman will rue missing out and if there is a change to the team plan of going into the Delhi game with 5 bowlers, Laxman may miss out.
  • India dominated from the get go. And in a very Australian manner, once India had its foot on the pedal, unlike India teams of the past, the foot remained on the pedal.
  • Australia paid dearly for its defensive mindset in Bangalore. At the end of that Test match, I rated India as having come out on top. I was criticised for this rating by some of the people who left comments behind (hope the pie on the face tastes good guys!). I said then and I say again that the main reason for that rating was that Australia let the match drop from their hands after being on top right through the game! You can’t do that with good teams like India! Positive outcomes come from seizing the key moments in a game. Australia failed to do that and displayed a negative mindset — which was somewhat evident from the start of the tour with this “new age cricket” nonsense.
  • Australia played like India do! They were out-thought, out-batted, out-bowled and even out-sledged! We even saw Australian players complaining on being sledged! Aren’t these Australians masters of the art form? Soon we may have Ricky Ponting wearing a halo and suggesting that all sledging ought to be stamped out of the game!
  • Zaheer Khan was fined 80% of his match fee for asking Matthew Hayden about his post-match dinner plans! Matthew Hayden complained to the umpire! Poor thing. His pride was hurt. It is time to change the “what’s said on the field is left on the field” adage to read, “What the Australians say on the field ought to be left on the field. However, Australians will don nappies and reveal what other teams say on the field to anyone that is even remotely interested!”
  • More seriously, Zaheer Khan followed up his pre-match talk (which commenced, rather unnecessarily in my view, from the Bengaluru-presentation-ceremony) with on-field performance. What the Indians are realising is that it is not enough to be aggressive in words (read: Robin Uthappa and Sree Santh). Unless it is followed up by real aggression on the field through on-field performance, the talk is meaningless.
  • Perhaps what Zaheer Khan’s talk did was put Ricky Ponting off his own game! Ricky Ponting focussed on attacking Zaheer Khan and Anil Kumble instead of worrying about the cleanliness of his own stable! He now has 8 days to mull over what he needs to do with his own team’s performance! At the end of the Bengaluru Test, in response to Zaheer Khan’s observations, Ponting said, “[Zaheer Khan] just happened to have a good game as well, which is pretty unusual for him. It’s up to him to back it up again. I think a lot of his comments might have been to try and get us to play a different style and different brand of cricket.” Well, Zaheer Khan did have a good game in Bengalure. No, it is not “unusual for him” and yes, he has backed it up! And yes, he did rile Australia’s “new brand” of cricket. But it didn’t work because, as Dhoni said “Honestly speaking, we have not seen this before. I mean in their first innings, they were 22 for two wickets after 13 overs. I was so surprised that I told Rahul (Dravid) that you don’t see things like that very often.”

Ricky Ponting needs to focus on his own game and his own team without being distracted by the performance of Zaheer Khan and the (non)selection of Anil Kumble! I do believe that this “new age” nonsense should be consigned in the history pages to the “dark age” of Australian cricket! It is time for this approach — and its author — to be kicked out of the Australian dressing room.

Australia needs to change its approach and mindset; not its personnel. And that should start from cleansing its dressing room of needless and unwarranted management-speak. Cricket is played on rough maidans and not in plush couches in psychiatric clinics!

The intervening 8 days should be a time for soul-searching for the Australians. This is a champion Australian team and they will come back hard at the Indians. Australia does have a terrific opening batsman who can’t bat at the moment and they do have an opening bowler who can’t get a bowl at the moment. But Australia will regroup and come back strongly at the Indians. That is what champion teams do!

I can’t wait for the Delhi Test to commence!

– Mohan

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India Vs Australia :: 2nd Test :: Mohali :: Day-5

Posted on 21 October 2008 by | 1 Comment

Australia started Day 5 needing well over 350 runs to win the game – something that they were never going to do. Even the odds of Australia saving the Test by batting out the 3 sessions were very very low. India on the other hand needed 5 wickets to win and it was not a question of if, but a question of when India would wrap up the game – as it turned out it was well and truly over before lunch.

Morning (and the only) session

The wicket at Mohali had held out quite well for the first four days of the test and the fifth day was no exception. Except for balls pitching on the rough created by footmarks, the bounce was quite even and there weren’t too many cracks on the pitch. It was still a pretty good batting track – after all 355 runs were added on day 4.

Clarke and Haddin had added 88 runs together the previous day, in what was the best Aussie partnership of the game and they strode in confidently to the wicket. Their game plan would have been to see through the day one hour at a time.

But Zaheer Khan had other plans. He was earlier charged by the match referee for giving a send-off to Hayden on Day 4 of the test and that must have had him fired up. He predictably opened the bowling for India.

In the last ball of the very first over, Zaheer pitched one up, which cut in sharply into the right handed Haddin and crashed into the stumps. Haddin had offered a defensive prod without much foot work and the ball managed to avoid both bat and pad. Only one run had been added to the overnight score, one wicket already lost and the Indians moved one step closer to victory.

In the second ball of Zaheer Khan’s second over, White edged a fuller delivery over to Dhoni, leaving the Aussies reeling at 144/7. Brett Lee walked in, and was bowled out the very next ball – this time, the ball pitched on leg and moved further away clipping the off stump.

In just 4 ball, 3 wickets had fallen and any semblance of an Australian resistance disappeared – that too in just the 3rd over of the day. Johnson did his best to hit his way out (he did play some handsome strokes) and Clarke went on to complete his 50 – but these were just academic. They managed to put on the second biggest partnership of the innings, though -  adding 50 runs before Mishra had Johnson caught and bowled. The score at that time was 194. Siddle came in at No. 11, but couldn’t manage a single run on his debut – Clarke at the other end tried to hit Mishra out, only to find Tendulkar at mid-wicket. They were all out for 195 and even with their first and second innings totals put together, couldn’t cross India’s first innings score.

Dhoni (after collecting his Man-of-the-match award said that this was almost like a perfect match and that every thing went their way. This was a great team effort and India will take a lot of confidence into the Delhi test and are now one test win away from regaining the Border-Gavaskar trophy.

-Mahesh-

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Will the Match Referee step up to the plate please?

Posted on 21 October 2008 by | 9 Comments

From where I am seeing things, Chris Broad, the Match Referee in the ongoing Test series between India and Australia, appears to be sitting on his hands on three issues in the Mohali Test match. He probably doesn’t realise that the only thing that he can guarantee by sitting on his fingers is the acquisition of ring marks on his backside!

Before getting to the specific issue, I must say that I was quite shocked to see Chris Broad openly criticise one of the playing officials when the match was still in progress! When commenting about the non-referral of the Sourav Ganguly stumping episode, Chris Broad commented to “The Australian” newspaper, “The policy is for umpires to make as many decisions out on the field as they possibly can. Of course, no one likes to see umpires being criticised, me of all people. Ideally, I would have liked for [Koertzen] to call for the third umpire. But he made his decision with what he saw, and you can’t argue about that. The only thing you can argue about is the fact that it was possibly wrong, in hindsight. But at the time, if you look where he was standing, and the camera from behind him, you would also think he didn’t lift his foot.”

Since when has a match referee started commenting on specific dismissals? Is it appropriate for a match referee to comment on specific dismissals while a Test match is in progress? I’d think not! In my view, this was somewhat inappropriate behaviour on the part of the Match Referee.

However, there are three things that Chris Broad ought to do right away, in my view.

1. Censure Ponting:

I think Chris Broad ought to censure Ricky Ponting for carrying on like a spoilt pork chop when Virender Sehwag was not given out, caught behind by Asad Rauf. I think a wrap on the knuckles and a severe warning will be in order here. As a Team India fan, I hope Chris Broad does not ban Ricky Ponting — although he does deserve one in my view — for, Pontings’ somewhat weird captaincy in this series appears to be benefiting India right at this moment!

On the 4th morning, Asad Rauf did not detect what was a loud nick off the blade of Virender Sehwag off the bowling of Mitchell Johnson. Bowler and ‘keeper Haddin could not believe their eyes, but got on with the job!

This is how Jon Pierik from The Herald Sun reported the events that unfolded:

Ponting’s animated on-field style has been a worry among Cricket Australia officials for some time.

While former skipper Mark Taylor was the master at making his point discreetly, whether to teammates or the umpires, Ponting’s emotions too often spill over.

That was evident in the incident with Lee, and earlier when a caught-behind appeal off Virender Sehwag was knocked back.

A disbelieving Ponting rushed in from mid-wicket with his hands waving about, when he could have just saddled up to umpire Asad Rauf quietly at the end of the over.

Rauf had made a blunder, but Ponting didn’t need to act in the manner he did.

Ponting is a passionate cricketer but, as captain, he must remain composed as often as possible, for that helps to spread calm among his team.

As Australia enters a daunting new era with several raw players, there’s bound to be more days like those experienced in Mohali.

Ponting needs to at least portray that all will be well.

If Ponting cast his mind back even for a second to Sydney this year and remembers a mate of his that went fishing recently, he would not have charged in the direction of Sehwag to converse with him.

2. Censure Matthew Hayden

I wonder why the Match Referee should not censure Matthew Hayden for remonstrating with Indian fielders as he was making his way to the pavilion, after getting out in the 2nd Innings at Mohali.

It is most likely that an Indian fielder enquired about Hayden’s health and said something like, “Enjoy your shower mate” or “Where are you off for dinner?” or something like that! That doesn’t call for an Oscar-award winning show with spread arms and feigned hurt! After all, Hayden’s been dishing it out for as long as one can remember! And, as Mark Nicholas would say, a person that is so used to making his own bed ought to learn how to sleep in it!

I do wish Chris Broad censures Matthew Hayden for the his unsportsmanlike behaviour on getting out. I am not saying that I like players saying sweet nothings to departing players. But I am saying that Matthew Hayden, as one who dishes it out regularly, ought to know how to accept it occasionally when it comes flying back at him! The Oscar-award winning performance was so totally unnecessary and, in my view, brought the game into disrepute.

As I write this, we have learned that Zaheer Khan has been charged! I guess this is to be expected after Matthew Hayden’s Oscar performance.

3. Report Rudi Koertzen

I think Chris Broad has to report Rudi Koertzen. The aging umpire has made one mistake too many in this Test series and, before long, we could have a Bucknor on our hands! I can point the mistakes out, but this has already been chronicled heavily in several blogs and articles. I still feel that Rudi Koertzen has a few years of umpiring in him. But instead of tainting him in public, like he has done this week, Chris Broad could report him to the ICC, ensure that he is looked after through remedial training, coaching and more.

With all of the above going on, I am not sure what the Match Referee is actually paid to do! Will he please step up to the plate and do something about this caper?

– Mohan

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Indian heat too much to handle?

Posted on 21 October 2008 by | 6 Comments

Is Ponting finding the Indian heat too much to handle? And I am not talking about the temperature. There is the saying that when the going gets tough, the tough get going. Ponting, the tough character that he is, hasn’t handled the situation well, though. Here are the signs that all is not well -

  • Ponting’s captaincy: Ponting has earned praise for his captaincy in the past. But in this series, it has been uninspiring. The Australians have been very defensive in this tour so far – whether it is their batting (defensive and slow) and their bowling (again, defensive and spread out fields) – and that is a direct reflection of the captaincy. IMHO, this is the main reason they couldn’t win the first test after being on top for the most part. And it is again the main reason, they are so much behind in this test.
  • Ponting losing confidence in his main strike bowler: For one whole session yesterday, Brett Lee didn’t get a bowl. He may not have had the success with the ball in the series so far – but bowling Hussey before Lee? Australian papers have written about this in detail (see Herald Sun, The Age and everybody’s favourite The Australian) and I don’t intend to go over it again. The sooner they resolve their differences, the better it is for the team as a whole.
  • Talking the walk: Did Ponting expect Sehwag to walk when he edged it? Surely, he doesn’t expect that. Or maybe the situation changes when you are close to 400 runs behind, desperate for a wicket and the opposition player nicks it. Ponting’s reaction seemed to be just that. Coming from a person who has always defended the players right not to walk, it comes across as a bit hypocritical. Or maybe Ponting was just wishing Sehwag on his birthday and we misunderstood everything…:)
  • Does Ishant have the wood on Ponting?: Ponting’s excellent century in the first test not withstanding, is Ponting struggling against Ishant. Yesterday’s dismissal was a classic. He set him up by bowling to him a bit fuller and dragging him forward. The one that got him out was a beauty pitching outside of off-stump, just short of good length and cutting back in sharply beating both bat and pad, thudding into the stumps. He had him plumb in the first innings too with a similar delivery. I am not sure if Ishant has the wood on Ponting (yet), but there is some vulnerability there and I am sure Ponting doesn’t enjoy the first few overs when he comes into bat and finds Ishant and Harbhajan bowling in tandem.

-Mahesh-

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India Vs Australia :: 2nd Test :: Mohali :: Day-4

Posted on 20 October 2008 by | 17 Comments

Australia was in backtrack mode in this Test match. Everything had gone wrong for the Australians. India’s aim would be to (a) bat Australia out of the game, (b) give themselves enough opportunity to bowl Australia out on what is essentially sill a good batting pitch.

1st Session:

India started day-4 positively. The Indian batsmen were out in the middle a good minute before the Australians, for example! And the Indians continued as they concluded day-3 — on fire. Ricky Ponting commenced the day with the most unusual combination of Shane Watson and Cameron White. Like much of Ricky Ponting’s captaincy in this series, I didn’t quite understand this move! Brett Lee and Mitchell Johnson may have been better options! For one, they’d have taken longer to get through their overs than Cameron White!

Rather unsurprisingly, Cameron White was belted out of the attack in his very second over, when the Indian openers took him for 15 runs. He was off the attack and somewhat regular programming resumed. Mitchell Johnson and Peter Siddle took up the bowling responsibilities. Brett Lee wasn’t used in the first session. This was strange, unless of course Lee was injured.

Australia’s luck continued to be terrible: When it rains, it pours. Many run out opportunities went begging. The pings and under arm flicks just didn’t hit the stumps! Indeed, there was a run out opportunity off the very first ball of the day!

The Indian openers played brilliantly though. They kept the runs ticking through singles and the occasional boundary. There was urgency in the batting. And competence too. The India openers were going at over 5 runs an over. The spread out, defensive fields weren’t really working for Australia. It was all too easy for the Indians.

Birthday boy, Virender Sehwag, rode his luck. When he was on 88, he appeared to snick a ball from Mitchell Johnson to Brad Haddin. However, Asad Rauf did not hear the healthy nick. Sehwag stayed, much to the chagrin of the Australian players. Surely, they expected Sehwag to walk. Ricky Ponting smiled wryly and had a few animated conversations with Sehwag. Sehwag may have said to Ricky Ponting, “Ask Andrew Symonds what he may have done, mate.”

As Mark Nicholas said in the TV commentary at the time, “You make your bed, you ought to sleep in it!”

Sehwag reached 90 off 122 balls when he tickled a Peter Siddle delivery to Brad Haddin. This time, he walked! He may have got himself into the record books as the only Indian player to have scored a century on his birthday! However, that wasn’t to be. India was 182 for 1 off 32.1 overs at that stage. Sehwag would have loved a century, but he had done his job. He had also banished a few of his 2nd innings demons!

Given the steady start that India had made in the morning, M. S. Dhoni walked in as I had predicted.

Soon after Sehwag got out, we saw Michael Hussey into the attack! There was still no sign of Brett Lee in the attack! In his second over, Michael Hussey got warned by Asad Rauf for running onto the pitch. More than Asad Rauf, I think Ricky Ponting would have clipped Michael Hussey around the ears for running onto the danger area!

Meanwhile, M. S. Dhoni got on with the job of making runs. However, with Gautam Gambhir approaching his century, his scoring was mainly by way of nudges and singles! The scoring rate had started to dip despite Dhoni’s presence. This was fair enough, I guess. Gambhir had done all the hard work and perhaps deserved an opportunity to find his place in the sun! Eventually, Gambhir did flick Cameron White to square leg for a boundary to bring up his century off 136 balls with 7 boundaries and a six. India had reached 222 for 1 off 47.1 overs at a rate of 4.7 rpo at that stage.

Immediately on reaching his century, Gambhir danced down the wicket to Cameron White and holed out to Michael Hussey at mid off. India was 224 for 2 with Gambhir gone for 104. Just as Sourav Ganguly had thrown it away in the first innings, Gambhir had thrown it away too.

The fall of Gambhir brought Sourav Ganguly to the crease! Not Dravid or Tendulkar or Laxman, but Sourav Ganguly! Perhaps Dhoni wanted a left-right combination at the crease. This was a somewhat strange decision, mainly because much of the mornings’ play had been created by the Indians hustling the fielders for sharp singles. With Ganguly out in the middle, there was perhaps a run out waiting to happen! I’d have perhaps thought that Sachin Tendulkar or even Harbhajan Singh may have been better options!

At lunch, India was 230 for 2. In that session, 130 runs had come off 26 overs for the loss of 2 wickets. India had scored at 5 runs per over. A terrific session for India — just what the doctor had ordered! India was 431 runs ahead at this stage and everything was going according to plan. I had predicted yesterday that Dhoni would probably want to set a target of Australia about 500-520 runs off 125 overs! This was another India session and the SBS score reads: [India 7.25, Australia 2.75].

Session-2:

Brett Lee’s absence from the bowling card in the morning session made less sense to me when Ricky Ponting opened the post-lunch proceedings with Brett Lee! So, what was the deal with the treatment of Brett Lee in the morning session? Was this Ricky Ponting’s method of punishing a below-par passenger on the tour thus far? This was indeed strange captaincy from the Australian captain.

India started the session carefully. They collected the singles and the twos with great ease. There wasn’t anything frenetic and unorthodox in the batting either. Just as India had, in the first session, all the scoring was through proper and orthodox cricket shots. India did not show undue urgency, which seemed to suggest that India was looking at a score of about 500. Therefore, there was no need to do anything silly.

Soon, Dhoni reached his 50 off only 61 deliveries with only 3 fours. This also brought up 50 partnership between Ganguly and Dhoni from just 54 balls — that the partnership contained only 5 boundaries showed the kind of game India was keen to play. This was foot-on-the-pedal stuff that Australia normally play!

In the same over, Michael Hussey received his 2nd warning from Asad Rauf for running on the pitch. This was in Hussey’s 8th over (he had given 38 runs in these 8 overs). Asad Rauf was once again doing Ricky Ponting’s work for the Australian captain!

Cameron White came on in the next over. Dhoni was probably so bored that he tried what can best be described as a field-hockey scoop shot; not once, but twice! He tried to get his bat under the ball to scoop it over the ‘keepers’ head. The first time he tried it, he crashed the ball straight onto ‘keeper Brad Haddin’s chest. He missed the second ball completely.

These attempts said a story in its own right; perhaps India was batting time rather than total. The Indian lead had already stretched to 480 at that point! India had, I think, most certainly batted Australia out of the game. They were just hammering a few nails into the coffin prior to declaring. From here on in, it will be the Australian approach that would determine the game result. At this point in time, there was 53 overs remaining in the day. A declaration at this point would mean that Australia had 140 overs remaining. Too much perhaps?

Suddenly, Sourav Ganguly tried his first big hit of the innings off Brett Lee. The skied shot ended up down Michael Clarke’s throat at mid off. Ganguly departed for a well-compiled 27 off 37 balls. Dhoni was on 59 off 78 balls and India was on 290 for 3. THis got Sachin Tendulkar to the crease.

The next over saw the most interesting ball I’ve seen in a long time in a Test mach. Cameron White dragged a ball down in front of his nose. The ball scooted past the edge of the pitch and hurried to the fine leg fence for 5 wides! The over also saw a huge 6 from Dhoni off White to take the lead to 505 runs. A drinks’ break was called with India in the lead by 509. A declaration at this point would have made sense. If India had declared at this point, Australia would have needed 509 off 137 overs to win, at a rate of about 3.72 rpo. The fact that there was no declaration yet was as much a sign of the benign nature of the pitch or of the respect that the Indians have for Matthew Hayden. Just as the Australins fear the “Sehwag Factor”, I suspect the absence of a declaration must be due to the “Hayden Factor”!

When the Indian total reached 314-3, India declared. Australia needed 515 to win off about 136 overs. Australia would need to either bat out the 136 overs or score at about 3.78 per over. Dhoni remained not out on 68 off 84 balls and Tendulkar was on 10 off 12 balls. India had made the 314 runs at 4.83 runs per over. In my prediction from last night, I was about 5 runs off the declaration target! The only problem with India’s batting was the slowness of their approach to the target of 515 runs. Obviously Dhoni and the Indian leadership team had a combination of total (say 500+) and time (135 overs, say) and when these targets collided, the declaration came. However, I thought that Dhoni and Tendulkar may have showed a bit more urgency towards the end. In particular, I did not see the point of batting an additional over after the drinks’ break! Time will tell if this was an overly-conservative declaration.

Australia started positively, through Matthew Hayden. Although the first ball that he faced was a somewhat nervous hoik that could have had him caught at a deep mid-off position, Hayden settled down to make his intents very clear. He was going for the bowling with a view to dictating terms. His approach seemed to rub off on Simon Katich and they helped Australia to move to 49-0 off 7 overs! Now this was more the Australia that we have been used to.

With the going as good as it was, Dhoni had no option but to turn to Harbhajan Singh. With just the second ball of his spell, coming around the wicket, Harbhajan Singh had Hayden leg before for 29 off just 20 balls. Australia was 49-1.

The weed had poisoned the gardener!

More worryingly for Australia, Harbhajan Singh secured a wicket very early in his spell; that’s when Harbhajan Singh can be most dangerous.

And so it came to be! In the very same over, off the last ball of his over, Simon Katich drove Harbhajan Singh without getting to the pitch of the ball. The resulting catch was brilliantly taken by Sachin Tendulkar at a deep gully position. Katich disappeared for 20 off 26 balls and Australia went to Tea at 50-2. Harbhajan Singh had taken his 298th Test wicket. I’d be surprised if this Test — one for celebrating Indian milestones — does not get Harbhajan Singh an important milestone!

And so, what would have been perhaps an even session had suddenly become India’s session. The SBS Score now reads: [India 8.25, Australia 2.75].

Session-3:

At the Tea Break, Nick McCardle, the Foxtel anchor, when talking with Mark Waugh, the expert in the chair, said “I don’t like seeing Harbhajan Singh take so many quick wickets. He tends to get his tail up,” and on further promoting from Mark Waugh, McCardle said he did not like either the way Harbhajan Singh celebrates or the way he tends to bowl after taking early wickets!

Hmmm! Ok, so why don’t we send a message to Harbhajan Singh to request him to smear sandal paste on his forehead and prostrate with folded hands at departing Australian cricketers? And while he is at it, perhaps he can play some soothing Yoga music, garland the departing Australian cricketer, offer the cricketer a Kohinoor diamond and a shawl with a “Pleeeees to take”?

India started after the Tea break with Harbhajan Singh and Ishant Sharma bowling to Ricky Ponting and Michael Hussey. Harbhajan Singh and Ishant Sharma are probably the last two people that Ponting may include in his Christmas card list, if they manage to get onto the list at all!

First, Harbhajan Singh had Michael Hussey plumb in front. Hussey tried to pull a back-of-a-length delivery from Harbhajan Singh. No prostrations were offered by Harbhajan Singh to the departing batsman!

In the very next over, Ishant Sharma flattened Ricky Ponting’s off stump with a peach of a delivery. What was most impressive was the way Ishant Sharma set Ponting up in that over. In the matter of a few overs, Australia had slumped from 49-0 to 52-4. Australia’s top-4 was in the hut!

Shane Watson and Michael Clarke set about doing the repair job against some accurate and penetrative bowling from Ishant Sharma. Amit Mishra, who had taken 5 wickets in the first innings didn’t look like getting a bowling opportunity in the 2nd Innings! This was good cricket from the Indians. At the end of the 16th over, Australia was 58-4. Ishant Sharma was bowling a testing spell to Michael Clarke, who had already been hit on the body twice by the tall Indian pace bowler. This was an important opportunity for Michael Clarke to get a long dig. He had had an ordinary tour thus far and had to use this opportunity in a losing cause to get some runs and batting-time under his belt.

The very next over, Ishant Sharma bowled another splendid ball to catch Shane Watson right in front for 2 off 22 balls. Australia was 58-5 and was falling apart like a pack of cards. Brad Haddin was welcomed to the crease with a bouncer that struck him on the visor. Ishant Sharma walked up to him to ask if he had paid his electricity bill prior to leaving Australia! This was terrific bowling from the young Indian bowler.

How was it that these two Indian bowlers were making the ball talk, when the Australians did nothing much at all with the ball?

After bowling a terrific spell after the Tea break, Amit Mishra, the first innings bowling hero was summoned to replace Ishant Sharma. The score was 70-5 off 20 overs. Ishant Sharma had bowled excellently well in a searching post-Tea spell of accurate, hostile and penetrative fast bowling.

The third ball of Mishra’s spell, bowled to Brad Haddin, was a perfect leg spinner. It had loop and dip and spun a lon way to beat Haddin’s out-stretched bat. It probably missed the off stump by just a few millimetres! This was the art of spinning at its very best! We now had the two Indian spinners bowling in tandem.

Australia was intent on shutting up shop. The batsmen were focussed on crease occupation and time accumulation. There was no way Australia could win this match, of course! And there was almost no possibility of Australia drawing the game. So the best option for Clarke and Haddin was to clock time!

While Amit Mishra was getting a terrific loop and spin going, Harbhajan Singh had resumed normal operations — he was intent on spearing them in at 90 kmph! He had bowled 9 overs on the trot after the Tea break and perhaps a break was called for! Australia went into the drinks break at 81-5 off 27 overs.

At this point, Harbhajan Singh’s bowling analysis read 10-2-12-3. He was searching for his 300th wicket! After just 4 overs, Mishra was changed for Virender Sehwag! Whether this was an end-change for Amit Mishra, time would tell. But the birthday-boy was in for a spell, perhaps.

Indeed, Mishra did swap ends. He bowled to a Michael Clarke who was batting quite well at this stage. Clarke, who had had a somewhat ordinary tour up until then, needed to spend time out there in the middle. And this was the best opportunity for him to do that. Soon, the Australia’s 100 came up. Brad Haddin had started to break out of the shackles that the spinners had tied around him. The partnership was worth 44 runs from 100 balls. The going was slow, but the run rate was hardly important. The Australians were playing for pride and frankly, the Indian spinners were suddenly looking very playable!

So it wasn’t surprising to see Zaheer Khan get a spell at the batsmen. This was still a great pitch to bat on. There was turn in the pitch; but it was slow turn. And any swing the pacemen were getting was mainly due to the skill of the two Indian bowlers than anything else! And truth be told, the two New South Welshmen were playing it quite well.

Harbhajan Singh was back in the attack, bowling to two well-set batsmen. He almost got through Brad Haddin with a replica of the delivery that got the Australian ‘keeper out in the first innings!

The session was slowly winding to a close. Despite the late Australian resistance from Michael Clarke and Brad Haddin, this was India’s session once again; a session in which the wickets of Ricky Ponting, Michael Hussey and Shane Watson just after Tea, had broken the back of the Australians. Australia ended the day at 141-5.

The SBS score now reads: [India 9.25, Australia 2.75].

Australia are out of it. It is a question of when and not if for India! The only headache would be for Chris Broad, the match referee, in adjudicating the Man of the Match! There are several contenders including Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, M. S. Dhoni, Gautam Gambhir, Amit Mishra, Ishant Sharma and Harbhajan Singh.

– Mohan

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