A Couchside View

Defeat and its consequences: India's tour of Australia 2011-12

2012-01-16T19:56:00.003+05:30

Four years ago, the WACA Ground in Perth was the scene of one of India’s finest test match victories. The loss in the third test of the ongoing series against Australia, though, marks one of the team’s darkest moments – the curtains have been closed on a glorious generation. The extent to which the selectors will cull out the “seniors” is shrouded in uncertainty, but what is certain is that the golden generation – which took India to an artificial, if imposing peak – will never be the same.

There were fleeting displays of brilliance in the first two tests from Sachin Tendulkar – who is still in search of the vaunted 100^th international ton – but he has consistently fallen short of imposing his will. Rahul Dravid, magnificent in England when no one around him rose above mediocrity, has looked grotesque every time he’s batted in the series. That he’s been bowled, often through the gate, in each of the tests doesn’t help either. But with Dravid it has never been only about technical perfection – some of his greatest innings have, in fact, lacked textbook purity. It has been his ability to come on top through a mighty struggle against all adversities, whether it is playing on the wickedest of wickets or against the fiercest of opposition that has been his most outstanding quality. In Australia, not only has his batting looked ugly, but he’s also seemed incapable of rising above some of these adversities. V.V.S. Laxman, one of cricket’s most artful match-winners, has scarcely made runs away from home in the last two years, and his celebrated hand-eye coordination is certainly not what it once was. Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir have likewise been less than ordinary lately – yes, India have struggled for many years to find a consistently good opening partnership, but the pair has been anything but consistently good in recent times. Away from home in the last three years, Sehwag averages a meager 32.55, while since the beginning of 2010, Gambhir has recorded only a single century, averaging just 32.05. Numbers can of course be misleading, but these are certainly not figures that help teams win test matches.

The time for mere introspection has passed. The time to enforce a seamless transition has also passed. Where youngsters could have once been eased into the eleven, they now need to be thrust into it. Laxman’s place in the pantheon of greats may be assured, but it has been reported that he may not even make the team for the fourth test at Adelaide. It shouldn’t have come to this; he has performed a terrific service to Indian cricket, and in the ideal circumstances he would deserve a proper farewell. But there is no place for sentiment in sport, certainly not when you are down 0-3 in a four match series. It continues to baffle the mind that Rohit Sharma is yet to make his test match debut – had the transition been more structured, he’d have been playing a pivotal role in this series. But regardless, he must be given his chance in the fourth test in place of Laxman, whether or not Laxman chooses to retire. Ajinkya Rahane, Sharma’s teammate at Mumbai, who has made oodles of runs in domestic cricket, must also be accorded a place in the team. This, though, would entail a tougher decision of dropping one of Sehwag, Gambhir or Dravid – something, which I doubt, the authorities would be prepared to take responsibility for.

The root of India’s problems, though, goes far deeper than issues of selection, and is entrenched in the shortsighted, supercilious attitude of the B.C.C.I., exemplified by its president, N. Srinivasan’s remarks after the defeat at Perth: “Next New Zealand is coming to India and it will be followed by England and Australia. We will beat these three teams on our own soil. They cannot beat us here and we will feel very happy.” That the president of India’s cricket board is willing to virtually forego its games away from home shows the incredibly myopic vision of the game’s governing authority in India.

This is a real pity for India is not lacking in talent, certainly not as far as the batting – which has been in shambles in Australia – is concerned. Ajinkya Rahane, Rohit Sharma, Abhinav Mukund, Subramaniam Badrinath and Cheteshwar Pujara have all performed with aplomb in domestic cricket, and certainly deserve a sustained chance at the highest level. Dravid’s performance in 2011 – in which he scored five test match centuries – notwithstanding his display in Australia, perhaps, indicates that he still has runs left in him. But if he is to be retained, he must be pulled down the order, and Virat Kohli – who showed that he has the temperament for test cricket with his displays at the WACA – must be allowed a continued run at one-down. India also needs to think of Rahane and Mukund as viable successors to Sehwag and Gambhir, who cannot be carried on for too much longer solely on the basis of their reputations. Sachin Tendulkar in whatever time he has spent batting in Australia still easily looks India’s best batsman, but nobody should be considered bigger than the team, not even Tendulkar. I am not suggesting that India should, at once, axe Tendulkar and Dravid, but if you’re going to suffer such mammoth defeats as India has in Australia, you might as well do so with youngsters in your team.

Just as worrying as the batting displays has been M.S. Dhoni’s captaincy. Dhoni has always had a laid-back, casual approach to the job – when it works he looks cool and brilliant, and when it doesn’t he looks unconcerned and uninspiring. But the demeanor apart, neither has he looked like a good leader of men nor has his tactics been up to scratch. That he’s batted like a hapless tailender hasn’t helped either. Virender Sehwag who is the vice captain for the current tour has never showed any interest in the job, and in any event his form with the bat scarcely helps further his case. Gambhir is, perhaps, the only other contender, but his batting form has been worrying too, and his long-term future in the side is by no means settled. This then leaves us with Virat Kohli – who for all his indiscipline – has, since his Under-21 days, been considered as a future captain. In recent times, transition to test match captaincy has generally occurred via the ODI path. There has indeed been nothing to complain about Dhoni’s performance as captain in the shorter format, but assuming India wants to prioritize test cricket – which it admittedly doesn’t, but nontheless – it may not be the worst of ideas to consider Kohli, at first, for the ODI vice-captaincy with a view to him taking on the job in the not-so-distant future.

In a series in which the batsmen have given the bowlers so little to play with, it may be unfair to heap much blame on them, but Ishant Sharma’s form, in particular, has been worrying. The verve and the talent that the displayed the last time he was in Australia has been completely non-existent. It is difficult to point a finger at the exact reasons for Ishant’s decline, but none of the consistency in line and length that he once displayed has been evident. Umesh Yadav, while terrific in phases, does not have the reliability of a James Pattinson, who is three years junior to him. That said, Umesh’s raw pace and aggression means that his bowling can certainly be worked upon. What India doesn’t want to see, though, is a regression on lines akin to what Ishant has gone through. Zaheer Khan still retains a lot of his magic, particularly when bowling with the old ball, but it’s doubtful he has too many years left in him. Sreesanth and R.P. Singh who have played important roles for India in away victories have fallen by the wayside, but it is encouraging to see that Irfan Pathan is beginning to make a comeback into the side. Managing the fast bowling group is far harder with the depth in India’s coffins not as rich as its batting talent. But the BCCI’s decision to pick a fast-bowling pool and identify bowlers who would form the bench strength has been one of the more encouraging ones in recent times.

For the average Indian fan, the displays in England and Australia have been far more disappointing than the consistent mediocrity of the early nineties, where the expectations on the team, at any rate, were lower. As daft as it sounds, India went into both these tours as genuine contenders, but perhaps, the team has needed these poundings to grasp the malaise that has slowly been building up. But all things considered, if these defeats do result in relatively wholesale changes, as they should, India are certainly in for an exciting, even if, potentially, painful phase. Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma are two of the finest young batting talents in the world and I am looking forward – as I am sure many others are – to see their fruition as test match batsmen. The darkest hour is just before the dawn.

[First posted at: http://www.criticaltwenties.in/sport/4332]

Roger Federer: A Delayed Appreciation

2011-11-18T19:34:00.001+05:30

I have often found that I appreciate the genius of a great sportsman best in his declining years. This is partly because I have almost always spent the heydays of the great sportsman rooting for someone, if not inconsequential, certainly incapable of elevating himself to true greatness. When Pete Sampras was in his prime, winning Wimbledon for fun, I was supporting Michael Chang (oh, the grossness of some of my choices) and Goran Ivanisevic, hoping that his rowdiness will be rewarded with a title. During the historic Chicago Bulls era of the 1990s, I backed the Utah Jazz and Jeff Hornacek, whom I loved to bits – why exactly, I haven’t a clue. In the Roger Federer–Rafael Nadal era, which even if it can be argued didn’t strictly overlap, I first hoped, the peerlessly cool Marat Safin would regain his on-court magic, and since his retirement that Richard Gasquet would show an iota of mental strength to go with his truly gorgeous game. During the Shaq-Bryant inspired Lakers victories, I backed the Sacramento Kings because I simply couldn’t get enough of Peja Stojakovic’s three-point shooting (particularly when he faded away and shot from behind the backboard). When Michael Schumacher was zipping away to win all those titles, I was first supporting Mika Hakkinen and then, Kimi Raikkonen – the Finns, you would agree, have this iciness, which is so utterly captivating. This often meant, I would find mostly inexplicable reasons to disregard greatness: “oh he’s just a lucky so and so,” I would think. I couldn’t even get myself to support Sachin Tendulkar in the mid 1990s when he was at his imperious best. I may have given anything for Tendulkar to fail and for Mohammad Azharuddin to score runs.

There have of course been exceptions – Steffi Graf, Curtly Ambrose, Wasim Akram and Justine Henin to name a few off the top of my head – but in general, particularly, during the 1990s and early 2000s when fandom was still the most vital aspect of my appreciation of sport, I usually made bizarre choices. Generally, though, when a great sportsman was in decline – whether it was a temporary blip or terminal – I found myself suddenly gravitating towards him. I wanted to see more. I found myself mysteriously rooting for him. I felt like an idiot when Sampras retired for not having supported him when he was at his zenith. How could I not support Michael Jordan when he was being His Airness? How could I have not seen greatness when it was presenting itself with such crystal clarity? When Tendulkar was going though a terrible phase in late 2003, I suddenly found myself backing him, wanting to see him rediscover his mojo, to see him return to his imperious self. All this idiotic fandom may have skewed much of my sports watching, but I believe it has nonetheless given me the perfect perspective to judge some of these sportsmen, a kind of perspective that only unpleasant ruminations can give you.

This sets me up very nicely then to tell you why I want to see resurgence from Federer, a Federer whom I have often disliked and a Federer that I have never supported, not in a single match that I can remember. Maybe I backed him in his fourth round victory against Sampras at Wimbledon in 2001, which brought to an end Pistol Pete’s superb run, but Sampras had had a pathetic year and it’s probable I wanted to see him win. When Novak Djokovic came back from two sets to love down and saved two match points before ending Federer’s run in this year’s U.S. Open in the most cruel of manners, I couldn’t have been more satisfied. Bottom line: I’ve almost never supported Federer, never seen the elegance, in every aspect of his game, that others purr about, although I may have lied about it in past posts to sound sensible. But watching him win the Paris Masters today, for the first time in his career, gave me a sense of satisfaction, a feeling that there may be gas left in him for a final surge.

The same aesthetics that draws people to Federer has, bizarrely, been at the forefront of my dislike for him. No doubt, he has almost always made things look simple. But simplicity doesn’t transcend elegance, and the two certainly don’t always coincide. Federer’s forehand, everyone will agree, is his chief strength – a stroke of amazing virtuosity. But is it really an elegant stroke? I would argue it’s not. Usually, it’s a whiplash, snappy movement and his bodyweight is transferred awkwardly. There is no technical purity to it. Of course, technique is a funny and often overrated concept; it’s the player’s comfort and the ensuing results that matter. And technique is also probably irrelevant to a discussion on aesthetics.[1] But whether it is because of the lack of absolute technical purity or the whiplash motion, I haven’t ever found Federer’s forehand to be beautiful, certainly not in the manner of Henin’s backhand or Edberg’s volleying. The fluidity that people attribute to Federer’s forehand is a myth. In reality it is a jerky stroke, albeit a brilliant and even astounding stroke, which perhaps accentuates his genius, but my irritation with people describing the shot as beautiful, possibly, invoked the anti-Federer in me; even more so than his arrogance and generally pitiful attitude.

Now to his backhand, an often flaky and floundering weapon that even the most ardent Federer fans will agree is his weakness. In his prime, Federer’s foot speed allowed him to step outside the ball and convert his backhands into forehands (the beauty here, it must be noted, was in his movement and not in his forehand). Over the years, his backhand, though, did improve immensely, so much so that it is perhaps at its acme today, even as his game is otherwise waning. And it is his approach to the backhand, again curiously, that I have found most endearing. Repeatedly you would see him shank his backhand, yet he would persist with it, not slicing it as he would have in his early years, and eventually he would produce a remarkable angle, a remarkable winner, entirely out of the blue. The beauty again, though, wasn’t so much in the stroke as it was in the result and in his sheer bloody-mindedness.

Federer’s serve has always been excellent and a hugely underrated aspect of his game. The motion is neat and crisp, and minimalistic, but elegant? On the volley particularly on the drive forehand volley, Federer it must be said, looks supremely splendid – there is a nonpareil regality to it. But endeavoring to deconstruct every aspect of his game to examine the aesthetic appeal of the respective parts, as I have done briefly here, is an ultimately tedious and futile experience that has somewhat soiled my tennis watching experience. Yes, the simplicity of Federer’s strokes, to me as the beholder, hasn’t translated to beauty, but in watching him play in Paris, I realized that I have been a stuck-up asshole.

For in my general irritation with every aspect of his game being described as beautiful, I allowed myself to look beyond what I have always found extraordinarily beautiful, a kind of beauty that I should have been delighting in – his on court movement. I have played tennis, mostly recreationally since I was six, giving it up intermittently every now and then since I was, maybe, fifteen. Each time I try to get back and play, the aspect I find hardest to recover is my movement – it is unquestionably the hardest trait to master. Shot making is essentially an extension of court coverage and therein lies Federer’s genius. If his greatness were to be deconstructed to a single element, it would have to be his movement on the court, which as it happens is also a thing of inimitable beauty.

Now that Federer’s aura has dissipated, I want to see him regain it. I want to watch his game only for his movement, not for the whippy forehand or the erratic backhand, as loveable as it may be, but just to see him cover the court like a prince. For, there never has been a greater representation of transcendence.

[First posted here: http://www.criticaltwenties.in/sport/roger-federer-a-delayed-appreciation]

[1] Laxman’s leg glance, for instance, may not be technically pure, but it’s certainly beautiful.

Haig Schneiderman – Columbia’s tennis captain

2011-11-11T08:57:00.001+05:30

Even at college level, tennis is an ethereally beautiful sport. The levels of strategy employed within the small rectangle are almost infinite. The game is played as much in the players’ heads as it is on the court. Watching Haig Schneiderman, 21, and captain of Columbia University’s tennis team, play is as fascinating as it is watching one of the top players in the world. For each shot that Schneiderman makes, whether it is in practice or in game play, there is a meaning to it.

Schneiderman is hitting with teammate Nathaniel Gery on the first of the six indoor, hard courts at the Dick Savitt Tennis Center – Columbia’s home courts located on the ridiculously picturesque upper western tip of Manhattan by Inwood Hill Park. They begin with a few light hits, standing at the edge of their service lines. And then slowly they up the ante, smacking groundstrokes from the baseline with astonishing power – the kind that you wouldn’t expect to see in college tennis. The margins that distinguish the best from the rest are very thin – it can go unnoticed by a casual observer. Schneiderman wants to compete with the best; he wants to shatter those margins that separate him from the professionals. When he graduates as an economics major next May, he harbors hopes of turning pro. The challenge, however, is not merely mighty, but at many levels unnerving too.

“The realities of the men’s professional-tennis tour bear about as much resemblance to the lush finals you see on TV as a slaughterhouse does to a well-presented cut of restaurant sirloin,” wrote David Foster Wallace in a seminal essay in Esquire. The realities of college tennis are bleaker still. Even in the effort to make the grade, though, is ingrained an element of heroism, an element of perseverance.

Wearing a white t-shirt and white shorts, Schneiderman, who is right-handed, looks a tennis player. He is six feet two inches tall and one hundred and seventy pounds heavy. He has sharp features and a sinewy body. He sports a scruffy stubble; his jaw is sharp and his eyebrows meet gently above his long, pointed nose. His calf muscles are well defined – a product of hours and hours of tennis – and his forearms are muscular, if not immense. His game itself has a simple elegance to it. His light brown eyes are always focused intently on the ball – there is a detached concentration to his play – the kind that one usually sees from chess players. The ball toss on the serve is not the highest, but the motion is neat. He can hit his serve both down the line and slice it away from his opponent with equal ease and great disguise. His forehand is possibly his strong suit – he seems to think so, at any rate – but his double-handed backhand has a beauty to it – he hits through it crisply and regally with both pace and topspin.

“My backhand used to be a weakness,” Schneiderman says, while sitting on a bench in the grassy, sloped verandah outside the center that overlooks the Harlem River, after practice. “I’ve had to work very hard at it. Now I can use it offensively.” Schneiderman can be remarkably lucid when talking about his game. He says he has to think constantly about the dynamics of power and accuracy: “With some opponents, I can sense that they aren’t reading my serve. Then, I can afford to take some pace off and concentrate on placement.”

“Having a big serve helps at this level. If I want to go pro, I need to win easy points – need to win in three or four shots.” He practices long and hard on his first serves and his “first forehand,” as he puts it. “My first forehand is my most important shot. I try to dictate play with it.” Every day, Schneiderman spends about three hours on the courts with Columbia’s coaches, Bid Goswami and Howard Endelman. Endelman, who was appointed the Associate Head Coach in 2010, once competed in the ATP Tour. He said, of Schneiderman, “He’s certainly got a game that is suited for pro tennis and I think he can make it. He has a great serve and a terrific forehand and these are assets that will serve him very well. But the start that he makes is crucial.”

Schneiderman’s focus, for now, at least, in on the Ivy League championships in the spring. In his first two years at Columbia, Schneiderman played a pivotal role in leading Columbia to victory. In 2009, he was named the Ivy League Men’s Tennis Rookie of the Year, while in his sophomore year he enjoyed a 17-3 record, including a win in the crucial decider against Princeton, which clinched the championship. “It was my greatest moment,” Schneiderman, suddenly bursting with enthusiasm, says, “it was one set each and the entire thing was on the line. I was able to control the decider.” A troublesome back, however, laid him low for large parts of last year. “I wasn’t able to even get up or take my socks out after that match against Princeton. It plagued practice for many months. I saw numerous doctors and they suggested surgery, but Tommy Sheehan, the Director of Strength and Conditioning at Columbia, introduced me to some specialists who were able to solve the problem. They were able to understand the biomechanics of it better. It was killing me.”

The body feels good again now, Schneiderman says, and he is raring to help Columbia regain the Ivy League Championships. “Obviously I want to go pro after this, but for now I am just concentrating on the team. As long as I keep working on my game, it takes care of what I need to do afterwards.” He is, however, aware of the difficulties in pursuing tennis as a career. “It’s expensive. And it can leave you a bit empty. I had offers from big tennis schools, but I chose Columbia because it gives me a more rounded education.”

Schneiderman interned in the mergers and acquisitions wing of Ernst and Young in the summer. He found it enjoyable [“it didn’t have the pressure of an investment banking job,”] but it’s not something that he sees himself doing for a career. He plans to use the money he saved from the internship and whatever he can get from his parents to fund his initial foray into professional tennis. “I’ll have to start by playing the qualifiers of the ITF’s [International Tennis Federation] Futures Events. I want to play in Latin America or Europe where the level of competition will be right and where I can get to experience a new culture.”

Schneiderman is half Armenian. His father, also named Haig, was born to Armenian parents in New York. Sargis Sargsian, an Armenian who was once ranked in the top forty of the world, is a huge inspiration to Schneiderman. “I definitely feel that connection. I practiced with Sargsian twice in Vegas and he is a big influence,” Schneiderman says in his genially sincere tone.

Born in the ‘lower west side’ of New York, Schneiderman still lives there with his parents. He began playing tennis at Forest Hills in Queens where the U.S. Open once used to be played. His coach there, Chris Pucci remains a big influence. “He’s my mentor. I still practice under him in the summer in New Jersey where he now coaches.” He is also quick to credit his parents for their support. “My father introduced me to the sport and my mom has had to make so many sacrifices. She drove me around to all the tournaments, from my high school, Horace Mann, to New Jersey for practice and so on. I wouldn’t have been able to do this without her.”

Schneiderman is levelheaded enough to realize that tennis may not work out for him professionally. “It can get to a point where it’s just not worth it. I’m not looking for sponsors right now. It will depend on how well I do in my first few tournaments. It’s not a fun lifestyle. It can be quite a grind.”

Regardless of how he does in the professional circuit, though, Schneiderman wants to be involved with tennis. “Deep down, I want to do something with tennis. Maybe I’ll start a program for kids who don’t have access to the sport. I am not sure exactly what I’ll do, but I want to spread the sport and give kids who can’t afford the sport a chance to play it.”

Schneiderman sees tennis as a metaphor for life. “One of the great things about tennis is the number of people I’ve met. I’ve learnt so many life lessons from it. If nothing else, my experience will help me through the rest of my life.”

[Note: This profile is partly inspired by the late David Foster Wallace’s magnificent essay in Esquire titled “The String Theory.” There, Wallace focuses on Michael T. Joyce’s forays in the qualifying rounds of the Canadian Open. And in Wallace style, I chose to put this into a footnote:http://www.esquire.com/features/sports/the-string-theory-0796]

[First posted at: http://www.criticaltwenties.in/sport/haig-schneiderman-columbias-tennis-captain]

Learning Baseball

2011-11-11T08:56:00.000+05:30

I am a baseball novice. In India, the game is almost looked down upon, as though it is an unintelligent modification of cricket. In truth, the aversion is essentially a product of a lack of knowledge of the rules and history of baseball, as opposed to anything more nuanced. Even a basic understanding of baseball’s rules, though, is sufficient to appreciate that, although it’s a simple sport, it’s capable of producing not only riveting entertainment, but also debate at various theoretical and tactical levels.

I must admit that I have not served as any exception, until recently, to this general Indian aversion to baseball. The only times I saw the game were on highlights reels on ESPN’s Sportscenter. The home runs made for good viewing, but I wondered what the big deal was. Now I know or at least I think I do.

I moved to New York City, late July, to study journalism. One of my first tasks was to choose a neighborhood to cover for my class website from a plethora of uptown areas. In spite of my nonchalance – and at some levels, maybe even a dislike – towards baseball, I veered towards Highbridge, a small portion in The Bronx – the poorest of the city’s five boroughs – located on a sloping bend around Yankee Stadium, the historic home of the New York Yankees. Highbridge is, apparently, the most deprived congressional district in the whole of the United States and yet it is home to the world’s most valuable sports franchise. There is an anomaly to this that is disturbing at so many levels, making it a very good neighborhood for a journalist to cover. I would be lying, however, if I said that this incongruity was the reasoning behind my choice, for it was a decision, almost solely, based on the location of Yankee Stadium – if nothing else, I thought, I’d get to hang around one of the world’s most iconic stadia for a few months.

But why? I am no baseball fan. The Yankees don’t mean anything to me. Until very recently, I couldn’t give a diddlysquat about them. Yet, there is this unparalleled vibe that you get as a sports fan, from just being around a great arena – this feeling is by no means to be underestimated. It makes you feel part of a community, a community where sport is the one unifying factor. I’d taken only a glimpse of Yankee Stadium from a tinted window of a bus and that was enough to make my decision.

In the weeks that have followed, I’ve made many visits to the area, several times on game-days when hordes of supporters wearing Jeter and Sabathia jerseys congregate on the 161^st street subway stop. It is an occasion to behold – just sitting outside the station, watching fans fervently march toward the stadium gates. Each, expectant, excited and hopeful. There is a buzz to the place. The street vendors come alive, the local bars surrounding the stadium steam with people – it is almost like a ritual carnival experience.

When you see the sheer number of fanatics, it makes you think: “there has to surely be something about this sport?” And indeed, I can proclaim with an equal dose of embarrassment and revelation, there is. At many levels, this process – a continuing one – of watching and understanding a new sport has been weird. Over the years, I’ve grown to enjoy a variety of sports, but I can’t remember the last time I sought to pick up a new game, virtually from scratch. It is usually a process that has no clear, decisive beginning. At any rate, it has been many years since I endeavored to watch and understand an altogether new sport. As a child or as a teenager, it is easier to see a sport for what it is – in other words subtle nuances don’t often come into the process. Implicitly, maybe, an understanding of other sports impacts the process of learning a new one. But at 25, the experience is vastly different. Almost 20 years of watching a number of sports contributes directly to the process of learning about a new one.

I am not suggesting that I’ve compared each play in baseball that I’ve seen to other sports, but in grasping the several gradations of the game, my understanding of other sports has played a critical role. To better explain myself, in game 3 of the ongoing New York Yankees versus Detroit Tigers post-season American League Division Series, CC Sabathia, the lead Yankees pitcher, intentionally walked Miguel Cabrera in the bottom fifth inning. In other words, he allowed Cabrera to walk to first base by pitching the ball several feet away from home plate giving the Tigers a man on the first two bases with two out. This was a tactical ploy that I might not have immediately grasped had it not been for my general understanding of sport. Sabathia was tiring and the last thing he wanted was Cabrera swinging with a man on first base, especially considering that the Yankees were trailing by a run. It is, no doubt, a common strategy, but one that would have been harder, I presume, to understand for a sports novice, as opposed to a baseball novice. The play in itself may not be directly comparable to other sports, but it involves a thought process that is common across the sports world. It is these little characteristics that I’ve started to enjoy about baseball. On the face of it, it looks a prosaic, slow sport, but it has not merely a physical facet, but also a highly nuanced tactical one.

Numbers, play a more important role in the baseball than in perhaps any other sport. I am still not in a position to comment on the efficacy of the models deployed, but I am presently reading Alan Schwarz’s “The Numbers Game” to understand “baseball’s lifelong fascination with statistics.” I also watched Moneyball, the movie starring Brad Pitt and based on Michael Lewis’s 2003 book on the Oakland Athletics, its general manager, Billy Beane and the sabermetricapproach to assembling a baseball team. The movie, by itself, was scarcely enjoyable and has done little in adding to my appreciation of the sport.

Over and above the fascination offered by the strategic and numerical aspects of the game, though, is its pure beauty. David Schoenfield, writing for ESPN.com on Justin Verlander, the Tigers’ lead pitcher, reminisces about Roger Angell’s description of a Nolan Ryan fastball as a “liquid streak of white.” He said, “That has to be how opposing hitters have felt about Justin Verlander this season. Even if they do go to bed early the night before facing him, they must be thinking about liquid streaks of white or curveballs dropping from heaven or unhittable changeups or sliders that make you flail like a snowflake in a windstorm.” In game 3 on Monday, Verlander was nearly irrepressible. He pitched with variety and precision; his fastball, in particular, was a thing of beauty. He ramped it up at 100 mph even well into the game. His action and his release had a raw, grace to it that makes you want to keep watching him pitch. This was the Eureka moment for me – it isn’t as easy to be a batter, as it can sometimes seem to be.

I am learning more and more about the sport with each passing game, but what I’ve already come to recognize is its pure beauty. It has a subliminal elegance to it that can go unnoticed in the eyes of its most ardent followers and can be unfathomable for the nonbelievers. Thankfully, for me, I’m still somewhere in the limbo.

(First posted in http://www.criticaltwenties.in/sport/learning-baseball)

M.A.K. Pataudi - An Indubitable Genius

2011-09-24T03:01:00.001+05:30

I lost a contact lens, while walking home today. I am short sighted on both my eyes and with my right eye partly – only partly – blinded, I was utterly disoriented. I trudged on with as much care as I could muster, stopping at a traffic signal to check my twitter feed. Tributes were pouring in for Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi – ‘Tiger’ Pataudi – who had sadly died, in Delhi, with a lung infection. Here I was, struggling to orient myself with the loss of my right contact lens, while this man had made test match hundreds with one good eye. Genius is often difficult to fathom, I thought, but has it ever been so unmistakable?

Even leaving aside his vision, Pataudi was a very good batsman, a great fielder, and, arguably, an even better captain. As Raju Bharatan said, in the Hindu, after Pataudi was awarded the C.K. Nayudu Award in 2001, “Tiger it was who brought the Indian cricket team out of its slavish British fixation, a fixation abiding in the 1960s. Tiger inspirationally let it be known that each member of the Indian team simply had to learn to stand shoulder to shoulder when face to face with the white man on the field of play. Tiger’s being in no way awed by the white-skinned opponent helped cut the Gordian knot of the Indian team’s facing the `Englishman to man”.”

And it was Pataudi, crucially, who got the best out of the famous quartet of spinners – B.S. Chandrasekhar, Bishan Bedi, Erapalli Prasanna, and S. Venkataraghavan. As Prasanna puts it: “He was primarily responsible for developing India’s spin quartet in an aggressive role similar to what the West Indians had later in form of the pace quartet.”

Till this date, though, whenever I had thought of Pataudi, his impaired vision had played but a minimal role in my consideration. In spite of making the odd public appearance, and in spite of being the husband and father of popular film stars, Pataudi had an air of detached elegance to him – he was an almost debonair, mythical figure to me. Every time I saw him, I wished I had been there to watch him bat. Oh boy, he must have been fun to watch, I used to think.

Today, though, I wonder, how much greater he could have been had he had two good eyes. I am led to believe that the Indian media, particularly the broadcast media, is inundated with accolades concentrating on his impaired vision as opposed to appreciating his pure contribution to the sport. For Pataudi, notwithstanding his eyesight, was indubitably a great cricketer. The Internet, though, mercifully, contains enough tributes that narrate the Pataudi story with authority and excellence that only those who had seen him closely can provide, so I won’t tread down that path. What I can say, though, is that despite my reluctance to concentrate on his impaired vision, the circumstances of the day – with his genius presenting itself to me so obviously – commands me to wonder how much greater he could have been with two good eyes.

[First posted at: http://www.criticaltwenties.in/sport/m-a-k-pataudi-an-indubitable-genius]

Flushing Meadows

2011-08-28T07:55:00.004+05:30

I was at Flushing Meadows earlier this week – to watch the first day of the qualifying rounds for the U.S. Open – and I must say I was utterly underwhelmed. Not with the quality of the tennis, which by qualifying rounds standards was excellent, but with the general vibe of the arena.

The US Open moved from its Forest Hills venue to the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in 1978 at Flushing Meadows and has since then been played on hard courts. The venue has seen the tournament grow into a commercial behemoth. The place palpably lacks a sense of history; it has a plastic feel to it – you don’t get the impression that a John McEnroe or a Chris Evert once strode there with imperious grace.

There are, however, snippets of the past to consume if you are willing to walk into areas that are otherwise barren, such as the ‘Court of Champions,’ which celebrates the past winners with dedicated plaques, located near the South Gate. Even that, though, is essentially unimpressive. And barring that, all you will see is food stalls selling pretzels and pizzas, the official merchandise store selling t-shirts and caps, all at exorbitant prices.

In brief, you don’t get the feeling that you’re in a place truly historic. Yes, the arena is relatively new, but the tournament isn’t, and you would have thought greater emphasis would have been placed on its cultural significance. Sadly, however, the place brims with commercial garishness and does little justice to the repute of the event that it stages.

***

That’s enough of the rant, though. As gaudy as the arena was, the tennis was beautiful. I had the chance to recall, the late, David Foster Wallace’s brilliant essay on the physics and metaphysics of tennis, titled “The String Theory.” In the paper – which I rate as one of the best pieces of writing that I’ve ever read on the sport – Wallace writes about the experience of watching Michael T. Joyce, then a top hundred player, at the qualifying rounds of the Canadian Open in Montreal. He deconstructs the game, with gorgeous delight, to explain the thin margins that separate a very good player from a truly great one.

Consider this paragraph, for instance:

“Even more illuminating than watching pro tennis live is watching it with Sam Aparicio. Watching tennis with him is like watching a movie with somebody who knows a lot about the technical aspects of film: He helps you see things you can’t see alone. It turns out, for example, that there are whole geometric sublevels of strategy in a power-baseline game, all dictated by various PBers’ [read: power-baseliners] strength and weaknesses. A PBer depends on being able to hit winners from the baseline. But, as Sam teaches me to see, Michael Chang can hit winners only at an acute angle from either corner. An “inside-out” player like Jim Courier, though, can hit winners only at obtuse angles from the center out. Hence, wily and well-coached players tend to play Chang “down the middle” and Courier “out wide.” One of the things that make Agassi so good is that he’s capable of hitting winners from anywhere on the court -- he has no geometric restriction. Joyce, too, according to Sam, can hit a winner at any angle. He just doesn’t do it quite as well as Agassi, or as often.”

Wallace also posits that television doesn’t let you “appreciate what real top-level players can do.” I couldn’t agree more. I have seen a few of them play at the Chennai Open and the power and the accuracy of their strokes boggles the mind. This, though, was a different opportunity for me. I was going to see some very good players from really close quarters. In some cases I was going to be at a distance no longer than six feet from the tramlines.

First up, I visited court 9. Estonia’s Jurgen Zopp was playing Sergei Bubka, the son of the legendary, world-record holding, pole-vaulter, Sergey. Bubka, 24, has been on the tour for many years now, struggling to break into the top echelons. He is ranked just outside the top 200 and has never made it to a Grand Slam main draw. As one would only expect, he is athletically built and on the evidence of this match, he has a strong serve and is particularly good on his backhand wing, which he hits with a double-handed hold. He is even capable of jumping onto it, a la Marat Safin, and hitting it with serious venom.

Bubka steamrolled Zopp in the first set, winning it 6-3, in just 25 minutes. It was only the first round of qualifying, but he seemed a class apart. His first serves were quick and placed at the edge of the service box and his second were swerving and clever.

In the second set, Zopp found greater rhythm. Bubka was still the superior player, holding his service games with ease and stretching Zopp on his. But Zopp, somehow managed to hold on to his serves, and took the set to a tiebreak. In it, the Ukrainian’s class again shone through. There were difficult moments to counter, but he served with rare confidence and took the tiebreak 7-5.

Watching from the side, I was astonished at the sheer pace of Bubka’s groundstrokes. If this was how hard the World’s 210^th ranked player could hit the ball, I wondered how good the truly great players were. The margins, though, must be really thin. It cannot be merely be a case of power. While Bubka, can hit backhands on the run with amazing power and accuracy 7 times out of 10, maybe Djokovic and Nadal can make it 9 out of 10 times. Regardless, I was watching someone who is exceedingly good in his craft even if he was just short of being a great player.

***

After Bubka was through, I shifted my attention to court no. 4 where France’s Arnaud Clement, once ranked as high as no. 10, was to play Canada’s Frank Dancevic. Clement is now ranked 154 in the world, while Dancevic is 183^rd. Clement reached the finals of the Australian Open in 2001, losing in straight sets to Andre Agassi. Incidentally en route to that final he defeated a young Roger Federer. He has also reached the quarterfinals of Wimbledon and the US Open in the past.

He is short for a tennis player – only 1.72 meters tall – but his calves are muscular. He is essentially a counterpuncher – his style involves scurrying across the baseline and making the opponent play one ball more than he would like to.

Frank Dancevic, is Canada’s third best player. He was ranked 65^th in the world in 2007. But, since then troubled by back problems, his ranking has plummeted. Nonetheless, he looks a proper tennis player, athletically built, standing at 1.85 meters. He plays too, as I found out soon, beautifully.

The bleachers on Court 4 were filling up. Even though Clement was, arguably, the biggest draw of the qualifiers, the crowd was surprisingly large. Dancevic, however, was the one who shone brightest. He served hard and accurately and made Clement work very hard in his service games, pushing him around the court and dominating imperiously.

Dancevic’s backhand, I must say, is a thing of beauty. I have a particular predilection for single-handed backhands, and Dancevic’s, regardless of his ranking, was one that stood out for its sheer magnificence. Often the ball seemed to stand still, as he readied himself to stroke his backhand.

Time is often the decisive factor that separates the good from the great. Dancevic certainly had the goods on his backhand wing. He could slice it delicately, either dropping it just over the net or deep into one of the corners, with sharp spin; he could hit it flat with pace and accuracy, increasing the tempo of the point; or he could hit it with top spin, sliding the racquet head up and over the ball when striking it.

Dancevic dominated, nearly, from start to finish, winning the match 6-3, 6-3, breaking Clement’s serve four times and allowing himself to be broken only once. I had expected to watch Clement showcase his artistry, but I was nevertheless satisfied at watching, from such close quarters, a player strike his backhand with rare elegance. I suspect had Dancevic not been plagued with injuries, we may have been hearing of him more now.

***

I also watched Lithuania’s twenty-one-year-old Richard Berankis disposing off Spain’s Guillermo Alcide 6-2, 6-2 in just three-quarters of an hour. Berankis is certainly one for the future – he varies his rallies by sometimes going for power and at other times opting to change the rhythm with little slices and dabs.

France’s Caroline Garcia, who was ever so close to upsetting Maria Sharapova in the French Open, though, came up a cropper against Russia’s Regina Kulikova. Garcia won the first set, looked in fine touch, serving well and finding corners of the court with remarkable ease. But Kulikova upped her game in the second and third sets, even as Garcia’s own game began to wane. Still only eighteen, however, Garcia showed enough skill to suggest that she is likely to make a definite impact on the women’s game in the future.

***

The day, though, wasn’t only about the qualifying rounds. I saw Andrea Petkovic practice with her coaches at Louis Armstrong and she struck the ball with so much power and with so much style that I could sit there watching for hours. Robin Soderling and Mikhail Youzhny played a practice match, a little later, on the same court. Soderling, suffering in recent times with a wrist injury, certainly looked a bit off, not hitting the ball with as much as power as one is accustomed to seeing from him. Youzhny, however, made for a sublime sight, with his single-backhanded backhand glittering in the radiant sunshine. Somdev Devvarman and Janko Tipsarevic had a hit at the Grandstand stadium with the Serb pummeling the Indian from the back of the court. Somdev had his moments, but for the most part, Tipsarevic was utterly dominant.

At the end of it all, I was left a little stunned. I knew these players hit the ball with great power and found angles of geometric brilliance. But witnessing it from as close as I did, gave me a whole different perspective. Tennis, I have always thought, is the world’s most beautiful sport and any lingering doubts, have now been put firmly to rest.

Ian Bell, the late-cut and artistic batting

2011-08-02T00:41:00.002+05:30

I was a fan of Ian Bell even before I had ever seen him play Test cricket. Not that I had watched him play enough in County games, but his prodigious talents were much spoken about well before his England debut. It was in one of the Wisden magazines, I think, which was on display at Landmark, where I first read about his potential – a player who relied on touch and finesse more than power and one who supposedly had the talent to become one of the game’s top run-scorers. The description of his batting, I remember vividly, suggested that it was a sight to behold, full of elegant cover drives and delightful flicks.

It was his penchant for the late-cut, though, that did me in. I hadn’t seen him play, of course, but if he could play the late-cut well – which almost all the pieces written about him seemed to suggest – then he had to be mighty good. I’ve had an endless fascination for the stroke, heard romantics purr in delight when merely talking about Gundappa Vishwanath’s execution of it and I myself have derived great pleasure from watching Carl Hooper and Mark Waugh play the stroke, ever so late, with the care of a surgeon and the joie de vivre of an artist. But by the time Bell was ripe enough for his debut, V.V.S. Laxman’s and Damien Martyn’s batting had already captured my imagination. They both made batting look ridiculously simple and played in beautiful, flowing styles, essaying the late-cut with rare polish.

Yet, I waited in anticipation of Bell’s debut. I wanted to see, for myself, what the fuss about his batting was all about. I wanted to see if there was finesse in his late-cut; could he pierce seemingly non-existent gaps through the slips and the gully?

In August 2004, against the West Indies, with Graham Thorpe – another favourite of mine – injured for the fourth test at the Oval, in came Bell, still only twenty-two-years-old. He looked rather innocuous –skin, freckled; hair, ginger; build, light and ostensibly under-confident – surely he was no batting artist? Yet in the middle, bar a testing time against Fidel Edwards, he looked the bit. He was neat and composed in his stance, he had oodles of time to play his shots and he certainly possessed the gift of timing. His propensity to play the ball almost posthumously, at times, was also on display and I revelled in watching the arrival of a new artist – one who could not only play the late-cut, but play it bloody well, with subtlety and elegance.

The real test, I knew, was still to come. His talent was obviously undoubted – he seemed to be endowed with many natural gifts, but his temperament remained to be tested. Indeed, in the years to come, he seemed to make a name for himself as a flat-track bully – one who could pummel inferior attacks with ease and elegance, but who came a cropper in examinations of mental fortitude against the best, viz. Australia. Shane Warne – who gave Bell the moniker Sherminator practically drove him to mental disintegration, tormenting him psychologically, if not purely through cricketing skills.

But under, Andy Flower and Andrew Strauss, Bell has blossomed. Finally, the prettiness in his batting is finding its justification in his run-making. Indeed he didn’t have the greatest of starts under the new management. He was dropped immediately after England’s embarrassing loss at Jamaica in February 2009. He was sent back to play for Warwickshire – to find not merely form, but to build his mental resilience. His response to being dropped, though, was excellent. He made scores of runs in County Cricket and earned a recall to the Eleven for the third Ashes test, but it wasn’t until the decider at the Oval that he displayed the complete extent of his comeback. On a difficult wicket, batting at one-down, he dropped anchor not merely through a display of artistic batsmanship, but by showcasing outstanding resilience and newfound mental toughness.

From there on, it has, almost, been all rosy for Bell. The runs have flowed, whether batting at 3 or 5, and he has found the balance between extravagant stroke-play and necessary watchfulness. A century of the highest class at Durban against Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel in an innings victory for England showed that he had come a full circle. He played the pacers serenely, concentrating hard to settle down before unveiling his rich array of strokes, which no doubt included a few of those fluid late-cuts.

In the tour to Australia last year, he easily looked England’s best batsman; but wasted behind an out-of-form Kevin Pietersen and a declining Paul Collingwood, at number 6, Bell rarely got the opportunity to make a big score. Yet at the SCG in the fifth test, in partnership with Matt Prior, he made a splendid 115 to help England put a cherry on top of their Ashes triumph. It was a century of rare class – one in which he displayed both obstinacy and style.

This summer, he’s already made three test match hundreds. The first two, at Cardiff and Southampton, against Sri Lanka, were both phenomenal in their artistic delight. They were littered with velvety late-cuts – time and again he let the ball go past him before caressing it gently into the third-man boundary.

These knocks, though, came in relatively easy circumstances against a weak Sri Lankan bowling attack. The century against India, however, in the on-going Test at Trent Bridge has not merely been exquisite in its artistry but is a vindication of his advancement as a batsman. With Trott injured, he walked in at number three, survived a tricky phase at the end of day two before stroking the most sublime century today. He not only eased England’s nerves, but also put it in a position of supreme command. His century came off a mere 129 balls and was exhilarating in its imagination. He timed the ball with purity, and his placement was often immaculate to the point of perfection. His innings – and perhaps also the sporting reprieve that he was given, albeit when he had passed his hundred – epitomises so much of what is great about the sport. It was a beautiful reminder that in an age of twenty-twenty cricket, where batsmen choose raw power as their weapon, there is still place for delicacy of touch.

(First posted at: http://www.criticaltwenties.in/sport/of-ian-bell-the-late-cut-and-artistic-batting)

The Azhar that I want to remember

2011-07-14T10:21:00.003+05:30

A few weeks back, Rob Smyth paid tribute in Guardian’s weekly cricket column, Spin, to Rob Moody (aka Robelinda2,) the man behind a truly wonderful youtube archive. As Smyth predicted, I’ve spent much of my time, since, lost in this archive, watching videos ranging from Mark Waugh’s delectable century against Pakistan in 1998 at Karachi to that infamous incident at the MCG in 1981 when Sunil Gavaskar and Chetan Chauhan stormed off the ground in protest against an umpiring decision. The collection contains many other gems including Gary Sobers’s blistering double hundred, against Australia, for a Rest of the World side at the MCG in 1972; an entire Malcolm Marshall spell, showcasing his mastery over both swing and seam, against New Zealand in 1987; Mike Atherton’s gutsy, back-against-the-wall innings against a fiery Allan Donald, and South Africa at Trent Bridge in 1998; and some of Graham Thorpe’s finest innings’ – a player that I always enjoyed watching – to name but a few in a plenteous collection.

I keep coming back, though, to Mohammad Azharuddin and the six centuries of his that are featured in the archive. Growing up, Azhar was my hero; I worshipped his batting for it seemed to transcend all boundaries of artistry. Unlike Inzamam Ul Haq and Carl Hooper – two other batsmen that I particularly loved watching – Azhar wasn’t unhurried; he never seemed to have as much time to play his shots as those two. But his hands were always so quick, his wrists always sinuous and his timing invariably pristine that his batting glistened with an incomparable joyousness.

Previously, before I discovered Roblinda2’s channel, the only clips of Azhar’s batting that I’d seen on youtube were highlights of a century against New Zealand in 1998 – by no means his best – those five consecutive boundaries that he struck off Lance Klusener’s bowling at Eden Gardens in 1996, and his century at Lord’s in 1990 – the fastest ever at the ground. Now, though, thanks to this archive, I’ve watched highlights of his centuries, against England at Calcutta in 1993 and at Old Trafford in 1990; against South Africa at Kanpur in 1996; and against Australia at Calcutta in 1998 and at the Adelaide Oval in 1992 – each of them crafted not so much with care and precision as with insouciant charm.

Of them all though, I most relished watching his 182 off 197 balls at the Eden Gardens against England for there are many things cherish-worthy about this video. Henry Blofeld’s voice, for one, pervades through the clip. Every time Azhar put bat on ball, Blofeld seemed to go ballistic – not in a mindless IPL-commentary kind of way, but with more genuine, excited enthusiasm. Of course Blofeld was prone to throwing the occasional clanger in commentary, but the video serves as an excellent reminder of jollier times. Four minutes and forty two seconds into the video, there is a clip of Azhar playing a dazzling flick for a boundary, of left arm seamer Paul Taylor’s bowling, not through square-leg or midwicket, but through mid-off. Yes, a flick through MID-OFF timed to perfection that soothes your eye even as you feel for your jaw, which is rapidly descending onto the ground. Six minutes and twelve seconds into the video and Azhar caresses Taylor’s ball to the extra-cover boundary; I haven’t seen the usually laconic David Gower being more profuse in his praise – “sumptuous shot by Azharuddin,” he screams, “and Eden Gardens is going potty.”

This was a sight for the gods – Azhar, killing England ever so softly, with gentle flicks and delectable late-cuts timed and placed with astonishing purity. This is the Azhar that I want to remember. The Azhar who wielded a cricket bat like a magician would his wand. The Azhar who would cut the opposition to ribbons not violently but through sublime delicacy. The Azhar who batted like nobody else could.

Indeed, as Rohit Brijnath said in this wonderful homage, there is no justification for Azhar’s misdeeds; I surely haven’t forgiven him for them. But courtesy Robelinda2, I will now be able to transport myself to an age when Azhar batted like a dream – to watch some of his most gorgeous knocks in an endeavour, not to forget his misdeeds, but to remember what made him so prized in the first place.

(Also posted at: http://www.criticaltwenties.in/sport/the-azhar-that-i-want-to-remember)

Djokovic and the Art of Preserving Energy

2011-07-04T12:20:00.003+05:30

July 20, 1937: Don Budge and Gottfried von Cramm meet in the centre court at Wimbledon in the final tie of the Davis Cup semi-final between the United States and Germany. The match, as Marshall Jon Fisher recounts in his exemplary book, A Terrible Splendor, had a significance that stretched beyond the realms of tennis and sport. Von Cramm races to a two sets to love lead, playing an exquisite, stylish brand of tennis that was nonetheless exhausting against Budge whose power game was incomparable. A closely fought third set that took a toll on both players is edged out by Budge 6-4 and with the American leading early in the fourth set, von Cramm chooses to ease up, to conserve his energy for the decider – a tactic, which ludicrous as it sounds now, was in those days considered very viable. As Fisher describes: “There is no way Cramm is going to break Budge three times in one set, he knows, and that is what he would have to do to win the fourth. He decides to conserve his energy for the fifth set. He puts up little resistance on Budge’s next two service games, wins his own without too much exertion and concedes the set six-two.”

In the final set, von Cramm speeds to a 3-1 lead, his tactics look sound, but Budge recovers superbly and ultimately succeeds 8-6. Quite conceivably, the German’s strategy of preserving energy for the deciding set was misjudged, but it was one that had worked wonderfully in the past not least for him, but for Budge too, and it was one that he had no choice but to deploy. We don’t hear of such approaches in modern-day tennis, but to believe that they are redundant would be erroneous.

It is, perhaps, safe to assume that such a method was not in Novak Djokovic’s mind at the start of the match. He would have merrily taken a straight sets victory. In the second set, he had come as close to perfection as is imaginable against Rafael Nadal. He was able to scurry across the back of the court chasing improbable balls that would have been winners against any other player, and was able to return them not so much with mere interest and purpose, but with glorious certitude.

Yet, he was broken early in the third set. His concentration levels had dropped, as is only normal after two sets of scintillating tennis, and Nadal was now beginning to exert his authority. Djokovic chose not to consume excessive energy in aiming to get back into the set. Instead he focused his efforts on beginning the fourth set in optimum physical condition. Having allowed Nadal a way back into the match early in the third set, he had two options, either to keep his efforts up and aim at breaking Nadal back – which looked unfeasible at the time considering how well Nadal was serving – or to drop his levels a bit, and ensure that he retained enough energy to launch a more sustained attack in the fourth set. Djokovic, wisely, chose the latter and broke early in the fourth to go up two games to love.

Nadal’s physical condition, by then, had understandably slumped – he had worked consistently hard throughout the first three sets – whereas Djokovic was able to find renewed vitality. Had Djokovic chased Nadal in the third set and had he failed, which was very conceivable considering the Spaniard’s improved game, both players would have begun the fourth set in almost identical physical condition. As it stood, Djokovic was the more relaxed; he was able to restore the rhythm to his game and although Nadal broke back in the set, albeit fortuitously, the Serb’s newfound confidence meant that in his superior physical state, the victory was almost inevitable. He broke Nadal’s serve again at 4-3, served and volleyed at a tricky time at thirty-all in the next game and won his first Wimbledon, a big fat cherry that now sits atop his status as the world’s new number one player.

(Also posted at: http://www.criticaltwenties.in/sport/djokovic-and-the-art-of-preserving-energy)

Murray and the lack of a champion's mind

2011-07-02T12:38:00.002+05:30

Very often we hear of a moment – a single point, a single tackle, or a single ball – that turned a sporting contest on its head: the turning point, as it were. Invariably these are rather tenuous for a tennis match is played over three or five sets, a football match over ninety minutes and test match cricket over five days. Yet, on some occasions the turning point is palpably clear, a moment when the tide obviously turned, a moment that wrecked seemingly irrevocable damage on one of the competitors.

Yesterday, Andy Murray dazzled for a set and three games, serving with pace and precision and whipping his forehands with audacious venom and spin. One would have been forgiven for thinking that he may finally step out of the shadow of Fred Perry whose name has hung over every British player that has taken the court since his retirement. But at 2-1 in the second set of his semi-final, with Rafael Nadal serving at 15-30, Murray missed a sitter of a forehand, sending it long when it would have been easier to find a winner. With that the damage had been done. From that point, Nadal won seven games in a row, a stretch that saw him win the second set and take an early break in the third; a stretch from which Murray never recovered.

Let’s set aside Murray’s British roots for a moment – even if it perhaps has something to do with his frailties. His pure abilities as a tennis player can at times be a joy to behold, as it indeed was in the opening phases of his tie against Nadal. When playing with confidence, Murray’s coverage of the court is incomparable; he has a happy knack of finding funky angles that even the very best find difficult to counter. He can hit his double-handed backhand with depth and pace, and is equally capable of removing the left hand to play delicious slices that are often devious in their execution. His forehand is a more rugged weapon, harsher and tougher to counter when in full tilt, but vulnerable when his confidence dips. Yesterday, its vagaries were in abundant evidence. When in command, it was his chief weapon, but when his conviction waned at 2-1 in the second set, it was the forehand that let him down. In the very next game, Murray placed an easy overhead long, on break point, to hand the initiative to Nadal; a grip which the Spaniard never let slip.

Murray continued to go for broke in the games that followed – a strategy, which worked wonderfully in the first set. This, though, isn’t his natural game. He likes to dab and slice, slow the pace of the point and use his nous rather than power to outmanoeuvre opponents. For as long as it fell his way, it seemed the right way to play, but having taken the lead, the tactic ultimately proved injudicious. He needed to settle down into a rhythm, one in which he could dictate the tempo of the match, not by muscling the ball, but by forcing Nadal to create his own pace. By the time he was able to get back on board, though, the Spaniard had wrested control. Nadal had begun to unleash his groundstrokes – particularly his forehand – with outrageous portions of topspin, getting the ball to kick off the grass with biting venom. He showed the mind of a champion, one whose focus never seems to waver. Murray, on the other hand, having displayed incredible skill in the opening phases, sank deeper into a quagmire of his own doing. His tactics needed to be more exact. And even more importantly, he needed to realise that one poor forehand is hardly the end of it.

Nadal broke twice in the third set and once in the fourth, winning them 6-2, 6-4 and sealing a place in the final against Novak Djokovic. Gracious as ever he said after the match: “Andy Murray today didn't win a Grand Slam, but he's a much better player than a lot of players who have won Grand Slams in the past." Murray has two options – either to feel sorry for himself that he is playing in one of the most competitive eras of men’s tennis or to work harder, not merely on his tennis skills, but on his mind, which had it remained strong, he may well have been the first Briton since Bunny Austin in 1938 to reach a Wimbledon final.

Manic Monday at Wimbledon

2011-06-28T13:09:00.005+05:30

It says something about the equal dose of frustration and excitement that always ensues on Manic Monday that I managed to watch only four Round of 16 matches. Of all the matches lined up – many of them mouth-watering prospects, as is the norm with the second Monday – I was looking forward most to the first match on centre court. Andy Murray versus Richard Gasquet had a sense of history about it. Three years back, at the same stage, Murray flexed his right bicep after coming back from two sets to love down to seal a marvellous victory against Gasquet – the Frenchman whose unfulfilled talent never ceases to exasperate. The gruelling triumph, however, had taken much out of Murray, both physically and mentally. He fell in the quarterfinals to Rafael Nadal in straight sets, offering not even a smidgeon of competition.

This year, Murray, had cruised into the second week, not so much serenely, but without unduly worrying hiccups. Gasquet, the inscrutable genius blessed with the most divine backhand had had a hitherto more comfortable run, losing not a single set in the first three rounds and playing with an amalgam of panache and composure that is not always typical of him. Murray, though, not only needed to win, but also had to do so with a comfort that would ensure that he has enough left in the tank for potentially bigger challenges to come. This as both history and current form suggested would be no easy task.

But starting a whole hour or so earlier, on one of the show-courts was eighteen-year-old qualifier Bernard Tomic’s tie against Belgium’s Xavier Malisse – a talented stroke maker and former semi-finalist at Wimbledon. I’d seen Tomic dismantle Feliciano Lopez at the Australian Open this year with a blend of power and intelligence that belied a player of his age; before falling to Nadal in the third round in, what must be said, respectable fashion. Tomic – much to the dismay of the Australian tennis authorities – plays very little on the professional tour, with his father insisting that he be slowly nursed into the big stage. His service action is rudimentary at best, but through what is seemingly a strange happenstance, he finds both remarkable pace and angle on it. Especially on the deuce court to right handers, where he gets the ball to curve away from the receiver’s forehand, opening up the court beautifully for him to finish.

Although oozing with easy power, Tomic has the patience to work his way into points. He often uses little slices and dabs, runs his opponent ragged before pulling the trigger on what is usually a very flat and ferocious groundstroke. In the third round against Robin Soderling – one of the heaviest hitters on the tour – Tomic outmuscled him in the first set, before bizarrely changing his game plan in the second and third set only to be proved right. He frequently took the pace off his strokes, instead choosing to find particular spots on the court that would most trouble Soderling and waited either for an unforced error or the opportunity to unleash his own brand of the power game, one of which invariably occurred.

Against Malisse, Tomic was similarly impressive. An unconventional player blessed with the rare gift of timing, Tomic regularly made Malisse scamper across the court before finishing points with insouciant ease. For all his talents, however, what was most impressive about him was his poise on the big points. He never looked hurried, always giving the air of a man taking a gentle stroll on a promenade.

Having broken Malisse to pieces in a straight sets triumph, one would have thought the celebrations would be over-the-top, in line with modern-day practice, but Tomic seemed to consider the victory almost routine. Only Boris Becker, John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg have made the quarterfinals at Wimbledon at a younger age in the Open Era. Not bad company to keep.

***

Over then to the centre-court, where Murray and Gasquet played a high-quality first set, one which Gasquet dominated for most bits only to succumb in the tiebreak. In the early phases, Gasquet produced angle after angle of geometric brilliance, seemingly slicing Murray into dices, but the Scot kept at it, ensuring that he did enough to hold his serve. In the tiebreak, Murray upped his game, finding greater ferocity on his groundstrokes and in one rally at 4-3, he outplayed Gasquet on the backhand wing – no easy feat – alternating between delicate slices and his powerful two-hander and finding greater angle and greater depth with each stroke before muscling a winner into the open court. It was tactically superb and aesthetically even better. In the second and third set, Gasquet’s game unravelled, and Murray exhibited a greater sense of authority, breaking thrice in all, to take the match, 7-6, 6-3, 6-2.

Gasquet’s backhand is a thing of rare beauty. But his game, as is sometimes made to believe, isn’t only about the backhand. Admittedly he is comparatively frail on the forehand and has a serve that often lets him down, but he has an all-court game including fine volleying skills, which should ideally be helping him to win majors. But he lacks a champion’s edge, or more pertinently a champion’s mind, which as Louisa Thomas explains in this fine piece for Grantland is like having no mind at all.

***

On Court 1, immediately after Marion Bartoli had upset the odds with a victory over Serena Williams, Novak Djokovic took on France’s Michael Llodra, who continues to play a delightfully old-fashioned serve-and-volley game. But a style, which may have worked well against most opponents on grass, failed against Djokovic who is undoubtedly the finest return-of-server in the men’s game. Throughout the match, Djokovic looked like a player who could win the Championships this year – his movement was more assured with each passing point and his groundstrokes remained decidedly dazzling.

The contrasting styles of the two opponents, though, occasionally made for compelling viewing. Llodra picked many balls virtually off his shoelaces and placed them over the net like he was pitching a golf ball off a sand-bunker straight into the hole. Djokovic chased down balls with vigour and vitality before showcasing masterful racquet skills – proving yet again that there is no one better than him at turning defence into attack. Ultimately, the Serb proved too strong, emerging victorious in three straight sets, 6-3, 6-3, 6-3. Tomic, awaits in the quarterfinals.

***

Finally, over on centre court, World No. 1 Rafael Nadal was pitted against Juan Martin del Potro in, arguably, the fixture of the day. For much of the first set, the players muscled ball after ball from the baseline, Nadal’s hit with greater top spin, del Potro’s with greater savagery. All of this made for a wonderful exhibition, but when at 6-5 on set point, Nadal felt a twinge on one of his ankles, one expected del Potro to exert more authority. In the tiebreak that followed after a medical timeout, though, Nadal as is so often the case, found a way to win even in the most trying of circumstances.

The second set saw the gangly Argentine exert his will more; he found more punch off an already heavy forehand and I thought we had a classic on our hands. But Nadal is the old master at converting a potential classic into a damp squib, slowing down points by mixing his groundstrokes with potent amounts of spin and dip. He took the third set on a tiebreak before breaking at 3-2 in the fourth courtesy of a brace of astounding forehand returns. The solitary break was sufficient for the Spaniard as he served out at 5-4 for love. Nadal is due for an MRI on the injured ankle to see if he can continue, but regardless, as fine a player as Mardy Fish is on grass, I doubt he’ll give Nadal a sleepless night today.

Wimbledon 2011 - days one to four

2011-06-24T14:56:00.003+05:30

Four days have passed by at Wimbledon and there have been lots of charming little sub-plots that have captured attention. The tournament is as much about these side stories that are weaved into the larger tale as it is about the ultimate victors.

Day one, though, was sedate enough, almost as if to ensure that our adrenaline is preserved for greater drama that will doubtless ensue later. Rafael Nadal, the defending men’s champion as tradition warrants, opened proceedings on centre court – although other matches had begun a whole hour earlier in the smaller arenas – against Michael Russell of the United States. Russell goes by the nickname Iron Mike due to his penchant for lifting heavy weights, but against Nadal the weight of his groundstrokes paled in comparison and he was imperiously knocked off in three straight sets. Nadal is now a two times champion at Wimbledon, but the improvements that he has made to his movement on the grass continues to amaze. He isn’t inherently suited for grass like Federer who glides across it with an air of majesty, but having adapted to the surface’s vagaries his pace across the court and his natural shot making ability sufficiently negate any intrinsic weaknesses.

Venus Williams, over on court two – not the old cursed court two which has now become court three – saw off Akgul Amanmuradova with ease. It wasn’t so much her tennis that caught the attention, though, but her attire, which the Telegraph’s Mark Hodgkinson said was the “closest that anyone has ever come to wearing a cut-off toga to this garden party.” You can judge for yourself.

Also on day one, Andy Murray – ‘carrying the weight of a nation on his shoulders’ – overcame a first set loss to oust Daniel Gimeno-Traver of Spain under the 100 million pound roof on Centre Court. Murray’s performance didn't caused the jaw to drop, but upon settling down his pleasing array of little lobs and drops were in abundant evidence.

***

Day two certainly saw an upscale in the story quotient. First on centre-court was Serena Williams, who hadn’t played a Grand Slam since winning Wimbledon last year. Bouts of depression followed and Serena says she went through a near-death experience four months back – suffering from pulmonary embolism in February with clots on both her lungs. Against France’s Aravane Rezai she was far from her best, but recovered, as she often tends to do after a first set loss, and powered her groundstrokes in characteristically domineering fashion. Her harrowing break began with an injury to the foot – the cause of which she herself is unaware of – and continued onto the surgery that was required to remove the clots on her lungs. Anyway, she’s back now and still looks the best player in the world. And with Venus in the other side of the draw, who’d say no to an all Williams clash in the final.

Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and Maria Sharapova, in that order, followed Serena onto centre court and each enjoyed easy straight sets victories. It was the match fourth up on the new court three, though, that everyone was waiting for. John Isner and Nicholas Mahut having played a remarkable eleven-hour match last year that stretched over three days before Isner prevailed 70-68 in the fifth set had through a weird play of fate been drawn against each other. Isner came through yet again, though in far more normal circumstances, 7-6, 6-2, 7-6 – not the most engaging of contests, but its history certainly added to the fascination.

***

First up on centre court on day three was, perhaps, the story of the tournament thus far. Forty-year-old – yes you read that right – Kimiko Date Krumm was up against Venus Williams in the second round. Date Krumm retired in 1996 – a year in which she reached the semi-finals of Wimbledon and a year in which she was still Kimiko Date. Since then, she has married German racer Michael Krumm before making a remarkable return to the game twelve years after her retirement.

In her earlier stint, I must admit, I was scarcely her fan , for the same reasons expounded in this lovely piece by Louisa Thomas in Grantland. Kimiko in 1996 played Steffi Graf in the semi-final and she had the audacity to take a set off Graf! Not something that went down well, I am sure, with most fans. Nonetheless, her display against Venus Williams – although she ultimately came a cropper in the deciding set – was amongst the most charming I’ve seen in quite some time. Not merely because of her ability to compete at her age, which is no doubt inspirational, but her style of tennis which was a throwback to a bygone era. She thrillingly served and volleyed, chipped, lobbed and dropped and left Venus befuddled in a first set, which she took through a tiebreaker. Ultimately her age and fitness meant that Venus’s game based on brute force – albeit a nous-filled one – would prevail. But it showed that there is still a place for the ‘old-fashioned’ style on grass and that it is a viable tactic even against the hardest of hitters.

Also on day three, Andy Roddick, Nadal, Murray and Tomas Berdych, all potential quarterfinalists sailed into the third round with little fuss. So too did Czech Petra Kvitova, who with her beautiful ball-striking abilities could be a dangerous opponent to encounter in the second week.

***

Lleyton Hewitt is well past his best. He isn’t anywhere near the force that he was when he won Wimbledon in 2002. But he remains a great competitor – forever plucky and tenacious. Against fifth seed Robin Soderling, yesterday, on day four, he pulled off the first two sets through typical counter-punching brilliance amid several screams of ‘come-on,’ which strangely have lost their annoying twang – maybe it’s because of my own tolerance of the aged contestant. In sets three, four and five, though, all of which were closely fought, Soderling prevailed, eventually finding depth, angle and timing on his extraordinarily fierce groundstrokes. This may be the last time we see Hewitt play on the hallowed grass of SW 19 and it was a performance that even if ultimately unsuccessful, glowingly displayed many of his admirable traits.

Hewitt-Soderling was followed by another match where character and guts were in plentiful display. Li Na, coming off her recent triumph at Roland Garros faced Germany’s wildcard entrant Sabine Lisicki. A quarterfinalist in 2009, Lisicki was seemingly destined to rise into the top echelons of the women’s game, but an ankle injury reduced her to walking on crutches for seven weeks and sent her ranking plummeting below 200. A victory at Birmingham leading up to Wimbledon saw her secure a wildcard, a decision, which now looks richly deserved. Li picked up the first set 6-3 and looked good for a simple victory, but a combination of huge serving – one of her aces was recorded at 122 miles per hour – and magnificent striking off the forehand wing saw Lisicki come back to take sets two and three 6-4, 8-6. This would usually be a cue for me to berate the quality of some of the top ranked women players, but this was an occasion on which the tennis, particularly in the latter phases, was of superb quality.

Of Wimbledon, Edberg, Chang and Ivaniševic

2011-06-18T13:56:00.006+05:30

Wimbledon, which begins on Monday, somewhat peculiarly isn’t my favourite Grand Slam tournament. The honour belongs to Roland Garros for reasons explained in an earlier post. It represents, though, something more. It isn’t merely about the tennis currently on display but the tennis that was once on display. It provides an opportunity to reminisce about the past. In many ways, my life as a tennis fan can be chronicled through the history of the Wimbledon Championships.

It was at Wimbledon, after all, that I fell in love with Stefan Edberg. My family wasn’t tennis-crazy, but my Grandfather in those days watched the sport, and particularly Wimbledon with rapt devotion. It was a time when the Becker-Edberg rivalry was at its zenith. I was too young to have an idea about the mechanics of the sport, but a choice had to be made between the pair. I would be giving myself undeserved credit if I were to say that it was the regal elegance of the Swede’s play that made me chose him over the German, but I doubt I was prone to such aesthetic-minded decisions at that age. For some reason or the other, though, Edberg, playing in his classic Adidas kit, captured my imagination like none before or since. To this day, when I watch re-runs of Edberg playing, I am glad, and even proud, that I made the right choice – for no player more artistically pleasing has ever graced the sport. Somehow, my earliest memories of Edberg have nothing to do with his actual on-court skills, but the jump over the net that he made to greet his opponent who would surely have been slain with sinuous, easy grace.

To me Edberg’s tennis epitomised beauty. His classical service action – which is now used as the Australian Open’s logo – I tried replicating on the courts on many occasions, only for the attempts to end in glorious failure. His single-handed backhand was again a thing of beauty – often hit with the perfect amalgam of power, timing and placement. It was at the net, though, that he was at his finest. A more competent, finessed volley-er you will not see. He struck volleys on both wings with crisp ease that they were bizarrely both imperious and languid. To me the numbers matter little. Perhaps, his six Grand Slam titles do little justice to his talents, but it was his style of play that I was in thrall with. In fact, very soon after I became an Edberg fan, he was on the decline – he won the last of his Grand Slams in 1992 at Flushing Meadows, a tournament which I remember even if not vividly with much fondness.

The era of the Americans – Pete Sampras, Jim Courier and Andre Agassi – had arrived. Outlandishly, though, it wasn’t anyone from this triumvirate that I supported, but it was the other American Michael Chang who caught my fancy. I am not as proud of this choice for Chang was but a baseline slugger. He retrieved balls from every corner of the court and counter-punched with magnificent vigour. His game was scarcely suited to the serene grass of Wimbledon and as I was not old enough to watch him win at Roland Garros in 1989 – ironically he defeated Edberg in the final – my time as his fan never saw him win anything substantial.

Sampras had, by now, begun to dominate tennis, and particularly Wimbledon, with tedious, yet impeccable excellence. Those around me were left in awe by the American’s play, but I remained dogged in my opposition – excellence isn’t necessarily a trait that one identifies with when growing up. I needed a player to counter his machine-like efficiency and again my choice was curious. The enigmatic Goran Ivanišević was a popular player, but one who was ultimately flawed. He could serve with monstrous power and remarkable accuracy, but his game was otherwise limited. The Croat lost in the final at Wimbledon in 1992 to Agassi – in a five set humdinger – and in 1994 and 1998 to Sampras who polished him off during the big-points like he was swatting a fly.

Tragedy and Ivanišević rarely seemed too far apart, but his tennis had a magnetic pull to it. One wanted to be attached to his solitude, to feel the catastrophe of his losses. There was something innately human about him, as much as there was something robotic about Sampras. And when in 2001, the Croat, as a wildcard entrant, hiccupped his way into the final against Patrick Rafter, the stage was set for the ultimate tennis story. After five sets of gruelling, heart-wrenching tennis, Ivanišević clinched his first and only Wimbledon, 9-7 in the decider. It was a titanic struggle, but the victory was amongst the sweetest I have experienced as a fan of the sport.

This, the last paragraph from Guardian’s game-by-game report of the 2001 final captures beautifully the concluding moments and the sweet joy of Ivanišević’s victory:

“Drama, drama. This game encapsulates Goran. A bad decision sees him go 0-15. Then a double-fault to take it to 15-30. Then a second service ace at 116mph. 30-30: he calls for the same ball. He aces it to give him championship point. The crowd have gone ballistic. Goran is weeping. Boom. Is it an ace? No, it’s out. And then he double-faults. On match point! Deuce. A big serve gives him the advantage. Guess what? Yup – another double-fault! Rafter pushes one down the line. But it’s out and Goran goes to his knees and lifts his eyes to heaven. He kisses the ball. But what nerve and presence of mind from Rafter to lob from there. And so perfectly. Deuce. But another chance for Goran. He asks for the same ball again. Rafter puts it into the net. GORAN’S WON.”

The Michael Jordan Problem

2011-06-13T16:16:00.003+05:30

Sporting immortality, greatness and a positive answer to the ‘Michael Jordan question’ will have to wait at least another season for LeBron James. This was supposed to be his year. The year when having moved from the Cleveland Cavaliers – in hugely controversial circumstances – to join Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh to form a triumvirate talented enough to win him the NBA title, James would fulfil his destiny with the Miami Heat.

Having charged into the Final to meet the Dallas Mavericks – themselves a motley group of talented yet seemingly unfulfilled basketball players including the thirty-eight-year-old Jason Kidd and the thirty-two-year-old Dirk Nowitzki – the Miami Heat were the overwhelming favourites. And after game one, in which the Heat cruised to a 92-84 win, one thought the series was all but sealed – a run to victory that wouldn’t need James to parade his dazzling array of skills. The Jordan question would have been left unanswered, but for different reasons. The victory for Heat would have been simple. There would have been no need for fourth-quarter-seventh-game heroics from James.

As it has turned out, though, it is Nowitzki who has left an indelible mark on the game. Consistent, searing displays of excellence, in spite of nursing an injured left thumb and suffering from bouts of high fever, saw the gangly German secure the Ring that his talents have undoubtedly deserved. Every question asked of him he answered with glorious certainty. Whenever the Mavs were in need of a big play, Nowitzki demanded the ball and made things happen, either by driving to the basket or fading away and shooting with unerring accuracy from the paint. After game three, he lashed out at Jason Terry for failing to step up to the occasion. Since then Terry has been electric, scoring 17 points in game four, 21 in game five and 27 in the series-sealing game six. Not only did Nowitzki elevate himself – rising way above his seven-foot frame – but in the manner of a true champion he inspired those around him to greater deeds.

Curiously, though, in spite of Nowitzki’s heroics – which won him the Final’s Most Valuable Player award – the focus will remain squarely on LeBron James, the ‘anointed’ successor to Michael Jordan. This of course has little to do with James himself as Josh Levin argues in this piece for Slate. It isn’t James’s fault that Jordan was so unquestionably great, that his aura continues to haunt every player with palpably rich skills who has graced a basketball court since. Jordan was one of a kind – a player possessed of supreme talent and the ability to perform under the severest of pressure.

In the 1998 final, when Jordan put the Chicago Bulls in the lead with 5 seconds to play of their deciding game seven against Utah Jazz, he transcended all boundaries of greatness. It was not merely a great play, but a legend-defining one, a play that elevated Jordan to the very top of the pantheon. (The moment is described beautifully in this piece by David Halberstam in the New Yorker) Since then, Kobe Bryant has won five titles with the L.A. Lakers, the first three in the company of Shaquille O’Neal. Bryant, no doubt, possesses his own claims to greatness, but unhappily for him he doesn’t quite possess a Jordan-esque moment, again due to no fault of his own. But trailing Jordan by only one ring, Bryant has time to raise himself even further, maybe reach echelons of greatness that will make him and not Jordan the standard. It will certainly put an end to the dreary Michael Jordan problem and create a new Kobe Bryant problem that may fascinate briefly even if proving to be ultimately monotonous – a bit like this piece.

Anyway, coming back to James, when he was questioned after game three for ‘shrinking’ in the fourth quarter, he said: “I think you’re concentrating on one side of the floor. All you’re looking at is the stat sheet…. You should watch the film again and see what I did defensively.” This represents the prime concern with judging a basketball player. American sport has always relied heavily on statistics. The number of points, the assists, the rebounds, the steals, and the blocks that a player makes is what he is judged on. James even while ticking many of these boxes, failed to score heavily enough in the fourth quarter – often it was Wade who was making the play in crunch situations. But, what about the intangibles? His movement, his presence and his ability to use the ball intelligently even if not resulting in a direct assist or a direct point goes virtually unnoticed. No doubt, in the ultimate analysis, James’s failure to make himself counted in the fourth quarter played a huge role in the Mavs victory. But the sad irony is that even if the Heat had won, perhaps, due to a combination of excellence from James, Wade and Bosh, James may still have faced criticism for a lack of fourth-quarter brilliance. After all, he is always going to be judged by the exalted standards set by Jordan.

This brings us back to James’s move to Miami. At Cleveland, he was clearly the top dog. Success for the Cavaliers depended solely on James. Reaching the final, which he did in 2007 with the Cavs was by itself a great achievement. That the San Antonio Spurs swept them away with nonchalance was not James’s fault. He hadn’t the support that Jordan had with the Bulls or Bryant had with the Lakers. This is the reason why he left Cleveland for Miami, a quest for titles. At the Heat, though, he doesn’t merely have a support cast, but in Wade a competitor for the main-man status. As a result, any title won is unlikely to go down as his own. In other words, the Michael Jordan problem will never be resolved. He’d rather have remained at Cleveland, soldiered on for glory, heroically even if ultimately a failure. This would have provided James with his own clutch over greatness – even if of a different kind from the one that Jordan imperiously owns.

Five things we learned from Roland Garros

2011-06-07T09:30:00.004+05:30

1. Roger Federer isn’t yet the greatest of all time:

It is nigh on impossible, I believe to make such an assertion in the first place, and in any event Roger Federer’s record against his chief rival, Rafael Nadal ridicules the suggestion. Of course, Federer is statistically the most successful player in Grand Slam tennis history and he wins by playing in a beautiful, easy style. But Nadal has beaten Federer in 17 of their 25 meetings and in 6 of their 8 contests in Grand Slam finals, putting in rich perspective the fallacy in the argument that Federer is the greatest to have wielded a tennis racquet. No doubt, the Swiss belongs in a pantheon that comprises Bjorn Borg, Pete Sampras, Rod Laver and a few others, but to place him indisputably on top of that list is incorrect, to put it mildly.

2. Nadal’s greatest attribute is his ability to win ugly:

I doubt anyone in the history of the sport has been better than Nadal at winning ugly when required to. This is not to suggest that he cannot win beautifully. Indeed when he is at the top of his game, he is as imperious and as handsome a sight as any other. But even when his game isn’t quite up to scratch, Nadal finds a way through irrespective of the demands of his opponent. On Sunday, Federer was at his mesmerizing best in the first set, seemingly killing Nadal with his sinuous, entrancing grace. Down 2-5, the Spaniard had no right to win the set. He was being enthralled into submission. His groundstrokes were meek, his serves were devoid of punch and he looked a shadow of his usually commanding self. Yet, he came-back to win five games in a row to seal the set and effectively kill any hopes of an upset. Not, though, by finding rhythm in his strokes, but by chasing Federer’s shots down with vigour and vitality and stunning the Swiss into compliance through sheer force of will. Before the Djokovic-Federer semifinal, Nadal commented that the match pitted the "best player at the moment against the best player in history". Where does it leave him then?

3. All-court players are on the rise:

Rarely in Grand Slams do the top four seeds of the men’s game qualify for the semi-finals. This is rarer still at the French Open, for historically many top players have been ill suited to the red clay in Paris. In recent times, though, players have become increasingly more comfortable on all surfaces. I would imagine that the causes for the phenomenon are essentially two-fold: (a) The surfaces at all four of the Grand Slams are coming closer to each other in terms of their overall play. The clay at Paris has become quicker, the grass at Wimbledon slower and the hard courts in Melbourne Park and Flushing Meadows have gravitated towards each other in terms of their constituents. (b) Concomitantly, players no longer shape their styles to suit a certain surface. Romantics crave for the return of the serve-and-volley game, but when one can win Wimbledon by playing from the baseline in a style that will also predominantly suit the clay at Roland Garros, players would be foolish to model themselves on an Edberg or a Sampras. Equally, though, the clay-court specialist, the slugger from the baseline, is also no longer in abundant evidence. The top players are capable of winning any of the four Grand Slams by merely tweaking certain aspects of their game without altering its foundations.

4. Brit when he wins; Scot when he loses:

Had he been competing in any other era, Andy Murray would, perhaps, have been a Grand Slam champion by now. That he is fourth in the list of a truly outstanding quartet is no disgrace for his talents are nonetheless deserving of a Grand Slam title. Fred Perry was the last Briton to win a Slam (the 1936 US Open) and the pressures of this void had weighed heavily, first, on Tim Henman – a player infinitely less talented than Murray – and now weigh heavily on the Scotsman who has reached three Grand Slam finals without success. In evidence, though, at Roland Garros was an attribute, which should continue to brighten the hopes of the British. In his third round match against Michael Berrer, Murray turned his ankle, injuring it critically, and yet soldiered to victory in four sets. A lesser man would have withdrawn from the match and the tournament. Murray, however, battled hard, defeated Victor Troicki in five grueling sets in the fourth round before cruising past Juan Ignacio Chela to set up a duel with Rafael Nadal. Against the Spaniard, admittedly Murray came a cropper in three straight sets, but for much of the match, Murray was the better player. It would be pure conjecture to suggest that he may well have beaten Nadal, if not for his weak ankle, but in fighting the Spaniard and running him close – which he certainly did in spite of the suggestions of the scoreboard – Murray showcased that he has the requisite skills to, one day, win a Grand Slam.

5. The Women’s game is in a bit of a shambles:

We all love an underdog success, but in women’s tennis, the world number 1 is often the underdog. Caroline Wozniacki, the twenty-year-old Dane, has held the position for 32 weeks now, and yet hasn’t a single Grand Slam title to show. In fact, she has reached only a solitary final, the 2009 US Open. This of course raises questions on the ranking system, as it rightly should. But the malaise in the women’s tour runs deeper. Serena Williams, unquestionably the finest player produced since the days of Steffi Graf and Monica Seles, hasn’t played a tournament since Wimbledon last year owing to injury and even when fit restricts her appearances to Grand Slams and a few other high-profile tournaments. The other top players in recent times, Wozniacki, Ana Ivanovic and Jelena Jankovic fell early at Roland Garros as they have tended to do in recent times. So too did Kim Clijsters, Victoria Azarenka and Vera Zvonareva, the more consistent of the higher ranked players, leaving the no. 6 seed, Li Na and the No. 8 seed, Francesca Schiavone to contest the final. This preponderance of ‘upsets’ though must not be confused with depth of talent. In the absence of Serena Williams, and since the retirement of Justine Henin, the women’s game not only lacks a predominant power-base, but is also devoid of quality at the top. ‘Quality’ though must not be interpreted as mere physical and technical abilities. The likes of Wozniacki and Azarenka, perhaps, have the requisite technical attributes for Grand Slam success, but as history has showed us, sustained success at the level takes more than just that. The fact that the draw at Roland Garros was wider than ever before wasn’t indicative of depth but the lack of a single outstanding candidate.

(Inspired by The Guardian's Five Things We Learned series)

Djokovic ousted; Federer regains a touch of the old aura

2011-06-04T22:21:00.001+05:30

As much as people may try telling you otherwise, no one really saw this coming. Roger Federer, crushed in three straight sets by Novak Djokovic in the Australian Open earlier this year, produced four imperious sets of tennis to defeat the Serb in the semi-finals of Roland Garros and brought to an end one of the most glorious winning streaks in the history of the sport. Djokovic, a victory away from equalling John McEnroe’s record of forty-two consecutive wins at the beginning of a year was pummeled into submission by a display of tennis that was as brutal as it was artistic.

In the first two sets, in particular, Federer was at his liquid best. Every movement of his was as close to perfection as one is likely to see. He defended Djokovic’s blistering groundstrokes with the regal ease of a hungry lion chasing a poor gazelle, ripped his forehands with magical accuracy – almost always finding the most acute of angles – and more than anything else, served like a dream. When Federer is at his best, his serve rarely falters and yesterday almost every time he was in need of a big point, his serve rose to the occasion with a sense of majesty.

Perhaps, Djokovic can be criticized for a failure to launch a concerted attack on the Federer backhand – more than ever before his Achilles heal. But on the slower surface in Paris, the Swiss was able to get inside of those attempts and easily stroke the ball with his forehand. Federer did most things right yesterday. He moved with speed and purpose, mixed the pace of his groundstrokes, never allowing Djokovic to settle into any kind of hitting rhythm and constantly found acute angles on the court, which only a player possessed of supreme nous is capable of. His serves were guileful and were almost always hit with the perfect amalgam of timing and placement.

The match had everything that a spectator could ask for. In terms of pure narrative it was extraordinarily engaging. With Federer’s aura having seemingly dissipated and Djokovic on a winning steak for the ages, the tension in the air could be felt long and far. In terms of the quality of tennis, few sets have been better than the first won by Federer via a tiebreaker. In it, both players had their serves broken once, but the number of times that Djokovic found himself 0-40 on his serve was certainly telling. Nonetheless, the Serb played his part in what was an astonishing set of tennis and was only a point away from securing it. That Federer won the set in the tiebreaker exemplified his ability to play the big points with greater ease and confidence.

Going into the second set, considering the significant exertions up until the point, the prevailing opinion was that Federer would blink first, that his levels were certain to drop. Instead it was Djokovic who faltered. The Serb cut a forlorn figure in the set, constantly whined to his box, and struggled to find depth on his usually dependent groundstrokes. There was a feeling of resignation as Djokovic simply failed to match the levels of Federer who was thumping his strokes with rare artistic flourish. It is quite conceivable that Federer’s forehand has never reached a more superior level than it did in the second set. He was finding angles of such geometric brilliance, playing like Pythagoras with a tennis racquet. There was, after all, magic still left in the racquet that he brandishes like a wand.

But the new Novak Djokovic does not go without a fight. He gave it all that he could in the third set and expectedly, Federer who had invested so much into the opening phases of the game found himself faltering. A single break of serve sufficed as the Serb closed the set 6-3 even as the light in Paris slowly began to fade. There was, though, time left for another set of stirring tennis.

Both players held serve until Djokovic took the first advantage, gaining the right to serve for the set at 5-4. Federer, however, found a sudden surge of brilliance. True greatness could never have been more palpable. He raised his game, as he so often tends to do in the most trying of circumstances, and leveled the set at five games each. The clock though had been turned and perhaps the last sail was knocked out of Djokovic’s wind. In the tiebreaker played in near darkness, Federer regained a regal rhythm to his groundstrokes and had three match points, the first two of which were saved by Djokovic on his serve. The third, however, had a sense of inevitability about it. Federer produced a majestic, rousing down-the-middle ace and waved his finger in delight. One of the hottest winning steaks had been broken and how!

(Also posted at: http://www.criticaltwenties.in/sport/djokovic-ousted-federer-regains-a-touch-of-the-old-aura)

Thank You Scholesy!

2011-06-01T14:22:00.005+05:30

It had to happen someday, but Paul Scholes’s retirement – announced yesterday – has stricken me beyond imagination. Sport has been my getaway for as long as I can remember, and no sportsperson has provided me as much joy as Scholes has. It is the end of an epoch, not merely from a sporting sense, but from a personal standpoint, too.

Strikingly, the tributes to Scholes with which the Internet is awash are all juxtaposed with comments from footballers, current and past, ranging from Xavi to Zidane, and Guardiola to Lippi, as though Scholes’s ability does not speak for itself. The high regard that Scholes was held in by the footballing fraternity marks a good starting point, but it fails to convey the pure joy of watching him play. Indeed, he was a great player, but that is only given when one considers the sheer numbers: ten league titles, three FA Cups, two Champions League titles – 1999 can by no means be excluded – in a career spanning seventeen years, is quite remarkable by any account. That he played 675 times for Manchester United in its most successful era is enough vindication of his greatness and the numbers will see through it that his name remains firmly etched in the sands of time.

But what the statistics will never transport is the pristine joy that one – or at least I – obtained from watching him play. His understanding of time and space was peerless. Today, we marvel at Barcelona’s mastery over possession, but Scholes was the old master at retaining the ball. He played the sport like a game of chess. Always a few moves ahead of the opponents, he was acutely aware of what was around him. If you had observed his play closely, you would have seen him scanning the entire compass and moving to free spaces before receiving the ball with a touch as immaculate as a newborn’s caring mother. And once in possession, his passing range – second to none – would assume control. He could keep it both neat and tidy, pinging one-twos with those close to him, play raking diagonal balls to either wing with the accuracy of an ace marksman, or rip apart the heart of the opposition’s defence with eye-of-the-needle precision.

Everything Scholes did on a football pitch – sans, perhaps, his tackling – was done with shimmering joie de vivre. Even in the most trying of circumstances, he made the game look like what it was – a game. Football, Bill Shankly famous said was not a matter of life and death, but more than that. The truism of the statement, bathed in irony, has been debated with extensive monotony. Indeed, when Scholes got on to a football pitch, his commitment suggested he himself viewed the game thus, but in reality it was but a job for him, albeit one that he took immense pleasure in. It was about those ninety minutes on the pitch and nothing else. But within the dimensions of the playing area, the skill, the intelligence and the nous that the displayed were unequalled in their generation of thrill and delight.

In his early days, Scholes belonged to one of those ever-so-rare breeds of footballers – a box-to-box goalscoring, playmaking midfielder. In spite of being asthmatic, he showcased plenteous energy, rushing up and down the midfield with both vitality and intelligence. He had the gift of timing, and he would arrive late into the box unnoticed and finish more often than not with power and precision. For a small man – Scholes is only 170 metres tall – he was excellent in the air, netting scores of goals with his head including the famous stoppage-time winner in the Manchester Derby last year. This he achieved through a combination of timing and technique. His ability to arrive in dangerous areas at the most opportune of occasions meant that he found himself with more chances to head on goal than most players his size. But, once presented with an opportunity, there were few better than him at finding the goal.

Perhaps, the feature of his game that Scholes will most fondly be remembered for is his long-range shooting, which in his pomp he displayed with remarkable regularity. Again, there have been numerous finishes of astounding power and accuracy, including a rasping volley at Villa-Park, the famous goal against Barcelona in the 2008 Champions League semi-final, a top-corner effort of astounding magnificence against Middleborough, to name a few amongst a multitude. But the one that stands out is a volley straight off a David Beckham corner against Bradford City at the Valley Parade ground. One moment, Scholes was sauntering near the edge of the box, scratching his head, and next moment, he unleashed a ferocious volley that ripped through a stream of City players and into the back of the net. It was an exhibition of rare ingenuity and even rarer technique.

It is difficult to look back upon my time watching Scholes play to pick particular moments of brilliance, for he really has been bounteous in that regard. There was a Champions League goal against Panathinaikos when Scholes completed a thirty-five-pass move with a chip over the goalkeeper that was as imperious as it was impudent. There was the ‘assist’, to use the modern-day terminology, to Wayne Rooney against AC Milan, which simply reeked of class – matchless vision combined with wonderful execution. But singular moments do not an ounce of justice to Scholes’s mastery over the game. I could watch whole games not taking my eyes off him, only to see his command over the football pitch and his ability to keep the ball moving with marvellous simplicity and grace.

In recent years, Scholes had transformed himself into a deep lying midfielder, an Italian style regista – he hadn’t the energy to pace up and down the pitch. But his footballing nous and his appreciation of space saw him excel in a position that was new to him. Technically so proficient, he was able to dictate the pace and tempo of games with wonderful efficiency. But a decline in speed, even if his footballing brain has remained as shrewd as ever, meant that the retirement was not unexpected. And also on expected lines was the manner of the announcement – Scholes, a player utterly devoid of modern-day football’s celebrity trappings was already on holiday when the declaration was made via a press release.

They don’t make them like him anymore and indeed they haven’t for a while now. From a personal standpoint, this brings to an end many years of watching him play and marvelling at his supreme technique, which rarely failed to inspire awe. As they say all good things do come to an end, and sadly I will be left only to reminisce at what was a golden era – one, which belonged to the great Paul Scholes.

(Also posted at: http://www.criticaltwenties.in/sport/thank-you-scholesy)

FC Barcelona - A Work of High Art

2011-05-29T16:50:00.004+05:30

If there was any doubt preceding the game about the stature of this Barcelona team, it was put to rest in magisterial fashion. Manchester United were cut to ribbons in the final of the UEFA Champions League with a display of audacious class and merciless efficiency. Barcelona were simply irrepressible. A more beautiful victory one is unlikely to see. Perhaps they were aided by United’s timidity, an unwillingness to play dirty, an attribute that some may even consider commendable, but Barcelona’s display has taken them well into the pantheon of great footballing sides.

Let us, though, forget the scoreline – a commanding 3-1 – and concentrate for a moment on the methods, for it is the style of victory more than the score which is likely to define this epoch. At the core of Barcelona’s triumph, paradoxically, isn’t Lionel Messi, widely and rightly considered the best player in the world, but Xavi Hernandez their pint sized midfield maestro. Xavi is Barcelona’s ‘quarterback’, every attack flows through him and it is he who helps them command space with an air of hitherto unseen imperiousness. He passes the ball, both short and long, both in acute angles and in straight lines, both along the ground and in the air, with equal simplicity but never it seems without purpose. The purpose, if one were to define it, is a quest for space, a pursuit ingrained in the club’s philosophy by Johan Cruyff.

The blueprint for Barcelona’s play lies in the methods adopted by the great Ajax and the Netherlands sides of the late 1960s to early 1970s, in which Cruyff played the chief protagonist. Under the stewardship of Rinus Michels, football was revolutionalised. No doubt, it has unconsciously always been about space, but as artist Jeroen Henneman says in David Winner’s outstanding book, ‘The Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football’, “the big change in Dutch football happened when these ideas became words, when Cruyff and Michels started talking about space.”

Winner seeks to conceptualise this understanding of space. He draws parallels between Dutch architecture, art and football. He says: “’Total football’ was, among other things, a conceptual revolution based on the idea that the size of any football field was flexible and could be altered by a team playing on it. In possession, Ajax – and later the Dutch national team – aimed to make the pitch as large as possible, spreading play to the wings and seeing every run and movement as a way to increase and exploit the available space. ”

In many ways, Winner argues, this expansion of space is akin to the wonder that marks Dutch architecture. He says: “Because of their strange landscape, the Dutch are a nation of spatial neurotics… Space is an inordinately precious commodity, and for centuries the use of every square centimeter of every Dutch city, field and polder has been carefully considered and argued over.” This paucity, Winner says has contributed towards the Dutch thinking innovatively about space, a constant urge to find it where seemingly none exists, a philosophy that has been carried over to the football pitch.

Of course it is easy to argue that these are but tenuous links, utterly lacking in credence. But as Rudi Fuchs, a director of a modern art museum in Amsterdam argues in Winner’s book, ‘every country and culture has its own way of seeing.’ He says: “The psychologists deny these differences exist, but its there in Dutch art and culture. Ask any Dutch person to draw the horizon and they will draw a straight line. If you ask someone form Yorkshire or Tuscany or anywhere else, it will have bumps and hills. A Scandinavian blue is cold and steely, completely unlike a blue in Italy. Italian painting is rich in warm reds, but when red appears in the work of a northern artist like Munch, its blood in the snow.” He goes on to add that these ‘climatic and geographically shaped aesthetic differences are inevitably reflected in football.’ “Catenaccio is like a Titan painting – soft, seductive and languid. The Italians welcome and lull you and seduce you into their soft embrace, and score a goal like the thrust of a dagger. The Dutch make their geometric patterns… The English like to run and fight. When Gullit tried to transplant this Dutch art to Newcastle, he was trying to do something impossible. He was bound to fail.”

Pertinently, it may be noted that, Fuchs fails to mention Spain or in fact Catalunya. But it is there that Cruyff’s notion of space has found its most glorious recognition. Cruyff took Dutch art to Barcelona, and the club has augmented this conception through its own varying approaches to the creation of space.

(Also posted at: http://www.criticaltwenties.in/sport/fc-barcelona-a-work-of-high-art)

First, a look at the tactical basis that underpins the method. At Ajax and with the Netherlands, Michels and his successors adopted a fluid, flexible 4-3-3 with a centre-back pushing forward whenever possible to make it a 3-4-3. Essentially, though, these positional notations were only that – notations. In practice, the system involved rapid interchange of positions, wingers finding themselves in central defense, central midfielders moving into full back, and so on. For all its attacking vitality, it is important to note that defensive solidity was never compromised, if the left back was caught up field, one of the central midfielders was always on hand to cover the space. The inherent philosophy, as Jonathan Wilson points out in this piece for the Guardian, was simple – ‘pass and move when in possession, squeeze the play when out of it.’

In many ways, the Ajax philosophy served as the template for Arrigo Sacchi’s AC Milan side and the more recent Arsenal team under Arsene Wenger. The idea, though, has stayed at the forefront of Barcelona’s thinking ever since Michels moved to the club as coach in 1971, with Cruyff joining him two years later. Their axis hadn’t the success that it had at Ajax, but nonetheless the processes were put in place. During Cruyff’s six-year tenure as a player, the club won only a single La Liga title. Its ethos though was altered. Success alone wasn’t what the club craved for, but success through a certain style.

Between Cruyff’s time as a player and when he re-joined the club as manager in 1988, it won the Championship only once, in 1984-85 under Terry Venables. But once Cruyff took over the reins, the contours of the club were dramatically altered, laying the basis for its greatness, which has been achieved with rare panache. The club won four consecutive La Ligas between 1990-91 and 1993-94, playing a seductive, fearsome brand of football that emphasized a mastery over space. At its pivot was Josep Guardiola, the current Barcelona manager. He was the Xavi of the ‘Dream Team’, the one who took control of the ball in the middle of the park, acting as the conductor of the orchestra. The expansive style of the Dream Team, though, whilst magnificent to watch, had its drawbacks. Relevantly, it won the Champions League only once, in 1991-92, losing 4-0 in the final two years later to Fabio Capello’s AC Milan. The team containing Guardiola, Romario, Stoichkov and Koeman was undone by a disciplined Milan effort that was aimed at targeting specific weaknesses of Barcelona – particularly spaces behind their fullbacks, which were ruthlessly exposed by Dejan Savicevic.

Cruyff’s contributions to Barcelona though do not end there. In 1979, he played a pivotal role in convincing the then President of the club, Josep Nunez, in remodeling La Masia, the club’s academy to accommodate a greater number of students, and centering its methods on the famed Ajax academy. Instilled in the youngsters at La Masia are the philosophies of Cruyff. Apprentices are taught to think innovatively, to think in terms of space. They are trained to press and compress space when defending and expand the playing area when in attack. Amongst its foremost and earliest graduates was Guardiola himself and Guillermo Amor, both of whom played fundamental roles in the Dream Team’s success.

Since then, the academy has produced a battery of stars, all entrenched in the Barcelona way, including Carles Puyol, Xavi, Andres Iniesta, Lionel Messi, Gerard Pique, Pedro Rodriguez and Victor Valdes. The success of the first team for a period was steady, without being spectacular. In 2005-06, the club won the Champions League for the second time in its history, under the management of Frank Riijkard – more indications of a Dutch touch. But while Xavi and Puyol played important roles, the win was essentially achieved through the attacking flair of Ronaldinho, a Brazilian bought from Paris St. German. Much of its football was eye-catching, but the manner of the victory was rarely imperious. Defensively, the team had many frailties, and its methods were far from the flawlessness that is now on show. Following a second consecutive season without league triumph in 2007-08, Riijkard was shown the door, and Guardiola, who was then the head coach of the “B’ team, took over.

And since then there football has attained otherworldliness. They have won the Spanish league title in each of the last three years and the Champions League twice, all the while adhering to the high ideals of Cryuff. Opponents have been forced into submission through a graceful, enthralling style of football. But Guardiola has not merely aped Cruyff in his methods. The basic paradigm, no doubt, remains the same, but the nature of the pressing game that today’s Barcelona play is more complete. It hasn’t the totality of the Ajax sides of the 1970s – indeed it is implausible for a team to play on such lines in today’s tactical regime – but it involves pressing from the top in a manner, perhaps, never witnessed in the past.

Without the ball, as Guadiola often points out, ‘Barcelona are a disastrous team’. So they hound like a pack of chasing wolves from the front, compressing space the moment they lose the ball. Messi, Villa and Pedro are renowned for their attacking prowess, but they play just as crucial a role defensively. They pursue the opposition in every corner of the pitch – even simple passes rolled out from the opposition’s goalkeeper to one of his defenders is not spared. For Barcelona, possession is the foundation for both attack and defence. Once they win the ball back, though, they retain it with élan for what seems like ages. In the Champions League this season, they have kept possession of the ball on an average of about 70% of the time every game, an astonishingly brilliant figure.

There is of course a criticism that at times their passing can be tedious, an end in itself, which often strips an element of fun out of their game. This, though, is a matter of aesthetics. Perhaps their style isn’t as thrillingly gorgeous as the Ajax and the Netherlands teams of the early 1970s, but as Simon Barnes once remarked of complaints against Pete Sampras being too boring, if you find excellence tedious, then sport is not what you should look towards.

Guardiola has ensured that the Cruyff philosophy remains the basis for Barcelona’s play, but by getting his team to relentlessly press the opposition in all areas of the pitch, he has augmented the model even further. As Sir Alex Ferguson said: "Guardiola has created a different philosophy for Barcelona. I think the Cruyff era laid the foundation for the width they used in their game and using the full size of the pitch. If you look at their midfield players over the last 20 years, they have all been small. What has changed is the pressing and the areas in which they press the ball. That is what Guardiola has brought to the team.

The beauty in Barcelona’s play, ironically for a team that plays with such elegance, lies in their discipline, exemplified best by Xavi. He presses the opposition hard, and when he is given the ball, he almost never loses it – evident from the fact that he converted 124 out of the 136 passes he attempted in the Final, more than the entire Manchester United midfield put together. The laboured accusation that Xavi only passes the ball sideways and a lack of directness means that it is easy to boast of such statistics falls like a leaf at the peak of autumn.

A glimpse at the opening goal scored by Pedro in the Final is enough to convince one of Xavi’s supreme talents. It was an education in practical passing. He sauntered near the edge of the United box, waiting for players to flit around in front of him, until the perfect opportunity presented itself. And when Pedro darted outwards, even as the drifting Messi took Evra inwards with him, Xavi played the ball diagonally to Pedro, with the weight on the pass and its direction immaculate. As Cruyff says, the simple ball is what is very often the most elegant solution. Arriving at that simple ball, though, takes genius and Xavi belongs to a rare species that possesses that special gift.

It is a testament also to Guardiola’s talents that he has ensured that his team’s standards never dip. They of course possess the sheer unexplainable brilliance of Messi, who can win games on his own. But it is as a collective unit that they are most impressive. Guardiola has constructed a work of art that is no doubt based on conceptions of space theorized by Cruyff, but by imparting his own contributions in terms of pressing and an ability to defend in numbers, he has made an imprint that transcends all boundaries of greatness. For instance, in Dani Alves, Barcelona have a marauding right back, who is crucial to their attacking plans. But when Alves attacks, Sergio Busquets unfailingly sits deep to cover for the space that can open up behind the fullback. This is but an example to display their adherence to all aspects of the game. Every player in the side is attuned to the team’s methods – pass and move and look for space.

Perhaps, Guardiola’s work in moulding a team of such mesmeric brilliance is like that of Antoni Guadi, the great Catalan architect, who adhered to tradition even while creating the most modern of structures. Guardiola may not go on to create an impregnable empire, but his side has already done enough to go down in the annals of history as one of the greatest of all time.

Number 19, Manchester United and the 'irrationality' of Distant Fandom

2011-05-28T11:08:00.003+05:30

On April 2, India, where I’ve lived all my life, was playing in the final of the Cricket World Cup at Mumbai. The entire nation watched the game with bated breath, as indeed I myself did for much of its duration. Simultaneously, in the Barclays Premier League, Manchester United was playing West Ham United at Upton Park. Within the opening 25 minutes of the game, West Ham’s Mark Noble scored twice, seemingly putting a spanner in the works of Man United’s title bid. All the while, India was going along swimmingly in its bid to win the World Cup for the first time since 1983.

In what should have been a time for revelling in the expectation of a glorious triumph, though, I was imploring the forces of the world to allow Manchester United to get back into its game, not merely to ensure, that the sweet joy of India’s triumph remains unsoiled by a loss that could dent United’s Premier League hopes. And as it so often tends to do, United came back.

Wayne Rooney, who had struggled through much of the season, found form at the most opportune of occasions and scored a splendid hat-trick. It was just another league game, but the joy of those three points - crucial as it has turned out to be - provided a strange, contented sense of pleasure, unmatched even by India’s victory on the day. The triumph in the cricket was met by predictable hyperbole - something to do with the dawn of a new India. Firecrackers were set alight across the country and people partied all night long. It was a day that many Indians had waited a long time for. Twenty-eight years to be precise.

And yet, it confounds belief that sitting in Madras, India, more than 5000 miles from Manchester, it was the number nineteen that I was most concerned with. Logic, though, is defiant in any endeavour to rationalise my unabashed love for the club. Fandom, as I have come to realise, is the strangest of sociological phenomenon. I have no answer to the knotty question often put my way: how is it that you can profess a mad passion for a club with which you have no geographical ties, a club that plays a sport, seemingly, alien to your country’s culture? Tim Parks and Nick Hornby - authors of seminal autobiographical books on fandom – had their respective geographical ties to justify their madness. But distant fandom is far less susceptible to rationalisation.

Indeed, when I started supporting United, nearly fifteen years ago, I had no knowledge of its history, its chief rivals and its culture. I hadn’t the faintest idea of its world-wide renown. But once you’ve picked a club, for whatever reason – mine had something to do with Eric Cantona - you stick by it, whether you’re from Manchester or from Madras. As football began to capture my imagination my obsession with United intensified with each passing day. I became more immersed in its historic rivalry with Liverpool and not merely its clashes with Arsenal and Newcastle United – the chief competition at the time. This meant, of course, that the number nineteen, the Holy Grail as it were, attained remarkable significance.

In no way, however, can I lay claim to the club’s burgeoning in the manner in which, perhaps, the Stretford End faithful can - the ones to whom Sir Alex Ferguson bowed in gratitude after the victory against Chelsea. But on the Saturday, when United sealed its nineteenth league title to oust Liverpool from that, now famous perch, I could not help but feel a sense of profound and delightful attainment - a joy unaffected by the ills of rationality.

The Best and the Worst of 2010-11

2011-05-25T15:41:00.005+05:30

The Guardian’s football writers as they do at the end of every season have picked their best and worst from the 2010-11 Premier League season. Here are my selections in the same categories:

Best goal Littered in Dimitar Berbatov’s league topping tally of goals were some of the most awe-inspiring finishes, of which none was finer than the second of his three goals against Liverpool in Manchester United’s 3-2 victory at Old Trafford. Perhaps, Wayne Rooney’s winner in the Manchester Derby was a cleaner strike, a more technically perfect volley, if you will, but Berbatov’s finish reeked of unadulterated class. His entire movement, first to lift the ball up for the volley and then the strike in itself, was so languid yet majestically elegant that time seemed to stand still – a goal for the ages.

Best match The 4-4 draw between Newcastle United and Arsenal is a popular choice, and rightly so. To come back from 4-0 down against a club competing for the title is no joke, but in many ways it’s been a joke of a season for Arsenal. Their defensive frailties were in abundant evidence on that February afternoon, and when Cheik Tiote produced a splendid, rasping volley to equalise, the stadium erupted like only St. James’ Park can.

Best player Again, a well-liked choice, but Luka Modric has been an absolute joy to behold. The little Croatian’s touch, vision and passing have been extraordinarily crucial to Tottenham’s run this season. Modric’s light frame induced questions of his suitability to the hurly burly of the English game. But over the last two seasons, he has not only proven his capacity to adapt to the league, but has shown himself to be adept at playing in a two-man central midfield, as a box-to-box playmaker, the rarest of species in Rob Smyth’s words.

Best manager Blackpool’s football was at times this season as vivid as their tangerine coloured jerseys, but their gloriously cruel relegation means that Ian Holloway narrowly misses out on the gong. I will instead stick to the prosaic choice, Sir Alex Ferguson for leading Manchester United to its historic 19^th league title, the 12^th under his reign.

Best signing Signed for pittance (believed to be about 2.5 million pounds) in the summer, Peter Odemwingie has been a revelation for West Bromwich Albion. His 15 goals in 32 league appearances have been crucial to their survival in the Premier League.

Biggest flop It’s a toss up between Joe Cole and Fernando Torres, but the latter will have to bear the greater ignominy, purely down to his price tag. Signed for 50 million pounds by Chelsea in January, he’s regularly looked a forlorn figure. His touch and his movement are a shadow of what they were two years back, and most significantly he’s scored only 1 goal in 14 appearances for his new club.

Best pundit Viewers in India have to often make-do with Steve McMahon and Paul Parker who spit out inanities in the name of punditry. Jamie Reeves offers the rare relief.

Main gripe The League’s refusal to review incidents on the basis of a referee having seen it and decided against acting on it.

Change I’d like to see for next season. It’s high time FIFA embraces goal-line technology.

Is it the best league in the world? Like Barry Glendenning says, it depends on the definition of ‘best’. The Bundesliga is perhaps the most balanced league in the world, but its short on quality. The rift in class between Barcelona and Real Madrid, and the other clubs in Spain makes the La Liga an ultimately mundane affair. The Serie A has certainly regressed in recent years, as can be seen from the performance of its clubs in the Champions League. So I’ll probably go with the Premier League at the moment. It has enough quality and it certainly keeps me captivated.

(Also posted in http://www.criticaltwenties.in/sport/the-best-and-the-worst-of-2010-11)

Roland Garros and the Prospect of a New Champion

2011-05-21T19:15:00.004+05:30

Of all the Grand Slam tournaments, I love the French Open – or if you prefer, as I do, its more endearing name, Roland Garros – the most. This is seemingly an odd choice. Most people are entranced by Wimbledon and its exquisite grass courts and its glorious history – it is after all the home of tennis. But Roland Garros has a matchless charm to it. The ‘terre battue’ – the handsome red clay - the sublimity of the Parisian weather, the official trilby hat adorning the head of most people in the crowd, add to the allure of the tennis, which is more varied than on any other surface.

Tennis at Roland Garros is the ultimate test of endurance. Best of five set matches filled with long, draining rallies that encompass the full repertoire of a tennis player’s armoury – baseline strokes heavy on top spin, rallies filled with cheeky drop shots and lobs hit with diverse spin means that very often the dominance over a single rally can swing like a pendulum. A player who looks crushed one moment can still recover to win a point, provided of course he possesses the wherewithal to do so. But the fact that the surface offers such an opportunity means that it very often makes for a riveting spectacle.

This year’s tournament, which commences tomorrow, has the potential to be particularly memorable. In what is sure to beggar the belief of the more casual tennis fans, Rafael Nadal will not begin as the overwhelming favourite. Not too long ago, a few days before the Australian Open began, I asked where the next Federers and Nadals were. Since then, Novak Djokovic has gone on a 37-0 winning run (39-0 if one includes his victories in December), emerging triumphant in seven tournaments, including at Melbourne, rendering my question gloriously futile. Its futility, though, is not because Djokovic is on the verge of entering the pantheon of great tennis players – which he may well do at some point in his career – but because his winning streak has convincingly shattered the existing duopoly at the top of the men’s game.

Djokovic’s run has seen him defeat Nadal in four finals, two of which were on clay, a surface on which the Spaniard is, but for Bjorn Borg, recognized as the greatest exponent. As winning streaks at the start of a year go, the Serb trails only John McEnroe, who won 42 consecutive matches in 1984, at a time when even by McEnroe’s own admission, tennis wasn’t as demanding as it is today. The numbers, though, as remarkable as they may be, tell only a part of the story.

It is Djokovic’s assurance in the big games, and his tremendous ball-striking abilities on the tennis court, which he has paraded never more dazzlingly than in recent months that have been most spectacular. He possesses an innate sense of the geometry of a tennis court, enabling him to convert defence into attack – perhaps his greatest virtue – in the matter of a single stroke, irrespective of his position on the court. But then, these are assets that he has always possessed even if they have been sharpened in recent times. What is it then that has been the chief factor behind his ascent? Some say it has to do with his new gluten-free diet, while others point towards Serbia’s victory in the Davis Cup last December from which he has gained enormous self-confidence. Perhaps, it has to do with an astonishing improvement to his game – his forehand is a far more assured stroke now and his serve, once an unreliable weapon at times of crisis has never been more secure.

If I were asked though to isolate a turning point, a seminal moment that has contributed towards his rise, I would find it difficult to look beyond his victory over Federer in the 2010 US Open semifinals. Very often, a player even of the richest talents can lack the self-confidence required to make the most of his skills. Djokovic, since his Australian Open victory in 2008 has regularly reached the latter stages of Grand Slams only to succumb to big-match pressure. Against Federer, though, at Flushing Meadows, down two match points on his serve at 4-5 in the fifth set, he produced a brace of breathtaking winners that have set him on the path towards the number one ranking. Admittedly, he lost in the final to Nadal, but the match was played a day after his grueling five setter against Federer. A loss at the season ending Masters in London to Federer in the semifinals may indicate that his victory at New York wasn’t after all so seminal. But by that time his focus had been diverted to the Davis Cup final at Belgrade, which he helped Serbia clinch with a display of tennis that was as exhilarating as it was sublime.

Since then his deeds have been well documented. He says he doesn’t believe he is unbeatable – and rightly so – but he plays his tennis with a sagacious serenity in spite of a sprinkling of madness between points. A scream in agony or a tennis racquet broken in rage have never brought the best out of anyone, in recent times, in the manner in which it seems to, from Djokovic.

From a French Open perspective, it is his form in Madrid and Rome that serve as the key talking points. In neither tournament was his progress to the final seamless. At Madrid he won tough three-setters against David Ferrer and Thomaz Belluci in the quarterfinal and semifinal respectively. At Rome he was on the verge of elimination in the semifinal against Andy Murray, but his newfound self-belief saw him through, ultimately via a tiebreaker in the deciding set. Crucially, though, against Nadal, both at Madrid and Rome, Djokovic clinched victory in two straight sets. He was able to up his game when it mattered most – a sign that he has indeed come of age. The victories were so utterly imperious. In both matches, he pulverized Nadal from the back of the court, constantly directing his backhands crosscourt to the Spaniard’s forehand – widely recognized as his strong suit. Nadal has won Roland Garros five times in the last six years and it may be imprudent to not consider him as the favourite. But his title has perhaps never been at greater risk than it is in the coming fortnight, at the end of which, we may well have a new man at the summit of men’s tennis.

(Also posted at: http://www.criticaltwenties.in/sport/roland-garros-and-the-prospect-of-a-new-champion)

Roman's Likely Folly

2011-05-10T17:29:00.004+05:30

Carlo Ancelotti, a season after leading Chelsea to the League and Cup double, looks increasingly likely to be relieved of his duties as manager at the end of this month. This is of course not the least bit surprising when one considers Roman Abramovich’s record as owner of Chelsea. And it is perhaps not even unfair when considering the severance package that Ancelotti may receive and the conditions under which he accepted the job in the first place.

But from a pure footballing standpoint, sacking Ancelotti would be unarguably imprudent. Here is a manager whose tactical abilities are unquestionable; a winner of 2 Champions League titles and one scudetto in addition to the Premier League trophy last season. Add to that one of the prime reasons for his appointment by Abramovich – his ability to work under the stress of overbearing owners. At AC Milan, many off-field decisions – and perhaps even a few on-field ones – were made by Silvio Berlusconi. Ancelotti, though, continued with little fuss and delivered results without ever losing his integrity.

It is never easy to attain instant success and yet Ancelotti managed that at Chelsea last season with an ageing squad that often seemed devoid of inspiration. Chelsea played with a flair unknown to Abramovich’s reign at the club and they seemed to have finally found the perfect fusion of style and success. In the summer, Michael Ballack, Deco, Juliano Belletti and Ricardo Carvalho were all released and the resultant, gaping void was sought to be filled through an infusion of youngsters that included Josh McEachran, Gael Kakuta and Daniel Sturridge – in line with the owner’s sudden desire to promote players from within the club’s youth set-up.

With injuries, though, afflicting the squad at various junctures – Frank Lampard, Didier Drogba, Michael Essien, John Terry, Jose Bosingwa, Yossi Benayoun and Alex missed large parts of the season – Chelsea seemed ill-equipped to mount a title-challenge, finding themselves fifteen points behind Manchester United in March. Yet, following a defeat of United, they went through a superb run of form that saw them close the lead to 3 points before their crucial return leg at Old Trafford against United this past Sunday. Admittedly, United outshone the Champions, surely stripping them of their coveted crown with a thrilling exhibition of attacking football that laid bare several of Chelsea’s weaknesses, which were just as apparent in the club’s Champions League quarterfinal loss earlier in the season.

The Chelsea backbone, Frank Lampard and John Terry both look to be well past their prime, necessitating an infusion of new, yet experienced talent. The signing of Fernando Torres – for an exorbitant 50 million pounds – seemingly against Ancelotti’s wishes only made matters worse. A change in system to incorporate Torres into the line-up failed miserably, and ultimately the Spaniard had to be used off the bench to ensure that the team balance is maintained.

But by coming so close to the title in spite of having an injury ridden squad in addition to numerous other hassles, Ancelotti clearly established his managerial talents. Give him the time to build a squad of his choice, and results will only be inevitable. Chelsea, very obviously, need to find replacements for Lampard and Terry, and may have to sign a conventional winger or a midfielder of proven creativity to bring the best out of Torres. To sack Ancelotti though, and entrust the rebuilding responsibilities to a new manager would be heedless.

For one, there are hardly any viable options available to Abramovich in terms of potential replacements for Ancelotti. Let’s consider, first, the case for Guus Hiddink, the Russian’s favoured choice, assuming unlikely as it may be that Hiddink is in fact ready to take up the mantle. Hiddink hasn’t managed a club, barring his brief spell as interim manager of Chelsea in 2009, since his admittedly successful stint with PSV Eindhoven between 2002 and 2006. Since then he has led the Australian National team to the 2008 World Cup Finals knockout rounds and the Russian National team to the semi-finals of Euro 2008. But he also failed in his efforts to help Russia qualify for the 2010 World Cup and the Turkish national team, which he currently manages, is struggling to qualify for the 2012 European Championships.

As a manager, Hiddink has often exhibited supreme tactical brilliance and an ability to bring the best out of a limited bunch of footballers – as can be seen from South Korea’s phenomenal run in the 2002 World Cup Finals. But he has enjoyed scanty success as manager of clubs, barring his stints at PSV – with whom he won six Eredivisie titles and the European Cup in 1988. His time at Fenerbache, Real Madrid and Real Betis all ended in displeasing failure, while at Valencia, although he may have introduced an eye-catching brand of football, his team was anything but successful. Of course, his temporary spell at Chelsea, in which he reinvigorated the side leading them to an FA Cup triumph, could be used as an indicator of his abilities. This, though, must be seen in the larger context of an absence of any pressure in the way of a fear-of-the-sack – as Hiddink was clearly in charge only for a brief period. Apart from his record at PSV, where the demands of the game are not comparable to that at Chelsea, he has little to show in the way of sustained success. I am by no means suggesting that Hiddink is an ordinary manager – he is anything but that. An implication, though, that he is better placed than Ancelotti to re-build Chelsea’s squad is highly questionable, particularly when considering Ancelotti’s prior managerial record and the fact that he has spent two seasons at Chelsea, in which he would have surely understood, better than most, the requirements of the club.

Other managers touted as potential replacements include Andre Villas-Boas, Marco van Basten, Harry Redknapp and Mark Hughes. Villas-Boas, christened by the Press as the next Mourinho, is only 33 and is in his first season as manager of Porto. He is no doubt unbeaten in the League and has led his side to next week’s Europa League final against Braga. But to replace Ancelloti with Villas-Boas, as talented a coach as he may be, could be potentially disastrous. Van Basten – who had a recent, forgettable spell with Ajax – would be an even riskier appointment. Redknapp, though, has done well in his time at Tottenham Hotspur, showcasing rare tactical nous against top quality Italian sides, but it is unlikely that he will offer anything better than what Ancelotti can. Hughes had his time with aggressive new owners at Manchester City and while his credentials weren’t particularly worsened by the stint, they certainly weren’t further strengthened.

Ancelotti has undoubtedly come short in this season’s battle, but there are few as well equipped as the Italian to oversee Chelsea’s rebuilding. He has also failed to match the club’s ambitions in the Champions League, but his experience of having won the trophy on two occasions with AC Milan means that he is best placed to lead the club’s charge on the European front. These arguments, though, it must be said, are unlikely to stop Abramovich from sacking the Italian, an inevitable event, if there ever was one.

It is not Ancelotti’s inherent decency, though, as has been suggested in some quarters which should count in his favour, but his managerial abilities which rank amongst the best in the world.

Also posted at: http://www.criticaltwenties.in/sport/romans-likely-folly)

Lionel Messi - A Superman

2011-04-28T11:38:00.003+05:30

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

2011-04-23T13:18:00.001+05:30

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

2011-04-23T09:17:00.003+05:30

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

2011-04-23T09:17:00.002+05:30

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

Of Senna, Vettel and the Thrills of Racing

2011-04-18T23:23:00.002+05:30

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

2011-04-14T11:58:00.008+05:30

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

2011-04-11T18:08:00.001+05:30

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

2011-04-06T18:11:00.004+05:30

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.

***

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.

***

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

2011-04-03T13:40:00.001+05:30

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]

The Semifinal

2011-03-31T23:56:00.001+05:30

In this fine piece on perceptions of the great Ayrton Senna, Emma John says that it is often difficult for us, especially in today’s age where “perspective is a disappearing commodity...to see sporting events outside the prism of our own fan narrative, to realise that the stories around which we base our identities have been moulded and cannibalised by our personal experience of winning or losing.”

Now that the dust has begun to settle, though, on India’s victory against Pakistan yesterday, it may be time to release the fervour which was draped around us and look at the game from outside the prism of our fan narrative, as challenging a task as this may prove to be. The game admittedly took a shape that went beyond the realms of sport – what with the prime ministers of the two nations choosing this as the occasion to break their countries’ diplomatic deadlock. As it turned out, it was as much an occasion for fans of extravaganza of any kind as it was for fans of the sport – the cheers that Aamir Khan got even as some of the cricketers were going about their motions in the build up to the game was mildly sickening. But its every man for himself I suppose – who am I to pass judgments on the degrees and boundaries of fandom? What I can say, though, is that for all the hullabaloo and in spite of the appreciable importance of India’s triumph, I may probably remember close to diddly-squat about this match in the years to come.

As I reflected on the game today, I couldn’t help but note that there was nothing particularly special about the victory. The quality of the cricket wasn’t at any admirable standard and, perhaps, a few years from now this game, devoid as it was of outstanding moments, will be eradicated from memory. The 1996 quarter-final and for that matter the meeting in 2003 between these teams, though, will conceivably be etched forever in my mind. Ajay Jadeja’s slog-over heroics and that celebrated delivery from Venkatesh Prasad to dislodge Aamir Sohail’s off-stump a ball after he was unleashed with a mouthful of vitriol from the batsman are indelible moments. Likewise, Sachin Tendulkar’s brutal assault at Centurion in 2003 against a bowling attack composed of Shoaib Akhtar, Waqar Younis and Wasim Akram, in a game played on the backdrop of boiling political differences between the nations will remain amongst the finest World Cup moments. Those three Tendulkar strokes in Akhtar’s opening over for 14 thrilling runs represents a moment of peerless genius.

Yesterday, though, from an Indian perspective there was little of outstanding note. Had Pakistan won, maybe the game would have been remembered for the inspired and quite astonishing spell of swing bowling from Wahab Riaz. As it turned out Riaz’s performance, easily the game’s best individual act was not even good enough to bring him the man-of-the-match award. Instead, Tendulkar, dropped on four occasions en route to a scratchy 85 – possibly one of his worst ODI half centuries – bagged the honours. Thank heavens, though, that this was not the day for his hundredth hundred. India’s batting barring Virender Sehwag’s explosive start and Suresh Raina’s fine hand at the end was largely insipid and stripped out of its character by the superb Riaz.

In response, Pakistan began brightly, but as is so often the case with it, it somehow contrived to gift wicket after wicket to the Indians. Mohammad Hafeez, Asad Shafiq, and Younis Khan all fell to innocuous deliveries. Misbah ul Haq dawdled around for eternity, leaving it far too late for the final assault. No doubt, Munaf Patel and Ashish Nehra – whose inclusion in the Eleven ahead of R. Ashwin seemed inexplicable – bowled disciplined spells and M.S. Dhoni captained with typical calmness if not panache, but the game lacked a performance of singular brilliance – an unforgettable act of distinction.

It remains, however, a victory for India over Pakistan, that too in a World Cup semi-final – up until now the highest round in which the teams have ever met in the competition. The histrionic pre-game build-up was more incredible than any in recent memory. The victory celebrations lived up to the game’s billing – firecrackers were set alight across the country. Maybe it’s the occasion which we will remember in the years to come and not so much the cricket. But by any account, it will count for nigh-on nothing if India is to come a cropper at Mumbai on Saturday.

[Also posted at: http://www.criticaltwenties.in/worldcup/the-semifinal]

Let's not go all Moral over Tendulkar's Walk

2011-03-23T12:33:00.003+05:30

On Sunday 45000 people crammed into Chepauk to witness what they perceived would be a divine experience. When Sachin Tendulkar walked back into the pavilion ninety eight runs short of what would have been his hundredth hundred, the silence was almost resonant. Some would argue that by walking off the field before umpire Steve Davies could lift his finger – the general conjecture is that the decision would have gone the batsman’s way – a celestial experience is exactly what they got. But cricket, as Andy Bull rightly points out in this week’s Spin – Guardian’s weekly cricket column – is a game of skewed morals. The ethical code in cricket, Bull says, “exists in shades of grey rather than black and white.” Indeed a day before India’s game against the West Indies, Ricky Ponting having blatantly edged one to Kamran Akmal against Pakistan stood his ground, until umpire Marais Erasmus’s decision was overturned via the UDRS. Ponting has never been a walker and he makes no bones about it – “If I get a nick behind to the keeper, then I stand there until the umpire makes a decision.”

But before I get to the morality of the issue of walking or the aspect of decisions balancing themselves out over the course of a cricketer’s career, it is important to point out that Tendulkar hasn’t always been a walker. To exalt his decision to walk against the West Indies as a saintly act would, therefore, be a statement steeped in misconceptions. As Sourav Ganguly remarked in an interview with a television channel, “Sachin has never done that in the past, let's be honest, and he shouldn't because there have been times when he has been given out and he was not out.” The headlines in many Indian newspapers, such as the Times of India, which read “Sachin Tendulkar puts integrity above quest for 100th ton;” the Deccan Herald, which expressed his decision as “Walking tall on the cricketing pitch” and the Hindustan Times, which said that this was “another instance of the high standards he has set for himself,” are all not even worth the price of paper on which they’ve been printed. There have been numerous instances when Tendulkar has been happy to wait for the umpire’s decision; carrying on, in fact, had the decision wrongly gone in his favour. So let’s not idolize inconsistent acts and lose track of the distorted moralities of cricket.

The broad conception that has developed in recent years, particularly on the back of Adam Gilchrist’s decision to walk in a World Cup semi-final – it may also be worthwhile to point out that Gilchrist himself has failed to walk on odd occasions – is that it is the prerogative of the individual to choose whether to walk and that morality doesn’t dictate such actions. But the fact remains that cricket, albeit a game littered with individual statistics, is a team sport. Had Virat Kohli, who batted at one-drop, got a clanger from Steve Davis, I am not sure the Indian team would have been best pleased with Tendulkar. As Ganguly said in the same T.V. interview, “It could be a big game, India 100 for three, Tendulkar batting on 55 and holding the key to India's success. I would really not want him to walk unless an umpire has given him out.” A cricketer's decision to walk does affect the performance of his team and therefore to consign the choice as purely the prerogative of the individual is scarcely in the interest of the sport.

Further, a person's move to walk could impact an umpire’s decision-making. If a batsman renowned to be a walker stays his ground when he has, in fact, edged a ball even if he is honestly unaware of it, psychologically the umpire may think – hang on, this fellow usually walks, so he surely couldn't have edged it and rules, wrongly, in favour of the batsman. No doubt it is the umpire’s job to look beyond such possibilities and make decisions purely on the basis of what he sees. But that said I find it difficult to imagine that umpires, being only human, are unaffected by such psychological considerations. The game would be richer I believe if everyone did their own jobs without aiming to claim a moral high ground.

(Also posted at: http://www.criticaltwenties.in/worldcup/lets-not-go-all-moral-over-tendulkars-walk)

Of Aesthetics and Amla

2011-03-19T20:14:00.002+05:30

We watch sports for a variety of reasons, some of which are detailed exquisitely in this series by the football blog, Run of Play. In part two of the series, the author speaks of our proclivity for the aesthetic – which in our world is represented through ‘painting, music, and dance.’ He says in football, aestheticism is often found in amalgam with reality – ‘unlike a ballet, it has no predetermined plan or outcome.’ This is of course as true for cricket as it is, perhaps, for all sports. A beautiful cover-drive is made that much more attractive by its connection to reality – the fact that it is unfolding live before our eyes. Our search for beauty therefore often finds validation in the world of sport.

Aesthetics, though, is not a blanket concept. What constitutes beauty is fundamentally in the eyes of the beholder. Any analysis, therefore, on the beauty of a given stroke or a batsman’s style is mostly subjective – I am sure someone out there takes immense pleasure in watching Simon Katich, Shivnarine Chanderpaul or god forbid Graeme Smith play. (Incidentally they are all left-handed batsmen, a breed generally considered more aesthetically appealing)

But does appreciation of beauty have to be natural or is it something that can be constructed? Can we grow to enjoy a certain style as the aesthetics of it begins to impose its beauty – an acquired taste, if you will? Largely, I believe first impressions are the most lasting. I must have fallen in love with Damien Martyn’s batting, for instance, the first time I saw him hit one of those crisp and pristine square drives. With Hashim Amla’s batting, though, this has certainly not been the case.

For the longest time, ever since Amla began to wield a bat in international cricket, I found his style inelegant, gawky even. Indeed, after an inauspicious beginning to his career, he slowly began to make runs in heaps. Yet, I remained doggedly unimpressed, not by his effectiveness mind you, but by his mode of run-getting, which somehow appeared graceless. He seemed to, no doubt, ooze this Zen like serenity at the crease, but the double arced back-lift – he drags the bat back twice, before striking the ball – and an excessive flourish of the wrist, I felt, was ungainly.

Over the last couple of years, though, even as Amla has plundered almost every bowling attack in every format of the game, my opinion has wavered. At times, I find myself in awe of his abilities – his drives through the off-side often timed and placed to perfection can be breathtaking to behold. Yet, now and again, the same drive, timed and placed just as well can look clunky. And even more bizarrely, in the ongoing World Cup, Amla has looked at his most elegant in his knocks of 42 against England, 61 against India and 51 against Bangladesh, while he has looked rather uneasy in his century at Mohali against the Netherlands.

Where then on the aesthetic pedestal is Amla placed? Quite honestly, I continue to grapple with the question. It seems Amla’s batting polarises opinion more than any other’s. Some find it utterly gorgeous, while others cannot stand to watch it. What I do know is that on many occasions, he can make batting look ridiculously easy – as he did at Chepauk against England on a landmine of a pitch before playing onto his stumps an innocuous delivery from Stuart Broad – a dismissal that opened the floodgates for a South African collapse. Till the point of his ouster, though, Amla had batted with sagacious tranquillity – unperturbed it seemed by the demons on the pitch. So even if his stroke-play can generate a mixture of either aesthetic delectation or aesthetic torment, his disposition at the crease will always remain a joyous sight.

(Also posted at: http://www.criticaltwenties.in/worldcup/of-aesthetics-and-amla)

Confidence Boosting Victory for the Proteas

2011-03-13T17:35:00.001+05:30

The thriller between India and South Africa contained many moments worthy of consideration as the chief turning point, the moment that tipped the balance in South Africa’s favour. Some would say India’s astonishing batting collapse aided no small measure by an inspired spell from Dale Steyn (five for 50) that saw it reduced from 267 for one to 296 all-out, represents that moment. Others would point to South Africa’s batting power-play in which it conjured 52 runs for the loss of only one wicket. India’s captain M.S. Dhoni, reckons South Africa’s fielding made the crucial difference – saved it at least 15 runs in his opinion. Maybe it was the Proteas’ approach to the chase – steady at the top with the fireworks following later that proved telling. But in truth, rarely is one single moment or phase of the game responsible for its outcome. Yesterday the sum total of India’s efforts in the field simply failed to weigh up. Mistakes were made, no doubt, but this is no disaster. The team needs to consider its frailties, endeavour to correct them and get on with its game.

More crucial, though, in the larger scheme of this World Cup is the confidence that South Africa may derive out of this victory. Having choked itself out of many World Cups in the past, the climax of this chase would have done little to sooth its nerves, but the result could banish many a demon from its players’ minds. With 13 to get off the last over, and with the team’s spine-tingling defeat against England fresh in memory, the prospect of a cruel World Cup exit would have been at the forefront of their thoughts. But Robin Peterson in flaying Ashish Nehra – albeit aided by a fortuitous inside edge off the first ball – ensured a South African victory that was far in keeping from its usual form at such crucial junctures. The chase could give the Proteas not only a faith in its talents, but could also ensure that it evades Australia – so often its nemesis – in the quarter-finals.

South Africa has been perennial World Cup underachievers. It has gone into virtually every edition since it made its debut in the tournament in 1992 as one of the favourites, only to come undone either by nasty bits of luck or a failure to hold its nerves at the most decisive of occasions. On the back of its failure to chase down 171 against England in an admittedly difficult wicket at Chepauk last week, its pursuit at Nagpur yesterday invoked several déjà vu moments, not least when Johan Botha having hammered 23 of 15 deliveries fell with 17 runs left to get. What transpired though was a rare piece of brilliance from Peterson.

Had Peterson and South Africa failed to cross the line, this may well have represented the end of the road for the country in this World Cup. No doubt its remaining two fixtures look easy enough on paper, but if it had been forced to play Ireland – a team that, if nothing else, has showcased that it belongs at this level – and Bangladesh – never an easy proposition in its own home – on the back of a defeat to India, it may have been left clutching at straws. As it stands, though, its remarkable chase against India may not only give it the impetus to top its Group but the confidence to win games under pressure in the knockout rounds. Ominous signs, indeed.

(Also posted at: http://www.criticaltwenties.in/worldcup/confidence-boosting-victory-for-the-proteas)

The genius of Sachin Tendulkar

2011-03-05T16:21:00.000+05:30

‘Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see’. These are the famous words of the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, and as I watched Sachin Tendulkar fashion a magnificent century against England at the Chinnaswamy stadium, they seemed most apposite. Of course, England’s bowling was mediocre, at best, and later in the day Andrew Strauss matched and perhaps bettered Tendulkar’s innings; yet it seemed Tendulkar was the real genius.

But this begs the question as to what constitutes genius? Is there at all a place for the word in the world of sport, where its usage is hackneyed – often employed even to describe the banal and the pedantic? Teresa Lacerda and Stephen Mumford in an outstanding article in the Journal of Philosophy on Sport – yes there does exist something of its ilk – argue that while in art, the genius “innovates some new technique, movement or style”, in sport, “the genius is one who creates new sporting strategies that tend toward competitive success.”

To me, genius is a mastery of space, achieved through intuition – an exertion of one’s will over another. Throughout history man has been fascinated by space and philosophers great and meek have theorized on its forms. The German philosopher, Immanuel Kant, wrote in Critique of Pure Reason that space is an a priori form – something intuitive from which knowledge is later gained. Kant’s work may have come under intense criticism, but in many ways his theory on space finds embodiment in the world of sport and nowhere more perfectly than in the batting of Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar.

As Tendulkar carved gaps in the field that even to the probing eye seemed non-existent, my father, with whom I was watching the game, opined that this was down to pure providence. Placement of such precision, he said, cannot be calculated. Yet, I thought, it was this innate ability of Tendulkar’s that sets him apart from the rest. His knowledge of where the spaces in the field were seemed utterly intuitive and not least bit manufactured. The works of a genius are rarely explicable and as Kant argued, even the genius is himself often unaware of how his idea was conceived. I am sure Lionel Messi would not have an answer to how he dribbles past maze after maze of defenders like they never existed. Genius is vague and enigmatic and therein lies its beauty.

Matthew Syed in his book, ‘Bounce: How Champions are Made,’ uses the Malcolm Gladwell line of thought and argues that talent is overrated; a person acquires command of a skill through purposeful practice for a period of at least 10,000 hours. Tendulkar in his rigorous sessions at the dusty Sivaji Park in Mumbai where he learned the game would have undoubtedly lapped up these hours well before his teenage years. But it is difficult to believe that at the core of his achievements are not his inherent gifts but the strenuous and committed practice of the art. The intense coaching and painstaking training must have surely contributed towards the thriving of his genius, but they most certainly cannot account for its creation.

As he twists his wrists to find the minutest of gaps that leave the opposition and the spectators gaping in awe, Tendulkar himself I doubt is aware of the gravity of his accomplishment. This intrinsic gift, though, is only but an element in his genius. To him creativity bears no boundaries. In a career of over twenty years, he has been faced with the need to constantly innovate; to change his game to suit the demands of the time. But this burden has rested easy on his shoulders. Creativity comes intuitively to Tendulkar. The double-hundred in Sydney in 2004, where he famously shunned the cover-drive was by itself a manifestation of his force – an ability to eschew the natural as an inventive answer to the necessities of the situation.

The sustenance of his talents for more than two decades is, perhaps, the greatest element in Tendulkar’s genius. By meeting the need to create in every step along the way, he has imposed his will like no other – an imperious mastery of space by a true genius.

(Also posted at: http://www.criticaltwenties.in/worldcup/the-genius-of-sachin-tendulkar)

India versus England - gripping, yet flawed

2011-02-28T18:00:00.001+05:30

As narratives go, the tie at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore between India and England was as compelling as any. The sides scored 338 runs each in a match that remained on tenterhooks for much of its duration – especially in the final over in which England needed 14 runs to secure victory – and gave this World Cup its first thriller. But let’s not get carried away in the resonance of the tale – by calling it a great game – and ignore the teams’ respective deficiencies that was, in the first place, responsible for providing the game with the grip that enraptured the viewers. No doubt, the batting from both sides made for a fantastic sight – but the plaudits must be tempered in light of the poor quality of bowling and fielding that was on display.

We watch sport for a variety of reasons and a riveting story is often what we search for. In that sense, this game fulfilled our needs – constantly remaining on a knife-edge. But when you cut through the brilliance – admittedly there was a lot of that, especially from the two centurions, Sachin Tendulkar and Andrew Strauss – you are left to grapple with lots of dismal performances in the field. Easy catches were dropped, misfields were aplenty, the lines from the bowlers – barring Tim Bresnan – were wayward and the captaincy and the field settings from both M.S. Dhoni and Strauss lacked verve and imagination. All of this, while contributing heavily to the narrative, certainly did not make for pretty viewing. So to say that the contest was ‘a perfect advertisement’ for the one-day game – which it may well be, considering the general obsession with runs – veils the quality that both teams lacked.

On current form, regardless of their batting prowess, it looks unlikely that either India or England will be in contention towards the end of the tournament. Unlike test-matches, one-day games can, no doubt, be won on the strength, purely, of a team’s batting. But World Cups tend to be different – might in a single department has never been sufficient to lift the trophy. At least England was missing Stuart Broad, who is easily its best limited overs bowler. India had no such excuses. Its bowling – barring a brief yet stirring spell from Zaheer Khan – was uninspired and consistently poor, outdone in its sloppiness only by the fielding. India must, therefore, consider the option of playing five bowlers, a buffer that is necessary on sub-continental pitches for teams lacking sufficient bowling quality – an option that is particularly viable in India’s case, considering the strength of its batting. This would, of course, mean that one of Virat Kohli, Yuvraj Singh, Gautam Gambhir or Yusuf Pathan would have to be excluded; not an easy decision by any means. But the exigency of the situation calls for a bold move and in view of the form of Kohli (not to mention his fielding skills), Yuvraj’s usefulness with the ball and Pathan’s undeniable match-winning abilities, it may well have to be Gambhir who makes way.

Gambhir is a fine one-day batsman, whose worth to the team is undeniable. Yet, in a squad filled with as many batting stars as India’s is, it is inevitable that one of them will have to miss out. India could learn from Spain’s football team, which for much of the 2010 World Cup, started without Cesc Fabregas, favouring the more defence minded Sergio Busquets in the interests of team-balance. Winning a World Cup is no easy feat. And it certainly won’t be possible if sentiment is preferred over pragmatism.

[Also posted at: http://www.criticaltwenties.in/worldcup/india-versus-england-gripping-yet-flawed]

Dutch Dazzle brings World Cup to Life

2011-02-23T17:33:00.001+05:30

Set in the backdrop of the I.C.C.’s decision to reduce the World Cup in 2015 to ten nations, the Netherlands’ showing against England at Nagpur yesterday glimmered brighter than their jerseys. Hopelessly poor defeats suffered by Kenya, Canada and Zimbabwe may have provided an element of justification to the decision to exclude the Associate teams – or the ‘minnows’ as they have come to be known – from the next World Cup. But the pitfalls of the ongoing tournament are not a product of the inclusion of these teams, but its format – the tedious two grouped layout – which has been designed solely to ensure that the big teams make it through to the latter rounds. India and Pakistan were both famously knocked out by lesser sides in the Group Stage in West Indies in 2007 and the I.C.C. clearly did not want a repeat of such a commercial catastrophe – the result, a format that denies the viewers of a consistently riveting tournament. But I’d rather see the present format retained than the incorporation of a system that excludes the Associate Nations. Removing the Kenya’s and the Netherlands’ from future World Cups would undeniably strip the event of some of its greatest mirth – of what joy would a World Cup be without the prospect of a mighty upset?

And the prospect of a mighty upset, yesterday, was what provided the ongoing World Cup with its first dash of allure. No doubt the track at Nagpur was placid, the English bowling hapless and their fielding disgraceful, but a sparkling batting performance by the Dutch unquestionably provided the delight and the merry that the ongoing tournament has thus far lacked. And by making the chase difficult for England, the Dutch ensured that the game remained tantalisingly poised for much of its duration.

At the core of the Netherlands’ excellence was a marvellous all-round showing by Ryan ten Doeschate, who scored 119 off 100 balls with the bat and just as importantly bowled with purpose and economy, finishing with figures of 2 for 47 from his ten overs. As all-round performances in World Cup games go, this is up there with the very best – the Imran Khans and the Kapil Devs would have been proud of a display of this ilk.

Coming into bat at 58-2, ten Doeschate took eleven balls to get off the mark, but not once during the period did he look ruffled, giving the impression of a man utterly confident of his talents. Once he got rolling, he set about his task with breezy ebullience, displaying a particular proclivity for the cow-corner, repeatedly finding either the gap between wide long-on and deep midwicket or the stands behind the fencing. The innings was by no means chanceless – James Anderson at long-on and Kevin Pietersen at long-off allowed a skier when, ten Doeschate was on 47, to fall smack between them – but it was paced to perfection. There was a time when Graeme Swann and Paul Collingwood operating in tandem allowed the batsmen little leeway to play a forceful shot, but ten Doeschate remained serenely disposed, knowing that his time will come. And when Andrew Strauss brought on Pietersen, in collaboration with his batting partner at the time, Tom Cooper, the off-spinner was ripped apart, taken for nineteen runs off his two overs.

After the loss of Cooper and Bas Zuiderant – one of the survivors from the 1996 World Cup – ten Doeschate began to up the run-rate, striking boundaries as and when he pleased. A flick off Graeme Swann for six over midwicket – easily England’s best bowler of the game – showcased the excellence of his timing and the suppleness of his wrists.

The very best batsmen often appear to possess a lot of time to play their strokes – ten Doeschate is no different, possessing an ability to alter his shots at the final moment. After his partnership of 64 runs with Tom de Grooth came to an end in the first over of the batting power-play, he ensured that the field restrictions did not go unutilised, plundering the English attack with disdainful alacrity. His century came courtesy an overthrow from Jonathan Trott that ricocheted off the stumps onto the boundary – an anticlimactic completion of a glorious landmark. After ten Doeschate fell to Stuart Broad for 119, the Dutch aided by some clever batting from their captain Peter Borren and some inept fielding from the English ended their innings on 292. Borren bowled by Stuart Broad in the 49th over was allowed to stay on the field as England had only three fielders inside the 30 yard circle, an incident that epitomised their dreadful day in the field.

Nevertheless, chasing 293 on a flat deck against a rather feeble bowling attack should have been a simple enough task. But England being England made heavy weather of it, needing fine hands from Paul Collingwood and Ravi Bopara to settle the tie in the penultimate over. The Dutch, for the most part, bowled sensibly, with ten Doeschate again proving the star act. It was his dismissal of Ian Bell in the final ball of his spell that made the prospect of a Dutch victory even more tenable. No doubt England ultimately averted defeat and retained an element of honour, but the prospect at the change of innings in particular – and at various junctures during England’s chase – of an upset, provided the World Cup with a sprinkling of allure that it has desperately required. Sadly, there will be no such charm to look forward to in 2015.

[Also posted at: http://www.criticaltwenties.in/worldcup/dutch-dazzle-brings-world-cup-to-life].

Five things India needs to do to win the World Cup

2011-02-18T21:54:00.001+05:30

These are not all-encompassing, nor are they, especially, novel ideas, but they constitute fundamental elements, which India must fulfil to have a chance of winning its second World Cup.

1. Pick the bowlers that suit the conditions

Pitches in the subcontinent, contrary to general perception, are not all slow, dry and low. Different grounds across the stretch of the region tend to produce surfaces that are varied in subtle yet vital ways and therefore, part of M.S. Dhoni’s job will be to rotate his bowlers to suit the playing conditions. Where possible though – except on pitches that have a clear propensity to aid the quicker bowlers – Dhoni must try and incorporate two frontline spinners in his line-up, for spin is clearly India’s biggest weapon. With Harbhajan Singh’s position in the Eleven considered unassailable, Piyush Chawla and Ravichandran Ashwin will vie for the second spinner’s spot. Chawla’s exemplary form in India’s two warm-up games coupled with the fact that Ashwin like Harbhajan is an off spinner, could see the leggie make the cut. If Chawla is preferred, a case may also be made for Suresh Raina to be included in place of Yuvraj Singh, considering that India will have a full-time spinner who can turn the ball away from the right-handed batsmen. Some believe, rightly in my opinion, that Raina should play ahead of Yuvraj, in any event, based on his superior batting record in the subcontinent in recent times and his excellent fielding skills. But that said, Dhoni seems to view Yuvraj’s bowling as a key cog in the present set-up and he is unlikely to drop him unless his performances are monumentally poor.

Additionally, the opponent’s team composition must also be considered before choosing between Chawla and Ashwin. Against teams littered with left-handed batsmen, Ashwin should be the preferred option. And if Ashwin is picked, Yuvraj, perhaps, irrespective of his batting form should be fielded to lend variety to the bowling attack.

2. Use Yusuf Pathan as a Floater

It is crucial that Yusuf Pathan’s destructive ability as a batsman is used to its maximum potential. Pathan looks to be at his most dangerous when batting at number seven, but India mustn’t fall into the trap of pigeonholing batsmen into set positions. He should be used as a floater in the order and must be accorded enough time to inflict the most severe damage upon the opponent. Pathan, perhaps, doesn’t need the aid of a power-play to do his thing, but it wouldn’t hurt to ensure that the batting power-play is used, if possible, when he is in the middle.

3. Use the Third Power-Play with Purpose

The third power-play – a stretch of five consecutive overs to be selected by the batting team when not more than three fielders can be placed outside the 30 yard circle – has rarely been used with ingenuity. Very often we see teams waiting until at least the 40^th over, and in some cases even until the 45^th over, before calling for the power-play. This may be sensible in some cases, but when a team is seven or eight wickets down, the batsmen at the crease are ill-equipped to make the most of the situation. If India can use the option creatively, even between the 15^th and 20^th over where the situation so demands, it can add exponentially to its batting totals.

4. Endeavour to pick wickets in the middle overs

India got many of its strategies wrong in the disastrous 2007 World Cup where it crashed out in the group stages, of which the bowling tactics in the middle overs, particularly, bordered on the ludicrous. The spinners were sought to be used as mere containing acts and the middle overs were seen as a time to check the flow of runs, with the team rarely looking at wicket-taking options. What ensued, though, were neither wickets nor an improved economy rate. (Here is a table which shows that the economy rate in the middle overs during the 2007 World Cup was directly proportional to the number of wickets picked) The spinners, therefore, need to be utilised as attacking weapons and as we saw in the practice games, nothing works like wickets in containing the run flow.

5. Place the right fielders in the right positions

In a recent address at Calcutta, Sir Vivian Richards and Steve Waugh both opined that the best fielding side will win the World Cup. For India’s sake, one hopes that their prophecies don’t come true. Virat Kohli and Suresh Raina – who may not feature in the Eleven – are the only world class fielders in the Indian squad and it is quite improbable that the team would be among the better fielding sides in the competition. That being the case, Dhoni needs to ensure, perhaps more than most other captains, that he gets the right fielders in the right positions. The likes of Munaf Patel, Ashish Nehra, Zaheer Khan, Yusuf Pathan and even Sachin Tendulkar, are poor ground-fielders, which means that Dhoni will have a great deal of hiding to attempt. But unless an effort is made towards that end, India can wave its chances of lifting the Cup, a big goodbye!

(This was also posted at: http://www.criticaltwenties.in/worldcup/five-things-india-needs-to-do-to-win-the-world-cup)

Mark Waugh's 110: The best I've seen at Chepauk

2011-02-14T21:17:00.002+05:30

“When you are eight you watch cricket with a keener eye for detail than you shall ever summon again. Brief passages of play swell big and perfect in your head, almost as if you imagined them, maybe.”

This is Christian Ryan in reference to a David Gower half-century at Perth, which he reckons is the best he’s ever seen. I was ten when I watched the 1996 World Cup Quarter-Finals between New Zealand and Australia at Chepauk in Madras – the only World Cup game I’ve seen from the confines of a stadium – and my memories from it are abiding and particularly vivid. I watched the game, much like Ryan observed Gower, with almost pain-inducing intensity, with small pieces of action coming to represent weighty memories.

New Zealand’s Chris Harris, then a balding, dogged middle order batsman and bowler of dibbly-dobbly trash smashed Australia for 130 runs off just 124 balls, a once-in-a-lifetime innings that featured four big-ones. The last of his sixes – a slog over midwicket off Michael Bevan – I seem to remember, hit the roof of the stadium, a thought that I sought to reinforce when watching the highlights of the game for the first time, last week, only to realise that the cameras lost track of the ball midway through its trajectory. Perhaps, the distance of the strike is nothing more than a figment of my imagination, but it does make for a good tale, doesn’t it? Anyway Harris’s 168 run partnership with captain and wicketkeeper, Lee Germon helped New Zealand post 286, a total of considerable weight. Germon, a batsman of ungainly technique was nonetheless in inspired form, making 89 runs off just 96 balls, which like Harris’s 130, is his highest in one-day cricket.

The Madras crowd is known to be one of the most sporting in the country. On that day this facet was in full evidence. The crowd cheered boundaries and wickets by either team with equal gusto. As for me, I joined in the revelry, not quite sure even at the halfway juncture, which team I was supporting. I was, though, a big fan of the Waugh brothers – particularly of Steve – and I was hoping the pair would make enough runs to fulfil my ‘simple’ demands. And happily for me, make runs they did, in Mark’s case a sublime century and in Steve’s a tenacious half-century.

I have been lucky to watch several excellent knocks at Madras, including a few Sachin Tendulkar hundreds, Saeed Anwar’s 194, half centuries from Brian Lara and Mohammad Azharuddin in an ODI in late 1994 (innings’ which I wish I could remember more of) and an 83 from Neil Fairbrother, who is a favourite of mine, in a test-match in February 1993 of which my only enduring memory is Anil Kumble’s first-innings dismissal of Robin Smith. As it happens, this was Fairbrother’s only test-match half century – such a terrible pity that I remember diddly-squat about the knock. But I digress. The point is Mark Waugh’s 110 remains the most memorable innings I’ve seen at Chepauk, a magnificent treat to the eyes.

Australia’s target was imposing – only once had a higher total been successfully chased in World Cup history – but Waugh made light work of it, batting fiercely yet with an air of casual elegance. He square drove anything that was even a fraction wide of off-stump, and whipped through the on-side with typical grace when the bowlers straightened their lines. Off-spinners Shane Thompson and Dipak Patel were countered with consummate ease. Once he settled into a rhythm, Waugh didn’t hesitate to play the lofted strokes, clearing Patel for two huge sixes, one over wide long-on and another straight as an arrow over the sight-screen, landing a few seats wide of where I was seated. The one-day game may now be replete with centuries in successful chases, but considering the occasion and a pitch that was slowing by the over, Waugh’s innings must rank as one of the finest in its history.

The game was also notable for Shane Warne’s pinch-hitting pyrotechnics. Promoted to number four, Warne hammered 24 off just 14 balls, including two slog-swept sixes, before being trapped LBW by Nathan Astle. That, though, brought Mark Waugh’s elder twin, Steve into the middle, who nicknamed ‘Iceman’ for his ability to hold his nerve when bowling at the death, showed similar imperturbability in his batting and took Australia home with 13 balls to spare. In their 87 run partnership, Mark and Steve Waugh showcased an understanding that was coalesced in the backyard of their Panania residence, by nicking ones and twos with cheeky disdain. After Mark fell to a tired stroke off Dion Nash, the elder Waugh in partnership with Stuart Law ensured a mishap-free completion of the chase. But the day belonged to Mark Waugh. Easy and elegant, his batting was a joyous spectacle – a truly, great World Cup innings.

(Also posted at: http://www.criticaltwenties.in/worldcup/mark-waughs-110-the-best-ive-seen-at-chepauk)

The joys of watching Damien Martyn bat

2011-02-12T09:12:00.001+05:30

[Also posted at: http://www.criticaltwenties.in/worldcup/the-joys-of-watching-damien-martyn-bat]

There have been innings’ of superior significance and greater totals, but Damien Martyn’s unbeaten 88 in the finals of the 2003 World Cup must rank amongst the most elegant knocks played in the history of the Cup. Martyn at his best batted like an angel. At the crease he was always serenely disposed, making batting look like child’s play. A dreamy back-lift was often followed by smooth strokes executed with what seemed like wanton carelessness. But the truth couldn’t have been more starkly different – his hands were always tender, helping him find gaps in the field which we thought never existed. Like most great batsmen, Martyn was endowed with a sense of timing. Mere prods off his bat would send the ball scurrying to the boundary. But he wasn’t averse to using a flashing blade, especially to send the ball over point, a shot which as brutal as it may have been, was a pleasure to behold.

His innings in the 2003 final is often overlooked in favour of Ricky Ponting’s bludgeoned 140, perhaps rightly so. But frequently forgotten is that Martyn was the one who got to his half century first – in spite of a six over handicap – the one who provided the impetus to a partnership that set the tone for a victory of resounding brilliance.

The nine editions of the World Cup have provided many excellent batting performances. The nature of the shortened format, though, has usually meant that an innings constructed with graceful ingenuity is reduced in its prettiness by grotesque hitting that is seen as a necessity in the slog-overs. Martyn’s elegance, however, was never cheapened by the layout of the game – he could make a swish over extra-cover look like a stroke from Picasso’s paint-brush. That he played the 2003 Final with a broken finger was never apparent. A batsman couldn’t have looked calmer at the crease.

If one were to generalise, Australian batsmen would fall into a prosaic category, ‘the gritty and the determined’. But the country has also been blessed with some of the most artful batsmen in the history of the game – Doug Walters, Greg Chappell and Mark Waugh to name the finest of a class, in which Martyn, most definitely belongs. Peter English once wrote that ‘Martyn can make Mark Waugh’s strokes look ugly and hurried.’ The knock in the 2003 finals explicitly paraded the truism in English’s words. It was compiled with a perfect amalgam of crafty placement and sublime timing. Martyn played the spinners so late, almost after the ball had passed him, and yet not once did he look ruffled. Although punctuated by seven fours and a six, the hallmark of the innings was the manner in which he found the gaps off the spinners, rotating the strike with metronomic ease – an aspect of the game that is often ignored in highlights packages. The pick of his boundaries was a six over extra-cover off Zaheer Khan – a graceful six if ever there was one. He may have eventually only played second-fiddle to a rampant Ponting, but there was enough in his innings to leave an indelible mark in my mind. We will be lucky if the upcoming World Cup produces a performance half as elegant as Martyn’s was.

The Lost Art of Defending

2011-02-06T21:05:00.001+05:30

[Also posted at: http://www.criticaltwenties.in/sport/the-lost-art-of-defending]

The illustrious Italian journalist, Gianni Brera is reported to have once written that ‘the perfect football game would finish 0-0’. Going by his philosophy, yesterday’s seven Barclays Premier League fixtures in which forty one goals were scored would represent hugely imperfect contests. Goals, though, some would say, always make for a satisfying treat and it may be wise to shun the larger tactical causes and enjoy the occasions as it were. But even if we were to disregard the views of Brera, which may appear to border on the ludicrous, goals that result out of defensive lapses of amateurish magnitude and a lack of tactical acuity from the teams are of far inferior alluring value.

A significant part of football’s splendour lies in its low scores. Goals are meant to be a premium and a team’s ability to defend competently while not compromising on its attacking options is a vital element of the sport, and contributes towards much of its beauty. Spectacular as some of yesterday’s games were, they were marked by particularly pitiful defending. The Newcastle United–Arsenal fixture, for instance, embodied a typical game of two halves, only though for all the wrong reasons. Arsenal were no doubt irrepressible in the first period, spraying incisive passes that tended to beguile, but the nature of Newcastle’s defending must have had its fans cringing in anguish – the space that was allowed to each of the scorers to either stroke or head home their finishes was quite inexplicable. In the second half, it was the turn of the Arsenal fans to cringe as their team somehow contrived to let slip a four goal lead. Some would point to the red card accorded to Abou Diaby that preceded Newcastle’s goals as the basis of Arsenal’s failings, but the incident only served to mask their otherwise deplorable defensive showing.

At the Molineux, Manchester United, hitherto unbeaten and perched at the top of the league, scored inside three minutes before allowing Wolverhampton Wanderers to equalise and take the lead inside the first half by committing acts of footballing hara-kiri. Rafael’s decision to turn his back on Matt Jarvis and allow the Wolves winger to take a quick corner led to a free header for George Elokobi for the equaliser before Nenad Miljas’s floated free-kick was bundled in by a gratefully unmarked Kevin Doyle to give the home side an advantage that eventually proved insurmountable.

A glimpse at the highlights of the other games played yesterday and a reading of the match reports clearly indicate that wretched defensive performances pervaded across the league. Maybe this was nothing more than a flash in the pan, with a rare concoction of attacking brilliance and shoddy defending providing a day of nutty entertainment. But defensive frailties have been at the root of the problems of almost all teams near the top of the League. Nemanja Vidic has, perhaps, been the outstanding defender in England this season, but as a team United have looked dreadfully vulnerable from set-plays. Manchester City have been steadier than most at the back, but a centre-back pairing of Vincent Kompany and Kolo Toure does not always inspire the greatest confidence. Arsenal’s failings are far too well documented to hark back upon, while Chelsea have the found the need to splash twenty-five million pounds on David Luiz, a young centre-back of supposedly rich talent. Are these problems, though, a mere reflection of the quality of players or are they a product of greater tactical causes?

Zonal marking from set-plays – where defenders mark specific zones of the penalty box as opposed to an assigned opponent – has often been derided as a tactic incapable of providing success. Every time Liverpool conceded a goal from a set-piece during Rafael Benitez’s tenure, it was attributed to ‘inherent flaws’ of the zonal marking system that was in operation. Yet, when teams using a customary man-to-man marking method concede goals from set-pieces, rarely is it considered a result of the system, with only its poor implementation deemed as the cause – best exemplified by Liverpool’s own movement away from the arrangement.

For all the hostility against the method, in theory, zonal marking seems a sensible tactic. By stationing its best defenders in the most dangerous zones inside the penalty box, a team is quite likely to alleviate the pressures of defending its goal. One of the primary concerns against the system relates to a defender’s ability to deal with attackers who have a run on them. But as Howard Wilkinson says: “Attackers get a run on you whether you are zone defending or man-for-man marking. They always call the shots. You start from a standing position but once the ball is in flight, you’ve got the distance the ball travels to get yourself moving.” Of greater practical significance, though, is Alan Hansen’s statement that the use of the system by the hugely successful Liverpool teams of the 70s and 80s of which he was a part, never weakened their ability to win Championships in England or in Europe.

An interesting parallel may lie in the larger movement towards zonal marking as a holistic defensive strategy. For many years, teams had defended by assigning a specific defender to deal with each of the attackers with the very notion of marking in zones considered antithetical to football strategies. Luis Vincio at Napoli in the mid 1970s and Nils Liedholm at Roma in the early to mid 1980s had tested a system involving zonal marking with variable success, but it found its perfect synthesis only under Arrigo Sacchi at AC Milan in the late 1980s. Sacchi’s system entailed pressing in zones and concentrating on marking space as opposed to marking in relation to the position of individual players. The success of his Milan side is often considered the last great tactical revolution, with almost all modern-day teams applying a version of the system. Yet, when it comes to defending set-pieces, a general opposition to zonal marking continues to persist. In almost all of the six seasons under Benitez, Liverpool were amongst the teams that conceded the fewest goals from set-pieces – a statistic that should be a celebration of the tactic as opposed to the misplaced indictments that are often served out.

On the face of it, a tally of forty one goals in seven league games is suggestive of a league that is brimming with attacking excellence. Behind the facade, though, lie the blighted defences that constitute the more telling cause behind the goal-glut. Any argument in favour of the Premier League’s quality must be softened by its defensive artlessness, which runs counter to one of the fundamental elements that makes football beautiful.

Of Murray's Tribulations and Djokovic's Joy

2011-01-30T20:43:00.000+05:30

[Also posted at: http://www.criticaltwenties.in/sport/of-murrays-tribulations-and-djokovics-joy]

Every time Andy Murray enters a Grand Slam tournament, the expectations are immense. These, of course, are only partly his fault. Murray has never been keen to be seen as an icon of his country, yet ‘Britain’s Number One’, they croon, an irrelevant statistic uttered with an air of superiority that couldn’t have been more misplaced – as if a Briton has an inherent right to hold a Grand Slam title. The country hasn’t had a men’s singles Grand Slam champion since Fred Perry won the U.S. Open in 1936, making the utterance especially inappropriate.

Yet, in Murray, more so than it did with Tim Henman, Britain has a tennis player blessed with skills that are certainly worthy of a Grand Slam victory, making the expectations that much starker. Whether this weighs heavily on Murray’s shoulders and represents the cause for his frailties in the biggest of stages, we may never know. Regardless, it can serve as little excuse for his capitulations in the three Grand Slam finals that he has competed in. The latest, a 4-6, 2-6, 3-6 trouncing at the hands of Novak Djokovic only aided in highlighting the depth of the Serbian’s talents and the infirmities that continue to haunt Murray’s game. Overcoming expectations is a vital step in achieving sporting greatness. In Murray’s case, though, it is perhaps his own lack of self-confidence rather than the burden vested upon him by 60 million people that he needs to address. He only needs to look at the women’s singles champion at the Australian Open this year – Kim Clijsters – who lost her first four Grand Slam finals before winning the U.S. Open in 2005. So, Murray’s dream is not unattainable and the good thing for him is that he has all the assets that make a Grand Slam champion.

Now, though, is not a time to harp on Murray’s failings and prospects, but to celebrate the supreme talents, scintillatingly showcased by Djokovic, over the course of the two weeks at Melbourne Park. Losing only a set through the course of the tournament – in the second round to Ivan Dodig – Djokovic most significantly cruised through the quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals, against Tomas Berdych, Roger Federer and Murray respectively, with consummate ease. The Serb, constantly behind the shadows of Federer and Rafael Nadal, in spite of his victory in Australia in 2008, has made staggering improvements to his game, which when exhibited as it has been in the last week makes for thrilling viewing.

Djokovic tends to excite in an unusual manner. He doesn’t have a booming serve with which he can serve aces at will, or ground-strokes with which he can readily kill, but he does boast a supreme ability to convert defence into attack, which by itself makes for an awe-inspiring spectacle. His innate sense of the geometry of a tennis court coupled with an astute on-court nous means that he can scamper and retrieve seemingly unreachable balls before finding angles of dazzling brilliance.

Each of his opponents in the last three rounds constituted a distinct threat. The big Czech, Tomas Berdych possesses easy power with which he often dismantles opponents in terrific fashion. Djokovic, though, on a relatively slow surface – the Australian Open is played on one of the slowest hard courts – was able to negate Berdych’s threat with a combination of excellent service-returns and neat use of all the perimeters of the court, taking the match 6-1, 7-6, 6-1.

With Rafael Nadal nursing an injury, ousted by David Ferrer in the quarter-finals, many felt that the Slam was Federer’s for the taking. Yet, the Swiss was outclassed by an imperious Djokovic, who unrelentingly attacked and exposed weaknesses in Federer’s backhand that even if always perceptible had never been so cruelly laid bare. Also apparent in the straight sets victory, was the extent of improvement that Djokovic’s serve has undergone – his ability to find accuracy on the big points was particularly noteworthy. But most astonishing was his athleticism. Very often after retrieving balls on his backhand side with his left foot sliding past the tramlines, he still managed to muster the racquet-head speed necessary to send the ball back with purpose. Even when it seemed like Federer was in the ascendancy, Djokovic was able to find the resilience to stay with the Swiss and ultimately hit strokes of resounding excellence.

In the final against Murray, right from the offing, Djokovic set out to attack – striking his ground-strokes with scintillating pace and depth – never once allowing Murray to settle into any rhythm. In the first four games, he was hitting the ball at an average of 20 kilometres faster than Murray, and at the same time finding sharper angles and greater depth. The crucial point though came on 15-30, when Djokovic serving for the first set at 5-4, played a rally that showcased the complete array of his most vital skill – an ability to convert defence into offense with ridiculous simplicity – he scurried to reach both corners of the baseline on numerous occasions before stroking a backhand past his hapless opponent with remarkable pace and alacrity. All through the match, he displayed elasticity in footwork that allowed him to defend even the most searching of Murray’s strokes, invariably culminating in an error from the Scot, an imposing winner or an irretrievable blow from the Serb.

In the second set after racing to a 5-0 lead, Djokovic, possibly showing the first hint of nerves, allowed Murray a little peep, losing two straight games before breaking again. The third set was slightly more topsy-turvy with both players exchanging breaks of serves, but ultimately Djokovic exerted his superiority. Leading 4-3, he broke Murray and went through some jittery moments on his serve before a Murray forehand crashed into the net to give him the championship.

Nine victorious sets of tennis in the final three rounds of the tournament, played against three of the top players in the circuit, means that Djokovic’s success couldn’t have been more deserved. His 2008 win at the Australian Open had already proved his Grand Slam credentials, but with Nadal and Federer dominating almost all Grand Slams since, few expected Djokovic to triumph here. And in doing so in a thoroughly convincing fashion, he has brought to light the prospect of a shattering of the duopoly at the top of men’s tennis.