Archive for the ‘Sunil Gavaskar’ Category
Sachin @ 20. Facts — 1
Ironically enough, the next game India played in the next World Cup was against England in 1992 at Perth and the only time when Botham had better of Sachin. They never met in an international fixture before and after. That also was the last time India lost to England in any world cup. Post that, 1999 and 2003 India have had better of England in the World Cup games.
The winter of 1989 turns 20 on Sunday and that winter, the tour to Pakistan changed the face of world cricket. The star, the icon and a sensation arose on the skies of world cricket which the country knows as Sachin Tendulkar. Its a strange irony that the few greats of Indian cricket have debut against Pakistan and went on to make big. Sachin and Kapil are such examples.
I remember Sachin’s 88 in 1990 tour of New Zealend. He came close to being the youngest centurion, but missed the mark by 12 runs. He was overnight on 80 and then the next day he hit 2 boundaries only to fall later to Richard Hadlee (assume). He didnt have to wait longer for his first Test century. He got 117 in Nottingham in the English summer that coincided with the Italia-90.
And then his next 2 centuries were classics. Tour of Australia, the last for the feeble greats like Vengsarkar, Srikanth. India were thumped 0-4 but they came close to wins in Adelaide and Sydney. The 148 he made in Sydney was start of his love affair with the SCG (He scored 2 more hundreds in next 3 tours) and then the master class 118 at WACA when no other player survived the Aussie pace.
Sydney was also the first Test for Shane Warne and nobody knew what he would turn out to be.
Sachin had to wait for close to 4 years for his first century at home and when he hit, he hit in Chennai in the England series of 1993 known for arrival of Anil Kumble and the start of formidable period for India at home (also a period when India won nothing at all abroad). And then one in Mumbai.
England, Sri Lanka and of course Australia are the teams he has scored most of his Test centuries against.
Chennai and Mumbai have been his happy hunting grounds in India.
An ode to SMG
He is the man who attracted me to the game of cricket. He was the man whom I wanted to emulate. I couldn’t subsequently but I grew up watching him. My first cricketing hero. I remember imitating myself as him in the backyard while playing cricket with my cousin. I remember being shocked when I read his news of retirement in Naidunia on 9th March 1987. I was all of 9 then. I watched cricket for him. I closed my TV when he was out for 4 in 2nd Texaco trophy in 1986 in England. I cherished his only ODI hundred. Jumped and danced. Enjoyed his last test innings even though I hadn’t had much idea about the rules then. I was a kid then. But I knew him. I knew him coming out for batting with cap on and short height.
He drove me to cricket watching. He taught me to put heart to the writing. That’s what I do on this blog. I owe my cricket part of life to him. Cricket which has been a healer, a life for me. It has been something which is part of my existence.
For me he is country’s first sports icon in true sense. Greatest face of the game in the country. He evolved in a time when losing a Test was a ritual and victory was far rare and like a mirage. He taught the world how to take on the fierce pace battery of the Windies and score runs with superb technique without fear and without a helmet. 2745 runs in 38 tests with 13 hundreds against all conquering pacers is a huge thing. He wrote all batting records in his generation. He christened the Indian cricket to what it is today. The generation that made the Indian cricket today it is was inspired from this man. There would have been no Dravids, no Tendulkars, no Gangulys and no Laxmans had he not taken up to cricket or he was not found after being misplaced as a born kid on this very day 60 years ago. Face of Mumbai cricket, face of Indian cricket and face of the country’s cricketing history. Greatest opening batsman of the history, a safe catcher, an inspiration for many and a legend. Words and a post are too little for this little master for whom breaking rules and records came easy.
Some called him selfish, even today some call him biased and some call him cranky. He wore his heart on his sleeve and the pride for country on his face. The one who had the highest of the pride for being an Indian cricketer, he was the man who transformed the country’s cricket from torrid early decades to fruitful later decades of successes and victories. He fought for people, their rights, helped the needy first class cricketers, fought the system as part of it, expressed his views giving a pig’s S to English and Aussies who by his time as player were the custodians of the game. He made world know what Indian cricket is all about. He made people in the world know that from now onwards Indians won’t be an easy target to be overhauled. Victories won’t come easy, but defeats won’t be conceded.
The man who gave self respect to the Indian cricketers and a role model to the generation next of the Indian cricket. The man owes a big standing ovation and a highest civil award for being a transformer of opinion about country. His success meant India would gain some respect in some sports at least. He made people believe that yes sports as career could help. He scored runs at his will everywhere anywhere against anybody. No bowler could defy him. No bowler could break through him. He had success against all countries of his generation. West Indies, Australia and Pakistan bore the brunt of his batting. England had some success, but he played some gems against the Old Blighty as well. Sri Lanka were a minnows then and played occasionally. South Africa, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe didn’t play Test cricket during those days. 34 hundreds from a batsman in era of strong pace attacks was a huge thing. A major achievement. Somebody who played 108 consecutive tests only to break for boosting his battered ego in Kolkata was a first time in world cricket then. He drew more Tests than he won but then he reduced losses which were so frequent those days.
Some say he had his own lobby of Mumbai cricketers – Ravi, Dilip and so forth. He has been hero for the modern day greats of the country. The greatest batsman of all times was a ball boy in his last world cup. He inspired this man and gave advice to everybody when they failed. Ganguly, Sehwag or Dravid. All benefitted from the father of Indian batting. How many greats did you have before him in batting? Few. Vijay Hazare and Vinoo Mankad. Who else? And how many after him ? Azhar, Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dravid, Laxman. Sehwag in making. The inspirtation and the urge to succeed in batting came from this man.
The man who scored 10,122 runs in 125 Tests home and abroad, 34 hundreds and 108 catches. The man who turns 60 today, the man who redefined Indian cricket, the man who delighted the generation of depressing 70s with his batting, the man who made Indian batting the way today it is.
Gentlemen n readers here is wishing Sunil Manohar Gavaskar a very happy n healthy 60th birthday. SMG, Indian cricket’s first legend n the greatest cricketer of all times of the country. Sir, have a great happy life ahead with a wish to hear you more and more on the cricketing telecasts India plays rather than the needless IPLs.
Sunny Uvach….
Sunil Gavaskar: “The worrying factor is far too many youngsters see IPL as the be all and end all.” has joined the debate over the IPL by saying young players should aim for the India cap instead of being lured by the riches of the league. Various influential cricket figures, including India’s coach Gary Kirsten, have warned against the rising importance of the IPL in world cricket.
“Today, parents are encouraging their children to take up cricket as a career option because of the IPL and the amount of money it provides. But the worrying factor is far too many youngsters see IPL as the be all and end all,” Gavaskar, a member of the IPL’s governing council, said while delivering the Dilip Sardesai Memorial Lecture in Mumbai.
Gavaskar said the IPL could not be their ultimate goal and pointed out the worrying trend among young cricketers to pull out of domestic matches in order to be injury-free ahead of the tournament. “A lot of players miss out on domestic cricket before the IPL to avoid injuries. That is what we have to be very very careful about, the IPL
being seen as the be all and end all, not the India cap,” Gavaskar said.He also advised cricket authorities to guard the youngsters against the unbelievable amount of money being paid to even inexperienced players in the IPL. “The other thing to guard against is players in the age group of 19-22 going the wrong way [because of the money factor]. Younger players get carried away by fame, publicity and success,” Gavaskar said.
Gavaskar added that the IPL was not to blame for India’s debacle at the ICC World Twenty20. “I don’t think IPL can be conceived in any other way,” he said. “The home and away concept is so essential to it. This time it was played in South Africa, even there this (concept) worked. Our team got outplayed (in the World T20). I would not look too much into it.”
India’s batsmen had their weakness against the short ball exposed in England, and in the ongoing ODI series in West Indies, but Gavaskar felt this was not a long-term problem. “There’s a lot of cricket (that has) been played where there were not many short balls, and so the balance tends to be on the front foot,” he said. “Then when suddenly there are short pitched deliveries, you couldn’t adjust to it. I think that’s what happened (to the Indian team). I think there need not be too much concern about it.”
Defence of MS
There is an excellent post by Achettup on his blog on the media getting ridiculously hyper over not so big deal of India’s ouster from the T20 world cup. Here it is. Then we have Times Now and CNN-IBN going madly behind India’s decision to field first in the game against England. A lady reporter / fashion model / cricket expert constantly bantered about how wrong the decision to field first was. Then we have Bishen Singh Bedi claiming that Dhoni’s cricketing acumen is poor cos he hails from Ranchi and that his thinking is street level. Nonsense.
Then there are self proclaimed anti India bloggers who find sadistic pleasure in everything bad happening to India, be it the 26/11 or the WT20 loss.
Then there are some really derogatory comments like Mr. 3 liters Doodh a day for MS by one of his famed critics. What about the Dancer in the reality show sir? Is he good enough to pip Doodh drinker from his spot ? I would really wish to watch out this folks what they say when India gets next success – be it in CT or be it in WI tour or whatsoever tourney. Being MS is so tough this days. It doesn’t matter if you have won everything you captained, it doesn’t matter you won a test series against 2 of the most dangerous oppositions without losing even a single test. Doesn’t matter if you won 2 on the trot ODI series in Emerald Isle, which no other captain of India was able to do. Doesn’t matter if you won a ODI series and a Test series down under in NZ in 33 years. Doesn’t matter if you won the CB series for the first and final time in history. And doesn’t matter if you won the WT20 – 2007. The fact that he lost WT20 crown and the IPL – II, he is in for a serious hit. Brand Dhoni, honeymoon Dhoni, lucky Dhoni, Doodh peeta Dhoni. What not.
Former Test stars are blaming Gary on his hinting to IPL as one of the reason for fatigue that finally led to the loss. That’s on cricketnext.com.
IBN cricket “Expert” has following analysis :
“The decision to bat Suresh Raina at number three in the batting line-up despite his obvious weakness against the short ball was also hard to understand. With the asking rate (required run rate) not too stiff, could the skipper have given himself the role of seeing the initial England burn out and kept Raina in the dugout for an assault on the spinners?”
Not so long ago MS was reeled for coming at 3. So there is a problem. MS comes at 3. Criticise. Raina at 3. Criticise. Whats MS supposed to do? Bat Nishant Arora or any journo there. I doubt if the journo would even know the rules of the game.
Yes Jadeja at 4 was a mistake. Accepted.
Then there is this generalized article from PTI on what went wrong :
http://cricket.ndtv.com/cricket/ndtvcricket/WT20/storypage.aspx?ID=SPOEN20090097586
“Matches at home, the below-par attack of New Zealand and fine performances on the worn-out pitches of South Africa during the Indian Premier League (IPL) camouflaged the young Indian batsmen weaknesses against quality pace attack of West Indies and England, who were prepared to dig it short.”
Since when England and West Indies had a quality pace attack? If they had they wouldn’t be at 7 and 8 positions in the ODI cricket and at 5th and 8th position in Test cricket. One off victories for both the teams don’t make them have a quality pace attack. Matches at home? Does that mean India should not play matches at home?
“Individually, captain Dhoni’s admission that he can’t hit sixes as of yore is welcomed, but his assertion that he is working on it isn’t true as the team hardly practices. The jibe at media for making an issue out of the team’s absence from practice sessions is misguided.”
Didn’t media create an issue out of the supposed rift between MS and VS ? Is media’s role glorified here? When the journos who never would have stepped on the cricket field rig the Indian cricketers, they assume they are the rulers of the game and have the audacity to pass the verdict on the topics they hardly know of.
And on one hand the lesser ex stars of Indian cricket – Patil, Borde and Rajput are reeling MS, the legends of the cricket in country who actually made it the way it is today have backed up MS. None other than Sunny Gavaskar. He has backed the skipper. There is nobody better than MS to lead India in any form of the game. And if there are polls and discussions on whether MS should resign on any tv channel or newspaper, then its just simply ridiculous. MS has accepted his fault, he has apologized. What else he needs to do? We need to move on from this defeat of course with lessons learnt. And the first lesson is that the T20 defeat shouldn’t be taken seriously. Something Younis Khan suggests.
Entire media circle has gone haywire on this loss. And till the next success this topic would be red hot and even small moves by the team would be monitored and aired as Breaking News. And not to wonder if some more derogatory synonyms pop up for MS. Yeah somebody sitting in Al Manamah, Middle East is so good at doing it.
Multiple strategists or multiple captains?
What do you mean by “group of “strategists” who would report to one on-field captain while making decisions” ? And how does that qualify that as multiple captain theory? Would SRK clarify on that? In my opinion he should shut his mouth on cricketing issues as he is not aware of the facts and certainly he is unqualified to comment on Sunil Gavaskar ’s observations on John Buchanan’s flawed theory. There is always a group of core strategists in every team and terming them as multiple captains is ridiculous. In Indian team whosoever the captain is, he always consults the likes of Tendulkar, Dravid or Laxman for their ideas when the things don’t go per planned way. In older times with Kumble around, Dravid as captain would always turn to him for advice. Or even in ODIs when Sachin plays, MSD turns on to him for some advice. That doesn’t make the consulted players as multiple captains. Either here the media is wrong to have panned out the new term “multiple captains” for multiple strategists or Mr John Buchanan proposed a flawed idea which just cannot work in modern cricket be it International or IPL. Or it could also be the case of KKR owners who have nothing to do with the game of cricket besides putting money in it to coin this term “multiple strategists” to douse this controversy.
Can you imagine a team named Kolkata Knight Riders with no Ganguly as skipper? Cmon whom is John Buchanan kidding? And who would replace Ganguly as skipper if Buch has his way? Hussey or McCullum or Akash Chopra or for that matter Chris Gayle who might be unavailable given the English tour of West Indies? Are this so called buffer skippers better than Ganguly in leading a team? Kolkata cannot exist without Saurav Ganguly. I mean any team related to Kolkata. Though the influence of Saurav isn’t limited to Kolkata alone, but pan India, but Kolkata without Ganguly is like fish without water.
SRK, this is not a new format being tried out. At least not in my knowledge of 22 years of watching and following cricket. I also feel that Sunil Gavaskar ’s criticism on John Buchanan is bit harsh, but that’s not unexpected as he is well known for his dislike for anything Australian and English.
50 for MJ
He may be scratchy like a dog in the ODI, but he is aplomb and supreme as a Teddy Bear without hair in the Tests…..4 more runs and he would leave Sir Gary Sobers behind. That would be great ? Will he be greater batsman than Gary Sobers ? Better somebody doesn’t come up with a claim like that. The SL blogger I know is a MJ freak hater like me, but how about other fellas ? Boy he has 24 hundreds and Dravid has 26. Azhar has 22. Ganguly had 16. Does that all mean MJ is better than Azhar and Ganguly and would get better than Dravid soon ? Ah man……Heck no. 5 Hundreds against BD and Zim. Easy hundreds, easy runs. Mostly at home. I wonder if he would some day over come likes of Sunny and Steve Waugh. Then would still those greats be better than him or MJ would claim to be better than them ?
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