Is it all about Speed?

Indian cricket team and genuine fast bowler are two phrases that very rarely appear in the same sentence, if at all. With the recent emergence of a few fast bowlers who could constantly bowl in the 140s, most people started to believe this was finally going to change for good. But unfortunately that hasn’t been the case, not so far at least. That raises a very important question – what good is speed without application? Is it any good to bowl juicy half-volleys at driving length outside off stump even if you are bowling at 155 kmph.

The current fast bowling scene of Indian cricket looks bleak. It has never in the last 10 years been so toothless and ineffective. The absence of a quality spinner like Kumble or even Harbhajan makes it worse. The Indian fast bowlers off late have been wayward at best. The likes of Varun Aaron and Umesh Yadav are obsessed with speed and nothing else. You cannot entrust them with bowling all six balls of an over in one particular area and they are the only options we got in terms of bowling deliveries over 140.

The performance of these out and out quick Indian bowlers should once and for all silence the ones blaming the coaches for slowing down other Indian fast bowlers in the past (recall Munaf Patel and many others from not so long ago). The truth is if they continued bowling the speeds they did when they first broke into the national team, they would have disappeared after a series or two, not to say they lasted forever, still Munaf was a part of the World Cup winning squad in 2011.

Then there are not-so-fast but still quick enough options like Ishant Sharma and Mohammad Shami. Some commentator or author remarked that you know you don’t have a good bowling attack if Ishant Sharma is a part of it. Ironically enough he is the leading fast bowler of this Indian team. Ian Chappell while commentating on Day 4 of 2^nd India vs. Australia test said – “That’s the problem with Ishant Sharma. His best is very good, his worst is very poor. There is nothing in between and both can happen sometimes even in one over” (paraphrased, since I do not recall his exact words). Mohammad Shami looks like a good bowler once every series. Unfortunately for India, they cannot afford such once in a blue moon performances.

The only bright spot to be seen among the current crop of quick bowlers in India is the young and promising Bhuvaneshwar Kumar who many would not even consider a fast bowler because even part-timers from Australia (like Mitchell Marsh) bowl quicker than him. In his short career so far he has shown a genuine ability to swing the ball both ways on almost all kinds of pitches and tremendous control to go with that. He is an old school swing bowler who relies on application more than anything, including speed. Though the Indian Captain MS Dhoni has been hesitant to bowl him in the later overs in ODI games, he has come good a handful of times he has actually bowled in the slog overs, bowling some good yorkers and constantly targeting the block hole, in effect showing amazing control over the cricket ball.

In conclusion, it seems highly unlikely that we will see anytime soon an Indian fast bowling attack bowl the way they did in England in the summer of 2007 led by Zaheer Khan and backed so well by Anil Kumble, a bowler who wore his heart on his sleeves. On an unrelated note, Ravi Shastri and Wasim Akram on a cricket show once described Kumble as a spin bowler with the heart and mind of a fast bowler who would tear through the opposition. 

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The Legend of Fab Four

Cricket like most other sports evokes great nostalgia in its followers. While growing up, I came across all kinds of nostalgic expressions about sportsmen from the grown-ups in their thirties, forties and fifties. They would often reminisce about Gavaskar and Vishwanath’s batting, the furious fast bowlers of West Indies or the enchanting spin quartet of India from the 70s and 80s. I spent my childhood in the football crazy city of Kolkata (I still like the name Calcutta though!) and therefore the likes of Pele, Maradona, Garrincha would regularly pop up in conversations. While doing so these grown-ups would almost always inadvertently undermine the contemporary greats like Zidane, Ronaldo, Romario, etc. Any competitive equation between players would remind some of the days of their youth when the famous Borg-McEnroe rivalry would be the highlight of the big tournaments.

Similarly, years later when my peers from now would watch a contemporary superstar bat with a kind of flair not even imaginable today, they will not forget to bring up that they saw Tendulkar destroy the best bowlers of the world even on his not-so-good days and that they were fortunate enough to witness the Fab Four of Indian Cricket in their prime. Add Virender Sehwag to the mix and it becomes the Fab Five.

That group of four players intimidated the opposition bowlers like no other middle order in my memory did. Hardly any of them was close to being physically intimidating. But with over 40 thousand test runs and 100 centuries, they could be a towering presence on any rival team. Comparing the current Indian middle order with them would be a grave injustice to both. Yet, the current crop fails to give the viewer the kind of confidence they would every single time. The opposition captain would always have a thought at the back of his mind that if one of them settles down, could take the game away from them.

Ganguly who was arguably the least accomplished of the four (in Test matches) could also be a bowler’s nightmare on his day, not to forget the kind of debut series he had; that is every batsman’s dream. No one needs a reminding of what Tendulkar or Dravid could do to the opposition. Both had the power to bring the bowlers to their knees in their own unique ways. And then there was VVS Laxman! He wasn’t called Very Very Special for no reason. Sambit Bal wrote this of Laxman on his Cricinfo profile – “At his sublime best, VVS Laxman is a sight for the gods. Wristy, willowy and sinuous, he can match - sometimes even better - Tendulkar for strokeplay.” Bal wasn’t necessarily exaggerating.

They were good against almost all kinds of bowling. But it would be unfair to even debate the prowess of these players against the spinners. I have rarely seen anyone as nimble on his feet as Dravid was, though he wasn’t necessarily a smasher of the spin bowling as his contemporaries were. It would be unfair to Very few others would be able to match Laxman in hitting a spinner against the line and scoring that heavily. Even Warne, probably the greatest of them all, was made to look like a part-timer. That is one area where the current middle order looks ages behind the Fab Four; especially on the overseas tours, they have a tendency to make a hero out of an upcoming not-so-accomplished spin bowlers – the likes of Moeen Ali in England and Nathan Lyon in the ongoing Australia tour. They either go over-aggressive against them and loose wickets or go into a shell (as a consequence of losing those wickets) and become over-defensive and tend to lose their wickets in being cautious.

While Kohli certainly is the contender for the position of no. 1 batsman in world in ODIs, he still has a long way to go before even could even imagine taking a leap for that spot in the Tests. Pujara without a doubt looks the most stable and composed of them all, whereas it is still too soon to do any critique of Rohit Sharma. If he does any justice to the kind of talent he is believed to possess, he might as well go on to become the best of the lot. Ajinkya Rahane is a typical Mumbai batsman – he has got a fair amount of everything required to make a great batsman – but the flair.

The Fab Four are also important because they didn’t just play together for most part of their careers, they virtually owned their spots in the batting line up.  When Dravid was in the twilight phase of his career and there was a lookout going on for the player who might take up the no. 3 position, the primary criteria that was being sought after was a pure batsman with a classical technique and a stable head and thus Pujara was deemed best suited owing to his old school classical approach to batting, lacking the hurry of a modern-day limited over batsman. Similarly the pre-requisite to take the no. 4 position, that Tendulkar used to occupy, would be his ability to impose himself on the opposition much like the Little Master did. Virat Kohli, deemed Tendulkar’s successor, was the natural choice. Rohit Sharma would have made a strong case in that direction had he come true to his much talked about talent.

All being said, this young crop of players still have their best years ahead of them. We can only hope they will go on to chart their own legend that youngsters like me would someday swear by and will them their Big Four or Big Five or some other fancy name!

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Travel, the Ultimate Inspiration

I may not qualify as an accomplished traveler; I certainly am no hitchhiker who has quit his job and has taken to the roads backpacking from one place to another, maybe in search of something or just for the fun of it; but I do love travelling – going around different places, meeting different kinds of people, eating different types of food, learning a bit or two about the place and its history and so on; and nobody can take that away from me. Travelling has always been a conscious thought at the back of my mind. Probably for the same reason I have always tried to keep this desire alive believing I would have seen most of the places that I intend to see in my lifetime.

I have had the opportunity (or let’s just say that I have worked toward it) to go to a lot of different places in America (over 20 different states) in the last couple of years. Believe me, it has been nothing less than pure fun. The trips have been long as well as short, sometimes too hectic and sometimes just easy on me, but at the end of every single one of them, I have looked back and said – Man, did I have a good time! 

From the awe-inspiring beauty of South Dakota to the mesmerizing glitz of Las Vegas; from the urban, diverse and pulsing culture of New York City to the galleries of ancient traditional native American culture of Santa Fe; from hot and happening Miami to a relatively unheard-of small town of Fredericksburg, Texas, I have been fortunate enough to experience variety that I certainly could not have imagined when I first came to St. Louis.

My love for food found no end at most of these places; I have absolutely devoured the local cuisines and specialties. Though none of them have been food-trips, but food has been an important part almost every time I have set out for some destination. Having been a regular viewer of the Food and Travel networks on TV, it gives me great pleasure to go to a restaurant or diner where the host of a certain show like Man vs. Food or Bizarre Foods has been to and try out their signature items. I am also a big fan of Mr. Anthony Bourdain and his travel shows; so I don’t like missing out on places he has been to and recommends in a town if I happen to go there.

I have traveled to almost all major cities in this country barring only a couple of them and have seen almost all the major monuments and I can go on and on forever citing things I did at each one of those places and what sets them apart from other places for me, but that will be cliché and in effect I will be basically reiterating remarks from some popular travel website. But that is not what I originally intended to do, I wanted to express in words how much satisfaction and joy every trip brings with it. The build-up and the preparation to each one of them makes it even more exciting. If it is an upcoming road trip, the idea is to gather as much information about the route from all sources possible e.g. travel blogs, road trip forums or shoestring threads on platforms like Reddit – shoestring because you always want to stick to a budget; I believe no budget is big enough so I might as well spend carefully. But make no mistake, any money spent toward travel is money well spent. I see it as an investment – an investment toward some beautiful everlasting memories and experiences that will be with you no matter what.

There is something about Road Trips that air travel would never be able to match up. The longer the road trip the more fun it will be. The idea of the journey being as interesting, if not more, than the destination itself finds no better manifestation. After been wanting to do the Route 66 trip for over a year, I finally succeeding in going on it at the end of last year i.e. 2013 and I can say without a doubt that it will be the best trip I have ever done so far. Out on the roads for almost 2 weeks, I came across all kinds of weather conditions from cold and freezing Midwest to surprisingly pleasant Southwest and almost all kinds of landscape but for ocean. The cherry on the top or icing on the cake so to speak was getting off Route 66 and ending the trip in Las Vegas with New Year celebrations.

But nonetheless traveling (no matter what means) has been and will always be exciting; the anticipation of the destination and actually reaching there only to be embraced by different people and culture can never cease to be thrilling. Many accomplished thinkers and philosophers in past have set out on soul searching and found the ultimate truth about life and existence while traveling around the world to far off and unknown places. I read somewhere on social media that “travel is the ultimate inspiration” and when I come to think of it, it makes more sense than most other things (and that is where this piece derives its title from!). On that note, I would like to end this by quoting a famous Indian poet Rahul Sankrityayan who was famous for traveling

Sair kar duniya ki gaafil zindagani fir kahan
Zindagi gar kuchh rahi to naujawani fir kahan

Its approximate English translation (reference: the internet) would be –

Oh you ignorant and idle, go and travel all over the wide world; you are not going to have another life for this.
Even if you live longer, this youth is not going to return

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63 not out Forever!

While I was watching Michael Clarke’s tribute to PhilipHughes, I got choked up a few times much like Michael himself did. The Australian Captain has lost his ‘little brother’, a fellow team-mate who he had gone out and batted in the middle with so many times. But it is not just his or Hughes’ family’s loss, it is a loss to the game we all love so much.

‘Is this what we call the spirit!’ Clarke asked in his speech. He was obviously talking about the spirit of Phil Hughes, but when I first heard it I thought he was referring to the ‘spirit of cricket’ which is so often talked about and used sometimes for the good and sometimes just for the sake of convenience to support one party’s action in a controversial situation. But Michael would not have been wrong even if he were talking about the spirit of the game of cricket. This is what spirit of cricket really is – condolences and support pouring in from all corners of the cricketing world (Clarke himself mentioned a few during his speech), the entire nation of Australia mourning the sad and untimely demise of one of their sons.

Phil was an upcoming talent with moderate success so far for the Australian national side and much of his cricketing career still ahead of him. He obviously was not the next big thing or the reigning superstar of cricket like Kohli, de Villiers, Amla etc. He was probably not many followers’ favorite cricketer like a few of his contemporaries are, yet he was a cricketer and that is more important to the cricketing fraternity than anything else. This feeling was clearly reflected in the tributes offered to him by cricket lovers across the globe spread across all sections of the society.

The Australian Cricket Board (ACB) was quick to delay the upcoming Sheffield Shield matches while suspending the ongoing game and to cancel the tour game preceding the first test match versus India which also has been rescheduled. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) provided its full cooperation and in fact offered for its players and support staff who are presently stationed in Australia to be a part of Phil’s funeral in his hometown Macksville. New Zealand and Pakistan decided not to take the field on the day following Phil’s death although it was in the middle of an ongoing test. Cricket Australia (CA) have adjusted their official scorecard to show Phil Hughes as 63 not out instead of 63 retired hurt. This shows how much the game and every single player means to the keepers and custodians of the game.

Spare a thought for the poor fellow Sean Abbott who delivered the bouncer that resulted in taking Phil Hughes’s life. Like Hughes, he is a young and promising cricketer who will now have to live with this fact for the rest of his life. He sure would need all the support he can get at this time to come out of this trauma and stand strong enough to be able to take the cherry in his hand and bowl the bouncer again to the best batsmen of the world. Never forget the omnipresent media who will always remind him of this incident even if he is spotted at a public place years later.

In the aftermath of this incident, there will be calls to ban the bouncer or short pitched deliveries which I think is like taking a key element of the game away from it. It would mean removing one of the most powerful tools from a bowler’s toolbox in today’s cricketing world which is already very unfairly balanced in favor of the batsmen (at least in the shorter formats). But at the same time the call to make helmets safer is legitimate for this beautiful game should not take lives of those who chose to live by it. Improving the quality of the helmets in today’s day and age should be very much possible given the kind of technology that exists.

The best way for Australian cricket team and every other to pay tribute to Phil Hughes would be to play the game the best they can. I would like to end this by quoting Aakash Chopra who said “Never felt so strongly about someone who I'd never met..” on his twitter account.

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