Those crazy twenty minutes....

There was that sense of some ominous occurrence, brewing inside me, which had compelled me to switch off my TV set as soon as Yuvraj Singh began his walk back towards the pavilion. I had hoped against hope that it was nothing but a false alarm, triggered off by ages of ignorance towards cricket (at least until World Cup '11). Relax, I said to myself, you are probably over-reacting; this is a stunning pitch to bat on, with the sun basking down at Trent Bridge, the platform set up beautifully by an excellent partnership between the Master & the Apprentice (at 31, Yuvraj would raise an objection to that latter word, but an average of 19 overseas in the last four years, after ten years of overseas cricket couldn't supply me with another adjective). He has been a huge let-down for me personally, as I wouldn't shy away from admitiing that he is one of my three favourite batsmen (after Sourav Ganguly & Adam Gilchrist). That lack of concentration again, after a milestone had been achieved, directly or indirectly (in this case Dravid's century) hurt India immensely. But what transpired after his departure was as incredulous as anything possibly imagined by me; but hauntingly similar to India's entire World Cup campaign bar the final match, a lower-middle order collapse, or a paralysis hip downwards in medical terminology. Harbhajan's dismissal might have been unfortunate, but it was to happen sooner or later, and the assassin was clinical as ever. Stuart Broad has been efficient in cleaning up the tail of late, and this Indian tail being longer than the kangaroo's, he must have enjoyed his late supper immensely, with the hat-trick cherry on top.
So what was to be India gaining an upper hand convincingly has turned out to be an even contest again, as both teams start on a clean slate. But the best batting day still to arrive on day three, India might have an uphill battle on hand, as it will be them batting last, although not on a crumbling pitch, but under crumbling confidence as the middle order just not applying itself, Tendulkar included. Instead of taking a leaf out of Dravid's book, they seem to have been reading a different novel altogether, with five days of test cricket seemingly too long for their IPL-enriched willows. Raina for 22 balls, Tendulkar for 34, Dhoni not worth mentioning; this is not twenty-twenty folks, not even fifty-fifty. One delivery can be more ruthless than the entire 14 fatal deliveries in IPL, as all of them would have found out. The ball will not swing as much but there will be true bounce through-out, and at the gentle pace offered by the Indian bowlers, it seems to be cannon fodder for the likes of KP and Prior, and even Broad. Unless the Indian bowlers take a crash course in discipline from Glen Mcgrath, or some ideas borrowed from a toned-down Warney who is present at the ground, and fast acquiring the nickname of the "human octopus Paul" for his eerie predictions. Getting inspired from the Monk present in their own dressing room seems a much better idea. Rahul Dravid would have put a Zen Monk under acute inferiority complex today, until that slash down deep-third man. But the Dancing  Menakas in the Indian batting line up would disturb the mental framework of any Vishwamitra.

Pommies on seventh heaven & the Resurrection Man of Indian Cricket

You have to read the newspapers to believe it. With an admittedly deserved and dominant test victory at Lord's, the British media (the ex-players particularly) have already spent a good inventory of print and grey matter (the latter in visibly lower proportions) in writing out the obituary for the current World Champions of Cricket. While not trying to belittle their impressive display of team game at the home of cricket, it is a little bemusing to see some of the greats of the game falling over one another in a hurry to write the epitaph of Team India. Accepted, they are the worthy challengers to the number one ranking in test cricket, currently in possession of the Men in Blue, but the cockiness and incredulity of their articles leaves you wondering, is it mere competitiveness or a little bit of insecurity creeping in? Agreed, you have beaten an ageing Australian team in their most vulnerable rebuilding phase, and have arguably one of the world's finest all-round bowling line-up (debatable, since all of their performances have been in pace-friendly conditions), but I guess you have still a long way to go, if you want to wrest away the mantle from a team which has been playing smart cricket consistently for quite a long period of time, and have most recently been crowned the deserved world champions in the fifty over format.
India has always been a slow starter in a long test series away from home, which can be attributed to the lack of adequate practice matches in foreign soil, to acclimatize themselves. You can't and won't always hit the ground running. The BCCI has to take a larger role in ensuring that there are adequate number of practice matches before the start of any series, especially away in foreign conditions. The host country will seldom be as indulging as us; Indians have historically been gracious hosts and the perfect guests, while the response from the foreign boards while touring have barely been so. It's all very justified; professional sports is a hard-knuckled fight, the opposition will always want you on the mat, with any form of external help within sporting spirits most welcome. Would you expect Nadal providing hitting practice to Roger Federer across the red soils of Paris, before the Roland Garros?
Coming back to the present series, not much should be looked into the performance of the Indians in the first test match, other than the fact that it was below par. The increasing number of batsmen fishing outside the off stump was an alarming sight, with Sunny Gavaskar perfectly wondering about the increasing amount of effect the twenty-twenty game has brought into the current-age batsmens' game, their bat speed, their eagerness to score runs more quickly than ever, to get on with the game, bringing about their downfall. Test Cricket is still the litmus test for class, and only the worthy ones survive, the average ones get grounded out quite early.
It is famously said that from the moon, only the great wall of China can be observed. While not going into the authenticity of that observation, one thing that can be ascertained is that when India's greatest batting line-up is constructed many centuries from now, one name will ease in before many others: India's very own version of the Chinese Wall: Rahul Sharad Dravid. For over a decade and a half now, India's greatest number three, and the best away batsman for generations to come, has held fort as the crisis man, the man for the occasion. While we have raved about and ogled at Tendulkar's genius, Ganguly's elegance, Laxman's artistry and Sehwag's butchery, this man has quietly gone about his business with little fuss, barely playing for the spotlight and rarely found beneath it, and even the spotlights let him be. But when these batting maestros have built one epic innings after another, it has been hardly noticed as who has been supplying the brick and the mortar, under whose supervision such gems have been nurtured and established; the man who more often than not has been at the non-srtiker's end, bearing the brunt of the opposition bowling's sharp fangs, blunting them and then letting the more exuberant partner to feast on the carcass. At the indimidating and vociferous Eden Gardens, at the famous bullring in Johannesberg, on the rapid deathbed at Kingsmead, on the world's fastest wicket at the WACA, or in the Don's backyard at Adelaide, The Wall has continuously scripted monuments that will stand the test of time, but the ones which perhaps got overshadowed by the skyscrapers erected of his other illustrious team-mates. Even with the current test match underway at Trent Bridge, Nottingham, when you have witnessed the ball zip around alarmingly, there is only one prayer on your lips, let Dravid hang in there for at least until tea, and the battle will be halfway over; as by then he would have ground out the English attack with his dour defence, his body and willow behind every ball, his eyes watching every delivery like a hawk, and his mind not wearing out a wee bit even if his body will scream to give in. In Dravid we trust, for it is he who offers us hope in the darkest of hours, especially in an away series, and he has hardly let us down. 

An enigma called Mumbai

Mumbai in the monsoons is a beauty worth beholding. The dust and the grime vanishing from the atmosphere, lush greenery suddenly visible from nowhere, with the famous humidity taking a backseat while the rains lash the island city and it's more congested suburbs. With all the preconceived notions of it being a robotic jungle of concrete and little else, the financial capital of the world's largest democracy has a lot more to offer than people assume it capable of. But then, Mumbai has always been an enigma, to migrants like me, and its so-called sons-of-the soil, accepting the continuous inflow with little complaint, but never completely surrendering itself to you. You grow with it every day, learn to love it, fight it to stay alive, pamper it with love, and still you might not get what you actually deserve. The lessons it teaches you stay with you for life, gets entrenched in your soul, makes you a worthy person to take on the world, and yet every day you yearn to go back, back to where you came from, to receive the love you actually deserve, the care you always wished to have when you gave it your all and more, waiting for something in way of repayment. It's like living-in with your partner, you have it all you want for now, but you are scared of committing wholeheartedly, because you're afraid that in the end it might be you, left with nothing at all, while your partner has happily walked away to some one else's warm embrace.