Response to an obnoxious letter

Hi Sampath,

Read your article for the DNA a few days ago. Was moved to write a response.

I’m someone who likes celebrity bashing as much as the person in the next cubicle. And Sachin, while someone I respect a lot, is not my favorite sportsperson, or even cricketer. Some of the questions you put forth were quite relevant, things I have groused about in the past. But the way you put them forth appears churlish, and quite frankly incendiary – meant to irritate than get any serious answers. This kinda demeans the intent, assuming that intent was to get straightforward answers to legitimate questions.
What I inferred from your queries was hurt mostly, and rejection, either personal or of some idol of you own that you felt got slighted because of the demi-god status that Tendulkar commands in this country. Personally, I find that kind of adulation quite reprehensible, but man, this is no way of getting even.
Inline below my response to each of your questions. Just as someone who likes, but does not love Tendulkar, but certainly doesn’t like the tone behind your questions.


1. In 1999-2000, Indian cricket was rocked by the match-fixing scandal. You were a key member of the team that was captained by Mohammed Azharuddin, and Ajay Jadeja was your teammate. But you didn’t say a word. When asked why you remained silent, you said: “The only reason I did not speak about it is that I didn’t know anything about it. I would have given a statement if I knew something.” So are you lying, or are you being a cretin when you say that you had no clue about match-fixing going on?

[] Ok, assume Tendulkar did know something about this. What would you have wanted him to do? Come clean and confess everything to the board and the media? Come out with a grand – I knew about it, but kept quite because of the seniority if the player’s involved? Sure, he could have said that, but what would that have achieved? He may have had doubts, but what if that was all he had? You think he was the only other player in that team? Why single him out for a question like that? Because of the stature that he has now? What about back then when all he had was a desire to play and just do well? And have a career? He should have given all that up to confess what he might have suspected?
And dude, if he is a cretin for thinking about his career, then I’m sure you and I are too. How many times have we witnesses wrongdoings in our immediate neighborhood and kept quite because it would have, in our minds at least, ‘served no purpose’ or do more harm than good? Cretin? Really?

2. The whole world knows that you (and subsequently MS Dhoni) are the reason the BCCI has been stonewalling the ICC’s move to make DRS (Decision Referral System) mandatory in all international fixtures. What exactly do you have against the DRS? Is it that, without technology, the benefit of the doubt (especially on LBWs) goes to the batsman, and you, knowing that there will be far more LBWs with DRS than without, don’t want technology messing with your averages and milestone-hunting?

[] I have a problem with the DRS too, and not because it will affect my own stats, but for the reason that it is, as of now, not a system without glitches.
Sure it helps catch out the LBWs a lot more efficiently, but Hotspot is known to be error-prone, and the Snickometer is not used, so what real value is the DRS adding? DRS is a system that has provided huge advantages to a certain type of bowler. If the umpires wise up and pull up their game, there really is no need for the damn thing anyways. Games have been won and lost on bad decisions before, but they are being won and lost due to Hotspot errors too.
And if Tendulkar has Dhoni’s ears on this, he probably has a lot to say on several issues regarding the team, eh? And according to one of your later questions, he was a bad captain. Does that mean he’s a better captain in proxy??

3. You are richer than anybody can ever want to be. Why then are you forever, and shamelessly, asking or accepting favours from the government? Be it having to change the law (Customs Act) so you don’t have to pay duty on an obscenely expensive luxury vehicle, or petitioning the government to relax the FSI regulations for your bungalow in Bandra, why can’t you just graciously accept the rules that apply to everyone else instead of cashing in on your celebrity status to seek favours?

[] This I have to agree with. But like any person who likes to take advantage of his position, he likes to do things the shorter route. Wouldn’t you use your good offices with the man that counted for a few perks every now and then? I do.

4. For most, nay, all, of your adult life, you have been a very influential person, with access to the highest corridors of power. Yet, not once in your life have you ever taken a stand on any issue — not even on sporting ones. Do you then seriously expect to make a meaningful contribution to any of the debates in the Rajya Sabha? If not, why did you agree to become a Rajya Sabha MP?

[] Again, good point. No logic behind this decision. Tendulkar’s only defense probably is the one most failed celebrity politicians have made (Dara Singh, Amitabh Bachchan) – that they wanted to make a difference, were swayed by the sweet talking politicos that got them to agree, and that it seemed the right thing to do. Also, knowing Sachin (a man with great talents, thought out intelligence not being one of them), someone must have said the magic words – Attendance is not mandatory.

5. And having become a Rajya Sabha MP, you say ‘cricket comes first?!!’ What were you thinking? That being a Member of Parliament is a nice hobby or what?

[]Hehe…refer to earlier response

6. Why is your captaincy record so abysmal? If your cricketing intelligence is so great, and if you are a thorough professional, and if you are a nice guy, how can you not be even an average captain, like, say, Anil Kumble was? You’ve got to have something that the other guys don’t have for you to be such an extraordinarily poor captain. What could this be? You ever think about that?

[]Ouch, painful that. I bet Tendulkar regrets this more than anything else. Its taken him a while but he finally realizes captaincy is not good for his soul. You may consider that selfish, but consider two things – 1. A captain is only as good as his team and 2. A non-performing captain especially one whose form is important to the team, more than his captaincy skills, will not survive, thus relieving him of the captaincy as well as the place in the team. Tendulkar chose his form and career, which is not much different from what several others would do. And in one sense, it is the selfless thing to do. He will never be remembered as a great captain, which is like the epitome of any professional cricketer's career (Shane Warne was the best captain that never was), but at least he contributed in the only way he could.
And what, might I ask, does being a nice guy and thorough professional have to do with being a good captain?? Anil Kumble was a good captain, more than average intelligence(of the cricketing kind too), as was Rahul Dravid. But if your personality is such that it inspires less fear than say a Ganguly does, you cannot succeed at this very difficult task. You either need aggressive forcefulness like Dada or calm, imperturbable, zen-like demeanor like Dhoni.

7. Against Bangladesh in the Asia Cup this year, you crawled to your 100th hundred (114 in 147 balls on a flat track against a bovinely gentle attack) at 4.5 runs an over, and actually slowed down in the slog overs when the team’s interests dictated that you score faster. And it was because of your milestone obsession that we lost the match to Bangladesh, which cost us a place in the final. This is not a one-off incident, but the culminating irony of a long career marked by the relentless deployment of individual talent for individual glory, though last I checked, cricket was a team game. Now that you’ve got every record in the book, will you, at least in the last remaining matches of your career, either stop playing for records, or stop paying lip service to how you are a team player — because it’s too brazenly hypocritical to do both?

[]Tendulkar these days is a shadow of his former self, so that has to be taken into consideration when you talk about his recent form. In the match that you mentioned, he did crawl – but that was needed to get rid of this persistent thorn in the craw – the 100th ton. It was people like you and I that couldn’t stop talking about how long the damn ton seemed to be taking. As he said later, it was as if he hadn’t scored the first 99. An unsaid sentiment seemed to be he wished he hadn’t scored that many. I’d like to see you work under the kind of stress that you and I can only write about, that he’s had to undergo in this mad, mad country. It had been the in thing to joke about this on twitter. You think he hadn't read a couple hundred of those? Actually, you and I contributed to that slow 100. Who’s ‘brazenly hypocritical’ now?

8. Why is it that when the chips are down, and India is chasing, you never (save the Sharjah hundreds way back in 1998 on a flat track) ever take India home? Don’t say, ‘check the records’ — because the records tell me very clearly that you’ve never single-handedly (like Dravid did in Adelaide or Laxman did while batting with a number 11 to take India home against the Aussies) taken India past the finishing line in your 22-plus years of international cricket. And what kills me is that you had the ability to do exactly that — if Yuvraj could, Laxman could, and Dravid could, so could you. But you never did. You just cannot bat for the team under pressure, is that it? Or is it that you never cared for the team as much as you claim to?

[]This is a grouse I’ve had too. Too few of his innings have been in winning games. But then, can we blame all those losses on him? Or should we instead focus on why the others chose to under perform in those instances (so, so many of them). Isn’t it more logical to assume, that when there are match-winning innings played, more often than not, the one heroic innings has overshadowed the poor performance of 3 or 4 other batsmen, including Tendulkar. I haven’t looked at the records, but of the colossal number of runs made, and made against all kinds of opposition all over the world, surely you can find more instances of ‘performance under pressure’ than you would in a standard cricketing career? Tell you what, speak to a friend of mine – Ajay Menon, who I had this discussion with, and failed. Let me know if you want a debate, and I’ll send over his e-mail id.

9. I’ve been pondering this one for ages. How did you become such a boring person — open your mouth and everyone goes to sleep?

[]Jeez, get over yourself. Not everyone is a Shane Warne, or presumably R Sampath. You obviously are the smart witty one that regales the room in every room you find an audience in. Being a boring guy myself, I say to you – good for you. You guys need us to be the listeners, don’t ya? Lappin' up all those smarties you keep puking out?

10. This is an easy one. Do you like journalists who suck up to you?

[]Sure he does. And he might not like you. But then you’ve called him a cretin, selfish, blatantly hypocritical, and boring. And now you want the love??

The Unkind End - and an Uncertain Future

This one was tough to take, like one of those pills that don't go down easy - big, smelly, nasty...only this one was jagged at the edges, and seemed to swell up on the way down. 

Disappointment was something I was expecting to feel at the beginning of this last day of the English Premier League season. In fact, last week had all but placed the title plonk in the middle of Roberto Mancini's laps. All that talk about choking in the season run-in was sounding hollow, especially after Manchester City's assured wins in the derby and then against a potentially applecart-toppling Newcastle. Sure, City's opponents on the last day, QPR had Mark Hughes, a motivation to stay up, and Anton Ferdinand supposedly liked his brother enough to at least try and lock City out for 90 minutes. They had also beaten Arsenal and Liverpool recently. But they also had a very inconsistent team that has struggled to find a stretch of good form and an uncertain structure, not benefited by the statistic of having lost a major majority of their away games this season. On the other side of the coin, United had the advantage over Sunderland, but the Stadium of Light was not historically the best place to end the season for United, especially in such a tight nose-to-the-line finish as this. Besides, even a win was not going to close the 8 goal gap that separate the two Mancunian teams. And that, in the end, was what killed it off for United.

So, I was prepared for the loss of the title, as were many this day. What little hope there was left, was kicked nearer the dustbin when City scored their first goal at the Etihad. Rooney's goal earlier at Sunderland counted for little. Not unless they scored another 8. I had already switched channels to Sony, where the movie 'Ek Main Aur Ek Tu' provided a handy distraction. Then the second half happened.

A message on my phone from Ajay, my fellow United sufferer, alerted me to the fact that the hopes had taken a nosedive. When I switched over to ESPN to see what that meant, the half time whistle had blown. A few minuted later, on the periodic channel flip, the scores had changed. Rangers had equalised. I promptly messaged back - "Keep the faith", scarcely having the courage to have any myself. The situation at the Stadium of Light had also gained significance. As the scores stood, United had the title, but the advantage was slender. Imran Khan and Kareena Kapoor were forgotten. The feeling of resignation that had found a resting place at the bottom of the tummy had been roused, and was turning into a small ball of hope. I watched with chagrin and immense irritation as United threw away chances, and allowed Sunderland to come too close for any kind of comfort. Then a roar, unrelated to the state of the match I was watching, emanated from the crowd. this could only be the United set of fans who had half an eye on the match below, and everything else tuned into the commentary of the match at their neighbour's arena. I switched to ESPN, and almost split into two from the scream that I didn't know how to expel. QPR, down to 10 men had scored again! And 20 minutes remained.

The clock in the corner of my TV screen had never moved slower. The heart raced as United struggled to hold on to their lead. I couldn't bear to switch over to the other channel. The Rangers goal must surely be under enormous strain now. But they were holding, all 10 of them. The three minutes of injury time at the United game went by without major incident. Fergie waved his watch at the fourth official, no doubt wishing he could have done the same at an entirely different venue. Their match was over, but not before City had equalised. My brother muttered something about City's annoying habit of scoring from set pieces, and I nodded absently. The ball of hope had stopped floating, and was now beginning to settle with sickening speed. And with the final move of the match, Sergio Aguero skipped around a flailing defender and smacked the ball past the brave QPR goalkeeper.

And then there was silence. Not in my house - my wife and brother made anguished noises, and I flopped back into the sofa that I was only minutes earlier bouncing on- not on TV -the Etihad had 'gone wild' as they say. But for me that moment seemed to have gone into those sound-free zones where everything  moved but nothing made sense. Why, o why, had they not scored this goal 10 minutes ago?  Why did they have to wait till injury time to score 2 goals? Why did the result have to remain suspended till the last minute, and then bring everything to such sickening, soul-wrenching, crashing end?? I now cursed QPR for having played so well for 90 minutes of the match, for having scored those 2 goals. I cursed Joey Barton, and today ranted at him on twitter, calling him names I'm sure he hasn't heard before but instinctively knows he doesn't like. I cursed Man City for not finding the goals till the absolute last minute. I also cursed the players that caused the 5 minute injury time, whichever team they were playing on, and if someone had been injured during those minutes that the game was suspended for, I cursed them too. Stretchered off, you say?? hah, screw that, I curse you too!!

The day after, I feel no lesser pain. I couldn't sleep last night till very late, so am very cranky as I write this. I announced on my twitter handle and on my BBM status that I was on indefinite mourning till further notice. And I realise this is probably how all those famous teams on the receiving end of these injury-time reversals of fortune must feel. United has been on the right end of these upheavals, and are in fact famous for scoring and winning late. I never gave more than a passing thought about those legions of fans that were devastated on the other side. Bayern, Chelsea, Aston Villa, Liverpool...to name a few. Today, to all these fans, wherever they are, and whatever their present state of mind, I extend a sympathetic hand to shake, and a shoulder to share. No one deserves this. Especially not the fan that invests so much emotionally.

I will eventually recover from this funk, much as I did two years ago when Chelsea won the title by a point on the final day. But the emotions that ran then were different. Chelsea won their match in resounding fashion (8-0), leaving no scope for a nail-biter. United also won their match more convincingly than they did yesterday, though they scored only half the number of goals that Chelsea did that day. So while the Blues snuffed out the embers of hope earlier that day, the noisy neighbours did their best to kick them back into a briefly lit fire, only for them to douse it quickly and painfully with a deluge of icy water.

This too shall pass, and I now await the new season, though with less anticipation and more apprehension. While I do not give too much credence to the claims that the balance of power has shifted towards the 'lesser' Manchester team (cmon, the only thing that separated the teams this year were the fewer goals conceded by City - the best in league by the way), I do accept that United got away with some pretty ordinary football this season. The start of the season opened with much promise fueled by the exemplary start from the likes of Young, Jones, Smalling, Welbeck and Cleverley. The Community shield game, something that United will not feature in this August, was won with much aplomb and people were hailing the new young team of the future. My friend Anup said that Fergie had managed to do what Wenger had spent years trying to do - assemble a group of home-bred young talent that would form the core of future teams - only successfully. The young 'uns were already delivering the first installments of their potential. As the season wore on though, reality struck. Young, Jones and Smalling discovered, or rather revealed, flaws in their game, while Cleverley and Anderson were out most of the season through repeated injuries, compounding the problems that Fergie had as early as last season in the center of midfield, and worsened with the illness to Fletcher, and the loss of form for the workhorse Park Ji Sung. 

Then, after the first stutter at Stoke, came the game that shall always be referred to as the 'the beating that shall not be named'. The 6-1 scoreline may not have done United justice, but everyone felt they were due a rude awakening. Things floundered after that. Losses to a resurgent Newcastle and inexplicably to Blackburn at home made subsequent 1-0 victories seem like resounding triumphs. Fergie, relieved that United were coming away with anything at that stage, said we were due a few 1-0 victories. United kept the title in sight, not letting the effervescence of the City wave overwhelm them. 8 points was the most the distance between the clubs ever got to, and that started whittling down when City, inevitably, started to show signs of stress and fatigue. Mancini has used the smallest group of players amongst the top clubs, whether out of lack of trust with the fringe players, or out of compulsion (the Tevez situation could not have helped). The juggernaut slowed, then sputtered, and the run-in saw United steal the lead. With four matches to go, they even opened out a 8 point lead of their own. Then Wigan whipped them into submission, and in what I consider the game that lost United the title, Everton slipped in two late goals past the worst defensive displays United have put on this season to take two eventually valuable points off United. This was when I knew that my fears at the start of the season were not unfounded. City were relative newbies to the top of the pyramid, and a lot was being said about how this might not be the season they achieved the pinnacle in English football. I concurred, right up to the point that Sergio Aguero was signed on. That for me tilted the scales in City's favour, but I still retained the hope that Fergie's experience over the long haul of a season would perhaps make the difference. City definitely had the better pedigree of players (that midfield pairing of Silva and Toure is to die for), but over the season, they seemed to have fewer alternatives for critical areas. City used 4 to 5 players less than United, but still managed to score more (marginally), concede less, and win the same number of matches as United. This is partially due to the relatively small bank of reserves City has, something that Mancini has regularly complained about, as also to do with the fact that he has had to contend with fewer injury problems to his mainstays than United.

The new season will bring fresh challenges to both teams - City now have a Champion tag to contend with, and even though Mancini managed to bind his team together with some innovatively negative press talk that enabled a final push in the closing stages of the season, he will face issues from the dressing room that he will need to address. He does not command the respect (fear?) that United have for Fergie - despite what you hear from Pogba - and there are mutterings about his style of management that have been temporarily submerged by this post-title feelgood. Mancini will find, sometime in the next season perhaps, that when things start going downhill, these nigglers will emerge from the woodwork with increased vigour. How he handles these will be the proof of his mettle.

United of course return to the same set of problems that they were staring at pre-season. Center of midfield remains a problem, defence is not as assured with Vidic absent - the newbies have far too many flaws and its too early in their career anyways for United to rely on them wholesale. Offensively too, United may need to look around. Berbatov is gone, Owen will go, and Hernandez is too much of a poacher and an opportunist to consider as a permanent fixture in the starting 11. Welbeck and Rooney need further support, someone like a Edin Hazard or a Sergio Aguero, someone that makes the play rather than reacting to it. De Gea looks a lot more assured than he did at the start of the season, and if he beefs up a little, both physically and mentally should become as good as Joe Hart is now. (Said Hart is about 30% of City's credentials in my opinion.) However, looking at De Gea does not really inspire confidence right now, and you wish for an able heir to the legacy of Schmeichel and Van de Saar. So, a lot of things to think about for Fergie, and he should, and I say should, have a longish shopping list to take to the Glazers. And we all know how that is going to go.

My wishlist for Fergie only contains one item - that he wins some good players this summer. Shinji Kagawa from Dortmund and Edin Hazard from Lille would be dream acquisitions. What he will end up with I don't know, but without some major changes in the team structure and composition, they will struggle, perhaps even lose out on the title race. If the funds are not released, and if players are too impatient to wait for decent offers from United, I see myself at the same place I was at the start of this season. With my fingers and toes crossed. I will still be wearing the red on matchday, but with more prayers on my lips than cheer in my heart.

Good Bye Rahul

The writing on the wall finally came true. Rahul Dravid, long serving servant of Indian cricket has hung up his gloves from the final version of the game - the version he was best at, the version that he will always be remembered for. Test match cricket will be the poorer for the loss of one of its stalwarts, a man whose influence of the game was never appreciated to the fullest. Hopefully now, when India totters at 6 for 1 after an injudicious shot from Sehwag, the impact of Dravid will hit home, simply through his absence.

The decision couldn't have been easy for him. On the one hand, he would have the desire to go out more gracefully than he has. His last Test series was one he would like to forget, and that is hardly the most romantic or ideal way to go. And yet, on the other hand, he had to have wondered if he was in any way motivated to carry on, to iron out the technical fault that had crept into his batting, to grind out yet another match-, or at least face-saving innings, to prove - again - that his resilience and courage made him the most valuable asset of an ungrateful team. Not that he thought they were without gratitude. In his press conference earlier today, Dravid had only good things to say of his team. But somewhere deep in the annals of that mind, there must have been the thought that his determination to give the best was not matched by his team mates over the years..

Be that as it may, the grace and dignity with which Dravid conducted the final rites of his glittering career is but an replication of his entire innings. Never in danger of being listed among the "best batsmen in the world", Dravid went about his job quietly, amassing runs by the buckets, ignoring jibes about the speed with which he made his runs, and shrugging off sycophantic praise whenever that came his way. The only opinions that would have mattered were his teammates, and his opponents. And he's faced a litany of the latter, earning their respect and can I say fear. Many an opponent would praise Sachin and his brilliance, but secretly Dravid's was the wicket they craved. Simply because he put such a premium on it himself, you couldn't prise it away with all the tools in the world.

But that was not all that Dravid was about. He was one of the Fabulous Four, the strength of the Indian team at a time when the Indian batting was universally acknowledged to be the best, not only of the time, but possible of all time. Any yet, batting was not the only thing that brought Dravid the name. He was not the most athletic of fielders, or runners, but yet he has held the most number of catches. He was not a full-time wicketkeeper in his younger days, but he kept wickets for 73 ODIs. He was not the most aggressive of captains, but he was certainly the most intelligent ones, and if his desire to keep feathers unruffled in the team were not so intense, he might well have made the best captain India had ever seen. As it stood, the fickle dynamics of being an Indian team skipper would have tasted too sour, even for someone who always put team ahead of personal glory.

Then there was the question of demeanor. On field, bowling at him was like running full tilt into the kind of wall that would crush your spirit, delivery upon painful delivery. The forward defense that earned him his career nickname was at most times impenetrable, but as Dravid himself acquiesced, more a testament to his powers of focus more than application of technique. Bowlers would try it all. Swing, movement, bouncers, intimidation, glaring contests, verbal abuse, taunts - the lot. There was never a reaction, other than the occasional blank, stone-faced stare back. He fielded in slips most of his career, but there was never a moment that an opposing batsman would find issue with. There was applause for a great shot, congratulations on a milestone reached, the perfect gentleman in what was the original Gentleman's game. Off the field, none had a bad word for him. Humility and grace were synonyms for Rahul Dravid. The Nicest Guy in the Game brought respect and credit not only to himself, but also the rest of the team.

Since this morning, I have read several articles bidding farewell to the man. Several sobriquets have been showered, several odes dedicated. At the end of 16 years of a full career, you would not be faulted for expecting that. Three of these articles were very personal, emotional pieces from people most affected by the retirement. Each gave specific reasons, a particular moment that they remembered and had influenced their opinions, or even their whole concept of cricket. I can't say that there is one innings that I will hold for ever in my head. For a man I have followed and been a fan of since his leading the Under 19 team to a World Cup win, I should probably have that 'defining moment' that should justify the sadness I feel today, the day he officially declared himself done with cricket - as a player at least. But I don't. For me, every innings Rahul played was one I cherished. It was like watching a close friend or family member perform. I rooted for him to succeed, I despaired when he was dismissed, I rejoiced when he reached a milestone, I raged when he was dropped from the one day team, I nodded when he gave up the captaincy, not because it was the right thing to do, but because I felt that it was the right thing for him. I danced with him when he did that jig across the Adelaide pitch on that rare win in Australia. I cringed when I saw him run after a ball with those strange loping strides, when he dropped a sitter in slips, when he tried to hit the ball out of the park in an IPL game. One of the article writers that seemed crushed by Rahul's retirement said that he was the reasons she got interested in the game. I know the feeling. I stopped following the NBA after Jordan left the game. Personalities make the sport interesting, and that has been true for most sports. I don't know if I will stop watching cricket because Dravid is no longer there to follow. But yes, the soul has been removed. For now.