Posts Tagged ‘Gulu Ezekiel’

Somebody Stop Him

By Gulu Ezekiel

The Indian Premier League has become the latest chest-thumping vehicle for Indian Netizens both at home and abroad. Any non-Indian critic of the annual jamboree now into its third year is immediately dubbed a racist. Any Indian critic is dubbed a traitor. This is new-age jingoism at its worst.

How a domestic cricket league with a smattering of international players came to this pass is entirely due to the massive PR machine cranked out by Lalit Kumar Modi and his merry band of Bollywood stars, fat-cat businessmen, ex-players and journalists, all with a vested financial interest in singing from the sang hymn sheet.

The clamour for the ICC to create a ‘window’ free of international cricket for the six weeks of the IPL in summer and the two weeks of the Champions League in winter is growing ever louder. But assuming the ICC succumbs to such pressure and gives Modi what he wants, will he settle for that?

Make no mistake—Modi and the IPL’s ultimate target is not six or eight weeks in the calendar. World cricket domination is in his sights and it is the Indian cricket public who will decide whether he gets what he desires or has his ambitious plans thwarted.

But there are bumps on the superhighway and the biggest was revealed in Mumbai where the auction for two new franchises for IPL IV collapsed on Modi like a warm soufflé more due to his greed than anything else.

The Ravindra Jadeja scandal also proves that the players are helpless–albeit richly paid–pawns. For the owners, these players, many of them national icons, are the ultimate status symbols. They are flaunted much like the latest Gucci handbag or Manolo Blahnik shoes. In other words, they are trophy players for the owners.

While 60 matches will be played this year, next year the number jumps to 94. Will the Indian cricket-mad public continue to lap up this TV reality show or will they suffer from indigestion?

For senior cricketers the IPL is like a gilt-edged Voluntary Retirement Scheme. Why spend the year traveling the cricket world playing for your country when you can take home 10 times the money playing hit-and-giggle cricket for a few weeks?

For the new generation of cricketers, the temptations are irresistible. Why slog and sweat it out for the handful of places in the national or even state side when you can make a tidy packet bowling four overs or batting for a few more? The route to riches has never been easier.     

But one can hardly blame them. It is the authorities who have created this money-fuelled machine that has upturned a value system going back over a century in a matter of three years.  

So what if the IPL is creating a generation of half-baked cricketers who fail at the international level? If Modi has his way, such cricket will anyway be defunct. 

South Africa in 2008 was just the first step. Canada and the United States beckon. In five years time will international cricket be replaced by IPL-backed franchises traveling round the world with Modi the ringmaster cracking the whip?

It is the Indian fan alone who will ultimately decide cricket’s fate. Hang on for the ride.    

India manage to hang onto no.1 Test Ranking

By Gulu Ezekiel

Gulu Ezekiel

India can thank their lucky stars that they have managed to cling onto the world number one Test ranking.

But a mere two-Test series against South Africa has left cricket fans crying out for just one more match. Nothing less than three Test matches would have been a true test of the relative strengths of the two sides.

Even these two Tests were a late after-thought on the part of the BCCI who scrambled to alter the visitors’ itinerary from seven ODIs to three to squeeze in the series. Or else India’s number one ranking would have been lost due to paucity of matches this year and nothing else.

How much this ranking means to the Indian team was evident by the joy and relief they showed when Harbhajan Singh claimed the last wicket at the Eden Gardens with just minutes to go for the end of the match.

Of course it could well have been over midway through the final day if so much play had not been lost on Wednesday due to the weather.  Then again, the nail-biting finish was a great advertisement for the unique thrills that only a Test match can produce and the enthusiastic crowds backing India throughout the match was a joy to witness.

India were also severely handicapped by the absence of spearhead Zaheer Khan on the final day and the constant fitness issues plaguing the pace bowlers continues to pose problems for the selectors and team management.

Even though both the Tests ended in innings wins, they produced plenty of thrills and some outstanding individual performances.

The standout undoubtedly was South Africa’s middle order hero Hashim Amla. That he was dismissed just once in three innings for 490 runs and occupied the crease for a shade under 24 hours in all is a tribute to his powers of concentration and commitment. And how close he came to denying India victory on the final day in partnership with last man Morne Morkel.

Despite Harbhajan’s match winning bowling at Kolkata, it was fast bowler Dale Steyn’s tremendous spell of 7 for 51 in the first Test at Nagpur that stood out in the short but sweet series.

What an irony it is that in this day and age of 50 and 20-over thrills, it is the Tests matches that have captured the imagination. And the three-ODI series that begins in Jaipur on Sunday now appears anti-climatic. Then again, that is what makes Test matches so magical to true cricket lovers. And no amount of hype and hoopla can erase 133 years of history and tradition.

Gulu’s Googlies—Dumb and Dumber!

Gulu Ezekiel

 

By Gulu Ezekiel 

“Everybody does it” is what every crook down the centuries has whined when caught red-handed.

Shahid Afridi is no different. Except that he must be one of the dumbest crooks of all time!

To think he can pull off a stunt like biting into the cricket ball in front of thousands of spectators and 26 cameras as well as millions on the Net just shows how low he can go.

Remember this is the same guy who five years ago at Faisalabad pirouetted with his spikes on the centre of the pitch during a Test match against England when he thought everyone had been distracted by the explosion of a soft drinks gas canister at the ground. Did he really think the TV cameras too would be distracted?!

Its no wonder controversial Australian umpire Darrel Hair has dubbed Afridi a “serial cheat.” And the Pakistanis have been up to their high jinx for years. Former captain Mushtaq Mohammad admits as much in his autobiography released a couple of years ago.  

But despite his blatant act and subsequent bleating, the acting Pakistan captain was not far off the mark. He is right that at some stage or the other in cricket history the bowlers of every nation have tried to use illegal means to get the ball to do tricks on their behalf.

And guess what? Afridi is not even the first cricketer to bite into the ball on the field of play!

Yes, it happened 20 years ago in New Zealand and the culprit back then was an Indian, swing bowler Manoj Prabhakar.

In fact, when I saw the incriminating footage of Afridi last week, my mind raced back two decades and I was able to trace the photographer who had snapped Prabhakar in biting action during the second Test match at Napier in February 1990.

The photos were broadcast on the NewsX channel (see link below) on Thursday night—the first time they had been seen outside of New Zealand–and Prabhakar was asked for his reaction. But being in Jaipur at the time, he could not see the photos and blithely denied the act! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O55vOZYXlpk 

However, Prabhakar who was repeatedly suspected of tampering with the ball was honest enough to admit that bowlers have been forced to this last resort as the game is totally in favour of the batsmen.

That indeed has been the case for centuries with the batsmen acting as the lords and masters of the game and the bowlers thrust in the role of toilers and domestic helps. Now even more so with the advent of Twenty20 cricket and the pitches around the world getting flatter and flatter and the bats getting more and more powerful.

The difference between Prabhakar and Afridi is that the former was smart enough to know that back then there were no ICC match referees and low key TV and print media coverage of the game. In fact, if I recall correctly there were probably just four Indian journalists assigned to that tour. Today there would be over 50. So Prabhakar’s act simply slipped under the radar and would never have come to light in India if not for Afridi and his foolishness.

Moral of the story? Break the law if you must, but don’t get caught!   

Gulu’s Googlies: India deserves to be ranked world number one?

Gulu Ezekiel

By Gulu Ezekiel

India were always expected to win both Test matches in Bangladesh. After all, it was a case of the world number one side taking on the side at the bottom of the list.

But there was an unmistakable air of lethargy and listlessness about the Indian team even though they won the series with ease.

The lack of intensity may have been due to the Indians realizing they did not have to be at the top of their game to come out winners. There were times when the champions simply appeared to have taken their foot off the pedal.

In the end there were plenty of questions but few answers as the world number one prepares to take on the world number two next week.

Is Ishant Sharma back at his best or will he lapse into bad habits once again against the mighty South Africans? Is Zaheer Khan back in form or is he still struggling with injuries? And can S. Sreesanth ever shake off his bad-boy image and constant fitness problems? Will Amit Mishra and Pragyan Ohja fit into their roles as frontline spinners?

As for the batsmen, is it now a given that Yuvraj Singh is a notch below Test class and that he will never again regain full fitness?

Some of these questions may well be answered during the South African visit. But even on home tracks, the Indians will face their sternest test to hold onto their ICC world number one Test ranking. 

The South Africans certainly have problems of their own. Ever since their re-entry on the international scene in 1991 after the lengthy apartheid ban, there has been a churning in their cricket set-up as they strive to right historic wrongs. Whether that will put them under additional stress is another question that should be answered soon.

Injuries to Yuvraj, Rahul Dravid and Sreesanth have given some new faces a golden opportunity to have a crack at international cricket. And the most exciting prospect is undoubtedly Karnataka’s new pace sensation Abhimanyu Mithun.  

Two Test matches is like throwing crumbs to hungry fans. But something is better than nothing. And it must be remembered that South Africa readily agreed to play these Tests when it suddenly dawned on the BCCI late last year that India could have rapidly lost their top-dog status if they did not play more Test matches this year.  

There are still two blank spaces in India’s Test record and that is their inability to win a series in Australia and South Africa.

Until that is achieved, the biggest question mark will remain if India deserves to be ranked world number one.