Boycott v. IPL

If the earthly globe revolved, men with opposable thumbs built satellites to circumnavigate it. Because the Sun raises its halcyon façade above the eastern horizon every morning, fitness freaks know when to put on their jogging shoes. As frothy rivulets cascade down the rocky walls of the Niagara Falls, a screaming white-water rafter plunges down it in mirthful hysteria. As Gravity pulls with ease on the proverbial apple, Chris Gayle mocks at Its attractive force as he scythes low screamers that refuse to come down to terra firma till they have crossed the boundary ropes.

In all this, you can see Nature was meant to be plied by human intelligence.

It takes all sorts to make Nature. Nature revels in its diversity and vastness. To make peace with this otherwise intimidating vastness – Nature keeps telling those who will listen – what you need is a little perspective.

Perspective, incidentally, is also something the embattled debaters trying to establish the superiority of Test cricket over T20 cricket, and vice versa, could do with a pinch of.

A lot of people seem to think that Test Cricket and Twenty20 cricket are antipodal and mutually antagonistic. Some feel that a point scored by the Testies (pardon the delinquent abbreviation) is a point lost by the T20ians (yep, it is meant to make them sound like otherworldly aliens; what else would you call Chris Gayle at the moment?). Others feel Test Cricket is too boring not to be an anachronism, and would not mind were it to be done away with. Both sides have fought long and hard. If only, however, they could see that they are both but brothers from one-and-the-same mother.

The primary error afflicting this petty spat is that of equating Twenty20 with the IPL, and Test Cricket with someone like Geoffrey Boycott. Both these examples represent extremes; while the IPL is the brashest instance of a ‘gentleman’s game’ selling itself out for the fast buck, Mr. Boycott’s past cricketing exploits were such as to put the sturdiest tortoise to shame. Neither of these poles is representative of what is good and healthy in each format.

The sad part about how proponents of Test Cricket choose to defend their case is that they make it out to be all about glory, timelessness, nostalgia – all of which, although true, can sound a little sanctimonious and heavy, at the Testies’ own risk. The diligent tribe of the Testies loves to peel its own banana, skin its own groundnut, and finds joy in toiling for its discerned entertainment. But the rowdy T20ians demand, and find, in front of them a peeled banana, packaged macadamia nuts, and a platter offering rarefied entertainment; no wonder Test Cricket has such a hard time selling itself (no one likes to scrub a cow, holy though it may be!)

Everyone knows that no good ever came from extremism, but Testies will harp on about how the tedium which Boycott put the world through was in fact the essence of Cricket, where a Man wears his tenacity on his sleeve, his character dripping freely out of his nose. And, says the Testie, if you are bored by this glorious spectacle, you are a cricket-philistine and are to be pitied. Think the free-thinking T20ian will be inclined to take this kind of condescension on the chin and walk away? Nah, he will probably launch his own T20 league in retaliation.

Faced with T20’s colourful jerseys and glistening paraphernalia, all Test Cricket can flaunt is a plain, ragged white and, at best, maybe the gleaming pates of Hashim Amla and Jonathan Trott when they doff their helmet after ticking off another milestone. In times of desperation, Testies will point to the rare titillating episodes Test Cricket has managed to produce on occasion, namely, the recent genocide of the Sri Lankan batting in the Cardiff Test; even as they ignore the fact that this match tickled people only because the last session moved at a pace T20 matches pride themselves on, Lankan wickets falling at the rate of knots).

The T20ians, however, are not any less culpable of perspectivelessness. They will absolutely pounce at the slightest chance to point out that the desolate stands during Test matches point to sparseness of interest in the format. If they could have seen the sprawling emptiness in the stands for some of the Kings XI Punjab matches, they’d realise that packed stadiums are not a function of how much money has been pumped into the enterprise, nor of how much colour is splashed on the players’ jerseys, but rather of the levels of saturation fans’ interest can sustain. There is only so much energy a man can expend on cheering on a team, and only so much cash a rational consumer’s indifference curve will allow him to spend on tickets for a cricket match. The reason matches these days get skimpy spectatorship is probably that cricket-lovers have come to realise the joys of HDTV and Bumble Lloyd’s commentary.

The T20ians are in a position of power at present. They know that at some point, the rational Testie will have to face the fact that his beloved game is only as good as the masses deem it to be. If a cracking cover drive is essayed at Lord’s, and no spectator, bohemian or monocled, is there to applaud it to the boundary, was the cover drive ever essayed? The Testie would be inclined to say, ‘Well, yes, it was; if your eyes have missed out on the aesthetic sculpture that is Ian Bell’s post-cover-drive pose, it is really your loss.” But the T20ian would retaliate, justifiably, with: “If I want to drool over raw beauty, I need not sit through eons. I could just gaze at Preity Zinta oohing and aahing and why-isn’t-he-sixering-like-usual-ing with her dupatta all askew over her cutely dishevelled hair every ten seconds. No offence, Testie, but you need to walk out of that time-machine and come smell the chrome-plated daisies.”

Cricket is ultimately a man-made game (although classicists will insist the hand of divinity) in which Nature conspires - using elements such as aerodynamics, gravity, soil science - with man to produce fodder for the sporting soul. In the end, I guess, each person needs to come to terms with what they want out of the game, and humbly enjoy it for theirself. If you want cricket to be another ersatz of tinsel-townery with bat and ball, go right ahead. If someone watches Test Match cricket because it affiliates them with the purest form of the ancient sport, it’s no one’s fancy but their own. If you watch it because it gives you that same tingly feeling you get in the solar plexus when a juicy morsel of mother-made lasagne flirts with your tongue, you’re probably on to good thing. Let’s bury the hatchet in the battle-strewn wicket, extend an olive branch to the opposition, and be thankful that some shirking shepherd in the English highland got bored and invented the Ball and the Bat!

YUSUF PATHAN: the demolisher

Minimally distracted by mental demons, a man who swings his own brand of willow, Yusuf Khan Pathan is one of the smoothest strokers of a sixer one would ever wish to never bowl to. His bat swing is one of languid violence – if he were not a cricketer, he would have been a shoo-in for the job of fanning an executioner. He has deceptive might and would give brute forcers a key lesson in making healthy contact with the ball. Arguably a better all-rounder than his younger sibling, Irfan, Yusuf can not only hit a longer ball, but on current form, is a more reliable bowling option as well. With his flat drifters, he does not turn the ball a mile, but manages to squeeze the odd delivery through amid a series of dot balls.

Yusuf Pathan began his demolition derby in 1999-2000 when he played for the Baroda Under-16 team in the Vijay Merchant Trophy. A decent bits-and-pieces player from the outset, he walked into the Under-19 sides of Baroda and later, West Zone. Although he made his First-class debut in 2001-02, he began to truly shine during the 2004-05 Ranji Trophy season where he turned out among West Zone’s highest run-scorers and wicket-takers.

Having impressed selectors with his performances in 2007 Inter-state T20 competition, he was included in the Indian squad for the T20 World Cup in South Africa. His International debut did not afford him any immediate extravagant glory. Filling in for the injured Virender Sehwag, he played as an opener in the final against Pakistan at Johannesburg. He heralded his arrival with a lofted skier that cleared the ropes straight down the ground. In terms of tangible contribution, his 15 runs of 8 balls, a solitary over that went for five runs, and one catch did not make for ostentatious news. But in the context of the T20 Final, his start provided India the impetus and his tidy over put the brakes on a rampaging Pakistani run-rate.

His stunning antics for Rajasthan Royals in the 2008 Indian Premier League’s inaugural season made it prudish for the selectors to ignore him any longer and he was drafted into the One Day International side for the Kitply Cup. His first ODI, against Pakistan, was of poor showing, as he struggled to time the ball all through a strained innings. Although played in every game of that series and the next, his performances were lukewarm, and he was dropped from the side. But a Yusuf Pathan relegated to the domestic circuit is a shark in a fish pond, and he soon resumed duty in the Indian side for the England home ODI series a few months later. Here he would start to find himself, carving a niche as a belligerent match-winner, scoring a whirlwind fifty at Indore on his 26th birthday.

In a short span, he became ensconced in the Indian ODI line-up for a while, losing his all-rounder spot only in late 2009 to Ravindra Jadeja. Viewed as a flexible all-rounder who can bat anywhere in the order as per the team’s need to accelerate the run rate, Pathan remains an integral part of MS Dhoni’s T20 team. His bowling too fits in well as he bowls his quota of flat off-breaks at a fair clip, conceding few as the batting side are left to wonder where his overs went. However, he is still viewed as a bit too mercurial, and this has kept him on the sidelines of the ODI team and out of the Test side till now.

In the Deodhar Trophy final, he almost got North Zone over the line blasting an impeccable 39-ball 80. This was the latest in the sequence of high-calibre hitting he had displayed during the 2010 domestic season. Earlier in the season, playing the Duleep Trophy final against South Zone, he followed a first innings century (108) with an unbeaten double ton (210 off 190 balls) in the second innings to lead West Zone to a record-setting highest successful run chase in the history of first class cricket.

Incredible when he enters his zone, he has frequently proven a match-winner for the Rajasthan Royals. At times, he has single-handedly demolished the opposition’s chances with his uncanny hitting. The Royals have faced situations where he has been the only batsman a force to reckon with in the line-up. In IPL 3, he has landed the covetable brand of Most Valued Player, according to the newspaper Rediff. For the price he was bought (USD 475,000), his returns have been disproportionately advantageous. The 37 ball century he wove against the Mumbai Indians became the first century of tournament, and included a record 11 consecutive hits to the boundary, five of which cleared it on the full.

A batsman who seems to be on a campaign to have the authorities see the futility of boundary ropes, Yusuf Pathan appears to play his cricket in zero gravity. Boundary ropes are redundancies for him, and in the manner of Arjuna’s eye, the only target worth his attention seems the top of the stadium roof. He seldom miscues a shot he has decided to loft on the full. His mind does not allow him to ever settle for a grounded shot if the ball is in the zone. His principle seems to be that a ball lofted is a sixer, while a ball played along the ground can only ever be a four at best.