I wrote this more than 7.5 years ago, even before I started this blog. Parts of it still seem fresh and why not? The man is still playing at his best, 20 years after he began. Rock on, Tendlya. Rock on!

During the last few years, I have not missed reading an article about cricket in news-magazines. These magazines do not have anything to do with cricket and I believe that by reading these magazines, one can get other angles to view the game from. However, most of the time I have found that such articles have a common thread. A partisan attitude is evident (barring some good pieces) and it almost seems that a witch-hunt might be on sometimes. And even the best in the team is not left alone. Not surprisingly, these pieces of criticism have come, not from former cricketers, but from writers whose connection to cricket is not evident, at least to the casual reader.

Here, I have tried to put across a coherent reply to one of the common questions raised by such articles – “Is Sachin, an all time great?” A general feeling around the media and some sections of the Indian public, is that Tendulkar, for the greater part of his career, has failed to deliver for his team when they need him the most. And a number of instances have been quoted where we were near and yet so far. These views go as far as indicating that the tag ‘chokers’ that the Indian team has earned in the last few years is because of one man alone.

The one major fact that these people have always overlooked is that there have been many a knock where he has done his bit (rather, almost the whole thing) and India has failed to win because the other ten failed to do their job. I am not a stud with statistics, but what better example to come up than the Chennai Test against Pakistan in 1998-99. Wasim Akram recently said in a TV program that the Chennai test was one of the best Test matches he had ever played. And this match is quoted by one and all as a prime example to illustrate the ‘fact’ that Sachin is not what he seems to be.

At Chennai, hasing 271, India were at one point 82/5 and then Sachin and Mongia put on a stand that got India close, when Nayan Mongia’s irresponsible hoick put the pressure back on Sachin. With just one half decent batsman to follow and back spasms racking him, he had to hit out and go for the finish rather than exposing the other end to Akram & Co. Prior to his dismissal, Tendulkar scored most of the 37 runs in just 5 overs and was the 7th batsman to get out for a score of 136.

Even though only 17 runs were required at that point (“only” is not the word to use when Saqlain and Akram are bowling, but nevertheless) India lost all the 3 remaining wickets, scoring only 6 runs in the process. A good question to ask at this point would be – What happened to the other 10 ??

Ganguly got a bad decision (bad is a word that does not convey the enormity of that umpiring slight) , but you get the sense that Tendulkar’s innings (even though the finishing was not there) was invaluable when u see the scorecard. We would just not be discussing this match if it were not for the scores of the other batsmen in the team. Only Dravid (10) and Mongia (52) got to double figures.

And surprisingly some (like the author of this article) have compared him with Andy Flower at his best. This reveals another basic flaw. While, on the outset, it is probably fair to dismiss the Zimbabweans as a one-batsman team, the team is full of dangerous floaters (as Douglas Marillier and Travis Friend amply demonstrated last week!) all of whom are capable of 30′s and 40s in any given day. And they do get these runs regularly. So the “exceptional average” of 84.5 % (which he had a couple of months ago) would lose some sheen if you look at the scores of the other batsman. I am sure you would find the above-mentioned 30s and 40s supporting the hundreds made by Flower to the maximum. So it’s unfair to use statistics as a tool to evaluate Tendulkar.

Sidhu might be partly right with his “Statistics are like miniskirts…” statement. But sometimes the hidden stuff makes compulsive reading and convinces us that the open stuff is all hogwash. And maybe the question that has been posed is answered by the usual view that these people put across. “Given his prowess, Sachin does not seem to be able to set up a victory as often as he should”. Where are the other batsmen to sometimes finish what he started?

Cricket is just not a one-man game. If you don’t have another batsman to take guard opposite you, then you cannot even bat. This is not street cricket where sometimes all the players get to bat. I hope every Indian fan realizes this and does not get into any conclusion of this kind. Sachin is just the major piece in the jigsaw puzzle that is the Indian team. Only when all the pieces fall into place, will India win.

Accountability is another factor that the Indian public and more importantly, the team and the selector need to understand. They should understand that “no member is bigger than the team” and that includes Tendulkar too. I think he has realized that. His decision to relinquish the captaincy stems from the realization that he cannot cope up with the kind of hassles that a captain has to face and then perform of the field too. But again this has been held against him too. So what more are we going to hold him responsible for? The Babri masjid issue?

So let’s not blame Tendulkar for not making “match-winning” scores. The difference between winning and losing lies in playing as a team and not as a collection of individuals. And if someone says that Tendulkar is responsible for not the team not winning, even though he has had good stints at the crease, then he cannot be more wrong. If one batsman’s score alone would win a match, I am sure India would be the only unbeaten team around, cause from his first Test to the latest, he has done his bit and would continue to do so until he feels he cannot. Then he will gracefully get off the bandwagon and let India rue the day they asked – “Is Sachin an all-time great?”

Ok, I am starting to lose my touch with titles on blog posts. That title is so lame. So let me first explain what this post is about.

This post is not about callipygian features. It’s about allegiances and disappointment, specifically my allegiance to the the Old Lady of Mount Road and the disappointment resulting from reading her newest stable-mate. (more…)

Some say he has go faster stripes on his back, and that he’s the love child of God and an Aston Martin v12. Yet others say that his genitals are on upside down, and that if he could be bothered, he could crack the Da Vinci Code in 43 seconds. While we all know that he is also known as The Stig, but do we know if THIS (picture courtesy Autotrader.uk) is THAT Stig?

This brilliant picture was shot yesterday somewhere in London. Apparently the photographer used a big flash and rendered useless the Stig’s trademark black visor on this crash helmet. Sadly though, speculation still abounds. (more…)

Ten days ago, Lekhni tagged me and urged me to essentially recycle 5 of my old posts. Normally I don’t do tags. I mean, unless there is potential for me to play the fool and essentially evoke a few laughs even if the joke’s on me. With this tag, however, the laugh potential seems to be rather marginal, but then I remembered something else.

I realized that I was closing in upon a milestone. By the time this post is online, it will be 5 years since I started blabbering. My first post was posted on Blogger on the 10th of February, 2003. And barring a few months early on and around 100 days in late ’04 and early ’05, I have been posting rather regularly.

Looking at Lekhni’s tag, I realized that she had given me a good chance to take a retrospective look and to reminisce upon these five years gone by. But the problem with my blog is that, as my erstwhile tagline (( I have an ever-changing tagline now, courtesy Twitter?)) goes, it is the record of an egoist’s road trip through life with cricket, music, books, cars and movies for company.

Which means that this blog is about me and me alone. So, as the days go by, it becomes increasingly difficult to remember the odd posts that one has “written” relating to some of the keywords of this tag. Also, the difficulty is compounded by the fact that I took an oath, with myself as witness, that I wouldn’t post anything personal here. So the odd heartbreak has almost never found an outlet here, even if some friends (both online and IRL) have heard me obsess over it.

I have come to a conclusion that wherever I think I won’t be able to fit within the confines of the tag, I will bend the boundaries to my whims and fancies. Hey, this is MY blog and I do what I think is right. Also, my ego prevents me from sticking to the “1 post per keyword” rule of this tag. I will hence go ahead and regurgitate multiple links wherever possible. But let me just make the basic rules clearer to everyone. (more…)

Every Australian tour is packaged with pitfalls, both for individual and the team itself. The team pitfalls come on the field, via the Aussie juggernaut. But the individual holes are dug by the team management and in some cases, allegedly by the players themselves. Ganguly’s apparent refusal to carry drinks as the 12th man comes immediately to mind.But these individual issues mostly get resolved as time goes by, but the real problems are the ones that are caused by loud mouthed non media savvy administrators of the game who don’t think before their speak. Jayawant Lele’s comment did more for the downfall of the ’99 team than the potent Aussie bowling or the impotency of the Indian top order. (more…)

Asok, the world’s most famous desi intern and telekinetic IIT alum, died today. His age is unknown.

More here…

Everybody has a secret they fight to keep – a secret so dark that it makes their skin crawl and feel like numerous caterpillars have deigned to walk on it. For some, it is inappropriate thoughts. For others it is a petty crime. For yet others, it could be political affiliations, Nazi party memberships even, things that will make them outcasts in the current social fabric.

My dirty secret is something that will probably earn condemnation from most of my friends. Some will smile and make polite public noises about how it is all fine and yet privately swear off any association with me in the future. Maybe my inbox will be flooded with emails with “WTF” on their subjects. Maybe people that I haven’t spoke to in years will call and pray to get my voice mail because they don’t want nothing to do with me and yet are forced by social pressures to commiserate with my less than perfect life now. (more…)

It’s not always that just the title of an article would invoke a sense of dark foreboding. When a post from Prem Panicker’s blog popped up on one’s feed reader, a mild curiosity was aroused. And a few minutes ago now, the retching started.

The circus, my dear friends, has begun. Go and read. And make sure your stomach is empty. I haven’t even started reading and I probably will not have the time to read for the next 12 hours or so, butI have a faint idea that by the time you finish reading, your contents of your stomach would have disappeared in a stream of retching coughs.

In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that, in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so.

- Anton Ego / Peter O’ Toole (Ratatouille, 2007)

One of my pet peeves has always been bad reviews and their reviewers, be it for movies, books or something else. And this line just stuck a chord with me. Reviews and reviewers are bound to be judgmental, but I can’t stand reviews that give away plot details, even if it is with the usage of a single word. (more…)

Update: Thanks for the clarifications, Su. The post’s duly updated to reflect your clarifications.

A couple of years ago, I had ranted (parts 1 and 2) about the disdain shown towards “massy” dappankuthu (and in general non-Hindi/non-Bhangra) type numbers by DJs and the “classy” crowd at dance parties both here in videsh and back home in India. But my personal experiences have mostly been outside Chennai, in fact outside India.

And those who know me will attest that, at times, I can be as “massy” as one can get, mostly in the (few) aforementioned dance parties that I get to go to. And most of the DJs I have seen in these parties, suck. One DJ even went as far as feigning loss of the mix CDs (they magically re-surfaced at the end of the party) that a couple of us had painstakingly created so that he has a mix of Hindi, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu and Marathi numbers to play during the party. But that old post immediately came into mind when I read about the fiasco Radio Mirchi RJ hunt party at Dublin, the disco/night club at the Park Sheraton in Chennai. (more…)