Don't Rain On My T20 Parade

...is the title of my first piece which has just been accepted to be published on the cricinfoblog section :) The first step to securing a regular contributing position on the site! I'm quite ecstatic! I'm allowed to share it on here because it's going to be heavily edited (hah surprise surprise) and it's appearing on the bloggers' section. I shall share with you the cricinfo link as soon as it's up - which should be in the next few days. Btw, I need a clever alias to go by on the site - if you have any ideas, do toss them my way. (I'd love to go with MrsDhoni, but I don't think Mr. Dhoni would be too impressed by that)

Also, I have a tiny request: I know a lot of you who read LFMAC aren't huge cricket fans, but I'd really appreciate it if you could read the piece anyway and let me know what you think of the style, structure and perhaps most importantly if you understand the point I'm trying to make by the end of it. Every single one of you reading is a fantastic writer imo so I'd really like to know what you think - and please be brutal in your criticism....I can dish it out, so I should be able to take it :) I also I know it'll be slightly torturous as it is quite long, so I don't want to insist! Only if you feel like it!

For those of you who are CricketAddicts, feel free to add your reactions to the points I make. And to the Test Cricket snobs (*cough* Saumya & Dilip), I look forward to having more explosive battles with you on GTalk/Skype :P

Also, just to let you all know, please don't feel like you're missing out stupendously important details about my life because of my obsession with all this cricket-shicket biz...believe me, my life is horrendously dull right now. You'll be the first to know if something exciting does happen in my blah existence - rest assured.

Happy-glow love,

S xxx

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Don't Rain On My T20 Parade

I love cricket -- any form of it. Be it the classy 5-day test, the deceivingly tricky 50-over One Day International, the popular newcomer who everyone loves to hate - the Twenty-20 format, even gully cricket -- every single version of the game is magical to me. I believe that each avatar of cricket needs to be respected and appreciated for its individual characteristics and demands. You probably know where I’m going with this. Using the past month of the IPL, I want to express my unwavering love for T20 cricket.

I am very wary of people who say things like “T20 is destroying the true essence of the game”…I don’t hear people saying that about 7-a-side indoor soccer. Ultimately, T20 is still about scoring runs, getting wickets and victories are dependent on making the right decisions and staying strong under pressure -- elements that are crucial to success in any form of the game. And emphatically I say no, I don’t believe T20 compromises the quality of the game either.

If we look at all the batsmen who made runs in this year’s IPL it becomes clear that good technique is not context-specific. The 3 batsmen that scored the highest runs in this year’s tournament are Sachin Tendulkar, Jacques Kallis and Sourav Ganguly -- three legends of the game. There is nothing left to say about Sachin Tendulkar, any superlatives that I use to describe his unparalleled class and determination could never do justice to the actual genius of his bottom-hand-heavy punch through the covers. Jacques Kallis is arguably the best all-rounder and one of the most consistent and skillful Test batsmen of our time. And Sourav? Well, Dada’s exquisite timing, shuffle down the pitch and effortless cut-shot sixes are the stuff books are written about. Never compromising class for runs, these three men are probably the most potent proof that you don’t need to be a slogger and a hard-hitter to be a successful T20 batsman.

It is interesting to note that there are no Yusuf Pathans, Robbie Uthappas or Andrew Symonds in that list of highest runs scorers -- now one could argue that all of these men bat further down the order and so have less time to build their innings and are mainly present in the side to score rapid 20s-40s at astronomical strike rates and shift the advantage to their side. I will certainly agree to that point. I also don’t want to seem like I am belittling the incredible talent and skill of batsmen like Uthappa and Pollard who are both destructively strong, creative and versatile players -- my basic point is that playing in the T20 format doesn’t suddenly require those taking guard to throw logic and their textbooks out the window. Watching this year’s IPL and noting how many boundaries were scored off of beautiful straight drives, elegant strokes through the offside and well-timed sweep shots tells me that there is no easier path to success than implementing good cricketing shots. As we’ve seen during the past month, mindless slogging is more likely to get you out than it is to win you matches (Harbhajan Singh’s quick-fire 49* notwithstanding).

Sometimes when I watch teams playing in Indian conditions, I wonder why they don’t just hire a machine to spit deliveries out at 11 batsmen. There is no other country in which the phrase “Cricket is a batsman’s game” is more decidedly proven. For those of us who hold a special place in our hearts for bowlers, this is the sad reality we have to deal with. I have to say, though, that I was pleasantly surprised by how much of a difference good bowling had on the outcome of the matches.

Whether it was an economic Dougie Bollinger who almost single-handedly changed the fortune of the Chennai Super Kings, a relentless and unreadable Lasith Malinga (the best bowler of the tournament in my opinion), or the trump card that was Pragyan Ojha who seemingly effortlessly dried up runs and took handfuls of wickets -- bowlers affected matches in a way that I never predicted. It was also interesting to see how teams with weaker bowling attacks just did not ever seem to be threatening -- Shane Bond’s directionless bullets sunk the Knight Riders, the Daredevils seemed toothless after Nannes’ injury, the lethal combination of Sreesanth & Irfan Pathan who seemed to take particular joy in watching their deliveries sail over the boundaries left the 11 Kings of Punjab virtually crying for mercy. Bowlers who stuck to the right line & length, experimented with the pace of their deliveries and bowled to their field were successful and, ultimately, lethal -- just as they would be in any other form of the game.

And then we are brought to the very tricky question of captaincy -- I still contend that it is a slightly overrated factor in a tournament such as the IPL. With teams that are so closely matched, talent wise, a lot of decisions depend on chance to be deemed successes or failures. There just isn’t enough time in a T20 match to prove that a particular field placing or bowling change is truly enterprising -- much will be said about Hayden’s unorthodox position which led to Pollard’s dismissal in the final…that field placing has been tried before without success. What you call brilliant captaincy, I call blind luck (and lord knows how much I love Mahi and how hard it is for me not to blatantly praise him). However, using the same match as our take-off point, we are able to prove that choosing the right team & batting line-up even in T20 is an inextricable part of cricketing success. It becomes obvious that aggressive, measured and consistent leadership are crucial to success in any format of the sport.

There are certain decisions, like the inexplicable one to keep Pollard in the dugout until it was literally too late, that are purely moronic and are results of terrible, defensive calls (cue “Sachin sucks as a captain” placard) and, even in T20 cricket, those decisions lead to a fantastic team losing. Now, in light of all the scandals that currently cloud the IPL, it is only natural that people are asking some very probing and uncomfortable questions about the Mumbai Indians’ batting lineup. However, I am no conspiracy theorist and I believe stupid decision-making and not match-fixing is at fault here. To be fair to Sachin, Robin Singh and the MI, I am still not convinced that team selections during the tournament were simply the product of hours of head-scratching by the captain and coach. After KKR’s resounding victory against KXIP, 6 changes were made to the winning combination, including the inclusion of a very out-of-sorts Ishant Sharma -- even the ever-so-suave talker Ganguly avoided the questions as to why those changes were made. A usually candid and verbose captain, MS Dhoni was noticeably tongue-tied when he was asked why Muttiah Muralitharan was being kept out of his CSK side. For all the glitz, glamour and moolah that corporate sponsors bring to the IPL, they also seem to be influencing teams to make some very idiotic cricketing decisions. Please, corporate gurus, go back to commercializing and corrupting the sport in the boardroom, at least leave the on-field decisions to those salaried experts who should be calling the shots (pun not intended).

Despite the bitterness expressed in that last sentence, it must be said that I was able to put aside much of the nasty off-the-field muck and enjoy the magnificent display of cricket. I caught myself, earlier today, glancing at my computer clock to check how many much time I had left to work on this piece before the start of the first IPL match of the day. And then I was painfully reminded -- the IPL is over. With the memories of Sunday’s cracking final still fresh in my mind, not to be melodramatic or anything, my life without its daily dose of T20 action feels painfully empty right now.

It was a truly special 30 days of cricket. It was a month in which we discovered fresh, exciting talent and marveled at the tenacity and renewed passion of the old guns. Undeniably, during this past month, we were treated to some very explosive and gritty batting, thoughtful and committed bowling, awe-inspiring fielding (I chose an ambiguous adjective because, as we know, for every AB De Villiers-type athletic, juggling catch in the outfied, there were 3 dropped chances and 2 run-outs that went begging) -- the tournament was truly a cricket lover’s dream. It was a month in which we celebrated the very essence of this great game. So back off haters - don't rain on my spandex-clad, Blimp-ed out T20 parade.