much of the heat surrounding the torch relay saga has cooled down this week. the chinese government pulled off a masterstroke by announcing that
they will negotiate with the dalai lama's advisors. with this one brilliant move, they have silenced the western media- after all, it appears that
the chinese have bowed to global protests by initiating peaceful talks. of course, its only the appearance that matters. almost in the same breath
as announcing the talks, the chinese have gone on to accuse the dalai lama of being a terrorist who has sponsored the killling of innocent chinese
etc etc. this gives us an indication of how productive we can expect the talks to be. but nonetheless, china has come out of the whole situation
far better than the west, and tibet. global protests, and particularly the idiot frenchman who attacked the disabled athlete, have firmly united
the chinese. the perceived villification of china by the rest of the world has caused an irresistible swelling of nationalistic pride and further
entrenchment of the victim mentality in the minds of the chinese. then, the global media storm has been blown out to sea by china's apparently
reconciliatory offer of dialogue. the tibetans, for the sake of whom all this was started, have been once again forgotten.

IPL

i've changed my view about t20 cricket a few times now, initially unimpressed, then sceptical, then somewhat interested but not really satisfied, then suddenly captivated by india's world cup triumph only to be let down immensely by the mcg debacle, then disgusted with the money that was being thrown at average, let alone good players (seriously, $700,000 for albie morkel and david hussey??????), then even more disgusted at the number of foreign players who were signed up and essentially there for a free ride (not to mention hundreds of thousands of dollars) at the expense of local players starved of opportunity, but finally won over by the cricket. thats what it comes down to, watching a cricket match. it is the unfortunate truth that i will watch almost any cricket match at any time of the day. but the ipl has produced really high quality cricket, much higher than i thought would be produced by a bunch of freeloading mercenaries. in fact, it turns out that those freeloading mercenaries have their international reputations to play for, as well as bragging rights. the indian players, it goes without saying, have their spots in the team to play for.

so what to make of the ipl?? peter roebuck has written a very good assessment of the tournament so far in this article:

In short, cricket ought not to be shy of providing brief entertainment to the population at large. In some opinions the IPL has laid it on a bit thick, but then, traditionalists are not forced to attend. Suggestions that the game will be permanently damaged by these exuberances are also unduly pessimistic. The trouble with traditionalists is that they present themselves as protectors of the game's values but are actually doomed romantics. They lament the present state of affairs yet resist innovation. Casting themselves as heavyweight, they reject the slap-happy, mistaking it for the slapdash. But it is a mistake to overestimate the past. It was not such a fine place. Nor is it possible to pin cricket into a book, like a dead butterfly.....

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The IPL's other great legacy will be the way it enhances the fellowship of man. Most previous attempts to bring together players from all nations have been unsatisfactory and fleeting. This is different. Now players from different countries, some of them supposedly bitter rivals, some of them with axes to grind, must work together in common cause, discussing tactics, forming partnerships, sharing rooms, socialising and so forth.


gideon haigh, another respected cricket journalist, takes a somewhat different view, and raises far more meaningful questions:

From the combination of 20 overs a side, flat pitches, white balls, and 70m boundaries, however, emerges what sort of cricketer? In fact, you begin wondering which great past players would have found in Twenty20 a welcoming home. Kapil Dev, for sure. Maybe Sunil Gavaskar, when not in one of his obdurate moods. But can you see BS Chandrashekhar, Bishan Bedi, Erapalli Prasanna? Given the choice, would you select Gundappa Viswanath and Sanjay Manjrekar, or Sandeep Patil and Chandrakant Pandit?

The argument is advanced that this need not concern us: we are assured that Twenty20 will be only one of cricket's variants. There will still be Test cricket, first-class cricket, 50-over matches. Yet with the animal spirits of the market liberated, how realistic is this? Already players are falling over themselves to make IPL hay, egged on by managers taking a fair clip themselves. The likelihood is that the objective of the majority of cricketers worldwide will become not to play dowdy old domestic cricket that leads on to hoary old national honours, the longer forms of the game that prepare the most finished practitioners. The economically rational behaviour will be to adapt their methods to maximise their IPL employment opportunities. Consider for a moment just who is closer to the role model of the moment: is it Rahul Dravid, the "Wall" with his 10,000 Test runs, or Yuvraj Singh, who once hit six sixes in an over? Who will a rising young cricketer earn more by emulating? If maximising individual income is what matters - and if any cricketer feels otherwise, he is keeping such a heresy to himself - then Yuvraj might well be the cookie-cutter cricketer of the next decade. Twenty20 has rightly been called a batsman's game, but it is a very particular kind of batsman: the type whose game is built on eye and strength. If a new Dravid were to begin emerging now, I suspect he would face a career as a second-class cricket citizen.

haigh also talks about how the bcci bigwigs, lalit modi and sharad pawar, have manipulated the expectations of the public, in order to fulfil their economic goals, and hijack the surging wave of enthusiasm in cricket for commercial purpose:

Profit maximisation is the name of the game - and that goes for administrators, franchisees, players, managers, broadcasters and sponsors alike. The possible negative consequences for other countries or other forms of the game are of no account compared to the commercial, and doubtless also political, ambitions of the likes of Lalit Modi and Sharad Pawar

but the most important question posed by haigh is this:

What might cricket look like after 20 years of Twenty20-centricity? There will likely been a few more MS Dhonis; probably a great many more Uthappas. But can you imagine another Sachin Tendulkar, with the discipline to budget for innings by the day, with his defence as monumental as his strokes are magnificent? And what price a new Anil Kumble - brave, patient, probing, untiring - in a world measuring out bowling in four-over spells?

i especially enjoyed the veiled insult aimed at robin uthappa. i cant help but think that every team should only have one uthappa, it at all. during the entire vb series in australia, i felt that suresh raina and manoj tiwary, two of the most promising batsman in india after rohit sharma, were deprived of vital opportunities to play in australia whilst uthappa wasted chance after chance. unfortunately, the ipl auction provided positive reinforcement for uthappa's methods. he was one of the most sought after indian batsman at the auction, ultimately going for $800,000, as much as ponting, hussey and mcgrath put together.

but back to the main point, what will cricket look like after twenty years of t20? more than the decline in batting, i am more worried about bowling. agarkar, gony, amarnath and joginder sharma are some of the most successful bowlers of the ipl so far. is this the future of medium pace bowling?? no disrespect to any of those four players, but they're not exactly test match quality. in fact, they're not really of any quality. they're not even particularly successful in ranji trophy, the standards of which are already well below sheffield shield and the county championship. where are the successful ranji bowlers?? tyagi and sangwan nowhere to be seen, vinay kumar and bhatia not bowling out their 4 overs. presumably, they bowl too much line and length, or try too hard to swing the ball to be of much use in t20. the quality of bowling has already deteriorated alarmingly during my relatively short lifetime, and that was before t20. now, with the ipl probably looking to expand, one wonders exactly what the top bowlers of the world will look like in 20 years time. will kumble be the last great indian spinner? will vettori be the last quality spinner the world will see??

ok so this is all a bit pessimistic right?? what about england and australia, the traditional bastions of test cricket. no way will they short change cricket like the indians are doing. right??

"The England players are desperate to play in the IPL. Next year they will all put their hands up to come and play. Everyone has watched the IPL in England and what an amazing tournament it is. I have watched all the games. The IPL is big time news in the England newspapers." Dimitri Mascarenhas

"I haven't heard any England players use the fact that the IPL is a massive global event, and the rest of the world's best players are involved, to justify their interest in playing in it, but rather the fact that there are pots of cash to be made.

When news broke of the Allen Stanford £10m match, Pietersen could barely contain himself, salivating at the prospect of pocketing "a mill" for one match." John Stern, Cricinfo journalist

"Hopefully it will be a massive success, and I think it's going to be, because you have so much money being pumped into it, and you have the best players in the world, so there's no reason why it won't be. This could be the way cricket goes - everyone wants to see a result in three hours." Kevin Pietersen

well, its quite clear where the players stand on this. as the only major cricketing nation to left out of the ipl, england are going to find it very difficult to stop their players from participating in next year's ipl. already, mascarenhas has made a deal with his county to play in 5 ipl matches. next year, it will be every england who is offered a contract.

this is where allan stanford comes in. he's an ultra-rich american zillionaire, who, whilst busily evading taxes by basing his company in antigua, became interested in cricket. he wants to cash in on cricket too. he actually said that cricket has the potential to become the most popular spectator sport in the world- i'm very doubtful about this claim, but i think he's being genuine when he says that he wants to set up a rival t20 league in england together with the ecb. of course, unless the ecb guarantees stanford's expected return on his investment, he wont spend a single dollar on the league:

There are plenty of hurdles to overcome before Stanford's wishes can be granted, however, not least the likely opposition from the first-class counties who might fear being marginalised in such a deal. "The ECB are conservative," Stanford told The Times. ""They realise they're at a crossroads. They either let the Indians do it or they step up and get a game plan.

"The ECB, for my estimation, need to be the driver," said Stanford. "The organisation here is better, the management is better, the structure is better. It's inevitable that the ECB will create a Twenty20 league, it's inevitable that it will involve the private sector and it's inevitable that the game will evolve."

as you can see he is quite clearly manipuating the ecb into setting up a partnership with him. first he insults them by saying they would never dare go the way of the bcci, then he gently praises them by saying that they're actually much better than the bcci and it is them that should be driving the t20 revolution, not the indians. i dont quite understand why the english need stanford. there are plenty of sponsors willing to throw money at t20 cricket. all they need to do is announce their intentions and corporations will line up to hitch onto the bandwagon. anyway, there is a great deal of bitterness in english cricket circles about the ipl. it is felt that as t20 was their invention, and they did the most to propogate it in its infancy, it is they that should be taking the game forward. countries like india actually opposed the spread of t20 and participated in the world cup only reluctantly. but since then, the bcci have moved with incredible speed and the ipl has taken off before the ecb could bat an eyelid. so a combination of sour grapes and stanford's reassurances that the ecb is "better" than the bcci is bound to ensure that we will see a rival t20 league in england.

hmmm, i've rambled and ranted rather a lot, and i've now forgotten what point i was trying to make. anyway, i'll finish today with a piece of incredible irony. misbah-ul-haq, the man more responsible than any other for the ipl, is yet to feature in a single game. after all, if it wasnt for his mistimed paddle sweep, then india would not have won the world cup, and t20 would not have suddenly taken off.....

This blog has been rather neglected for the last few months, mainly due to a tight work schedule, but also due to a lack of inspiration to write on my part. But now, refreshed after a fantastic holiday in europe, i feel inspired to start blogging again.

whilst there is lots to say about europe, i actually first want to write a little about the torch relay and all the controversy it has produced around the globe. its quite ironic, but i knew almost nothing about all of this whilst i was in europe, it was only whilst i was stranded in taipei airport for 9 hours that i caught up on all that had happened in the world in the last 3-4 weeks.

first of all i should make my position on the olympic games and on the tibet issue clear.

i think it was wrong for the ioc to award china the olympics. china's human rights record (i know, its very cliche to complain about china's human rights record) and especially its prosecution and general mistreatment of minorities (tibetans, uighurs etc) should have been enough, in my opinion, to exclude china from contesting for the olympic games. china's record is not dissimilar to saddam hussein's in terms of human rights and the treatment of minority groups. what would the world say if iraq was awarded the olympics (when saddam was alive and in power obviously)?? so i think people are are fully justified in protesting against the chinese olympics and calling for a boycott. i noted that bhaichung bhutia, the captain of the indian soccer team, a sikkimese buddhist, has withdrawn from the olympics squad in protest against china. he's not well known even within india let alone internationally, so his boycott hasnt exactly created waves, but i hope that his lead is followed by many more around the world.

moving on to tibet, i have written about the strangulation of tibetan culture by chinese hegemony before, here. one of the most contentious issues regarding tibet is independance versus autonomy and the (farcical) chinese claim that tibet is china, in the same beijing is china and shanghai is china. i think the first issue is fairly easily solved, unpalatable though the solution may be to some. in the foreseeable future, due to china's military might, there is no way tibet will be able to break the chinese yoke. even the dalai lama is resigned to this fact and asks only for tibetan autonomy within china.

then there is the rubbish about how tibet has been a part of china for 'thousands' of years, and how tibetans are essentially chinese. i found it difficult to get information on this which didnt smack of bias and propaganda, but it seems that the first time the chinese invaded tibet was in the 13th century when china itself was ruled by the yuan dynasty, descendants of genghis khan's mongols. from that period, it had generally been the case that the ruling power in china appointed a high-ranking official who lived in tibet and acted as the representative of the chinese emperor but didnt have much say in the internal governance of tibet. tibet itself was ruled by a variety of different people. the last fifteen rulers of tibet have been the dalai lamas, the leaders of the dominant sect of tibetan buddhism. after the dissolution of the chinese monarchy in the early 20th century, the nationalist movement failed to provide an effective government for china, and tibet enjoyed a few decades of relative independance. in 1950, the communist army invaded tibet, and tibet was brought under the direct control of the chinese government, for the first time in history as far i'm able to make out.

so, tibet historically was not a chinese province, it was an autonomous territory which was brought within the borders and control of china by invasion approximately 800 years ago. prior to this, tibet was an independant kingdom.

coming to the present situation, these two seperate issues, the olympics being held in china and the political situation in tibet, have been sort of merged by misinformed people on both sides of the argument. to the chinese, the beijing olympic games is about nationalistic pride. it is the acceptance of china into the world community, the global recognition of china's greatness. there is little awareness about issues such as those i've written about above within china because of effective government propaganda. however, internationally, these are major talking points regarding china. with the olympics being held in beijing, it was inevitable that the global media and the people of the western world would initiate debates on these issues. i think that the chinese believed and still believe that the world should be talking about how great china is, which is what the state press talks about in china, instead of debating contentious issues which are denied or glossed over in china.

the other big shock for the chinese has been the hijacking of the torch relay by the pro-tibetan protesters in the western world. the olympics, or rather the media coverage that accompanies it, was always going to be used by all sorts of factions to focus attention on their grievances. for the pro-tibetans, their cause was so closely related the olympics being held in china, that again, it was inevitable that they would protest with renewed zeal and vigour in the leadup to the olympics.

[hmmm, i had some things in mind when i started writing, but i have veered away and gotten distracted. well, i'll write some more on subsequent entries...]

to be continued

Ian Chappell claims that India have erred by not selecting Virender Sehwag in the squad for the tour of Australia. i would be inclined to agree this because I am a huge fan of Sehwag. in my opinion, he is much better suited to test cricket than odi's and t20. the high pressure environment in limited overs cricket has been sehwag's undoing too often. he bats much more fluently in test cricket where there are no limits. also, there are more attacking fielders in test cricket which allows sehwag to score to consistently quickly.

it is true that the current line-up has batted very well for the last 6 test matches. all the batsman have scored plenty of fifties with a few centuries in the last 2 tests. karthik, who was the leading scorer in england has suddenly lost his touch in the home tests. but given his success in england, i think he has a strong case for inclusion on the australian tour. jaffer has just scored his second double century and looks to have cemented one opening slot. laxman and ganguly were considered the middle order batsmen under the most amount of pressure but both have scored centuries, with laxman scoring 190 runs against pakistan with just the one dismissal. tendulkar and dravid cannot possibly be dropped against australia. and yuvraj singh has scored a hundred in the meantime as well.

so admittedly, it is a bit difficult to squeeze sehwag in at the moment. but i think in the interests of trying to win a series in australia, karthik or jaffer has to miss out to give sehwag a shot. an attack without mcgrath, with 4 fast bowlers including lee and tait is bound to be an absolute feast for sehwag....

Murali- unsullied despite the best efforts of Australia

Muttiah Muralitharan has surpassed Shane Warne as the highest test wickettaker of all-time. Not unexpectedly, criticisms, ridicule, outrage and sheer hatred have flooded in from all corners of Australia, railing against Murali's great achievement. Many (not all) Australians are absolutely disgusted that the world record has passed into the keeping of Murali, not only because it is a record that was held by Austrlian spinner Shane Warne, but also because it is unlikely that this record will be overhauled anytime soon in the near future.

But most of all, Australia is unable to "hack it" because Australian umpires Darrell Hair and Ross Emerson attempted to remove Murali from the game by no-balling him for a bent-arm bowling action, and failed.

Furthermore, there is a general consensus in Australia that the ICC bowed to pressure from subcontinental cricket boards and amended the laws to legalize Murali's action. This is absolutely preposterous. The laws were amended to legalize all bowlers. McGrath and Lee were bending their elbows as much Murali and basically every other bowler. But in Australia, this fact is conveniently forgotten or ignored, and the lie that the law was changed specifically for Murali is considered gospel.

It is unfortunate that Australia as a whole will never accept Murali, and give him the credit that is due to him, for he is a truly great bowler, the likes of whom we may never see again in our lifetimes.

But no matter, regardless of how highly Australians think of themselves, they are only a small part of the cricketing world. The majority of international cricket fans recognize Murali for the champion he is, and grant him the according accolades. So congratulations Murali!!! Well done, and I hope you keep playing and keep taking an amazing amount of wickets. I personally dont think that 1000 wickets is beyond your ability.