Punter, I Bet

As he walked onto the field in what could possibly be his last test match in the subcontinent, Ricky Ponting was welcomed with a reverberating boo in Bangalore. India has always been the final frontier for most captains from Down Under. Two of Australia’s greatest captains, Ponting and Waugh never managed to beat the Indians at home even with the ‘Invincibles’ they had under them. It took a stand-by skipper in Adam Gilchrist to conquer India in Ricky’s absence. So difficult are the conditions here in the subcontinent where the placid wickets start turning on the last two days of the Test; the crowd starts appealing with the team and there is a drama every now and then; all these happen all of a sudden!

Ponting may not be gifted with the charisma of Waugh and has always been a brat in the cricket world. With his characteristic back-lift, he keeps you guessing about the stroke every time which is a huge gamble in itself. He took over the mantle from Waugh amidst much criticism since Shane Warne was always seen as the rightful heir to the throne. Warne, as former greats put it, may be the greatest captain Australia never had, but after Waugh, the choice became blurry since Warne was clouded with controversies at the time. Enter Punter!

Captaincy is an art in team games, more so in cricket not only because of the complexity of the decisions involved but also their retrospection. And to gauge Ponting, his career should be seen as Before and After Captaincy. Ponting the batsman, started aggressively similar to other predominant front-foot players of the era. He was the quintessential boyish brat needed in a team of mid-aged bullies. Due to the late blooming of his career in the fading 90s and the last decade, comparisons with other greats like Brian Lara and Sachin Tendulkar were inevitable. But just as the debate started, Ponting’s role in the team changed.

To Ricky, captaincy came by chance and his leadership till date is debatable. Yet, for the record, he is the most successful test captain of all time with more number of test wins than Stephen Waugh’s Invincibles. Though Ponting enjoyed the luxury of the services of his star-rated colleagues for the first few years of captaincy, eventually he had to be prepared for large-scale retirement. Everyone who retired hence, left as an all-time great, be it Hayden-Langer (One of the best opening pairs ever) or Shane Warne or Glenn McGrath. Even the solid Damien Martyn retired saying he was unhappy with CA. Ponting and the selectors were left with the task of finding the right players (don’t say replacements) for those open positions. Till date, those places have changed hands except for that of Ponting’s No.3. The fact that Shane Watson is still opening in Tests says it all. In fact the two Phils (Hughes and Jacques) are waiting for a long time since their injury recovery to retain their opening spots now being held by Katich and Watson. Perhaps, Watto is the John O’Shea of Australian Cricket who can bat at all positions, provided he is fit.

The great responsibility in Ponting’s hands is to do a Border and groom this bunch of youngsters. He has to do a repeat of what Border did to a budding Aussie side of spirited cricketers like Steve Waugh, Mark Taylor and Craig McDermott and what Taylor himself did to the Waughs, McGrath, Bevan and the like. And to still bat the way he does in the midst of this Herculean task, is truly commendable. He is never comparable with a Brian Lara or a Sachin Tendulkar who have been on and off in their leadership citing personal failures with the bat. Moreover, he is one among very few old-schoolers who do not sport any guard more than a helmet and mandatory pads and still plays the hook shot in a Test Match.

Standards of Australian cricket are predefined since it all started in the 19^th century and job security is a primary concern with most Australian players, leave alone captains. Steve Waugh who is considered as the best captain by even fans of opponent sides, was axed by the selectors from the one-day team. It is very obvious that each spot in the team cannot be taken for granted and Ponting’s is no different. His proposed successor Michael Clarke, who has been waiting, much like Prince Charles waiting for the Queen to .., you know what, does not have the aggressive approach to his batting that Ricky has.

Amidst all these, he still bats better than most of the others in the team though his hey-days are much beyond over. Age still has to take over this spilt-over cricketer of the previous generation. How many 35-year olds do you still see at point and extra-cover? He is still agile enough and can still pull off those Jonty-only superman run-outs and catches. He was second only to Jonty when he was there. He may still be hated by many fans across for regular indulgences in heated exchanges but that is what he is made of. Of late, the younger generation of players around the world is getting involved in quite a few ungentlemanly altercations, all too unnecessary. Aggression is a different art. As Matthew Hayden once said, “ Sledging is a tribute to a batter’s greatness and conveys that the fielding team fears him staying in the pitch for long. Only if he’s respected, he’s sledged.”

Don’t we miss the McGrath glare every delivery? Don’t we want Curtley Ambrose to call Waugh again for a fist fight? Don’t we still watch repeats of Venkatesh Prasad castling Sohail out soon after a mockery? Test cricket needs such drama and Ponting is very much part of it.

As he walks back one last time into the Aussie dressing room, he will join his mates as a pensioner. Also will be gone, the aggression and the art of delivering verbal volleys that he inherited from the mates of his generation. He may well be last of the breed. Bravo Punter!

Asli Superstar!!!

Let me put it straight. The man is Salman Khan and I dedicate this article to him and all his crazy fans who go gaga every time a movie releases. Besides, I would review the recent phenomenon called Dabangg though it is almost a month since the movie released.

Super-stardom is not about being a great actor and a thespian of the Dilip Kumar mould and winning recognition from the government for service to cinema. That’s pure professional honor; more of a pat in the back saying ‘Good job mate. You’ve done great’. Sachcha superstar is the one who may not be a role model for fellow actors but definitely an idol among the masses! When I say masses, it’s means the aam junta of our country, more so of our subcontinent. It doesn’t include the pretenders who question logic in every frame of a typical Indian movie. And what’s wrong in being truly Indian or a South Asian for that matter? These pretenders, watch the movie with the very intention of not enjoying it! The brains of these people are pirated as much as the movies they watch. They go by what the critics say. They read half the story before spending on a movie and lose half the fun. They never identify the critics as a bunch of jokers paid to review every frame of the movie. One who is very tough enough and gives 2/5 for an extremely enjoyable movie is viewed upon as a great critic. It’s all a self-conspired, self-inflicted ignorance of the way this country grew up.

We always have had a superhero and larger-than life character throughout history saving us from the bad guys starting from the mythological days of the Hindu deities, the Asokas, the Akbars right down to Mahatma Gandhi. Though we know it’s a collective effort, does anyone ever dare to question the logic behind history or the mythological special effects? We simply believe in heroism for the reason it existed.

And today we stand, discriminating people as masses and classes based on a movie. It’s derogatory to use such terms which signal as if the masses are no-brainers. The only difference I find is that masses are happy cheering a movie and the self-proclaimed classes wipes its tears after the movie saying ‘What a movie! A masterpiece’. I agree with them to some extent because the masses never fail to appreciate a good art movie when it comes by. They are not one-sided unlike the urban public who don’t even talk about mass-hero movies as if it’s way below their quality of life. They either watch it in pirated disks without the ambience of a cinema (single-screens, synonymous with the rural!) or they are ready to add to the multiplex collections of a bollywood movie shot entirely in New York and can make you cry for the money you paid!

I move to Dabangg now, the hidden agenda behind this post. Such movies have truly become rare in Bollywood. When did you last see people in plexes dancing and whistling? When did you last see public going wild over the intro-scene of the hero and each and every dialogue he mouths? In fact it all ended long back with Amitabh Bachchan. And it returns now and then in the form of Salman Khan in Tere Naam, Garv, Wanted and Dabangg to remind the locals that all is not lost when it comes to the desi flavor. What’s so special in the dialogue from Sholay- Kitne aadmi the? Just three words remembered even now. Where were the baaps of today’s plex audience then? They watched it and enjoyed it too.

Salman Khan is no great actor yet commands one of the biggest domestic fan bases. He is just himself in his movies. People see his persona and not the character. Who else can deliver one of the biggest blockbusters in Dabangg with a debutante co-star, producer and a director? He had failed his fans with multi-starrers in recent times but has proved time and again that people want him to be at his maddest best in his movies. As he says ‘ Bharosa, himmat aur taaqat bhi hai…aur paagalpan-hadh se zyaada!’

Today’s youngistaan is trying to act smart in sync with technology and standard of living. Being ourselves is no harm. Do we have our own style of movie making? This is it! Welcome to the genre of entertainment!

A Dream a night, an Idea for life

I have been following Christopher Nolan’s Inception for almost an year and my expectations were building up into a huge mountain. Not many movies have that honor because I follow only my hero Salman Khan! I was at home when Inception released and my family was busy preparing to move to another city. I was caught in the web too that I had to refuse two tickets for the movie and get a shopping voucher instead when I won a quiz on radio. My brother too was interested in the movie and he was the first to tell me of it. But we missed!

My next chance was when I came to Bangalore on July 19 and I grabbed it with both hands. I watched it all alone in the cinema and boy! I was mighty impressed! Chris Nolan had not only lived upto the mountainous expectation I had, but also scaled the peak! The reason I was fascinated by the movie even when it was in the making was because of the Idea of the movie. I have always been amazed by the things that I have dreamt in sleep. My brother is no different. We have had many a chat during our schooling days about the reality itself being a dream. I also have the habit of building on dreams by continuing the broken dream of the previous night. I have done that with good ease with great success. That is why I don’t see a difference between the so-called real world and the dream. The philosophy is simple: there is no such thing as a dream. Everything is real in its own world. It’s just that the rules are different. That might sound a bit insane but we believed and still believe in that.

But Nolan went a step ahead and built the idea of sharing another person’s dream space and planting an idea in the subconscious. Now, who would have thought about that and more so, a gripping plot! Nolan is a master of both. It didn’t seem fiction to me. As the movie was unfolding itself before me, I was shocked to find the proximity of my philosophy to that of Nolan’s. In the end, it was not only a great movie but one of the best experiences I had. For those who have not watched it yet, watch it alone. It doesn’t need the debate or clarification (with friends) it demands in the climax. It just wants to plant the idea in your subconscious that Nolan has given you another giant Jigsaw puzzle to work out till the next movie. Inception is how you read it!

Will the real Fan please stand up?

No matter how hard we try to avoid, the IPL invites interesting comparisons with club championship counterparts in other sports around the world. It is very much different from even domestic T20s of England and Australia, leave alone other sports. It's not the gameplay which is different, but the fan psyche,club loyalty in particular.

One of the biggest reasons why the IPL teams will find it hard to find a strong fan base is that the fans of regional teams simply do not exist. The Ranji teams playing to empty stands is proof enough for that. Even a home team victory in this trophy will go unnoticed by the fans. The only people watching these matches are the selectors, if at all they do. In fact, the newspapers next morning would give them a more interesting analysis of the performance than the stats gotten from watching the matches live!

Cricket fans in Asia and for that matter, the world, have been brought up watching intense games featuring their countrymen, be it the battle for the Urn or the cross-border pseudo-war between India and Pakistan. It is too early to expect a fan in India to boo off a fellow player just because he plays against his city's IPL franchise. Sample this with fans of Manchester United or Real Madrid who will not mind stepping onto the field and knocking the opponent's defenders off. In football or basketball, it's the club passion which drives the game; loyalty would be an understatement. Unfortunately, in the IPL we don't even have that.

People of Jaipur will still want Sachin to remind Shane Warne of the Sharjah nightmares of the previous decade, although Warne captains their team. And it's a known fan pulse that most IPL followers in India support the Mumbai Indians since their demi-God is the captain. Or are they of the opinion that the team has more Indianness associated with it because of the peculiar name?!

In this regard, Kolkata is a clear exception which takes a step forward, to fan frenzy. And all for one man - Sourav Chandidas 'Dada' Ganguly. Their desperation is such that they want one of these four names to appear on the back of one of the player jerseys. Otherwise, their rule is simple - Cheer for the opponent! This was evident in a critical South Africa-India encounter where Eden fans cheered for the Proteas because Dada was dropped for the match. Strange enough fan behavior!

For the purists, the commercialization of the sport is annoying. Even more annoying is the fans cheering every time the leather hits the ropes without bothering the bat from where it is dispatched.It is not that the people in the subcontinent are boundary-hungry. In all these years of cricket, they have witnessed only that in these flat batter-friendly tracks and are wanting only more of ball-bashing.

Lalit Modi said he wants to make iconic teams with global following like MU, Real and Ferrari, out of the IPL. I personally feel that he needs to do that in India before targeting a global fan base.

On a lighter note, it's good that the Ambanis bought Mumbai and christened it 'Mumbai Indians',and not Balasaheb. Otherwise it would have been Mumbai (only for) Marathas!

Disclaimer: Any resemblance to existing states of India or real life characters is purely coincidental and meant for a lighter read :)

What do you Think ?

The great species of the thinkers of the ancient and the medieval ages can be found only in history books. Times have changed and so is the perspective of what we think. From our own topics of interest to the weirdest of topics, we think every time we 'think'. Great thinkers don't just think; They spend time for thinking.

The supposed modern age has given us little time to think. So, in the given leisure hours of life, what do we think or, do we think at all? Many have questioned the fruitfulness of thinking because of the little gains we get out of that. There are times when we don't get any fame for our thoughts. Has the human species lost touch? Or has the breed of thinkers become extinct? Or has the new world considered thinking a waste of time?

Great thinkers like Aristotle and Plato were master strategists as well and had their influence over some of the greatest conquerors this planet has seen. They taught them how to think; how to fight mentally; how to wage a war. Thought itself, was a science. They did not create a warrior who can just fight. They created a mind which can master its own and a million others. That's why they ruled. Wonder how they got into the history books? Read the above line again!

Yes, there are modern thinkers who author many books on ways of improvement of the self and strategies to tackle life. But the real philosophy is often forgotten. Today, a man gets a Ph.D for his extensive research on a subject but is he really a Doctor of 'Philosophy'. He just finished adding icing upon the intellectual knowledge he already had. Today's thinkers will be known only to those who are researching philosophy and human psychology, because they study books authored by these thinkers to finish their exams and pass out.

We never found out what it takes to be a thinker whose name can live the ages like those B.C thinkers. Remembering them for around thousand odd years is no joke. Whether we can have a repeat of history purely depends on the way we look at thinkers of today. They don't just look at the ceiling fan for hours, they think much beyond that.