Is this India’s best-ever ODI team?

On Sunday, the much-hyped contest between traditional rivals India and Pakistan turned out to be—literally and figuratively—a damp squib. All the buildup to the match focussed on how the teams had to handle the pressure and perform; ultimately, only one team—India—turned up on the field. They played with a confidence and assuredness that fans of another vintage could only dream of, and in clinical fashion, dismantled the Pakistani team. In short, it was business as usual.

For fans who have watched this team in action over the last three calendar years, the result wasn’t entirely unexpected. Since January 2017, India’s record reads: 65 matches played, 46 matches won; a Win-Loss (W/L) ratio of 2.875 (nearly winning 71% of the matches). In this time period, India made the 2017 Champions Trophy final (where they lost to Pakistan), and won all other series apart from the away one in England (where they ran the hosts close), and the recent, unexpected reverse at home to Australia. All this begs the question—is this India’s best-ever ODI team?

There are many ways to look at this question. One way is to check the progression of the team with respect to the overall records (all statistics correct until 18^th June 2019).

Decade	Matches	Won	Lost	W/L	Win%
1970s	13	2	11	0.181	15.38
1980s	155	69	80	0.862	44.52
1990s	257	122	120	1.016	47.47
2000s	307	161	130	1.238	52.44
2010s	237	149	149	1.960	62.87

The overall record certainly suggests so.

India were a pathetic ODI team in their early days and have seen an upward trajectory ever since. Even in the 1980s, when India won two major world tournaments, the team had more losses than wins. The team slowly climbed out of the red in the 1990s and saw an upturn in fortunes in the next decade. And in the present decade, their record is nothing short of commendable. But what if we dice the data further?

Period	Matches	Won	Lost	W/L	Win%
2000-04	153	77	70	1.100	50.32
2005-09	154	84	60	1.400	54.55
2010-14	136	83	45	1.844	61.03
2015-19	101	66	31	2.129	65.35

Taking a closer look at the data since 2000, some more insights emerge. The team that played under Ganguly (mostly) didn’t achieve much success overall despite a strong showing in ICC tournaments; this generation also lost a large number of finals. Under Dravid’s leadership (and later on Dhoni’s), the team’s record improved considerably and India fixed the longstanding chasing problem by discovering fantastic chasers such as Dhoni and Gambhir. And since 2010, under Dhoni and Kohli, the team has performed at another level altogether, comfortably ahead of South Africa and Australia (whose W/L ratios are ~1.7 and ~1.6 respectively). It is in this era that India made the semifinals (or better) of 4 consecutive ICC ODI tournaments, and few would bet against India making it into the top 4 in this edition as well.

What about the personnel?

The easy way to think about it is to ask a follow-up question—how many players from this team are claimants to a spot in all-time India XI or a present-day World XI? Fielding-wise, this is without a doubt India’s best-ever side. With regard to the question posed, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, and M S Dhoni are no-brainer choices. What about Jasprit Bumrah? In spite of him being relatively young, he should walk into the side—this says as much about paucity of quality Indian fast-bowling options as it does about his own ability and potential. With regard to the spin twins, it is still early days but one of them might end up with a mighty ODI record. The rest of them are fairly close as well. If one were to order Indian players on the basis of batting and bowling averages (with a 1000 run and 50 wickets cutoff respectively) to get a rough sense of players’ performances, today’s players crowd the top of the list. Only one name from an earlier era (Sachin Tendulkar, who also played briefly in this era, and Kapil Dev) feature in the top 7; even players such as Shami and Jadhav also have had good starts to their careers, as does Rayudu who didn’t find himself on the plane to England. Granted, these are still early days in today’s players’ careers, but it nonetheless does tell us the level at which they have performed so far.

But what about run inflation you ask? Do you find yourself pooh-poohing today’s batsmen since they score on flat pitches against ordinary bowlers? Where are the bowlers today in the class that earlier players had to face— Waqar Younis, Wasim Akram, Saqlain Mushtaq, Shoaib Akthar, Glenn McGrath, Brett Lee, Shane Warne, Allan Donald, Shaun Pollock, Curtly Ambrose, Courtney Walsh, Chaminda Vaas, Muthiah Muralitharan, and the others? Valid question. But also consider at the same time, today’s batsmen are feasting heavily; so shouldn’t bowlers such as Rabada, Kuldeep, Bumrah, Starc, Rashid Khan etc. get credit for doing exceptionally in today’s times? Also, one can only play against the opponents facing them. And, even if runs were “inflation adjusted”, Indian team players feature at the very top of recent statistics as well.

Another way to look at it is to ask how many players from India’s past ODI teams would walk into this squad and improve it? Sachin Tendulkar and Kapil Dev surely; Yuvraj Singh, Virender Sehwag, Anil Kumble and Zaheer Khan could be considered at their peaks, but there would be question marks about some of their fielding abilities. And after this, there is no one else. One could argue that the 2011 World Cup team possibly had equivalent batting in its era, but this was a batting unit that did well for a handful of matches (with at least 3 players dropping off after that).

Is today’s team perfect? Far from it. Though it is more well-balanced, it is still facing a philosophical battle with the present-day English team; then there are well-documented weaknesses with the new ball bowling and middle order dawdling. But probably for the first time in India’s ODI history, the team can defend a low-ish score and can win matches on the basis of bowling as well; earlier Indian teams needed insurance to close out matches as they weren’t similarly equipped.

How does this Indian team compare to the legendary West Indian and Australian teams of yesteryear? See and decide for yourself:

Period	Matches	Won	Lost	W/L	Win%
WI (1973-1989)	193	139	52	2.673	72.02
Aus (1999-2008)	281	205	61	3.360	72.95

The West Indies dominated ODI cricket in its infancy for nearly 2 decades (and played less than 200 matches during the time), winning 72% of the matches played. They had the best bowling attack and had a few champion batsmen as well. But the Australians around the turn of the millennium were from a different planet—they had it all: a pioneering keeper-batsman, batting depth, class-leading fielding, and miserly bowling. No wonder they dominated every team for a decade (nearly 300 matches).

Therefore, though India are the standout ODI team of the decade, they are still a few steps behind the legendary teams of ODI history.  That the champion teams performed at such stratospheric heights for a decade shows what this team is up against. One also suspects that India will have to win the big tournaments consistently to remain in the memory as a champion team; after all, another exceptional team—South Africa—did well (W/L ratio of ~2 between 2005 and 2017) but couldn’t etch themselves in stone as they didn’t have any big, shiny trophy to show at the end of their reign.

 

An analytical look at an all-time Indian XI at the World Cups

In a few days, India will begin their World Cup campaign against South Africa. On paper, India are one of the stronger sides coming into the big tournament and will look to add a third world title to their kitty. Barring a major debacle, India should finish in the top 4 and make it to the semifinals; and after that, it is a matter of two good knockout matches for any team looking to lift the title and make cricketing history.

Throughout India’s ODI world cup history, several illustrious players have served the Indian team well, bringing honour and distinction in the process. But who are the Indian players who have lit the world stage = at cricket’s biggest tournament? Are they the usual suspects such as Tendulkar, Kapil Dev, Dhoni, Virat Kohli (who are sure-shot walk-ins for an all-time India ODI XI), or are there other unexpected players who have shone? In order to investigate this, we will undertake an analytical exercise to identify the players who have performed at a high level in the World Cup.

First up, some ground rules. Only world cup performances will be considered (with an 8 match and 2 tournament cutoff). This criterion ensures that players don’t just make it on the basis of a few good weeks, but rather that their good performances were spread out over multiple tournaments, thus rewarding long-term consistency.

What might be a good metric to measure ODI performance? Over the years, we have preferred to use (as have others) Batting and Bowling Index ratios (BaI ratio and BoI ratio respectively) to get a sense of the “level” at which a player operated in the period under consideration. Analysts have traditionally multiplied a player’s average and strike rate (economy rate for bowling) and divided it by a baseline to get a ratio that represents how valuable that player was. While this is a good start, it has some limitations. Hence, we have tweaked this to take into consideration run-inflation over the years and position in the batting/bowling order as different players have faced different conditions and circumstances throughout ODI history. So, the baseline of a player is derived based on weighting the number of matches played in a particular World cup edition and at a particular position—the rationale being, it is fairer to compare a player with his counterparts rather than everyone in the batting/bowling order. With this tweak in place, a player’s performances are largely compared to those of a hypothetical, composite player who faced similar opportunities.

Now that we have defined the criteria, let us have a look at how the players have performed with respect to their baselines.

At the top of the order, the peerless Sachin Tendulkar leads the pack having performed at a level that was ~2 times that of the hypothetical average player who got the same batting opportunities during his era. His partner-in-crime, Sourav Ganguly isn’t far off with a BaI ratio of 1.94. Considering that these players played in multiple world cups, this is an exceptional record. The Nawab of Najafgarh has performed at a high level as well, with Sidhu rounding up the top 4. The current openers Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan (who didn’t make the cut due to the 2 tournament cutoff) could break into this list with a decent showing in the upcoming world cup.

The middle order springs a few surprises. Virat Kohli may have game-leading ODI statistics at the moment, but he is yet to produce his best at the World Cup. His level is only at 1.16 times the average player—of course, the presence of other illustrious peers in the top order hasn’t helped his cause. Rahul Dravid is easily India’s most valuable batsman from the BaI ratio perspective due to his stellar showing at multiple world cups (and he kept wicket in many games as well). Middle-order stars from more than 20 years ago—Azhar and Jadeja—have also performed respectably for India. M S Dhoni, in his World cup matches, hasn’t hit the heights of his otherwise superlative career but still has played at a very good level; but to be honest, there was no other wicketkeeping contender apart from Dravid. Suresh Raina shows the opposite characteristic of Kohli—he may not have extraordinary stats in ODIs but his showing in the World cup has indeed been very good with respect to his peers.

Now come the multi-dimensional players with two strings to their bow—the all-rounders. If single-skill cricketers could only contribute in one way, an all-rounder’s contribution is effectively the sum of batting and bowling contributions, making them extremely valuable to the team.

Batting-wise, Kapil Dev has been class-leading but his bowling has been rather ordinary at the World Cups. On the back of his impressive showing at the victorious 2011 World Cup campaign, Yuvraj Singh has extremely high numbers both in the bowling and batting departments, and he easily makes the cut along with Kapil. The heroes of the 1983 World Cup, Mohinder Amarnath and Madan Lal have slightly contrasting stories to tell with respect to statistics. According to the methodology, Madan Lal has the highest sum and there is no doubting his bowling contributions; but truth be told, this is an anomaly resulting largely because of his batting numbers racked up from low batting positions. In Amarnath’s case, even though his contributions were very valuable in the latter stages of the 1983 campaign, in the overall World Cup picture, they weren’t path-breaking.

Among the pace battery of the 2003 World Cup team, left arm quicks Ashish Nehra and Zaheer Khan edge the senior partner and mentor Srinath in the BoI ratio stakes. Dovetailing with Kapil Dev, this should be a good pace attack on the whole. The man who was blessed with banana swing, Manoj Prabhakar, has also performed at an acceptable level for India. But apart from these 4 (and Kapil), it is slim pickings (Shami and Umesh Yadav did well in 2015 but didn’t qualify due to the criteria). But this might change very soon—one suspects that a couple of fast bowlers from this tournament will break into this list soon.

Rounding up the team are spinners from south India. Though they weren’t necessarily first-choice throughout their careers, Kumble and Ashwin are the top spin bowlers for India according to BoI ratio. Beyond these 2, there is daylight and then Venkatapathy Raju. What about long-serving Harbhajan Singh? Surprisingly, he has very ordinary numbers in the World Cup.

Now that the analysis has revealed the “value” of each player, who makes the final squad? 10 out of 11 places are automatic picks; the odd one out is the solitary middle order slot. Suresh Raina made his runs over 9 innings; now compare this to Sehwag’s (22) and Azhar’s (25) match tallies. Though all 3 satisfy the selection criteria, Suresh Raina has played far fewer matches for his returns and hence he has to unfortunately sit this one out. So do we ask Sehwag to bat at 3? Or do we go with Azhar’s experience at 4? We prefer the latter. Among all the amazing options, we pick Dhoni to captain this fantasy XI.

All-time India World Cup XI: Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, Mohammad Azharuddin, Yuvraj Singh, M S Dhoni (c & wk), Kapil Dev, Ravichandran Ashwin, Anil Kumble, Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra

A World cup squad for the ages

The quadrennial cricketing extravaganza that is the Cricket World Cup begins in less than 48 hours when England take on South Africa. The sports pages of every news publication, online and offline are filled to the brim with stories about the players, squads and unforgettable moments of yesteryear. With excitement building up towards this grand, we decided to throw our hat into the ring with a fun exercise of our own—building a hypothetical all-time XI.

What would serve as a fair selection criteria that can be applied across the board to facilitate such an exercise in fandom? Firstly, only performances from the ODI World Cups will be considered. Secondly, the player should have played in at least 10 World Cup matches and 2 editions; this criteria is to ensure that players with a stellar showing in one tournament (for example, Shikhar Dhawan) don’t necessarily upstage players with longer, more consistent World Cup records. As a consequence of these two criteria, many players with stellar ODI records (thinking of you, Virat Kohli and Joel Garner) unfortunately miss out, but present-day players certainly have a chance to correct this in the future. The squad would nominally have 6 batsmen (2 of whom can serve as the 6^th bowler), 1 wicketkeeper-batsman, 4 bowlers and 1 all-rounder but there is scope for some flexibility. With this in place, let us move on to the players themselves.

Wicketkeeper-batsman

Four wicketkeepers have stellar World Cup records: Adam Gilchrist, Kumar Sangakkara, Brendan Taylor, and Brad Haddin. Both Gilchrist and Kumar Sangakkara have had longer and more productive careers compared to the other two—hence it is down to these two. Both are excellent glovemen and hence the debate between the two will come down to batting (see below).

Top order (1-3)

One name automatically makes the list: Sachin Tendulkar. Who can argue with the batting pitamaha’s overall record and a stellar showing in three world cups? The identity of the other two players will no doubt cause much deliberation. Will it be his illustrious batting partner, Sourav Ganguly? Or explosive southpaws such as Adam Gilchrist or Sanath Jayasuriya? We then looked at players who married consistency with strike rate at the top, leading to 4 other contenders—Mark Waugh, Herschelle Gibbs, Matthew Hayden, and Tillakaratne Dilshan. Despite Dilshan’s edge as a part-time bowler, the fact that his best performances came against the “lesser” teams put him out of contention. With little to choose between the other three, we chose Matthew Hayden for his left-handedness and higher strike rate.  For the number 3 slot, Kumar Sangakkara’s consistency was hard to overlook and he easily towers over Ponting, Kallis, and Lara. A case could be made for playing both Gilchrist and Sangakkara but Hayden’s advantage (~+15 average) won the trade-off against Gilchrist’s stats (~+5 strike rate). Besides, we have packed the side with plenty of firepower in the middle order.

Hayden: 22 matches, 987 runs @51.94 avg. and 92.93 SR

Tendulkar: 45 matches, 2278 runs @ 56.95 avg. and 88.98 SR

Sangakkara: 37 matches, 1532 runs @ 56.74 avg. and 86.55 SR, 41 catches and 13 stumpings

Middle order (4-6)

As was the case in the top order, one more name automatically makes the list at number 4: Viv Richards; his handy bowling and fielding complemented his destructive batting well. The following act is a recent-day player who probably was the closest to Richards in his pomp—A B de Villiers. The number 6 and 7 candidates are some of the hardest to fill—is it better to pick someone like Javed Miandad, or Steve Waugh, who can marshal the lower order and bring in the big hits when necessary? Ultimately, we went with flexibility and power as the top 5 have enough batting ability and consistency to stave off even the most hostile bowling attack.

Viv Richards: 23 matches, 1013 runs @ 63.31 avg. and 85.05 SR

A B de Villiers: 23 matches, 1207 runs @ 63.52 avg. and 117.29 SR

All-rounders (6-7)

There are only 4 players under consideration—Imran Khan, Kapil Dev, Yuvraj Singh, and Lance Klusener. Imran Khan has an outstanding bowling record but his batting is less than stellar. Following Viv Richards and A B de Villiers is already a difficult task and his ~66 SR would be out of place, even if it were to be “inflation-adjusted”; Lance Klusener has an amazing batting and bowling record in the World Cups and he would totally fit in in today’s T20-fuelled era; Yuvraj Singh is more a part-time bowler who had one good World Cup bowling-wise. Kapil Dev’s World Cup bowling record is merely “average” by his own lofty standards but his batting takes the cake—who can forget his immortal 175* against Zimbabwe? In the end, it is a very tough call between Kapil Dev and Imran Khan but considering that the top 5 are very consistent, we went with batting power over bowling chops. Kapil, Klusener, Richards, and Tendulkar can more than capably bowl the 5^th bowler quota.

Lance Klusener: 14 matches, 372 runs @ 124 avg. and 121. 17 SR; 22 wickets @ 22.13 avg.

Kapil Dev: 26 matches, 669 runs @ 37.16 avg. and 115.14 SR; 28 wickets @ 31.85 avg.

Fast bowlers

For the fast men who will take the new ball, it is hard to look beyond two legends of the game—one known for unerring and nagging consistency, and the other, the sultan of swing. Yes, we are referring to Glenn McGrath and Wasim Akram. Unsurprisingly, they have the highest number of wickets in the World Cups (fast bowlers only). Other capable candidates such as Chaminda Vaas, Zaheer Khan, Lasith Malinga, Brett Lee, and Shane Bond miss out due to the illustrious careers of these two new ball schemers.

Wasim Akram: 38 matches, 55 wickets @ 23.83 avg.

Glenn McGrath: 39 matches, 71 wickets @18.19 avg.

Spinners

Here too, it is difficult to look beyond the two champion spinners of the game—Muttiah Muralitharan and Shane Warne. Though Warne has played only in two World Cups, his overall record pips him to the final bowling slot ahead of Vettori, Hogg, and Kumble.

Muttiah Muralitharan: 40 matches, 68 wickets @ 19.63 avg.

Shane Warne: 17 matches, 32 wickets @ 19.50 avg.

 

Squad balance and captaincy

Overall, the squad has it all—consistency at the top and middle, explosive power in the middle order, left-right combinations galore, a bowling quiver full of all types of arrows, lower-order batting in Akram and Warne, and even comic value in two genuine number 11s. Who will be the captain? Imran Khan would have been an obvious choice had he made it, but since we’re picking the captain after making the 11, we would pick Kapil Dev. Kapil Dev was even more crucial to India in 1983 than what Imran was to Pakistan in 1992, and he transformed a bunch of no-hopers to world champions against all odds through a mix of self-belief, inspiration, and leading from the front. Imran, on the other hand had an excellent bowling unit and decent batsmen coming up the ranks. For this reason, Kapil paaji da jawaab nahin. The cerebral Sangakkara will serve as his able deputy.

All time World-cup 11: Matthew Hayden, Sachin Tendulkar, Kumar Sangakkara (wk & vc), Viv Richards, AB de Villiers, Lance Klusener, Kapil Dev (c), Wasim Akram, Shane Warne, Muttiah Muralitharn, Glenn McGrath

The apprentice follows the master

Mumbai meri jaan: Rohit Sharma’s ODI trajectory has closely followed Tendulkar’s so far. Image source: 1

Imagine you are asked this question: Which Mumbai-based player, with delectable strokes all around the ground (especially, with fantastic backfoot play) and blessed with great sense of timing was originally a middle order batsman with a middling record in the ODIs but was later thrust into the opening role and has performed admirably ever since? Hint: He has a penchant for big scores and a trademark, exaggerated crouch after getting bowled by balls that keep low.

Depending on which vintage of fandom you belong to, the answer should be obvious (although, if you’re an ardent cricket fan, you should recognize the ploy). If you’re confused, thinking that the above details still don’t resolve the ambiguity, don’t worry—this double play was deliberately chosen to highlight the similarities in the ODI career trajectories of the two batsmen: Sachin Tendulkar and Rohit Sharma.

Many years ago, if one spoke about both of them in the same breath, he or she would have been ridiculed; in the case of ultra-passionate fans, it is not hard to imagine an opinion like this causing a bickering or family dispute. Who knows, in a different setting, under a different constitution, this could still constitute a blasphemy. But not anymore. After 200 matches for India, Rohit Sharma has legitimate claims of ending up as India’s second best opener in ODIs. And this is telling considering that there are other illustrious claimants to the spot, such as Sourav Ganguly, Virender Sehwag and the rest.

Believe it or not, Rohit Sharma started his career as an off-spinner, until his coach, impressed by his batting, moved him up the order. He swiftly climbed the rungs of Mumbai cricket and made the U-19 Indian cricket team that lost the 2006 U-19 World Cup final to the prodigious swing of Anwar Ali (fun fact: apart from Rohit Sharma, that team had Pujara, Ravindra Jadeja and Piyush Chawla). Soon, senior national duty beckoned and he made his ODI debut against Ireland (where he didn’t get a chance to bat). Though he would get his chance against South Africa in 3 more days, it was in the 2007 T20 World cup that he burst into national consciousness, where he scored a crucial quick-fire 30 against Pakistan in the final. Famously, his last over six off Sohail Tanvir was actually a catch which was palmed over the rope by Mohammad Hafeez; India would win this match later by five runs. An upward trajectory followed in the 2007-08 CB series, where the apprentice Sharma scored a calm 66 to anchor the chase alongside the master Tendulkar. Praise and adulation ensued, with personalities such as Ian Chappell anointing him for greater things in the future.

However, what happened next was less than ideal, to say the least. He became the most frustrating batsman—one who supposedly had checked all boxes but the runs column. Each impressive score would be surrounded by mediocre returns, something akin to running a gasoline car with adulterated fuel which would invariably cause sputtering. Commentators never forgot to mention his “class” or his range of shots; what was especially grating was the continuous playing up of his abilities and him getting chance after chance in the midst of less-than-expected returns (he would miss the victorious 2011 World Cup campaign though). But there were times when he would emulate Sachin Tendulkar—like the twin centuries in the 2008-09 Ranji Trophy final.

And indeed, there are many parallels. Back in 1994, after the regular opener Navjot Singh Sidhu was ruled out due to injury, Sachin Tendulkar requested coach Ajit Wadekar and captain Azharuddin to let him open the innings; the rest is history. Tendulkar went on to score 82 off 49 balls, making the chase largely academic. Tendulkar transformed from a talented middle order prodigy to a trailblazing opener who married the belligerence of Mark Greatbatch with his trademark consistency. In the case of Rohit Sharma, injuries to Sachin Tendulkar during the ODI leg of the 2010-11 South Africa tour pitchforked him temporarily to the opening slot, and he was pushed back to the middle order later. Two years later, on Dhoni’s suggestion, he turned his career around with an assured 83 against England in early 2013. There has been no looking back ever since. In fact, if one were to look at the statistics from an infomercial-type “Before/After” lens, the resemblances are uncannily similar (the fateful dates being 27^th March 1994 and 23^rd January 2013).

Player name	Before			After
	ABP	Average	Strike Rate	ABP	Average	Strike Rate
Sachin Tendulkar	4.65	30.84 (31.27)	74.36 (71.62)	2.22	47.08 (32.69)	87.71 (75.59)
Rohit Sharma	4.76	34.80 (34.03)	79.14 (77.56)	2.24	53.55 (35.67)	91.53 (84.49)

 

The average batting position (ABP), the batting average and strike rates have been provided for an easy comparison of the two players’ records, with the relevant baseline statistics in brackets. Both players played 60-odd innings (Tendulkar’s 66 vs Sharma’s 68) before the ascension—though, it must be noted that Tendulkar never opened the innings in ODIs before that match (Sharma temporarily opened thrice due to the emergency). Both players largely batted at numbers 4 & 5, with the ABP reflecting their place in the order; both players had a similar average to the average number 4 & 5 batsmen during this era, and struck at a marginally higher strike rate.

Both were changed players once the move was made more-or-less permanent, as seen by the ABP of ~2 (both opening positions have been given a value of 2). On the odd occasion after that date, both have batted lower down the order. After the switch, both dominated the ODI opening field, outscoring their peers by more than 40% in terms of runs per dismissal (average) and 8% in terms of strike rate; both had an appetite for gargantuan scores as well.

But there are some important differences between the two. In 1994, Sachin Tendulkar was a 21 year old prodigy whose batting prowess in the longer format was never in question. That isn’t the case with Rohit Sharma—he was 25 in 2013 and is still trying to find his feet in the test format in spite of having a stellar Ranji record. Additionally, in Tendulkar’s time, there weren’t many claimants to his ODI middle order slot, but Rohit Sharma had plenty of competitors. Though Rohit Sharma’s detractors might say that these are run-inflated times, what cannot be denied is that he’s still the top opening batsman since making the switch, head and shoulders above the rest. No one can grudge Rohit for having the highest ODI batting average (min. 50 innings) among openers; but it must also be remembered that Rohit’s opening act is still only 116 innings old, whereas the little master’s was 340 innings long at an average of 48.29—meaning, he still has some way to go. If not for Kohli’s otherworldly ODI record, he would have surely been talked up in much greater terms than he is being now. Having been through some tough times and having emerged stronger, he thoroughly deserves his due.

Disclaimer: The image used in this article is not the property of this blog. It has been used for representational purposes only. The copyright, if any, belongs to its respective owners.

 

 

 

 

The Evolution of Opening Batsmen – Kris Srikkanth’s place in ODI cricket history

We wrote an analytical piece for the good folks at Nation of Sport about understanding Krishnamachari Srikkanth’s place in the annals of ODI cricket. The article is behind a paywall and hence we can’t reproduce it on our blog like we normally do so. Here is a short summary:

Ardent cricket fans have come to believe that opening batting in the ODIs changed after the 1992 World Cup, when Mark Greatbatch showed everyone the way by blasting his way through the fielding restrictions. While there is some truth to this statement, this isn’t the entire picture. These stories ignore the pioneering role of Srikkanth, who performed something similar many years ago more consistently (at a time when field restrictions were not uniformly applied, mind you) and for a much longer period, thus standing out amongst all his peers. We analyse his record in the context of his time and pay tribute to this trailblazer who was ahead of his time.

You can read the whole piece at: https://www.nationofsport.com/stories/kris-srikkanth?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email

You need a subscription to access the entire story and we urge you to subscribe to this wonderful website to check out many other interesting stories as well.

 

 

Memories from Down Under

Size of the challenge: Virat Kohli leads his Indian team on what could be one of the best chances to win a test series in Australia. Image source: 1.

Indian tours to Australia have mostly been one-way traffic—the late Jaywant Lele’s (no, not McGrath’s) famous prediction of a 3-0 drubbing just before the 1999-00 tour comes to mind. In addition to India traditionally being poor travellers, Australian teams have been the toughest opposition for most teams. However, as teams around the world got crushed by the Aussie might, India were the one team that competed—often, in the most trying circumstances—against the Aussies during their period of dominance.

With Smith and Warner serving their post-Sandpapergate bans, the chatter among pundits and fans alike is that the imminent series represents a great chance for the Indian team to win their first ever test series in Australia. It is also worth remembering that India went with high hopes in the last two away tours but eventually fell short; before each tour, Ravi Shastri boldly proclaimed that their performances would define the legacy of this Indian team, but the post-series press conferences witnessed a tetchy Virat Kohli showing his combative side to the media. While the fans have been buoyed by the sight of Indian fast bowlers dismantling the opposition, questions about the batting and team selections still linger.

With this backdrop, this is a great time to recall some memorable Indian tours to Down Under. Additionally, can an analytical approach be used to draw some insights based on what was expected and how the series panned out?

In this article, three tours have been chosen: 2003-04, 1991-92 and 1980-81. The 2007-08 series was memorable as well, but going further back in time presents a chance to relive one of India’s greatest wins.

Now to the methodology. The strength of the two teams in the lead up to each tour is measured by 4 parameters—Batting experience (matches), batting strength, bowling experience (matches played by bowling unit) and bowling quality. Readers should note that the matches played by the bowling unit features both in the batting and bowling experience; this is because bowlers are called upon to bat much more frequently compared to batsmen rolling their arms over. Since home teams call up fewer players than away teams, the number of players has been indicated in brackets to provide additional perspective.

Table 1: A dissection of pre-series positions a post-series results on previous Indian tours to Australia

Consequently, batting strength is calculated by summing up the batting averages of all players (weighted by matches played in the series) and adjusting it to 10 dismissals. The batting strength (the higher the better) can be thought of as the average score that the batting lineup would have made during the series. Similarly, the bowling quality is calculated by adding bowling averages weighted by with the overs bowled. This can be thought of as the quality of composite bowling lineup (the lower the better) faced by the opponent; multiplying the bowling quality by 10 can give a sense of the runs conceded per innings.

For both these measures, career-to-date averages (till the start of the series) have been used, except in the cases of players who have played 10 test matches or less. Typically, new players take time to establish themselves in the side and hence their values have been fixed looking at historical trends (batsman-30, wicketkeeper/allrounder-20, tailender-10 for batting strength; bowler-35 for bowling quality). An argument could be made to account for home-away disparity (adjusting by ±5%), but in the interest of simplicity, the values have been used without further adjustment as they can be easily gauged.

2003-04

India faced off against a very strong Australian team, which scored ~20% more runs per innings compared to the average. Boasting of champion batsmen, Australia had the license to go all out and pummel the opposition into submission. The Indian batting was just about finding its feet in overseas conditions and they delivered most memorably in Adelaide. However, this magnificent victory has to be tempered based on the bowling lineup India faced; Australia, missing McGrath and Warne, presented a rookie bowling attack (79 tests old) which was far worse than the ~30 bowling quality. Additionally, their one world-class bowler, Gillespie, bowled only 10.2 out of 72.4 overs when India chased 233 for victory at Adelaide.

The two absent champion bowlers were veterans of 202 tests and had captured wickets at 21.71 and 25.71 respectively, and their replacements weren’t simply good enough. Just one stat is enough to distill their importance to the Australian team: with either of these two bowlers in the side, Australia lost only a single match at home in over a decade (that too, by 12 runs). This is not to belittle Dravid’s finest hour as one can only score against the bowlers bowling against you, but one has to be mindful of the circumstances in which this fantastic result was achieved. Keeping this in mind, the standout performance on the tour was undoubtedly Agarkar’s—taking 6/41 at Adelaide against this Australian lineup. The Indians also didn’t have the bowling to win the series in Sydney, allowing Steve Waugh to hold fort for a drawn series in his farewell test, but performed admirably throughout the series given their bowling quality.

1991-92

On paper, this tour looks like a drubbing at the hands of a less-experienced, lesser skilled Australian team; the first two tests were certainly so, but the next two were mightily close. Trailing by 170 runs, the Aussies slipped to 114/6 before a lower-order rescue act by a dogged Allan Border took them to a draw against below-average Indian bowling. Similarly, chasing an improbable 372 to win in the 4^th innings, Azhar and Prabhakar kept India in the hunt but India would lose narrowly by 38 runs (~2 lower order partnerships). Though India lost 4-0, the result could have been easily different if a few events had fallen in India’s favour. Sachin Tendulkar’s emergence as the next champion batsman was India’s biggest plus on the tour.

1980-81

In our opinion, this tour contains India’s finest ever away win. The two teams were evenly matched before the series, but truth be told, India’s bowling was poorer than the suggested bowling quality of ~29, for, Dilip Doshi and Shivlal Yadav were far worse in Australian conditions compared to their bowling averages of 30.37 and 26.15, which were largely bolstered by home performances.  India were duly walloped in the first test by an innings, and barely held on for a draw in the second, but it was the third test which was the stuff of legend. The test, now more remembered for the Gavaskar-Lillie spat, featured a lion-hearted performance by an injured Kapil Dev. Trailing by 182 runs, India managed to bat better in the 2^nd innings and muster 324 runs to set the Aussies a target of 143.

The fuse was lit by Karsan Ghavri on the fourth evening, but it was Kapil Dev who finished the Aussie demolition job by coming in to bowl in the 4^th position and taking 5 wickets, skittling them out for 83. Without a doubt, this rivals the immortal 2001 Kolkata test in terms of the difficulty of the task. Of course, a juggernaut of an Australian team—on a 16 match winning streak—halted in its tracks by an Indian team facing imminent defeat after being asked to follow on, is the stuff of a Bollywood potboiler and hence the better story.

—

The upcoming test series resembles the 2003-04 in some respects; here too, Australia are missing two crucial players in Warner and Smith. The two teams should be well-matched in the bowling department, but the key to the series will be based on which team can negotiate the other’s bowling and put the runs on the board to avoid defeat.

Disclaimer: Some of the images used in this article are not property of this blog. They have been used for representational purposes only. The copyright, if any, rests with the respective owners.

 

The long climb towards Tendulkar’s ODI records

No more lonely at the top? Sachin Tendulkar’s ODI records seem to be under threat due to  gluttonous run-making from the recent crop of top-order ODI batsmen. Image source: 1.

After the recently concluded one day international (ODI) leg of the New Zealand tour to India, Virat Kohli once again climbed the summit of the ICC ODI batting rankings. He had temporarily lost the top spot to AB de Villiers for a period of ten days, but claimed it back with his twin tons in the ODI series. He wasn’t the only one with a prolific October. South Africa’s AB de Villiers and Quinton de Kock plundered monstrous hundreds (176, and 168 not out respectively) against the hapless Bangladesh team at home. Meanwhile, in the UAE against a similarly listless Sri Lankan team, Pakistan’s Babar Azam notched twin hundreds of his own, as did Rohit Sharma against the visiting teams from Oceania.

More significantly, Virat Kohli amassed 889 rating points—a level which hadn’t been breached hitherto by any Indian batsman. Until then, that distinction was held by Sachin Tendulkar with a total of 887 in 1998, followed by daylight, Ganguly, Dhoni and Azharrudin. In his ODI annus mirabilis that was the year 1998, the Little Master towered over his peers scoring a gargantuan 1894 runs at an average of 65.3 and a strike rate of 102.15. To get an idea how much he was ahead of the rest of the world, one would have to consider that the average batsman (1-7 in the batting order) scored 32.5 runs per dismissal and at a strike rate of 75.22 in 1998. This means Tendulkar scored twice the number of runs per dismissal compared to an average batsman, in addition to scoring them at 36% more than the average batsman scoring rate that year.

No other batsman came within 600 runs of his run tally or had scored 5 hundreds that year (Ganguly, with 1328 runs and 4 hundreds came a distant second). With one superlative year—perhaps the greatest calendar year batting feat in ODI history–filled with memorable performances against top-class opposition, Tendulkar had claimed the record of the highest number of ODI hundreds and was well on his way to ascending the ODI batting throne. To add to all this, he was only 25 years old.

When he was finally done with ODIs in 2012, at a ripe old age of nearly  39 (in cricketing terms), he probably held the record for holding the most records in cricket— the most number of runs, centuries, fifties, matches played, man of the match awards, and then some. Back then, it was taken for granted that his records would stand the test of time. But with the emergence of a new generation weaned on a diet of T20 combined with flat pitches, runs have been scored at rates that have never been witnessed before. Is the impossible now possible? Are Tendulkar’s ODI records suddenly under threat? Who is most likely candidate to usurp his position?

Before Tendulkar, the grand old man of ODI cricket was Desmond Haynes. When he retired in 1994, he held the record for the most runs (7487) and centuries (17).  After his retirement, the run tally record was first claimed by Azharrudin before it was in Tendulkar’s firm possession. Even though Vivian Richards was clearly the better batsman and had a better set of statistics compared to his West Indian teammate, there were several reasons why Haynes held these records. Haynes finished his 16 year old ODI career three years after Richards’ (who also played for 16 years)—this was crucial since the ODI format only gained traction in the mid-1980s in terms of the fixture calendar. By retiring 3 years earlier than Haynes, Richards missed out on the busier, later years and finished with 51 matches lesser. Additionally, Haynes opened the batting whereas Richards batted down the order (mainly at nos. 3 and 4).

In ODI cricket, batting at the top of the order—especially opening or at no.3—gives a great chance for batsmen to pile on more runs and hundreds per innings due to more balls being available to score off. On the other hand, a batsman who comes in later to bat is constrained from score big due to lesser scoring opportunities being available. It is also instructive to note that the diminutive dynamo, Sachin Tendulkar, racked up ridiculous numbers after he made a successful switch to open the batting in 1994; until then, batting in the middle order, he had a merely average record in ODIs.

Player name	Age at ODI debut	Matches	Innings	Runs per innings	Inns per 100	Inns per 50	Days per match	Innings per MoM awards
Sachin Tendulkar	16y 7m 25d	463	452	40.765	9.22	4.71	17.55	7.29
Hashim Amla	24y 11m 10d	158	155	47.619	5.96	4.56	22.30	8.61
Virat Kohli	19y 9m 15d	202	194	46.546	6.06	4.31	16.64	7.76
AB de Villiers	20y 11m 16d	225	215	44.256	8.60	4.06	20.68	7.96
Joe Root	22y 0m 13d	97	91	43.956	9.10	3.79	18.08	13.00
Quinton de Kock	20y 1m 3d	88	88	43.250	6.77	5.87	19.84	8.80
David Warner	22y 2m 23d	101	99	43.131	7.07	5.82	31.76	7.62
Kane Williamson	20y 0m 3d	117	111	42.144	12.33	3.47	22.55	11.10
Shikhar Dhawan	24y 10m 16d	93	92	42.065	8.36	4.18	27.61	15.33
Babar Azam	20y 7m 17d	36	35	50.229	5.00	5.00	24.56	7.00
Martin Guptill	22y 3m 12 d	149	146	43.425	12.17	4.56	21.58	9.13

In the last few years, a host of top-order batsmen have been accumulating runs at rates that have never been seen before in ODI cricket. On perusal of the ICC ODI rankings, a rough indicator of batsmen who have dominated the ODI landscape in recent times, it can be seen that the top 15 slots in the list (as on October 31^st 2017) are infested with top order batsmen. Unsurprisingly, in these run-inflationary times, the recent crop of top order batsmen have recorded the highest runs per innings and innings per 100 or 50 in ODI history. As seen in the above table, nearly everyone in this list had scored more than 40 runs per inning and take ~10 innings to make a hundred. The man-of-the-match count is a little tricky; a player with capable teammates is bound to share the award more often. In recent times, only A B de Villiers and Ross Taylor have amassed numbers at comparable (or better) rates predominantly batting at number 4 or lower.

However, regardless of how insatiable this present generation of active cricketers may seem, some records of Tendulkar are destined to remain unbroken. The below list is a repetition of the currently active batsmen featured in the earlier table, but with two extra details: one, their age at present which would roughly determine the remainder of their playing career; two, the average number of ODIs per year played by the batsman’s country in the last five years. With these two in place, and assuming that the batsmen get to bat in each match and perform at the same rate as before, we can proceed to calculate the number of years required by the respective batsmen to overhaul Tendulkar’s record tallies.

Player name	Age as on 31/10/17	Mates played by nation per year	Additional years needed to surpass Tendulkar’s tally of
			Matches	Runs	100s	50s	MoM
Hashim Amla	34y 7m 1d	21.6	15	11	7	14	18
Virat Kohli	28y 11m 27d	24.2	11	9	5	10	13
AB de Villiers	33y 8m 15d	21.6	12	10	10	9	14
Joe Root	26y 10m 2d	22.0	17	15	17	13	34
Quinton de Kock	24y 10m 15d	21.6	18	16	12	23	22
David Warner	31y 0m 5d	21.0	18	16	13	23	19
Kane Williamson	27y 2m 24d	21.2	17	16	24	11	28
Shikhar Dhawan	31y 10m 27d	24.2	16	15	14	13	37
Babar Azam	23y 0m 17d	21.4	20	16	11	22	19
Martin Guptill	31y 3m 2 d	21.2	15	14	22	14	21

A guide to reading and interpreting the above table is explained as follows—Hashim Amla would overcome Tendulkar’s hundreds tally of 49 centuries at his current South Africa ODI playing rate and innings per hundred rate in his 7^th year from 1^st November 2017 (6.622 to be exact); needless to say, with him presently in his 35^th year, it looks impossible. For the rest of the crowd, most of the years needed are in double digits, barring a few exceptions. Our calculations also make the assumption that every man-of-the-match award was won by the above players by virtue of their batting—which is probably not true. But given the names of the batsmen (unlike Tendulkar, who won it for his bowling as well), it can be conjectured that batting is their most likely route to winning the awards (as opposed to fielding and keeping feats, which are very rare).

Keeping a age cut-off of 40 years (which is extremely generous), it is safe to say that Tendulkar’s ODI records are out of bounds to most of them except a few plausible scenarios—Root and Williamson (50s), de Kock (100s) and Azam (100s, runs). This is provided they perform at the same level and play every match. Besides, there is no saying how the ODI schedule will vary in the coming years due to the threat posed by T20 leagues.

In spite of this generation being gluttonous like no ODI generation before, they suffer on two counts: barring Virat Kohli, every batsman has debuted in their 20s, thus losing valuable run-making years at the international level; two, they do not play as many ODIs in today’s times (as seen in the days/match in Table 1). This is where Tendulkar’s advantages—starting his ODI career in his 17^th year, and playing nearly every India ODI when match fit—prevail over most of today’s generation.

But realistically speaking, the biggest threat to Tendulkar’s records comes from Virat Kohli. At his current rate, he can beat Tendulkar’s centuries tally in five more years—which looks the most likely to change hands. The matches, runs and fifties tallies need nearly a decade (give or take a year) of Virat Kohli motoring along at the same cadence before him getting a chance to achieve it near the end of what might be an incredible career. Who knows, we might also be talking about de Kock or Azam as likely successors as their careers draw to a close—provided they still play for their country and play at the same rates as before. Both of them have had great starts to their career so far, but it is a tad too premature to discuss their end career tallies given their age. Even then, the master’s man of the match tally may be out of reach, which shows the legend’s incredible influence on the ODI game in his time.

In short, given the considerations of time, Virat Kohli is the best placed player amongst the present active cricketers to assume Tendulkar’s mantle.

Disclaimer: The image used in this article is not the property of this blog. It has been used for representational purposes only. The copyright, if any, solely belongs to the respective owners.

 

 

 

 

 

Why is Mumbai cricket treated with so much reverence, really?

Ranji trophy: Pride of the Indian domestic scene. Image source: 1.

If one had read the sport pages in the lead up to the next Ranji trophy fixtures over the last few days, the focus on the Mumbai’s 500^th game (earlier known as Bombay) would have been unmissable. For long, the self-congratulatory club of the Mumbai/Bombay Ranji trophy team (henceforth referred to by its more recent name) hasn’t let the rest of the country forget that it has been the domestic dada of Indian cricket, with a bevy of scarcely believable records.

This year’s season is the 84^th edition of the premier Indian long-format domestic competition. Mumbai has won 41 of those titles. To put this into perspective, other champion teams like New South Wales and Yorkshire (in a longer time period with lesser number of teams) have 46 and 33 titles respectively. The second team in the Ranji trophy title honours list is Mysore/Karnataka—which is far behind with 8 titles. Even in league football, Manchester United, Real Madrid or Bayern Munich don’t boast of such dominance.

At the height of Mumbai’s powers, they won 15 seasons on the trot before their streak was broken by Karnataka in the 1973-74 season (and after that, won three more making it a total of 18 titles in 19 years). Even in their so-called lean patch from 1984-85 onwards, Mumbai have won only 11 titles in 32 years. With such statistics, it isn’t surprising to see Mumbai players feeling that the Ranji trophy is their birthright.  No doubt, Mumbai is the biggest “brand” in Indian domestic cricketing history. But is the influence of this champion team on Indian cricket all positive, or is it basically bluster?

Take for instance their playing record. In 499 matches, they have won 242 matches, drawn 231 and lost only 26. In Win-Loss ratio terms, it is an insane 9.3. But in terms of Win%, it is only 48.5%. In comparision, the winning-est team in international test cricket, Australia, won ~47% of their matches. For a team that is known for their winning mentality and towering over every other team, this suddenly doesn’t look as impressive considering that it is in the domestic arena.

Mumbai cricket is also known for the famed “Bombay school of batsmanship” or “Bombay gharana”, which produced many batsmen of repute. Newspapers and sports websites have been singing paeans about their never-say-die, stubborn, khadoos attitude. But one needs to see how many of those dominated the world stage over their entire career. Two names—Gavaskar and Tendulkar—are no-brainers in terms of them commanding a spot in a hypothetical World XI; the test match arena didn’t get to see much of both the excellent Vijays—Manjrekar (the founder of the school) and Hazare; Vengsarkar was a great batsman for half a decade; the cupboard is now barren. Hopefully Rahane can fill in their gigantic shoes. Several other Mumbai players have extremely tall feats in the Ranji trophy and served India with distinction at many instances—Rusi Modi, Ashok Mankad, Ajit Wadekar and Polly Umrigar, but they were never consistently world-class. But did you notice a bigger problem? All of them were primarily batsmen.

The Bombay bowlers club: Five bowlers (Khan, Mankad, Gupte, Shastri and Ghavri) from the Bombay/ Mumbai Ranji teams have captured more than 100 test wickets for India. Only Gupte and Shastri were not imports. Image sources: 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 .

Where are the world-class bowler from Mumbai? Sorry, the bar is too high. Where are the Mumbai bowlers who had a long careers in the Indian test team? Mumbai bowlers are conspicuous by their absence either in the most career wickets or in the most wickets captured in a season Ranji trophy records. The Mumbai bowlers who have the most wickets for India are Zaheer Khan and Vinoo Mankad, both having claims in a dream India-XI, but were imports or “outsiders” from other Ranji sides. Raj Thackeray would have certainly been incensed. One would have to go back as far as Subhash Gupte to find a “Bombay-bred” bowler who played for India.

In 2010, ESPNcricinfo had a fantasy exercise to select an all-time Indian test team. Needless to say, the team was picked by a distinguished jury (with a knowledge of the game far greater than mine or any average Indian cricket fan). Obviously Tendulkar and Gavaskar made it to the team (duh!), and apart from them, in spite of a glorious history, it is slim pickings in the 39 member pool for the Mumbai players—Gupte, Vengsarkar, Tamhane, Umrigar and Merchant. Seven Mumbai names in a 39 member shortlist. One bowler.

Contrast this with other cricketing dynasties. New South Wales: Trumper, Bradman, Border, Steve Waugh, Gilchrist, McGrath, Bill O’Reilly, Davidson, Lindwall; Yorkshire: Boycott, Hutton, Sutcliffe, Root, Trueman, Illingworth; Barbados: Greenidge, Worrell, Weekes, Walcott, Hall, Sobers, Marshall, Garner (my due apologies to the illustrious players that I may have missed out). Even if a post-war cutoff is applied, the batsmen in each list certainly dwarf Mumbai’s, and they also produced world-class bowlers to boot. Lest I be accused of “jealousy”, I would like to state on record that my home state Karnataka perhaps has contributed as many world class players—if not more—as Mumbai (same goes for Saurashtra, by the way); besides, their bowling roster occupies the pride of place in Indian cricketing history, and they were some of the most self-effacing cricketers as well.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I’d like to reiterate that bowlers are the match winners in the longest format of the game. At best, a batsman can set up a match, and occasionally win the team the match by chasing down a lofty 4^th innings score. A batsman may score 500 runs in an innings but if the bowling lineup cannot muster 20 wickets (lesser if a declaration is involved), a team cannot win. Based on historical trends, it can generally said that batsmen score runs in victories and draws, whereas the bowler has great wicket tallies only in wins—which shows their starring role in the longest format.

There was a time when the Indian team was dominated by players from Mumbai (and naturally, there were suspicions of a Mumbai-bias in selection). Seven Mumbai players represented India at Lords in 1952; in the immortal 1991 Ranji trophy final, the Mumbai team had 8 test capped players. Back then, players either had to be from Mumbai, or had to perform against them to be noticed; if not, you didn’t exist in terms of national reckoning. Many players shifted to Mumbai for this reason as well. Perhaps this tendency of piling on meaningless runs and glorifying individual batting statistics came from Mumbai as well? Which other cricketing culture laps up monstrous scores in school level cricket (case in point: Pranav Dhanawade)? Mumbai’s draw percentage is ~46%. This reeks of a dominance built on the basis of batting alone. Of the international sides, who has the highest draw%? It is India, with ~42%. No doubt, their inimical influence of worshipping batsmen (and many of their meaningless landmarks) has crept into Indian cricket. Prowess gained by racking up tournament victories built on the basis of first innings lead is hardly the ideal preparation for an international class competition. If Mumbai deserve their accolades for their batting history, a large part of the blame for giving bowling its due should be shouldered by Mumbai cricket.

On this basis, one could conclude that the influence of Bombay on the Indian test team is overstated and they brutalized teams by virtue of their endemic advantages–an organized cricket culture was non- existent outside Bombay till the 1960s; turf wickets, 3 day games and other basic infrastructural facilities were not the norm in other regions until recently, and their bowling revolved around the defensive tactics of testing the patience of a batsman with a 7-2 field. Additionally, the top 2 teams in the trophy hardly faced each other in the final as the tournament had a zonal format where only one team qualified from a zone till the 1970s, at the height of the Mumbai empire.

Its inward looking culture is symptomatic of a narrow worldview satisfied with domestic hegemony rather than global excellence. It is rather surprising that for a city that prides itself on a keen, calculating mind and the business of getting things done, has contributed very little in the business of winning test matches for India through its bowlers. Ramachandra Guha too has noted the absence of world class bowlers in the Bombay all time eleven, something which Makarand Waingankar has tried to apologetically explain in his “A Million Broken Windows” (many erstwhile competitors of Bombay cricket, clearly enamoured by its Ranji trophy winning mentality, of have tried to explain this recurring deficiency in the book).

But the most annoying, grating part of Mumbai cricket? The endless stream of “anecdotes”, “distilled wisdom” and narratives of a self- aggrandizing, narcissistic, pretentious team filled with circle jerks, so enamoured and infatuated with their incestuous selves. Tendulkar has a great straight drive? Obviously, in his formative years, he played in gullies with tall buildings and narrow roads where scoring straight was the only way to go. Why is a Mumbai batsman khadoos (never mind most of them didn’t display it in the international arena)? You tell me—why would a hard-working, middle-class boy, who travels for three hours along with a heavy kitbag in neutron-star-dense local trains just for a chance to bat, give up his wicket so easily? The resilient spirit of Mumbai, the will to make it is so overpowering, all-pervasive and part of the city’s cultural fabric that each kid is supplied with oodles of this secret sauce. Got out at 47 trying to force the pace in a lost cause? Why, he should have knocked the ball around for a fifty and then tried to force the pace. How strong was your Bombay team? Back in my day, getting into the Bombay team was tougher than getting into the Indian team. Of course, this was if you were a batsman or a keeper. Bowlers were always welcome. This list goes on and on..

Viewing the excessive backslapping bonhomie that is in full force with every new season from the outside seems revulsive, especially when more illustrious teams with greater achievements and contributions in the world arena go about their business in a quieter manner. That we were regaled with the same self-congratulatory tales time and time again, even in recent times, speaks volumes about a nation’s cricketing history riddled by chronic underachievement and insecurity.

No doubt, Indian cricket owes much of its early cognition of cricket to Mumbai—the first ever Indian team to tour England were the Parsis, most of whom were from Bombay; the precursors to the Ranji trophy—from The Bombay Pentangular to all the way back to the Presidency match were based in the city. But in today’s age, it is best to move on from the Mumbai-centric cultural imperialism and set higher standards and goals as a cricketing team.

In a pleasant coincidence, some of India’s best results and its best ever winning record in its test history have come in the decade when the Indian team has very few Mumbai players; one wonders if it is merely a correlation, or a causation.

Disclaimer: Some of the images used in this article are not property of this blog. They have been used for representational purposes only. The copyright, if any, rests with their respective owners.

 

 

 

 

 

Kohli in sight of Tendulkar’s ODI records

Following in the master’s footsteps. Image source:1.

In what must have been news to cricket followers all around the world, Virat Kohli didn’t get an ODI hundred in the five match series against Australia. He scored only 180 runs in five innings with a highest score of 92, sixth in the previous ODI series run aggregates. Gasp! He couldn’t convert his previous ninety to a hundred. The nerves must be getting to him. What a failure. Lest the army the fans of Kohli are up in arms against my insensitive remarks retweeting and abusing me in droves, let me clarify that I was only being sarcastic.

Now, with no sooner than the first ODI in the series against New Zealand, he’s got his hundred, ending his “slump”; in his 200^th match too, to bring up a pretty statistic. This puts him alone at 31 ODI centuries, one clear of Ricky Ponting, and with only Sachin Tendulkar ahead of him. Though the result of the match didn’t go his way even after Kohli’s contribution, scoring his 31^st century in his 200^th match (all stats correct until 22^nd October 2017) is remarkable. It is no surprise that VVS Laxman compared Kohli’s appetite and place in the modern game to the diminutive legend from Bombay.

The position of Virat Kohli as an all-time legend in the ODI format of cricket can be taken for granted even if he were to retire today (and let me assure you, he won’t). When he approaches the end of his career, he will probably be spoken of in the same breath as Vivian Richards, Sachin Tendulkar, M S Dhoni and A B de Villiers. A batting average of nearly 56 runs per dismissal despite the fact that he bats most frequently at no. 3; one of the fastest to the various multiples of 1000 runs milestones and centuries landmarks; a shiny World cup winner’s medal in his cabinet with a stabilizing innings that resurrected the chase; a record number of centuries in a run-chase, and the list only goes on. It is hard to believe the sheer number of records that he boasts of despite being nearly 29 years old.

It is also scarcely believable that he’s just about entering the prime of his career. As a yardstick, the immensely talented, yet rounded-at-the-edges Sachin Tendulkar played for India in his 40^th year. Given Virat Kohli’s focus on athletic fitness and his lithe frame, how long he can play at the highest level if he can maintain his batting form is anybody’s guess.

For a different generation, Sachin Tendulkar was that benchmark of ODI excellence. In the late 1998, the then Indian skipper Mohammed Azharuddin (remember him?) became the highest run scorer in ODIs. Before him, it was West Indian Desmond Haynes who had set the ODI record for most runs in a career at 8648 runs in 1994. Haynes also had the record for the most ODI centuries in a career (18). In his record-breaking year of 1998, 25 year old Sachin Tendulkar swiftly moved from 12 ODI centuries to 21, obliterating the latter record. With his then run tally at ~7500 runs, it was just a matter of time before Tendulkar would scale the Mount Everest of ODI cricket.

Tendulkar was only done 14 years later in 2012, and finished with nearly every batting record worth having in ODI cricket. The most runs at 18426; the most number of centuries (49) and half-centuries (96); the first man to scale the 200 run barrier in a single ODI innings (cricket’s own version of Roger Bannister’s four-minute mile), and so on—you get the idea. How close is Virat Kohli to beating Tendulkar’s records? Is it possible at all? There needs to be a detailed appraisal of their records before any conclusion can be drawn in this matter.

Virat Kohli made his first ODI hundred in his 13^th ODI innings. Coming in to bat at no. 4 at the fall of Tendulkar’s wicket in a steep chase of 316 runs against the Sri Lankans at Kolkata, Virat Kohli made a composed 107. Ably supporting Gautam Gambhir who headlined the chase with a 150, the two batsmen hunted the target down with minimum fuss. In his early days itself, Kohli had displayed a keen sense to chase down a target in a team which already had capable chasers.

In contrast, Tendulkar’s first ODI hundred came in his 76^th inning, against the Australians in Colombo. It is worth remembering that Tendulkar batted in the middle order before 1994 in ODI cricket; an inspired promotion in New Zealand changed Tendulkar’s ODI fortunes. In fact, Tendulkar’s ODI hundred gathering prowess is not dissimilar to Kohli’s insatiable appetite today: from his 1^st to 31^st hundred, the master took 196 innings, whereas the protégé has taken 180 innings in these run-inflated times. It could be argued that Tendulkar’s run appetite was more gluttonous than Kohli.

Player name	Runs per inns.	Player name	Inns./100	Player name	Inns./50+ score
HM Amla	47.619	HM Amla	5.96	IJL Trott	2.50
V Kohli	46.292	V Kohli	6.19	Babar Azam	2.50
AB de Villiers	44.256	Q de Kock	6.76	V Kohli	2.53
JE Root	43.956	DA Warner	7.07	HM Amla	2.58
IJL Trott	43.369	S Dhawan	8.18	JE Root	2.68
Q de Kock	43.250	AB de Villiers	8.60	KS Williamson	2.73
DA Warner	43.131	JE Root	9.10	AB de Villiers	2.76
Zaheer Abbas	42.867	SR Tendulkar	9.22	S Dhawan	2.81
KS Williamson	42.303	ME Trescothick	10.16	IVA Richards	2.98
S Dhawan	42.089	LRPL Taylor	10.41	Zaheer Abbas	3.00
SR Tendulkar	40.765	HH Gibbs	11.43	F du Plessis	3.00
CG Greenidge	40.425	CG Greenidge	11.55	CG Greenidge	3.02
IVA Richards	40.246	WTS Porterfield	11.56	DM Jones	3.04
ML Hayden	39.568	RG Sharma	11.64	JH Kallis	3.05
MJ Guptill	38.417	MJ Guptill	12.00	SR Tendulkar	3.12

The extent of run-inflation can be sensed by looking at the names and time periods of the players who clocked in the highest runs per innings (RPI) in the history of ODI cricket. 10 out of 16 players with the highest RPI are still active today, with Kohli at second place; so are a similar 10 of the 15 players with the lowest innings per century. To add to the latter point, the top seven are from today’s times with Tendulkar in eighth. Even the innings per fifty plus score (which is a lot more accommodating of middle order batsmen) tells a similar story—top 3 batsmen are dominating ODI cricket like never before. No doubt Virat Kohli has been an excellent performer, but he’s clearly in the same league as some of his other illustrious contemporaries when compared to Tendulkar, who was in a league of his own—as were Richards, Greenidge, Jones and Abbas at other times as well.

Nonetheless, Virat Kohli could possibly overhaul Tendulkar’s records given time. This is highly dependent on whether he manages to stay at the same performance levels for the rest of his career. If we assume that he does manage to perform at 90% of his present ability from now on, he’d need another 229 innings to overhaul Tendulkar’s tally of runs, and 129 innings to overcome his hundreds tally. Given that he’s played about 200 matches for 192 innings, and he’s needed nearly 9 years to reach this point, he’d need a full decade to overcome Tendulkar’s run tally at the theorized 90% Virat Kohli cadence; the hundreds tally is a lot more in sight—“only” six more years. Of course, he could entirely lose form and fade away, but given his progress so far, he’s at a point at his career where he can entertain thoughts about his end-career ambitions.

Back when Tendulkar was breaking every record in the book, his ODI records looked unscalable, out of bounds of the realms of possibility, and set for posterity. Now, with this new run machine Virat Kohli at nearly 9000 runs (sure to pass it by the end of the year), and at 31 ODI centuries, at Everest base camp, Virat Kohli has Sachin Tendulkar’s ODI record peaks in sight. Don’t bet against it happening; after all, nothing motives Kohli more than a target to chase.

Disclaimer: The image used in this article is for representational purposes only and is not the property of the blog. The copyright, if any, rests with the respective owners.

 

 

 

That ’90s show

(Hindi)

Hum honge kaamyaab, Hum honge kaamyaab,

Hum honge kaamyaab ek din;

Ho ho man me hai vishwas, pura hai vishwas,

Hum honge kaamyaab ek din.

The decade of the 1990s in Bangalore was a quaint time. Before the word “Bangalored” entered the lexicon, it was a genteel town, mostly content with itself. The city had not grown to today’s extent and one could commute between any two points of the city within half an hour. Kids, armed with a half-ticket, a heavy bag and basket in tow, made their way to school on a daily basis.

The city was a lot cooler back then; hibernal reinforcements routinely appeared over school uniforms. Getting the cooties was a somewhat fuzzy concept until middle school due to the mixed-gender seating configurations. These were probably the scenes across much of urban India.

The proliferation of satellite television was not yet complete, even in the cities. Most of the class watched the same TV programming, designed with a please-all approach with a keen eye on the demographic driven timeslots.

The post-school early evening slots were the preserve of school kids; general entertainment held sway late evening onwards; and mythological serials united the family on weekends. Except, when a politician died and statewide mourning was declared with accompanying cancellation of traditional programming, uniting kids all over in inadvertent, concomitant grief, albeit for the loss of TV-watching time. And then there was cricket.

Cricket overriding routine programming was the lesser of the evils. Television had not yet percolated down the pyramid, but the state-run channel routinely telecasting cricket matches brought the sport to the large swathes of the country, usually through a communal watching experience.

It was in this backdrop that a lot of us were introduced to watching cricket. Discussing the happenings of the latest match was routine; discovering unknown players through a stealthily arranged round of the frowned-upon Big Fun trump cards (Clash!) was a guilty pursuit; rattling off Jadeja’s and Vaas’ light-year-long names was amusement; chattering about cricket in hushed tones – while the ribbon-wearing, pigtailed, pinafore-clad girls sang patriotic songs along with swaying their heads – during the assembly was our first brush with rebellion.

The morning assembly: The scene of painful, morning ritual. Image source: 1.

The morning assembly.

In the sun.

Patriotic songs.

Anthems were anathema.

The routine was a recipe for resistance.

One such song that made its way to the morning assembly was “Hum honge kaamyaab”, loosely translated to “We will be successful”. Set to the tune and theme of “We shall overcome”.

(English)

We shall overcome, we shall overcome,

We shall overcome someday;

Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,

We shall overcome someday.

We shall overcome: Folk singer Joan Baez (L) with Bob Dylan (R). Image source: 2.

The original—supposedly derived from an early 20^th century hymn—was a protest song during the Civil Rights Movement, and was popularized by folk singers such as Joan Baez. The namesake phrase also found mention in speeches by Martin Luther King and Lyndon Johnson, no less. The anti-communist protesters caught on to it by the late 1980s, after which it found large-scale adoption.

The choice of words in the opening line is indicative; overcome, signalling hope; shall, instead of will. Pedantic, standard British English speakers would have taken note of the transgression with the first person pronoun.  Regardless, shall represented a strong intention no doubt, but a weaker one than will; although, it ran the risk of dilution with its offer of a suggestion rather than an impolite assertion.

No scope for such nuance with the Hindi version though. The Kannada version was worse; it translated to “We will win”. No other song explicitly exemplified the “loser” tag like this. The brazen craving for naked success, not a hopeful wish for overcoming odds.  The desire of the destination, rather than the journey.

Yet, no other song captured the mood of the Indian cricket team’s journey in the ‘90s. Yes, the same team we supported blindly and didn’t have a freakin’ clue as to why. Patriotism perhaps?

In any case, it didn’t explain why people still hung on to the Indian team. Sure, we racked up our first test victories overseas and were no longer the whipping boys by the 1960s. Rapid strides were made in the 1970s. The barometer of success was defined in clear-cut terms: winning away from home. The 1980s saw a decline in test-match fortunes but one-day successes more than made up for it; two world event victories and a semi-final appearance in the 1987 World cup meant that cricket had weaned away a chunk of audience who had grown up hearing the heroic tales of Hockey, and were now witnessing apocalypse on AstroTurf.

Hockey, a more time-friendly sport with a glorious winning tradition, had lost its audience for far less.

What chance did the Indian team of the 1990s have? The less said, the better.

(Hindi)

Hum honge kaamyaab, Hum honge kaamyaab,

Hum honge kaamyaab ek din;

Ho ho man me hai vishwas, pura hai vishwas,

Hum honge kaamyaab ek din.

By all counts, it was Indian cricket’s lowest ebb. We are not taking to account the whispers about match-fixing, by the way.

One overseas test match victory over the entire decade.

One.

That too against Sri Lanka, which had got test status a mere decade ago.

One solitary test victory in a 3 test match series, not a one-off test match.

One.

Equal to Zimbabwe’s record for the decade.

Zimbabwe, who had won against Pakistan in Peshawar. Oh, we had lost away to Zimbabwe as well.

We had the worst away record, both in terms of Win% and W/L ratio – you take your pick. Our only redeeming feature was an excellent home record.

It was not just the losses that rankled; it was the manner of abject surrender. Our batting meltdowns were the stuff of legend, with a lone fighting hand offering token resistance on a burning deck: Tendulkar’s defiance at Jo’burg (111 out of 227, next highest 25, FOW 27/2); staged robbery at Port Elizabeth by the one-armed bandit, Kapil Dev  (129 out of 215 next highest 17, FOW 27/5); Tendulkar’s spirited resistance at Birmingham (122 out of 219, next highest 18, FOW 17/2); Tendulkar’s and Azharuddin’s twin assault at Cape Town (putting on a 222 run stand in 40 overs after being reduced to 58/5); that man Tendulkar again, tall amidst the ruins in Melbourne (116 out of 238 next highest 31, FOW 11/2). These were the better times, when we had something to show.

When it was bad, it was gut-wrenching.

Collective ineptitude came to the fore when the team was subjected to tremendous pressure in Kingsmead – probably enough to form diamonds 800 miles west in Kimberley – and the team duly obliged with a 100 and 66 all-out collapse. The inability to chase 120 at Barbados (only Laxman managed double figures) was a body blow to the nation’s sporting psyche; to misquote Shakespeare, a Rose by any other name would not smell as sweet. On the Australian tour of 1999-00, until Laxman made his 167 in Sydney, Kumble was the third highest scorer for India with 103 runs in the series (behind Tendulkar with 278 and Ganguly with 177).

Similarly, at home, when Tendulkar was dismissed 17 runs adrift of the target with three wickets in hand, a sense of preordained gloom descended as the last rites of the match were conducted in front of our eyes by the Pakistani pallbearers in Chennai. The Indian batting in tests was abysmal –  especially overseas – and was dismissed for a sub-250 score 23 times in 18 test matches during the ‘90s, losing 15 (3 draws) of them in the process.

Granted, the team had to cope with the Dukes and the Kookaburra; some experts attributed our losses to the lack of balls. We agreed.

(Kannada)

Naavu gedde geltivi, naavu gedde geltivi

Naavu gedde geltivi, ondu dina;

Ho ho nannagide vishwasa, purti vishwasa,

Naavu gedde geltivi ondu dina.

The lack of match-winning bowlers proved to be the impediment to India’s success in the test arena. However, the ODI format did not have any hang ups about dismissing a side to win the match. India could now bank on outscoring the opposition. Runs were mandatory, wickets were optional. No team played as much ODI cricket as India during the decade. ODI series were dime a dozen, named after cigarettes packaged drinking water music CD  rolled-packaged-tobacco-ready-for-combustion, consumer electronics companies, the odd motor company and fizzy drinks; nothing official about it.

Still, India’s returns in the ODI scene during the fateful decade were middling, at best. In fact, the rules of the format cut both ways; no more did India have the safety net of a draw.

The change of format didn’t insulate us from the heartache of close losses, though. The procession started with the two close losses in the 1992 World Cup against England and Australia. The second one was particularly agonizing – five needed from four balls with two wickets in hand soon became three off the last ball and a run-out consigned India to a one run defeat. India never really recovered from this start and limped right through the tournament to finish seventh; defeating Pakistan was the only consolation.

India lost multiple close matches (4 of them at less than 10 run margins) and some big ones against Sri Lanka to a multitude of reasons – a collapse of 7 wickets for 21 runs; a collapse, a mini-recovery, and another collapse chasing 171; crowd trouble following – wait for it – a collapse. You guessed it alright.

I know what you’re thinking. What about the time Rajesh Chouhan smashed a six? Or the Kanitkar boundary? And the time Srinath and Kumble took us to victory in Bangalore? We beat Pakistan in the World cups. Surely it wasn’t all that bad?

I’ll see you and raise you: Basit Ali, Derek Crookes, Franklyn Rose, Stuart Law, Ali Brown, Matt Horne, Ricardo Powell, Peter Martin, Paul Adams, Henry Olonga – we’ve made heroes out of all of them. A montage of Ghar aaja pardesi from DDLJ’s soundtrack greeted the performances of Chanderpaul, Dipak Patel and Ravindu Shah. We won only 17 of the 45 games we played against Pakistan, capiche? I digress.

May I interest you in a match where we lost 8 wickets for 46 runs in 8 overs, and the game? How about the game where we had the South Africans at 18 for 3 in 11 overs and allowed them to amass 235; generous Indian hospitality to the rescue. In return, when we needed to get 46 from 7 overs with 5 wickets in hand, we dutifully folded?

Should I go even lower?

Alright, what about the time when a hobbling Salim Malik shepherded Pakistan to victory via a 44 run-a-ball stand with Saqlain for the 9^th wicket? Or the match where Prabhakar and Mongia inexplicably refused to chase 63 in 54 balls with 5 wickets in hand? And the match against Zimbabwe, of the 1999 World cup vintage, where we lost 3 wickets for 3 runs, with 7 runs to get in 11 balls, setting up our exit in the Super 6 stage? Any lower than this, we would have found enough oil to power us in the new millennium.

What about the dramatis personae? Incidentally, none of the trump cards bearing Indian names were the highly valued “Gold” ones. Why? Their calling cards evoke more memories rather than their names.

Wouldn’t you remember Vikram Rathour for turning to wicket-keeping in order to stage a return? Recollect Abey Kuruvilla and (Who is) Noel David after the phrase rotator-cuff became a part of your vocabulary? Nilesh Kulkarni, the one who got a wicket off his first ball in test cricket and then was flogged for 195 runs as Sri Lanka piled on 952? Or the flamboyant domestic A-listers Atul Bedade and Amay Khurasiya, who scored one 50 each to whet the appetite and then had a vanishing act for the next 10 ODIs? Or hark back to Prabhakar’s predicament on the cusp of retirement—resorting to off-spin post a 33 run mauling in 2 overs?

Unpleasant memories haunting you yet? Wait, there’s more.

Devang Gandhi, who followed the path of non-violence and turned the other cheek on being bounced in Australia? Gyanendra Pandey, who was rather more known for domestic violence off the field than on it? The now-you-see-me-now-you-don’t enacted by the great-Indian-fast-bowling-hope Prashant Vaidya? Or Lakshmi “the next Kapil Dev” Ratan Shukla, who sent down overstepped on his very first delivery after being compared to the legend by an overzealous, errant commentator? The vernacular Dodda Ganesh, of the flippantly facing Alan Donald fame? Also, can you cast your mind back to the time when you eagerly awaited – the hard(ly)-hitting batsman – Sujith Somasunder’s debut at the opening slot, only to see him score 16 from 63 balls over 2 ODIs?

That these doyens of the domestic game could not translate their performance to the global arena was frustrating, to say the least. The last instance was particularly irksome for a Karnataka lad like me; my state had contributed 8 players to the Indian team in the late ‘90s and had won the Ranji trophy thrice over four seasons. Any expectations of Pax Karnataka (perhaps you’d prefer Carnatica) were swiftly doused by the events of the match.

(Marathi)

Amhi honar yeshaswi, amhi honar yeshaswi,

Amhi honar yeshaswi ek diwas;

Ho ho manat aahe vishwas, purna aahe vishwas,

Amhi honar yeshaswi ek diwas.

It wasn’t that the regulars covered themselves in glory all the time. They were, as all sportspeople, capable of mildly annoying us with their quirks and idiosyncrasies from time to time.

Let’s get the easy ones off the chest: Dravid, when he started off, and, Kapil Dev, at the end, got stuck in the middle for far too long; Kumble, who was rebuked by Kapil Dev for poor fielding, would let a cry of anguish every time a misfield happened off his own bowling, but was perfectly capable of falling in a heap –  like a ripe jackfruit –  at gully, and letting the ball through (God bless his timely inside edges to the boundary); the quintessential “I’ll make a comeback” Venkatesh Prasad headline; his batting exploits are all too well known, with the nightwatchman experiment being abandoned after he watched a ball go all the way (to the stumps) in his very first innings at the elevated position. Gavaskar would have been proud.

Further along the recesses of the memory: Sidhu going home mid-series, abandoning the team on tour; Ganguly often cradling the ball in his run-up; tumbling over the ball and blinking at his fingers post-misfield as if it were a difficult trigonometry problem; routinely running out a partner (you’d be hard pressed to find someone to whom he’d sacrifice his wicket to, Tendulkar included); PTSD-stricken Srinath underarming a throw from fine leg as the batsmen sauntered along for an additional run; developing a knack for safely landing an ugly, ballooning hoick towards midwicket between three converging fielders; expanding his range to include a slower delivery in his ODI game, except, that it would be a leg-side wide.

It was in moment like this that our bonds with Sachin Tendulkar were born, and cemented for posterity. Sure, he often crouched when he got bowled, and fiddled around his box too much. At times, he could retreat into his shell, as if he were batting under a hex. But most of us remember his defining image during the decade, the one in which he often walked on water.

Of course, there were other competent Indian batsmen before his time; most would bide their time and distinguish themselves from the heap; some could take on the bowling, briefly flicker before going into the night. He was different. He illuminated the entire room, dispelling the darkness and showing us the light. Here was a boy with a curly mop, goofy grin and impish tricks up his sleeve, ready to take on the world in a way hitherto unknown to us. He was the wizard who waved the willowy wand.

Often, he would perform stunts which needed a parental advisory; he was a trapeze artist, human flame thrower and a lion-tamer, all rolled into one; we were the willing audience as our ring master capered down the track to dismiss the bowling; the others – jokers in the pack – would earnestly attempt his high-wire acts, only to see their pants pulled down, much to the amusement of the crowd; we were the ones who marvelled at the sheer audacity of his geometrical constructs beyond the realms of possibility as we grappled with our humdrum geometry lessons.

Yet, it was not just his feats that defined Tendulkar; understanding his pedestal in India’s consciousness involves digesting the prevailing socio-political-economic milieu. Two prime ministers hailing from the nation’s first family had been assassinated in the space of seven years. No single political party enjoyed majority. The country’s sovereignty was challenged at its North-Western borders. The nation was bankrupt; every big infrastructure project was funded by the World Bank.

Millions were severely poor with no access to food, basic healthcare or primary education; photographs of impoverished citizens and squalor routinely made the cover of Western magazines. Anybody with some dreams would make a beeline to make a life for themselves abroad. And why not? For, endless lines existed for essentials such as cooking gas and telephone; getting your hands on a two wheeler was akin to winning the lottery; stable employment in a government establishment was the raison d’être.

Thus, cricket was labelled as a profligate pastime, at best; at worst, as the Englishman’s opiate conspiracy to enslave and dullen the masses. Cricket hadn’t yet seen the kind of money which would render the benefit circuit irrelevant later on.  Trenchant critics (like my father) would often invoke the (apocryphal?) Bernard Shaw quote regarding the number of fools watching and playing cricket. Over and top of all this, our team was terrible. A “Keen contest on the cards” headline metamorphosed to “Facile win for ________ (India’s opponent)” with worrying regularity. Supporting India in those times was not easy, especially with losses mounting.

(Bengali)

Amra korbo joi, amra korbo joi,

Amra korbo joi aek din;

Ho ho mone achhe vishwas, puro achhe vishwas,

Amra korbo joi aek din.

A total of 21 players played less than 5 test matches for India in the decade. 43 players who partook in the selection carrousel played less than 20 ODIs. As an Indian fan, those were terrible times to watch cricket. Here’s Tom Hanks’ monologue, as Chuck Noland of Cast Away:

“We both had done the math. Kelly added it all up and… knew she had to let me go. I added it up, and knew that I had… lost her. ‘cos I was never gonna get off that island. I was gonna die there, totally alone. I was gonna get sick, or get injured or something. The only choice I had, the only thing I could control was when, and how, and where it was going to happen. So… I made a rope and I went up to the summit, to hang myself. I had to test it, you know?…..”

Saying goodbye to cricket was quite difficult. We fans devised several coping mechanisms, you know?

Hey, don’t judge us. It was hard out there.

Some of us turned capricious and moped, upon being mocked by our nemeses for the latest no-show; some of us took to gallows humour to enliven the moribund moments of the match; others took to following other sports. Pete Sampras was around the horizon. So was Michael Schumacher. And a certain Manchester United seemed to keep on winning as we struggled to wrap our tongues around the enunciation of Juventus and Sevilla.

We could now hedge our support, hope for someone to win at the end of the year and nurse our morale, right? Could we give up on cricket altogether? Gulp. Lump in throat.

“….Of course. You know me. And the weight of the log, snapped the limb of the tree, so I-I – , I couldn’t even kill myself the way I wanted to. I had power over nothing. And that’s when this feeling came over me like a warm blanket. I knew, somehow, that I had to stay alive. Somehow. I had to keep breathing. Even though there was no reason to hope. And all my logic said that I would never see this place again…”

Get busy living, or get busy dying.

It was Tendulkar’s chutzpah which kept us going. Never mind that the rest of the team was terrible. As long as he was there, we had a chance. He seemed so happy to compete for the country, in the midst of mediocrity, believing in our cause; we were the daft pricks contemplating not watching cricket and abandoning the team.

We sensed the electricity in the air when he took guard. He was our messiah who would bring us our deliverance from the mess.

Out of the 221 ODI innings that Tendulkar played during the tumultuous decade, he crossed fifty 68 times. India won 46 of those matches, a whopping 75%. There was daylight between him and second place (Azhar, with 27).  The gulf in ability was starker in tests; twenty five 50+ scores away from home (13 each for Azhar and Dravid).

Heck, he didn’t even have to bat sometimes; he took 2+ wickets in an ODI 16 times and triumphed 12 times. When he barged in to bowl the last over of the Hero cup semi-final against South Africa, we knew something was up.

“…So that’s what I did. I stayed alive. I kept breathing. And one day my logic was proven all wrong because the tide came in, and gave me a sail. And now, here I am. I’m back. In Memphis, talking to you. I have ice in my glass… And I’ve lost her all over again. I’m so sad that I don’t have Kelly. But I’m so grateful that she was with me on that island. And I know what I have to do now. I gotta keep breathing. Because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring.”

And just like that, the tide would turn. After the match-fixing scandal, Ganguly led the team. No, it wasn’t all smooth sailing. There were several hiccups along the way. We would fall back on our old habits. We would make a hero out of Douglas Marillier. We would find Avishkar Salvi. Our last three wickets wouldn’t last the extra half an hour which would have drowned out the result in the ten days of rain that followed at Kingston. Coasting at 159/5 after 34 overs, with 77 to get in 96 balls, we would somehow contrive to lose the match. We would drop Chris Cairns in the ICC Champions Trophy 2000 final, one of the 14 ODI finals we would lose under Ganguly. We would not choose to bat first after winning the toss in a World Cup final, c’est la vie.

But, we will always have those two immortal matches – the 281 which would break both the Aussie juggernaut and the 236* four minute mile; and the Natwest tri-series final. Both were accomplished with the minimal involvement of Tendulkar. He had served his time, and so had we. No doubt, we watching our idiot boxes opened up a Pandora’s Box the previous decade; but what our parents didn’t account for, was Tendulkar being our hope fairy.

“Remember that hope is a good thing, Red, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies” – Stephen King

A collective chuckle emanated from the generation of ‘80s and ‘90s when M S K Prasad was recently named India’s selection committee chairman. Every member of the committee (culled from 5 to 3 members after the Supreme court intervention) belonged to the same epoch of 21 and 43 who were part of the musical chairs. They were now in charge of the jukebox.

We, somewhat snootily, smirk in a condescending manner when today’s kids claim to be Indian cricket fans. They probably didn’t switch off the TV after Tendulkar was dismissed in the 2011 World Cup final. They probably treat victory as an entitlement. They probably idolize Kohli, he who offers certainty rather than hope.  Must be fair-weather, bandwagoner fans, no? Besides, where is the fun in that?

What do they know of Indian cricket, which only the masochistic generation know?

Note: An edited version of this piece was first published in the Summer 2017 edition (NW Issue 18) of Wisden’s The Nightwatchman quarterly. Interested readers could buy the issue here.

Note 2: An edited version of this piece was republished in the India Special edition of Wisden’s The Nightwatchman quarterly. Interested readers could buy the issue here.

Disclaimer: The images and videos used in this article are not property of this blog. They have been used for representational purposes only. The copyright, if any, rests with the respective owners.