Hayden

Matthew Hayden retired yesterday. Hayden, who debuted in the early nineties but never really made his mark till the 2001 tour of India was not the kind of cricketer you like. At least I didn't. Built like a Bollywood villain's sidekick that you had to contend with before you got to the real bad guys, that is what I considered him for quite sometime till it was clear that he was the actual villain. Hayden scored a lot of centuries (30 to be exact) but never really captured my imagination like the Waugh brothers, Ponting, Martyn, Slater or even Langer, all batsmen much more fun to watch. Not only was he indelicate to watch as a batsman, he was also a smug, unpleasant character who I doubt ever won the affections of the rival teams or spectators. He was huge, bullish, and in your face and representative of all the things we hated about the Australians. He was also a fascinating orator and came up with the most entertaining or irritating comments especially in the last leg of his career. Here are some.

Some self effacing ones:

“The zone to me is pretty much every time I go out to bat.”

“As fine a cricketer as I am right now, I don’t think as a young player I had it right.”

“I think, more than anything, I am such a weapon here, because when I started attacking, they just got so defensive.”

“I think this series is tailor-made for guys like me.”

....some gay ones:

"We are always getting the pressure from behind us... I love playing with these blokes, and to me, I'm just not ready to let it go just yet."

...and the others, just bizzare:

“I want to see Ricky Ponting going like that when he wins and plays for Australia. That’s the heat of the battle, that’s Test cricket, that’s the enormous passion and enthusiasm that gets played from all games of cricket, you see it even in backyard cricket.”

“When I finish cricket I don’t want to have to be in a game where everything is robots and robotic.”

"I've never been in better shape. So to me it's a really good sign, not only in terms of where I'm at, but my commitment to the game and the commitment to the summer as well."

“Ultimately it will be my call to look at the bloke that talks to yourself every day in the mirror and say ‘mate it is time to go’ or ’saddle up, pull your socks up and get on with it, you’ve got South Africa and you’ve got the Ashes’.”

“That little voice deep inside will keep kicking Matthew Hayden along.”

“Matthew Hayden in 1991 worked as hard as he works in 2008. And that guarantees you at least the best result in terms of how you prepare yourself, but it doesn’t guarantee success.”

“We all enjoy celebrating. What has changed now is we have taken it to a new level in terms of dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s professionally.”

“When you get to my age, you get to a point where the next 12 months is a long, long way away.”

“In a lot of ways, to me off-field, if that’s affecting him that’s a good thing for Hayden because I don’t feel like I’m harbouring any massive resentment.” (something to do with Harbhajan)

“He obviously loves cricket and it’s so healthy to know I can be here and he can be there and we can mutually enjoy each others sports.”
(This about Usain Bolt!)

“At the end of the day, two alpha dogs are never going to sit in a cage and not look at each other. It is what it is. The way I see my cricket, if you’re the other alpha dog, you better not blink. I feel I’d be letting down my country if I was to blink.”


Still, the guy scored 30 centuries. That's more than Bradman, Richards, Boycott, Sobers, Dravid or Kallis. You've got to admire that. No, not admire, respect. Hmm..not really respect, acknowledge. Not acknowldge, resent. Yeah that's the word.

The Historic Trip To Town Part - I

"I feel like having a zinger burger."
"We could go now."

The above dialogue occurred at 3:45 am on an April morning and was the beginning of events which led to what, in the coming years was to be referred to as the 'historic trip to town.' In retrospect, I also consider it as the time when things began to change between us.

When one likes another and another is aware of it, the pretense involved between them is of a most fascinating sort. Another is aware that one likes another but chooses to keep mum about it. Neither make any mention of it whatsoever. It is one of those things which everyone knows but has a sacred tacit status accorded to it when the two relevant parties are present together. One will mope and sigh about it in front of others yet act as if he was guarding the secret with his life in front of another. Many an hours are spent by one going over whether another is aware of his affections, analysing inane conversations several times over. Another, meanwhile acts quietly unaware of the whole thing in front of one, at times not being able to resist asking seemingly innocent questions probing at the heart of the matter, yet always unsure of how much she wants to 'finds' out.

Therefore, nighttime conversations became the norm without registering too much surprise on either side.

"You know, I like talking to you. We should work out a deal that we talk all night till you get married."
"Looks like you want to seriously injure my health."
"Insomnia is healthy. Look at me. How is your boyfriend incidentally?"

A tale of two cricketers

Never have the course of two Indian cricketers run parallel in a manner as remarkable as in the case of Sourav Chandidas Ganguly and Rahul Sharad Dravid. With Ganguly recently retired and if things don’t improve much, Dravid very likely to follow in his footsteps, this is a good time to reflect on their respective careers, both remarkable in their own right, but make even more fascinating a study when viewed in contrast with each other, something of the lines of the plot of many Jeffrey Archer novels.

Their rise to the Indian team prior to their Lords debut ran parallel. Dravid served out an extended apprenticeship in the domestic circuit as Karnataka’s mainstay evoking frequent comparisons from the local press to Vishwanath and Brajesh Patel. Ganguly, on the other hand was never a major run machine in domestic cricket like Dravid and Laxman and came into his own on the international stage only. Unlike Dravid again, who was serious about cricket from his schooldays, he simply came from a family of club cricketers and took to the game seriously only after he was selected for the disastrous tour of Australia in 1992. The tour started Ganguly’s brush with controversy as talk of his refusal to carry drinks surrounded him. He remained controversial for his entire career winning more foes than friends in the international circuit, was hugely unpopular in his county stints and incurred the wrath of match referees more than any other captain in living memory. Off the field too, Ganguly was the more dashing, eloping with his childhood sweetheart in the face of family opposition and his much publicized affair with Nagma, while Dravid remained the committed, model cricketer, diligent to a fault and correct to the extent of being boring.

The face of the Indian batting had always been that of a Bombayite. Right from Vijay Merchant to Dilip Sardesai to Sunil Gavaskar to Sachin Tendulkar to the much hyped Rohit Sharma, the city of Bombay has always staked a claim to the premier batsmen of any generation. The strength of the Bombay faction in the BCCI has always been paramount and has dominated the scene of Indian cricket, both on and off the field. Dravid and Ganguly were not only significant actors who were instrumental in breaking through the dominance of this clique and giving the Indian team a non-parochial face for the first time, they were themselves the most important part of it. That they replaced Vinod Kambli and Sanjay Manjrekar, two Bombay lads who were supposed to be the mainstay of our batting along with Sachin makes this all the more remarkable.

Their Lords debut was not the ideal platform for a youngster looking to ease into the team. On a fast, swinging track they came together with India in a spot of bother. They could not have been more dissimilar in style. Ganguly, later to be described by his partner at the other end as next only to God on the offside kept easing the ball through the point and cover regions. Dravid, then a predominantly leg side player relied more on playing off his pads. Ganguly, as we all know scored a century on debut and Dravid made 95. In the nest test Ganguly scored yet another ton and Dravid missed out yet again being dismissed on 88. This was to be a reflection of things to come as they grew into two of India’s premier batsmen. While Ganguly was the leading run scorer in ODIs till the turn of the century even beating Sachin for four out of five seasons, Dravid established himself as rock solid test batsmen. It was also to be Dravid’s fate for a large part of his career to be a pretty bridesmaid who gave numerous sterling performances only to be overshadowed by Ganguly or Tendulkar. The script continued into the new century when Ganguly was appointed captain and Dravid his deputy.

The Kolkata Test in 2001 was, in a sense the turning point in many ways for both, for Ganguly as a captain and for Dravid as a batsman. Hitting his way out of a slum in the most dramatic of matches must have given Dravid a lot of confidence as his star soared thereafter and he gradually came out of the shadows of his distinguished peers to become India most valuable player for the next half of a decade. He scored runs all over the world, adapted perfectly to the one day set up, filled in as a wicket keeper when required and was a great support of his captain. For Ganguly, this was the beginning of the golden period as a captain. He had the uncanny ability as a captain to back match winning performers and get the best of them.

Many believe that had Ganguly not been made the captain, he would have achieved a lot more as batsman. It is probable for the biggest problem with Ganguly’s batting was that it did not develop after a point. While Dravid and Sachin have constantly evolved as batsmen, made various adjustments to their game; Ganguly, once he has been sorted out, never managed to overcome his deficiencies.

It is universally believed that Dravid was a clearly inferior captain to Ganguly. I am not entirely sure. Ganguly introduced a lot of self-belief in his team and helped us get over out timid chokers tag and that was what we needed then. But, he was never a great tactician. He was easily rattled as a captain and many a times let the momentum slip through out of a lack of imaginative captaincy. Dravid, was a much more collected man on the field. His captaincy on the field always has more of method to it than Ganguly’s who was tactically always on the whimsical side especially with respect to his handling of spinners and part-time bowlers. But what Ganguly lacked in on field tactics, he more than made up through the way his communicated with his players and allowed them to flourish. Dravid tended more to lead by example through his own performances and commitment but despite the bulk of his runs never really had the aura of a leader.

While Ganguly left on high, scoring significant runs against the top team in the world in his farewell series, Dravid has so far doggedly stuck around in the midst of calls for his head. In the past month, many a sports journalists have made a living out of stories on the lines of “the Wall crumbling.” His century at Mohali notwithstanding, despite being full of character and a testimony to his tenacity, I have a feeling Dravid will not have a swan song end to his career. If there is one thing that he has lacked in his otherwise illustrious career, it is the sense of timing that his longtime colleague and once co-debutante has always had.

"Ringo?"

"Yup!"

"Do you ever feel lonely at the back there playing the drums?"

"Yup!"

"Did you ever feel that you'd like to sing?"

"Yup!"

"Do you ever say anything else but yep?"

"Nope."

"Would you like to be someone's lover man?"

"Yup!"

"Now?"

"Yup!"

The first time I saw her she was a little girl on a swing. As I passed her, she drew close to me, drawing nearer with every second until she kicked me on the butt.

"Sorry!"
She was a little angel. Taller than me. Fair with big, black eyes.
I smiled and drawing myself up to meet her tall frame, drew myself away. She was walking towards me.
"Sorry. Are you hurt?"
"No." That was all I could manage.

Ayn Rand: A Criticism

I was fourteen when I read The Fountainhead and read Atlas Shrugged shortly after. It was one the most thrilling and emotionally powerful reading experience of my life. But this is not about why I like Ayn Rand's writing but about why I outgrew her ideas after a brief adolescence phase.

Ayn Rand was a champion of reason and extremely averse to any idea that reeked of any sort of mysticism or irrationalism. But probably, she had so little patience for anything she suspected to be irrational that she dismissed without actually understanding the fine difference between the reason as a process and what is considered at a given point of time and by a given number of people as reasonable. We do not exist in a vacuum and are never immune to notions of what is reasonable. It’s always important to remember that reason or rationality, and what people may regard as reasonable, don’t mean the same thing.

The consequence of failing to make this distinction is evident in the case of Ayn Rand in that if someone disagreed with her notion of “the reasonable,” it was very convenient to accuse him of being irrational or against reason. It is almost disturbing the frequency and ease with which she branded any viewpoint she did not share as not merely mistaken but irrational or mystical. In other words, anything that challenged her particular model of reality was not merely wrong but “irrational” and “mystical”—to say nothing, of course, of its being “evil,” another word she loved to use with extraordinary frequency.

In fact the degree of moralising she resorted to in her novels was almost appalling. Few clergymen in the Dark Ages, let alone novelists must have used the word “evil” with such frequency. She left you with the impression that life is a tightrope and that it is all too easy to fall off into moral depravity. In other words, while on the one hand she preached a morality of joy, personal happiness, and individual fulfillment; on the other hand, she was also very likely to scare the hell out of you if you respected and admired her and wanted to apply her philosophy to your own life.

The most devastating single omission in her system and the one that has probably caused the maximum damage to an impressionable reader was a complete lack of understanding of how human beings evolve and how they can change. The recipe prescribed by her was a severely disciplined one. You either choose to be rational or you don’t. You’re honest or you’re not. You choose the right values or you don’t. Her followers are left in a dreadful position: If their responses aren’t the right ones, what are they to do? How are they to change? No answer from Ayn Rand. Therein lies the tragedy.

Every philosopher must be understood in the historical context in which they functioned. Rand, born in Russia in the pre-revolution days was a relentless rationalist perhaps in reaction to “a mystical country in the very worst sense of the word, a country that never really passed through the Age of Reason or the Enlightenment in the way that Western Europe did.” Perhaps this should be the footnote to her ideas providing some insight into her fiercely uncompromising outlook.