Mar 05 2013
13 Comments
Cricket, Test Match, Uncategorized

Have You Ever Watched A Test All The Way Through?

A hypothetical: Let’s say you’re either unemployed or wealthy enough that you don’t have to work. And then, let’s say there’s a Test match between reasonably interesting teams (like India and Australia). Assume there are no competing demands on your time. Would you really sit through all 30 hours of cricket?

I’m thinking about this because Gavaskar and Bhogle were talking recently about how scintillating the Chennai Test was — more than 1,200 runs scored, some 30-odd wickets, and an innings (from Dhoni) that will likely go down in the history books. And yet, even during that supposedly amazing Test, there were long stretches of nothing happening. Take, for example, the very end, when Sachin Tendulkar hit two consecutive sixes and then decided to play a maiden over with only one run left to win. As I watched, I thought about the absurdity of the situation: India, with eight wickets and all of time available, keeping everyone waiting.

The cricket fan’s standard defense against the “nothing ever happens in Test cricket” critique is to say, “Well, are you really sure nothing’s happening?” On Day 2 of the the second Test, Pujara and Vijay batted an entire session and scored a handful of runs — something like less than two runs an over. To the untrained eye, this was cricket at its worst — two very capable batsmen tiring out mildly competent bowling. But a cricket fan would say the pair was in reality setting up the rest of the day, particularly the post-Tea session, when they plundered their way to five runs an over.

Perhaps, but confess, all ye fans: Did you watch the morning session through without getting bored? Or did you do as I do — put the cricket in the background, browse the Internet, and occasionally check in with the game?

 

Feb 25 2013
2 Comments
Australia, Cheaters, Cricket, Umpires

The DRS Will Not Give You The Truth

Over at A Cricketing View, Kartikeya has another excellent post on DRS (at this point, the man could put together a 1000-page collection of his writing on the subject). In reviewing yesterday’s Michael Clarke LBW decision, Kartikeya reiterates a conclusion I’ve long supported: that the DRS, far from offering an objective, neutral, “scientific” review, merely offers just another subjective description of reality. The debate over umpire review is not one of Truth (i.e. Machine) v. Non-Truth (i.e. Human Fallibility); it is, and always has been, Sorta Truth v. Sorta Truth. The crisis we face in cricket is trying to decide whether we want to replace one mode of judgement — human observation — for another — computer/video gizmos. There’s no escaping the wormhole, friends.

I just want to add a quick reflection on this Ian Chappell quote (reported by Kartikeya in his post):

“There never has been, nor will there ever be, a case where a 50-50 decision causes animosity on the cricket field. Players are conditioned to accept that one day these decisions will go your way and the next they’ll go against you. What does cause animosity on the field is the absolute howler that can change the course of a match.”

I’d like to suggest that this is not actually true anymore. During Day 4, a couple of Australian batsmen — David Warner and Ed Cowan, I think — behaved as if they were wrongly given out. As they shook their heads while walking back to the pavilion, they seemed to be saying, “If only the BCCI allowed DRS! Oh, the travesty!” By my estimate, however, only Warner could claim that his case was close, but both decisions were eminently reasonable.

Now, maybe this was just two isolated examples of touchy batsmen, but I think the existence of DRS has alarmingly fed this myth among players (and perhaps fans?) that umpires are fallible and that machines are not. That is to say, DRS is starting to eliminate the howler/non-howler distinction; anything marginal or benefit-of-the-doubty is considered an outright injustice. I imagine that as more players come to experience DRS, or a successful umpire review, they will increasingly believe that the umpires must be wrong. Looking at the number of unsuccessful reviews (mostly for LBWs) over the years, I wrote on Twitter  that DRS has revealed either how many cricketers don’t seem to understand the rules of the game, or, more charitably, how many use terribly biased sensory perception to evaluate reality.

In the quest to remove “absolute howlers,” we may have inadvertently destroyed the authority and tradition of the cricket umpire, one of the quirkiest (and I think essential) figures in sport. And for what? Look again at Michael Clarke’s reaction to his dismissal — as Kartikeya writes, he looked ruefully at the pitch, because had the ball not hit a certain spot, it would not have bounced so erratically. Fate and chance conspired against Clarke, but does anyone among us believe it to be unfair? Of course not! Why can’t we treat the umpire who occasionally errs in the same fashion? Why are we willing to forgive landmine pitches, but not extremely competent umpires who mess up now and then?

Feb 22 2013
5 Comments
Bowlers, Cricket, Harbhajan Singh, Indian Players

Harbhajan Singh The Truckdriver

Rahul Dravid makes Harbhajan Singh interesting:

To have played 100 Tests for India is proof of both effort and determination, and Harbhajan has overcome many obstacles in getting this far. Between the time he made his debut for India and his 2001 breakout series, he ran into trouble at the NCA, had difficulties with his action, was dropped from the team, and lost his father, which made him the sole earning member of his family at 20. I remember talking to him about that time, and he told me that he had had thought of migrating to the US and earning a livelihood driving trucks [emphasis added].

Two points: one, it’s very rare for cricketers to talk in specific terms about the sacrifices — and, often, the impossibly difficult choices — they have to make. Every young kid in India wants to be a national cricketer, but you have to be a little insane to still want it after you become a teenager and realize the arduous path to achieving the goal. You have to be completely crazy to pursue cricket (especially in pre-IPL money days) when you know that your family could face potential ruin if you fail.

Two: Rahul Dravid is an incredible writer; a much better writer than commentator (in my view). I take a dim view of the recent trend to turn the commentary squad into a band of ex-cricketers; often times, I think amateurs and ardent spectators make for better dialogue. But if we must have ex-cricketers, then I want them to do what Dravid does — to explain the strange, surreal world of being an international cricketer without devolving into pointless nostalgia (a la Gavaskar), worn-out catch-phrases (a la Shastri) or braggadocio (a la Shane Warne). For all the new camera angles and HD technology, the experience of being a modern sportsmen remains a mystery to most. Dravid has made me understand Harbhajan just a little better now. (Which isn’t to say I loathe him any less.)

 

 

Feb 19 2013
3 Comments
Australia, Coverage, CricInfo, Cricket

Just Who — Or What — Is Shane Watson?

Does anyone know what, who, or why Shane Watson is? Are we fascinated/infuriated with him because we cannot understand him? How can someone alternate so quickly and so often from injured to essential to needy to demanding to invaluable? From Cricinfo, an almost-daily exercise in trying to uncover Watson’s true nature:

watson1 watson9 watson8 watson7 watson6 watson5 watson4watson10

Feb 15 2013
4 Comments
Bowlers, Coverage, Cricket

The Poetry Of Bishen Bedi

Taken from here; inspired by this; [and a previous post on the poetry of Waqar Younis]:

————-

When you buy a shirt,

A pair of trousers,

How do you buy it?

It is very simple:

You

give

a

few

runs,

You

buy

a

wicket.

——————–

Flight is a trajectory,

It is a loop It is

Quickish in the air

But,

It has a rainbow effect.

——————–

If the batsman is shaking his head

While negotiating the spinning ball,

Then advantage bowler.

If you are setting a field for bad bowling,

Advantage batsmen.

———————-

“Right areas” is not on the 22 yards of the playing surface;

“Right areas” is the six inches between your ears.

You have to plan a strategy;

You have to plan a man out.

——————–

What is the job of the batsmen?

To score runs.

What is the job of the bowler?

To get wickets.

Feb 12 2013
3 Comments
Cricket, Dhoni, West Indies

Is Dhoni A Feckless Compromiser, Or A Wise Man In Difficult Times?

Not that I’m obsessed with Teesra or anything, but I want to add to Devanshu’s discussion about the Dominica Test result/travesty/surrender. Devanshu argues that the Dominica Test is important, and more so now than it was at the time. Sitting on a 1-0 lead against the West Indies in 2011, you will recall, Dhoni decided to agree to a draw rather than chase a slightly risky target in the final Test. Since then, India have amassed one of their worst losing streaks, and Devanshu suggests we now view the Dominica Test not as “an inexplicable move by a #1 team, but as a tragic harbinger of a team in decline.” He argues that Dhoni’s move, far from betraying a defensive mindset, instead suggests that Dhoni accurately assessed his team’s talent, found it wanting, and decided to defer to loss aversion.

Samir Chopra disagrees, and on Twitter, he began a vigorous debate about what social scientists call the “direction of causality.” That is, Does India’s low talent lead to a defensive mindset? (Devanshu’s position), or Does India’s defensive mindset lead to its low talent? (Roughly, Samir’s position.) [Sidenote: This debate over Dhoni -- who can be infuriatingly defensive -- parallels many liberals' frustration with President Obama. Is he timid because he knows how insanely difficult Washington, D.C. is right now? (My position, roughly.) Or is Washington, D.C., so incompetent because it needs a take-no-prisoners president at its helm? (Most liberals' position.) End sidenote.]

This is a tough one. I’ve suggested in earlier posts that emotion has a rightful place in any sportsman’s arsenal; just watch Dale Steyn unleash the inner Hulk by getting angry at the most innocuous batsmen. And you don’t need to be a silly teenager (as I was) to believe that Ganguly’s fiery, improbably self-assured captaincy was what India needed in a leader. But I’ve also long believed that the West Indies and Australia dominated not necessarily because of their “aggression,” but because of their obvious skill. The fact of the matter is that this Indian team just isn’t that good, and even on its best days in the 2000s, it rarely had all three departments (batting, fielding, bowling) working together. If you have several Hall of Famers in all parts of your team (as Aus. and West Indies did, and South Africa do now), you go for the kill. If you don’t (India played at Dominica with batting newbies like Mukund, Vijay, Raina, Kohli, and bowlers like Munaf Patel and Praveen Kumar and Ishant Sharma), you take the money and run, as Devanshu notes. Dhoni did what any person bargaining from a weak position should — try to get what you can, not everything. To do otherwise is foolish.

After Dominica, I suggested that Dhoni was trying a new framework for dominance, what I called “Meh.” (At the time, India had won the World Cup and was No. 1 in Tests.) That is, India didn’t want to win Dominica because it really didn’t matter; what’s another Test win against a lowly team? At its worst, this attitude suggests a complacent arrogance (and indifference to the audience), but at its best, it is a form of dominance — “I’m so much better than you than I can’t be bothered to spend another hour on this field trying to win this pointless exercise.” At the time, I thought this was the correct interpretation; now, however, I much prefer Devanshu’s. The Dominica Test was not a “meh” draw; it was a shrewd move by a captain who looked at his team, saw that it wasn’t capable of greatness, and decided to settle. After 0-8 against England and Australia, and 1-2 against England in India, I am more than happy to have that 1-0 against the West Indies. Whoever said “offense is the best defense” never saw Ishant Sharma bowl.

Feb 11 2013
2 Comments
Commentary, Cricket

Teesra Does It Right

I’ve long been a fan of Devanshu Mehta’s blog Deep Backward Point, but I am an ever bigger fan of his side project, Teesra. It started off as a sort of “What if The Onion covered cricket?” but it’s now something more. Devanshu understands that cricket blogs — and blogs in general — are outdated; we prefer tweets, gifs, and images, and in many ways, they are often better in the service of a good argument. For an excellent example, take a look at Devanshu’s post on the Dominica Test match, in which he nicely weaves together statistics, graphics, and text in one compelling narrative.

I’m aware of the irony of using a blog to condemn blogging, but that’s not what I’m trying to do. I think there’s a proper place for people like Kartikeya who need thousands of words to diligently analyze a particular issue. And there’s demand for that! But blogging, at least done traditionally, also tends to encourage a top-down relationship between author and the reader. That’s not necessarily a bad thing (I bow down everyday to my Old Batsman shrine), but it’s not taking full advantage of the Internet’s possibilities. Too much of cricket is top-down, and that’s a trend that will likely worsen as more corporate money floods the market. For too long, the reigning image of the cricket fan has involved him/her sitting idly in front of a television screen. But now we too have the power to create our own stories, to remix our sport, and to make it ours. If that means dressing up like a big bear (a la The Two Chucks), or turning Chris Gayle’s power into a series of GIFs, or approaching the ICC cricket rules as a lawyer would, or reaching out to cricket greats and interviewing them for a podcast series, or getting a bunch of friends together to provide your own brand of commentary…then, you’re doing something right and great. This is our generation’s pitch invasion.

Feb 07 2013
5 Comments
Cricket

The Rise of the Bowler

During high-scoring one-day games, it’s not uncommon for commentators to say something like, “Well, the fans here [camera shot shows happy crowd] have had their share of entertainment today! They got their money’s worth!” The idea is that cricket fans particularly enjoy runs, and that has been one of T20′s supposed draws — more sixes, more fours, and more runs than you thought possible in a shorter amount of time. But is this right? Am I alone in thinking that ODI games with 600 runs on the board are actually a complete waste of time?

To me, the ideal match involves a flurry of runs in the first overs, followed by wickets, then consolidation, then an attempt to ratchet up the run rate in overs 40-50. In other words, an alternating contest between bat and ball. If there must be a rout of either side, however, I’d much prefer to see a bowler of Dale Steyn’s caliber just run through the opposition, as he did against the Pakistanis (and as South Africans did to the Kiwis earlier). To see an international Test side collapse for under 100 runs is a beautiful thing to behold; it’s like watching a ragtag, dismissed band of worker revolutionaries take control of the capital. Because bowlers are the oppressed of cricket — they often toil for hours, with only a few wickets (if that) to show for the effort. Batsmen, on the other hand, can usually score runs easier, or simply hang around and get brownie points for “occupying the crease.”

Can someone add statistical rigor to my suspicion that bowlers are increasingly ascendant? There is a theory that, after the retirements of so many batting greats, cricket’s Golden Batting Era will now cede to the bowlers. (This is obviously a stylized argument; the last 15 years also yielded Warne and Murali, two of the greatest bowlers ever.) I tried to find total Test runs scored by year on Cricinfo, but failed. Any ideas on how to measure this?

Jan 22 2013
6 Comments
Australia, Cheaters, Cricket, Shane Warne, Sledging

Cameron White Is Wrong About Marlon ‘The Legend’ Samuels

Just a quick recap for non-cricket fans: After Shane Warne got in Marlon Samuels’ face during a game, Warne then threw a cricket ball at Samuels (it  may have just been by accident). At this point, Samuels — who, really, had just heard quite a tirade from Warne — threw his bat high in the air (and in Warne’s general direction). The video is below:

So, Warne got into a fair amount of trouble, but Cricinfo reports the verdict for Samuels (and Cameron White’s reaction):

Samuels was let off with a reprimand after the Code of Conduct commissioner John Price ruled that Samuels threw his bat after “extreme provocation” from Warne, who had just thrown a ball that hit Samuels.

“Being provoked, I don’t think you can use that as an excuse,” White said in Melbourne on Tuesday. “It’s remarkable, isn’t it? How many times have you seen someone throw their cricket bat on a cricket field and get [reprimanded] for being extremely provoked? I’ve never seen it before. That’s what the judiciary came up with.”

White is acting as many parents do when their squabbling children start to yell, “Well he started it — No, I didn’t — Yes, you did!”  The easiest course for any parent at this point is to appear neutral and punish both sides equally, and leave aside the thorny factual question of who started what.

While that approach may work for parenting, it’s silly when it comes to adjudicating conflicts among adults. Sticks and stones may break bones, but words can still fucking hurt. Warne was clearly the provocateur during this incident, and his constant, unyielding attempts to unsettle Samuels was designed to elicit some reaction.* I’m passionate about this case because of a similar one that occurred in 2008 between Gautam Gambhir and Shane Watson. The Australian tormented Gambhir during the course of his innings, and started to swear at him. Gambhir, understandably angry, elbowed Watson. The judge — the estimable A. Sachs — dismissed Anil Kumble’s argument that swearing is particularly offensive to South Asians, who place high stock on the power of words. As he put it, “However severe the verbal assaults on them may be, players are obliged not to give vent to their anger through physical retaliation.”

Again, very silly. Speech matters, and it can in fact cause harm. To focus on the physical aspect of an argument seems natural, since violence among men is always a concern. But it is ridiculous not to view harmful speech as potentially injurious as well. Sachs would prefer that players turn the other cheek for as long as they stay at the crease, and maintain a masculine silence about the whole thing. Meanwhile, the sledger — the one having fun at somebody’s expense — enjoys a massive legal loophole, because he knows that, to a large extent, sledging in cricket is tolerated (and increasingly celebrated).

No, commissioner Price was right, and White wrong: you get in another player’s face, then you should expect to have a cricket bat coming at you.

*I understand that Warne was simply “repaying” Samuels for tugging at Hussey’s shirt, which I felt was reprehensible. However, cricketers are not judges, and Warne should have left it to the match referee to pass judgment on Samuels.

Jan 11 2013
3 Comments
Cricket, Shane Warne, Twenty20

What Warne Did Right

There have been some pretty strong critiques of Shane Warne post-Marlon Samuels-bat-shirt-fracas. My favorite comes from The Guardian:

On the pitch, though, this Stepford Wives-style Warne is looking older than ever. He has turned in a series of performances for the Melbourne Stars in Australia’s Big Bash League that have spanned the range from embarrassing to mediocre. He’s been a wax-mannequin manqué, hapless with the ball, helpless in the field and with the bat.

Fair enough. On the other hand, life can be fairly hard for cricketers after they retire. You spend about twenty or more years training for a specific task, and then you find you then have to turn to at least another thirty years of life. You could go into coaching, but not if you have concerns about spending time with your family. If you know how to talk and act the showman, as Warne does, you head straight to the commentary box and try to retain at least a shred of dignity before fans figure out you’re just a jumble of catch-phrases. What Warne has tried to do is quite revolutionary — he understands that T20 leagues are basically dressed-up pick-up cricket games. People aren’t watching because they want the finest cricket; they want to drink, see a few shots, and players do crazy things. In T20, there is a fine line between the exhibition match and the real thing. To argue that Warne hasn’t performed well in the Big Bash League is to miss the point — which is, “Mom, dad, can we go see Shane Warne at the stadium today?”

One more interesting thing: T20 introduced a number of ancillary elements to cricket coverage, like a hyped-up DJ, cheerleaders, and silly ways to resolve ties. It also started to break the fourth wall and have commentators talk to cricketers on the ground during play. In theory, this could be a lot of fun, but from what I’ve seen, most players are either too distracted, too timid, or just completely lacking in verbal intelligence to say anything remotely interesting. Not Warne — he’s talking to the commentators right before he’s bowling. “I wouldn’t mind if he took a single here,” he says. Now imagine if Warne had confronted Samuels without the F-bomb, or the tugging of the shirt. What if he had said something aggressive but within the bounds of cricket, like, “It must be harder to bat with a bent arm, eh Marlon?” Wouldn’t we have all loved to “overhear” that exchange? Cricket match as reality television, people: welcome to the future.

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