The Inside Story

The following is an account of the disturbing events that transpired in the Sydney Test between India and Australia in the year 2008.

Harbhajan Singh had batted magnificently for his 40 odd runs but since Brett Lee had come on to bowl, he had been feeling a little distracted. Harbhajan had always harbored a secret romantic desire for Lee, and it was torturous to watch Lee's magnificent backside as Lee delivered ball after ball down the pitch with rocket speed. "Be cool, be cool", Harbhajan kept thinking, "this is not the time to be distracted. There will be time later". All his feelings seemed to be under control until Lee outdid even himself with one superlative delivery. He pushed hard against the ground, contorting every muscle in his hips, thighs and calves with the force of a boiling volcano, and erupted high into the air like a geyser of lava. Yet, landing in his delivery stride, he was as light as a gazelle. The end result of this beautiful, precise orchestration was a scorching delivery that moved in with the arm and then swung away, leaving even Tendulkar in the dust. Watching Lee at work from such close quarters was too much for Harbhajan; he was overcome with feeling not unlike that which lovers might feel cycling through the cobblestone lanes of some medieval town in Tuscany. He let his feelings get the better of him, and almost involuntarily, he committed his single act of indiscretion: as Lee stood glaring down Tendulkar, Harbhajan walked up behind him, and patted Lee's backside with his bat. He would have used his hand, but at that moment that was most inconvenient, what with the gloves and the bat he was holding. Lee turned around and recognized instantly the look in Harbhajan's eye. Lee knew Harbhajan was his to ravish as he pleased. He smiled. Harbhajan coyly returned the smile.

All this did not escape Andrew Symonds' attention though. Lee and he had been close for a while now, but they both knew their differences would never allow them to have the stability they both sought from their companionship---Lee was a bit of a monkey, and Symonds had no patience with monkeys. And in all fairness to Symonds, his attitude towards monkeys was not totally unreasonable. When he had been a young boy, during one particular hunting trip, an exotic white monkey had befriended him in the desolate bushes of the Australian outback, but just as soon he had brought down a bird with his sling, the monkey ran off with the kill, leaving Symonds cold and hungry in the fading twilight. In spite of this unpleasant experience, over time Symonds had grown terribly fond of Lee---much like how people start liking bad music more the more it plays on the radio. He could not bear the flirtatious look in Lee's eyes. But Lee was free to do what he wanted, after all he was a grown man, Symonds reasoned. But in love and war, reason usually flies outa-the-window, and this was both---love with Lee and war with India---reasoned Symonds further. Thus convinced that he had the power of reason to back him up, Symonds decided to take Harbhajan on for the naughty indecent act he had committed. He walked up to Harbhajan, and told him in an angry guttural growl that hitting Lee on the backside was not on. Now Harbhajan, as we all know, does not take kindly to such manners of speaking. Naturally he was incensed. He didn't think his amorous mid-pitch flirtations with Lee were any of Symonds' business. Harbhajan did what any hot-blooded Indian would have done.

"To kahan maroo?", bellowed Harbhajan, hot air venting from his nostrils, "teri maan ki picchwade?". (Suffice it to say that that's an unkind reference to Symonds' mother, and let's just leave it at that.)

Now Symonds, who didn't understand a modicum of Hindi, thought Harbhajan was up to some monkey business. But that wasn't the half of it: he heard "maan ki" as 'monkey'. He racked his brains, and through some obtuse reasoning---the kind people typically use when they understand little but feel compelled to react---reached the conclusion that Harbhajan had called him a monkey. And just as quick, the memories of the white monkey's betrayal came flooding back.

What followed is a saga of lust, jealousy, and deceit that Shakespeare would have been proud to pen.

The Bogus Green

Bogus green: That's what the pride of Australian cricket ought to be called given that Ponting turned this match into a bar brawl and shagged, mutilated, and ground into dust the baggy green. Maybe India ought to have a bouncer on field in Perth, just to throw out miscreants like him.

I admit if Harbhajan did it then he was wrong to call Symonds a monkey given his racial background. But don't you think it would be a great honor for Symonds if all monkeys all over the world were named Symonds? Hmmm, something to ponder over.

Why India will Win

In a nutshell, because:

• The Indian bowling attack is better than the Australian. India will field two inexperienced bowlers vs. Australia's three. And three of India's bowlers are attacking options: Kumble, Zaheer, and RP. If Sreesanth had been, what a fantastic attack that would have constituted. Brett Lee has only a reasonable record against India, even in Australia; is there any reason to believe any of Australia's tyros will be more successful than him? India has handled the likes of Bichel and Bracken successfully.
  

• The Indian batsmen are as good and only as aged as the Aussies. And I bet they want to prove a point like never before since they know they'll never play for a bigger prize and there'll be no bigger feather in their caps. I give hunger points to the Indians.

• For the first time, the Australian fielding will be no better than the Indian. Age has eliminated the erstwhile unfathomable chasm between the two. The just concluded Sri Lankan tour of Australia is proof of that: the Australians dropped catches like hot pies.
  

The Case for Separation

The Indian board, team management, and perhaps Sreesanth himself, are all to blame for his not being able to make the Australian tour. He ran himself into the ground. India's English tour---can you believe they played seven utterly meaningless ODIs?---followed by the T20 World Cup followed by the another utterly unnecessary series of India Australia ODIs followed by India Pakistan ODIs...which is when Sreesanth's body broke finally down. No one kept the big picture in mind. Only Australia will be be thankful for his absence because antics aside Sreesanth is a force with the ball. He is truly India's only strike bowler. When India's plays for the big prize, they will do so without their most potent weapon.

It is time to have totally separate Test and ODI/T20 teams.

Target Australia

Any good batsman can be undone when he's uncertain about the movement of the ball off the pitch or if the ball swings late. Everyone knows that. Here I am just going to point out weaknesses of the three Australian batsman whose batting styles I'm more familiar with.

• Ponting is a very aggressive player. He tends to play a lot of shots on the up, perhaps more so than any batsman I've ever seen. In doing so, he commits to the shot really early, and as a result is often squared up by deliveries going away. That is his Achilles heel. The ball that is pitched in the corridor and then deviates slightly away from him off the seam. A bowler is unlikely to get him with an in-cutter because he plays with his bat really close to the body. I'd leave mid-off open to encourage him to drive. Unfortunately, the only two Indian bowlers who could have given him trouble, Munaf and Sreesanth, are not in the squad.
  

• Hayden leaves such a huge gap between bat and pad that sometimes it makes me wonder how he has remained so prolific over so many years. He also has a tendency to club balls from outside off towards mid on and mid wicket with an angled bat. The way to get him then would be for Zaheer or RP Singh to bowl a shortish of length ball from wide of the stumps that nips back in. I would also keep a straightish short midwicket.
  

• Gilchrist is a monster off anything pitched short. I'd expect him to dispatch even the short of length stuff with ease. I'd keep the ball up to him at most times. His lousy footwork these days makes that a very good ploy. The left armers should be able to get him cheap if the pitch affords even a little movement. They should mostly bowl straight with the occasional wide of the stump stuff.

• Michael Clarke. MJ? Well, I think you just need to get into his head. I haven't seen much of him at all to know how he plays, but I'd rely on Kumble to deceive him.
  

Dravid in an unholy slump

Dravid's Test statistics beginning with India's tour of South Africa in late 2006 right up till the home series against Pakistan are staggering. That's a slump if there ever was one. And Australia beckons in a series more important than any India has played in the last twenty years, a series which has the power to turn Indian greats into Gods, or tarnish their reputations indelibly.

Which will it be?
Victory or defeat?
Gods or statistical anomalies?
There's nothing in between.

No one will be spared
This verdict will be shared
No one stands above another
Oz is the final frontier.

The Verdict: Tendulkar v. Dravid

Tendulkar is by far the better batsman, the monumental nature of some of Dravid's innings notwithstanding. Dravid is what he is---a patient player. Come rain or shine, Dravid plays the way he plays---carefully, slowly, accumulating a run at a time---all of which makes for rather insipid viewing. My complaint against him is not he is painstakingly slow; my complaint is that he is unable to switch gears when the situation demands it. Case in point, his batting in the Bangalore Test against Pakistan. He has been in terrible form for a while now (during the South African and English tours, and during Pakistan's tour of India), but if he thought he'd rather get some batting practice in the Bangalore Test than attend to the urgency of the situation, that's even worse than being a chronically slow player. I don't think he put himself before the team; maybe Kumble asked him to hold up his end. But scoring 42 off 134 balls is going far beyond the call of duty when the situation not just demanded but afforded better. The thing is that one can't ask Dravid to bat with a particular objective in mind; he knows only one way to play. (And that might have more to do with his limited shot making abilities and inability to find gaps rather than his inclination to dispatch only the really bad deliveries. He is just terrible in the arc from point to long on.)

Tendulkar, on the other hand, is capable of adapting to situations. Until Tendulkar suffered the tennis elbow, he played with aggression, trying to dominate every bowler. And then came his most monumental innings: his double century in the Sydney Test in 2003/2004 where he curbed all offside shots, and his 82 in the Oval Test in 2007 where he preferred taking body blows rather than play awkward shots. Tendulkar is able to adapt because of his immense natural talent. There is a reason they call him the 'Little Master', a truly well-accorded title.

I won't even take ODI performances into account here because that would tilt the comparison grossly in Tendulkar's favor. And you can't say those don't count because until recently winning ODIs meant something. So other all things in Test cricket being fairly even between the two---statistics included---I know where I stand on this issue. And I'm cent percent sure where Tendulkar stands in the pantheon of Indian cricket history.

2nd Test, India v. England, Trentbridge, 2007

Some things of note at the conclusion of the 2nd Test between India and England at Trent Bridge, which India won by seven wickets on the fifth day:

• Ganguly has made as fabulous a comeback as any in recent memory. He looks younger, fitter, and hungrier than ever.
  
• Tendulkar seems to be past his prime, and yet he is proving to be a force to reckon with. For the first time in his career, I get the feeling he is batting beyond his abilities. Or is he just biding his time before he unleashes the full fury that is his batting? I doubt it, but I'm salivating at the possibility of it, remote as it might be.
  
• Laxman seems to be playing to seal his spot in the Test side. Granted, number six is no place for him to bat, but now that he is playing there, he might as well learn to play with the tail. For God's sake, Kumble outclassed him in stroke play, when it should have been Laxman upping the ante and taking the lion's share of the strike. I observed this tendency in South Africa and now in England. Drop his ass, get Yuvraj in.
  
• Dravid is horribly out of form. England is shaping up just like South Africa.
• Zaheer has dropped some pounds. He looks fitter than ever.
• Sreesanth is crazy. He needs to be reined in---not because he is crazy (as would be the case with Andre Nel), but because he has the ability to be devastating.
• RP Singh bowled much better than I expected.
• I read an article on Cricinfo saying how India are no longer pushovers when they tour abroad. OK, I agree. But for now I'd give them the label of 'chokers' considering how they couldn't wrap up the Test series on the last Australian tour; considering how they almost did not win the last Test series in West Indies; considering how they lost the series in South Africa after going up 1-0, and considering how every Indian fan must still have been jittery about victory against England today even though India needed only 63 runs with all ten wickets in hand. Add to this list the tour before last to West Indies where India couldn't chase 120 to win!
• Sledging never made cricket more interesting for me than it already was.
  
• Every cricketer who says, "What happens on the field, stays on the field", is a pussy because they'd actually be embarrassed if the public knew the kind of banter they indulged in. Rahul Dravid is a big pussy on that account even though he doesn't have to play along. What, he is afraid of being labeled a 'pussy' by the opposing team if he goes on record? I say make the stump mics extra sensitive so every word uttered near the pitch is caught on mic for the world to hear. Sledging is not an Indian thing culturally, it doesn't come naturally to us, then why the hell does the Indian team go along with it?
  
• This victory calls for a raucous celebration---as premature as that might be considering India are chokers and will likely lose the next match---just like the one that followed the series win in West Indies.
• What the hell is Kumble doing fielding at gully and point! I read commentary on Cricinfo which went something like this, "Kumble dives at gully, but the ball just evades his outstretched hands". Now with due respect to Kumble as one cannot question his efforts on the field, I'd say that is very very flattering to Kumble---after all, the man falls like a sack of potatoes. Is Dravid out of his mind?