So, now it's official--Shoaib Akhtar has been picked for the India tour. The Pakistan Cricket Board says it's his last chance to prove himself. In terms of discipline of course, not as a player.
Hah.
'Hah' is what I had said to myself, quietly, when I heard of the punishment that was handed out to Shoaib by the PCB for his indiscipline which saw him miss the Twenty20 World Cup. The incident, mind, had occured BEFORE the Twenty20 World Cup started. The punishment was handed out AFTER IT FINISHED, though Shoaib was taken off the Pakistan Twenty20 team after the incident. And Shoaib was banned for thirteen matches, retroactive from the beginning of the Twenty20 tourney.
It doesn't take a calculator to do the math. Seven matches in the Twenty20 tourney. Two Tests against South Africa. Four one-dayers against South Africa. That's what he's missed. He'll be back for the final one-dayer against South Africa--and for the India tour. Having served out his sentence.
Hah.
Hah--because: why thirteen matches? What about that magical figure is just right as a number when you're banning somebody? Why not ten? Or fifteen? And isn't it a little strange to count five-day Test matches, seven-hour ODIs and three-hour Twenty20 matches as one match each when you're counting up to thirteen?
Hah--because: what's the logic in banning him retroactively from the beginning of the Twenty20 tournament after the end of the tournament? Very conveniently, he's banned for seven Twenty20 matches in the World Cup that he didn't play. The point is, no one knew Pakistan was going to reach the final and therefore play seven matches. Thay may have played only two, if they had got knocked out in the first round. In that case, would Shoaib have had to sit out five more matches, till the end of the India ODI series? Oh no. Because the calculations were done AFTER the Twenty20 tourney ended, you see. Hindsight is such a useful thing.
For let's face it: everyone's itching to see Shoaib tear in from the top of his mark and bowl at 97 mph to Sachin, and maybe beat him for speed and uproot his stumps like he did that time in Kolkata. It's a spectator sport and people pay good money for this stuff. No point having the man sit out even a game in the India series. And to get him warmed up, better get him to play the last South Africa game as well.
Pakistan can't afford to tour India without Shoaib. The PCB knows that, and so does Shoaib. That's why this disciplining business just rings so hollow. It's like the Kauravas giving Karna a curtain lecture, isn't it, no payasam for you tonight bad boy, that'll teach you to go hitting Asif bhaiya with that gada--and then expect him to go hammer and tongs at Arjuna and Bhima and Yudhisthir next morning.
I've been wondering about that thirteen. Twelve years of vanvas and one year of agyatavas, was it? In the agyatavas you can take it out on the South Africa Keechak a bit.
Hah.
28 October 2007
02 October 2007
It's Not Cricket
Soon after becoming the new world chess champion, Viswanathan Anand, in an interview given from Mexico City, said in a semi-jocular, semi-wistful tone that he had heard about the stupendous welcome that had been given to the T20 world cup winning Indian team that had just returned home, and he would be interested in seeing what kind of reception he got when he came back.
We all know Anand won't generate even one-fifteenth of the mass hysteria that the Indian team generated, and yet he is a world champion in his own right, having beaten (or drawn with) the best in the world, and having performed consistently in the international sports arena over the years with excellence. Surely he is worth as much as Piyush Chawla or Dinesh Karthik. But he won't get his "due". We know chess or billiards (yes thank you Pankaj Advani) or hockey don't get one-hundredth of the attention that cricket gets.
And the reason is not that cricket has sponsorships and hype going for it like no other sport has. Those are there because cricket has something going for it that no other sport in India has. It's a team game that makes spectators proud to be an Indian. "I proud to be Indian" you can say at the end of a game well won. Can you say that as--with all due respect--Anand's bishop takes unpronounceable Russin's rook, or whatever?
Yes you can say it all right when you watch Chak De India. But when was the last time you danced with joy watching India play hockey? Yes they might have beaten South Korea and lifted (heinyoo) the Asia Cup (now only if our weightlifters would stop doping they would be allowed to lift something too) par is kahani mein drama kahan hai, emotion kahan hai? A few years back Jugraj Singh was able to set our hearts on fire with his penalty corners and his penalty corner blocks, and we beat Pakistan, and for a brief moment, the box office crackled--but then he took somebody's good luck wish too literally and well, went and broke a leg. (These Jats!)
It's been done in India before in sports other than cricket, you know, and you don't have to be 96 years old and go back to Mohun Bagan beating Yorkshire Regiment in the IFA Shield final in 1911. (Bagan apparently played barefoot; was that why they refused India a game in the Olympics decades later when the players said they couldn't afford boots and would play barefoot? These Indian dervishes, you can't trust them and their bare feet.) In 1978, Bagan beat the fancied Ararat Sports Club in--ahem, again--the IFA Shield. If you are more than thirty-five and a Bengali you will remember that day--or rather, night (Ararat sedin sararat kendenchey--Ararat that night cried and cried). It felt like we had won ourselves independence anew.
It's a country that likes grandstanding. We are driven by mass hysteria. That's how we got our independence. Not through planning or politics--but by a chappie making salt from sea water, and going on fasts, and walking about in loincloth that would do Sherawat proud. Much as Om Puri might fume in Maachis, azaadi isi ne la ke diya, bhai.
We want to see Misbah down on his knees, felled just one stroke away from victory. There's a ring of destiny here--it reminds you of Karan and Indrajit and so on. Bishop takes rook just doesn't swing it, man.
So, Vishy, don't go expecting the reception that the India team got. You ain't gonna get it, baby.
And why do you want it? If the Other wants for itself the privileges of the Self, we are going to go around in colonized - postcolonial circles, aren't we? You aren't the cricket team, but you are a world champion. Why not make your own space? Be eklavya. (Ok oscar debate not this post.)
We all know Anand won't generate even one-fifteenth of the mass hysteria that the Indian team generated, and yet he is a world champion in his own right, having beaten (or drawn with) the best in the world, and having performed consistently in the international sports arena over the years with excellence. Surely he is worth as much as Piyush Chawla or Dinesh Karthik. But he won't get his "due". We know chess or billiards (yes thank you Pankaj Advani) or hockey don't get one-hundredth of the attention that cricket gets.
And the reason is not that cricket has sponsorships and hype going for it like no other sport has. Those are there because cricket has something going for it that no other sport in India has. It's a team game that makes spectators proud to be an Indian. "I proud to be Indian" you can say at the end of a game well won. Can you say that as--with all due respect--Anand's bishop takes unpronounceable Russin's rook, or whatever?
Yes you can say it all right when you watch Chak De India. But when was the last time you danced with joy watching India play hockey? Yes they might have beaten South Korea and lifted (heinyoo) the Asia Cup (now only if our weightlifters would stop doping they would be allowed to lift something too) par is kahani mein drama kahan hai, emotion kahan hai? A few years back Jugraj Singh was able to set our hearts on fire with his penalty corners and his penalty corner blocks, and we beat Pakistan, and for a brief moment, the box office crackled--but then he took somebody's good luck wish too literally and well, went and broke a leg. (These Jats!)
It's been done in India before in sports other than cricket, you know, and you don't have to be 96 years old and go back to Mohun Bagan beating Yorkshire Regiment in the IFA Shield final in 1911. (Bagan apparently played barefoot; was that why they refused India a game in the Olympics decades later when the players said they couldn't afford boots and would play barefoot? These Indian dervishes, you can't trust them and their bare feet.) In 1978, Bagan beat the fancied Ararat Sports Club in--ahem, again--the IFA Shield. If you are more than thirty-five and a Bengali you will remember that day--or rather, night (Ararat sedin sararat kendenchey--Ararat that night cried and cried). It felt like we had won ourselves independence anew.
It's a country that likes grandstanding. We are driven by mass hysteria. That's how we got our independence. Not through planning or politics--but by a chappie making salt from sea water, and going on fasts, and walking about in loincloth that would do Sherawat proud. Much as Om Puri might fume in Maachis, azaadi isi ne la ke diya, bhai.
We want to see Misbah down on his knees, felled just one stroke away from victory. There's a ring of destiny here--it reminds you of Karan and Indrajit and so on. Bishop takes rook just doesn't swing it, man.
So, Vishy, don't go expecting the reception that the India team got. You ain't gonna get it, baby.
And why do you want it? If the Other wants for itself the privileges of the Self, we are going to go around in colonized - postcolonial circles, aren't we? You aren't the cricket team, but you are a world champion. Why not make your own space? Be eklavya. (Ok oscar debate not this post.)
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