INDIAAAA....Indiyeah!!

It's the biggest quadrennial showpiece event of the cricketing world: the 50-over World Cup.

In the absence of a proper Test match tournament (at least before the Test Championship actually takes off), the 50-over cricketing World Cup is easily the most hallowed trophy of the lot.

At the time of writing this, defending champions Australia have already qualified for the semis, while ex-champions India, along with the perennial dark horses New Zealand are also almost through.

As of now, India is the only unbeaten team in the tournament, having beaten Pakistan (yet again!) comprehensively.

The most interesting part is debate is about who will seal the 4th place?
England and Pakistan, along with Bangladesh and Sri Lanka - all of these are in contention for that one berth, to keep their World Cup hopes alive.

It will then boil down to who comes top of tops in the league standings, to play the 4th-placed team in Semi Final # 1, with the second Semi Final to be held between teams placed 2nd and 3rd.

I see England as a likely semi final entrant but we will have to wait and watch on that.
All said and done, this is an exciting time at the Cup and if all goes well, there is a great chance of an Indian hand holding the trophy!

Go for it, Team India - all the best!!

Modi 2.0

After the resounding mandate for the BJP in the Lok Sabha elections of 2019, the Modi-led BJP is now well and truly on a complete roll.

But for me, amidst all this, the most important nugget of information is that by November 2020, BJP (and NDA) will have an absolute majority in the Rajya Sabha too.

This makes the passing of every legislation in Parliament a cakewalk now, thus handing complete control to the government. Now is the time, now is the term. I have a strong feeling that Mr. Modi knows just how much this means and how rare it has been for governments to have such enormous clout in both Houses.

Every tough decision, every bill, every law, every change that the government would like to bring about – can be done now. It has the numbers, it has the time, it has the momentum – to ensure that everything it wants done, can see the light of the day.

Time for the team to make India even brighter, bigger, and stronger.

Onward!

Happy Anniversary, IPL!!

Circa 2008:

Eleven years ago, the eighteenth day of April 2008, was a historic day.

For, it was a day that changed the course of not just Indian cricket but the entire landscape of world cricket forever.

Indeed, this was the day when the Indian Premier League was born. Along with the birth of millions of new dreams. Many new careers. Many new teammates and alliances. Many new mindsets.

From a rich cricketing economy to the undisputed financial behemoth that BCCI became thanks to the IPL, there are many reasons to love the event for making cricket a sporting extravaganza par excellence, rich with talent, non-stop action, slam-bang thrills, riveting finishes, and all this in the midst of having the best of national and domestic cricketers rubbing shoulders with the marquee cricketing giants from all across the globe.

Surely, like with anything else in the world, the IPL too has had its flaws but then, as we all know, a to expect anything to be perfect or flaw-free is to expect a bug-free software or a corruption-less, pollution-less world.

Despite all its naysayers, the IPL remains and despite almost every other country which can afford to host such events and replicate the IPL model, the original Indian version is likely to remain entrenched as the best and most attractive T20 league in the world, by far.

Without any doubt, the IPL has done more good than bad. By giving a platform to the otherwise-untested domestic talent in the country (who could’ve hoped for international exposure only by donning an India/India ‘A’ jersey), it has added muscle to the confidence of every aspiring cricketer to see, learn and absorb everything from the marquee superstars, learn from them, and get inspired to be the best in the business.

All in front of packed houses and the world’s best. If you can be a star in the IPL, you can be much more sure of yourself that you can face anyone, anywhere and come up trumps, because you have done it earlier, with the best, against the best.

Oh, and did I mention the financial security you now have as a budding cricketer? The uncertainties of living the life of a less-than-‘India-cap’ cricketer are well and truly over. If you have the game and talent to be a star in T20s at that level, all you need is to be spotted. Once ‘bought’/ ’sold’ and your form & fitness permitting, you can bid any of your financial restiveness goodbye forever.

In fact, on the contrary, as a budding cricketer, your performances are always likely to get more visibility for your performances even more.

Happy Anniversary then, dear IPL!!

May you live long, may you live well, and may the tribe of emerging cricketers (with skills across all 3 domains, Test cricket being the highest) only grow with each edition.

LOC: Line of Controversy

Ashwin: How’s the Jos?

Jos: Why (did you do this) sir?!

Barely after tensions had somewhat reduced at the LOC (Line of Control - between India and Pakistan), India came in the midst of another LOC conflict: at the bowler's Line of Cricket.

All this, courtesy a certain Ravichandran Ashwin, who decided to Mankad Jos Buttler, in the most controversial circumstances.

What followed, was an almost clear split, between supporters and critics of Ashiwn’s act, in the cricketing world. From Rahul Dravid to Shane Warne to Harsha Bhogle to Ben Stokes, everyone had their take on this.

While I do not have the pedigreed credentials of the above-mentioned luminaries, given that this blog is my space, I would like to air my view out here (so what, if no one, including me, would lose any sleep if I do not say anything on this!):

Before coming to any conclusion, it would be pertinent to note, that any such instance earlier in the history of cricket, has always been accompanied by the aggrieved party (Mankad’ed non-striker) never being happy about the way things panned out.

Quite evidently, being Mankaded has never been a common or acceptable mode of dismissal anyway. 

However, it is also important to consider that the rule about effecting such a dismissal has changed. 

From the hitherto almost-mandatory as-a-rule warning to be given to the backing up non-striker, the rule has now given the liberty to the bowler to Mankad someone without any warning.

Therefore, Ashwin never broke any rule by his act. What he did break, apart from Jos Buttler’s heart, was probably the perception (and hope) that bowlers can never be pre-emptive in Mankading batsmen.

It is like a country attacking another, when the latter is erroneously presumptuous about the no-first-use policy of the former. (No no no, I ain’t naming anyone, nor drawing any corollaries! It is only your mind which picked up the obvious names of both the countries in this example!)

All said and done, though, what is debatable, is this:
Was Ashwin being smart enough in waiting for Buttler to be out of his crease or was he too manipulative and unfair in picking the right moment to do a Mankad?

The change in the rules has come in place because batsmen were being too cheeky. Far too many non-strikers have, on far too many occasions, gained the extra and undue advantage of backing out of their crease even before the bowler has “loaded” in his delivery mode. This leads to the non-striker gaining those vital 2-3 seconds of extra ground and extra time, which can prove to be the difference between making or not making the run.

It is to remove this unfair play, that the rule would have been amended. And in this specific instance, to be fair to be Buttler, there was no intention to gain time or ground by backing out, because although he was only technically out of his crease, there was no intention there to get an extra advantage of lesser time or distance to be covered.

It is due to this, that all the spirit of cricket talk comes in.

So, in this context, he might seem hard done by, but then one must also think through another similar scenario:

Imagine a batsman steps out of his crease without any intention of taking a run but due to any inadvertent reason is out of his crease (before the ball is dead) and the wicketkeeper collects the ball and takes off the bails. Despite no intention of gaining any advantage or any extra run, isn’t the batsman ruled out then too?

Have we not seen VVS Laxman get run out this way?

The foot could be in mid-air for precisely that moment, as the ‘keeper can (and has) swiftly taken the bails off just then.

If that is out, and without any breach, I see no reason how or why this should be treated any differently.

Mankading or no Mankading, I guess we might see no (bats)man kidding around even while being at the non-striker’s end anymore!