Is it a bird? Is it a plane?

Heroes need not necessarily come with a cape and undies on the outside. Some come in borrowed shirt and hamburger-stained pullover. Had Graeme Smith done a Ganguly, only then you could know whether his vest had an S sign on it.

Mickey Arthur yesterday said he would need a chain to hold Smith back. He naturally didn’t find one.

Steyn is gone and match is in bag. At least Australia thought so before Smith emerged from the blurred sea of heads, clutching the bat and walking down as every soul and every blade of the grass at SCG bowed their head.

Ponting’s men could not believe it. Neither could those present in SCG or the ones glued to their TV sets far away in Durban and Delhi, Cape Town and Kolkata, Pretoria and Patna.

Poor Hayden. He was still in a trance when the Ntini edged slipped through his butter-fingers.

Smith survived ball after ball and his aura grew big with every delivery. An exasperated Ian Chappell screamed “I can’t believe they haven’t tried a bouncer at him…Sentiments count for a little”. You could feel he was really aghast.

But not all Australians are potential cold-blooded murderers. Surprisingly, most don’t have horns on head and a tail somewhere tucked inside! They rather come across as completely normal, even emotional, human being with a striking ability to appreciate things which are good!

I’m sorry but by and large, pretentious cricketers have been poor ambassadors of the country.

On their feet clapping for Smith, the Australian WAGs too seemed to have a rather decent understanding of the game. Way better than their English counterparts with no qualms about bouncing on the knees of a tacky Texan billionaire.

Otherwise the Grandpa of Grandiosity, Nevil Cardus’ rare moment of understatement is - scoreboard is an ass. I’m convinced, it’s an outright liar too.

Pix: PA Sports

Men in White: Necessary Evils or Jetsam?

Neville Cardus felt umpires are as good as bathroom geyser. “We cannot do without it, yet to notice it only when it is out of order.”

In the same piece, he went on to mourn “The umpires are the Dogberrys of the game. We see them as essentially comic characters. Whenever a batsman swipes to leg and hits the umpire in the small of the back, how the crowd roars! If the wind blows the hat off the umpire’s head, laughter holds side.”

Not surprisingly, Cardus’ romanticism finds no taker, least of all in the ICC. Now that the referral system is being trialled in Sri Lanka, I wonder why don’t we completely do away with the custom? Why on earth place two hapless souls under the scorching sun and steady drizzle, ask them to stay put and focus all day as if nothing exists beyond the ball’s trajectory – only to end up as butts of numerous jokes for a rare moment of transgression? Why can’t we just replace them with technology and completely wipe out the ‘human error’? Or is it that they provided the entertainment value, as outlines by Cardus?

A fence-sitter weighing the pros and cons, I listed what could be the arguments for and against the Men in White?

FOR:

1. We just love Billy Bowden, the ghost of a ballerina trapped in an umpire’s body.
2. Umpires make excellent almirah. And you don’t need pest control or rustproofing either!
3. Idiosyncracies are part-and-parcel of the game. Cricket would have been poorer without Steve Bucknor’s slow-death finger, David Shepherd’s hilarious attempt at a pirouette or Billy Bowden’s ballet.
4. Rival team does not lend hankies when you have running nose.
5. You need an interpreter of maladies called sledging to ensure there is no communication gap between players.

AGAINST:

1. High time cricket did its bit for the environment. Cricket’s contribution to noise pollution stem from the sheer existence of the umpires. Take them away and future Shane Warnes would have no eardrum within earshot to holler into, thus saving a tribe from going deaf as well.
2. Bucknor is perennially one match behind in his decision making.
3. When you replace umpires with robots, you don’t need to care about their salary, perks, legally binding contracts and their rights too. Just make sure those are not from any Isaac Asimov sci-fi.
4. Allow Virender Sehwag play his straight drives without the fear of culpable homicide.
5. Finally, stop making annual fun of Simon Taufel’s Androgenic Alopecia in the annual ICC awards night.

Image: INKCINCT Cartoons

Geyser pays price for World Cup malfunction

(Barbados Bungle artists: Billy Bowden, Steve Bucknor)

Justice delayed is justice denied, alright. But in an imperfect world, two months is not a big deal. Hence, ICC's decision to suspend the disgraced quintet behind the Barbados Bungle deserves kudos.

Steve Bucknor comes across as an affable Jamaican. Aleem Dar looks unruffled under pressure. Rudy Koertzen probably deserved a Chevalier de Légion d'honneur for refusing to be bribed before the Coca-Cola Cup final. On his part, Billy Bowden is cricket's answer to Jim Carey.

But does that mean they would go scot-free after spoiling the summit clash of cricket's greatest extravaganza?

Make no mistake, Australia deserved to win and win in broad day-light. Semi-darkness suits pilferers and cat burglars, not world champions. Bucknor & Co clearly lost the marbles they were supposed to count in Barbados.

Now whether it was Koertzen, who sowed the seed of doubt or not, that’s irrelevant. Mired in controversy, murder theory, upsets, low turn-outs and mediocre displays, the World Cup desperately needed a final to salvage some of its reputation in the spiritual home of the game. And Australia-Sri Lanka showdown meant two best teams had reached the summit clash. But the ill-fated event concluded in the shoddiest manner.

"The umpire at cricket is like the geyser in the bathroom; we cannot do without it, yet we notice it only when it is out of order." So said Neville Cardus. Fair enough. But then it was not just another Tom-Dick-Harry memorial tournament after all.


Image: BBC

Gallant losers and timid victors

(Architects of a hard-earned win. AFP Photo)


There ought to be some other means of reckoning quality in this the best and loveliest of games; the scoreboard is an ass -- Neville Cardus.

Since David slew Goliath, and in cricket since India won the 1983 World Cup, we sided with the underdogs. And today’s India-Bangladesh match was another occasion when you felt more for the gallant losers, than their timid victors.

The victory margin of five-wicket win could not have been more misleading. It hid as much, if not more, as it revealed.

Did it say how master strategist Dav Whatmore, before changing camp, outwitted a shrewd Ravi Shastri? Or did it say about Tamim’s youthful arrogance, Saqibul’s nonchalance, Omar’s grit and Ashraful’s blooming personality.

Nor did it say how Mahendra Singh Dhoni braved cramps and limped on and on but stayed there till his side was through. Similarly, Dinesh Kaarthick was worth far more than his 58 runs. There was a time when India had to place Dravid behind the stumps to accommodate an extra bat/bowler. And here you have two wicketkeepers in the side, both capable of walking into the squad purely as a batsman.

But take Dhoni and Karthick away, India cut a sorry figure in the match. After losing the top half of their batting order for 144, it seemed another upset win was on the cards. Dhoni and Kaarthick, however, had other ideas and they carried out the bail-out act with aplomb.

The win notwithstanding, Team India has more questions than answers now. Why is it so that the more it craves for change, the same it remains?