Neo Cricket, Stop taking us for granted

What's happening with the Neo Cricket TV Channel lately?

I was watching the pre-game show "Extra Cover" before the India vs. Sri Lanka game yesterday. Neo has signed up a new studio expert for this show - Dilip Vengsarkar, the former India batsman and ex-Chairman of the national selection committee. I watched with a growing sense of disbelief as Vengsarkar embarassed himself through the program.

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During his prime, Vengsarkar was a wonderful batsman. He shot into the limelight all of a sudden with an innings of 110+ in an Irani Trophy game as a 19 year old. What was remarkable about that innings was that he hit Bishen Singh Bedi and Erapalli Prasanna, in their prime, for a total of 7 sixes! Next day's edition of Times of India called him "Veng(six)kar"! By all accounts it was a remarkable innings in an era when there was no T20 cricket, and 50-over cricket was very much a past-time for the West Indies. Vengsarkar went on to play for India with distinction in both formats of the game, though he never attained the stature of Gavaskar, Viswanath, or Kapil Dev. More recently, he had an average reign as the chairman of the national selection committee, the most notable achievement of his team being the recall of Sourav Ganguly, and India's win in the T20 world cup.
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That brings us back to the Neo Cricket pre-game show yesterday. Saying that Dilip Vengsarkar is not very articulate would not be inaccurate. He probably has a speaking disorder, and his "command" over the english language is quite ordinary. To top it all, he didn't seem to have any insights or original ideas to share. He stammered on, and embarassed himself. I felt bad that an international sports person of his caliber had to go through an experience which was less than ideal.
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The owners of Neo need to have a quiet word with the producer of the pre-game show about their selection process for experts on the program. I have been questioning the selection of Javagal Srinath for the same program, but after watching Vengsarkar, Srinath sounds like an absolute world beater!

Sachin, it is time

By any yardstick, Sachin Tendulkar is one of the all time greats of the game, perhaps one of the best 3 batsmen to ever play the game. Let us put that in context - international cricket has now been played for almost 140 years. Thousands of cricketers have played at the international level, and millions others have played at various levels with aspirations to play at the highest level. To be one of the best 3 batsmen ever is a mind-boggling achievement.

It is almost painful to watch a pale shadow of this genius, struggle through international games, with many silently asking - Why?

Make no mistake about it - Sachin is still good enough to walk into any international side, including India's. In fact he is so good that even after 20 years at this level, he still comes up with decent performances regularly, and the occassional brilliant one. But it is time for the genius to walk away to a standing applause. If he carries on for much longer, I am afraid his farewell applause will be somewhat muted.

Is the Indian cricket team on to something here?

The Indian cricket team won its seventh straight 50-over international last night after a mighty battle with the Lankan tigers. That in and by itself does not excite me very much. It is how they are doing it that has made me sit up and take notice.

We have learnt from the Australian sides over the last 15 years, and the West Indian sides of 15 years before that, that champion sides demonstrate some interesting characteristics:

• Most of their performances are made up of many useful contributions, rather than a huge & dominating individual performance
• Absence of a few experienced players does not hold them back, in fact the replacements are able to fill their shoes admirably
• Even in difficult situations their confidence enables them to find ways to win. They are never out of a game, and scrap till the very end
• The champion teams are willing to risk the occassional loss to search for a win each and every time
• Their confidence shows in their attitude on and off the field

I am seeing some of these characteristics emerge in the current Indian performances. Their highest individual score in the two wins is well under a hundred, absences of key players like Sehwag have not made a difference, loss of early wickets has not changed their attacking approach, and they have hung in there and found ways to win.

We are perhaps seeing something special emerge here, while Australia are headed exactly in the opposite direction in terms of demonstrating these characteritics in their performances.

I am keeping my fingers crossed while following this exciting team!