Lionel Messi - A Superman

It was anything but classic. The game was more reminiscent of an Old Firm derby – feisty tackling coupled, no doubt, with a lot of feigning that added a brush of Spanish flavour. Thankfully, though, the singular genius of Lionel Messi ensured that the first leg of the Champions League semifinal tie between Real Madrid and Barcelona will not be remembered only for the wrong reasons. In the 87th minute, having already broken the deadlock, Messi waltzed through the heart of Madrid’s backline before finishing past Iker Casillas with the impudence of a boy playing in his backyard. This though was the Estadio Santiago Bernabéu, the home of Madrid, a most intimidating arena, which Messi quelled with imperious ease.

For the majority of the game, Madrid’s midfield trident Xabi Alonso, Pepe and Lassana Diarra, particularly the latter two, snarled and snapped at the heels of Messi and Xavi Hernandez, disrupting Barcelona’s rhythm and demonstrating their team’s apparent plan of settling for a goalless draw. The strategy, however, received a striking blow when Pepe was sent off in the 62nd minute for a high, reckless challenge on Dani Alves, which deserving as it may have been of a red card brought about a shameful response from the Barcelona full-back, who rolled along the floor as though he had been shot on his chest. His teammates who hounded referee Wolfgang Stark only made matters worse. The Madrid manager, Jose Mourinho – forever the victim, in his and only his eyes – retorted with typical sarcasm, resulting in him being sent to the stands.

The incident, however, had its direct repercussions. It opened the space in midfield that allowed Xavi to finally set the tempo for the match. Still for a brief period, Madrid held on, dogged in their resolve to prevent Barcelona from scoring. In the 77th minute, however, the first goal arrived via the unlikeliest of routes. Ibrahim Afellay, signed from PSV Eindhoven in January, and brought on as a substitute for Pedro, raced on to Xavi's diagonal pass before squaring the ball with pinpoint accuracy for the darting Messi to finish cutely from two yards out. It was a rare gem in a hitherto dreary fixture.

The goal opened up the possibility of a further onslaught from the Catalans. But Madrid closed down the spaces well, continuing, however, with its robust tackling that bordered on the wild. Respite from the attack though did not last forever. In the 87th minute, the moment of genius arrived. Messi, picked up the ball a few metres inside the Madrid half and beat a string of defenceless players – five in all – before adroitly finding a seemingly impossible shot past Iker Casillas, the turn on which felt like it had to have taken a deflection. The replays revealed that he needed no such luck. The finish was one of matchless class – a perfect culmination to a most splendid dribble. It was a goal worthy of winning any football game and fortunately for us, it takes away some of the limelight from what was an ugly, spiteful affair that was unbecoming of two of the giants of world sport.

The year is turning out to be an Annus Mirabilis of extraordinary proportions for Messi. His goals last night have taken his tally to a remarkable 52 from 50 appearances. The numbers though hardly begin to tell the story. It is the manner of his play, elegant, wondrous and perennially sublime that makes him such a treat to watch. I haven’t seen the likes of Pele and Maradona play on live television. But it’s difficult to imagine that Messi is too far behind them. He is unquestionably the best I’ve seen.

(Also posted at: http://www.criticaltwenties.in/sport/lionel-messi-a-superman)

Rohit Sharma - A Special Talent

I haven’t seen much of the IPL this season, but I can’t imagine the tournament having produced too many finer innings’ than Rohit Sharma’s yesterday. It was as joyous a knock as one is likely to see in T-20 cricket. The format doesn’t allow a single ponderous moment, but time seemed to stand still for Sharma, who produced an innings of extraordinary refinement that was a true pleasure to the eye. His full array of strokes was dazzlingly displayed as he tore apart the Chennai Super Kings’ bowling to score 87 runs off 48 balls.

If I were to have only one problem with this shortened, frenzied format of the game, it is the ensuing death of elegance in batsmanship. Maybe it requires judgment based on different aesthetic standards. A violent heave over cow-corner, perhaps, has its own beauty, which happily for me, though, I am yet to discover. Sharma, however, can make the fiercest stroke look elegant, because the result for him is often a product of timing rather than power. Therefore, even in T-20 cricket he can make batting look like an unruffled, uniquely beautiful form of art.

Sharma’s talent has never been in question. Temperament, though, is a different matter. After bursting onto the international scene with sparkling knocks in the inaugural World T-20 at South Africa and in an ODI tri-series in Australia, he has failed to find even a modicum of consistency, restricting our pleasure to his rare showings of brilliance. In first-class cricket he has continued to make a pile of runs ensuring he remains in the national reckoning even if he may have fallen behind Suresh Raina, Virat Kohli and Cheteshwar Pujara in the pecking order.

Sharma, like Mark Waugh and Damien Martyn, when in full flight, makes batting look so ridiculously easy that when he is dismissed, it appears a product of carelessness. This, though, is a price that one pays for elegance, which may be a creation unknown even to the exponent. No doubt, some of his failings have been a result of a lack of concentration and perhaps even problems with attitude. But still only twenty-three years of age, Sharma remains one of India’s brightest talents, someone who can treat batting like a form of high art – a rarity in today’s age.

Also posted at: (http://www.criticaltwenties.in/sport/rohit-sharma-a-special-talent)

From Venkat to Ashwin - a glimpse at three generations of cricketers from Madras

For a generation that grew up on a staple-diet of televised cricket in the 1990s, Srinivasaraghavan Venkataraghavan represented the man in the white, coat and hat – a top-class umpire respected across the cricketing world. But Venkataraghavan – or Venkat as he is fondly known – has donned many a hat before the role for which he was most recently cherished and almost all of them with grand success.

Venkat was, to begin with, a cricketer of great renown. He wasn’t the first from Madras to play Test cricket for India – the honour belongs to M.J. Gopalan who played a game in 1934 – but he is easily the city’s most celebrated modern-day cricketer. An off-spinner of classical virtues, Venkat bowled with an elegant side-on action, relying on traditional weapons of flight, drift and turn for his wickets. Boasting unerring accuracy in addition to his considerable powers of spin, had Venkat not had the misfortune of sharing the stage with Erapalli Prasanna – one of the greatest off-spinners of all time – and the rest of the famed spin quartet – Bhagwat Chandrashekar and Bishan Bedi – he would have surely gone on to play more than the 57 Tests he played for India and amassed more than the 156 wickets he scalped.

But statistics, as is so often the case, fails to tell the whole tale. Venkat was an astute thinker of the game, an outstanding close-in fieldsman and a man of unimpeachable integrity. His international career spanned 18 years – evincing his supreme fitness – in which he captained India in five Tests and in both the 1975 and 1979 editions of the World Cup. Upon retirement, he enjoyed success in the various jobs that he partook in, including in roles as manager of the Indian team for its tours to Australia and the West Indies in 1985-86 and 1989 respectively and as national selector in 1991-92. As the only man to have both played and umpired in over fifty Tests, Venkat will remain the jewel in the crown of Madras cricket.

Venkat’s Test career coincided for a brief two year spell with that of Krishnamachari Srikkanth, but their roles and their personalities couldn’t have been more starkly different. Srikkanth was an opening batsman of thrilling yet flawed substance. His record scarcely did justice to his potential, but such things were only trivial in the exhilarating world that he lived in. He was an entertainer extraordinaire – impudent and cheeky the bowler’s reputation rarely mattered to him. Gifted with wonderful hand and eye coordination, his strokes weren’t always orthodox. Slashes over point and swishes over mid-on were executed with ease and insolence – all of which made for particularly invigorating viewing.

It was in the shorter format of the game that Srikkanth made his most telling contribution. The newer fans of cricket credit the Sri Lankan openers of the 1996 World Cup – Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana – or the Kiwi, Mark Greatbatch for his role during the 1992 World Cup as proponents of attacking batsmanship in the opening phase of a One-Day innings. It was Srikkanth, though, who was the first to consistently deploy lofted strokes at the launch of an innings. What may seem routine now, however, wasn’t always so. It required a trend setter and Srikkanth was that man.

Between Srikkanth and the most recent lot from Madras – including Ravichandran Ashwin and Murali Vijay – there have been many fine cricketers from the city to represent the country. Yet, they have been unable to make a sustained impression at the international level. Laxman Sivaramakrishnan – a leg spinner of prodigious talents – played no more than nine Tests for India. Woorkeri Raman and Sadagopan Ramesh, two graceful left-handed openers lacked the temperament, if not the talent to cement their places in the team. Neither Hemang Badani nor Sridharan Sriram, both southpaws, was able to translate his domestic form into consistent run-making for India. L. Balaji, a swing bowler capable at one stage of producing deceptive pace, undone by injuries, has seen his career plunge. Likewise, wicketkeeper-batsman, Dinesh Karthik, unlucky in some people’s opinion to have had his calling coincide with M.S. Dhoni’s, has fallen by the wayside. Subramaniam Badrinath, a technically accomplished middle order batsman also seems to have missed the boat – although, perhaps not down to his own doing.

It is left then to Ashwin and Vijay and perhaps a promising young brigade, which includes Abhinav Mukund, a classical left-handed opening batsman, to carry forward Madras’s baton. Vijay, particularly at the Test level, when he has deputised for either Virender Sehwag or Gautam Gambhir has looked like he belongs. Ashwin, yet to play Test cricket has impressed on almost every occasion when he has played for India – including during the recently concluded, triumphant World Cup campaign, and it is only a matter of time before he earns a Test cap.

(A version of this article appeared in the Times of India dated April 23, 2011)

From Venkat to Ashwin - a glimpse at various generations of cricketers from Madras

For a generation that grew up on a staple-diet of televised cricket in the 1990s, Srinivasaraghavan Venkataraghavan represented the man in the white, coat and hat – a top-class umpire respected across the cricketing world. But Venkataraghavan – or Venkat as he is fondly known – has donned many a hat before the role for which he was most recently cherished and almost all of them with grand success.

Venkat was, to begin with, a cricketer of great renown. He wasn’t the first from Madras to play Test cricket for India – the honour belongs to M.J. Gopalan who played a game in 1934 – but he is easily the city’s most celebrated modern-day cricketer. An off-spinner of classical virtues, Venkat bowled with an elegant side-on action, relying on traditional weapons of flight, drift and turn for his wickets. Boasting unerring accuracy in addition to his considerable powers of spin, had Venkat not had the misfortune of sharing the stage with Erapalli Prasanna – one of the greatest off-spinners of all time – and the rest of the famed spin quartet – Bhagwat Chandrashekar and Bishan Bedi – he would have surely gone on to play more than the 57 Tests he played for India and amassed more than the 156 wickets he scalped.

But statistics, as is so often the case, fails to tell the whole tale. Venkat was an astute thinker of the game, an outstanding close-in fieldsman and a man of unimpeachable integrity. His international career spanned 18 years – evincing his supreme fitness – in which he captained India in five Tests and in both the 1975 and 1979 editions of the World Cup. Upon retirement, he enjoyed success in the various jobs that he partook in, including in roles as manager of the Indian team for its tours to Australia and the West Indies in 1985-86 and 1989 respectively and as national selector in 1991-92. As the only man to have both played and umpired in over fifty Tests, Venkat will remain the jewel in the crown of Madras cricket.

Venkat’s Test career coincided for a brief two year spell with that of Krishnamachari Srikkanth, but their roles and their personalities couldn’t have been more starkly different. Srikkanth was an opening batsman of thrilling yet flawed substance. His record scarcely did justice to his potential, but such things were only trivial in the exhilarating world that he lived in. He was an entertainer extraordinaire – impudent and cheeky the bowler’s reputation rarely mattered to him. Gifted with wonderful hand and eye coordination, his strokes weren’t always orthodox. Slashes over point and swishes over mid-on were executed with ease and insolence – all of which made for particularly invigorating viewing.

It was in the shorter format of the game that Srikkanth made his most telling contribution. The newer fans of cricket credit the Sri Lankan openers of the 1996 World Cup – Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana – or the Kiwi, Mark Greatbatch for his role during the 1992 World Cup as proponents of attacking batsmanship in the opening phase of a One-Day innings. It was Srikkanth, though, who was the first to consistently deploy lofted strokes at the launch of an innings. What may seem routine now, however, wasn’t always so. It required a trend setter and Srikkanth was that man.

Between Srikkanth and the most recent lot from Madras – including Ravichandran Ashwin and Murali Vijay – there have been many fine cricketers from the city to represent the country. Yet, they have been unable to make a sustained impression at the international level. Laxman Sivaramakrishnan – a leg spinner of prodigious talents – played no more than nine Tests for India. Woorkeri Raman and Sadagopan Ramesh, two graceful left-handed openers lacked the temperament, if not the talent to cement their places in the team. Neither Hemang Badani nor Sridharan Sriram, both southpaws, was able to translate his domestic form into consistent run-making for India. L. Balaji, a swing bowler capable at one stage of producing deceptive pace, undone by injuries, has seen his career plunge. Likewise, wicketkeeper-batsman, Dinesh Karthik, unlucky in some people’s opinion to have had his calling coincide with M.S. Dhoni’s, has fallen by the wayside. Subramaniam Badrinath, a technically accomplished middle order batsman also seems to have missed the boat – although, perhaps not down to his own doing.

It is left then to Ashwin and Vijay and perhaps a promising young brigade, which includes Abhinav Mukund, a classical left-handed opening batsman, to carry forward Madras’s baton. Vijay, particularly at the Test level, when he has deputised for either Virender Sehwag or Gautam Gambhir has looked like he belongs. Ashwin, yet to play Test cricket has impressed on almost every occasion when he has played for India – including during the recently concluded, triumphant World Cup campaign, and it is only a matter of time before he earns a Test cap.

(A version of this article appeared in the Times of India dated April 23, 2011)

Of Senna, Vettel and the Thrills of Racing

I have often wondered if the death of Ayrton Senna, by adding to his legend, has amplified his already iconic status, wrongly, into one of a magnificent hero. But a mere glimpse at the trailer of the upcoming film, ‘Senna’ – titled in a prosaic yet powerful manner – is enough to convince one of the boundaries of greatness that Senna transcended. It makes you yearn for a more innocent age when Formula One actually involved racing, when drivers battled it out, often wheel-to-wheel for primacy.

My initiation into the sport, sadly, did not coincide with Senna’s career. As a result, my opinions on him are tailored through a combination of reading about him – including Richard Williams’s book, The Death of Ayrton Senna – and viewing of old footage. By all accounts, he was a great champion, the champagne of Formula One – a chillingly aggressive driver who at his best was a sight for the gods. But his fearsome will to win seemed to border on the outrageous, very often going beyond the realms of what was perceived to be ‘fair racing’. Senna, though, saw it in more simplistic terms. If there was a gap to attack, as tiny as it may have been, he believed he had the right to seize it. In his own words: “If you no longer go for a gap that exists, you are no longer a racing driver.”

They don’t make them like Senna anymore and Formula One isn’t anywhere near what it once was. The mechanical workings of a car play an overwhelmingly crucial role in determining race results and concomitantly the end of season honours. But, I think, in Sebastian Vettel the sport may have found the driver nearest to Senna in his capacity to coalesce thrilling, racing skills with a temperament to win championships. His sheer virtuosity and his incredible talent for driving a racing car to its maximum potential, even while giving an impression that not an ounce of energy has been expended, makes Vettel an utterly exhilarating driver to watch. It seems he can never look laboured, stodgy or workmanlike. Driving to him is a form of art – something to be expressed with joy and splendour.

No doubt, winning in Formula One requires elements beyond racing skills, not least the pace of the car, its overall reliability, and team tactics that include myriad technical details, the applications of which are no doubt fascinating. But it is the act of pure driving where the racers will against each other that makes the sport a compelling spectacle.

In the three races so far this season, Vettel has won two – at Australia and Malaysia – and finished second behind Lewis Hamilton in the recently concluded Chinese Grand Prix. At Albert Park in Melbourne, Vettel finished a whole twenty-two seconds ahead of second placed Hamilton. Quite astonishing, when one considers that this was achieved with minimum use of the drag reduction system (DRS) – introduced newly this season – and without the use of KERS, which has been reintroduced this year. But the moment that was most reminiscent of Senna came during qualifying at Sepang. All weekend, through practice and most of qualifying, the McLarens of Hamilton and Jenson Button were quicker, making a Red Bull pole position quite improbable. But at the end of the third qualifying session, against the run of events, Vettel produced a flying lap of astounding pace, one that was sprinkled with greatness, one that overcame Hamilton’s time by less than a tenth of a second to cement his position at the apex of the grid.

Hamilton has sought to project himself as the next Senna, but the very fact that he has done so, showcases him in poor light. Vettel on the other hand is not one for such talk – he leaves it to us to make the comparisons. Indeed there is a long way to go before he matches Senna, not merely statistically but in terms of his overall realizations – accomplishments which he may never manage. But by constantly producing moments of ingenious craft and vision, he has been like a breath of fresh air in a sport increasingly devoid of excitement in recent seasons. He is the closest we’ve seen to Senna yet and this is notwithstanding Michael Schumacher.

Schumacher, statistically the most successful driver, and in the eyes of some, the greatest of them all is a driver of different ilk. No doubt he is as fiercely competitive as Senna was and has – although some would say had – a commitment to excellence beyond the ordinary, but his accomplishments were more a result of consistency than a preference for the breathtaking. This, however, is no criticism of Schumacher. If anything it is an affirmation of his greatness. Senna’s genius, though, was more flawed, making him a more likeable Champion. His ability to produce moments of brilliance in the most unforeseen of circumstances, perhaps, made for a more exhilarating exhibition – the class of which we haven’t seen since, although Vettel has showed a similar proclivity for the spectacular.

(Also posted at: http://www.criticaltwenties.in/sport/of-senna-vettel-and-the-thrills-of-racing)

Of Ryan Giggs

Recently, this blog turned three years old. Yet it doesn't contain a single post on Ryan Giggs – an oddity when you consider that I am a fan of Manchester United. I wish, though, to clarify that this is down, solely, to my failure to find the words that describe Giggs best.

On Tuesday night, with my eyes red and sore from lack of sleep I watched Manchester United defeat Chelsea and book itself a place in the semi-finals of the Champions League. Both goals on the night, as was the case with the solitary goal in the first leg of the tie, were created by Giggs – a player who at thirty-seven years of age continues to make the biggest of impacts at the highest of stages. His performance left me ecstatic and yet a little dazed. How do you describe a player who has been a paragon over a career that has spanned more than twenty-years?

To this day, I struggle to find the right words to describe Giggs’s brilliance – he is perhaps a freak of nature or just a peerless genius who with striking regularity chooses to impose his will like no other. Every time, though, when I endeavour to put words on paper to express the sheer class that has permeated through his career, I find that my vocabulary – limited to mundane adjectives like ‘brilliant’; ‘superb’; ‘outstanding’; ‘great’, etc., all of which he is, and more – is utterly inadequate to define the full extent of his qualities. What I can say, however, is watching Giggs play, at least as a Manchester United fan (I cannot speak for the others), is as joyous a sight as there is. Enough said.

An Incredible Journey - of the Indian team's remarkable metamorphosis

As much as a Tendulkar century – what would have been his hundredth in international cricket – in a victorious final would have provided the World Cup with a fairytale ending that the gods would have savoured, I’m pleased, in some ways, that the win was achieved by a thorough team effort. The most remarkable aspect of India’s World Cup victory is that in its seven wins in the competition, only three games contained noteworthy individual milestones – Virender Sehwag’s and Virat Kohli’s hundreds against Bangladesh, Yuvraj Singh’s century against the West Indies and his five-for against the Netherlands. As World Cups go in terms of personal landmarks of statistical virtues, this was by no means India’s best. But its metamorphosis into a team that can play like a ‘Team’ has meant that a lack of such highlights has scarcely affected its overall performance.

Ricky Ponting and Mahela Jayawardene conjured centuries of differing style if equally fine merit in the quarter-final and final respectively, but India emerged as the winner on both these occasions without any of its batsmen reaching the three figure mark or any of its bowlers scalping a substantial portion of the wickets. Likewise against Pakistan in the semi-final, it was an amalgam of exceptional fielding from almost every member of the team and a collectively excellent performance from all the bowlers that won India the tie. This is in stark contrast to the World Cups between 1983 and now, in which the team has relied, almost solely, on individual performances for success.

In 1987 as defending champions, playing at home, India was a much-fancied team, but in the semi-final against England, the bowlers wilted, allowing Graham Gooch to sweep his way to a marvellous 115 and in reply, barring a fine, stylish hand from Mohammad Azharuddin the team yielded without a whimper. In 1992, India failed to make the semi-finals, with its victory against Pakistan – a team to which it has never lost in World Cups – the only bright spark. In the next edition, held in the sub-continent, India was amongst the favourites, even though the side was virtually a one-man army, which was perhaps the cause of its undoing. Sachin Tendulkar had a magnificent tournament, but when he fell for 65 against Sri Lanka in the semi-final, the team capitulated under the pressure of the chase, albeit on a deteriorating Eden Gardens wicket.

1999 again contained many moments of individual brilliance – most notably Rahul Dravid’s and Sourav Ganguly’s partnership against the Lankans at Taunton and Tendulkar’s hundred against Kenya, a day after he had returned from India to complete his father’s funeral, but the team lacking in verve and imagination, succumbed in the decisive fixtures. It defeated only Pakistan in the Super-Six, failing to qualify for the semi-finals.

In 2003, no doubt, India had an excellent tournament. But in the final it surrendered to a combination of a masterful showing from Australia and its own lack of command over the situation – blatant over-excitement amongst the players, exemplified by that infamous first over from Zaheer Khan. Inside the opening exchanges of the game, India had the wind knocked out of its sails.

Four years down in 2007, the World Cup was altogether forgettable, memorable neither for notable individual showings nor for the team’s performance – an embarrassing exit ensuing at the Group stage.

The recently concluded World Cup, though, as I mentioned earlier, may not have contained many moments of statistical individual brilliance, but in displaying wonderful skills collectively, the team has, as a group, captured our imagination. In the tournaments between 1983 and 2011, what we remember are those solo displays – whether it be Tendulkar’s 97 against Pakistan in 2003, Ganguly’s and Dravid’s partnership at Taunton in 1999, Ashish Nehra’s 6 for 23 against England in 2003, possibly even Sunil Gavaskar’s only ODI century, a 103 that came, wonder of wonders off a mere 88 balls against New Zealand in 1987, to name a few. But in the years to come, when we look back upon the triumphant 2011 campaign, it is perhaps the team as a collective which we will remember – an incredible achievement indeed.

[Also posted at: http://www.criticaltwenties.in/worldcup/an-incredible-journey]

A few thoughts on Inter Milan versus Schalke

If you haven’t yet seen a video of Dejan Stankovic’s goal against Schalke, you must. Both the technique and the execution of the volley from the half-way line were quite sublime. This is of course not the first time that Stankovic has scored from such a distance, having done so against Genoa in October, 2009. In both instances, it was a piece of instantaneous thinking coupled with extraordinary execution. There are few moments from this season that match his goal against Schalke yesterday for sheer exhilaration – I’ve already seen the video a hundred times and I still can’t stop watching it.

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Stankovic’s goal which came in the first minute of play at the San Siro was followed by a line of goals that ultimately saw Schalke run out, miraculously, as 5-2 winners. Amongst these goals, one was scored by the Champions League’s all-time top scorer, Raul Gonzalez – this was his seventieth in the competition. The only player likely to overtake him in the list is Lionel Messi, who stands at 33 goals from 52 games, unless Super Pippo – Filippo Inzaghi – decides to carry on playing into his fifties. Anyway, the goal itself was typical Raul – taking Jefferson Farfan’s ball in his stride on the half-turn before slotting it past the goalkeeper with remarkable nonchalance even when under acute pressure from a defender.

In his last few seasons at Real Madrid, Raul had found goals hard to come by and his influence at the club that regards him as a talisman was on the wane. The move to Schalke was an odd choice – away from the limelight of Madrid to a club in Germany that won its last league title in 1958 – but in scoring 17 goals this season, Raul has showed that he continues to retain an appetite for the game and more importantly the class to perform at the highest level. But with Schalke languishing in the middle of the Bundesliga, unless he moves elsewhere, an unlikely event, this may well be the last season that the great man plays in the competition in which he has repeatedly stamped his signature.

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Also apparent in Schalke’s play yesterday, not merely due to the scoreline, was the imprint of Ralf Rangnick’s methods within weeks of his managerial takeover. Rangnick, famous for his time at Hoffenheim, in which he took the village club from the lower echelons of the German leagues to the Bundesliga, all the while adhering to a dynamic, attacking philosophy, is a coach of eccentric virtues. A key part of his coaching methods is a drill called ‘bananas’ in which he schools his team to get the ball forward as swiftly as possible – a method akin to Graham Taylor’s sans, though, an adherence to the long ball and aesthetically far more pleasing, which makes the play as a spectacle remarkably thrilling. Against Inter Milan, Schalke dazzled with their attacking play – lightning quick counter attacks, laying bare the severe frailties in Inter’s defence. If Schalke do qualify, which barring a wonder of wonders they will, expect the winner of the tie between Chelsea and Manchester United to face a similar, quite astounding threat to their core.

M.S. Dhoni - An Appreciation

It isn’t every day that we get to see greatness unfold before our eyes. At the Wankhede Stadium yesterday, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, confronted it, toyed with it and irrepressibly grabbed it to enter the temple of heavens and with it took a place in the pantheon of World Cup winning captains.

The hallmark of a great sportsman lies in his sense of timing – his ability to churn out his best when it’s most needed. Up until the Final, Dhoni’s scores meandered around the mediocre, his captaincy was adequate if not inspiring – with his choices concerning the selection (or non selection) of R. Ashwin, particularly coming under intense criticism. But stand by his decisions he did, and come the final, he seized greatness with nerveless serenity.

When Virat Kohli fell to a quite magnificent return catch by Tilakaratne Dilshan, Yuvraj Singh – later to be declared the man of the tournament – was expected to walk in. But, Dhoni, not a single feeble thought in his mind, strode in to the middle and clutched the initiative in an inspired and brilliant partnership with Gautam Gambhir. Gambhir, who had till that point, in company with Kohli, nudged and nurdled away at the Sri Lankan total, was reinvigorated by Dhoni’s presence. Together the pair found gaps in the field against the spinners with remarkable precision and ran between the wickets like a dream.

Muttiah Muralitharan – Sri Lanka’s champion spinner playing his last international game – and Lasith Malinga – who had accounted for both the Indian openers – were treated with adequate respect if not complete reverence. When Murali erred, though, Dhoni punished. In fact, the off-spinner was hit for three boundaries by Dhoni, each of them crashed through the offside with extraordinary accuracy.

When Gambhir, fell three runs short of what would have been a hugely memorable century, Dhoni was joined by Yuvraj with 52 runs required off as many balls. But the pair went about the rest of the chase with commanding assurance. In the first ball of the 43^rd over, Dhoni slashed Thisara Perera over point for a brutal six – the noise of which continues to reverberate in my ear. In the 48^th over, with 16 runs still required, he dealt to Malinga, perhaps, the cruellest blow he has received all tournament – a brace of astonishingly powerful whips to the long leg boundary.

And then in second ball of the next over came The Moment – the winning runs – a moment of untainted ecstasy. The victory settled by another violent blow from Dhoni’s blade off Nuwan Kulasekara – the bat coming through in its unusual yet hugely effective arc and striking the delivery with astounding fury. Even as the ball was deposited into the stands, and with Yuvraj Singh rushing to embrace him, Dhoni stood there eyes glazed, just for a jiffy, until the enormity of it all began to sink in. Yet there weren’t any histrionics from him – as if the moment was always inevitable. He clinched greatness over the course of his beautifully paced innings, but the cherry on top of it – that glorious swoosh for the win – will remain captured in a perpetual mesh of delight.

[Also posted at: http://www.criticaltwenties.in/worldcup/m-s-dhoni-an-appreciation]