Dhoni, what have you got against Kohli?

India could have won this match with 20 runs less. But not in the mood today, after the wins, a tie, how about a defeat, and for the Windies’ game, a washout for variety?

India is in a weirdly superior zone, and it has nothing to do with the batting or bowling choices they make. It is how they think, there’s a bit of cool to them. I think they know it, at least most of the players do, they exude that cool. It makes you win close matches, and not feel too shitty about losing tight ones.

That’s not such a bad thing really. What I don’t get, and haven’t for a while, why this crusade against Kohli – why are we working so hard at belittling the best thing that’s happened to us, all of last year, in runs, form, class, attitude, delivery? Why do we continue to tamper with Kohli – why the fuck are we constantly reminded that he cannot score or accelerate as Raina? That he does not bowl, Raina brings the bowling option.

Rewind damn it, why was Raina dropped from the one-day team? Runs, right? How much did he bowl? I like Raina as a player, his attitude, all that, but Kohli elbowed him out fair and square. And let’s not even talk Nohit Sharma, he doesn’t figure in this world cup, ok?

So, you got Kohli at 4, scores a 100 (83), 1st match, vs Bangladesh. In that same game, Yusuf batted at 5, came in the 48th, 8(10).

What do you do after that, hurl him around like some deadweight that can’t bat, not at Yusuf’s pace, or like Yuvi or even MSD.

Next game vs. England, you bat Kohli at 7, after the Maters of the Universe. He comes in the 46th, 8(5) exits in the 48th. Yusuf 14(6).

Next game vs. Ireland, tricky chase, it’s 24/2, Kohli in at 4 again, 34(53). Same game, MSD at 6, 34(50). And then Yusuf banged them, 30(23), while waiting on Yuvi’s 50.

And today, Kohli at 6, 1(3) in the 43rd over, after Pathan 0(2), Yuvraj 12(9) and Dhoni 12(21).

Where will Kohli bat against the Windies, will he even play?

It may not matter, by now, whoever makes these calls may have screwed enough with Kohli’s batting. Then again, this is Virat Kohli, and he’s a lot tougher than you think.

What has Sehwag’s 175 done?

It made me play. I lifted a bat after weeks though it seemed longer, inhabited two pitches – one my gate pitch that has the road in between, then the neighbour’s driveway, where we also had a change in ends.

Even though I joked on BCC! on how the media misquoted Sehwag about batting 50 overs when he really meant 15, for long, I’ve wanted and secretly hoped that Sehwag will bat the distance.

Whenever we spoke about the first ODI double, I was certain it will be Sehwag.

Somewhere ODIs ceased to matter, and what Sehwag did in them even less. That his average was a misleading 31 something didn’t bother me anymore. I stopped trying to balance the 100+ strike rate with that unacceptable average.

Now I notice Sehwag’s average is 35+. But it’s taken him over 12 years and 220 ODIs to play what I’ve waited and waited for. And I don’t know what it’s done, except I played today.

And if it makes the rest of the team play, that will be something. It should certainly make them think – if someone with the one-day attention span of Viru can bat 47.3, what can I do?

Someone like Sachin, he’ll look to bat 50 overs for India, and another 50 for the other team.

It really is funny. Because Viru batting so many one-day overs was not supposed to happen, that it did, is kudos to the guy who planted the seeds for 50 over cruise control.

Before this, the seeds were planted in Yusuf’s mind – for a player who I’ve never rated on staying power in ODIs to hurl those knocks at the Kiwis and Safas was even more unthinkable.

But it was thought, and executed. Add Kohli’s hundreds, pre-World Cup and now in the Cup. Where and how did the makeover begin – when did the press’ brat become India’s mainstay No. 4 in ODIs, where did so much purpose creep in from?

Looks like the question isn’t what will Sehwag’s 175 done, but who enabled Sehwag’s 175 – and in that is the answer to Yusuf’s and Kohli’s runs. And of course, what lies ahead for India in this World Cup.

On Bored: Who made 175

TheWhatElseCanYouDoWorldCupSelection.

If I was fixated on picking Yusuf over Rohit for the World Cup squad, then I would have played him in the first two ODIs instead of Rohit. And in spite of any failures, I would have still picked him in that hallowed squad. That is, if I was convinced in the first place that he should be in the squad of 15.

For me, not playing Yusuf is shielding him in South Africa, ensuring an easy and somewhat noncontroversial selection. Just imagine, Yusuf looking silly against the short ball, with another first ball duck. Not so good for the World Cup resume is it?

He will play in the next three games (instead of Rohit) and even three first ball ducks will not reverse the selector’s decision.

For Rohit, two games that didn’t really come off. Let’s say, like Yusuf, he too played a match turning knock, then what – pick him as well? That’s right, on the basis of one international performance, we would have picked Rohit in addition to Yusuf and Munaf.

Still better than picking Chawla, who last played a one-dayer in his teens. Who again, like Yusuf has not played in either game. But who like Yusuf, could quite conveniently play in the next three.

What swayed it for Piyush, more than his bowling, is his perceived added qualification: can bat - bats better than Ojha.

And that’s what kept Rohit in contention so long: can bowl; and if not for Virat Kohli’s run-making binge, Rohit would have pipped him to the fifteen. Notes: Bowling more useful than Kohli.

That’s what works for Yuvi and Raina too.

So when it gets down to pick that final eleven for the World Cup, after Sachin, Sehwag, Gambhir, MSD, Bhajji, Zaheer, the names inked will be the guys who will add up to MSD’s ten overs – Yuvraj, Raina, Yusuf. And then the second and third seamers.

Regardless of the batting form of these three, they will play most games. If Yusuf doesn’t come off, or worse still, embarrasses himself, it’ll be Chawla for Yusuf. And of the two, I still don’t know who the better batsman or bowler is.

On Bored: Why was Piyush Chawla picked?

Yusuf Pathan: Making bad bowling look worse

There are players who initiate others into the game. Yusuf is not one of them. He makes players leave the game.

Quite often, he leaves himself, returning to his homework, where he mauls some clueless state bowler.

What Yusuf has going for himself, like Rohit Sharma, is that he is always a knock away from being picked to play for India. This he must know.

Playing with that kind of knowledge is a huge fucking boost, quite contrary to how some guys must play knowing this could well be their last tango.

Once upon a time Irfan was blessed. Let’s see how far Yusuf will go with his blessing?

On Bored: Medieval Pathan

Should Yuvraj have been dropped now

It should not have come to this, Yuvi should have been rested much earlier. I recall chats with SP way before this IPL, when we thought there was no way Yuvi was fit, leave alone match fit.

In the past, some seniors, esp Sachin, prefer a break when the going's not too great. At no time in his career, can I recall Sachin being dropped. He usually rests himself. And it's often after failed world cup campaigns.

Each team has at least one, if not two players, that they refuse to drop no matter what - they are the star players, the cricketing face of the nation. It is the cricket board's job to shepherd these players through rough times. Btw do you recall Ponting being dropped in the last ten years?

While Yuvi is nowhere near Sachin's stature, maybe not even level with MSD, but he's definitely No. 3 when it comes to the commercial face, however warped, of Indian cricket.

That doesn't bother me either. I'm all for dropping anyone and everyone, call it rest, drop, just clear the furniture. That's been the problem with Yuvraj, he's been costly furniture for a while, and it's cost India plenty, esp in the T20 World Cup. Add to Yuvi, the luxuries of having Yusuf Pathan in the side, and you know, the Indian team had an expense account eating into its performance.

I don't think dropping Yuvi was easy for the selectors, they just could not hold on to him any more. With similar showings, lesser mortals like Sehwag have been dropped many times over in the past.

In Yuvi's case, more than dropping him, it's like dropping the market forces that allow him to levitate in the field. The thud-landing was coming, it's a shame it took so long. Now why am I thinking of Ishant Sharma....

On Bored: What Yuvi did...

You can count on Suresh Raina after you drop him twice.

Raina is keen. And MSD’s done well to back him, (even ahead of Nohit Sharma, imagine). The kid brings a simple cricketing intensity, there’s no side to him, no nakharas. He plays some hard cricket, loves his midwicket shots so much he forgets to play offside, loves his fielding, and doesn’t return favours, dropping catches.

When he bowls, holding back the delivery till he gauges the batsman’s movement till the last instant, you sense the masti Raina gets out of his cricket. When was the last time you saw that in an Indian cricketer – no tension, happy bowling, fielding, catching, batting.

Now you know why the twosome collectively spilled him, why Zaks dropped him. Raina is a lappa – when he’s not hitting the ball far, he’s hitting it high – it’s like aiming at a bird, a plane, superman, and marking them as the boundary.

Raina is the endearing little bully from the neighbourhood park – everybody knows he’s better than them, including him.

The IPL can be almost too easy for a player like Raina or Nohit or Yusuf – their abridged focus, some yaari-walli bowling, it’s tonk-tonk time.

While it’ll be great to see them go nuts in the T20 World Cup, these guys gotta extend their think-span overseas, and then who knows, a longer format. How ‘bout one-dayers to begin with?

On Bored: The Great Bored Scandal

The highpoint.

When Mendis walks in to bat @7down, you know you have a chance in hell, and Nagpur. But I also like to watch Mendis bat; he’s another one of those zeroes’ batsmen that I follow – will he get another duck?

He’s almost on par with Yusuf Pathan when it comes to ducks, and he’s almost as flam. He doesn’t chew gum, he chews his sleeves – that’s why those little sleeves, buster.

First ball short of length he didn’t make contact, whizzed past over the stumps; then another one, that zipped past outside off, naturally he didn’t touch it.

There was one delivery that danced in his pads, and allowed him the luxury of a leg bye. But now I see that Mendis actually made 2 runs of 4 deliveries.

Strikes me that I’ve edited Mendis’ 2 runs. How judgemental of me.


On Bored: India Lanka

Yusuf Pathan's repuatation is back in the T20 squad.

It’s just that his reputation doesn’t play too well. Yusuf’s reputation has the attention span of a child. Face it, children prefer toys, and even if it’s cricket, they’re better off with a plastic bat and a soft ball.

Often I have seen Yusuf’s attention span waver mid way through a bowler’s run-up. Make that mid way through a spinner’s run up. It could be imaginary seagulls in landlocked Mohali that he once saw in Adelaide or sepia coloured childhood scenes of Irfan and him knocking the ball out of Baroda.

Writing about Yusuf challenges my attention span too. It’s the nature of the, yeah, something like that.

But I will say this, today, playing for Baroda, in some Ranji game, which was just not worth his while, he lasted a full fourteen deliveries. Or maybe he lasted thirteen, and got out on the fourteenth. His strike rate was a lowly 100. Earlier in the piece 100 runs were scored of his bowling. And though he did account for that vet Sunil Joshi’s wicket, it was his reputation that shaped Irfan’s knock off 52 of 50. Irfan knocked off two top order batsmen, but what the heck – he doesn’t have a reputation.

Unfortunately, Yusuf didn’t make the ODI squad. No more ducks for him.

On Bored: More and less of Yusuf Pathan

Yusuf Pathan: out of his comfort zone.

There’s only one way to go at 53/5 with 38 overs left to play: Lofted drive straight down mid offs throat. Yusuf Pathan did not disappoint, he had an appointment with a talk show host.

Another zero, but this was in the lowly Challenger. It’s the zeroes in the ODIs that bother him. But you can’t call it bad form, he hardly played at all, out on the third ball he faced.

Of course you didn’t see him bat yesterday, with 300 runs on the board: he hit four consecutive fours, and big bro MSD was smashing away at the other end.

Today, it was different: MSD was already out, as were four others. There’s no way he was going to bat out of his comfort zone. And who does anyway, that’s just the name of another cricket book.

"Hello, Warnie?"

If you haven't had enough of Yusuf Pathan, here you go

For this we didn’t pick Amit Mishra:

10-0-71-1

5 runs from 10 balls.

These the two reasons to not play Mishra. First Bhajj, the first choice spinner, secondly, Yusuf Pathan, the 7th batsman and the 5th bowler.

Yeah, Bhajji got a five for the other day, and Yusuf has done incredible things in the IPL.

It’s just that one isn’t a bowler, and the other isn’t a batsman. These marketing guys can sell you strange sh*t.

Australia wins IPL.

As Saurav Ganguly and Shane Warne locked horns in the middle, teammate Yusuf Pathan looked on furiously.

That was an earlier game, but the image stays with you.

The Aussiefication of Rajasthan Royals if not complete, was truly underway then.

It harked back to earlier images of the Symonds, Hayden, Clarke trio taking on Bhajji Down Under.

The Aussies hunt in pairs; if not more, but rarely less.

When they take on the elusive ball hurtling downstream towards the boundary, chances are, there will be a pack of Aussie wolves chasing it down –never a lone wolf but a pack.

One for the slide, one for the throw. One for God knows what eventuality.

Rajasthan Royals took this groupism to a new art form in the finals when Kaif and Kamran Akmal caught a ball and a collision simultaneously.

And when they chased down balls there was an almost Aussielike certainty to them.

None of those all in vain escort service runs alongside the ball.

There were few, if any glaring missfields from erstwhile misfit Munaf Patel. There were even fewer criticisms on air of Munaf – till only the last India game that Patel played, Patel bashing had an ever greater following than Tendulkar adulation.

Patel bowled his trademark albeit repetitive short-of-length fare, game after game. He even snorted at the odd batsman. Here was a guy whose shoulders had fallen beyond drooping while wearing the India cap. A guy who withdrew to his village, only to snap back, unhinged through the press. A guy who his captain claimed “does not think”.

What did his new captain think of him?

And then there were the nameless “two lefthanders” – Ravindra Jadeja and Niraj Patel, who in true Aussie back-from- the- brink batsmanship beat the smiles off Mumbai. By now Tendulkar would know their names.

As would everybody know Asnodkar’s. It’s Asnodkar, right?

And Pathan will no longer mean Irfan Pathan. If anything, it could be big bro Yusuf –whose first international sighting was in the T20 World Cup finals as opener –where he smashed a six, and out soon after. Guts then, and glory now.

And what about Kamran Akmal, who played a few, didn’t come off, sat out, and then came back, sat out for the semis, and returned yet again for the finals. Not a rollercoaster but a joyride, it seemed. Little man Akmal smashed sixes, appealed, and even ran himself out with the enthusiasm of a player on whom the collective fortunes of the Royals depended. A Royal Guard, almost like Amitabh Bachchan’s character in Eklavaya, as the Royal Guard. Only here there was no asking, who’s your Daddy? It was Shane Warne.

Akmal aside, every player in the team was a Royal Guard – and the Jaipur Fort was not going to be breached. No way.

Not before you got past Graeme Smith, Shane Watson, Yusuf Pathan, Sohail Tanvir, Kamran Akmal, Ravindra Jadeja, Swapnil Asnodkar, Pankaj Singh, Munaf Patel, Niraj Patel, Siddharth Trivedi, Mohammed Kaif

And even if you got past them, you’d run into another player, a captain, a coach.

You’d run into Shane Warne.

Chances are, you would have run out of steam by then.

And he would run over you.

Here’s to Warne and his team:

Here’s to the crazy ones.
The misfits.
The rebels.
The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.
They’re not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.
You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.
Because they change things.
They push the human race forward.
And while some may see them as the crazy ones,
We see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough to think
they can change the world,
Are the ones who do.

(The text used in the introductory “Think Different” commercial created by Chiat/Day)