Fare thee well, the gentleman

Wrap Chinnaswamy stadium in a black armband. Inform the four winds that a great game came to a standstill today, albeit for a moment. Freeze those glorious statistics and post them on eternity's slate. Stand up and applaud till your palms bleed.
For a devoted son of cricket is taking his final bow.

A hundred years from now, when young cricketers study the career of Rahul Dravid - as they will - they'll ask each other:
'Did he really carry his bat into the twenty-first century? He seems so... gentlemanly.'
Hopefully somebody will remind them that true greatness is timeless.

A tale of five batsmen

Once upon a time in Heaven, God was personally conducting interviews in the Cricket Desk of the Ministry of Soul Recycling. He sat on his throne and asked for the souls to approach him one at a time.
'What do you want to be in this birth?' God asked the first soul.
'I want to be the most productive cricketer of all times.'
'What will you do with this gift?'
'I will score centuries. I will make a mountain of runs. Every record in the game will belong to me.'
'So be it. You shall be born in the Tendulkar family in Mumbai. With this gift, I also give you a curse. Your prowess will be useless in moments that matter the most. Who's next?'
The second soul approached, bowed and said:
'What you are to the world, I want to be in the cricket field.'
'Fool! You dare compete with me? I can punish you by making you a football player. In India, mind you, not Europe or Latin America. But since you spoke your mind, I shall grant half your wish. You shall rule the off side. Your cover drives will be elegant and impossible. But the short-pitched ball will remind you of my wrath. You'll be a leader like me, but your leadership will also bring you unimaginable pressures. Now go. Be born in the Ganguly household in Kolkata! Next!!'
The third soul came and stood timidly in front of God.
'A shy one, are you? Are you aware that you can't ask for gifts I've already given away?'
'I am. Let me also be aware of the state of the game at all times. Let me have the ability to stay at the crease. I want to be the immovable object.'
'Interesting. What will you do with this ability?'
'I will do more than you intended me to.'
'I'd like to see that happen. I grant you your wish. But I will also restrict your array of strokes. You'll labour even when others sizzle. You'll play second fiddle to perfection, even when you deserve the top spot. Go now, to Indore and take birth in the Dravid household. Next!!'
'You're a bit of a terror, aren't you?' the fourth soul asked.
'And you, young thing, are outspoken. I like that. What do you want?'
'I want my eyes and my hands to be become one holistic magic organ. They must always be in sync.'
'And your goal?'
'I will be the most feared batsman in the world. I will play the most memorable innings in the history of the game. My shots will be audacious, my attitude even more so.'
'Yes. Yes, of course! But your curse is that your eyes and hands will decouple from your brain at inopportune times. No bowler will ever dismiss you. Your brain will assign that task to itself. It's only fit that you be born a Jat. Go to Delhi and be a Sehwag. Next!! Who's next? I don't see anybody.'
'That's because I'm prostrating before you, my Lord.'
Pleased by this soul, God rose from his throne and came up to him.
'Tell me, my child, what can I give you? The others have taken the most glorious gifts in the game. Can you think of something that can still make you special?'
'I want to win games for my country. More games than anybody ever has. I want to deliver when the chips are down.'
'Ah! My child. I see that the others have missed asking for the most special gift of all. It's yours. I shall add to it. You shall wield your bat like a magic wand. You shall thus mesmerize your opposition. You will look clumsy and be graceful. Your wrists shall make the Australians weep. Your morality will be a shining example to others. And you shall display all those gifts with a humble and steely mind.'
'Lord, what's my curse?' the soul asked.
'I'm afraid, my child, that no matter how well you perform, people will forget you exist. You'll spend your life proving yourself again and again.'
'That doesn't sound so bad.'
'It isn't. Because I shall be watching. And I will remember every magic act you perform on the field. Now go to Hyderabad. Assume the longest name in the game. You will hereafter be called Vangipurappu Venkata Sai Laxman. And since people will not be able to remember that, they will call you Laxman. Except when you dazzle. They will then remember you to be Very Very Special Laxman.'

He's back!

Rahul Dravid is back where he belongs!
Here's a crazy hope on my part: hope he's become even better than he was during the 2007 ODI series against England. More fleet-footed aggression, more hooking and less ducking, more of the light anchorage than heavy.

This could be good.

What’s with Dhoni?

When I returned to India after a brief hiatus, IPL 2 was in full swing. Of course, I had followed the action over the net, and for a couple of days, on a Thai hotel TV. But now, watching the matches in my own living room, often without multi-tasking, I observed subtle changes in Dhoni. The first change was the way he handled the post-match presentation ceremonies: the Chennai Superkings captain, I thought, had become quite verbose.

When the presenter asked him if the pitch offered something to the bowlers early on, Dhoni gave him a complete match summary, including what his boys did right, what they did wrong and what they must now do. This wasn’t the Dhoni of old. A couple of years ago, this surprisingly articulate man – from Bang Nowhere, mind you – was such a joy to listen to. His answers would be crisp, to the point. Almost as if he was challenging the presenter to ask the right questions. And suddenly, his answers were directed not to the presenter but to his own subconscious.

The Uber Cool had become Deliberately Cool. Now, there was an edge in Dhoni’s nonchalance. As if he had suddenly realized that he had much to lose. And since this was happening when the Superkings were comfortably placed on the League Table, I reached the intrusive and unkind conclusion that something’s not quite right in his personal life. Such is the price an Indian cricketer pays for his fame – a casual “expert” like me is entitled (ahem!) to let his imagination run wild.

As the games progressed, though, I felt a tad justified. Dhoni was messing up behind the stumps, but not because he was in a flurry. Rather, he was losing a few micro-moments to the slow-motion playing in his brain. Even more telling was the fact that he was occasionally showing his displeasure when one of his boys erred on the field.

Well, it bothered me. No, I wasn’t cheering the Superkings. But the T20 World Cup was right around the corner – there was barely enough time for Dhoni to get his act together and knit a team out of our mavericks. Everything depended on that.

Needless to say, the first warm-up match against New Zealand was a good enough indicator of things to come. The All New Unimproved Dhoni had showed up to defend the cup. I wrote a Facebook entry: Not getting positive vibes this time, and left it at that.

Meanwhile, the rest of the fraternity was getting uppity about a different failure on Dhoni’s part: his batting. The fact that he wasn’t unleashing the huge hits that signalled his arrival on the world scene. Hello? Where has everybody been? Dhoni hasn’t played a swashbuckling innings since… well, here’s the thing and there’s no escaping it… Dhoni hasn’t played a swashbuckling innings since Dravid was unceremoniously chucked out of the Indian ODI side. Yeah. Once Dravid left, Dhoni choose to be the sheet anchor, the Dravid-like finisher.

What other option did he have? Gifted though the Indian batting lineup was – with the likes of Gambhir, Sehwag, Yuvraj, Rohit and Raina – it would have evident to the new captain that all of them were stroke-makers. None was natural in the ship-steadying business. So. Like a true leader, Dhoni decided to be the grown-up. Perhaps he had searched deep within and determined that he liked caution. Perhaps the role, once assumed, became his own. Either ways, Dhoni played this role superbly, winning us a series of ODI series. Over the past couple of years, he walked in at number 3, 4, 5, 6 or even 7, and did the job. Especially in the half-crumbling, half-sleeping sub-continental pitches. This was run-a-ball Dhoni. A half-century without a single boundary. Or 70 in 65 balls. Or 80 in 70 balls. The one aberration to this glorious run was an ODI we lost with Dhoni returning to the pavilion, not out, after a long innings. It had been a reasonable run-a-ball innings, but India had needed more. That evening, I cindered the memories of his early batting. I decided that his Nagpur blitzkrieg, his mind-numbing assault on the Aussies and Pakis, are unrepeatable acts. This T20 World Cup must have driven most fans to the same conclusion, I suppose.

But I still remain a fan of Dhoni. A huge one at that. Of course, I could have been a gargantuan fan had Dravid been around. (Remember, just before he was dropped, Dravid had scored 92 in 60 balls against a spirited English attack. So his days as a plodder were definitely behind him. He had become a true situational maestro in the 50-over game.) And with Dravid (or an apt replacement) wearing blue, we probably wouldn’t have seen the Dhoni Ferrari driving on the slow lane.

This transformation of the Jharkhand juggernaut, and his eventual inability to bat in higher gears, also tells us that batting – more so aggressive batting – is predominantly about pre-programmed hand-eye coordination. The body takes over, the retinas make the muscles move, the ball disappears. Not much to do with mental strength. That plays a role between deliveries, when the body is fidgeting.

In Dhoni’s case, the pre-program has changed. If he wants to bat in a higher gear again, he needs to go back to the nets and allow his body to relearn the Big Bang drills. He must bring that game to the T20 format. As for the 50-50 format, well, run-a-ball Dhoni’s as good as it gets.