Maria Sharapova finding her way back to the top is special

Nike, one of Maria Sharapova’s main sponsors, just brought out a new advert to celebrate their girl’s return to grand slam glory and the #1 ranking. It reads “Those Who Belong at the Top Never Forget Their Way Back”. Nike have got the story the precisely the wrong way around. Maria’s return to the top after years in the wilderness is so thrilling, so heartening, because so many who belong at the top lose their footing momentarily, and then never find their way back. The complete narrative arc - of young glory, years in the wilderness, and a triumphant return – is rare. Returning to the top is even harder than staying at the top. The natural course is for young glory to melt away into a career of middling mediocrity, or worse.

Perhaps I’m conditioned to expect gifted youngsters to go slip-slidin’ away into nothing because of the scars I carry as a long-suffering supporter of the Indian cricket team.

Laxman Sivaramakrishnan

To me, one of the greatest moments in cricket history happened in the Benson and Hedges Cup finals at the MCG in 1985, when Javed Miandad was stumped by Sadanand Vishwanath off Laxman Sivaramakrishnan, to top off a glorious Australian campaign for both young men. India beat Pakistan, Sunil Gavaskar held aloft the trophy, the team lapped the MCG in Ravi Shastri’s Audi...all of creation was shouting out that the Sadanand and Siva belonged at the top. Yet, after that golden start, both Sadanand and LS tragically lost their way, like Maninder Singh, Raman Lamba, Surinder Amarnath, Vinod Kambli, Salil Ankola, Abey Kuruvilla, Vivek Razdan, Sadagoppan Ramesh, Praveen Amre and Narendra Hirwani, potentially like Yuvraj Singh, Irfan Pathan, Ishant Sharma and Sreesanth. I’m painfully used to seeing talented youngsters, who had glorious starts to their careers, burn out or fade away.

Tracy Austin

Tennis too has had its share of shining young stars who don’t go on to achieve very much. Tracy Austin once looked like Chris Evert’s heir. Chris Evert won eighteen slams, Tracy won her second and last grand slam when she was nineteen. Andrea Jeager, another of Chris Evert's heirs, didn’t manage even one. Gabriela Sabatini won just one slam, disappointing for someone long considered Steffi Graf's peer. Dinara Safina and Jelena Jankovic rose to world #1 and fell back into the pack without winning a single slam, Ana Ivanovic managed one. Anastasia Myskina pipped Maria Sharapova to become the first Russian to win a slam when she won the French Open in 2004, a month before Maria beat Serena Williams to win Wimbledon. Anastasia Myskina hasn’t won a slam since, and hasn’t played professional tennis since 2007.

There are exceptions, of course. Zaheer Khan returned from the wilderness to spearhead India to the #1 test ranking and the World Cup. Jennifer Capriati showed real character in winning three slams after kicking her well-reported drug problems. Kim Clisters is justly one of tennis’ favourite players, for coming back from retirement, and motherhood, to win back-to-back US Opens. Regardless, the pattern of young stars quickly fading away is strong and persistent.

So, when Maria Sharapova won back to-back slams in 2008, had shoulder surgery, and vanished from view, I assumed she was following that established pattern. This was an especially easy assumption to make about Maria, since she had every opportunity to follow in the footsteps of her compatriot Anna Kournikova, and settle for the plush life of an A-list celebrity, earning many millions endorsing designer handbags and wrist watches. I darkly suspect Caroline Wozniacki is making peace with that kind of mediocrity: she just launched a range of designer undergarments, branded the Caroline Wozniacki Collection.

Fortunately for tennis, Maria didn’t settle for mediocrity. She looked within, and said yeh dil maange more. Fortunately for tennis, Maria Sharapova found the spunk, the guts, the gumption and the game to deliver on her fierce desire. Ave Maria!

Why I’m glad Saurav Ganguly has come out of retirement

Ganguly, when he was the God of the off-side

“I don’t plan to retire. I will play for India as long as I am selected. If I’m dropped from the Indian team, I’ll play for Bombay. If I’m dropped from the Bombay team, I’ll play for Dadar Union. If I’m dropped from the Dadar Union team I’ll play galli cricket near my house. I’ll play for as long as I can. I’ll never retire.”

This was Sunil Gavaskar’s reply to a journalist who once asked him when he planned to retire. This may have been in a cricket magazine called Sportsweek I used to subscribe to as a child. This was long before the internet, I wasn’t able to Google up the reference. This was also from a time before sportmen had handlers, or image consultants, telling them what to tell journalists to maximize their brand endorsement income. These words probably were a good reflection of what Sunil Gavaskar thought at the time.

Gavaskar drives through the covers

Those words stayed in my mind for so long because that comment, that attitude, epitomizes why Sunil Gavaskar was my first ever hero. By believing that the game was worth playing no matter how humble the setting, Gavaskar was sticking up for every amatuer cricketer, everywhere. Gavaskar was raising a fist for every kid who has stepped up to the crease in a schoolyard, risking humiliation in front of an army of snarky fourteen year olds, for the pleasure of feeling the thonck of bat on ball. The greatest batsman in the world was effectively punching gloves with every Mumbaikar who has ever burnt up a weekend playing Kanga league cricket in the monsoon rain on Shivaji Park maidan, or every Yorkshireman who has braved the bitter cold and howling winds of an English May to play for his village.

There have, of course, been many avatars of Sunil Gavaskar, avatars who don’t always see eye to eye. The sulky blocker who made 36 not out off 174 balls against England in the 1975 World Cup probably wouldn’t shake hands with the furious belligerent of 1983 who scored 100 off 94 balls, in a test match, facing Malcolm Marshall and Michael Holding, to equal Sir Donald Bradman’s record of 29 test centuries.

Ultimately, the avatar who refused to retire didn’t win the battle for Gavaskar’s soul. Gavaskar did retire on a high. He stepped down as the Indian captain after winning the 1985 World Championships in Australia, with Ravi Shastri driving the team around the MCG in his Audi. He retired from playing active cricket in 1987, after scoring a century at Lord’s in a five day game to celebrate the MCC’s bicentenary. Gavaskar doesn’t live in Dadar any more, I don’t think he plays galli cricket nowadays outside his swank apartment on the Worli sea face.

Ganguly b Malinga 16

The Indian player who inherited the best of Gavaskar's spirit is Saurav Ganguly. More than any other player since Sunny, Ganguly is the one who is obviously animated by a fierce pride and an entirely irrational passion for the game.

Saurav's stubbornness, his irrationality, that refusal to just accept reality, is what made it possible for him to take charge of the Indian team after the horrors of Azharuddin, and turn it into a team we were proud to support. That same stubbornness, the same refusal to accept reality was on display yesterday. Saurav's IPL team, the Pune Warriors,were up against the Mumbai Indians. Saurav was awful. He made a laboured 16 off 24 balls before Lasith Malinga cleaned him up. What made it even harder to watch was that he clearly was trying hard, and his crawl probably cost his team the game.

Yet, despite that predictable awfulness, I loved him for having the burning desire to come and play. Saurav will play for as long as they let him. He doesn't need to. His image consultants will tell him not to. He doesn't need the glory or the money. He could settle for a safe job, as a coach, or commentator, or "mentor". But for India's captain Saurav the lion heart, yeh dil maange more.

Whether Pune Warriors did the smart thing by inviting Saurav to come out of retirement and captain their team is an entirely different question. That is a topic for another day.

Showing up: the ingredient that makes the game worth playing, and watching

“80% of success is just showing up” - Woody Allen.

Rafael Nadal steam-rolled Novak Djokovic 6-3 6-1 in the Monte Carlo Masters finals last weekend. Previously, Nadal had lost 7 tournament finals in row to Djokovic, including in some epic matches like the Aussie Open finals. Nadal didn’t play to a new game plan to win so easily in Monte Carlo. Apparently Djokovic was missing some emotional energy, his grandfather died the previous week, and that made all the difference. “I definitely don’t want to take anything away from Rafa’s win” said Djokovic, in his post-match interview. “He was a better player. But it’s a fact that I just didn’t have any emotional energy left in me.” Novak not showing up was totally understandable, my condolences to the Djokovic family.

Yet, despite his personal loss, Djokovic did make the finals of a Masters 1000 event. He beat world #7 Tomasz Berdych, #19 Alexander Dolgopolov and #55 Robin Haase to get there. He was good enough to win these matches without emotional energy, without showing up. But Nole he couldn’t beat Rafa without showing up.

I didn’t watch the game last weekend. I don’t regret missing it.

Tennis, or generally any sport, is not about skill, it is about spirit. It is worth watching when the players on court have showed up, when they have their mojo going, are engaged, fully checked-in, stretched, and are playing like it really matters. When players are clinically dismembering weaker opposition, or when they are passively resigned to their fate, no sport is worth watching, regardless of how skilled the players are. It’s why, during the first week at Wimbledon, qualifiers and lowly non-seeds battling it out on the side courts makes for far more compelling tennis than the stars going through the motions on Centre Court. That spirit, that mojo, is exactly what Nole seems to have been missing.

Surprisingly, the IPL is turning out to be quite watchable because the players are showing up, because the guys on the field are fully present in the contest. This season, I’ve watched stars like Lasith Malinga and Dale Steyn, journeyman pros like Owais Shah and James Franklin, golden oldies like Saurav Ganguly and rookies like Ajinkya Rahane, all show up and give it everything they’ve got. That commitment is what makes the game worth playing, and watching. Format doesn’t really matter as long as the players show up. Sure, the drama on offer in the IPL isn’t ever going to develop into something unforgettable, like, say, the 2005 Ashes. But it isn’t insipid either, like India in England circa 2011.

The IPL is more than a novelty now. It’s a regular part of the cricket scene. And it seems to be working - despite the kitsch, the lurid costumes, the cheerleaders, the “DLF maximums” and the “Citi moments of success” – because the players really are showing up.

Why Liz Hurley is turning Shane Warne into a metrosexual pretty-boy

I’ve been wrong about Liz Hurley’s love life previously. I predicted that Liz and her Indian husband Arun Nayar would make a good couple, which didn’t quite work out. Liz and Warnie are now an item, tweeting away lovingly to each other.

But is this person with Liz Hurley really Shane Warne?

The ultimate ornery, brawling Aussie has become a metrosexual pretty-boy. Why? I think it is for the same reason that I initially expected Liz Hurley and Arun Nayar to work.

My theory, or more precisely, my understanding of Jungian psychology, is that any couple needs a balance of yin and yang. Liz is one tough honey: determined, hard-working, ambitious, rich, successful and totally in charge. She is a woman with a lot of yang. She needs a man with plenty of yin for the two of them to work as a couple.

Initially I reasoned that the modest and unassuming Mr Nayar would work for Liz because he would provide that yin-yang balance. He would be happy to play the beta-male to Liz’s alpha-female. The way Liz put it in an interview, “Arun is astonishingly good-natured and would be the last man on earth to feel overshadowed by me. He’s thoroughly comfortable in his own skin”. With 20:20 hindsight, perhaps Mr Nayar was not all that comfortable being overshadowed by Liz, dissolving his identity to become Mr Liz Hurley. And actually, I have no reason to believe that Mr Nayar is full of yin-energy. Having a featureless personality and having yin-energy are totally different things.

If one were looking for a man with some yin-energy to balance Liz's yang, the old Shane Warne, the beer-bellied scrapper that cricket fans have known for decades, would have been central casting's last choice. Liz getting back together with her long term boyfriend, the posh, floppy-haired, finely chiselled Hugh Grant, would have felt more natural. Given that landscape, for Liz to step away from an obvious choice, to take on the raw material she found in Shane Warne, and to turn that beast into a pretty-boy with enough yin to keep the couple in balance, that has been an act of astonishing inventiveness and chutzpah that that old leg-spinning wizard Shane Warne himself would have been proud of. And heck, it just might work out for them.

I hope some film makers are following the Liz and Warnie love story. It has terrific potential as a modern, feminist interpretation of William Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew.

How to Play a Limca Cut

Perceptive readers have noticed that this blog's name has changed from Moon Balls from Planet Earth to Limca Cuts from Planet Earth, and have asked me what Limca Cuts are. Like a Moon Ball, which is a spinner's slower ball, a Limca Cut is an obscure cricket term. Unlike a Moon Ball, a Limca Cut comes from the street cricket played in Mylapore, Madras, back in the 1980s.

Here is a step by step guide to playing a Limca Cut:

1. Stride. Get fully forward, right to the pitch of a ball on an off-stump line, and fuller than a good length

2. Stroke. Bring your bat down towards the ball in a smooth, vigourous vertical arc, with your left elbow held high, and with the face of the bat towards extra cover

3. Bamboozle. Mystify your opponents by striking the ball with the inside edge of the bat

4. Bisect. Direct the ball past the leg stump, along the Limca angle, bisecting the wicket-keeper and the fielder at fine leg

5. Acknowledge. Raise your bat and pump fists in the air, as the ball races past the diving fielder at fine leg to cross the boundary line and bring up the winning runs. Celebrate with Lime and Lemoni Limca as the crowd goes wild.

The banter after this shot typically goes:

Bowler: What kind of a shot is that?
Batsman: A stylish cut shot.
Bowler: A cut goes that way, man.
Batsman: No no. This is a special cut, a Limca Cut.

This shot is also referred to as a french cut in some other parts of the world, but hey, we are like that wonley. Mind it!

From Wankhede to Trent Bridge. How? Why? What Next?

How could India lose like that? India are the world number 1, the world champions. And yet, we lost to England. Twice, By big margins. How could the team which won the World Cup just three months ago, playing with so much spunk and conviction, suddenly turn so spineless?

This question feels especially important because I was in the stands at Trent Bridge for three days. I took in the spectacle, the packed stands, the ever-changing conditions, the many pints of lager. I enjoyed the camaraderie, the corporate hospitality and the banter with knowledgeable English fans. I cheered a Rahul Dravid century. Yet, despite all that, I came away from the game feeling miserable, physically beaten up. How could India lose so abjectly? After being so far ahead of England?

The most common explanation flying around is that India play too much cricket, are therefore under-prepared for English conditions, and are carrying too many injuries. This is true. A less greedy cricket board would have scrapped that West Indies tour to give the team a chance to get acclimatized. I'm just not able to see that as an explanation. India have always played too much cricket. India have always been underprepared.

Looking back, India have never been a dominant world #1, obviously better than the rest of the pack. India, Australia, England and South Africa have been pretty evenly matched, player for player, ever since Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne retired. What made this Indian team special was that, despite their brutal workload, despite their limited bowling, they would reach deep within and conjure up exceptional performances when it mattered. This team's great moments have all been about fighting back from adversity... Eden Gardens 01, Headingly 02, Lord's 02, Multan 03, Adelaide 03, Bombay 04, Johannesburg 06, Jamaica 06, Trent Bridge 07, Kanpur 08, Madras 08, Perth 08, Napier 09, Durban 10...our success tasted that much sweeter because it never came easily. India's ascent over the past decade was the result of not just skill, but also exceptional spirit.

Yet, the World Cup, the ultimate prize, remained elusive. In 2003, India played like champions, until the heartbreak in the finals. In 2007, another heartbreak. In 2011, Indian team believed they were destined to win. Belief - vivid internal images which are (literally) the stuff of dreams - is a much stronger force than the will. That belief, that sense of destiny, lifted India during the 2011 World Cup whenever they needed to raise their game.

Now, India have won the World Cup. The dream has come true. This team's destiny has been fulfilled, their most soaring ambition has been realized. The movie is over, the credits have rolled. Now, they are emotionally flat-lining. They no longer have the emotional energy to lift their game, the way they have done over the past decade.

Ironically, the other team I've watched emotionally flat-lining after reaching a cherished goal is England. An entire generation of English players grew up dreaming about winning the Ashes. Nasser Hussain, Duncan Fletcher and Michael Vaughan gradually turned England into a tough team with a winning habit. In 2005, England played out of their skins to beat an exceptional Australian team and win the greatest Ashes ever.

Having scaled this summit, England wandered into years of mindless, meandering, mediocrity... meltdown in Pakistan, a 5-0 whitewash in Australia, Freddy Flintoff's adventures with a pedalo, losing in New Zealand, Pietersen's spat with Peter Moores. England finally recovered their sense of purpose only after Freddy Flintoff retired, after Andrew Strauss and Andy Flower were firmly established as the captain and coach, after they had a clear and motivating goal to focus their minds - beating Australia in Australia.

I don't think the return of Sehwag and Zaheer is going to fix the Indian team. The team, collectively, needs a renewed sense of purpose. The tough cricket in England this summer might help shape this purpose. In the meanwhile, we India fans may need to spend a season or two remembering everything our team has achieved over the past decade while this new purpose takes hold.

Test Cricket's Invisible TRPs

I woke up this morning, poured myself a cup of coffee, and reflected on the possibilities. India are playing a test match in Bridgetown, Barbados. Has India's batting crumbled again? Did Fidel Edwards bounce out Virat Kohli? Did my home town openers, Mukund and Vijay, do well? Are we scoring runs quickly enough to declare and force a win? Did it rain?

I had experienced hope, dread, and technical curiosity even before I checked the score on Cricinfo, when I was flooded with relief. My mind then went on to consider further possibilities. A thrilling Dhoni blitz before a lunchtime declaration? An Indian batting collapse followed by an attritional run chase? A bathetic century nurdled out en route to a tame draw? More rain?

This is the beauty of test cricket. I haven't been watching this test match on TV. But it is on my mind. The game has been playing on my imagination. Test cricket is spacious enough, rich enough in its range of narrative possibilities, to capture the imagination. No other cricket format, perhaps no other sport, has that ability.

People who look at Television Rating Points to measure the appeal of test cricket are missing something big. Enjoying the game and watching it on TV are not the same thing.

Chennai Super Kings' Feminist Karma

Chennai Super Kings, my home town cricket team, just won IPL 4 in style. They have clearly been the best team on show since the inception of the IPL, with two trophies, one runner up spot, and one semi-final finish.

Many reasons have been ascribed to this performance, from MS Dhoni's captaincy, to the stability of the squad, to Stephen Fleming's coaching. I really like the tactical intelligence of CSK's game plans - Ashwin opening the bowling, Hussey and Vijay playing traditional cricket shots rather than low percentage slogs and Dil-scoops, Badrinath's clear role as the crisis man, Dougie Bollinger's yorkers at the death, shuffling the batting order to maintain left-right pairs - good, smart cricket.

But, as the many erudite Mylapore Mamis in CSK's fan base will be happy to explain, success does not derive only from one's tactics, from the flow of one's deeds on the field of action, from one's karyas on the dharmakshetra. Success also derives from karma, from the stock of goodness accumulated through many small acts of kindness and decency. These acts happened long before the men in yellow stepped onto the dharmakshetra of Chepauk.

One of these karmic factors working for CSK, which mainstream cricket commentators seem to have completely missed, is their co-ed cheering squad. CSK were the only IPL team with both men and women in their cheering squad. They were led by a shaven-headed fifty one year old drummer called Sivamani.

I certainly don't mean to pass judgment on the all-girl cheerleading squads, or on their admirers, as "bad". But CSK's co-ed approach just feels better, more comfortable, more natural. There is no obvious reason why leading a cheer for a sports team should be sexually charged. Cricket has long had a tradition of colourful, noisy and committed fans: Sri Lanka's Percy Abeysekara, India's Sudhir Gautam, West Indies' Trini Posse, England's Barmy Army. This cheering was never sexy (though the Barmy Army's chat with an Aussie fielder at the boundary line could involve pointed references to his sexuality). Sex and cricket always were fulfilling, but distinct, aspects of life.

When cheerleading was invented in America, at Princeton University in 1884, it was an all-male activity. Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Franklin Roosevelt were cheerleaders in their time. Somewhere along the way, cheering a sports team morphed into the stylized sexual displays put on in the USA today in football and basketball (but not in cricket's cousin baseball). The IPL imported this into cricket in the name of "marketing".

Perhaps the greatest failure of NFL style cheerleading at the IPL is not moral but material: it doesn't seem to work in marketing terms. Several teams with great looking all-girl cheering squads are failing to fill their stadiums, or to animate their crowds. Ultimately, people who want to watch dancing girls can watch them elsewhere, without the annoying bat-ball distractions. The men and women who pitch up at cricket matches are there to enjoy the cricket. Sivamani and his co-ed troop successfully orchestrated the cheering of these real fans. CSK's fans were easily the most passionate and vocal in the IPL, effectively adding another player to CSK, making them almost invincible at home. Long may the force remain with CSK, and with Sivamani.

Pippa Middleton's Cricketing Boyfriend

Know who Pippa is dating, dahling? She's with England's finest doosra-man. Palace sources inform us that Pippa Middleton's boyfriend, and date at the Royal Wedding, is former England off spinner Alex Loudon.

Loudon is an old-Etonian friend of Prince William who captained England under 19s. He turned pro and played county cricket for Kent and Warwickshire with some success, when he morphed from a batsman into an off-spinner with a cunning doosra. He was picked for England and toured Pakistan in 2005, but didn't get a game. He played his only ODI in 2006 against Sri Lanka, and was run-out without facing a ball, as a part of a crushing 0-5 series loss to Mahela's Marauders.

He retired in 2007, the ripe old age of 27, to attend London Business School and subsequently pursue a career as a broker in the City. That may have been a very good call, given Swanny's success. It can't be easy to maintain an Old Etonian's lifestyle on a county pro's income.

Is there an event-marketing opportunity here? Prince William plays a bit of cricket too. Wills and A-Lo captaining...rival teams in whites...Kate and Pippa in the pavilion-tent...boaters and floaty dresses...Pimm's No. 1...Wills Navy Cut...Lady Di's favourite charity...no liveried servants, too colonial...Dave and Sam Cam...His Highness Jyotiraditya Scindia might grace the occasion... Live TV coverage might be embarrassing, an edited 10 minute news clip could do the job nicely. An antidote to the IPL. Sure, the IPL is more good than bad. But cricket needs more cultural-flavours than the IPL can provide.

Regardless, well played Alex Loudon. Bowled the doosra maiden over.

Sachin's Century, Zizou Zidane and Slumdog Millionaire

India won the World Cup. Wow!

How did we do it? (A) we cheated (B) we were lucky (C) we have a team of geniuses (D) it is written. And yes! Ladies and gentlemen, you are right. The correct answer is (D). We won the World Cup for the same reason that a chai wallah called Jamal Malik won Rs 2,00,00,000 in a quiz show. We won the World Cup because - it is written.

I didn't just make that up when I was celebrating our win. I have it on good authority that we won because it is written. The authority in question is India's coach Gary Kirsten. Here is what he had to say to Cricinfo:

As the tournament progressed in those knockout stages, I just felt a sense of destiny there. I felt we were going to do this thing. To the point that, the day before the final we knew were going to win. We actually even spoke into it. That we were going to win this thing. It's how we prepare to deal with the success, because we are going to win. Mike spoke about it: we are going to win this thing tomorrow. There was never any doubt at that stage.

I don't think Gary Kirsten is seeing ghosts here. He is talking about something real, a very tangible spirit that was present in this Indian team, that helped them raise their game when it mattered. This spirit is most apparent when it is absent, like when a team or player can't summon up the self-belief to win, and therefore crumbles or chokes, like Jana Novotna at Wimbledon 93 or South Africa in the cricket World Cup 99. But the converse is also true. The presence of this spirit, this deeply experienced sense of destiny, gives a team or player resiliency, an extra edge.

India didn't have this spirit in 83. After that win, Kapil Dev told the media that he had brought champagne into the dressing room before the final, because even if India lost, we'd done quite well to reach the finals, and that was something to celebrate. That quiet sense of destiny was a lot more apparent in Gavaskar's team in 85. Of course, a sense of destiny doesn't guarantee success. Saurav Ganguly's team had a potent sense of destiny in 04, pushing for an epoch-making win at the SCG. But it was not to be, as Steve Waugh denied fate in his final test match.

Destiny's intent for this World Cup was for Sachin Tendulkar to score his hundredth hundred in a World Cup final in Bombay, to lead India to victory. Over thirty thousand India fans at Wankhede had read this destiny in the stars, and in the palms of their hands, and were fervently willing it to happen. It didn't. Malinga punctured that dream.

The aspect of India's performance in the finals I was most impressed with was the calm, purposeful confidence with which we played even after that dream had been punctured. That tells me that the team's dream, the sense of destiny Kirsten talks about, was not about individual performances but about winning the World Cup. Because if the team had believed deeply that Sachin was destined to score his hundredth hundred that day, they would have been shattered by Sachin's dismissal. They would have been shattered like Zizou Zidane was when he head-butted the Italian Materazzi during a football World Cup final.

Here is former England batsman and Kent and Middlesex captain Ed Smith's take on Zidane's World Cup final:

"Scratch a brilliant sportsman deeply enough and you reach a layer of self-certainty in his own destiny. The greater the sportsman, usually the more convinced he is of his own predestined greatness. The big stage means it must be his stage, victory has been prearranged on his terms, it is his destiny to win the World Cup or the Olympics or the Ashes. It might be perfectly rational for a great player to believe he has a good chance of decisively influencing the big occasion. But that isn't what he thinks. He thinks it is inevitable. After all, well-balanced self-awareness and genius seem so rarely to co-exist.

If you could bottle that self-certainty you would have the most potent winning drug. That is why champion teams so often have a talismanic force at their centre - someone who believes the match, the day and the championship have been set up in accordance with his own destiny. His self-belief radiates to the rest of the team. Zidane had exactly that quality. When France really needed something special, he believed he would do it. That belief can be so strong that not only your own team but even the opposition can fall under its spell.

In extra time of the World Cup final, with Thierry Henri off substituted, France again looked to Zidane, almost exclusively to Zidane. We can be sure that Zidane, despite being unusually exhausted and having played longer than he would in normal circumstances, shared that view...the script had gone according to plan. Zidane had taken France to the final... one last moment of pre-destined brilliance was all he required.

And he almost did it. In the 104th minute, summoning up one last effort, Zidane made a decisive run into the penalty box, a cross was delivered just in time, and Zidane's soaring header sailed inevitably towards the top of the goal...Just as it was meant to be.

Having complied with Zidane's will so far, the gods finally made a mistake. The Italian goalkeeper Buffon made an inspired save in response to an inspired header. What followed was the most revealing and desperate image of the World Cup. Aimed at no one in particular, not at the keeper, not at himself, perhaps at the heavens, Zidane's face contorted into an agonized scream. This should not have happened, cannot have happened, must not be allowed to stand. Zidane's face resembled Edvard Munch's famous painting.

Having come this far with him, how could the gods now abandon him? But they finally went their own way, and left Zidane in solitary despair... Which would weigh more heavily on a champion's mood - a verbal insult to his family (the kind of insult that sportsmen hear all too often and nearly always manage to ignore) or being denied, in a state of physical and mental exhaustion, what he considered to be rightfully his: the winning goal, the perfect narrative, his destiny...

Zidane wasn't thinking logically when he headbutted Materazzi. He wasn't thinking at all. He was acting at a level, as he often did, which was beyond the bounds of normality."

It was written, yet it was not. Zidane was not grieving a game, or even a trophy. He was grieving an entire world. The world in which he had lived had broken apart, the fabric of fate had been shredded. Buffon's unbelievable save threw Zidane squarely within the twisted reach of crazy sorrow. Headbutting Materazzi was only a part, and not an especially important part, of Zidane's experience of crazy sorrow. In Ed Smith's words, "it's not a long journey from extreme self-belief to madness".

Fortunately, the Indian team believed in their destiny to win a World Cup, but they didn't really believe in Sachin's hundredth hundred in the World Cup final. Sure, that would have be nice, but that was icing on the cake. That lack of belief let them keep their heads when Sachin fell. That lack of belief allowed them to give Sachin a glorious World Cup winner's send-off. Zizou Zidane also deserved a send off like that. It was written, even if it didn't come to be.

Sachin Tendulkar Winning Ugly @ the World Cup Semis

Sachin's 85 in the semi-finals against Pakistan yesterday has to be one of his worst knocks ever. He had four, maybe six lives. He couldn't pick Saeed Ajmal, he couldn't time the ball, he was not batting like Sachin. Yet, he stuck it out, ground out more runs than any other batsman in either team, and took India through to the finals in Bombay.

Sachin was winning ugly, in Brad Gilbert's immortal phrase. Sachin's companion in winning ugly was his captain MS Dhoni, who must be right up there, along with Simon Katich, as the least elegant batsman in world cricket. I love them both for being willing to win ugly.

Sure, I love watching Sachin blaze away majestically, like he did against South Africa in Nagpur. But I love watching India winning ugly even more.

Brad Gilbert's point is that most top sportsmen win when they are on song. Real champions are the ones who learn to win even when they are not, who can carry a mis-firing serve or forehand, and still scrap through to a win. Winning ugly does not mean sledging or behaving badly. Neither SRT or MSD does Aussie-style sledging. They just do whatever it takes to raise the likelihood of winning. They don't care if it doesn't look pretty.

My admiration for winning ugly has something to do with the world I grew up with.

I grew up when India's heroes were players like Gundappa Vishwanath, Erapalli Prasanna and Bishen Singh Bedi, who wowed the cricketing world with their magical silken artistry, but didn't win matches. I grew up believing, at some pre-cognitive level, that being Indian meant being gifted, graceful, gracious, and losing. Noble and honourable, but still losing. Like Vijay Amritraj and Ramesh Krishnan in tennis. It fitted in perfectly with Nehruvian socialism, the Hindu rate of GDP growth, our non-aligned policy, and Bollywood heroes who never got their girls.

Fortunately, that loser-India is now gone. A whole generation has now come of age - after Kapil Dev lifted the Prudential Cup at Lord's in 1983, after Ravi Shastri drove his Audi around the MCG in 1985 - to whom it is perfectly natural to be Indian and to win.

MS Dhoni was almost two years old in June 1983. Yuvraj Singh is six months younger than Dhoni. They wouldn't get why India winning ugly matters to me. But to me, and to many Indians of my generation, and my father's generation, the most precious Indian wins are the ones which are won ugly. Because winning ugly is the opposite of losing gracefully.

Martin Crowe and The Lake Wobegon people-model

"So that is the news from Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking and all the children are above-average."

Every week, Garrison Keillor concludes Prairie Home Companion with these wise words. Similarly, every week, the titans of the corporate world conclude that that they will compete for the future by winning the war-for-talent. They all strive to hire above-average people, and instruct their human resources departments to design "people-models" that allows their company to hire talented employees, as talented as the children of Lake Wobegon.

However, for a practicing business executive, this war-for-talent is mostly irrelevant. Winning the war-for-talent takes too long to matter. I, and most of my peers, have windows of about three years to deliver on our objectives. Over that time frame, the talent we have to work with is usually a given.

Even at Talent Masters, companies supposedly flush with talent like Procter and Gamble or GE, it is rare to step into a role worth doing with a crack team already in place. Best case, one can parachute in a handful of exceptional individuals into key positions. From then on, business leadership is mostly about trying to get your team to punch above their weight, by giving them a sense of unity, direction and belief, and by tactically shaping the game to amplify strengths and cover weaknesses.

A cricket captain’s job is like that of a practicing business executive. As a captain, you can preach, or whinge, about how your cricket board should have invested in the grass-roots game years ago, bringing better players through to the professional level. True, but irrelevant. You’ve got a squad. Your job is to win with that squad, warts and all.

Looked at this way, a good captain is not necessarily one who wins big tournaments. A good captain is one who gets his team to punch above their weight, who wins games he had no right to win given the quality of his players. By this yardstick my all time favourite World Cup captain is not Clive Lloyd, not Steve Waugh, but Martin Crowe in the 1992 World Cup.

Martin Crowe led a bunch of bits and pieces mediocrities, plus one quality player in Crowe himself. Yet, they competed on even terms with clearly superior teams by turning the prevailing cricketing wisdom upside down. Mark Greatbatch opened the batting, slugging the ball over the infield. Dipak Patel opened the bowling with his off-breaks. In the process, Crowe’s Kiwis changed the way 50 over cricket is played, forever.

Crowe’s team, which included dibbly-dobbly merchants like Gavin Larsen, Chris Harris and Willie Watson, were looking good for a spot in the World Cup final until an inspired Inzamam-ul-Haq blitzed Pakistan to a come from behind semi-final victory. Which goes to show that planning, spunk and tactical smarts can’t match god-given talent. However, in a contest between evenly matched teams, smart tactics should make all the difference.

Another brilliant tactician was Shane Warne. I've watched enviously as he conjured up victories out of nothing for Hampshire and Rajasthan Royals. Clearly the greatest captain Australia never had.

MS Dhoni has one of the best minds in contemporary cricket and can be genuinely inventive. One of my favourite passages of play in recent history was the Nagpur test against Australia in 2008, when Ishant and Zaheer dried up the flow of runs by bowling yorkers a foot outside the off stump, frustrating Australia into a epoch-ending series defeat. Another memorable Dhoni innovation was placing a fielder directly behind the bowler to catch-out a rampaging Keiron Pollard in an IPL final. I haven't worked out how the same cricketing mind bowls Ashish Nehra, or Joginder Sharma, in the last over.

I would love to see captains using more tactical inventiveness in this World Cup. Perhaps the ICC should institute a Spirit of Martin Crowe innovation award, along the lines of the ICC Spirit of Cricket or the Kingfisher fair play awards. If the ICC is not up to the task, this blog could fill the breach.

The Trouble With Being Swanny

Swanny’s Ashes video diaries are coming thick and fast now. Episode 7 came out on Jan 2, a mere 4 days after the Christmas special episode on Dec 29.

Interesting, then, that Swanny did not bring out an Ashes video diary for a sixteen day period between Dec 13 and Dec 29. Swanny did not do an episode after the Perth test, when England got walloped. He went straight from celebrating the Adelaide win with videos of England fans doing the sprinkler dance, to celebrating the Melbourne win with the England team doing the sprinkler dance on the hallowed MCG turf, to the eternal delight of the Barmy Army.

Swanny knows that jokey banter is great on a winning team. Jokes sour very quickly in a team that rarely wins. That equation, between joking and winning, cost him ten years of his career.

Graeme Swann was first called up for England duty as a gifted twenty year old, in 1999, when England were officially the worst team in the test world. Nasser Hussain and Duncan Fletcher were tasked with giving that rabble, who had made a habit of losing, some grit and backbone. They had no time for a self-confessed “obnoxious loud-mouth”, who missed the team’s tour bus because he overslept. Swanny was dropped after bowling five overs in an ODI. Ashley Giles was their spinner of choice.

When Swanny finally made his test debut as a seasoned thirty year old, in Madras in Dec 08, England were a competitive team. Now, they had discipline, they had spunk. They needed inspiration and effervescence, which Swanny brought to the party. Critically, they won often enough to have self-belief. Their boats floated high enough in the water for Swanny’s juvenile jokes (about Alistair Cook’s resemblance to Woody from Toy Story, or Steve Finn’s bad haircut, or Tim Bresnan stealing all the chocolate bars) to raise a laugh rather than to grate. The same personality which made Swanny a non-option ten years ago now makes him the talismanic spirit of a winning team.

Is he a better bowler now than in 1999? Yes, of course. But I suspect he always was a better bowler than Ashley Giles, Shaun Udal, Jamie Dalrymple, Michael Yardy or even Monty Panesar, all of whom played for England. That feels unfair. But in my judgement, there are very few players who are so much better than the next best alternative that it is worth disrupting a team's spirit or ethos for that extra ability. Maybe I'd consider fitting in Brian Lara, KP or Shoaib Akthar...very rare.

Regardless, Swanny leading the England team in doing the sprinkler dance on the MCG has to be one of the great moments in cricket's history, precisely because it is so silly. It reminds us that cricket, like life itself, is just a game.

Rafael Nadal the Educator

The Rafael Nadal Foundation just opened a primary school in India, in Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh. I am especially delighted because Rafa’s name is now linked with education, because, to me, Rafa epitomizes what education ought to be about. Its not really about multiplying matrices or solving differential equations. It is about being educado.

This excellent New York Times article on Rafa describes what I mean:

The Nadal personality stories that circulate among tournament fans are all variations on a single theme: the young man is educado, as they say in Spanish, not so much educated in the formal sense (Nadal left conventional schooling after he turned pro at 15), but courteous, respectful, raised by a family with its priorities in order. Nadal may have the on-court demeanor of a hit man, as far as the party across the net is concerned, but you will never see this champion hurl his racket during a match...

“It’s about respect,” Toni (Nadal, Rafa’s uncle and coach) told me. “It’s really easy for these guys to start thinking the world revolves around them. I never could have tolerated it if Rafael had become a good player and a bad example of a human being.”

What I love about Rafa is that he is lit up not by divine inspiration, but by the fire in his belly. He is not a J Krishnamurthy-esque other-worldly idealist, contemplating the beauty of the morning sun lighting up a dewdrop on a blade of grass. He is not a Christ-like figure who will turn the other cheek. Rafa is not a saint, but a man; a very decent man.

Once upon a time, sport played a central role in education, because it helped produce people like Rafa. Sport makes it easy be educado, precisely because it is fierce, physical and competitive. Decency is not about sappy moralizing. When sport is about being educado, it is not just for elite athletes, it is for everybody. Playing with gumption, respecting the game, playing to win, never passively accepting defeat, its a part of being educado, at every level of play.

Once upon a time, Aussies exemplified these values. Don Bradman, Ken Rosewall, Richie Benaud, Rod Laver, Mark Taylor - all educado. Clive Lloyd's Windies were such great champions not just because they won, but because they were educado. Boys from PG Wodehouse's Wrykyn would know exactly what I am talking about, without needing explanations. Somewhere along the way, something important got lost. Punter Ponting and his punks were congratulated on their "ruthless professionalism" as long as they kept winning, but are despised by the cricketing world now that they have stopped winning. Tennis is exciting again not just because Rafa and Roger play so well, but because of the way they play, re-capturing a spirit which should never have been lost.

And so, will the good people of Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh, take to hitting a furry yellow ball around a geometrical grid? Will they imbibe the spirit of champions past and become educado? I couldn't blame them if they were more concerned about landing a job in an air-conditioned software office in Hyderabad. But, heck, hope springs eternal...maybe the good people of Anantapur will write better software because they are educado, like Rafa.

Sachin Tendulkar on Dvaita and Advaita

Sachin Tendulkar and Cheteshwar Pujara

Cheteshwar Pujara, looking back on his test debut, remembers that “ he (Sachin) told me that God has given you this chance to play; he will help you score runs, don’t worry.” 

Pujara’s words give devout Sachinists a rare insight into Sachin's religious thought. To Sachin, it is clearly self-evident that God exists, and that God is merciful and kind. Sachin also seems to be describing a God who is out-there rather than in-here, the Dvaita God rather than the Advaita God. He is not asking Pujara to search for the spark of the divine that dwells within, he is asking Pujara to trust in the Almighty, a power distinct and different from Pujara. 

Sachin’s advice worked. Pujara kept his cool and made a fourth inning 72 to steer India to a memorable series win against Australia. That is good evidence in support of Sachin’s theology. 

Spiritual faith can’t be evaluated for truth, because its truth or falsehood can never be empirically tested. Spiritual faith can only be judged, if it can be judged at all, by the yardstick of usefulness: does this faith result in better human behaviour or performance? Pujara’s experience suggests that trusting God, and therefore freeing up the mind and spirit to be present in the moment, does improve performance. 

Sachin believing instinctively in a God-out-there, in a higher power than man, feels natural. He is so gifted he could make an atheist believe in God. 

Radheya and his Guru Parashurama

Yet the Gods are capricious. They can be cruel even to the devout, even to their most favoured sons. The gifts the Gods give so liberally they can take away, especially when they are most needed.

This happened to Sachin at a pivot point in history. After he was player of the tournament in the 2003 World Cup, he was touring Australia with Saurav Ganguly’s team in 2004. India were going toe to toe, eyeball to eyeball, with Steve Waugh’s team, the greatest cricket team since Clive Lloyd’s Windies. India were playing with courage, conviction and skill, matching the Aussies’ every move. Dada, Rahul, Laxman and Viru had all scored career defining centuries. 

But where was our best player? Sachin was missing. 

It was as if Sachin was Radheya in the Mahabharata, the greatest archer in the great war at Kurukshetra, who lost his skills at the war’s most crucial moment. In the first three tests, Sachin had managed scores of 0, 0, 44, 1 and 37. Worse than the scores themselves was the way he was batting: scratching around, groping for the ball, hanging his bat out to dry. 

Now, even Sachin was a mere mortal. 

As the series reached its climax, Sachin responded to his mortality by reaching within, by discovering that he was man enough to make his own destiny.

For the final and decisive test match in Sydney, Steve Waugh’s last match, Sachin turned his game upside down. He did not put his trust in God. He did not trust his God-given instincts. He did not play at anything outside the off stump, an area which had been so productive for him over the years. He did not drive at half volleys secure in the knowledge that the Gods would guide the ball to the cover boundary instead of into second slip’s hands. 

Sachin playing the shot
he denied himself in Sydney

He completely cut out his favourite offside shots. He didn't score a single boundary between point and long-off. He made the Aussies bowl on to his pads, batted all day with VVS Laxman, remained unbeaten on 241, and took India to a position from where Australia could not win.

This was unquestionably Sachin’s greatest innings, and it was completely unlike anything Sachin had ever played before. It wasn’t about incandescent, outrageous talent blowing away the opposition. It was about character and craftsmanship, grit and determination, the gifts of the God-found-within as much as the God-above. 

Sachin did not turn his back on the Gods. He was not bitter that the Gods had abandoned him. He accepted God's  wrath as graciously as he accepted His munificence. But Sachin was no longer solely dependent on God's munificence; he was now twice-born, having given expression to the God-within as well as the God-above. 

On his test debut, Pujara discovered that the Gods can be kind, the Gods had given him a chance to play for India. He found out that the Gods can be cruel, like with the grubber from Mitchell Johnson that got him LBW in his first test innings. He discovered that faith in God can be useful, like the faith that kept him calm during his match-winning second innings. But the longer he plays, the more he will discover that he needs to find the God-within to join the ranks of India’s great players, like Saurav Ganguly, Zaheer Khan, Anil Kumble, Sunil Gavaskar, or that ultimate fighter, Mohinder Amarnath. Or like Sachin Himself.

Rudo y Cursi y Asif y Amir

Rudo y Cursi is a Mexican film about football, made by the same team as classics like Y tu mama tambien and Amores Perros. My wife and I watched it about a year ago, on an impulse, largely because it had Gael Garcia Bernal. We had the movie theater entirely to ourselves through a Monday 7:00 screening, which was a little odd initially, but that gave us complete freedom to laugh out loud at the many hilarious moments on this rollicking ride.

It came to mind because of the sordid story now unfolding about Pakistani cricket players and their "spot-fixing" (this doesn't give away any more of the movie's plot than the official trailer). How disgusting! Really, how could they? And it hurts just that little bit more because the Pakis look like us. Are we South Asians, and our game, cricket, somehow naturally corrupt?

Rationally, I know that is nonsense. Match fixing has been a problem in many cultures and many sports for generations, yet sport has continued to thrive. Cricket in the time of WG Grace, the baseball world series in 1919, football, tennis, snooker, boxing and sumo wrestling have all been under the cloud at various times.

But my heart still sees the fall of Asif and Amir, of Azharuddin, Ajay Jadeja and Hansie Cronje in vivid technicolour, a vividness that I am unable summon for Nikolai Davydenko, despite being a tennis fan. That is where Rudo y Cursi comes in. It is textured, lively, authentic, funny, good-looking retelling of a familiar tale of simple beginnings, meteoric ascent, the intoxication of the high life, temptation and a tragic fall from grace. The language, music, sport, landscapes, rituals and styles feel unfamiliar, the emotions feel authentic and are entirely familiar.

What to do? We are like that wonley. But we are not alone.

Hutton, the toff?

CMJ’s son Robin retired from first class cricket a couple of weeks ago. I looked looked him up on Cricinfo, and came across a delicious little nugget: Robin Martin Jenkins played in the same Radley College XI as Andrew Strauss and Ben Hutton.

The reigning England captain, a county all rounder who was once considered England material, and the captain of the county that calls Lord’s home – these guys all played together in a school team. Wow! What sort of school boasts such a fine cricketing tradition?



A very posh school, it turns out. Radley College is one of three remaining all-boys all-boarding public schools in England, along with Eton and Harrow. Its campus is five miles south of Oxford, sprawls across eight hundred acres, includes a cricket pavilion, a golf course and, since 2008, a real tennis court. It is only about 150 years old - Eton and Harrow are both more than 400 years old - but, regardless, an interactive web-tour of the Radley College campus confirms that it is as comfortably upper class as PG Wodehouse’s Wrykyn ever was.

Christopher Martin-Jenkins, the sonorous voice of the MCC establishment, sent his son to Radley College. That fits. Andrew Strauss’ nickname in the England dressing room is Lord Brock, after an old Etonian TV presenter famous for living the high life. That fits. But Ben Hutton? Does he fit?

The name Hutton is sacred in cricketing lore because of Ben’s grandfather Len Hutton, who, as recently as 1951, became the first professional to captain England. He was the son of a builder from a Yorkshire village called Pudsey. He went to a local council school, trained as a carpenter (perhaps, coincidentally, like Jesus Christ), set the world record for the highest test match score with 364 against Australia, and he captained England to successive Ashes victories.

Len Hutton was more than just a great player. Like Frank Worrell, the West Indies’ first black captain, Hutton’s achievements are drenched in special meaning because of who he is. Yet, this working class hero’s grandson went to one of England’s most exclusive public schools. Interesting.

Arnold Toynbee has a theory on why this is not just OK, but is profoundly good. Toynbee takes it as a given that every civilization is shaped by a ruling elite. This has been empirically true through history, including in supposedly communist or socialist societies. The vast majority in every civilization, the “internal proletariat” in Toynbee-speak, are outside the ruling elite. Toynbee believes that the relationship between this ruling elite and the internal proletariat is the most critical difference between a vital civilization and one that is breaking down.

In a vital civilization, the ruling elite have a natural legitimacy. The elite have a hold on the imagination and aspirations of the internal proletariat, who voluntarily seek to become more like the the ruling elite, a process Toynbee calls mimesis. Conversely, in a civilization which is breaking down “the internal proletariat, that majority in society which had formerly given its voluntary allegiance to a creative leadership, but which is now increasingly alienated from its own society by the coercive despotism of its corrupted masters... registers its secession from society by adopting a spiritual ethos which is alien in inspiration”. In this calculus, the Huttons are a part of a healthy civilization, one in which the best of the working class seek to become like the ruling elite.

Ben Hutton is not the first public-school-man in his family. His father Richard attended Repton, a school as exclusive as Radley College. Richard Hutton would have been eligible to enroll at Repton in 1955, when Len was the reigning England captain. It seems like Len, at the pinnacle of his career, respected the prevailing power structure even though he was not born into it, and chose to give his son a more privileged upbringing than he himself enjoyed.

England’s cricket captain sent his son to the best school that he possibly could. That fits well enough, regardless of whether the captain was a gentleman or a professional.