Why blame Rod Tucker?

Yesterday, there was a One-Day international played between India and Bangladesh, in which an incident involving Shikhar Dhawan caused widespread consternation. What happened was that Dhawan nicked a ball behind at easy catchable height to the wicketkeeper. The keeper dived, got both hands to the catch, and it looked like the ball had gone into his gloves. But he had managed to drop the catch, with the ball landing on the ground exactly behind him. It was a clear nick, and everyone (Dhawan, the bowler and the umpire) all knew instantly it was a nick. So, the umpire IMMEDIATELY raised his finger, the bowler started celebrating and Dhawan started walking back without checking further. To anyone who was in front of the keeper (bowler, batsman, umpire, mid-off, mid-on etc), the drop was hidden from view because the ball had fallen behind the body of the keeper. 

The fielder at slip, had meanwhile seen that the catch had been dropped, and threw the stumps down with Dhawan out of his crease and already walking towards the pavilion. Even if the catch had been dropped, the fielding team now appealed for run out. But, the ball had become dead as soon as the umpire had (mistakenly) given it out for the catch, and the run out did not count. So, Dhawan remained not out after all this. Why was he not run out? Let me explain it.

Think of situations where a catch is taken anywhere in the outfield. The umpires do not need to raise their finger in these instances, and they don’t. The batsman starts walking back on his own as soon as he sees the catch has been taken, and if it turns out he wasn’t really out (whether because it is a no-ball or because the catch isn’t taken cleanly), he can’t be run out any more for leaving his crease. Also, sometimes after nicking a ball to the keeper, batsmen walk on their own without the umpire having given it out first. Here also, they cannot be run out for leaving the crease (even if the keeper has proceeded to drop the catch, and it was the batsman’s fault for leaving the crease before being given out by the umpire). In any situation, as soon as a batsman starts walking towards the pavilion under the impression that he is out, he can no longer be given run out for having left the crease.

From the point of view of the umpire: This situation begs the question as to why Rod Tucker (the umpire) was so hasty in giving Dhawan out caught behind by the keeper. So many people are blaming him for this reason, but it is easy to explain. The explanation is: The bowler appealed for caught behind (which he wouldn’t have done he known the catch had been dropped), and even Dhawan started walking immediately (which he wouldn’t have done he known the catch had been dropped). Having umpired a lot of matches in various forms of cricket, let me tell you that the primary issue in cases like these is not deciding whether the catch has been taken, but whether the batsman has nicked it or not. All your focus while umpiring is on detecting the nick. On most occasions, there is a very thin nick, which makes it difficult to 'see' if the ball has changed its direction. So, you have to concentrate extra hard on trying to 'hear' the nick. And there are times when you cannot determine if a nick is there or not, and have to study reactions of the batsman and fielders to conclude what has happened. You pray for these situations never to arise while you are umpiring. And, it’s a relief to you when the nick is clear and it’s easy to give the decision. Tucker was so relieved that he had detected the nick in this case that he wasted no time in giving it out. 

From the point of view of the cricketer: When you are a player (whether batsman or bowler), if the umpire takes a lot of time in giving decisions, it always infuriates you in my experience. If you are batting and you have not edged the ball yet the fielders are appealing, you want the umpire to dismiss the appeal quickly and ask the fielders why they are appealing. If you are the bowler and the batsman has nicked, you do not want the umpire to start contemplating about the decision. Arre bhai, if I know there is a nick and each of my fielders has detected the nick, what are you, as the umpire, doing? Give it out immediately. As the cricketer, you want decisions to come out fast from the umpire. If he taking time, it frustrates you. The umpires are always aware of this, and so want to give decisions as soon as possible to avoid frustration from creeping up amongst the players.

You cannot really blame Tucker for giving a fast decision for this kind of nick, can you?

Changes I would like in ODIs

The thing I dislike the most in cricket these days is mishits going for sixes. The job of a batsman is to hit the ball. But to see a shot played incorrectly giving maximum reward is wrong. Simply wrong. Doing your job properly but not getting the appropriate reward is something we have all experienced. A person not doing their job properly but still getting highest return makes the blood boil. In an ideal scenario, batsmen should feel lucky when a mishit somehow lands safely. Today, they feel unlucky when a mishit hasn’t gone for a boundary.

The reason this phenomenon started is because administrators felt fans wanted to see more boundary-hitting (higher entertainment value), and thus, boundaries were brought in at almost every ground. Combined with the fact that bats have become wider and the impact of Twenty20, a deluge of runs has out broken over the past decade or so. Only one of either boundaries coming in or bats becoming wider would have been enough for raising the entertainment value. Both combined have brought bowlers to ruin.

I don’t know what can be done about the bats. While there are regulations about how wide the edges can be, there is no rule limiting the depth of the bats. If we ever make such a rule, there will be issues with its implementation. Or maybe bat manufacturers will find some other method of making bats powerful. Maybe a better material will be found to make bats with. There might be problems we can’t anticipate yet with regards to bat power. But we can surely do something tangible with regard to the boundaries.

The boundaries have to be taken back to their original marks. A minimum limit should be set for the distance to the rope on all sides. I would suggest 75 metres. Where the stadiums are so small that the rope can’t be 75 metres, there nothing can be done and the boundaries have to be the furthest they can be. But at big grounds, they have to be 75 metres. You hit the ball well enough, it will go for six. You mistime the ball means you haven’t done your job properly, and you shouldn’t expect six.

Although I would like to see this in Twenty20s as well, but I realize most such tournaments like IPL, Ram Slam, BBL, CPL are domestic and aimed at generating revenue and garnering new fans. In these tournaments, it is okay in my opinion to have short boundaries. You don’t expect housewives or new spectators at IPL/BBL games to understand the nuances of a game when a bowler is trying to outthink the batsman. They want visible and difficult-to-miss popcorn entertainment. Shrunk boundaries are okay.

The second thing I dislike is the ear-splitting music that is played in between overs during most matches. I love Andy Zaltzman, I love his columns, and I couldn’t agree more with him when he says that this is a shame. It prevents you from thinking. It prevents you from taking stock of the situation during an innings. If this is nauseating to me while I’m in the stands, imagine how the players, especially the batsmen and the fielding captain would be feeling in the field. Again, I don’t have a problem with this happening at IPL games. People go to an IPL game instead of a movie, and you would expect them to do some dancing in the aisles during those 3 hours. But please, not in ODIs which last 7 hours. 90% of the guys who go to ODIs are cricket purists and don’t need the music to feel entertained. The cricket itself is enough.

The commentators are annoying. Well, most commentators are annoying most of the time. I will list a few of them, and explain what I find irritating about them. 

Ravi Shastri keeps shouting (well, that has become common knowledge). 

Rameez Raja finds ways of praising Pakistan whenever he commentates. Even when Pakistan is losing badly.

Mpulelo Mbangwa never shuts up. I don’t understand why some people are so uncomfortable letting silence take over for a few moments. Why do they feel they have to break silences when no one is saying anything? A song called “Conquest of Paradise” by Vangelis plays before the national anthems of countries during every ICC event. It’s a beautiful thing and during the recent World Cup in Australia-NZ, I was trying so hard to listen to it every time it played. But on most occasions, Mbangwa’s voice would break upon my eardrums saying such mundane things like “And the teams come out of the tunnel. They take the hands of the little kids and march out for the national anthems.” Dude, we are not on radio. We are watching the television, and we can make out that the teams are walking out. No need to point out such obvious stuff. 

Sanjay Manjrekar also keeps talking all the time. And, he is slowly turning into an Indian version of Rameez Raja i.e. these days, he’s always finding a way to praise India or Indian players. That one time, I remember, there was a match between South Africa and Sri Lanka. There was a talk about AB de Villiers, Amla, Sangakkara and Jayawardena and to how they are world class batsmen. All of a sudden, Sanjay says something like, “Even Virat Kohli has proved to be one of the most consistent batsmen the world over during the last two years”. Arre bhai, how the hell does Kohli come into the picture during this particular situation? It’s a SA vs SL match, and why the hell are you bringing Kohli into it? Nobody is discussing him, or saying he is a lesser player (in which case you might consider defending him). So now, the other commentators are forced into saying stuff like, “Yeah, AB and Kohli have been the outstanding batsmen in limited overs cricket over the past few years.” And they totally go off topic to what they had intended to say (a comparision between AB and Sanga). 

Sunil Gavaskar is perhaps the best commentator out of all the people I have a complaint against. But he has one trait that really annoys. Many times, he begins sentences with: “Look at how….. “. And I lose it whenever I hear anything that starts with this phrase. Examples are: Look at how he twisted his bat at the last moment to find the gap at square leg rather than find the fielder at midwicket. Or, Look at how he ran his fingers over the ball so that the pace was taken off. This implies that we lot weren’t looking and didn’t notice that the bowler had run his fingers over the ball while delivering a slower ball. But we did notice, Mr. Gavaskar, we did notice. And, Sunny doesn’t use the phrase “Look at how…“ once in a blue moon; when he uses it, he uses it 3-4 times in 3-4 consecutive sentences. “Look at how he opened up his stance. Look at how he just swung through the line of the ball. Look at how he didn’t even attempt to keep it down.” Kill me, please.

Danny Morrison keeps saying idiotic stuff. But, in his defence, he says it in ways which also make him hilarious. So even if I have a complaint, I’m too busy laughing at his idiocy rather than getting irritated.

I have no complaints against others like Harsha, Dravid, Nicholas, Chappell et al.

My TV Series Guide # 3

This is a compilation of all the TV series I have watched till date, and where i rate them. Note that the ratings are absolute and remain the same when comparing across genres i.e. something in 'Drama' that has 8.5 is better than something in 'Suspense' that has 8.4.

Action

Band of Brothers : 9.8

The Pacific : 9.7

24 : 8.7

Heroes : 8.4

The Walking Dead : 8.2

Man vs Wild : 8.0

Spartacus : 7.6

Alias : 7.2

Misfits : 7.0

Suspense

Prison Break : 9.8

Sherlock : 9.5

Dexter : 9.1

Homeland : 8.9

House MD : 7.7

Supernatural : 6.9

Lost : 6.5

Comedy

Arrested Development : 9.4

The Big Bang Theory : 9.2

Entourage : 9.1

Two And a Half Men : 9.0

Friends : 8.8

Modern Family :8.7

Malcolm in the Middle : 8.6

How I Met Your Mother : 8.0

Seinfeld : 7.9

Coupling : 7.7

Chuck : 7.8

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia :  7.5

Outsourced : 6.5

Crime

True Detective : 8.8

Hustle : 8.3

White Collar : 8.1

Criminal Minds : 7.9

The Mentalist : 7.3

Drama

Game of Thrones : 9.6

House of Cards : 9.5

The West Wing : 9.4

The Newsroom : 9.4

Gotham : 9.1

Better Call Saul : 8.8

Suits : 8.6

Grey’s Anatomy : 8.5

Kyle XY : 8.5

Breaking Bad : 8.4

Revenge : 8.3

Mad Men : 8.3

The OC : 8.3

Firefly : 8.2

The Sopranos : 7.9

Parenthood : 7.9

Shameless :  7.4

Glee : 7.2

The Vampire Diaries : 7.2

These are my ratings, and stuff that I have liked more have a higher score. Please don't take it as an insult if your favorite TV Series has a low rating. And note that some TV Series start as very good but become a bit bad in the latter seasons. These ratings here reflect their performance in the initial seasons. Those TV Series are: 

• Mad Men (becomes horribly repetitive around and after Season 4, and doesn't improve thereafter)
• The West Wing (reduction in quality in Season 5 and early Season 6, but improves after that)
• How I Met Your Mother (bad in Seasons 5-7 but picks up again towards the last two seasons)
• Entourage (a dip around the 6th season but bounces back again to very high level)
• Criminal Minds (becomes stale and repetitive from Season 4 onwards, and doesn't bounce back)
• Two and a Half Men (changes from season 9 onwards)

Evolution of Literature

To understand any sort of evolution, what you need first is a long enough time frame. Today, with classical English literature comfortably being half a millennium old, perhaps we can start to analyze how far it has progressed and what we can expect in the future.

Perhaps the two greatest traditions of the English language are ‘Naturalism’ and ‘Romanticism’. Naturalism is the writing and description of things “as they are”. For example, it could be about the way human beings behave in everyday situations and how the world around us goes by. Romanticism is the portrayal of things “how they ought to be”.  How a king should rule (as opposed to how he actually does), how a person should carry out his duties and even what duties there ought to be there towards others.

It need not be mentioned that Romanticism far outlives works of Naturalism, simply because the world keeps changing and a new generation cannot identify with the way things were in the previous generation. The books we see as classics today are mostly based on Romanticism. They have lived with us because some characters in them are model human beings, and because we always aspire to reach their levels. ‘Romeo and Juliet’ describes what lovers ought to be like, and it is the gold standard against which every couple in the world wants to compete. In ‘A Tale of Two Cities’, Sydney’s character is the one of supreme sacrifice and people will keep reading about him because all of us will want to live a life like his. But literature related to Naturalism will stay relevant for maybe a couple of generations and then fade in to the ‘History’ section. We don’t read the way people actually behaved in the nineteenth century because our lives are not like their lives anymore, and have changed beyond measure. Those descriptions seem alien to us now. It is no wonder that people today don’t really read about Gandhi and Bhagat Singh because our priorities today are different. Stories of village life by Premchand and others do not appeal to us because we no longer live in villages.

As far as new patterns in English literature go, with so many nations now speaking English, there has been an influx of new ideas, new vocabulary, and new portrayal of situations hitherto unknown to the English speaking world. The nouveau English speakers are happy just to show us what happens in their countries and bring it about as a novel idea. Since we can’t expect them to contribute much to Romanticism, suddenly, there is a barrage of Naturalism. There aren’t many classics that one can recollect over the past 50 years.

Though there has been a marked improvement and expansion of Naturalism, but still Naturalism is no Romanticism. We read about things that happen in life, but we don’t get uplifted towards a higher ideal. We have become used to judging a book by the portrayal of the ideas and not the ideas themselves. And since an idea can be expressed in a million different ways, writers are happy just to explore a new perspective of putting an idea across. The emphasis now is to impress the reader through presentation of new facts. And facts in today’s world of the internet are never in short supply.

It will only take a writer of great self confidence and steely resolve to go across the current and not write just for the sake of selling books. But ultimately, it will be works like those that will be remembered a hundred years from now. Lots of pieces will come out that will thrill me but very rare pieces will come that will exalt me. A shame, in my opinion.

Why Sachin is God

With all the mourning going on amongst fans at the moment about Sachin’s retirement, some others are questioning the over-the-top press coverage being given. Some cricket ignorants don’t understand what the fuss is all about. You might have thought we were taking fan-following to nonsensical proportions and might have been annoyed at the absurdity of our devotion. Yes, we are devotees and we take an irrational stance when it comes to Sachin. Here’s why.

For most of us, our earliest childhood memories will be times when we were about 4-5 years of age. For many, it was attending school during the day or video games after. For girls, it might have been learning a dance or such. But for most boys then in India, it was playing cricket in the colony park or a nearby playground. 

In those days, we just focused on bringing the bat down in one swift motion and giving an oncoming ball a thwack, or bowling such deliveries that would break the stumps. While batting, we were little concerned about understanding where the fielders were placed and trying to find a gap. While bowling, we never really considered covering a particular batsman’s scoring areas to force him to hit somewhere else. And we never viewed cricket as a team game. We believed we alone could score all the runs while batting and take all the wickets while bowling. Thoughts about fielding was not even on the horizon for most of us. In fact, many would switch off when they weren’t batting or bowling. That was at 5 years of age. The cricket lessons we learned at that stage weren’t permanent ones.

With growing up, came the actual understanding of the game. By the time we turned about 8 years of age and beyond, we began to appreciate the facts we had missed earlier. We understood techniques. We learnt to play the forward defensive. We not only played more cricket amongst ourselves (sometimes under a coach if we had joined a club), but also gained a lot of input from watching cricket matches on TV and the accompanying commentary. We tried reproducing what we learnt from the players and the commentators. While batting, we began looking for gaps in the field. While playing longer matches, we no longer tried to hit 10 runs off each over. ODIs taught us the art of preserving wickets and consolidating during the middle stages, so as to have a go at the end. While bowling, we tried to find out quickly if a batsman liked pace, and subsequently bowled him spin (and vice versa). While fielding, we looked out for the slower of the two batsmen and always targeted his end during direst hits. Most importantly, the concept of the team came into the forefront with the realization that you should have 11 good players rather than 3 excellent ones with 8 scrappy ones. We realised each of us had a job to do if we were to win – someone to consolidate and someone to hit out while batting; someone to press for wickets and someone to keep the scoring down while bowling. The point is, truths of cricket entered our heads when we were 7-14 years of age. We formed our understanding of the game and learnt our life lessons in that period. These truths have been thoroughly entrenched in our minds and most haven’t been removed ever since.

Now, for most of us, this period (when we were truly understanding the game) coincided with the period when Sachin alone bore India on the cricket field (his golden age of the late 1990s). There was this entire duration of a few years when Indian wins against standard opposition came only when Sachin scored, and Indian losses came when Sachin failed. Televisions were turned off if he was dismissed early with people knowing that India had no hope of winning. When Sachin is dismissed, if a dad turns off the TV and tells his kid to go study or play outside, what kind of impression is supposed to form in the mind of the kid? Obviously that Sachin is the be all and end all of the Indian team. This has happened personally to me dozens of times. I remember my mother giving a glance at the TV once in a while and asking me something to the tune of “Sachin has been dismissed. Why are you still watching? Go do your homework.” I would of course not budge and after 20 mins she would be back demanding what I was still doing there.  Then I would be forced to comply, although I would still be back at intervals. During those years, everyone in India believed that we couldn’t win without a Sachin special, and it was mostly true. The issue is, for many of us, this was our first impression of the game.

So, the lesson I learnt in my formative years was that “India is Sachin, and Sachin is India”. Even though it’s a team game for every other country, for India it’s an individual game. He is the one who hits out during the field restrictions, consolidates in the middle stages before opening up again at the end. Whatever be the total we are setting or chasing, only he is capable of achieving it. He is the equivalent of 11 people, and his success or failure determines the success and failure of the country. Thus, he is superhuman. A God. And because my earliest life lesson of the game was this, I have never been able to shake it off. He is still God in my mind. And not just me, all those people whose initial impression of the game was formed in this period regard Sachin as God. Basically, that’s the entire generation born from the mid 1980s to the early 1990s. Obviously, everyone’s story would not mirror mine, but in some way or other, the notion that formed in all of our minds was that India wins with Sachin succeeding and loses with him failing. As a case in point, Virat Kohli, a member of our generation famously remarked “He has carried the hopes of an entire nation on his shoulders for so long……. and it is time we carried him on ours” after the 2011 World Cup Final, and we all praised him to the skies for that.

So, to conclude, please do not judge us ‘devotees’ before standing in our shoes, and Sachin deserves every moment he is getting these days. With all the Gangulys and Dravids and Dhonis and Kohlis who have come in after him and won us matches, our dependence on him has gone down. And we might not see him as powerful as he was in his peak, but still “Cricket is our religion and Sachin is our God”.

Cyclone Phailin

An account of me witnessing the cyclone 'Phailin' at home in Cuttack.

Events on 12th October 2013

  

Cuttack, Odisha.

It had become known from 9th October that a tropical storm had gathered over the Bay of Bengal and was headed towards Odisha. It was scheduled to hit the Odisha coast on the evening of 12th October making a landfall in Jagatsinghpur, Puri and Berhampur districts at speeds touching 250 kmph. Since Cuttack is a bit inland, the cyclone was expected to get there about 4-5 hours after landfall i.e. at 10-11 pm, and pass over in 6-7 hours after that.

Precautions

These were taken keeping the aftermath of the 1999 super cyclone in mind. That had a speed of 300 kmph at the coast and 200 kmph in Cuttack. This had been predicted to hit the coast at pretty much the similar speed. Then, the cyclone had been so devastating that there had been no water for 4-5 days afterwards. I remember hauling water from a bore well a hundred metres away and standing in a pretty long line every time to do so. There had been no electricity for a week. Trees had uprooted and blocked roads, and a cycle was much better than a car or motorcycle as it could snake its way through gaps and could be lifted over roadblocks. Food was not available as shops were closed, and was being sold in black for or 20 times the original cost. I was a kid so I don’t remember much else.

1.Fill all vehicles to the brim with petrol, and get some extra in a bottle. I went to get my bike filled on 11th, but there were crazy crowds at all filling stations. Besides only vehicles were being filled with petrol and nobody with a bottle was being given any. So, do this work days in advance.

2.Get a lot of money out of ATMs as they will run out within a couple of days. Everyone will withdraw at the same time, and the banks won’t refill them as they would be closed.

3.Charge mobiles and laptops to the fullest. Power supply was discontinued by the electricity department as a precaution after wind speed reached 40 kmph on 12th morning.

4.Get batteries for torches, and candles for lighting purposes.

5.Water: both for washing and drinking. I put a couple of drums out on the terrace to collect rainwater as a backup.

6.Get a radio or transistor from somewhere if you don’t have one. Radio stations are the last to shut down services and the first to resume them.

What happened

There was continuous (but never torrential) rainfall from the evening of the 11th, 24 hours before the scheduled landfall. Winds were normal monsoon ones and only picked up speed on 12th morning at 10 am, as when the electricity was cut off. Winds intensified after 5pm and were continuous after that with rain no longer permanent. I checked for leaks in the windows and then settled down with a book.

I slept at around 1 am in the night. From 5 pm till around midnight, the situation had stayed the same, with strong winds and interspersed rain. The winds had started to pick up at midnight, and were still howling (about 100-120 kmph) when yawns overcame me. I woke at around 9 o clock in the morning, and there was devastation all a8round….

13th  October: The mornong after

I’m kidding. Nothing had happened. No tree had uprooted anywhere near my house. Not even a branch had broken, only the dry twigs. The weather in the morning had reverted back to normal monsoon type with sporadic rainfall accompanied by a sudden gust of wind once in a while. It had been announced that it would be safe to venture out of the houses only after noon, but a friend of mine from the neighbourhood turned up at around 10 0 clock on his bike and announced he was going to the market to see if he could get some groceries. I asked the same of my mother (“Get 2 kilos of potatoes.”) and accompanied him there. Not only were most of the shops selling essential items open, but bizarrely, there had been no increase in any prices with potatoes 20 rupees a kilo and onions 60. We got what we needed and returned .My friend told me that he had been up throughout the night (he had to do something to his aquarium every hour which electricity usually does or else the fishes would die) and the high winds that had started at 1 o clock had continued for a couple of hours before calming down. He dropped me off and I spent some time reading the newspaper (yes, even the newspaper of the same day had been delivered in the morning).

Mobile services resumed at around 2 pm, and electricity was restored in the late afternoon. I met up with another friend and we had a couple of rounds of snooker followed by some evening snacks. He lives on the 8th floor and he told me the wind intensity during the night was such that he had felt a part of his building might collapse or get carried off, and the condition there was still pretty bad with the wind rattling the windows and water entering the apartment every time it rained (for reference, me and my friend in the neighbourhood live in 1 and 3 storied houses).

The weather continued to be bad with intermittent showers, but the winds had gone down completely by the time night had arrived. I reflected on the panic that had spread when the “cyclone” had been declared, and figured out it was mostly on account of people’s memories of the 1999 super cyclone. And there was also the domino effect that when you see your friend or neighbour getting prepared for emergencies and obtaining rations for 4-5 days, you also tend to do the same. But it was all unfounded and the storm passed without much damage. Of course, it helps when you are 80 kilometres from the coast (as Cuttack is) since the cyclone is much dissipated when it reaches you. Let’s wait for the final story from the coastlines to see how much of the state is actually affected, although going by the stories of evacuations from the coastal towns (50% the population of Paradwip is supposedly in Cuttack), there seems to be nothing much of concern. The govt has done a good job, being thoroughly prepared (over-prepared I would say, and hyped this beyond measure to grab eyeballs), and all essential services are back. Only broadband internet connections remain absent and internet access is via smartphones only. Tomorrow is expected to be like any other day.


Signing off.

13th October 2013. 9:00 pm.