Deamon's Dealer

Sunday, May 28, 2006

The KP Effect


Only when Kevin Pietersen raised his arms to cheer his sublime hundred did he show his one sign of fallibility during the entire innings: he dropped his bat. Now, really, if he's going to live up to England's Mr Cool tag that he so often gives himself, he's going to have to learn to celebrate with more flair than that. Luckily, he'll have many more opportunities.

Pietersen's 142 followed up his 158 in the first Test at Lord's, and pushed his Test average above 50. Runs flew from his bat as quickly as the low-lying clouds moved across the sky on a grey morning at Edgbaston. Two balls summed him up: an astonishing reverse-sweep six over point off Muttiah Muralitharan was the shot of the day, his dismissal the next ball the lowlight. But it wasn't the manner of dismissal - lbw - that offered any insight into his batting, it was the noise. The groan from the stands was almost as loud as the cheers that accompanied the six - it was as if the entire crowd had simultaneously found out they'd left the iron on.

And that's KP's appeal - the crowd want him out there as much as he revels in the spotlight. For someone who has not endeared himself to the English public in the same way as many of his team-mates, he is starting to become impossible to dislike. He has flair, outrageous shots, brutal attack, solid-but-exaggerated defence, deft touches, a self-awareness of his game, a desire to improve himself, a craving to entertain, a decent haircut at last and, most wonderfully, a good decade ahead of him. A decade in which he could become England's best and most important batsman.

"It makes me really proud to have contributed like I did today," said Pietersen. "I felt really good and was seeing it really well and I felt confident out there. I was just glad to help out the team"

Viv Richards was generous in his praise for Pietersen earlier this week, and there are obvious similarities between them. The better the bowler, the more Richards loved to take them on. The same can already be said for KP. Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath at Lord's (in his debut Test), Brett Lee at The Oval, Shoaib Akhtar at Faisalabad and, here, Muralitharan.

It's hard to imagine that Murali has been treated with so much contempt before. At one point in the afternoon, he was bowling to Pietersen without any close fielders. No other England batsman has this ability. Marcus Trescothick and Andrew Flintoff can destroy attacks, but don't go after the world's best bowlers with as much success as Pietersen. He was the only batsman to score over 30 in the first two innings. This man will win many matches for England, and he'll love letting you know.

"The best form of defence in my case is to take it to the bowlers but the reverse sweep for six was naughty," says Pietersen. "I don't think I'll play that again."

If Murali struggles against him, imagine the fate of bowlers who haven't got a hope of getting anywhere near 500 Test wickets. This, perhaps, is Pietersen's main asset. Watching Chaminda Vaas, Lasith Malinga, Farveez Maharoof and Nuwan Kulasekara trundling in to bowl to Pietersen made it clear that bowlers are terrified of him. He is the equivalent of Wayne Rooney running at defenders, writer's block invading an author or a gambling addict watching his horse fade away. Bowlers simply have no control over their destiny - it is in the nimble, powerful hands of Pietersen, and they know they are facing the toxic mix of embarrassment and despair. It's a cocktail that England fans should become used to

Monday, May 15, 2006

Quota: A cure worse than the disease


'India is my country and all Indians are my brothers and sisters.'
This is a pledge that most of us must have taken at some point or the other during our school days. All young minds are trained to treat all our fellow Indians as equals in every respect right from childhood.

Unfortunately the reality is quite the opposite. As soon as we finish our schooling and take the first step towards higher education, we find discrimination in the name of reservation.
It starts with getting admission to higher educational institutions and extends to several other fields -- like getting jobs, obtaining easy loans, et cetera. So is reservation justified?

When we are trained to consider all fellow Indians as brothers and sisters why is it that certain sections of society are given this privileged treatment? Before dwelling deeper into this question let us first understand the fundamental aspects governing this policy.

The reservation policy has been prevailing since early twentieth century. However, pre-Independence reservations were provided not to the deprived sections of the society, but to religious communities.

However, this situation gradually changed over a period of time and is now meant to improve the rights and representation of the deprived sections of the society and for their empowerment.

The problem of equal rights and opportunities dogs every democracy, and India is no exception. Even in the United States, the land of great opportunities, there are still many deprived sections that are denied their due share in educational, economic, social and political arenas.

The problem in India is far more complex considering the backwardness in most parts of India and the diversity in religion and caste. India is a country where wealth distribution is highly unequal. Beggar children beseeching for alms at traffic signals where gleaming Mercs purr is still a common sight.

In the US, the 'Affirmative Action' is a policy, which prevents discrimination against certain sections of the society. The reservation policy in India, however, acts exactly against this purpose.

It does not act to end discrimination. It acts as an antidote to an exploitative and unjust social structure known as the caste system. It fosters discrimination and plants the seeds of division in people's minds -- all this in the name of empowering and protecting the deprived sections of the society. Such division is against the cardinal principles of democracy.

Reservation is not an atonement of our past sins and should not be used to compensate for the damage inflicted in the past. It is still a bitter fact that certain sections of the society are exploited and deprived of their rights.

Although significant progress has been made in empowering the lives of such oppressed, there are still many horrific incidents happening across the country. We are still living in a highly unjust social structure.

However, instead of eradicating this injustice, we are further dividing the society and creating splits. We are trying to heal our past wounds by inflicting new ones.

Unlike in the US, the reservation policy in India does not strive for equal opportunity. It rather acts as a catalyst for further division. Reservations are provided across various sectors like higher education, jobs, political representation and other areas.

Since there is a paucity of educational facilities like medical and engineering, such a privilege becomes a decisive turning point in the careers of several young and bright students.

Giving special privileges to someone merely on the basis of their birth into certain castes or tribes is unjust. People who have benefited from such biased treatment would advocate for more and foster caste sentiments in their minds. Those who have lost the opportunity in spite of having good credentials would start feeling bad about their upper caste credentials.

The benefits are so many and so palpable that the reservation policy has created a vested interest in backwardness. It seems like people want to be considered 'backward' rather than 'forward' in modern India! The more backward you are the more advantages you get.

Reservation is now used as a tool for gaining more benefits. The area of reservation has been steadily expanding and newer backward groups and sections of society are mushrooming.
Several castes and their leaders constantly strive to prove their backwardness in order to sneak into one or the other reserved categories. Some political groups have even started identifying themselves with a particular community or caste to garner their support. We have also started seeing demands for reservation based on religion. The demand for separate reservation for Muslims and Christians is one such example.

Some theories say that the interests and aspirations of a community can only be protected by the people belonging to the same community. Only a schedule caste leader can help another scheduled caste person, only a tribe can help another and so on.

Political parties project themselves as the champions of that particular race and corrupt the voters' minds by propagating such notions about leaders belonging to other castes and religions.
However, an important and notable aspect is whether these reservations actually reach the people for whom they are really intended? Does reservation empower the deprived sections of the society or is it being misused?

Since the reservation is meant for the minorities and the oppressed, the percentage of seats reserved should also be kept accordingly. However, in many states the percentage is too high and mirrors the vested interests behind increasing the limit. Tamil Nadu with a reservation of 69 per cent is a glaring example.

Secondly not all people of these backward classes are deprived. In fact there are quite a few of them who are neither economically or socially backward who can be considered as the creamy layer among such backward groups.

Since reservation is meant for the deprived, showing such privileged treatment to the 'creamy layer' from among the 'backward' castes defeats the whole purpose. In fact, people from these creamy layers steal the reserved seats from their other backward counterparts for whom these reservations would have actually made a difference.

There is no denying that our society is still not just. But quoting this as a reason for reserving seats is equally unjust and undemocratic. To reiterate, we should strive for an egalitarian society and not compensate for the damage inflicted in the past. There should be a terminating date fixed for all the reservations.

We should aim for a society where everyone is equal. For that we need bold statesmen who can fight for the cause of equality and make the people realise that division and discrimination based on caste, creed, religion or sex is only going to harm their own interests.
Let us hope for the day when all Indians become brothers and sisters in the real sense. Let us fight for equality

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Another opportunity spurned



How do you score runs? By not getting out.

It seems an obvious answer to a question that would probably prompt responses ranging from natural ability and mental application to the nature of the pitch and the quality of the bowling.
But in an era where every aspect of cricket is analysed to a microscopic degree, it took two of the legends of an earlier period in West Indies cricket to remind us how straightforward a game it really is.

There may not have been any play at Bourda, but Saturday in Georgetown was far from a total loss, not with two of the Three Ws holding court in an event billed as an "Evening of Nostalgia" at the Le Meridien Pegasus. The opportunity to hear the reflections and musings of Sir Everton Weekes and Sir Clyde Walcott on a night of cricket talk put on by the "Reds" Perreira Sports Foundation was one not to be missed.

Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, most current West Indies players had better things to do. Only Brian Lara, Marlon Samuels and newcomer Sewnarine Chattergoon saw it fit to attend. Unlike his two teammates, who departed after the first half of the proceedings, the captain stayed to the very end.

His presence, gratefully acknowledged by chairman Tony Cozier, and warmly appreciated by the attentive gathering, offered confirmation - if any was needed - that the captain stands alone among his contemporaries in having a genuine appreciation of the history of a game that has brought such joy and pride to the region, but has more recently been a source of much anguish and frustration.

When players can't even appreciate the value of listening to and learning from past masters in their own profession, should anyone still be shocked that modern Caribbean cricketers seem to be critically deficient in the pride and passion that were, until very recently, defining characteristics of regional sides?

Anyway, enough trampling over well-beaten ground. Even if those who needed the advice most chose not to be around, two points stressed by the cricketing knights are worthy of repetition.
The first, the one I referred to earlier relating to a batsman first treasuring his wicket if he wanted to get big scores, was hammered home more than once by Weekes and Walcott. As a stylish and prolific accumulator, Sir Everton's Test batting average of over 58 is a testament to that hunger for runs. Yet more poignant in stressing his attitude of eliminating risk was the fact that he only hit one six in his entire Test career.

In mulling over that surprising statistic, you could almost hear the question and answer that it would have inspired: How do you avoid getting caught? Easy, don't hit the ball in the air.
Which brings us to the second point that really stuck in my mind amid the two hours of reflection on times past and opinions on current happenings in the game.

The idea that a batsman should value his wicket, a concept once so fundamental to the art of batsmanship, now seems lost in an era when attention spans are more in tune with the 20-20 game than Test matches.

For Sir Clyde, who averaged over 56 in Tests, a remarkable effort for such a giant of a man who was also a wicketkeeper, the state of West Indian batsmanship and the quality of the overall regional game are symptoms of the times we live in.

"Life is too easy these days," he stated more than once, a comment that would have had the few younger members of the audience rolling their eyes at the prospect of another relic of the past dragging on about the good old days.

But in both cricketing terms and a general sense, Walcott was not playing down the wrong line. Long gone are the days when young batsmen, despite compiling more than a few hundreds in regional competition, were kept waiting for their chance to break into the West Indies team. Lara was probably one of the last of those, having to wait another 16 months after his debut to play his second Test.

Batsmen of recent vintage can't put a premium on their wickets because they haven't had to work as hard as those of earlier eras to make it to the top. In fact, as the Walcott stressed, it is also a reflection of different lifestyles. In an environment defined by the obsession with any number of fly-by-night material possessions, the very idea of consistently preparing to bat for the long haul is almost alien.

So what can be done? The clock can't be turned back to recapture the work ethic of the post-World War II Caribbean or the heady independence era of the 1960's, when a sense of West Indian identity through cricket was all the rage.

In fact, some will say that the two ageing batting champions are out of touch with reality and therefore unable to appreciate the demands of the modern game. Yet while they valued their wickets and the lessons of a more challenging era, they also embrace the use of technology to help umpires and the employment of full-time coaches.

So it wasn't a case of "in my day this and in my day that" from the two giants. It's just a great pity that those in greatest need of such tutelage felt it was a waste of two hours on a Saturday night in the Guyanese capital.

Fazeer Mohammed

The forgotten ones

Odd Men In - a title shamelessly borrowed from AA Thomson's fantastic book - concerns cricketers who have caught my attention over the years in different ways - personally, historically, technically, stylistically - and about whom I have never previously found a pretext to write

Anyone who grew into their cricket in the 1970s will remember how crisply the world then divided. From Australia came moustachioed bandidos in baggy greens. In West Indies originated towering, raw-boned fast bowlers. England provided the dour professionals and resourceful defenders. And India? India was the home of spin - apparently, in fact, its last bastion, in an era besotted with pace supported by a crescent of slips.

Everyone knew the chief quartet: Prasanna, Bedi, Chandra and Venkat, so original and so different from one another. Then there were others, who had to make the best of limited opportunities: left-arm slow bowlers as good as Rajinder Goel, Rajinder Hans and Padmakar Shivalkar, and the excellent offspinner Shivlal Yadav. Primus inter pares in that group, though, was Dilip Doshi.

Doshi was 32 by the time he found a niche in Tests, and already steeped in the traditions of which he was part. He was a negligible batsman, and with his unathletic physique, baggy creams and thick square spectacles reminded Alan Ross of a French semiotician, a Barthes or a Levi-Strauss. It was a subtle analogy, for Doshi's bowling was full of double-meanings and hidden depths, both inviting and aggressive, patient and probing.

In Australia in 1980-81, Doshi was a revelation. It's often said that Australians favour visiting players who seem to reflect, and thus endorse, their own mores - Botham and Flintoff have, in their days, been typed "almost Australian". Yet touring cricketers have also become popular here for the opposite reason, that they savour of distant places and different ways of life. Patsy Hendren, Maurice Tate, Freddie Brown and Ken Barrington were quintessential Englishmen; Garry Sobers and Wes Hall were archetypal West Indians; Imran Khan was no version of Australia Lite.

Doshi cut an unlikely figure, but his love of cricket was abundant and obvious, and he was incurably game; though he might be slow across the outfield, he never gave up a chase; even in adversity, his smile was never far away. He was brave, too, bowling 74 overs in the Melbourne Test with a fractured toe.

With a ball in his hand, he was never other than poised, setting the field like a finicky host setting the table. He had one of those approaches you could watch all day: a dainty run that turned him exquisitely side on, followed by a delivery stride where his bespectacled eyes would be just visible over his high right arm. His body would pivot into a follow through that brought his left hand below knee level.

Although Doshi could turn the ball appreciable distance in responsive conditions, what left the strongest impression was how long he could make it hang in the air, as though suspended in a cobweb. Greg Chappell collared him in Sydney, but Doshi came back by dismissing him twice in Adelaide, sweeping at a ball that bounced too much in the first innings, then beaten in the air coming down the wicket in the second. Chappell turned on his heel without trying to remake his ground, bowed his head penitently, and stripped off his gloves in his few strides for the pavilion. "Too good," he seemed to say, "too good."

Australian spin bowling was then in a parlous state, and Doshi was a tonic to palates jaded by the monotonies of medium pace. "Doshi taught us by example," wrote Bill O'Reilly. "Refined, thoughtful and brilliantly-executed spin can offer the game an exciting future." O'Reilly would live just long enough to see Shane Warne fulfil the prophecy he'd made watching this improbable visitor.

Yet while Doshi took 114 Test wickets at averages and strike rates in Bedi's class, he came and went quickly, not so much for reasons of form as because he was out of tune with the mores. The early days of the proliferation of limited-overs cricket were characterised by formulaic thinking, including the idea that spin was de trop. Doshi gave up fewer than four runs an over in his 15 ODIs but could not keep his place; he took a fabled 8-7-1-1 in a Sunday League match for Notts against Northants and was left out of the county's next game. Even his pedantic way with field placings was held against him. Didn't he realise that spin bowlers were there to speed up the over-rate and kill a few hours while the fast men got their breath back?

His autobiography also makes it clear that Doshi harboured his own objections to the game's trajectory. Most players are broadly in favour of commercialisation; certainly, they would no sooner object to it than fluoride in the water supply. In Spin Punch (1991), Doshi is almost entirely antagonistic to "professionalism and money-mindedness".

The Indian team, he says, had a "one-track obsession" with money that he found `quite disgusting'. The BCCI, meanwhile, was "a government within a government, almost totally not accountable to anyone". Doshi was, in his own account, a man apart. He reports that he declined the opportunity to write a newspaper column because it would `bring out into the open what were essentially confidences'; he thought throughout his career that advertising and endorsements were "totally out of hand". He even recalls a team meeting before the first one-day international in India where the conversation was entirely devoted to sponsorship, prize money, logo royalties and match fees: "Cricket was discussed only as an afterthought".
Hovering over the book is the figure of Sunil Gavaskar, now so gushing about the honour of representing India, but who Doshi depicts darkly as a petty tyrant "bogged down in personal likes and dislikes", and "either evasive or flippant" when challenged - as, for instance, when he instructed Doshi to take more time over his overs against England in 1981-2, then left the bowler to bear the brunt of criticism for India's abysmal over-rate.

Such selfishness, in Doshi's view, was contagious. In one vivid anecdote, Doshi recalls apprentice paceman Randhir Singh taking the ball on a green-top in a tour match at Canterbury. In a trice, three catches were dropped by the "stalwarts who stood in the slips apparently for no more than a pleasant chat amongst themselves". Not only was no apology tendered, but no one took any notice. This, said Doshi, was the "crudest and ugliest face of Indian cricket". If his own face did not ultimately fit, perhaps it is a testament to him.

Gideon Haigh

Sunday, May 07, 2006

Reservation Games


With he summer in India getting to its peak somehow the entire reservation controversy is dying down. the government is also trying to come up with other alternative to save its face by introducing more seats in the premier institutes or by announcing 5-10% quota for the backward section of the upper caste.

By this the government is just trying to wash its hands from the entire situation. for the last 6 decades various Indian governments have failed miserably to bring the backward section of the country to the mainstream society and the entire benefit of the reservation has been grabbed by the elite few and their children.

Perhaps the government does not even try to bring these people to the mainstream society, especially the congress government, as it has found out that the more the people get educated and have economic freedom the more they drift away from congress ( in the last 6 decades of India's freedom Congress has ruled the country for over 45 years).

so instead of reducing the quota over the years the government instead kept on increasing the quota to keep the backward caste votes to itself. otherwise how it can ever make sense that the backward caste child who does not even go to a school would ever want to complete his post graduation.

The ones who do take advantage of the reservations are the selected few elite IAS, IPS, Politicians etc kids who study in the best of schools and yet want reservation for their graduations and post graduations.

One other questions that also comes up in this entire issue is that how many times a state will help a child to stand up on his own. A SC/ST/OBC child get reservation at school, graduation, Post graduation and government jobs. (and now they are even talking of reservation in private sector).

just to gather few votes the politicians are actually playing with the future of entire generation of kids who dont belong to the reserved category. And not just that they are also playing with the contry's best talents. if the proposed 27.5% reservation for the OBC category do go through then the actuall reservation will not just be 49.5% (15% for SC, 7% for ST) but instead it will be somewhere around 60-65%. What people are not counting are reservation for Minorities in states like Kerela, Andhra, UP, St'. Stephen's college and Jesus and mary college. Reservation for women in Delhi university's South campus, Madhya predesh, Reservation for physically handicapped and army personalle quota and various other quota like physically challenged, North eastern quota.

I also feel terrible disgusted by the way the students union in various Universities of India has behaved. No one from JNU complained because it is ruled by left Parties which also want reservation to gather backward caste votes as most ogf them are workers. Delhi univerity Students Union never agitated as it is ruled by the tudents wing of the Congress. Infact personally knowing the president of the DUSU, Ragini Nayak, for over 6 years i can safely say that she is only supporting the entire reservation controversy to gather few brownie points in her party so that she can climb one more stairs of the ladder of success. She dosent care a bit for the students who voted for her and brought her to power infact all that she cares is one more post in her party.

Sad it is but this is the reality. brave doctors are fighting a lonely battle. Fortunatly or Unfortunatly i feel that the proposed increase in reservation will go throughand soon after that reservation in the private sector will also be passed. Congress with this politically correct master stroke might come to power once again but the people who makes this country great will certainly loose out in this reservation game