Reason or romance

During my school run this morning, I was listening to a program on the radio. A lot of callers to the RJ were complaining on the decision of Indian Cricket Selectors to leave out Yuvraj Singh from the 15 players selected for the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 to be held in Australia - New zealand from Feb 2015. I was like, "Hey, be reasonable guys, he wasn't even in the 30 probable list. How then can he be selected in the 15?".

Now wait a minute! Reasonable? That word seems pretty rich coming from me! As you all know, I have always been (will continue to be a Dravid fan). I do acknowledge (grudgingly!) that Dravid's ODI career spanned in a parallel universe to that of his test career. But even I would have been disappointed if Dravid hadn't made the cut to a World Cup squad! But again, this blog isn't about Dravid, its about Yuvraj!

I have been following cricket seriously since early nineties and I can't remember many good left-handers to have played for India. All I can remember of Kambli was him crying during the 1996 WC semi-finals. Then came along Ganguly. He was elegance personified on the off-side. As Dravid so eloquently put it "On the offside,first we have God, and then Saurav Ganguly". If one had to complete that sentence, it would read "On the offside, first we have God and then Saurav Ganguly, while on the leg-side we have every tom, dick and harry and then we have Ganguly!!"

Mind you! Ganguly was excellent player against leg-spinners and left arm spinners. Can anyone of you forget him dancing down the track and carting Grant Flower over the roof in Sharjah. He did it quite too often that Tony Greig even called that part Sharjah's roof as Ganguly's roof!!  But power is not something that you associate with Ganguly. But his batting against pace didn't inspire confidence, that you would associate with most southpaws.

In late 2000, Ganguly captained a fresh team for ICC Knockout Trophy that was held in South Africa. The Indian team was still recovering from the abyss of the match fixing and they huffed and puffed their way into quarter-finals against Australia. It was one rainy afternoon in Chennai. I was in a cheap electronics shop at Ritchie Street, Chennai taking the help of my friends in assembling my first PC and we were also following the match in an old B&W TV present in the shop. There were many memorable moments in that match.  But the two that standout are:

• 18 year old Yuvi playing in his 2nd match of his career, facing a battery of pace bowlers showed what real power was! He was slamming McGrath, Lee and Gillespie all over the park. The raw power in his strokes was quite evident. Finally, we had a southpaw who could play pace bowling really well. 
• India also managed to find a pace bowler who could actually bowl yorkers in the death overs! Zaheer Khan's yorker to dismiss Steve Waugh was one such delivery!

And then in one summer evening at Lords. The 2002 Natwest Trophy final(The match that Ganguly taught us how to celebrate in style)! India were 150/5 chasing England's 325. All recognized batsman had failed. I can recollect vividly all those brutal shots of Yuvi and Kaif. Yuvi fell to a mis-timed pull shot in that match after ensuring India were well within the reach of the target. I still remember Harsha Bhogle saying at that time "this is the problem with fairy tale finishes....", but that innings again proved that Yuvi was a match-winner.

Forward to 2007, the World Twenty20 championship. India vs England quarter-final. The brutal onslaught unleashed by Yuvi will surely haunt Stuart Broad his entire lifetime. I am pretty sure he wakes up in cold sweat every now and then remembering that pasting!

Forward to 2011, the man was back in action. His performance especially against Australia again in the quarter-finals was brilliant. What followed was history. He was played the series of his dreams. He actually lived the dream in that series.

Lets face it, each of his fairy tale performances were school boy cricketer dreams! How many of us have wished for similar baptism by fire debut, a stellar performance when the chips were down that helps the team win the cup, the sensational innings in the shortest version of the game and finally achieving glory at World Cup. Hell, I would break two legs and a hand to live that dream!

For quite often Yuvi was the very the reason for his fans to romance, you can't fault them this once to romance without a reason! His fans must be happy that his fairy tale ended on a high. They need not be disappointed on him not making to the team this time around and take pride from the fact that fairy tale was great while it lasted.

A lesson in humility

“In the course of my life, I have often had to eat my words, and I must confess that I have always found it a wholesome diet.”  - Winston Churchill

Sapta and I became "chaddi-buddies" in the summer of 1996. We were acquainted with each other before, as both of us were in the same batch (Class X) in KV Minambakkam, but were from different sections. Although KV Minambakkam did have a Science stream, it wasn't really popular. The trend back then was for students to switch over to the state board after completing AISSE exams. Those who preferred to remain in CBSE chose more popular schools like P.S.B.B, Modern, St. John's, KV IIT etc. Having decided not to follow the herd, we chose (individually) to continue studying in KV Minambakkam.  Ever since we met during the admission procedure, we hit off immediately. Both of our wavelengths matched and we shared a passion for the same sports and hobbies. 

One of our passion was Quizzing. We were fortunate enough to get an opportunity to participate in numerous quizzes during that year. We managed to win quite a few of them as well. We had our own methodology while preparing for these quiz competitions. Each of us would pick an area and concentrate on it. Each of us had an area of expertise and in some areas/categories, we knew equally. Chennai was/is pretty famous for Quizzes and most inter-school quiz competitions involved a team of two or three. 

During most of these quizzes (of 3 member teams) our partner in crime was Subramaniam K, (a Class IX student then). He also happened to be my brother's classmate (chaddi-buddy??). Subbu, as we used to address him, was a brilliant student. He had won the NTSE scholarship in Class VII, he was also a Y2K scholarship awardee. Subbu had a knack of remembering a lot of assorted stuff back then. You could have called him a Wikipedia. While there were other good Quizzers in the school, the powers that would be, decided to club us together and lo by the end of that academic year, we (Sapta, Subbu and I) came to be regarded as the best quizzing team in the school.

At the beginning of the next academic year (1997-1998), I came to be chosen as the house captain of Bharathi house, Sapta was chosen as the house captain of Ashoka. While Subbu came to be sorted into Shivaji house. So now we had a situation wherein, each member of the quiz team were part of separate houses. The annual school quiz competition that was conducted as part of CCA got hyped to the hilt! Personally, I was really determined to win the CCA cup for the house. Having already faced humiliation when Bharathi house stood last on Sports day, I wasn't willing to experience that again (Ashoka won the Sports cup)! Winning the quiz competition became a matter of pride, it was my path to redemption (You may think why the heck is this guy taking games so seriously, well that's me)!

During the run-up to the quiz competition, there was a lot of friendlies banters among us friends. My brother who belonged to Shivaji house (a decent quizzer himself), kept needling me that they had a very good team, and had a pretty good chance to secure the first place.  Although I agreed with him that his team (Subbu, my brother, and two other guys) was good, he can't take Ashoka's team (Sapta, Ramprasad + 2 others) lightly. I told him that Sapta's knowledge in a lot of categories was pretty good. I did some groundwork to select the team for my house as well, and after much thought, we put up a decent team of me, Siddharth (a classmate of my Subbu and my brother) and two other guys.

In all of our discussions, it was a foregone conclusion that the first three places will go to either Ashoka, Bharathi or Shivaji. None of us (neither the participants nor the audience) were even giving a chance to the fourth house (Netaji)!  The quizmaster was Ms. AR Lakshmi, PGT (History). She had prepared a well-researched set of questions for the competition.  I must admit it was one of the best set of questions that I had seen. 

The quiz competition involved 3 rounds which would be finished with a rapid-fire round. Predictably, Shivaji was leading at the end of the first two rounds, Bharathi and Ashoka shared the 2nd place and Netaji hadn't even opened their score. At the end of the third round, Shivaji remained first Bharathi managed to come second, while Ashoka and Netaji now shared the 3rd place. There was 5 points difference between Shivaji and Bharathi, while 2 points difference between Bharathi and Ashoka/Netaji. So, when we arrived at the rapid fire round, each team had a pretty good chance of finishing in the first.

In the rapid fire round, each of the team managed to score a point during the first 4 questions, and then everything changed!! Ashoka got a question wrong and Netaji answered it correctly on a bounce and won a point. They were now on-par with Bharathi in a score. They managed to get the question correct as well and overtook Shivaji. We now had only 1 question to go and whoever answered that correctly would win the quiz. Fortune favors the brave they say, Netaji managed to win the buzzer on the last question as well and got it correct! Before even any of us could realize what happened, the quiz competition was over! Netaji stood first, Shivaji second, Bharathi third and Ashoka fourth!!

Nethaji team was lead by Sumitra Datta (a classmate of Sapta and me), she had Rakesh (a classmate of Subbu and my brother) in her team and two other guys. We hadn't even considered them as a competition, let alone give them a chance! Our mistake was that in our arrogance and pride, we hadn't considered the strengths and weaknesses of the fourth team and spent a lot of time planning our strategies on the guys whom we thought would make a difference! I learned that day, that its wrong to underestimate any opponent. There can be no more humbling experience in humility than that what I learned with that loss.

This day, those memories

Pakistan required 4 of the last ball.  The audience (both at the stands and at home) on the edge of their seats! Most Indians were confident of an Indian victory (why not? This was 25 years before Twenty-20, and to score a boundary of the last ball of a match was unheard of!).

You know what happened next! Chetan Sharma bowls a lolly full toss, which Javed Miandad tonks over mid-wicket for a six. Javed Miandad dances like a mad-man back to the pavilion. The crowds are ecstatic. Pakistan has won the Sharjah Cup again, snatching victory from the jaws of defeat!

The camera zooms to Chetan Sharma's dejected face! Almost every Indian (me included) cursed Chetan Sharma that day! How idiotic can the bowler be? I mean he could have bowled anything but full toss!! Hell, he could have even rolled the ball over!

Forward to the winter of 1997. KV Minambakkam school grounds. A cricket match between Class XII vs Class X. The seniors' batted first put on a decent score.

The juniors started their innings cautiously. Jaggi took the first wicket. Junior's main batsman Karthik was out cheaply.

The senior team captain handed over the ball to me for my spell. I took two wickets in two balls in the first over, and suddenly the task was uphill for the Juniors, but they fought on doggedly.

Sapta and Ramji rushed through few quick overs and tookfew wickets as well. It was a close contest.

12 required of the last over. I was required to bowl the last over. Manish was on strike.

He swung and missed the first two balls. 12 required of 4.

Manish flicked the next ball to mid-on and snatched a 2. 10 required of 3.

A single denied of the next ball, 10 required of 2. We were confident of victory now.

Manish edged past the third man to score a four off the penultimate ball of the match. 6 required of 1.

As I ran in to deliver the final ball of the match, I told myself, whatever I do, I won't bowl a full toss!

However the moment I release the ball, I know it was done for. The ball was full and Manish tonked it over long on for six!!!

17 years have passed since then. But to this day, whenever there is a close encounter (in a life or a game), I see the image of Manish Biswas carting my ball over long-on!!

It's after-all a game you say! Well someone please tell that to my heart!!!

Dear Chetan Sharma, 

Never did I realize, that one day, I would empathize with you. I understand that you never meant it to be a full toss. Things just happen and you don't have control over them! And it takes an eternity to make peace with such mistakes!

Could you please help me, how did you get over it (if you really did)??

Once bitten, twice shy

Once bitten, twice shy.
Twice bitten, must never try!
Thrice bitten, must go and die!
Still I'vent learnt, I wonder why??

Maybe its just my brain,
which has gone insane!
When I don't abstain
from taking the same old lane!

Is it hope?
or am I on dope?
to think that I can cope
this drift down the slope??

Someday I will anchor
and fight away this rancor!
Despite being infected with canker
But the thought will still hanker!!

Un-awakeable Dream

Sneaked upon me when I least expected
got smitten by the art you've now perfected!
Do you know how big a dream you've erected?
But I know I will stand dejected!!

I'm stuck in a dream from which I can't awake
But dreaming of you, makes my heart ache!
I am no John Milton or William Blake,
to use words and melt objects opaque!

To dream on is sheer madness!
But to awake would mean, drown in sadness!
You may call this attitude callous
But you haven't beholden my dream Alas!!

There are ones that some can't forget
While for others there are ones that you can't get!
The ill-fortune to experience both is mine, you bet!
Not a night passes by (or is allowed to pass by) in this sweat!!

(to be continued....)

What is Dravid like in real life?

Well read this http://www.sportskeeda.com/cricket/inspirational-story-rahul-dravid-conversing-bed-ridden-fan-skype


And a funny exchange between Saurav and Rahul in the commentary box

http://www.sportskeeda.com/cricket/rahul-dravid-sourav-ganguly-banter-commentary