The Retrospective.

If October 2nd was a dry day for liquor lovers, it certainly was a dry day of sorts for me. Not that i was exasperated for not having laid my hands on liquor (am not a booze freak anyways) but it was a day when i was totally sapped and probably let myself and a team of 14 individuals down. That day when i felt distraught with my own actions.

The finals of the corporate cricket tournament between AOL & Wipro was scheduled for October 2nd at 9 a.m. The team had to be on the field an hour early. We had to win the match as there was quite a lot at stake. Another task i had in mind was to go for dandiya the previous night with a few friends. The plan was simple - I'd spend time at the dandiya party till 1 a.m, get some sleep and go for the match fresh the next morning. Little did i know what was in store the next day. Sometimes its the retrospective that helps you judge better - for better decisions in future, hopefully.

I must admit i had a blast at the dandiya party. But for some reason i was able to leave the venue only at 2 a.m. Saw my friends off and was home at 3 a.m. Two hours of sleep is by no means satisfactory considering the fact that i had to spend 4 hours on the field. Corporate events may not be as competitive as the regular league matches. But once on the field you don't want to be giving anything less than 100% for that is a great lesson sport can teach any individual. I was like an insomaniac clearly not feeling comfortable. One of my teammate asked me about my red-eyed eyes. For once i wished it had rained like crazy and the match got shelved. Anyways once on the field the everything else becomes immaterial.

Wipro batted first with former India batsman Sujith Somsundar in their ranks, was dismissed early. Despite the plethora of extras conceeded we kept the opponents under control who were 4 wickets down for 60 runs. For me the nightmare was just about to begin. A wicket-keeper's feel good factor is pretty much like a batsman hitting the first few balls he faces right in the middle of the bat. The sweet sound from the willow charges you up. Similarly, a keeper feels good when the ball lands with a thud straight into the center of the gloves. When that doesn't happen then something is certainly wrong.

It was terribly hot, I felt weak, feeling drowsy and was unable to squat well. But i couldn't show it out as the keeper forms the backbone of a team. It showed in my body language when i wasn't at my vocal best. Just when we thought we were cruising along well the new batsman edged an outswinging delivery. It went low to my right, hit the tip of my glove and was past me even before i could realise. When the ball is low, going away from you the best possible way is to stay low (knee bent) that enables the keeper to enable a smooth finish. Clearly I was late without the intended focus on the ball, a catch i would have snatched up on any other day.

The batsman eventually went on to score more than 50 runs that enabled Wipro to defend a formidable 180 in 20 overs. In the break i was down and out physically although few of my teammate's tried to cheer me up. I'd paid for my mistake overnight. The only way out now was to compensate with the bat and try to win the match for my team. I did my best batting reasonably well scoring at close to 10 runs per over and in the process managed to reach 100 in the 11th over as expected. At times i couldn't run those singles which i could have at relative ease, had cramps and felt like vomiting. My first thoughts were about the Dravid's and Tendulkar's playing a 5-day test match at Cochin or Vizag where the temperature can be unforgiving. And here i was, a non-entity who was passionate about the game playing a 20 over game in relatively better conditions.

We needed 80 runs from 8 overs with 8 wickets in hand. From now on it was a matter of sticking at the crease as long as possible and keep the score ticking. A realistic target for sure and a gettable one. By then i was watching the ball really well until the first ball of the 13th over when i top edged a short ball to a fielder at deep square leg.The bowler yelled as i walked back making it evident that he'd broken a partnership that would have seen AOL through for i was determined to finish the game at any cost. There was a great sense of resentment morseo since the drop catch played on my mind throughout. Eventually we lost the match and the finals by 10 runs. Ironically the batsman received the man of the match award while my teammates teased me saying i should have got the award instead.

As i mentioned earlier the level of competence isn't quite as comparable to the highest level. But for an individual such experiences, emotions are similar irrespective of the league one represents. The drop catch reminded me of Herschelle Gibbs who dropped Steve Waugh's catch in the 1999 world cup that helped Australia go through the finals. Incidentally Steve Waugh was famously quoted as saying "Son you've just dropped the world cup". My inability to finish the game later reminded me of the famous innings by Tendulkar against Pakistan in 1999-2000 in Chennai when he battled all odds with a severe back spasm scoring 136 before holding out to Saqlain Mushtaq. That loss in particular still continues to haunt Sachin.

I am no Gibbs or a Tendulkar but the fact is that i could relate to what these legends must have gone through. And to play under such pressure physically and emotionally at the highest level takes tremendous effort. As for the common man it is rather easy to be a couch critic and lament at these players when they have had a bad day on field. The underlying fact is that every athlete tries to give his 100 percent or more when he performs. Over a period of time they become champions who in the process toil hard relentlessly. It doesn't take much effort to comment on a drop catch of a Brett Lee delivery bowling at 150kmph, ridicule a 7-time Tour de France winner in Lance Armstrong with dope charges or a 8-time Grand Prix winner in Valentino Rossi. But to emerge victorious after every possible adversity like these champions do requires great effort and courage. Criticism is fair when it is constructive.

Michael Jordan in one of his quotes said - "I've always believed that if you put in work results will come. I don't do things half-heartedly. Because i know if i do, then i can expect half-hearted result". As for me it was a day that taught me a great deal. It was a lesson well learnt and that would be not to do things half-heartedly and to get one's priorities right.

Wicket-keepers are like office boys

The article was written by G.Rajaraman during the Indian Cricket Team's conditioning camp in Bangalore,2004.I was an assist wicket-keeper for 3 weeks and am proud to have kept wickets to Anil Kumble,Harbhajan Singh and all the bowlers in Indian Cricket.

Fans of Indian cricket may or may not get to hear about K Karthik but he is not likely to forget the National team’s training camp in Bangalore this month in a hurry. I have known him for long enough to be aware that he will cherish his collection of memorablia that he picked up for helping the team at the nets as a wicket-keeper.

The seventh-semester student of engineering has already collected a sweat-shirt from Yuvraj Singh, a cricket ball that Harbhajan Singh bowled with, a pair of batting gloves from Sanjay Bangar besides a pat on the back from God, as he calls Sachin Tendulkar, and a word of recognition from coach John Wright.

But more than any of this, he will treasure memories of his stumping Virender Sehwag at the nets - twice in one session. Karthik is well aware that Sehwag has been stumped but once each in one-day internationals and Tests - both times against the West Indies by Ridley Jacobs off Carl Hooper.

There are many like him who take great pride in simply being of some help to the Indian cricketers at the camp, themselves picking up a bit of stardust along the way. But, in Delhi, a long way away from Indian probables’ camp, I bumped into Vijay Dahiya who has been introspecting on what went wrong for him to be out of favour.

To begin with, it was not his fault that he went out of the side after playing two Tests against Zimbabwe in November 2000 and the last of his 19 one-day internationals in April 2001. He now knows he did not have a great time in the last domestic season, having got just 282 runs in first-class cricket when Karnataka’s VS Thilak Naidu scored 817 and accounted for 39 victims to get into national reckoning.

He has promised himself that he will play for Delhi with a renewed resolve in the new season that beckons the first-class cricketers. Then again, he is aware that the wicket-keepers have not exactly been treated with kid gloves. Nayan Mongia, MSK Prasad, Sameer Dighe, Deep Dasgupta, Ajay Ratra and he have all been in the revolving door.

I remember asking selector, former India wicket-keeper Kiran More on the sidelines of the Irani Trophy match between Railways and Rest of India in Delhi a year ago if he had talked to Ratra after the Haryana lad was cold-shouldered even for that game -and More didn’t even have a contact number for Ratra.

Hopefully things will have changed. More was himself in charge of a wicket-keepers’ camp at the National Cricket Academy from June 16 to 21 last. As many as 11 stumpers were chosen for special attention in what was a step in the direction of grooming youngsters for one of the most thankless jobs on the cricket field.

Yet, by all accounts, Naidu and even Ratra, not to speak of the rest, now seem resigned to watching young Parthiv Patel keep wickets in Tests and Rahul Dravid continue in the limited-over version. If you went by what captain Sourav Ganguly said at the end of the training camp, Dravid would perforce continue to figure in the team’s scheme of things as the stumper since none of the wicket-keeper-batsmen seems capable of displacing the extra specialist batsman from the one-day XI.

In choosing Patel as the only wicket-keeper in the India A squad which toured England recently, the selectors advertised the fact that the Gujarat youngster would be an overwhelming favourite for the Tests. Despite such opportunities, it does seem that his batting has not quite matched the quality of his work behind the bails.

For all that, the most important words came from coach John Wright who gave us a state of fitness report on Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag and Ashish Nehra, having already clarified that Harbhajan Singh could bowl without a problem but had been kept away from the Challengers since the selectors wanted to play him first in a first-class tie.

Wright, of course, did not say much about the fortunes awaiting specialist wicket-keepers this season. Which takes us back to Ray Robinson’s theory of the stumpers being like office-boys - everyone knows that they are there but they are relegated to the penumbra until they make a mistake when the spotlight is turned on them.

K Karthik, an unabashed fan of Mongia’s work behind the stumps, does not have to worry. He has just come back to reality after spending the past few days in the company of the country’s best cricketers. His reward may not be an India cap but he is pretty contented with the stardust that he picked up at the camp.

By G Rajaraman