Swadeshe

I had written the draft of this post a few months back but was not getting a relevant enough context to push the publish button. But it wasn’t long before the subject of this post handed me the context on a platter.

Unarguably, the greatest test opener ever! His record against the West Indies is nothing but out and out heroic. Legendary stuff. Every bit deserving of the Caribbean calypso songs written for him. And as an Indian my chest fills with pride seeing some of his innings against the fast and furious foursome — Malcolm Marshall, Michael Holding, Andy Roberts and Joel Garner. The hooked six of Marshall at the Feroz Shah Kotla, Delhi after the paceman had creamed us at Green Park, Kanpur in an earlier match gave me goosebumps. Those are incidents that have defined my unstinted admiration for this batsman.

And this was notwithstanding the perceived differences he had with the undisputed hero of my growing up days — India’s greatest natural cricketer ever — Kapil Dev. (Perhaps this was also the time I may have matured as a person — being appreciative of someone who was at odds with my hero. Objectivity holding its own against emotion.)

And then came the dropping of Kapil Dev from a test match against the visiting English team in 1984. This was a punishment for playing reckless cricket. The same reckless cricket that he played when he hit Eddie Hemmings for 4 sixes, when India were nine wickets down and needed 24 runs to avoid follow-on. The same reckless cricket he played when he hit that unbelievable 175 against Zimbabwe. The Calcuttans hated Gavaskar for Kapil Dev being dropped for quite some time. My memory is a little fuzzy here — but Gavaskar vowed never to play at Eden Gardens again after being booed by the crowds.

But soon, Gavaskar relinquished captaincy after winning the Benson & Hedges World Series Cricket championship in Australia. And a few years later he stuck to his decision to retire from cricket even when the fairytale farewell didn’t happen — India, one of the favourites — crashed out in the semi-finals of the Reliance World Cup. This was clearly the sign of a man of dignity and someone who chose to walk out rather being eased out.

Around that time, he also appeared in Sunil Gavaskar Presents — an outstanding programme, where Sunil Gavaskar — the batting legend and one of the sharper brains in world cricket — picked out and analyzed for us, some of the best cricketing performances in world cricket.

He also authored three books, Sunny Days, Idols, and One-day Wonders, the first two doing reasonably well.

Everything till here is fine.

And then something went bizarrely wrong. Sunil Gavaskar who had a newspaper column and ran a syndication service till then, became a television commentator.

Sunil Gavaskar, the commentator — notwithstanding the fact that he truly was a great cricketer — is incredulously and unfailingly petty!

He started as a very bad commentator. Hmmm-ing his way throughout. His English at best grammatically correct. Neither entertaining like Henry Blofeld’s; nor with a sense of drama like Tony Greig’s; nor is it brutally honest like Geoff Boycott’s. So much so, it is not even blatantly one-sided like Imran Khan’s (except when talking about Tendulkar during Tendukar’s not-the-best years). Now before you pounce on me with ‘why should it be any of these?’ — I am saying all this because it in any case is not what it could have been — worthy of such a genius of an opening batsman!

It gets my goat when any commentator, of course including Gavaskar, makes statements like, “The non-striker walked up to the batsman and told him to focus!” Oh! How on earth do you know that is exactly what was said? Or the contradictory clichés — “xyz should get back to basics. There is nothing like sweating it out in the nets.” Opposed to, “there is no practice like match-practice. Nothing like getting into the middle and fighting you way through it!”

Perhaps the only time he got it right was when he backed Pakistan during the 1992 World Cup, when Pakistan got off to a bad start.

Then one witnessed his anti-English statements which were clearly playing to the galleries. What I call juvenile jingoism — which he toggles with faux urbane statesmanship. In simple English? He’s a hypocrite. (BTW, this is EXACTLY what Ricky Ponting said recently when out of the blue, Gavaskar commented on the Aussies being ‘unpopular champions’). Not may people may recall this now, but Gavaskar had advised Tendulkar not to appear as a batting role model for an MCC coaching manual. Geoffery Boycott eventually appeared for that.

Incidentally, he was also the most vocal and ostensible backer of Tendulkar even in the days when Tendulkar was doing hopelessly as a captain! Of course there are very few people in India who have the courage to call a spade a spade in the context of Tendulkar — unlike a Boycott for example. But Sunil Gavaskar is the number one person I would expect to say something like — “Tendulkar is so passionate about his game that he contributes to the team’s cause in every way” when Tendulkar throws from the outfield into the wicket-keeper’s gloves on a day when Tendulkar gets out for zero!

Perhaps what substantially influenced my current opinion of Gavaskar — the commentator & writer — was his response (or lack of it) to the death of Raman Lamba. Lamba was one of the superstars of the Delhi and North Zone teams, and had successfully made it to the Indian team by the dint of tons and tons of runs (literally) he scored in the domestic tournaments. And it was he who should actually be credited for India’s first six over third man and not Virendra Sehwag! Raman Lamba after his retirement from international and domestic cricket, was helping Bangaladesh as a cricket mentor. He was fielding at a close-in position when he was hit on the forehead by a full-blooded shot. He immeditely went into coma and died a few days later. As tragic an end as possible! Sunil Gavaskar, never wrote a word of condolence about this. And I believed this was yet another instance of his pettiness against the backdrop of a traditional rivalry between North Zone (Delhi/Haryana/Punjab) — vs West Zone (Mumbai/Baroda/Maharashtra) players.

And then some days later the headline for Gavaskar’s weekly column said, “A true lover of the game”, and I said to myself, I was wrong. Gavaskar indeed was an honorable man!

BUT, the article was about Raj Singh Dungarpur’s return to an active role in the cricket administration of India. (Read as politics of BCCI!) It was Raj Singh Dungarpur who was “A true lover of the game”.

Perhaps as a reward for his feting of such “true lovers of the game” — Gavaskar has been in some key administrative positions as well. E.g. on the ICC panel of umpires. Or as the stand-in coach of the Indian cricket team when Ajit Wadekar had a heart attack mid-series. How much of a difference did he make in those roles isn’t anything worth writing about! Oh yeah, let us not forget how his son Rohan Gavaskar, was selected for the Indian team when he (Rohan) was actually past his prime!

A few more examples of his petty-mindedness were his reference to the death of David Hookes (which he subsequently apologized for, apparently); or of trying to defend Sreesanth’s provocative gesture upon taking a South African wicket, “he is just saying a namaste, which is a form of greeting in India!” Huh?

Ironically, Rohan Gavaskar, who was one of the guests on TV show on cricket a few days back, was so much better and perceptibly more honest than his father!

I realize, this is turning out into an endless rant, so let me wind off with this bit of partially related trivia. Ravi Shastri was once asked to comment on the commercial endorsements by cricketers — and he said something to this effect: ‘If we (Kapil Dev and Shastri) are accused of being the leading cricketers in terms of commercial deals, then Sunil Gavaskar is ‘hum sabka baap’.

Ok these are not predictions in the ‘astrological’ sense of the word. These are statements (or my memory of them) made by cricket commentators/writers in the last few years. Disclaimer: These are not ad-verbatim.

Sunil Gavaskar on Pakistan winning the 1992 World Cup:
This is one of those rare occassions when Sunil Gavaskar stuck his neck out, and got it right when he backed Pakistan during the 1992 World Cup, even though Pakistan got off to a bad start.

Dileep Sardesai on VVS Laxman before the 1999 tour of Australia:
Sardesai said that ‘…Laxman (is) as good as the big-three…‘! The big three being — Sachin Tendulkar, Saurab Ganguly and Rahul Dravid. This was the series where Laxman regained some pride for India with a masterful 167 in the last test at Sydney, which India lost (India lost the series too 0-3). Soon after that series Laxman made it the big-four!

David Gower on Saurav Ganguly before the 1999 World Cup:
‘…The player to watch from India is Saurav Ganguly…‘ This when we in India expected Sachin Tendulkar to be one and only name that should’ve cropped up for this. And Ganguly was the second highest run getter for India in the tournament — and hit that 183 in a (then) record-breaking partnership with Rahul Dravid against Sri Lanka at Taunton!

Ravi Shastri as a television commentator on India’s disastrous New Zealand tour of 2003:
After India, batting first, got out for 99 in the 2nd test at Hamilton. ‘…The crucial thing is India has got those runs, while New Zealand is yet to get them…‘ And then NZ got bowled out for 94 runs — Zaheer Khan taking 5 wickets for 29! (However, India still lost the match!)

As young kids when we played cricket, the competition was always intense. No quarters given, no favours demanded. I remember very clearly two players from our team who were prevented from bowling as their actions aroused suspicion of the other teams we played matches with.

There were no cameras, no biomechanics, no electrodes, no trigonometric measurements — just the knowledge (not backed by overt admission though) that the bowlers' actions were not entirely defensible.

It becomes very clear to anybody who has watched the game for sometime, as to what is a good shot, and what is a bad shot. The same is true for the other player activities — fielding and bowling. You just KNOW, when it is good and when foul.

I have no doubt in my mind that the bowling actions of the following are (or have at a point of time been) foul:

Brett Lee
Germaine Lawson
Harbhajan Singh
Lasith Malinga
Mutthiah Muralitharan
Nathan Bracken
Rajesh Chauhan
Shabbir Ahmed
Shahid Afridi
Shoaib Akhtar
Shoaib Malik

They have either been 'throwing' — which involves the bowling arm being recoiled/flexed and then straightened out to generate a certain pace that would not normally come if the bowling arm were to be swivelled around the shoulder while at full stretch — or 'slinging' the arm in a slanted angle — where the bowling hand doesn't go high above the bowler's head at full-stretch. In the case of Malinga for example, the bowling arm is mostly at par with the level of the shoulder.

It doesn't take anything more than basic cricketing sense to endorse the above list of the defaulters.

What further obfuscates the issue is that the chucking debate centres around 'straightening' of the bowling arm. While in reality the problem is in 'bending' the bowling arm, which the bowler would then automatically straighten. You don't need to straighten your arm if you don't bend the damn arm in the first place!

And as if the misplaced debate were not enough, we have to contend with the absolute stupidity of ICC putting limits and measurements like eight degrees, thirteen degrees, fifteen degrees etc. and that too in exotic biomechanics laboratories! It is a hallmark of incredulous dodo-headedness that they don't think that the bowlers in question could bowl legitimately in the lab and sneak in the dirty ball during crucial moments in the match. (The biggest exponents of this are Shoaib Akhtar and Shahid Afridi).

Could the ICC stop this nonsense? Let the square-leg umpire call. For he, just like the rest of us, would KNOW when a bowler is chucking.

Like pregnancy — where you either are pregnant or you are not — chucking too is binary. You either chuck, or you don't. And there can be no measurements to it.