The Asian invasion

I am Patrick. Short being Pat. Am an amiable Brit. I like Cricket on the weekends. I watch it. Don't play. Me and the missus get around to seeing a few games in the Midlands during the summer. We take our umbrellas. Brit weather, you know. We carry the sunglasses too. Brit weather, again. We rejoice if it is 11*C and the sun is over us. It used to be good back in the seventies. Snow, Botham and Willis. Gower, Gooch and Holding. Watch a game. Have a pint. Take the 9.32 home.

Then the Asians arrived.

Don't take me wrong. I am not the type to abuse them at the Ginger Pub with the mates over a beer. But it's impossible to watch and savour a Kohli drive if someone close is always dancing and falling over you without even registering the classicism of that drive. It looks like they've had a few even before they arrive in the morning. The Bangladeshis yell in Bengali and the Indians yell back in Hindi or the other many languages that they have. Their bad teeth aimed towards television cameras. They actually live for their cameras. The food drops off their laps when they find that the cameras are looking towards them.

Missus has got no interest in Cricket. She comes along because I go. She does the crossword during the matches. Last I looked at her crossword a few hours ago, she had drawn up quizzical lines emanating from the boxes. When asked, she said that the lines were because of the young men hitting her elbows as they kept jumping up every other minute. I felt sorry for her. How would DARWIN look if all the letters have spikes going all over? And she couldn't even glare at them as they kept muttering "Sorry" too.

The men who bring their Indian drums with those cymbals and one obese man who seems to wear a frightening contact lens and stare at the camera, were right there in front of us. When the cameras weren't looking their way, they ate. Or played the instruments. I could not hear the sweet thud of the bat on the ball all through the match. When the cameras looked their way, they became mini versions of Godzilla. Is being frightening a type of celebration in India? Need to research on that.

Even the Bangladeshis weren't behind. They brought in huge tiger dolls and shoved the dolls under my nose to make me frightened. I was, for them and their sanities.

This game used to be about tweeds, hats, whites and patience not so long ago. Am wistful. On the pitch, even now, I like it when the strokes are classical and the ball seams away well. But in the stands, it is as though "Planet of the Apes with bad teeth" has been released.

Well, one can't complain. They bring the economy to the grounds.

And what's this Jai Mata di? Oh, religion, is it?

Holy cow, they have this overt thing about religion, don't they?

Two men on a field, for the last time

Ten men crowd around the stumps. In white. Green caps askew on their heads. The ground quiet and silent. Just a ball and another over to go. The rain has come on. Washes the perspiration from the ten faces. But no one, absolutely no one in the field has his mind on the rain or the floodlights that have come on. Two old men. At the brink of history. Of retirement. Of moving into the annals of history. As the greatest Pakistan Cricketers of all time. Younis and Misbah. Ex-Captain and Captain. Men who had marshalled the dawn of the golden age of Pakistani Cricket.

Then, there are the two batsmen from the islands. West Indians, they call themselves. A pale shadow of the team that had muscled other national teams thirty years back. A batting that was being shepherded by a batsman who till the other day was known more for his bowling. Another, who was literally the number 11 in the team batting order. Whose idea of batting is a prod at any ball. Roston Chase and Shannon Gabriel. Cricketers who are barely known around the islands. No showmen, as the showmen were all away playing for gold and town houses in a league that has quixotic team names for cities. Chase and Gabriel. They could have been a bank, the way they have defended their citadel for the last ten minutes.

The premier Pakistan bowler, a leg spinner, crouches at his bowling mark. He has been beyond super through this test match. Bowling from wide of the stumps, lobbing the ball at the batsman from a height and angle where it causes much discomfort. In failing light, misty rain and inadequate floodlights, he is always going to be a handful. One last ball is left. One last ball to get to five wickets. One last ball to leave his superlative impact on a test that has swung like a yo yo between the two teams. Yasir Shah, a man who looks more like a footballer than the ace cricketer he is.

The hush descends as he comes in to bowl.

Gabriel is the batsman. He has been coached by Chase at the wicket. Defend, for your life depends on it. But he has ten world weary men crouching around him. Ten men from a country that has nothing going for it other than this game. Ten men who cannot play in flashy cricket leagues around the world. Or don't. Two among the ten are so old and weary that crouching for a catch is also task. But yet they are there, for the nation. For themselves, for history.

Yasir bowls. It is a wrong one. Gabriel has a brain seizure. He decides that the best way to defend would be a hoick over the in field. Get it over their heads. A milli second later he hears the sickening sound of the ball hitting his stumps. Inside edge. His face crumples. What's he done? Chase is shell shocked. One ball and he could have defended the final over. One ball and he could have carried the team into a memorable draw. But what's the young man done?

The Pakistanis are everywhere. Younis plucks the stumps. The substitutes arrive with the flag. Yasir is jumping around in footballer glee. Misbah is engulfed. He is looking towards his family. They are in the stands. He is 42 years old. The oldest captain in the last thirty years of modern Cricket. He knows what he has achieved. He runs towards his family. The inscrutable captain at last shows some emotion. Younis has a smile as wide as the Indus.

Maybe, just maybe, this is the most bittersweet hour for Cricket.

Two honorable gentlemen leaving the field for the last time, draped in their country flags, as winners.

Just know, their impact on the game has been much more than Dravid, Tendulkar, Miandad, Inzamam and Sangakkara. The other South Asian greats.

Old men. Victors. More than ever.

A bearded leader and some bearded men

Virat Kohli smiles a lot. He also gasps, fumes and grimaces. Sometimes his inner Captain Haddock takes over on the field if his deep fine leg is standing on his heels. At other times he's found wringing his hands in dismay or having a rueful smile when his nice fielders get into a tangle with the ball. Read Rahane. Or Ashwin. When he's running like a grammar school kid after school. But Virat gets his job done. I won't mind saying that this cute little team has more talent on field than the times of Saurav or Dhoni. But putting the available talent to work and getting the best out of each guy is another sort of work. Your talent cannot graze grass at third man like some of the pacers did in other times. Nor they can be toggled between third slip and midwicket in fervent hope that the ball will show signs of deviant bounce or the pitch shall show frantic signs of turn just after 3.17 pm in the afternoon. Talent has to be put to work. Logical. Yeah, but try telling Amit Mishra that. Or Praveen Kumar. Praveen may even bring down his family mace onto your head. It's the near past. Just look through the score sheets and see how these guys were used. Virat has succeeded in this. I would not venture to say fully. I fear a caustic Viru tweet if he ever reads this. Ever. But sample this. You have a setting sun. You decide to change Ashwin's end and bring in the tall bowler against the setting sun. You employ a leg slip for his faster ones. You have your best in field catchers at all the close in positions. Then you put in yourself for the uppish drive at short mid on. You ask Ashwin to go about his business with trajectory and drift. You get results. The science and art of talent management onfield comes alive. It's beyond all fixes and cave ins. Virat loves his hours of the day. His declarations have had a certain certainty to themselves. It isn't about waiting for Rohit's fifty or Rahane's hundred. It's telling them that he's going to declare at this hour and they better move their arse if they have to get the team anywhere near to an objective at that appointed hour. Then, like a fielding captain with a Border level mojo, he rotates his bowlers. Shami and Umesh or Bhuvi for the first eight. Jadeja for some quickies in between. Ashwin centrestage. Grinning and fuming. Alternately. Bhuvi certainly near the twenty fifth. Shami for the thirtieth. Reverse swing, you see. Setting sun. Jadeja back for his bootlickers. Ashwin, the hulk in the dark. Shami, if someone needs to smell some leather. Virat senses. The team rallies. Watch Umesh run for the ball. He knows he's being valued in the deep. They all pester him for the piston throws from the deep. Jadeja must throw. Saha must dive for the unreachable. Rahane must walk in a few paces for the faster ones coming off the edges. Angles. Trajectories. Gambhir found himself at sea for a few minutes before he accepted the new order of things. His bones didn't. Play for the team. It's a team game. Good man and cinema feature, Dhoni, brought this concept back into Indian Cricket after Greg Chappell had majorly messed around with the lateral thinking of the nation's favourite team. But Virat is making it sharper. He does not need a saw. He has allowed the beard to flourish. Like that other great thinker of our times, Misbah ul Haq. Forward thinking. Take more singles. Adds to a total. Drive in the V. Get the partnerships going. Facilitate two all rounders suddenly. Get your quiet wicket keeper to breathe at the wicket. Allow your speedsters to do the seam and bounce thing. Junk containment. But dry up the runs through aggressive fields. Allow your premier spinner to give away runs in search of wickets. Keep working on the impish left armer's fields for a variable bounce off the pitch. Forward thinking. Think ten overs hence. Scenography. Again Misbah. But not as inscrutable. Not at all. Voluble. Jolly. Very Punjabi! Kohli!!

A bearded leader and some bearded men

Virat Kohli smiles a lot. He also gasps, fumes and grimaces. Sometimes his inner Captain Haddock takes over on the field if his deep fine leg is standing on his heels. At other times he's found wringing his hands in dismay or having a rueful smile when his nice fielders get into a tangle with the ball. Read Rahane. Or Ashwin. When he's running like a grammar school kid after school. But Virat gets his job done. I won't mind saying that this cute little team has more talent on field than the times of Saurav or Dhoni. But putting the available talent to work and getting the best out of each guy is another sort of work. Your talent cannot graze grass at third man like some of the pacers did in other times. Nor they can be toggled between third slip and midwicket in fervent hope that the ball will show signs of deviant bounce or the pitch shall show frantic signs of turn just after 3.17 pm in the afternoon. Talent has to be put to work. Logical. Yeah, but try telling Amit Mishra that. Or Praveen Kumar. Praveen may even bring down his family mace onto your head. It's the near past. Just look through the score sheets and see how these guys were used. Virat has succeeded in this. I would not venture to say fully. I fear a caustic Viru tweet if he ever reads this. Ever. But sample this. You have a setting sun. You decide to change Ashwin's end and bring in the tall bowler against the setting sun. You employ a leg slip for his faster ones. You have your best in field catchers at all the close in positions. Then you put in yourself for the uppish drive at short mid on. You ask Ashwin to go about his business with trajectory and drift. You get results. The science and art of talent management onfield comes alive. It's beyond all fixes and cave ins. Virat loves his hours of the day. His declarations have had a certain certainty to themselves. It isn't about waiting for Rohit's fifty or Rahane's hundred. It's telling them that he's going to declare at this hour and they better move their arse if they have to get the team anywhere near to an objective at that appointed hour. Then, like a fielding captain with a Border level mojo, he rotates his bowlers. Shami and Umesh or Bhuvi for the first eight. Jadeja for some quickies in between. Ashwin centrestage. Grinning and fuming. Alternately. Bhuvi certainly near the twenty fifth. Shami for the thirtieth. Reverse swing, you see. Setting sun. Jadeja back for his bootlickers. Ashwin, the hulk in the dark. Shami, if someone needs to smell some leather. Virat senses. The team rallies. Watch Umesh run for the ball. He knows he's being valued in the deep. They all pester him for the piston throws from the deep. Jadeja must throw. Saha must dive for the unreachable. Rahane must walk in a few paces for the faster ones coming off the edges. Angles. Trajectories. Gambhir found himself at sea for a few minutes before he accepted the new order of things. His bones didn't. Play for the team. It's a team game. Good man and cinema feature, Dhoni, brought this concept back into Indian Cricket after Greg Chappell had majorly messed around with the lateral thinking of the nation's favourite team. But Virat is making it sharper. He does not need a saw. He has allowed the beard to flourish. Like that other great thinker of our times, Misbah ul Haq. Forward thinking. Take more singles. Adds to a total. Drive in the V. Get the partnerships going. Facilitate two all rounders suddenly. Get your quiet wicket keeper to breathe at the wicket. Allow your speedsters to do the seam and bounce thing. Junk containment. But dry up the runs through aggressive fields. Allow your premier spinner to give away runs in search of wickets. Keep working on the impish left armer's fields for a variable bounce off the pitch. Forward thinking. Think ten overs hence. Scenography. Again Misbah. But not as inscrutable. Not at all. Voluble. Jolly. Very Punjabi! Kohli!!