Incessant Debacles In The Game

If Sir Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar is coveted to be the ‘modern God’ of the countrymen then cricket is the religion for that nation. 

And no prizes for guessing..yes! yes! I’m referring to our very own motherland “India”.

Unlike in real life,in the fantastic world of sports ,heart breaking defeats quickly fade to become a part of distant memory; and later gets consigned to the trash bins of history and stat books.Consequently, team India’s horrendous run in overseas tests will get metamorphosed into the dream run as they return with their ammunition in their homeland: reigniting the natives to tag them as"lions in their own den only".

Batting in the Indian subcontinent, all the players donning the Indian cap will seem to be in “the form of their lives”, and will slip into the garb of “Invincibles”.What’s more, they will demolish one or two hapless teams and the euphoria will hit the roof again.

The entire saga of glory at home and embarrassment away will be seen as part of an intrinsic cycle;and the skipper will again mince through words using euphemisms like ‘improvements in the last few months’, ’work in progress’ and so on.

But besides all these things, ’the role of the coach and the support staff’ is the moot point for me.The savant might argue that Dhoni isn’t showing the killer instinct to pounce in test matches,that he is allowing half chances to drift into nothingness; a few others might rue the absence of a true-blue seamer loaded with the gifts of delivering beamers and bouncers almost at will and with absolute ease;with destructive intent and ability to tear apart any batting lineup ;with a knack of picking scalps at regular intervals; and then some may find it irrational not to obey the horses- for- courses policy, and even laugh at the ineffective, ubiquitous spinner whose all mysteries are resolved.

But beyond all that, its high time for at least a couple of players to take charge and play a match winning knock with other batting guns playing second fiddle to them by just rotating strikes, and then taking on the bowlers after settling their nerves and finding their feet moving before undergoing a rough patch.

It’s disheartening to analyse the bowling woes of team India time and again; to demarcate the cut down in pace by the fast bowlers; yet again, coupled with their frailties in accuracy, seam movement and pitching in ‘right areas’. Their inefficiency in hitting the deck hard are signs which should be, of lately, registered by the bowling coach and team management.

The lanky pace duo of Ishant Sharma and Shami Ahmed have flattered to deceive on foreign tracks; while the batsmen with the exceptions of the Kohlis, the Pujaras and the Dhawans still seem to be in terrible discomfort with the devils in the overseas strips which offers extra bounce and lateral movement; leaving them in distress with some chin music. Fielding has always been a department to worry about due to dearth of agility and dynamism among players.

While repair of these intricate damages are hopefully getting looked after, the juggernaut is back in the subcontinent to probably send that no-win recent record deeper in the distant memory by bringing the Midas touch back.

The Great Indian Wedding Fever

In today’s world of cut throat competition, especially in a populous state like India hard work, ambitiousness aren’t just words but are the daily stories of a common(read: from general quota) man. And what separates the ordinary hard workers from the genuinely laborious students is their dogged adherence. When the world doses off, lights turn off, serenity dispels the chaos and desires burn like they are more to an individual than the heart beat and the incessant respiration, that’s when champions are made.

An individual arises from his/her own nothingness and submerges in the same day in and day out to beat all odds and secure meritorious ranks, qualifications and promotions in myriad spheres. Every single time (s)he cracks an entrance exam, or breaks another record and shines in the periphery of the eye it seems to me that they are trying to tell us that they burnt themselves to appear to be illuminated under the dark tragic backdrop. Hence, they deserve true recognition and utmost respect.

But we still live in a society where if a 22 year old lass confronts to her father that she cleared the entrance test to get admitted in a foreign college(say with a total expenditure of Rs 25 lakhs), then the poor girl receives a negation in the name of financial weakness of her parents. The same girl is married off, the very next month with the parents shelling out at least Rs 30 lakhs for the big fat wedding.

A woman is often limited by our society in the name of ‘realism’ to sew her dreams shut by stuffing all her aspirations in a cushion cover aka her soul. Sports aren’t meant for her, mechanics and aerodynamics can’t be her forte, speed and alcohol shouldn’t give her the adrenaline rush, and definitely driving and proficient decision making can’t be her strength. So she is wedlocked by her parents as riddance, or we can say that the onus now switches over from them to her husband. If she’s really eager to work after marriage, then she can do so for another 2-3 years till the time she bears her own kids and grooms them after (mostly) quitting from the job. She can’t afford to soil her saree during a stroll down the lane with her in-laws or laze around in oversized shirts because she always should be presentable. Can she?

So basically, it all starts with a girl who was dying to finish high school to start college and start living fully. When she joined college, she was dying to finish college and start working and living fully. When she was working, she was dying to get married and start living fully. When she was raising her little ones, she was dying to send them to school and return to work and start living fully. And then she was dying to retire from the job and live post retirement fully. And then she was dying, and she realized that she forgot to live.

A young 21 year old lad isn’t better off either. He has been brought up under the anecdotes which encourages him to be unaccountable to his very own mother after growing up to a certain age, take major decisions of the house and turn a ‘father’ to his mother when he starts earning a livelihood. He can’t afford water droplets drenching his eyes and rolling down the cheeks when the going gets tough. He shouldn’t supposedly express himself too much and should remain inhibited and perennially strong. After all, he solely has to handle his wife and kids as if they’re slaves and he the master. And if you’re the one who’s thinking to break the jinx by sharing the responsibilities with your wife then just be prepared to be mocked at.

You might be wondering that why am I not talking about the band baaja baraat, or maybe shaadi ka laddoo as so is the feeling that the title offers. But I wanted to bring into limelight that why are we just groomed in the society to just get married off one day? Can’t there be more things than being the ideal bride or groom in the society? And, may the Lord and God bless you with enough valor to overcome disgrace if you’re thinking to remain a bachelor or a spinster forever! Period.

IPL: IMPREGNABLE PRODIGIES' LEAGUE

Momentarily, let's all of us make ourselves oblivious of what the IPL is generally tagged with: showbiz, glamour, cheergirls, Siddharth Mallya-Deepika Padukone liplock, sreesanth-harbhajan slapgate, ShahRukh's somersaults, preity's loud cheer for her team, pollard-starc ugly spat, Sir Sunil Gavaskar bowing down to the master blaster, England's ace woman cricketer Isa Guha being coveted as a superstar in India, sponsorships, broadcasting rights, multimedia partners, hotel industry, travel(airline) industry, after night parties, fashion world's events, franchise owners with heavy purses during the auctions, electronic and print media, housepacked stands in the stadia, Ness-Preity's relationship status, Shoaib and Sidhu raising their hands for the same team in the studio unlike their playing days, Shilpa-kundra marital journey parallel to the IPL, match fixing scandals and so many more.

Critics stress upon the uninevitable glamour quotient in the IPL, coronating themselves as the cricket aficionados of the 'purest' form: test cricket. To all such people out there, I would love to vociferate that the 'purest' form of cricket was way back in the seventeenth century in England, when women used to play in hoopla skirts bowling under-arm. After that, all that took over were the transformations in the game.

IPL was inaugurated in 2008. During the same period Zee network's “Indian Cricket League” was operational. It was an enormous success. The annual tournament, played mostly in Indian summer has gone from strength to strength and is largely viewed as being the 'richest' tournament in world cricket.

Until 2012, the Indian Premier League was sponsored by DLF after they paid $50 million for the five-year sponsorship. Pepsi took over the contract for the 2013 IPL after paying close to $72 million for the 5-year contract.

Let's take a sneek peak at the 'goodie-goods' of cricket, now. Every national cricket board in the world wants to incessantly face one problem while selecting its team and that is the problem of plenty. IPL sets the podium for even that. Sunil Narine (for Kolkota Knight Riders) burst onto the global scene when he set the stage on fire in the IPL. After numerous quarrels between the West Indies Cricket Board and Chris Gayle, it were the giant man's bludgeoning knocks in the IPL (for Royal Challangers Bangalore), that set the path for his entry back to the national team. Azhar Mahmood (from pakistani origin) was drafted onto international cricket arena via IPL(for Kings XI Punjab). Shane Warne, Ricky Ponting, Rahul Dravid, Lasith Malinga (from tests) are few of the great cricketing legends who after calling it quits from the national duty continued to stay in action in the IPL. This is viewed by people with a raised eyebrow round the world as betrayal and insincerity towards one's own nation citing the greed of money from the cash-rich tournament as the prime reason. The IPL contract vows to pay all its players the entire sum of match fees if the player is available for five matches in one season. So, if it just would have been that greed then all players would have packed their bags and left after the first five league stage matches. So, inevitably there's something more to it which the spectator isn't able to speculate. When a Sunil Narine confronts of missing a Test match for his nation just to be the part of deja vu of being champions in IPL, Lasith Malinga announces his retirement from test cricket when the Sri Lankan board stresses upon calling him for playing tests amidst the IPL, ICC sits down to chart out a window for the IPL in the international calendar of cricketing tours and such schedules, Sir Sachin Tendulkar plays in the IPL after retiring from T20Is; then, the human mind should work towards convincing oneself that the mind is unaware and unknown of the aware and the known (by facts... I mean the latent meaning of those facts).

No where in the world one could have seen the coming together of Andrew Symonds and Harbhajan Singh in IPL after the monkeygate in 2008. Its often pressed upon that IPL should not be eyed by the capped players as a platform for staging comebacks in their national teams keeping at bay the other domestic tournaments, but the intellect betrays the eyes. Robin Uthappa, Gautam Gambhir, Chris Gayle, Pat Cummins, Wayne Parnell are to name a few.

The double round-robin format of the tournament is followed by the knockout stage to witness the triumphant team. Besides, all the international players who are mentioned above and some not, IPL does a world of good to the domestic uncapped players. From Paul Valthaty's euphoric century which made the world witness an Adam Gilchrist as a second fiddle to him, to my personal favourite Pravin Tambe's blitzkreig hat-trick who arrived onto the IPL stage at the age of 41, this emergence of domestic talent is the biggest withdrawal for me from the game and for many more Indians like me.

A young prodigious Sanju Samson or a Manan Vohra, is a delight to just sit back and watch and exclaim “future is safe now!”. Axar Patel has been stupendous this season, so has been Mohd. Shami, Umesh Yadav and many more, leaving the Indian think tank with aproblem they would love to face perenially and that is the “problem of plenty'.

Yusuf Pathan's belligerent 37 ball 100, Amit Mishra's and Yuvraj Singh's dual hat-tricks have been exemplary finds from all seasons who have stumped the critics responding with the straight bat simultaneously.

Hence, the tournament is a league for impregnable prodigies.

CHANGING FACET OF SPORTS IN INDIA

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!.. Well, Jack is not the only follower of this age-old adage, everyone abides by it. The commonwealth games of 2010 for me, were the enunciation of a revolution in India that swept the youth in the wave of the sporting culture. Delhi hosted the games, just as the deja vu of Melbourne, Sydney or of the Olympics in London, Beijing is and maybe a notch higher than that.

When a city, even better, a capital city gets to host a gigantic international event at more than a dozen of venues; all ushering a world-class infrastructure and the media does its part of covering it, business tycoons do come up with endorsements and sponsorships for players..... and all of this, when watched by a young kid in the stadium, boosts him/her up for an encore of their heroes. They get excited to fill in the big shoes of the person, who stands on the podium making his/her countrymen proud.

To top it all, the government of India envisages to honour sportspersons with quotas in government jobs, housing, attractive cash prizes, facilities in sporting aids and so on. Apart from this, by playing sports one gets to tour the world and experience it , under their own terms. The health benefits are well-adhered to sports and are renowned.

In ground reality, the pleasing fact is the growing likelihood of parents to send their kids to one or the other sports academy and expecting fructious outcomes from it. Thankfully, gone are the days when playing and enjoying oneself was termed as a waste of time.. and the mentality was tagged as 'a typical Indian one'. Schools and colleges simulate to be the launching pad to enthrust the young athletes into the orbit of a successful career in sports, layered with self-belief and passion. The coming up of sponsors in the sports has belligerently magnified the financial growth of players, sports associations, sports officials, sports coaches, enterprises that invest in matches and tournaments, travel industry, hotel industry, principal food and beverage partners, and so many more technicians and others who work behind the lenses for covering live matches, publicising them and so on.

From broadcasting rights to the logo of several franchise teams; everything is now epitomised as the national symbol in domestic households. The most placid part is that, it's just not cricket this time. IPL was the brain-child of a man who was thrown out of his very own start-uo just as Steve Jobs once was from Apple Inc. : Lalit Modi. Hockey India League, Badminton Super Series,Football League, Kabbadi League, Wrestling League and the Tennis Series are all signs of not a wave but a tornado! And this tornado isn't a disaster but a saviour.

History tells us that SOCIETY is one thing in the world that exists right from the time of civilisation and makes a heck of it. It kills millions of dreams day in and day out, and being a professional athlete is one of them.

On a good note, it feels great to look up at Sania Mirza or Saina Nehwal being treated as the dolls of the nation. It's incredible to learn that MC Mary Kom will soon have a movie dedicated to her name. It's impreganable to know that Deepika Kumari is the world's numero uno archer. When Gagan Narang or Abhinav Bindra gathers the gold in Asian and Olympic games respectively, and Vijendra Singh and Sushil Kumar seize silver and bronze in the Olympics, then the self-belief of aspiring youngsters rise up. When the nation looks upto Baichung Bhutia's retirement not as the end of an era, but the as the start of a legacy, then the human heart gets thrilled with joy and novel enthusiasm in the air. And then the heart and the mind unanimously utter, “There's still a little good in the world, and that is worth fighting for!”.

For an athlete, sports isn't fun. Ask any of them, most of them hate it,but they play because they couldn't imagine their life without it. Its part of them, the love/hate relationship. Its what they live for. They live for the practices, parties, cheers, long bus rides, invitationals, countless pairs of different types of shoes, water, Gatorade and coaches you hate but appreciate. They live for the way it feels when they beat the other team, and knowing those two extra sprints they ran in practice worth it. They live for the way they become a family with their team, they live for the countless songs they sing in their head while training all those hours. They live for the competitions, for their friends, the practices, the memories, the pain, its who they are. Its who we are.