Eye. Pee.Yell: Reflections of IPL--2

Where Is My Raffle Coupon?



I should have bought a Dubai Duty Free raffle ticket yesterday. I would have been laughing all the way to my bank by now.

It is a special feeling to see your predictions come true.

If you have read my piece on the first day of IPL, you’d know what I am trying to boast. In the end of the story, I made two remarks. One, my gut feeling about Ambati Rayidu coming good before a larger, more superior crowd.

And two, Yousuf Pathan was raring to go.

Talent is like a lit candle. It cannot be hidden in a bushel. It is like a lamp on a hillock. Someday everyone gets to see it.

First time I heard of Rayidu was from a friend and correspondent for the magazine I was editing in Dubai. He told me one day that he got to watch a boy who could be the next big thing in Indian cricket.

Nothing hurts more than wasted talent. Once while interviewing Laxman Sivararamakrishnan, I caught a tint of regret in his eyes. He recovered in no time, but those nano seconds were enough for me to feel the pain of wasted talent.

So would be the case of Sadananth Vishwanath. I don’t know the reasons that led to this richly talented wicketkeeper’s decline into oblivion. But he is gone. Remember the way he stumped none other than Javed Miandad during the Benson and Hedges mini World Cup in Australia? Siva tossed one up; it hung in the air for ages, taunting and tempting the batsman. Miandad, a master against quality spin, just left the crease sure to meet the ball on the bounce. But like a skillful ballerina, the ball eluded the groping master. It was a matter of seconds. But all that a shocked Miandad could see was an elated Vishy as he had whipped off the bails in flash.
We see Siva behind the microphone. But, where is Vishy?

Of recent Indian cricket history, none hurts us as Vinod Kambli. He is an integral part of Sachin Tendulkar’s story. Talent was never a question for this man, who scored a string of centuries at the top level. But then, where is he now? We all mention him with a tinge of regret, and a sigh.

Once by the turn of this millennium, I found him sitting in an Abu Dhabi restaurant. I walked up to him, and told him that I was a fan of him, and how badly people like me wanted to see him back in the team. He looked in my eyes for a few seconds, then looked long into the ocean nearby, and mumbled that he’d be back.

Remember David Hookes, the Aussie? Man, he was some batsman! But he could not translate his talent into runs.

If we go to the West Indies, we will see as many wasted talents as the sandy beaches.
I’m sure you too have your share of stories of these unsung, unfortunate talents.

One good thing about the IPL is that it gives a platform to the fringe players or whose talent is not given the opportunities it deserves.
How do we measure talent?

TS Eliot famously wrote in his love song of Prufrock about measuring life with coffee spoons. There are two ways of measuring a player’s worth. The most common is going by the number of runs or wickets. I don’t buy this method. But then I am not a selector or anyone who matters in cricket administration.

The other way could be going by mere talent. In the last couple of years we all have seen what Yousuf Pathan could do with the bat. Any selector with some sense of the game would know what a bundle of talent this man has. We have seen its glimpses. He is not a Pat Cash, the punk who meandered into the historic lawns of Wimbledon once and coolly walked away with the title while more illustrious champs like Evan Lendle had to throw in the towel without at least once kissing that coveted trophy.

But shouldn’t talents like Pathan be kept in the team? I would have kept him with the team if I were the man to decide. Sri Lankan batsman Jayawardene had gone through a prolonged dry phase, but it was because of the wisdom of the Lankan board that he was kept in the team. Look where he is now. If he was dropped because of no scores, he would have never done justice to his talent.

So, Rayidu has made full use of the opportunity he got. And, Pathan has proved that only selectors with no imagination would pencil him out of the team.

Runs in domestic competition don’t promise you a permanent place in the international scene. Lal Chand Rajput, if you remember, had made tonnes of runs in domestic matches—painstaking centuries after double and triple centuries, and he was correct in his technique—but he couldn’t do a thing at the highest level.
Talking of technique, Sanjay Manjrekar couldn’t do a thing wrong in batting, but his runs in international level were not proportionate to his talent.

Back to the matches.

The angry young man of Indian cricket, the southpaw from capital, Gautam Gambhir dared the devils with an innings marked more for its austerity than audacity. He showed us that T20 is not just bang-bang-and-back-home. He defined a captain’s knock last night against the Kings XI. What makes him tick is his ability to play spin effectively. Openers are not necessarily that comfortable with the secrets of turning balls. But this eligible bachelor courts both seam and spin with equal elegance.

The Mumbai Indians must still be shaking the Pathan-effect off them. It is a pity that he ended up in the wrong end of presentation table.
But take heart, the IPL has just started. Expect more cameos from Pathan and Rayidu.
A word on Piyush Chawla. When an Indian Under-21 team came to play in Abu Dhabi some years ago, the team manager, Mr Nair, called a boy to him and told me: “Watch out for him!”

We have seen a fair bit of Chawla’s imagination with the ball. His vocation of a leg-spinner is a risky but enchanting one. The youngster has talent, but I don’t know the equations of selections yet.

I can only wish that if Prufrock could measure his life with coffee spoons, it’d be good if the selectors pick the team for talent than success represented by numbers.
Numbers leave no room for imagination. But sadly, numbers represent reality in terms of profit, salary, success.

Life also needs a fair measure of imagination and romance. After all, cricket is still a game, and a game is entertainment.
Watch more games, and appreciate, criticize and scream—Eye. Pee. Yell.

(Read Yentha.com)