V Ramnarayan

Are modern cricketers more open to experimentation?

In the past, trying new deliveries and strokes in matches used to be frowned on. Not anymore

14-Jan-2016

It was a cool December evening in the early 1980s. Flute maestro Hariprasad Chourasia was about to enter the iconic Kalakshetra auditorium in Chennai to perform in a concert when a young enthusiast asked him, "Will you please play the raga Hemant for me?" His reply was quick - and surprising, coming as it did from a leading classical musician of several years' standing. He said, "Sorry, I haven't learnt the raga yet." Some years later, I had a similar conversation with TV Vasan, a percussionist who played the mridangam, a south Indian drum. He spoke about a conversation he once had with the doyen of Carnatic music, Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar. Vasan, who had watched Iyengar practise a particular song some 500 times during the month, was eager to hear it in concert on the morrow. That was not to be. "I haven't mastered it," said the singer.

More recently I read about another old master's advice to young musicians. Semmangudi Srinivasier, grand old patriarch of Carnatic music, said to his disciples: "Practise every song at least a thousand times before you take it to the concert platform." MS Subbulakshmi, perhaps the best known south Indian voice, was famous for doing just that. She knew every lyric of every song backwards, regardless of language or complexity, and still had butterflies in her stomach before every concert. The rigour extended even to studio recordings, where she could well have resorted to external aids with nobody the wiser for it.

The situation is different today. Without criticising or condemning modern musicians, it can be said truthfully of most that they do not match the older generation in their preparation for performances. Many look into their iPads or cell phones while performing on stage, possibly because their song repertoires are far larger than those of their gurus were. It is not unusual for a song learnt in the morning to debut in the evening.

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Are India's current spin trio the best of the lot?

Ashwin, Jadeja and Mishra are certainly very talented, but they will trump their esteemed predecessors only when they do well overseas

V Ramnarayan

11-Dec-2015

When did Indian spin last dominate a visiting batting side so completely? The kind of success R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Amit Mishra have enjoyed against the touring South Africans can easily mislead young fans into believing this is the best spin combination in India's Test history.

India have won matches at home on rank turners in the past too, but comprehensive routs such as this one have been rare (if we do not count some poor batting displays by West Indies in recent years on Indian pitches).

India whitewashed England 3-0 in the 1992-93 series, when Mohammad Azharuddin and Graham Gooch were the captains. Still, England were bowled out for less than 200 only once in those six innings.

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India's rule of three

Ashwin, Jadeja and Mishra's performance in Mohali took you back to the heady days of the sixties, seventies, and some of eighties

V Ramnarayan

13-Nov-2015

As a follower of Indian cricket with pretensions to objectivity, I expected a far better fight from the South Africans than they put up in the recent Mohali Test.

Nothing should surprise us in subcontinental cricket, certainly not the transformation of what was once one of the quickest wickets in India into a surface that helped the spinners from day one of the Test. Because they tend to travel well, I assumed that the likes of Hashim Amla and AB de Villiers possessed the technique and temperament needed to counter the challenge of a three-pronged spin attack on a turning track. I had doubted the capacity of the Indian spin trio to exploit the conditions as well as they did. Finally, I had underestimated the Indian batsmen's ability to negotiate the turning ball. M Vijay and Cheteshwar Pujara, in particular, showed the patient application, focus and creativity needed to master the conditions.

A three-man spin attack was perhaps standardised during the Tiger Pataudi regime, and his successor, Ajit Wadekar, persisted with the tactic. Though three spinners, even four (with Polly Umrigar or Salim Durani in the XI, in addition to Subhash Gupte, Bapu Nadkarni and Chandu Borde) had, at times, done simultaneous duty for India in the past, the concept of a systematic, relentless trio was arguably fine-tuned in the south, when Erapalli Prasanna, S Venkataraghavan and Bhagwath Chandrasekhar operated together for the zone.

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That '70s Ranji show

Back in the 1970s India's premier domestic competition was a slightly different beast. There were more big-name stars around, for one

V Ramnarayan

21-Oct-2015

I have been following this season's Ranji Trophy matches involving Tamil Nadu, my home state, with considerable interest. While I watched parts of the match against Baroda at Chepauk, I did not get to see any of the action in their game versus Mumbai. Both were closely fought encounters, with Tamil Nadu winning the first and losing the second by the narrowest of margins. Both matches fluctuated this way and that.

The match against Baroda was played on an underprepared wicket, and in my view, the team that played slightly better cricket won, though neither side showed the technical nous to bat or bowl well on a raging turner. Tamil Nadu posted 434 in the first innings against Mumbai but collapsed for 95 in the second. Mumbai came back from desperate straits to triumph in the end, as they have done ever so often in the past. Though I did not watch the match, it's clear the ball had the upper hand after the first innings.

I cannot escape the feeling that there is too much doctoring of wickets in domestic cricket for the good health of the game. Back in the 1970s too, pitches were prepared to suit the home side, and matches were occasionally played on minefields, reducing the game to a lottery. I remember how Tamil Nadu were outplayed by Bombay at Chepauk on a turner, with Paddy Shivalkar and Co making better use of the surface than the spinners of the opposition (or the Bombay batsmen negotiating the spitefully turning, jumping ball better than their Tamil Nadu counterparts, depending on your viewpoint). The difference today is that such strategies seem to be deployed rather indiscriminately, and earlier in the season, before the teams have settled down. In the past, say, in the 1970s, the leading teams resorted to such tactics only in key, do-or-die matches.

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Those fine men of Hyderabad

Playing alongside the likes of Pataudi, Abid Ali, Jaisimha and Abbas Ali Baig was an experience to be cherished

V Ramnarayan

01-Oct-2015

To read the recent tributes to former India captain Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi who died four years ago was to briefly relive Hyderabad cricket of the 1970s, some of the happiest memories of my cricket life. To share the Hyderabad dressing room with the likes of our captain ML Jaisimha, Abbas Ali Baig, Syed Abid Ali and Tiger Pataudi was a special experience. Each was a stalwart in his field and collectively brought a hundred years of playing experience.

While Abbas and Abid are happily with us, Jai was the first to go, in 1999, leaving the cricket community of the day bereft. My association with each of them was brief at the Ranji Trophy level, though I played a good deal of local cricket with them.

None from this Fab Four was given to complimenting you to your face; their appreciation of a good performance was always quietly behind the scenes, putting in a word or two where it mattered, so that your reputation preceded you wherever you went to play. And God save you if you gave the slightest hint of complacency or smug self-satisfaction. I remember a conversation I had with Pataudi in December 1992, long after my playing days. He was generally appreciative of the dignified way southerners tended to treat sportsmen and other public personalities. When I warmed to the theme and said that many old cricket lovers remembered how well I bowled in my day, he shot back with, "Yes, people have such short memories!"

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When Indian cricket was brimming with offies

Not at all of them turned the ball into the right-hander, but they kept batsmen on their toes with variations of flight and pace

V Ramnarayan

07-Sep-2015

I remember being greatly offended reading a comment Sri Lankan stalwart FC de Saram once made to offspinner turned commentator Robin Marlar. "Flaming [a euphemism for what he actually said] offspinners" is how he described Marlar and my tribe of bowlers, against whom he was particularly destructive during his career.

Marlar's article that mentioned this - which I read during the peak of India's slow-bowling riches in the form of the quartet and other spinners of quality in the country - set me reflecting on the craft of offspin bowling. Was de Saram right in his contempt? Was it the easiest bowling for right-hand batsmen to face? Did the Sri Lankan play in a period of scarcity in offbreak bowling?

When I looked around at the Indian domestic scene of the time, I found only partial truth in de Saram's generalisation. There were a handful of ordinary offspinners, though most were extremely accurate and clever exploiters of any assistance on offer from the pitch. Some were unintentional purveyors of the doosra, though Saqlain Mushtaq and his discovery were well into the future: far from being a variation, it was their stock delivery. The harder they tried to turn it, the more the ball deviated the other way.

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Lefties I've loved

From Sobers to Sangakkara, plenty oozed grace at the crease. Each had his own distinctive style

V Ramnarayan

21-Aug-2015

Kumar Sangakkara's exit from international cricket so soon after Mahela Jayawardene's retirement leaves a void in Sri Lankan cricket as significant as the departure of India's batting greats from the scene a few seasons ago. Sangakkara was a cricketer's cricketer, a batsman's batsman, a left-hander's left-hander. That, however, did not mean he was not a mass hero as well. He was not the most stylish southpaw among a tribe known to be naturally graceful, yet his batting was easy on the eye, never clumsy even on the rare occasions he was out of form. His was an efficient, often voluble presence behind the stumps; his glovework was not overtly spectacular, his chatter was teasing, funny and aggressive.

His captaincy was understated, effective, frequently successful. He was Tendulkar-like as a record-maker, but rarely seemed preoccupied with records. He crept into your consciousness so unobtrusively that you did not realise he had occupied a permanent spot there as one of your favourite cricketers in a lifetime of cricket watching.

Most of my cricketing heroes have been right-handed. The exceptions just had to be extraordinary. Sir Garfield Sobers was the greatest of them all. It was a few years before the young Sobers burst in on the scene that I, all of nine, watched transfixed as Neil Harvey smashed nine boundaries in a 37-run cameo at the Corporation Stadium in Madras, when Ian Johnson's Australians trounced India. Our family rickshaw puller, Kathan, had run all the way to the ground from our distant home to transport me, both literally and figuratively, to the world of left-handed brilliance.

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A Jolly Rovers reunion

It was all nostalgia and anecdotes when late-1960s alumni of a well known Chennai club got together one evening recently

V Ramnarayan

02-Aug-2015

''Old soldiers never die, they just fade away,'' said the poet. I used to think the same of old cricketers. How wrong I was!

To meet the cricketers who played for the iconic team Jolly Rovers in Madras between 1966 and 1970 at a function earlier this week was to delight in the company of a league of extraordinary gentlemen who refuse to fade away. Handsomer, healthier, wittier and wiser is how I would describe their present avatars when I look back on their days in the sun.

The occasion was a celebration of the start of the 50th year of one family's involvement with the running of a cricket team. The event was hosted by N Sankar, chairman of the Sanmar Group, which has been behind the exceptional success of Jolly Rovers through the decades - with 62 titles in all, including 18 senior division league triumphs.

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The helmet effect

Has protective gear resulted in inferior techniques when facing short-pitched bowling, resulting in more batsmen getting hit these days?

V Ramnarayan

23-Jul-2015

Facing the fiery ''Kittu'' Krishna Rao on a bouncy matting wicket back in 1965 or so was easily the most frightening experience of my life, but I managed to survive through sheer greed for batting (a rare treat for a tailender like me unexpectedly promoted to No. 6) and tons of luck. At the other end was an offspinner somewhat better known, for both his bowling and courageous batting down the order for India - S Venkataraghavan. It was a local game in Madras, and Krishna Rao was one of the quickest bowlers we knew, before he was converted to a spinner by the Services team management in the Ranji Trophy.

Venkat's response to that trial by fire was an attacking hundred remarkable for its daring hooks and pulls, often executed perilously close to his nose. Venkat was to demonstrate similar technique and bravery not long afterwards in the Test series against West Indies, with two outstanding innings in the first Test in Bombay - 36 not out and 26. I can never forget the second of those innings. I sat under a tree at my college, listening to the radio commentary while Budhi Kunderan (79) and Venkat added 95 for the ninth wicket after India had lost the first eight for 217. (I had hopelessly torn my new trousers in a motorcycle accident and had to wait till a friend finished attending classes to give me a ride home.) Ironically Venkat was dismissed by rival offspinner Lance Gibbs after he successfully negotiated the fury of Wes Hall and Charlie Griffith with calm assurance.

A decade later I overheard a conversation between Venkat and Derek Underwood during an MCC-South Zone match in Hyderabad, which went somewhat like this:

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A captain a minute

Or that's what it felt like in India at the tail end of the 1950s

V Ramnarayan

02-Jul-2015

Captaincy is easy - until the job is yours. You always make the perfect decisions when someone else is out there leading the side and you are watching from beyond the boundary. Hindsight is a useful gift, especially when you are analysing the decisions of a losing captain; rarely is a winning captain subjected to such scrutiny.

India's new ODI captain, Ajinkya Rahane, is on a better wicket than MS Dhoni is after the recent drubbing by Bangladesh. Even Dhoni's vice-captain has been quoted as questioning his decision-making. Hopefully Rahane, who was dropped for his recent inability to get a move on, will be able to rotate the strike better in Zimbabwe, where the wickets may be quicker than those in Bangladesh. While Dilip Vengsarkar has reportedly welcomed Rahane's appointment as captain of the second-string side, Ajit Agarkar feels the Indian captaincy is an easy grab nowadays.

It can't be easier than it was nearly 60 years ago. The touring West Indies team led by Gerry Alexander must have rubbed its collective eyes in sheer disbelief as the Indian board paraded as many as four captains before it in the 1958-59 five-Test series.

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