Amit Kumar.........Oodles of talent wasted!

Amit Kumar will only be remembered as the legendary Kishore Kumar’s son always, rather than “Play back singer Amit Kumar”. Not that it would have been easy to emerge out of the shadow of his illustrious father, but despite of having oodles of talent, he could never establish himself as a play back singer in a manner he would have liked to.

We still best remember him as the singer of songs like Bade aachhe lagte hain, Yeh zamin gaa rahi hai, Yaad aa rahi hai etc. You could count his popular songs on your finger tips. But when you sit down and listen to these in a relaxed mood, you start feeling for the man. Despite of having an awesome voice, if he has not tasted the success he truly deserved, it is entirely the loss of the film industry.

Bollywood music and the audience has missed this gold mine, which otherwise could have been heard in innumerable hits over the last four decades.

Why this happened to such a talent is not really very difficult to figure out. The initial phase of his career was over shadowed by the presence of his legendary father Kishore Kumar himself. Till the date of his death, it was he who ruled the male playback singing. All that genre of songs went to Kishore Kumar. Amit, who sounded pretty much like his father had to be satisfied with the left overs. Any other songs, which were in the Rafisqe mould, went to singers like Mohd. Aziz, Shabbir Kumar .

After Kishoreda’s death, indeed a vacuum was created, and Amit Kumar should have been the ideal voice to carry the legacy forward, but to his mis-fortune, it was the leanest period of Bollywood music. All the Govinda & Mithun songs were the flavor of the season, where quality was at its nadir. This helped Amit Kumar’s cause no way.

The revival in melody came in the form of Nadeem- Shravan’s Aashiqui, but then that marked the arrival of another singer Kumar Sanu, who became the music director duo’s favorite after the roaring success of Aashiqui. This combo ruled the industry for more than half a decade, and by that time, having pocketed five consecutive filmfare awards, Kumar Sanu was touted as the next Kishore Kumar in the making. The public was mesmerized by his vocal similarity to Kishoreda, and was even ready to forgive his nasal indulgence. The ultimate sufferer again was Amit Kumar. He was almost non-existent during this period of time.

But just to showcase his talent, you need to hear his version of the song kajal kajal composed by Anu Malik for the movie Sapoot. This song was also sung by the then super-successful Kumar Sanu. It doesn’t take too much of brain storming to figure out that Kumar Sanu’s version was simply out classed by the Amit Kumar version in the album. But only very few of these kind of songs came Amit's way,so he kept himself busy doing concerts all over the world.

Any body who has heard him singing his father’s numbers on stage must admit that he is by far the best person to do a cover version for Kishore da's songs, if at all, rather than the Kumar Sanus, Abhijeets, Babul Supriyos, or all other Kishore Kumar clones, who have prospered in their respective careers at different points of time by doing so.

One gets a feeling that Amit Kumar might just have missed a trick or two at least in marketing himself, which saw him out in the cold, when singers with far lesser talent kept on raking the moolah thanks to their effective PRO.

Well, at 58, Amit Kumar’s career is certainly at its twilight zone, even as we still keep hearing his voice in a few hit numbers here and there.But we sincerely hope that his younger brother Sumit Kumar, who has since burst into the Bollywood playback scene, and has rendered a few very fine numbers like, Bandne lagi from Naach and the title track of Bachna Aie Haseeno, enjoys better luck in bollywood. We see tremendus talent even here, and wish all the best to the younger son of our favorite Kishore da

"Jaane Tu....." is a decent movie.....just decent!

You watch a movie, you write a review, one thing. You read a review that sets your expectation quite high, and then you watch the movie, and finally you write a review. Quite another thing. Especially if by the time you get down to the business of putting pen to paper, scribbling down your takes on what you had seen, the movie is already declared a runaway hit. In all probability, your opinion would tend to get a bit biased…….But as it turned out to be; Jaane Tu Ya Jaane naa has failed to impress me as much as it has the public and the critics. Despite of its tremendous success, I didn’t feel to have seen anything sensational except for the performances of Imran Khan and Prateik Babbar. To me it was yet another formula movie about friendship and love. Not a boring one though, but nothing spectacular to write home about.

In fact I was quite surprised to see critics go gaga over the uniqueness of the flick, some of them even seem to be spellbound by the way the opening scene was executed. But I just thought that this particular story-telling idea was straight away lifted, or should I say the clichéd word inspired out of the SRK-Rani Mukherji starrer Chalte Chalte, where a group of friends gather to tell a romantic tale to one of their new friends who is a stranger to the lead characters. And the saga of this friendship between a boy and a girl without realizing the love factor again had already been famously explored by Karan Johar, in his debut movie, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, with a slightly different flavor though.

But to give credit where it is due, Abbas Tyrewala has written and executed it quite competently, which maintains your interest level through out. And Imran, comes across as a supremely confident actor, effortlessly slipping into the character, which makes you wonder if really this was his debut venture.

Genelia has done a decent job, not any thing out of this world as claimed by a few fellow reviewers, Ratna Pathak is superb. Naseeruddin Shah didn’t have much to do, but his presence was quite effective. Arbaaz and Sohail, the Khan brothers were their usual irritating selves in their guest appearances. The stunning package though was Prateik, who has a telling effect as the jealousy-struck brother of Genelia.

Over all as a product, the film is not at all disappointing. It’s definitely worth a watch for the performances, for the kind of technicality that is so visible in each frame, for the youthful music scored by A.R.Rehman, and last but not the least for the sincerity with which both producer Aamir Khan and director Abbas Tyrewala have approached the job at hand.

What I urge though, is please don’t get carried away by its success, by the reviews and the trade reports……..just go out there without any expectation, you may still end up enjoying it.

A series that was lost inside the selection committee meeting room!

The recently concluded Test Series against Srilanka has once again seriously opened up the never ending debate of our persistent selection blunders, which has yet again resulted in a demoralizing series loss for a team that claims to be one of the most talented sides in the world.

True, we do have the talent, and now the desire too (at least in a few of our players), but over and over again we are done in by our brainless and unimaginative selection policy which, for this tour, had given us a team that contained the “Fabulous Four” selected purely on their names, a captain-cum-bowler, captain only because he has served Indian cricket long enough, and a bowler (read player) only because he is the captain. As if that was not enough, we had two wicket keepers, who were called so, only because they stood behind the wicket, catching and stumping be damned, batting they did, the way they felt like.

That takes away six spots in a game which unfortunately (for us) allows only eleven a side. To win a test series only with the rest five players (two batsmen and three bowlers) against an international side was always going to be a bit too far fetched. Srilanka had to be the favorite right from the word go.

The end result all but confirmed it. We did manage to pull one game back though, riding on the individual brilliance of Sehwag, but take that apart and we got what we deserved.

Let’s take a look at the batting performances of these big guns for this particular series. (Click on Tourstatistics to view the individual performances-courtesy cricinfo)

What is quite evident here is, any player however glorious his past records may be, can't figure in any side whatsoever (leave alone an international test side) with such form. With the combined batting average of 24.09 in all the six innings in the series, Sachin (15.83), Ganguly(16.00), Dravid (24.66) and Laxman(43.00) were hardly going to contribute anything towards winning.

And sadly that was not all. They have managed to keep a talented batsman like Rohit Sharma out in the bench, who is touted to be the future of Indian batting!

If you also consider the wicket-keeper's batting performance, then the combined average comes down to 20.83(hypothetically in every single innings the score would read as 21 for the loss of 5 wickets) with six players to follow, out of which four were pure bowlers. Can any team recover from such a dismal situation to even salvage a draw, leave alone winning?

What is annoying is, such selection has happened right after a season which had seen us reaping rich dividends by investing in young and hungry cricketers, who were raring to go out there and prove their worth.

In contrast, our oldies have nothing to prove as they have often been found confessing in front of camera, and no desire to put a team’s interest ahead of their own as has been evident for quite some time now. Their sole aim has been to hold on to their respective positions in the test side, which is their last hope with their selection in one-dayers and T20 being long vanished into thin air.

Can’t really blame them for being greedy, but our selection committee must have some commonsense. None of these players, despite of their towering statistics in terms of centuries and volume of runs scored in both the versions of the game, have ever been as valuable to India, as Steve Waugh was to Australia, when he was shown the door after a few lacklustre performances, despite of being one of their most successful captains and a batsman of immense value. What was their threshold for being in the side was performance and performance alone. That’s precisely why; they still continued to reign as the number one side in the world despite of dropping big names in favor of better performers at any particular point of time. If Australia could drop Steve Waugh, why do we have to carry a Ganguly and a Dravid in our team just because of their reputation? How many more series do we have to lose just to satiate these senior players’ ego? How many more young players do we ignore, in favor of this so called experience, that doesn't any more translate into performance?

It is not just this series, if you check the record books, these very player have managed to hang in there for quite some time now with a fifty here and a fourty there, purely because they have a certain number of runs and centuries under their belt, which they had scored before ages! Going by that logic, what sin has Sunil Gavaskar committed? Why is he sitting there in the commentary box when we are struggling to find a compact opener? He does have the record to feature in this test side! Why not select him?

Let's come to the leadership issue. I had expressed my disappointment in a post titled Spare us spare Indian cricket, when Kumble was chosen to lead the side ahead of Mahindra Singh Dhoni, citing his seniority and long service to Indian cricket. He, with the kind of personality that he had both on and off the field, was never going to be able to inspire any body. Rather the effect was always going to be damaging. By the end of this series, I guess I have gotton my point across.

Kumble, on a consistent basis has favored older guys to younger ones, as in any other event he himself would have been the first to face the axe. His decision on the batting order has been nothing less than disastrous. He had no business sending Ganguly ahead of Laxman innings after innings after repeatedly witnessing Laxman being stranded with the tail-enders especially when Ganguly had shown absolutely no desire to fight it out there in the middle. To expect Kumble to pick Rohit Sharma ahead of at least one of those big fours despite of their repeated failure, would have been nothing more than a day dream, simply because favoring a younger guy would obviously draw attention on himself.

He has always tried to steal the limelight from the success of others just to make sure that he gets the visibility as a great leader that in turn would ensure him a longer run at the helm. For example, right after the Australia series he had issued a statement, "We shouldn't get carried away by our incredible performances in the one-day and test matches in Australia...." Now, where was that incredible performance in tests? We had managed to draw the series. Even Sourav Ganguly's team had achieved the same feat in the previous tour.

More recently, after winning the second test against Srilanka, he said," I must say that this team has resilience. Coming back from a defeat and winning this test shows that this team has that fighting quality in it." This statement was supposed to be issued by Dhoni, for the one day side that he leads. This particlular test we had won just riding on Sehwags shoulders, with the fabulous four maintaining their consistency of poor scores. Sehwag, of course was ably supported by Gambhir, Ishant and Harbhajan. This hardly was the whole team. Had it been so, the seniors, who were very much a part of it, should have stood up and got counted. They should have taken the responsibility of saving the final test, when Sehwag departed early.

We must realise that we can't win test matches with a sub-standard team, lead by a sub-standard leader, who can't even figure in the eleven on the strength of his own performance. ( True, with eight wickets in five innings on tracks that were tailor-made for spinners, where Murali, Mendis and occasionally even Harbhajan played havoc, he can hardly inspire a bunch of players who are well past their prime) We are left with only one choice, we have to throw the youngsters to the deep end of the ocean yet again as we did for the T20 World Cup and the Downunder one-day series.

We have already seen the results. What on earth is stopping us?

On the wrong side of "Right"!

“Kya hua ek baat par, barson ka yaarana gaya.
Is bahane doston ka pyar toh pehchana gaya.”

“Hey! where are you these days dude? Long time no see? What are you up to?” I managed to ask Harry as I stopped at the corner of a nearby park, trying to gasp for breath.

Resuming jogging after a long time had already started to take its toll on me. Having spotted Harry sitting at the bench from the other side of the park, I had navigated my way through the now swelling crowd of morning joggers.

“Are all these people really health conscious or has jogging become just another fashion?” I fired my fourth question in a row without expecting any answer in particular, as my eyes were busy scanning the irresistible sweat-dipped figures that were flaunted all across the park.

Harry looked at me and smiled, and as my eyes met his, I immediately sensed trouble in paradise. There was something amiss. I had never seen him sitting alone engrossed in such deep thoughts. Even his smile, which otherwise came spontaneously, was tainted. Knowing Harry, I was sure; the matter had to be all but serious.

“Hey, is everything all right? What’s the matter man?" I sat next to him forcing my mind out of the attractive views all around.

It usually takes our man a while to open up, so I was ready for a silent pause.

“I had a fight with Radha.” He anticipated one obvious question coming up and tackled it right there, “Radha is my executive MBA class mate and we are good friends. Couple of day back we had an argument and we are no more in talking terms.”

“Don’t tell me you are sad because of that. Not for the first time have you had an argument with a friend. I am sure you know how to handle it. You are not a kid anymore buddy.” I said.

“I wish I knew how to handle this one. The other day she was late for the class and was casually mentioning how she had over-slept the night before. To which I had remarked in a lighter vain that this is quite expected as she had spent a long time talking over phone till late night on the pervious night.”

“Go on. I’m listening.”

“Having said that, I had even forgotton completely. But next time when I tried talking to her, she refused to reciprocate, saying I had hurt her by mentioning about her talking over phone. That she was speaking to her ailing mother, who stays alone, and in any case I had no rights to comment on her private life.” Harry continued, “I immediately apologized and explained her that it was supposed to be a joke and I never meant to hurt her. I didn’t know who she was talking to; neither did I want to. I had just tried calling her for an assignment where I needed to discuss a point with her and that’s how I came to know that her phone was busy.”

“So what does she say?”

“Nothing. She doesn’t pick my phone, doesn’t even reply to my sms. I have tried saying sorry several times, but still no response. I wanted to communicate to her that even I was upset with her when she mentioned that I had no rights. Where does the question of right arise man? Even if I had any rights, would I have made fun of her for speaking to whosoever she does, leave alone her mother? And how on earth would I know who she was talking to? How does it matter anyways? All I had said was she had a reason to feel sleepy.”

“You have said sorry to her, right? “ I asked as if I was a relationship expert.

“Many times man. I have tried to make myself clear. Also, I have tried to let her know I didn’t feel it was right on her part too to have mentioned about my rights. It sounded as if I was deliberately invading into somebody’s privacy, which was not the case at all. I really feel irritated as I am not sure if I have made my point get across, due to the lack of communication.”

“Why are you bothered? In my opinion, you have done whatever you could. Leave it right there.” I advised, “Since how long have you people known each other?”

“Must have been a couple of months. Since the day I’ve joined these classes.”

“Which means, you can’t claim to have known her all that well. You see, there are different types of people. Knowing you, I can understand why you feel so disturbed. You are a simple guy and want to keep things simple. You don’t like tension in the air whenever you come face to face with her next time. That’s why you wanted to iron things out.” I was now sounding like a astrologer to whom people come with trouble and he talks them through all their problems as if he is the designer of this whole universe.

“I know you Harry; you don’t have an ego as such, when it comes to handling people. But from whatever I hear, I can’t say the same about Radha.”

“But what does this silence mean? Am I missing something here?”

“You don’t really have to bother about that.” I replied.

“I can’t comment about Radha, since I don’t know her, but I know a couple of my friends who are real egoists. They believe, if they ignore while somebody keeps trying communicating with them, they gain a upper hand. They call it The art of maintaining a dignified silence. Whereas in reality, it is pure escapism. These kinds of people, generally attach high importance to themselves. They are unbelievably self-centered and they can see only one point of view, either their own, or of somebody else’s if it is similar to their own.”

I continued, “They would normally imagine things that they would like to believe and then go on to assume that their friends or people they know can’t have a different opinion. They would never accept that they can go wrong at times.”

“It is highly difficult to explain them, as they love their pre-conceived notion too much to part with it in order to accept reality. It’s always better to leave them with their own idea.”

Harry was attentive. “But I still have a doubt if Radha belongs to this category. Of course, I have noticed a couple of these traits in her but then we all have a bit of that.”

“We sure do.” I said. “But in different degrees. Trouble starts only when there is a mis-match in the proportion. Take yourself for that matter. You always take yourself too lightly, which is wrong. These people in our discussion take themselves too seriously which is again wrong.” I myself was surprised at my new found ability of preaching. Easy it was boy; why else would you find so many of them all over the place?

“So you just forget it, dude. It’s not wise to waste time over people who don’t deserve our whole hearted attention or care. You have better things to do. Anyways, its gonna make absolutely no difference to either of you if you don’t interact with each other. Why bother then?”

Harry said thoughtfully, “I understand what you mean. But its hard for me to associate negative thoughts with Radha. I mean, I cared for her man! I still do. Amidst all these war of words, I still get worried if she is all right, if she is taking care of herself, if she's had her food and things like that. She's crazy man! She feels she can take on the entire world on her own, but in reality she is well capable of landing herself in trouble every single moment. That keeps worrying me and I have never really needed anybody's permission to care for my friends all my life. The more I miss her crazy ways of doing things, the more it disturbs me and the tougher my words get, the whole idea being to make her react in good, bad, ugly whatever manner. I just want her to open up. I even told her she has lost the respect that she had in my eyes by acting snooty. But I am not sure if what all I said are true.”

“But then one thing for sure, if your opinion holds good for her, then she doesn’t deserve all this concern, in which case I would move on happily. It would take me not more than a second to forget everything, but how do I make sure?” The confusion seemed to be still there.

“Look Harry! You don’t have a choice. And because you don't have a choice of your own, you have to believe in what I say. See man! The logic is simple. You know you have done your bit. Even then if the desired result doesn’t follow, you take the next option. Which is what we just discussed.” I explained.

Harry thought for a moment, took a deep breath and said, “You are absolutely right buddy. Right here, right now I’m out of all this for ever. Thanks a lot for listening to me.” He started walking back slowly, but I could see his now assured steps towards a new dawn. I was convinced that he would forget about it completely as soon as he realized that no body under the sun deserves so much of his attention other than his own people.

The morning was getting warmer. It was time to leave. The park was quite empty now. As I got up, I heard a voice, “Hi”. I turned back to see a pretty face. “Can you please help me……….”

“Sure.” I almost screamed even before I could hear what she wanted me to do.

Rendezvous with the street monsters....... Part-I

It was a warm June night, a bit cloudy, a little clumsy and a tad quieter than normal. I was on my way back from a late night movie show. Giving me company were my ever dependable three room mates, Ravi, Prashant and Vijay, the “Awesome Threesome”. With these guys around, you absolutely needed no trouble; they themselves were quite a handful.

Weekend late night shows were a strictly routine exercise for us those days, that had to be followed as religiously as Sage Narada chanted Lord Narayana’s name, or may be we would have backed ourselves to have given him a good run for his money, if it came down to competition.

Sitting at the window inside a town bus, I looked at my watch. Ten past two at night, rather early morning. “End of a long day!” I told myself. The consolation part though, was that it was a Saturday which meant we would get a good quarter night sleep and a full day to enjoy before we faced our usual Monday blues. Ravi and Prashant were peacefully asleep on the rear seat, somehow hanging on to the railings of their front seat by the skin of their nails, in a manner that would have forced Newton to be ashamed of his Law of Gravity. I turned towards Vijay, who managed to give me a half-nod-cum-smile acknowledging in the most unconvincing possible way that he was in control unlike the other two. I could see him fighting his desire to close his eyes though.

Everybody, including the bus conductor, was jolted back to reality by the jerk of the bus stopping at our destination. It took the poor sleepy man some time to figure out where we were, but once he realized, he tried to announce the stop name as loudly and convincingly as humanely possible at that hour of the night. As we got down, the bus was off in a jiffy.

We looked around; there was not a single soul on the road. We had to walk another mile and a half to reach our residence. Half the distance was a decently lighted main road, the other half being a scary dark narrow street alongside the bank of a canal. We were a bit concerned about the later one because of the sheer number of stray dogs that the street contained. It was a challenge to cross it even in daylight, leave alone night. But the sole reason why we had taken the risk was because of the fact that Ravi was absolutely fearless when it came to dogs and he had given us the confidence that he could effortlessly escort us through the street. This, we had reluctantly believed not only because it was hard to resist the temptation to watch the movie, but also Vijay had certified to have seen him exercising his special skill in fighting and scaring the hell out of ten street dogs single handedly on the other day.

But little did we know that his unnecessary heroics had severely challenged the self respect of the unquestionable kings of our street, and that we were about to pay the price for it in the next few minutes.

As we left the main road and started entering our street, my fearful eyes scanned every visible corner of it in a way Sherlok Holmes would have been proud of. When I was reasonably satisfied that danger is minimal, I signaled Ravi to start moving, whom I followed along with Prashant and Vijay.

I first spotted a rather thin and awfully ill fed dog on my left sleeping within the first ten yards of our starting point of the street. It appeared to be quite disinterested in us, as if it was below it’s dignity to react to half dead people in fear. It didn’t bark, which meant no message was conveyed to the dog community about our arrival in their territory. A first good sign that everything was alright. First hurdle crossed, we were more relieved than anything else. At that moment I seriously doubted the intelligence of the man who dismissed barking dogs saying that they seldom bite. Any day I would prefer this non-barking dog!

We kept moving forward, quietly and anxiously. Suddenly I felt a little nudge on my shoulder from behind. Prashant was pointing to the right towards the canal. With a little effort, I could see another dog standing, but even this one’s body language suggested no aggression. It appeared to be in quite a relaxed and cheerful mood, calmly enjoying the gentle breeze of the late hour on an empty road. This too, we felt was nothing to worry about. For the next few yards we saw or heard nothing except the sound of our footsteps. Vijay felt, it was a nice coincidence that the dogs were away on a day we went for the movie. But I never believed in coincidence. Deep down I had this feeling that something was about to happen, and I was hoping I was wrong.

My hope didn’t last too long, as we saw a group of monster dogs standing at a distance of about fifteen yards right on the middle of the street. Even though they were not barking or showing any sign of approaching towards us, the symptoms were quite ominous. The keenness in their eyes, the stiffness of their standing ears, the deep breath, were all pointing towards clear and present danger. It was now quite obvious that they were aware of our entry into the street beforehand, the only question being how, but that was no time to search for any answer.

It was time to act, and to act fast. I took a final quick look at them and regretted it immediately, as what I saw boosted my confidence by no means. There were about twenty of them standing in a phased manner, nine, eight and three. The first nine were the strongest, looked the most agile and the most muscled ones. The next eight were relatively older but more assured in their mannerism which communicated strongly that they would bite to kill. The last three were visibly the leadership group of the community, who seemed to be working with a definite plan trying to boost the morale of the rest of the group, which, in reality we needed more badly than their soldiers.

We looked around, and almost immediately started admiring the intelligence of our enemy. Moving forward was out of question. To our left was a high wall which was impossible to cross. To our right was the dirtiest canal of the city, falling into which would kill us faster than the bite of the dogs. We could now realize why we had been allowed to move that far without obstruction. The monsters had very cleverly selected their site of final assault.

The only choice we could think of was to run back and get the hell out of there, where we would have to cross only two pocket sized dogs to get back to the main road. Then we could try and fetch some help. This idea too vanished into thin air as fast as it had occurred, as we turned back to see another group of tall and strong dogs standing right behind us sealing the exit point completely.

It didn’t take us too long to figure out that we had straight walked into a trap set for us, and there was no way out.

(To be continued.....................)

No! Its not the IPL effect.......We are indeed on the right track!

“India is a cricket crazy nation.” I commented as I flipped through the sports pages of the morning newspaper, sitting at the terrace of Prashant’s house.

Prashant, who stays next door, is renowned as the “Live Aaj Tak News Channel” amongst our friend circle, sans those irritating advertisements and is undoubtedly one of the front runners to be the voice of India. With him around, you absolutely need not waste any time reading newspaper or watching news channels; all you need to do is pass a super-obvious comment like the one I just did. For the rest, you could count on our man.

I grabbed my cup of tea, trying to make myself comfortable, fully aware that we were heading for a long session. I was now absolutely sure to be educated of the whole world’s opinion about India’s loss in the tri-series final against Pakistan, the day before.

“Very true man! Just take a look at these pages.” Prashant was aggressively waving a newspaper across my face. “Seriously! Tell me something, do our cricketers deserve this much adulation? These idiots again lost a final! Take away Sachin and this team is worth a shit! And yet we pay them a million bucks just to turn out for us.”

“Hey what happened to you? Are you all right?” I managed to say while taking evasive action from his now violently waving newspaper. “We have just lost a match, nobody died! And we were not outplayed; it was a fitting finale between two good teams. Why are you over-reacting?”

I quickly realized that I had grossly underestimated the extent of our nation’s cricket craziness.

“No man!” Prashant’s specialty was that every time he picks a word and over uses it till it sounds irritatingly boring. ‘Man’ was the word for the day.

“Look at them; they are not even ashamed of the loss! Man! This guy Dhoni grabs the media attention and credit for all the success when in reality it is due to somebody else. They said Dhoni won us the series with youth against Australia, tell me who did it? Was it not our ever dependable Sachin? Now what happened? No Sachin and they lost!”

Now Prashant had a serious personal grievance against Dhoni for dropping Dravid and Ganguly, and he was always wary of the fact that Sachin might face the same fate soon. So much so that I was almost thankful to God for not allowing Prashant and Dhoni to come face to face, else, our country might lose a good cricketer and a decent chartered accountant.

Prashant had not finished yet. “And our selectors are a bunch of jokers.” He repeated the famous Mahinder Amarnath statement of the eighties, which had costed him his place in the side. Our man had no such worries, so he continued, “They can’t just select an one day side based on IPL performances. Man! IPL was just for fun and it was 20-20 after all.”

These are the two opinions which Prashant had picked this up from a column by Mr. S Dinakar, the sports columnist for The Hindu. I’m sure the same sentiments would be reflected by a large section of our cricket loving public.

1) India can’t do without Sachin
2) India lost the finals because of the 20-20 effect on our shot selection

With due respect to Mr. Dinakar, I must say that both the opinions are a bit over the top, and just over reaction on the part of the media and public, whose face we just saw in our very own Prashant.

So far as the first statement goes, this is grossly due to the overwhelming fan following that Sachin has in our country and all over the world. They just forget the impact that our youth brigade had in Australia. They also forget the huge number of pathetic losses that we had been suffering till now in the hand of the Aussies, despite of the presence of the three big guns, Sachin, Dravid and Ganguly.

Sachin’s innings was no doubt important in the finals of the series, but the victory was more due to the mental dent that was carved out by the approach of our youngsters on the field, which had created unprecedented psychological pressure on the Aussies, something they were not used to. Our guys chose to fight fire with fire and the result was there for every body to see. As far as individual performances were concerned, Gambhir played exceptionally well and so did Ishant Sharma. Why single out Sachin, who had faired miserably throughout the series except the finals?

Coming back to the more recent opinion, I’ve to say that people are being over skeptical about the impact of Twenty-twenty on Test and One-day cricket. I’m sure the same must have been the case when One-day cricket was introduced. But today, both form of the game have not only co-existed, but prospered. Seldom people react positively to changes.

Agreed, the recently introduced shortest version of the game is more about attacking, but I’d defy any body who says its slam bang cricket. If it was, then Shahid Afridi would have emerged as the highest run getter. Instead, his Hyderabad team mate, Rohit Sharma, a purist’s delight, was one of the most successful batsmen of the whole tournament. People, who say that bowlers in Twenty-Twenty are paid to get hammered, must reconsider their stand, as we had a certain Shaun Pollock, a Glenn McGrath and a Mohd Asif who bowled in the right areas and still commanded respect even in the so called slam bang version.

I believe the successful players of the recently concluded IPL are a bunch of talented, thinking and intelligent cricketers. The series has added a new dimension to the mindset of all the players. They now are more aggressive, more agile and more energetic than ever. This is something which they will definitely carry to the other versions of the game making cricket more entertaining.

To be more specific, in the tri-series final against Pakistan, we did lose crucial wicket at crucial times, which is why we fell short by a few runs. This happens and will happen while chasing such a stiff target, with or without IPL. Suresh Raina’s wicket to a full toss, Yuvraj’s under-edge to a short delivery and Yusuf Pathan’s mis-time to a long hop can’t be overruled in the future even if they play hundred test matches. Such things are part and parcel of the game and will be seen as long as cricket is played on this planet, irrespective of it s format.

On another day, these very shots would have won India a thriller and we would be sitting in our drawing rooms appreciating the effort.

To me, we had seen a very good tournament in Bangladesh, where despite of the end result, clearly only one team has dominated throughout, and it was Team India. If we keep doing that, match after match, results are bound to follow sooner than later.

Till such time people like Prashant can have their say.

Whatever happened to Dravid!

You couldn’t have witnessed two more contrasting knocks from two batsmen under same conditions and against the same attack. It was hard to believe that Dravid was batting on the same ultra flat track (it was quite evident from the proceedings of the very first day of the 1st test vs South Africa 2008 that we are witnessing one of the most lifeless wickets of the season) that saw batsmen from both the sides accumulating runs at will. More so, as at the other end was a batsman who was not even considered worth a place in the side merely two test matches ago and he was treating every single bowler on the scene with utter disdain.

By the time this post is published, at the end of the third day’s play India had accumulated a mammoth 468/1 with Sehwag unbeaten on 309 and Dravid on 65. While much has been and is going to be talked about the brilliant knock of the irrepressible Sehwag, we need to have a look at Dravid as well. While Sehwag had taken 292 balls to score his 309 runs, Dravid had consumed as much as 181 deliveries for his 65. Just think about it, the unfinished partnership between the two is 255 runs out of 318 balls at a more than healthy strike rate of 4.81, meaning a near 81%. Dravid’s strike rate alone is a shocking 36%.

Hell! What was he trying to do out there? Was he rescuing a side which had lost all its recognized batsmen? Or was he trying to salvage a draw, buying time and playing out as many deliveries as possible? Does any premier batsman approach his innings in such manner when the opposition is pressed against the wall? Why give the opposition a feeling that they are still commanding some respect from the batting side even under such unforgiving conditions for bowlers? Ideally, all he had to do was, he should have tried to give as much strike as possible to Sehwag, who was on a roll. Nobody expects him or anybody for that matter to match the pyrotechnics of Sehwag. But at the same time he needs to realize that he has to bat in the greater interest of the team. The bearing of this particular knock in the match is yet to be known, and if all goes well and India is able to pull off a win, we may not even remember the damage that is caused by it, but in case of any different result, it is Dravid who should take the blame.

Not for the first time have we seen Dravid not being able to break the shackles. He has been doing it on a consistent basis for quite some time now. In Australia, every time he put in a similar kind of effort, Ian Chappell had ridiculed it.

The reason is hard to understand. May be, with younger players breathing down his neck, Dravid is trying his best to hang in there and get as many runs as possible. May be his reflexes have come down drastically over the past few years. Or it may have been one of those mental blocks he is not able to get rid off………that test cricket is played this way. We will have to wait and watch.

It is sad to see one of the most prolific run getters of India sweat it out such badly for every single run.

Meet the manager!

It had to be one of the biggest career-achievement for David. He had some how managed to convince Chandru, his manager, to have a chat with his team.

The meeting was underway after a lot of persuasion on David’s part to get Chandru across the table. One thing David had noticed here was that, if you want somebody to do a job here, catch him when he is least prepared. Following suit, he had managed to catch hold of Chandru on his way back from the rest room.

“Are all the resources available?” Chandru never considered employees as people or human beings. They were resources for him.

Within a few minutes, all the nine team members along with Chandru had managed to squeeze themselves into one of the tiniest conference rooms on the floor after a couple of unsuccessful attempt with some of the more spacious rooms which were already occupied.

“Spread around a little bit.” He urged the team, occupying half of the tiny room himself; he had hardly left any space for the rest of the ‘resources’ to move around.

"I kind of find myself alone if you stand like this.” He looked very pleased at his own joke. He had read somewhere long back; a meeting should be started with an unconventional light statement. That creates a good effect.

He straight away started with an apology.

“Team! My sincere apology to all of you for not being able to talk to you earlier. Not that I didn’t want to, but you know how difficult my job is. I have to manage so many processes at a time.” Chandru never failed to mention at the slightest opportunity, how great a job he was doing, managing such a large number of (highly unmanageable) resources.

“I will kick start this meeting today and going forward, we will hold this on a regular basis.” None of the team members were amused, they had heard this before. This statement simply meant, with this gathering, I am done with my job of meeting you, thank me. We should not see each other again unless I run out of any idea to avoid you guys.

He spent the next thirty minutes delivering a well rehearsed lecture about the company hierarchy, the rewards and recognition policy and the variable pay criteria, struggling through the occasional questions by mouthing irrelevant answers. At times, he even pretended to encourage the team to ask questions, knowing pretty well, none of them would be too keen on doing so. This, he had cleverly made sure in a previous discussion with David.

Once his speech was over he thanked the team and asked the resources to leave along with whom he was about to escape.

“Chandru! One moment please.” Stunned by David’s voice, he turned back to see him along with three of his senior team mates waiting for him. “Shit”. This was the last thing he wanted.

The day I saw her........

It was yet another indifferent day at office, a near tiring one. I was still settling down at my new work place. The changeover from an audit and advisory services kind of profile to a full time corporate one had not been an easy one. The person, who I was replacing, would be there for a couple of weeks more, and within that short time-frame, I was expected to acquire the whole skill set from him, which he had accumulated over a couple of years or so.

But of course I was nervous. More so because I would not let anybody point a finger at me commenting on my skills. Deep down, I knew I would be in control in due course. Nevertheless I was under pressure. The nervousness coupled with my anxiety to make a solid first impression was only adding to the feeling of my insecurity.

The afternoon was gloomy, perhaps it was drizzling. I left my desk and slowly started walking towards the window. As I looked at the sky, I could see the last valiant effort of the sun to break through the dark patch of cloud cover before it succumbed. Slowly though, the triumphant clouds were starting to look ominous.

The drizzle was getting stronger. And it was making me calmer with a soft soothing effect on my turbulent mind. I was lost somewhere in the darkness of the clouds, losing my sense of insecurity, inadequacy. I was beginning to get back the feeling of freshness of the morning.

Suddenly I turned back, surprised to hear a soft voice, the voice of a lady. Hearing a lady’s voice at my workplace was as rare as the May rain. She was standing at a distance far enough to be clearly audible, but I could tell that she had got an awesome voice. It was commanding enough without being arrogant, soft enough without being unsure. The sound of the raindrops on the window pane was providing the perfect harmony to her honey dipped voice. I tried moving closer, carefully, avoiding her attention. She was deeply engrossed in speaking to a colleague. When I was close enough, I looked at her face. It was calm, emotionless and firm. Her eyes were razor sharp. She certainly means business, I thought. I saw a striking simplicity within her, which to me was her most prominent feature that I picked from the first meeting. She finished her discussion and left in a few minutes, but the room was filled with the intoxicating fragrance of her perfume for the rest of the day.

I was now back at my desk, trying to force my mind back to the task I had left unfinished. Soon I found it futile, and decided to close for the day. As I made my way out of my office building, I saw the relentless rain hitting the drive way with its full vigor. I was stranded there with quite a few people, and I was hoping to see her again. No way could she have left, I thought. I kept looking around until the rain stopped, every now and then clarifying my colleagues that I was looking for that “Other colleague”. But I never saw her again that day.

Years passed by. Now we were friends. Well, at least I believed so. Trust me, it was a great feeling. She was always formal in her interactions, without sounding mechanical. She always gave me a feeling of holding back a lot to herself, but that was natural. Our interactions were almost always at a formal level, arising more out of our respective professions. I was smart enough to realize that and this very fact had kind of drawn an invisible line in my mind every time I spoke to her.

I liked her, but there was nothing unusual about it, a lot of people liked her. Barring those few cheap comments, that was so omnipresent, she always invoked positive reaction.

Black and White is a decent watch!

I had taken the risk of watching Black & White for two reasons. Firstly, I had read a couple of rave reviews about the movie and secondly and more importantly I had nothing else to do that afternoon. Like many others, I was also convinced that Subhash Ghai by now had hopelessly lost his touch for quite sometime. Otherwise, films like Yaadein and Kisna can’t be made by the same director who had earlier given us Meri Jung, Karma and Saudagar. So, to say the least, my expectations from Black & White were quite ordinary. And this very fact seemed to have worked in my favor. I did find the movie a decent one, only just though.

It’s a movie about a fidayeen suicide bomber, entering India with false identity to bombard the Lal Quila during the Independence Day celebrations. As the story unfolds, you see the protagonist eventually taking shelter at a professor’s house in order to use his political connections to earn an entry into the VIP area on the D-day to execute his plan. How events turn out later on so that he is forced to change his heart is captured in the movie.

Now, haven’t we seen something similar earlier in Mission Kashmir, Rosa and Dilse? Of course we have. Hence the plot is not exactly refreshingly new. But why still you feel the movie to be a decent one is purely because of the restrain shown by Ghai in handling his scenes. The narration maintains the curiosity level of the audience and thus a grip over them to some extent.

Anurag Sinha has made a powerful debut which needs to be appreciated. He had limited lines to deliver, but when he does, he does it with stunning effect. The ever dependable Anil Kapoor comes out with yet another solid performance. Shefali Shah is good, and theatre veteran Habib Tanvir is superb.

One gets a feeling that the editing could have been a little crisper to increase the feel of the sense of urgency. A few scenes like Anurag getting away from the VIP area effortlessly don’t seem logical, considering the fact that it took quite some planning on his part to get into it amidst water tight security. The change of heart again looked a little half-baked.

Over all, I would suggest the same as I did, go for it if you have nothing else to do and you will not be disappointed.

Cinema……..of a different kind!

Slowly, but surely bollywood is showing definite signs of maturity. The generation next film-makers are daring to dream…..daring to live their dreams on celluloid. What was viewed as a certain suicidal step only a couple of years back, is now being lauded as intellectual movie making. Earlier what one would have dismissed as parallel or off-bit cinema (saying that it’s meant only for the classes) is now the flavor of the season. Not that all such movies have set the cash register ringing at the box-office, but the niche segment of public watching these kind of movies have swelled considerably. And the success of movies like Dor, Bheja Fry, Khosla ka Ghosla and Cheenikum has certainly opened up this particular segment tremendously. The distance between both kinds of cinema is begining to narrow down. The introduction of multiplexes has also helped the cause.

Not so long back, people dreaded to spoil their week ends watching a Govind Nihalani, Prakash Jha or an Aparna Sen movie. They would rather get their money’s worth watching a David Dhawan brand movie (even if you are urged to leave your mind behind at home in order to enjoy such movies). Now the scenario has changed for the better. The public doesn’t mind watching a Namesake on a Sunday evening anymore. In fact they are looking forward to such type of movies.

It all started with a third type of cinema though, which was a blend between the art and commercial cinema. Yes, I am referring to the cross-over cinema, as it is popularly called. Movies like Jhankar Beats sans the routine bollywood megastars surprised every body by doing well only on the strength of their strong story line, sensible screen play and earnest performances of the cast. These movies tried to weave in humor as an entertaining factor while not compromising the underlying message of the script. They consciously underplayed the preaching element of parallel cinema without moving away from the central idea. After the success of a few, others followed suit.

Directors like Nagesh Kukonoor, Saket Choudhary, Sagar Ballary and Dibakar Banerjee have dared to venture into risky territory and tasted success. This will only encourage more such movies in days to come. And if such trend is anything to go by, we are in for an enriching movie feast.

And I do believe, the makers of real parallel cinema have a lesson or two to learn from this young brigade of directors.

Let’s talk cricket!

“That’s a very very good shot…….That is a very very good shot. I’ll tell you what, for me this is the shot of the day.” Says Harsha Bhogle. “There is no better sight in a cricket field than watching a batsman caressing the ball straight back past the bowler.”

“Wow……wow is all I can say for this shot. Sachin just transferred his weight on to his back foot, opened the face of his bat to pick the gap behind point. The little master does this with such pin-point accuracy every single time! Amazing!” Shouts Mike Slater at the top of his voice.

“He is got to read the ball out of the hand of Hogg, what he is doing at this moment is trying to read it off the pitch. That’s where he is struggling to play his shots.” Ian Chappell opines on another occasion.

So folks, isn’t it a fact that cricket commentators manage to alleviate our interest in the proceedings, every time you watch a match on television? I’m sure they do. Not just for the sake of entertainment, for those who take keen interest in the game, these are the people who enhance our knowledge and understanding of the situation, the rules, the strategy and a whole lot of information. These commentators tell us what kind of a score we should expect by seeing the surface; they help us understand what the captain should opt for in case he wins the toss, and not only that we come to know from them what is a good toss to lose and when!

I must admit that I have understood the finer technicalities of the game a lot more in front of television than on the cricket field. Now whenever a new batsman takes guard, I know where he should mark it, where he should stand to negate the early movement of the new ball, how he should roll his wrists to keep the ball down, how he should slide his bat in while completing a run and what strategy a captain should adopt at what point of the game to wrest the initiative from the opposition. I am sure the feeling is similar for most of you.

True, cricket commentary, in modern world has become one of the most lucrative and attractive professions (if you may call it a profession in today’s world). As expected, retired cricketers like Geoffrey Boycott, Tony Grieg, Ian Chappell, Sunil Gavaskar, Ravi Shastri, and Michel Slater with good narrating skills have become the leaders in the field. But these are only to name a few. There are many others who have taken to the profession as a natural progression at the end of their cricketing career. When such people, known as experts of the game share their knowledge in analyzing the game on television, it makes the experience of watching cricket both entertaining and informative in many ways.

But all is not well in this field as well. As there is no set qualifying standard here before one can go live in front of public, mediocre commentators from India are sneaking into the scene thanks to their efficient PRO. These kinds of people with their lack of knowledge misguide the viewers with their sub-standard analysis and irresponsible statements. And worse, while sharing the stage with more knowledgeable commentators, they even argue with them over facts just for the sake of arguing. This creates a very bad listening.

To cite a few examples, in international cricket we have Arun Lal, Saba Karim, Atul Wasan, Maninder Singh, Nikhil Chopra etc. Even Harsha Bhogle, who is otherwise very good as a presenter and anchor, at times comes a cropper at live commentary.

In a particular match when Sachin Tendulkar was nearing his hundred, he slowed down a little bit in his 90s, to which, Mr. Arun Lal comments,” I just don’t understand why people slow down in the 90s, while approaching a century. I fail to understand why there should be different feeling when you are on say 97 or 98 compared to when you are in the 80s”. Mr. Lal, how are you supposed to understand the feeling, when you have the highest test score of 93 and highest one-day score of 51? All experienced cricketers opine that its all together a different feeling scoring a hundred in an international match as opposed to a domestic one. You yourself have scored numerous centuries in the domestic circuit, why is it that you could never replicate it in international cricket? You know the answer, why make such foolish statements? A better way of putting your opinion across would be just to state that cricketers are expected to put teams’ interests ahead of their personal records and hence should not waste too many deliveries in 90s.

On numerous occasions you would hear Arun Lal on pitch reports, “Since it is a good surface, a high total of around 240 is always on cards.” And invariably the side batting first would end up scoring over 280 or 290 on such wickets. So much so that, he has been recently found commenting, sides should bat out the first 7-8 overs even in 20-20 matches to have a feel of the condition before going for their shots! Now, what kind of statement are these, when we are in an age of 300s and even 400s as 50 over targets? The facet of limited over cricket has changed for quite some time now. Lal would be better off updating himself.

The case is tricky for Harsha Bhogle. He is a very renowned anchor, presenter and commentator in the cricketing world, which is a tremendous achievement considering the fact that he is not a cricketer himself. What he should be careful about is that not to pass any technical judgment for the simple reason that there are better people around him who can immediately catch him doing so. This was quite evident in the recently concluded India-Australia series. He was found issuing statements to which Ian Chappell and Wasim Akram have reacted in a not so kind manner, telling him where he was going wrong. To make matters worse Harsha started arguing with them which made his lack of expertise in the game even more evident.

Take the first statement of this article, where Ian Chappell corrected Harsha pointing out to him even cover drives, hooks and pulls look very good. To say that straight drive is the most beautiful can’t be a conclusive statement. On another occasion, Harsha was trying to find out how many sixes Jayasurya has hit over point, to which Ian again reacted saying we should not waste time on such kind of useless statistics. On a third occasion, when Akram pointed out the fact that Pathan was being so predictable in his bowling that even from the commentary box he could tell what ball was coming up next, and that Pathan had to improve there, Harsha started arguing, mentioning that the batsman facing Pathan at that moment was James Hopes and not Akram. Such kind of childish statements are not expected from any commentator and by doing so Harsha is exposing his lack of knowledge, time and again. Repeated incidents like this make one feel that Harsha should rather concentrate on presenting and anchoring shows leaving the live commentary to experts.

With cricket being the flavor of the season, every single activity attached to the game is under microscopic scrutiny of media, fans and public. This demands greater discipline from people at responsible positions. No longer can they get away with even slip of tongues any more. They have to be more prepared and more informed than ever before to avoid embarrassment in public.

Indian Test Squad for the South Africa Series

The team selection for the upcoming three test series against South Africa has been a mixed bag. Included in the list are some obvious ones, a couple of surprises and a few names which could have been avoided. The selectors had the opportunity to build on the momentum of the one day series win and the decent performances in the last two tests in the recently concluded series against Australia. But as it turned out to be, looks like they have chosen to refer to the last home series against Pakistan while announcing the squad.

While Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dravid and Laxman pick themselves, the selectors have given another run to the consistently inconsistent opener Wasim Jaffer ahead of the in form Delhi opening pair of Gautam Gambhir and Akash Chopra. This is hard to explain. The only logic that can be attached to it is that Jaffer had scored a double century against Pakistan. Other wise, after dropping him from the squad for the last two tests against Australia following his failure to score against quality bowling, there is no reason of picking him again. Quite similar is the case of Yuvraj Singh. He too was not part of the playing eleven in the last two tests against Australia, but had scored a century against Pakistan at home. But at least one can argue that Yuvraj has to be given a few more chances to prove himself in test, given his talent, whereas, Jaffer had been given enough opportunities over the last couple of years. I would have preferred to see Gambhir in the squad in his place. The lad is high on confidence after his roaring success down under and he must have been keen on extending that good run into the test arena. Vengsarkar and co have certainly missed a trick here.

For the other opening slot Sehwag has been selected, which is logical given his success against Australia. Coming to the wicket-keeping slot, Dhoni could have been given a break. Dinesh Karthick, in such a case should have got the nod, where we could have got the flexibility of another opener in the side. After such a busy and demanding tour of Australia, Dhoni deserved a break to recharge again. Given that he is the captain of the one day side and such a key player for us we need to use him sparingly in test cricket amidst such heavily crowded fixtures.

Apart from the above there was not much choice for the selection committee to fill up the other slots, for which, they have done a decent job. One notable omission being Ishant Sharma, who has not fully recovered, and in any case needed a few more days of rest.

My side (playing eleven to be precise) for the series would have been as follows:

Virender Sehwag
Gautam Gambhir
Rahul Dravid
Sachin Tendulkar
V.V.S. Laxman
Sourav Ganguly
Dinesh Karthick
Irfan Pathan
Anil Kumble
Harbhajan Singh
R.P.Singh

If need be, a fifth bowler could have been played in place of Gambhir, in which case Dinesh could have opened.

Victory Downunder........Are we reading too much into it?

The euphoria in the air after India’s historic win over Australia is yet to settle down. The media is still going overboard in celebration and immortalizing our cricketers who have achieved the unachievable, done the undoable. Switch on any television news channel, and you will see team India being covered wherever they go, what ever they do. The media is all over them, showing what they had for dinner, where they went for a holiday, what kind of girl each of them would like to marry and what not. Most of them just out of their teens and new to this kind of attention are actually enjoying it, and so are their parents and family members. I suspect, each of their family has a dedicated room or at least an outhouse for the media crew. Thanks to them, the whole country now knows where the refrigerator is placed in Praveen Kumar’s kitchen, where Gautam Gambhir takes bath, where Ishant Sharma’s father reads morning newspaper, you can just go on.

The other day, I was shocked to see a news channel unilaterally consulting a doctor to prescribe some kind of diet and medicines for Ishant Sharma, which will make him stronger and bowl faster! The doctor, trying to capitalize on the limelight, went on analyzing the shoulders, arms and muscles of the young fast bowler in front of the camera and prescribing remedial actions what Ishant should adhere to, in order to have a long and rewarding career. I wonder, if she would have ever seen Ishant in flesh and blood. Or has technology improved so much in our country that doctors can treat people just by watching their pictures? The story is similar for each member of Team India.

Coming back to cricket, our ex-cricketers, who now consider themselves as consultants and experts of the game; too have played their part in adding to the hype and hoopla. A handful of them have gone on to the extent of putting this victory only next to the 1983 World cup win and a few others consider it third after the World cup 1983 and the World Series cup in 1985. This apart, the welcome that the team was handed with on its return home, the cash prize that the BCCI has awarded each of them, not to forget about the astronomical auction money from IPL, every body has just gone crazy over them.

What is alarming is, there seems to be no respite for the young team. The whole atmosphere created by the fans, the media and the officials, can easily sweep them off their feet. Just when Team India has started to show some kind of fighting sprit and mental toughness on the field, the unnecessary off-field atmosphere is going to test their character even more. Let’s face it, not everybody has the attitude of a Sachin Tendulkar, who has managed to keep his head right on his shoulder throughout his illustrious career amidst unbelievable adulation and fan followings.

If that happens, the ultimate loser will be Indian cricket. One must not forget, the same media is going to crucify each of them at every single reversal, without even considering that they need moral support to overcome difficult circumstances.

I do realize that all this is part and parcel of a cricketer’s life in India. But then having said that, one can not stop worrying, for the simple reason that we don’t want to disturb the re-building process of Team India. Some tough decisions have been taken. The results have just started to show. Still there is a lot of scope of improvement. To do a quick reality check, what we have achieved after all is, just a series win in a tri-angular tournament, where the third team was Srilanka which is going through an identity crisis at this moment. The old war horses are retiring and the new ones don’t seem to be ready to take over the mantle yet. The Aussies too are going through a rare bad patch. So while credit should be given to Team India for their good performances, too much should not be read into it. We need our youngsters to back it up with more of such results. We need consistency in winning.

Only then can we call it a truly great side.