Testing Times

"A few weeks later I played in a Test match against West Indies in Calcutta, in front of what was the lowest turn out in Eden Gardens' history. Yes we still wanted to win and our intensity did not dip. But at the end of the day, we are performers, entertainers and we love an audience. The audience amplifies everything you are doing, the bigger the crowd the bigger the occasion, its magnitude, its emotion. When I think about the Eden Gardens crowds this year, I wonder what the famous Calcutta Test of 2001 would have felt like with 50,000 people less watching us."- Rahul Dravid at the Bradman Oration

Rahul Dravid is known to be a man of concentration. When he is on the field, batting, nothing else matters to him but the ball leaving the bowler's hand. And when you hear these words from the man himself you know something is alarmingly amiss.

What does cricket mean to us, Indians? For a selected few it is just a stairway to overnight stardom, to even fewer it is a passion but to most of us it is just a carnival. Arguably, every Indian would have some sweet or bitter memory associated with this sport. After every India-Pakistan in the late 90s there used to be at least one suicide story in the newspapers of the losing side. Such was the madness in the subcontinent. Cricket has been acting as a bond that is so necessary for a country so diverse. I remember the times when my whole family used to be glued to the TV sets during a crucial match. We had our arguments, expert opinions, cheers, heartbreaks but these emotions were the ones that used to bind us all together and this story was not limited to a household. You could see people from all backgrounds crowding at a shop with a TV set during 1996 world cup quarterfinals, the legendary chennai test, 2003 world cup finals, of course the recent 2011 world cup finals and many more. A win/loss was enough to toggle the mood of a nation with 100 crore population.

Cricket is not only a sport for us, for us it is an insignia of hope. It has given us the confidence as a nation that we can take on the world. As Dravid rightly put it- "After India won the World Cup this year, our players were not congratulated as much as they were thanked by people they ran into. "You have given us everything," they were told, "all of us have won." Cricket in India now stands not just for sport, but possibility, hope, opportunities." It was not only a win for the Indian cricket team, but also a win for the whole nation. It was a domination of India over the rest of the world.

When cricket has given us, Indians, so much, we owe something back to it. Don't we? And the only thing, we spectators, can give back to cricket is viewership. Yes, the management of calender has been haphazard. Yes, there there has been too much cricket going on with IPL being squeezed into the schedule at a time when even the spectators need a break but let us leave that to the administrators. They, being the profiteers would have to look into this anyways. We, as the spectators can do a lot. The need of the hour is to bring back that enthusiasm and to see the awesomeness test cricket still has to offer. With young generation coming into the foray there will be some freshness and experimentation. With newer shots invented, newer deliveries bowled, we have a lot to look forward to. Cricket is anyways a very diverse game with a lot of room for innovations.

I know life has become too fast to follow a 5-day test but then it is in those short sessions of test cricket where real tussle between bat and ball takes place. As Sunil Gavaskar rightly put it- "Test cricket separates men from the boys." T20 is just the dessert. Cricket can not survive on it. Nothing can beat the beauty of a well timed cover drive or straight drive. Nothing can beat the beauty of ball seaming just enough to take the edge of a bat coming straight at it and disappearing into the gloves of the wicket keeper. Nothing can beat the beautiful sight of 5 men crouching behind the bat rising simultaneously to every delivery in the first session of the first day.

Cricket looks most beautiful when played in white and let it be so.

When I became Comfortably Numb

I feel so light as if the gravity has gone out of existence. I can't walk straight but I am able to think straighter. I am completely in control it seems. For the first time in life I am making sense, dammit! Whatever I am telling you I am not afraid of the consequences because I know that I am completely in control. You don't seem to be taking it badly either. You don't seem to be thinking that I am stupid. Well, you are completely right. I completely know what I am doing. I have never spoken like this to anyone before. Things seem a lot better like this. You seem to be listening to me very intently. It is not a serious talk, is it? The thing is I have not talked a lot before and so the sensible things are still in store, accumulated over time. There is a lot of stupidity too but that is for later. You, on the other hand have completely finished your quota. No, I am not saying that you are talking stupid. Actually I don't care what others are talking today. I only want to listen to myself speaking. I have heard you a lot of times but myself, it is rare. Well that reminds me of a Pink Floyd lyric-

" There is no pain you are receding
A distant ship smokes on the horizon.
Your lips move but I can't here what you're saying
You are only coming through in waves."

And now I get the complete significance of it. Today I feel the same. Today I feel "Comfortably Numb". Waters must have felt the same sometime in his life. See, this is what psychedelia is all about. You feel it and then you sing it. Aah, see I started talking stupid again. I get totally carried away at the mention of Pink Floyd. Well yes I myself mentioned it but you should have stopped me. You look transfixed at something. Whom are you looking at? There is no one in that direction. Hey there, are you listening? Why have you closed your eyes now? Did I bore you so much? Wake up, dude!

Dammit! you were yourself high all this time, weren't you? What was I thinking! You had to be out of your mind to listen to me.

When JOB means "Just On Bucks" to you

Every morning as the alarm of my phone rings and very reluctantly I get out of bed a sadist voice calls out from inside as if mocking - "Welcome to job life Nishant. You have had your days and a lots of them. It is time to payback." This has been happening for the last 3 months and the hangover still continues. It is the hangover of joblessness which had its seed in college. The most surprising part is, it is the joblessness that I miss the most from my college life. It is not as if I have been thrust with responsibilities, actually I am as jobless at office but the part that is lacking is freedom. Being under a constant scrutiny is what kills a part of me everyday at work.

College life never gives you a chance to realize the paradigm shift that is going to strike you. It is like going through a worm hole and landing into another universe altogether. You look around and you find a herd of aliens who resemble a lot to the fictitious zombies moving around mechanically as if they too have become a part of the machinery of the production plant. Following a fixed schedule, a fixed set of rules, being efficient is what life is all about for these creatures. Run before it is too late, run before you are also treated as one of those machines in the plant is what comes to the mind then! But I am still not sure whether I am running towards it or running away from it.

Words celebrating a Genius

On 15th November 1989 a 15 year old boy walks to the middle of the cricket ground,

That moment who would have professed that He will leave the cricketing world spellbound?

Twenty years have gone by, the boy has grown,

Modesty is the same even though to such heights He has flown.

He has got the power to bring a population of 100 crore to a stop,

No one can miss a moment of the game when he is at top.

He has been entertaining cricket lovers for 20 years now,

Still we look at his cover drives and spit out – “wow!”

He is the only batsman whom every bowler in the world respects,

In every cricket shot written in the books he perfects.

Call him genius, legend , awesome or brilliant,

Every praise for his skills will be an understatement.

Comparing Him to God too is not fair,

Because “even God makes mistakes” I am aware.

Let us all pray that he achieves feats that are even greater,

No prizes for guessing that our subject here is Sachin Tendulkar.

IPL'09- An Unmedicated Disaster

So, the long wait (mine, ofcourse) is over and here I am with my first one ...........

I have been pondering over the theme of my blog for too long and I never get it how cricket escaped my mind everytime. Probably  it was waiting for the right time and what could be a more appropriate occassion than during the biggest cricket carnival of all(believe me , it has got to be bigger than the world cup), the IPL.Yes, the IPL has arrived again only this time with a mere 'meow' rather than a 'roar'........ 

First of all let us do a flashback.......

In 2008 IPL was a big hit and why not,it was the first time the most enthusiastic and sentimental cricket lovers were experiencing the shorter version of the game in their own country. The hype was tremendous and the event was spiced up with some tantrums of our own cricketers. The Priety Zinta hugs, the Bhajji slap and his spat with Andrew Symonds had lots of buyers.The concept of cheer leading with 'mischief gals' dancing to every hit across the boundary lent some extra spice to the event.  To add to the flavour the "underdogs" Rajasthan Royals against all expectations won the trophy to lend a perfect climax to the actionpacked 45 days.

Coming back to the present....

The carnival has now shifted to South Africa(thanks to a bigger carnival going on in India filled with a lot more drama and action), the place which immortalised twenty-20 in India after the triumph of Dhoni's men over the archrivals Pakistan in the world cup. The game has started and as feared IPL seems to be a flop this season after first few games itself . It has been marred by one-sided encounters and the wrath of rain Gods. Already two matches have been decided on D/L method(which according to me is the worst method to decide the fate of a match), with Punjab on the recieving end of both and to add to the misery one match has been already cancelled. 

The fate of the event suggests why FIFA should not take any lessons from IPL organisers. Four consecutive matches are being played on pitches which have been prepared in a jiffy leading to an exponential decrease in runs every match.Like last year there has been no heroics from any rookie because of lack of experiences with such alien conditions.This IPL will also miss its fare share of controversies with no Andrew Symonds this time to incite Harbhajan Singh into doing something unusual. The media hype surrounding the cricketers is also missing.

On the flipside, holding IPL in South Africa has helped it reach people beyond the boundaries of the subcontinent. The domestic players are learning to get acclimatised to the unfamiliar conditions.  The first few matches have also seen the veterans coming into fray. Dravid, Kumble, Sachin and Warne have shown that age is no factor when you have the enthusiasm and the hunger to perform. They have hit back at "experts" who feel they are too "aged" to play twenty-20 cricket. I don't understand why these people can't understand that age is just a useless figure which can't be used as a benchmark to measure any individual's usefulness. These are some positives which I am counting on in this IPL. Hoping that the event will reach at least half the heights it had reached the last time I come to the end of my first blogpost.

P.S- Hip Hip Hurray!!! for Delhi..... they are gonna win this time...

P.P.S-Any reference to God in my further posts will refer to Sachin....