No pretension please, we hate Test cricket

Unless someone calls their bluff and comes up with decisive evidence, Bangladesh have won their second Test match. Please note, their last win came against Zimbabwe in 2005.

And Adam Gilchrist still moans the lack of Olympic spirit in the sub-continent.

Again, unless someone calls the bluff, Bangla Tigers beat West Indies.

Now don't ask how much West Indies. It would suffice to say that the assortment was led by a certain Floyd Reifer who had played his last Test when Bill Clinton was battling 'Monicagate', George W Bush's English grammar classes were confined to Texas and Paris Hilton had just been expelled from school in what was the first concrete sign of becoming the scourge of humanity that she is today.

Now how this win helps Bangladesh, perhaps the biggest sceptic of its own Test status, is beyond me.

And how the defeat helps West Indies Cricket Board to get even with the boycotting players is equally beyond me.

No pretension please. We don't love Test cricket.

Of players, prostitutes and a Prince

(Photo: AP)

"There is a little bit of the whore in all of us, gentlemen. What is your price?" Kerry Packer , during negotiation with the then Australian Cricket Board for TV rights.

Packer did not say cricketers but I find they have a lot in common with the prostitutes and I don’t mean to insult either of them in my comparison.

As professions, they can’t be more different but at the end of the day, cricketers, like prostitutes, are actually entertainers and at least Brian Lara, the entertainer par excellence, knows that.

"I just want to be remembered as someone who went out there and tried to entertain - it is a sport where people pay to come through the turnstiles and watch you and it is most important that someone can leave and say they have enjoyed watching Brian Lara play and enjoyed watching West Indies play."

And after we saw him last time against England, an emotion-drenched Lara again asked the choc-a-bloc Kensington Oval, "Did I entertain you? If yes, I'm very, very happy."

It’s rather surprising to see how close cricketers are to the practitioner of world’s oldest business and both know, they are as good as their body. A cricketer tones his torso, strengthens the legs and works on his muscles with the same care that a prostitute would do. For both, body is the temple, and also their bread-and-butter. They are in demand as long as they are in fine shape and they know the worth of their body.

All these talks of winning, losing, records, sportsmanship are pure crap. All that maters and appeals to us is entertainment. Deep at the heart, we always wanted to see a particular player, often an entertainer in gears, to do well. If that meant team’s victory, it was a bonus. Cricket pretends to be a team game but essentially, it’s an individual’s arena. Teammates merely provide the contrast.

Posterity, fortunately, cares little for teams. It’s the individuals we remember. Mind is not a dormitory where you put up squads. It’s a sacrosanct chamber, that square of the temple where you place one, maybe two, cricketers and deify them. And the lone criterion for that place has to be entertainment. Down the years, people won’t care how many matches Lara’s ramshackle West Indies won. What will linger is Lara’s high backlift, the angular trajectory of the bat and his gazelle footwork. For that’s entertainment.

Sobers, Weeks defend Lara

The line of demarcation between good and great is fortunately rather thick and time and again, the greats amaze us by retaining their sanity while madness plagues the good. I'm talking about former players and this is in response to reports that Gary Sobers and Everton Weeks have thrown their weight behind the beleaguered Brian Lara.

You don't need to be a cricket pundit to say that Lara's team is struggling. The fact is you don't bother about helping hands and consoling words when your team is doing well. You need them in the hour of crisis and the trio of Michael Holding, Joel Garner and Colin Croft took just that opportunity to bay for Lara's blood. Notice the timing, in the middle of the World Cup.

West Indies cricket owes much of its slump to enemy within and the three-pronged attack against Lara only vindicates that.

Fortunately, as against them, we also have the likes of Sir Gary Sobers and Everton Weeks who retains the same sense of timing that has been te hallmark of their batting in its pomp.

“There have always been criticisms about Lara. I don’t know what people expect of him. I don’t know if the people expect him to hold their (the players) hands and to take them away and make them perform," Sobers wondered.

"...I don’t think there is a person who has that same knowledge and that same ability as Brian Lara."

Weeks reminded a captain is as good as the team he has at his disposal.

"All of the great captains had great teams. Lara has not got a great team and I wouldn’t go as far as saying that he should be fired."

Chappell's likely successors!

So India has already played the last match under Guru Greg, apparently so. If media reports are to be believed, Chappell can forget about an extension and rather pack his bag and board the first Qantas flight home.

So, who should take the hot seat now? I have some names in my mind, BCCI would do well to have a dekko at it. This is an open-end list, feel free to nominate yours.

1. Swami Ramdev: A popular, and hence not necessarily valid, view has been that endorsement has become a huge distraction and the cricketers simply have lost focus. And to right that wrong, you can’t have a better choice than Ramdev. He is no alien to cricket and he in fact had advised the players to practice Yoga before the World Cup. Dravid’s men must have ignored it and paying the price for ignoring his divine formula. At least one Team India member has been spotted visiting him once why don’t Dravid, Tendulkar, Ganguly and Yuvraj follow Dhoni? So, bye bye push-ups and welcome pranayam.

2. Lalu Prasad: So what if he messed up Bihar? See how he turned that Great Indian White Elephant, the Indian Railway, into a profit-making juggernaut. These days Mr Prasad is a sought after name even in the IIMs and Harvards. And he apparently believes he can player better than the Men in Blue. He heads Bihar cricket Association and his son, Tejaswi, has represented Delhi in Polly Umrigarh trophy. Enough link with the game, isn’t it? And haven’t you heard of railway coaches? If he can script a turnaround in Railway’s fate, what’s the heck is this cricket team?

3. Sonia Gandhi: Agreed Italy is more known for Pizza, Pasta, Leaning Tower, Don Corleon and a certain Marco Materazzi. Also agreed that so far, no Italian has ever been accused of being sighted in and around any cricket stadium. But just see how she’s running the Great Indian Coalition Show. She picked a compliant, acceptable captain to

lead a team which has its fair share of in-fighting but overall, it’s producing the results. She belongs to the Bennette King genre. King never played first class cricket and yet went on to coach West Indies in the World Cup. Madam fits the bill to the T.

4. Greg Chappell Again: Read it right. Journalists and fans across the country owe him a drink. Spat with Ganguly, middle-fingering Kolkata, showing how e-mail and SMS can be used to deadly effect and devaluing phrases like “means-over-outcome”, “experimentation” etc. Indian cricket won’t be the same once he departs.

Blood on the Cup

Laggard economy, unique geography, chequered history, logistic and security apprehensions – we did not give them any chance when West Indies raised their hand and said they are ready to host the World Cup in the land of the rum and drum.

They finally have silenced the naysayer and put up a splendid show in cricket’s natural cradle, the West Indies and had every reason to hope that they are hosting the best World Cup ever.

But despite all their efforts, minnows’ heart-warming show and sublime individual performance, the 2007 World Cup would be remembered more for what they call killer cricket.

By now, we don’t know whether Woolmer succumbed to high blood pressure/heart attack or was poisoned/strangled to death by match-fixing syndicate. Toxicologist and histologist have been pressed into service and they are operating in tandem to unearth the truth.

However, we of course know that Robert Kerr, the former Irish Cricket Union president, died of heart attack during the World Cup and thank God, his body has been spared the disgrace of a second autopsy.

Earlier, we lost Manjural Islam, along with a cricketer (!) friend, and it was a road accident that claimed the life of the left-arm spinner was who was part of Bangladesh’s list of 30 World Cup probables but could not make the cut.

Weak, sceptic minds tend to relate the deaths and try to find out the thread that links the mishaps. Be whatever, beyond the glitz and glamour, a pall of gloom shrouds the event. We probably had the bloodiest of all World Cup this time.

Mumbai Tech Firm Masters Crystal Ball Gazing for World Cup!

By now, Mumbai’s Fractal Analytics Ltd must have been flooded by calls from the bookies, and why not? After all they had rightly predicted that Brian Lara’s men will come on top in the World Cup opener against Pakistan! And hold on, their forecast about Lara and Inzamam-ul Haq’s scores in the match was spot on too!

Bookies, however, can eat their heart out as Mukesh Budhani, a consultant with Fractal made it clear that they are steering clear of any murky business and vehemently denied placing even personal bets.

Fractal, which otherwise earns its bread by predicting customer and employee behavior for its clients in Asia and the US, however, erred in one respect. They had predicted a close match but in the end, West Indies romped home to a facile win.
Budhani, however, is not ruffled by that and said the model cannot predict dropped catches or run-outs.
So here goes the obvious million dollar question - can Rahul Dravid do a Kapil Dev and return with the Cup? Budhani says even he doesn’t have the answer as of now and it would depend on the last match played. So the suspense continues and though knuckles must be aching, fans will have to keep their fingers crossed till April 28.