V Ramnarayan
Don't shed tears for chuckers
The ICC's decision to take a stricter view of throwing is an important step forward in eliminating the problem of illegal actions
V Ramnarayan
23-Sep-2014
The recent suspension of Saeed Ajmal for an illegal bowling action was the best thing that could have happened to cricket in quite a while. Not because Ajmal is some kind of a villain, but because in doing so, the ICC has demonstrated its intent to deal with cricket's worst menace. The surprising thing is that it took 35 Tests and 178 Test wickets, not to mention an equally impressive ODI record, for umpires to wake up and report Ajmal's obviously flawed action.
The accredited team of Human Movement Specialists at the National Cricket Centre in Brisbane said, "The analysis of the 36-year-old's action revealed that all his deliveries exceeded the 15 degrees level of tolerance permitted under the regulations." Incredible, isn't it, that what should have been obvious all along has taken so long to discover? What happens to all the wickets claimed so far by the bowler in his career and their impact on match results? Did he start exceeding the permissible arm flexion limit only in the recent Galle Test, during which his action was subjected to scientific scrutiny?
The ICC recently changed its protocols for testing bowling actions, supposedly after too many bowlers were cleared by the biomechanics in Perth. How long before the protocols are altered once more and the tests are conducted at some other new venue?
Full postSpinners need intelligent, trusting captains to thrive
A captain must be able to understand a spinner's craft if he is to manage him properly and set the right fields
V Ramnarayan
07-Sep-2014
To consistently give their best, bowlers need their captains to have confidence in them. This is particularly true of spinners, who must rely on craft and cunning more than the quicker bowlers do. Rarely do we come across spin bowlers thriving under captains who do not believe in their ability or have an inadequate understanding of their trade.
For starters, the better captains allow at least four or five overs for the spinner to settle into an even rhythm. This is the time the bowler takes to ensure that every ball lands where he wants it to, before he can launch into any variations. Some of the greatest spinners in the game have been known to attempt nothing dramatic during this period.
Only once he has found his length will the sensible bowler try out variations of flight and turn. He is aware of the subtle variations inherent in deliveries, even without his attempting them; no human can actually bowl six identical balls, though they may look similar to the naked eye. A good captain therefore starts with a fairly defensive field, and brings his men in only after the bowler has found his groove.
Full postIt's time we had laws to eliminate sledging
Players should realise that their cricket skills speak louder than the abuse they sometimes dish out in the name of legitimate aggression
V Ramnarayan
17-Aug-2014
When I look at boorish behaviour on a cricket field, especially that which takes place in full view of millions of followers of the game, I am reminded of a conversation I once had with Indian tennis icon Ramesh Krishnan several years ago. On learning about the arrogant conduct of some cricketers, he asked in genuine puzzlement, "What is the use of your extraordinary talent if you lack good manners and courtesy?" The sport he pursued with great passion and pride had been plagued by the tantrums of the likes of John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors, and even Andre Agassi, but those who run the game have since taken firm steps and stamped out on-court coarseness and abuse altogether in professional tennis.
Does a fast bowler, who has everything going for him - pace, bounce and movement, even the advantage of vicious intimidation, real or feared, need adventitious aids to create doubt in the batsman's mind? And "disintegrate him mentally?" And isn't it humiliating and demeaning for a bowler to have to resort to verbal abuse after a batsman has played some gorgeous shots off his bowling? Can he not let the ball do the talking?
How would it be if the laws permitted batsmen to take a few threatening swings with the bat at bowlers who are troubling them, just to put the fear of God into them? After the batsman has hammered you for a few, isn't bowling an unplayable delivery the ultimate prize, your real badge of honour? And finally, what have you achieved when the batsman conquers your bowling and your abuse? Who's the winner?
Full postRemembering Ashok Mankad, a domestic giant
The late "Kaka" was a terrific batsman, a shrewd captain, and a wonderful raconteur. But most of all he was a genuine friend
V Ramnarayan
31-Jul-2014
Ashok Mankad died in his sleep six years ago. He was barely 60. Among the greatest batsmen in the Ranji Trophy, with an average of 75 or thereabouts, he was - with Parthasarathy Sharma and Brijesh Patel, both of whom he led as captain of Mafatlal Sports Club - one of a triumvirate of batsmen who dominated domestic cricket but did not quite make the same impact internationally.
He was in my view one of the better captains Indian domestic cricket has seen, not far behind the likes of ML Jaisimha or Hanumant Singh. Unlike the shrewd, cerebral and charismatic Jai, and the contemplative, precision-obsessed Hanumant, Mankad led more by example and skilful man-management, an inspiration to his boys - though tending towards the safety-first strategies so common in Bombay cricket of his time.
Kaka's batting exploits in the Ranji Trophy were legion. He played a major role in Bombay's many successive triumphs in the national championship. He also marshalled his team's resources expertly to lead them to the title in the absence of their Test stars, after his own Test career had come to an end. On one of those occasions, with Sunil Gavaskar, Dilip Vengsarkar and Karsan Ghavri away, he led a young Bombay side to victory.
Full postDo India stick with the same team?
Binny did well at Trent Bridge, but surely he must make way for Ashwin now?
V Ramnarayan
24-Jul-2014
"I have never believed in the horses-for-courses theory. Kapil Dev will get you wickets on a turner because he is a good bowler. A bad seamer will not get you wickets on a green top and a bad spinner will not get you wickets on a turner."
I was reminded of these words of the former India captain MAK Pataudi in an interview to ESPNcricinfo some years ago, when I incredulously scanned the Indian XI for the first Investec Test.
Trent Bridge produced the flattest wicket imaginable, and India misread it completely when they picked three specialist seamers and a medium-pace allrounder, Stuart Binny. Ravindra Jadeja must have been picked as the specialist spinner; or was he selected for his batting?
Full postLet's hear it for the unorthodox
Spinners who can't be bracketed into one style flourish today in cricket, while they struggled to make it big in the past
V Ramnarayan
26-Jun-2014
Back in the 1960s, my college team had a "legspinner" - for want of a better description - PS Ramesh, who bowled legbreaks, offbreaks and straight ones, all with identical actions and no obvious change of grip. We played all our cricket on matting, and while Ramesh bamboozled most batsmen at that level, we did not find out how he would have fared on turf, as the selectors never fancied him beyond college cricket. These days he would probably have been taken much more seriously, and have played representative cricket, for his armoury certainly included the carrom ball, if not the doosra.
More than a decade earlier, West Indian crowds had first chanted the calypso about "those little pals of mine", Ramadhin and Valentine when the spin twins decimated England at Lord's to earn West Indies their first Test win in England. Bespectacled, nerdy-looking Alf Valentine was an orthodox left-arm spinner, but short and squat Sonny Ramadhin had a whole box of tricks that batsmen found hard to unravel. Bowling in long sleeves, he made the ball go this way or that at will, giving no hint of the deviation with his action.
Ramadhin's spirit was broken seven years later, when Peter May (285 not out) and Colin Cowdrey (154) put on 411 for the fourth wicket in the second innings of the first Test at Edgbaston. While May counterattacked, Cowdrey showed he was a master of pad-play in an ultra-defensive display of attrition. Ramadhin never recovered.
Full postCricket's twin towers of evil
If the game's custodians are serious about stamping out fixing and chucking they must empower umpires and encourage respected players to speak out and share information about wrongdoing
V Ramnarayan
08-Jun-2014
Two prominent aspects of contemporary cricket are disheartening, to say the least. The first of them is the shadow cast by periodic revelations of skulduggery in the form of match-fixing, spot-fixing and the like. The second - that of the scourge of chucking, though extremely depressing, would be irrelevant were the first to continue to besmirch the game. For, what would be the point in watching cricket with legal, illegal or suspicious bowling actions, if some unseen hand can determine the course of an over, session or match?
For the game to continue to attract loyal cricket lovers who know its intricacies as well as its history, a massive clean-up operation needs to be urgently launched on both fronts. It will be a bright new dawn that opens to untainted cricket and pristine bowling actions that do not need scrutiny on the global stage because they have passed stringent tests at the junior level.
Illegal bowling actions are, however, far easier to eradicate than cricket corruption, but we must first acknowledge the problem. The ICC's cricket committee's admission (to go by recent news reports) that "there are a number of bowlers currently employing suspect actions in international cricket" is nothing short of a bad joke. How can that be with all the precise science of measuring the flexion of the bowler's arms at our command? How can chuckers or suspects survive state-of-the-art scrutiny into international cricket? Do the ICC and its members have no method of eliminating illegal bowling actions before bowlers graduate from domestic cricket?
Full postIs the era of the factory-produced cricketer upon us?
Young aspirants in India today have their futures planned to a t by their parents, coaches and academies. Perhaps the old ways were better
V Ramnarayan
25-May-2014
On a visit to Hyderabad, I'm basking in the warmth of meeting old cricket friends after years, some after decades, and exchanging memories of altogether more innocent, less frenetic days under the sun than the IPL-dominated present. We are, of course, looking at the past with nostalgia-tinted glasses, but we agree that though we did compete fiercely on the field and not always with the best sporting spirit, we mostly owed our careers to serendipity and happenstance rather than to any great planning.
In sharp contrast, young cricketers today have their futures systematically mapped by anxious parents, coaches and academies. I have even met parents on sabbaticals taken in order to focus entirely on their son's cricket career, guiding him through the aches and pains - and no doubt moments of exhilaration - of traversing the path of age-group cricket to reach the ultimate goal of national honours.
Several top-notch Indian cricketers have got to where they are today by similar routes, by concentrating on cricket to the exclusion of everything else. Sports hostels have produced excellent cricketers of the likes of Suresh Raina and Sanjay Bangar.
Full postThe Pravin Tambe fairytale
It's a story about self-belief, dedication and the ability to chase your dreams
V Ramnarayan
08-May-2014
Were a schoolboy to submit the story as fiction, any sensible publisher would reject it as far-fetched. Pravin Tambe's late entry into cricket on the big stage, even if in its shortest form, has been a fairytale. What a wonderful story of a man who perhaps never stopped dreaming of competing with the best through his decades in the wilderness - playing club cricket in Mumbai and, incredibly, as an "amateur" in the English league!
In all of India's cricket history - since the days of double-international C Ramaswami, who made his Test debut at age 40 and successfully at that - has there ever been a more inspired selection than the spotting of the legspinner by the talent scouts of Rajasthan Royals (if we don't count the picking of Sachin Tendulkar at the other end of the spectrum by Raj Singh Dungarpur's Indian selection committee 25 years ago)?
Watching Tambe's spectacular performances, it has been easy to live his fantasy vicariously and relive one's own childhood dreams and growing up painting those dreams in technicolour through adolescence.
Full postFizz, flight and loop
Erapalli Prasanna was a masterful conjurer and perhaps the shrewdest of India's great spin quartet
V Ramnarayan
23-Apr-2014
The last time I saw him in action was during the V Sivaramakrishnan benefit match between two teams of veteran cricketers at Chepauk in April 1993. The match got off to an electrifying start with Sunil Gavaskar, by then in his mid-40s, playing some pluperfect drives off the medium-pacers. When spin was introduced and EAS Prasanna came on, the "Little Master" greeted him with more of the same.
The two maestros had turned the clock back and those fortunate to be there that morning were witness to a vintage duel between tantalising flight and dancing feet. Then came the delivery of the day, with Gavaskar forward, aiming a push to the on side, and the ball clipping the off bail. Prasanna was nearly 53 years old.
He had never been an athletic figure on a cricket field, but I believe he was as fit for his job as any top-rung cricketer of his time. In his senior years, nothing much had changed in his bounding run-up and classical side-on finish, and the ball continued to fizz after it left his hand and travelled towards the batsman in an enticing arc, even though he was tubbier than he had been in his playing days.
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