New face of Indian Cricket - 2

I read a lot on cricket still publish rarely an article on the cricket. New face of Indian Cricketwas written 5 years ago. This is the second part dedicated to our young team for having luck on the road ahead. 

Any game is often about not doing what your opponents want you to do. Test Cricket is no exception. I always consider One Day and T20 Matches as an exhibition while Test cricket is an examination. There will be 13 test matches(2 in SA, 2 in NZ, 5 IN ENG & 4 in AUS) in upcoming year. Great players will emerge in upcoming foreign tours through baptism by fire of fast bowling. Our young crop of batsman play aggressive brand of cricket what was termed as 'Australian Way'. Prudence is never the virtue of the new generation. Scoring at high run rate is essential for winning is good but not necessary applicable for all conditions. It is best to attack and play pretty when it suits; claw and fight like hell when it doesn't. Our batting and bowling line up has to display grit, temperament and determination . Test cricket have all sorts of ups and downs, collapses and fightbacks and some gritty and skilful performances.

The Gavaskar phenomena preceded the Tendulkar phenomena. Tendulkar has given same bantle to Sehwag as a spiritual successor. I am sure that baton has been passed from Dravid to Pujara and Sachin to Virat. And, Virat is proving to be new Richards as I am writing this on the close of 1st day of India South Africa test series. As batting collapses are not unknown in Indian cricket, still I am hoping for consistent performance. Our batting lineup seems strong with the rise of Dhawan, Rahane and Rohit. Natural talent is abundant here, but performance overseas depend on application and discipline.

India has no place for fast bowlers. We never groom fast bowlers for long duration and thus Zaheer Khan became an exception, not regular product of the system. Our battery of fast bowlers (Ishant Sharma, Umesh Yadav, Mohammad Shami & Bhubaneswar Kumar) is slowly building. Lanky MP pacer Ishwar Pandey, Varun Aaron and old hand RP Singh are present in the scene. Even then, things always had looked bleak on the Indian yorker scene. Craig McDermott and Lillee are guiding Australians while Allan Donald is nurturing South African talent. India desperately need guidance of Zaheer and Venkatesh Prasad as Javagal Srinath is more involved in administrative work. Kapil's spiritual heirs are none. With Irfan Pathan a spent force, Stuart Binny and Rishi Dhawan can take his path in limited overs. Yes, we have good wicketkeepers in the domestic circuit but none of them touch bar set up by Caption Dhoni. Saha, Karthik and Parthiv are really good choices in case of back up.

The Tendulkar, Ganguly, Kumble, Dravid Laxman era is over now. Even Zaheer khan and Mahendra Singh Dhoni are only remaining faces of the next phase of cricketers. Yuvraj, Harbhajan, Irfan, Gambhir and Sehwag are good cricketers but out of form currently. That has not happened with the stalwarts once they were well established in the team. When players are out of form and low on confidence, they can rely on technique only. Hence, there is even chance of return of Gambhir and Harbhajan. We are having good players like Vijay Zol, Manpreet Juneja, Jiwanjot Singh, Sanju Samson, Baba aparjit and Unmukt Chand in domestic tournaments. Selectors are not in panic state with the exit of seniors. They are choosing suitable candidates and even players of high calibers like Saurabh Tewari, Pragyan Ojha and Manoj Tewari are in waiting line.

Any team with ambitions to rule the world must vanquish challengers on all continents. Youngsters doing well in short formats is a good sign for Indian cricket. And if they do the same in test, then India will become a champion side.  In a great piece of refined writing, Martin Crowe expressed a great advice for everyone. "Wisdom is priceless. When you get on a learning path, it is the best time of your life. Every day means something, every lesson provides the clarity you clamour for. You move forward, evolve, grow, and become more fulfilled as the big picture, the dream even, emerges from the shadows and into the light." Hoping Indian team transform into great team one day.

Udaipur and Jodhpur Yatra

I had palnned Sikkim/Bhutan Trip in festival session of Nuakhai. That trip was cancelled due to backing out of the friends. Hence, I was looking towards other options. I do view it as a now or never situation in planning travel schedule. I took quick decision with help of my friend at IIM Ahmadabad. Udaipur and Jodhpur were prime destination of two days short trip of Rajasthan. I was lone traveler this time.

A balanced tourism is more about connecting with the local people and their culture, rather than site seeing like Maharajas of distant land. Talking for long session (1/2 -1 hour) with remarkable people like Shambhu (auto-rickshaw driver at Udaipur) and Yarden Gerest- Mar (Student of Computer Science at Hebrew University, Israel) were good experiences of the whole trip. Touring India is always mixed bag of praise, platitudes and panning. Foreign tourists are confronted with unfamiliar sights on a daily basis, such as open defecation that are no longer seen in the developed nation. India has both sides, some exciting and some negative.

Best moment was a small interaction with an unknown artist at Jaswant Thada. A great source of frustration creeps in people with a strong sense of entitlement face either unnecessary criticism or unmet expectations. Creative people like writers, actors, humanitarian aid worker or fashion designer have some similarity with such street artist as they work (initially) for peanuts in their respective professions. I was lost in bliss moments on listening to such beautiful music amid thirst and heat. Such non-material aspects of a life are truly divine.

“From the bastions of the Jodhpur fort one hears as the Gods must hear from Olympus,” said author Aldous Huxley about the Mehrangarh Fort ramparts. I covered Mehrangarh Fort early in the morning. Flying fox tour was too expensive (Rs 1500 for traveling to the wire around fort) and adrenaline rush doesn't suit me. What I like is slow and steady romance with medieval history and an ancient culture. I was unable to find location where a prison scene of 'The Dark Knight Rises' was shot. The exotic murals of the self-exiled Polish art Stefan Norblin in Umaid Bhawan are still fresh in my imagination.

Guided Trip in auto-rickshaw was plan for touring beautiful city of Udaipur. Most of the places shown were redundant for me. Folk Art Museum at Bhartiya Lok Kala Mandir was a surprise revelation for the day. I watched Daily puppetry show and gathered information about popular Ghoomar dance. Both Lake palace and City palace were full of scenic beauty. Camera charges at city palace was so high that appears more irrelevant in this era of high resolution mobile camera. I was unable to visit Sajjangarh fort due to time crunch.

Medieval painting, historical exhibits and cultural objects like arms, protective elephant howdahs, palanquins, armors, turbans, costumes and paintings at both places were preserved with great care. Impregnable defensive architecture have always been plus point of forts of Rajasthan. I took audio tour at Jodhpur and personal guide tour at Udaipur. I find audio tour better for those who are alone and have plenty of time and interest. I have always been in dilemma that vacation can't be a photo opportunity. Sometime it seems wrong to constantly capture the beauty as champion trophy, instead of savouring the moment. Sometimes the wrong path can take us to the right destination. But, having an smart app like Google Maps was useful. 'Baati Dal Choorma' was the only local cuisine tasted by me.

Tour of Jodhpur belonging to Marwar state and Udaipur belonging to Mewar was completed. It was very hard to grasp disparity in lifestyle of Bhil culture as seenin folk museum compared to luxurious lives of aristocracy.  Boredom tends to cause excessive pleasure-seeking since, lacking other goals, people often use pleasure as a goal. Thus was the era of Kingdoms and Feudal lords full of extremes in war, love and art. As Walter Benjamin famously wrote, “There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism.”

Farewell Tendulkar

Sachin Tendulkar retired today from all formats of cricket matches today. Many has paid homage to this legend and much has been already said about his retirement and figures. I will add few words. I don't call him God but sure rank him as one of the best auteur of the game. I assume him as the last gentleman of the cricketing era giving place to aggressive new India. Sachin was raised in tradition of Mumbai batsmanship, aggressive in strokes yet solid and calm in defense. He took it to greatness with his action and achievements.

Rahul Dravid, Robin Singh, Hansie Cronje and Heath Streak are my favorite cricketers. I like Sachin but never loved him. Yet, he was always there as a symbol of hope. During 1990, if Tendulkar failed, TV sets were closed considering all was lost for India. In those days, Indians rarely have something that can be termed as world class. Sunil Gavaskar has given us inspiration that one can be second-to-none with sheer will and hard work. Gavaskar was combination of rock solid guts, the classic technique and full commitment to stand up to such hostile fast bowling of his era. Kapil Dev was similarly inspiring because fast bowlers were non existing species in Indian cricket history. Kapil was generating sufficient swing, bounce, accuracy and work horse like stamina on the dead pitches with athletic fielding capabilities. I always saw Sachin as a combination of both of these stalwarts : First Among Equals at world level amid figures like Brian Lara, Steve Waugh, Rahul Dravid, Ricky Ponting, and Jacques Kallis.

Qualities like Longevity, Dedication, Perseverance, Focus, Ambition and Humility are part of his status. He has even attracted admiration from the players of other country for his composure and behaviour on & off the field. But why I admire him, for his Integrity. All games is safeguarded by their popularity. Whole nation was in the state of shock due to match fixing scandals in 1999. Yet, Sachin's honesty and integrity healed fans and they gave moral support again to Indian cricket team. Indian media has bipolar disorder who either give people as god-like status in good times, while every weakness is dissected in loss. Hence, a career with traces of controversy is an extraordinary achievements. Even without evidence, minor allegation against him like ball tampering in SA 2001 and Monkey gate in Australia tour are insignificant. That career record makes one wonder about miracle named Sachin.

I was kid in early phase of his career and hence not seen great innings of Sachin against fast pitches against England, Australia and Pakistan. This one is hailed as mark of new era in world cricket.

I saw him first delivering match winning last over in Hero Cup semifinal.

I saw him destroying pace attack in foreign condition at South Africa.

I always remember his back to back explosive innings at Sharjah amid sand storms.

I was glued to radio commentary for Chennai Test of 1999 against Pakistan. I was heart broken when chasing 271, Sachin had made 136 with severe back pain & batting with grim resolve in losing cause.

Sachin's batting against Pakistan at Centurion in 2003 world cup match is unforgettable.

I rate heroic 175 against Australia in Hyderabad as an example of lone man fighting a battle.

That double century of Sachin against South Africa was so perfect example of building inning with speed and calculative risks.

Even ad featuring Sachin are now memories of past.

This was one my favorite.

A part of his success goes to the his family, friends , players and his coach. His cricketing records will be broken. Thanks Sachin for so many good memories. Profile of Sachin on Cricinfo.

101 Ways to Get Educated

There are more than one ways in which one can get educated. This is a list which I found on the net... pretty inspiring and insightful !

1. Grow enough grain for one loaf of bread -- and make and eat the loaf
2. Answer ALL the questions of a 3 year old for a week
3. Spend a day alone in a wild place
4. Follow your trash to its final resting place
5. Collect food and blankets and spend a day giving them to homeless people taking the time to stop and talk about life
6. Help in the birth of a lamb, cow, or horse
7. Visit a slaughter house (try to withhold judgment)
8. Organize a rite of passage ceremony for an adolescent, someone at mid-life, or yourself
9. Switch genders for the day
10. Build a house (your own, or for Habitat for Humanity)
11. Ask a low rider how the lifters on their car work
12. Apprentice yourself to someone you've always wanted to learn from
13. Take a picture of you and all your stuff in front of the place where you live. Compare it to the pictures in Peter Menzel's Material World
14. Read the sacred texts of another tradition
15. Imagine your most delicious relationship and then go first
16. Work for a week on an assembly line
17. Spend a week without stepping in a car. Pay attention to how your town looks from a bike, bus, or sidewalk
18. Exchange tutoring with a teenager - math or bicycle repair in exchange for Web browsing, skate boarding, dance, or ??
19. Go to someone else's church, synagogue, or place of worship
20. Go on a vision quest
21. Take a dance class from a different culture
22. Interview the oldest person you can find; record the conversation
23. Interview a child
24. Imagine a day in your life 15 years from now
25. Plant and care for a tree
26. Ask yourself, "What if everyone in the world behaved the way I am behaving?"
27. Get the names of the favorite books of your dentist, grocery store clerk, mother, co-worker, and your minister/rabbi/priest or spiritual guide. Read those books
28. Pretend to be someone else on the Internet
29. Trace your water supply back to its source - and follow it down the drainpipes to its destiny
30. Finger paint
31. Spend a day in a neighborhood where you've never been before - without carrying any money
32. Ask your friends, and your ex-friends, to anonymously send you a list of your five best and five worst character traits
33. Live for a day off your garden
34. Channel surf for an evening; ask yourself what about the programs is drawing people
35. Be quiet for 5 minutes per day; increase gradually to 20
36. Ask a young person what's on his or her mind and heart, and listen (don't try to 'fix it')
37. Figure out when and on what part of your dwelling the sun's rays fall at different times of year (for extra credit: calculate the photovoltaic potential of your roof)
38. Take a year off
39. Read a foreign newspaper
40. Meditate on the life of your unborn grandchild
41. Talk to the janitor
42. Assume that everything is your responsibility, if not your fault
43. Examine a handful of compost or rich soil under a microscope
44. Go without food for three days
45. Watch a child being born
46. Write a creation myth
47. Visit an observatory, and look at the stars through a big telescope
48. Map the creeks, streams, and rivers in your watershed
49. Choose six jobs that interest you; find someone to interview for each and spend a day working alongside them
50. Watch a snail
51. Find out what percentage of the world's financial wealth is owned by the top 50 corporations, and how much by the 50 wealthiest people
52. Visit the emergency ward of a major hospital
53. Sleep outside under the stars
54. Discuss these questions with a friend : If the Universe is finite, what happens at its edge ? If it's infinite, how did it get there ? If the Universe started 15 billion years ago, what was there before it started? Does time go on forever ?
55. Visit a spiritual healer
56. Find out what the clerk at the grocery store is thinking about
57. Follow your electric wires to the source of the electricity
58. Learn to line dance
59. Spend two hours with a counsellor exploring your life
60. Pick three trees of different species and spend an hour meditating under each one
61. Go on a week-long solo journey by bus, bike, or foot to a place you've never been; listen to the people you meet
62. Learn how to build a wall
63. Fall in love
64. Take a bicycle to pieces and put it together again
65. Visit a Native American reservation and talk with the people you meet about their past and future
66. Learn how to give a good massage
67. Spend a day watching a state or provincial legislature at work
68. Calculate how much carbon dioxide your family is adding to the atmosphere each year
69. Ask a good friend to share the most important lessons he or she has learned about sex and how to make love
70. Perform menial or repetitive work at a job that lasts at least a week
71. Read primary sources on history, science, social science (that is, avoid the authors who are interpreting the work of others)
72. Carry all your trash around with you for a week. At the end of the week, weigh it all
73. Write an episode of one of the current top-rated sitcoms on commercial TV; explain the story line to a friend
74. Repair a damaged relationship
75. Start that band/garden/book/art movement you told yourself you'd always do
76. Throw the biggest party you can; try to get someone from every decade dancing
77. Ask your parents about their relationship
78. Refuse to do meaningless work for one week
79. Offer to help your child's teacher
80. Admit that you don't know and ask for help
81. Tell people how you are really doing
82. Go to a punk rock or hip-hop show
83. Sell your car and go to India
84. Seek out a friend of a different race & class
85. Ask people what they are planning to do about the year 2000 computer bug
86. Calculate the total miles traveled from the towns labeled on food cans in your pantry
87. Ask a kid about divorce
88. Teach yourself to play guitar
89. Go to the industrial section of town and see how much free stuff is available (go dumpster diving)
90. Make a movie about your neighborhood
91. Visit the nearest creek once a week for a month and notice changes along the banks, in the water flows, in the pools
92. Collect dumpling recipes from around the world; throw a dumpling party
93. Imagine yourself looking back on your life at 90 years of age: what are the highlights? Who has been most important? What do you wish you had done?

Now go out and do those things, thank those people and live those highlights.

Individual Moral Progress

Unbiased Analysis always reveal that a ‘cherished tradition’ is neither cherished, nor a tradition; its a easy and popular myth propagated by powerful ones. Once we create movements sought to challenge the power not just of social practices eventually they will challenge political order too. There is term used ‘Heckler’s Veto” that has been seen more in democracy mode of governance. Essentially it means that the state refuses to allow freedom of expression out of fear of someone else’s reaction. That is the one lethal aspect that holds moral progress of the whole nation.

People judge individuals by whether they comfort you or unsettle mentally and emotionally. So, it is always easy to look for the coziness and intimacy that is inherited in the established tradition, even it is wrong one. As the total rejection of old will lead them into unknown emotional landscape with no peers around them. Only Diversity and open communication can challenge our morals based on culture. Yes, the truth hurts. But the damage caused by a twisted tradition has a deeper, more lasting impact.

Most of the people clings to moral arrogance in the name of honor and pride of family, caste, nation even at the cost of lives of others. And they are ready to sacrifice for that code of honor. A disturbing truth - When a man does something for himself his actions are performed within certain limits – limits set by the jealous scrutiny of others. But let a man set out to sacrifice himself and do good to others , and the normal limits vanish. He can become completely ruthless (the injustices done by idealists, patriots, saints and crusaders are far greater than those done by the worst tyrants). Look in our sacred books : Its not the achievement but the sacrifice that made Ram worthy of worship. No religious book praise love between two humans, it gives value to valor, courage and sacrifice for a greater cause.

Or society consists of three class : 'Traditional Conservative' as majority, 'Operational conservative yet theoretical liberal' and 'Ultra- liberals' as minority. What if even one is on the side of evil but believe in the righteousness of cause on the basis of faith ? That is the path of our traditional ones seeing things in more black and white. That makes a capable person dangerous is his/her conviction. However ultra liberals are immune to social pressure. Either due to wealth or grooming in open thoughts. However, Individual thinking is partially bounded by to the consequences of collective insanity. The buffer between conservatives and liberal provides an atmosphere for adaption of new idea.

As we know that the number of people willing to change their views in the face of evidence is much too small. Then, how is moral progress has been made in the past ? When we get used to something, it loses its shock value, it loses disgust value and now you are just much more open. That is the simple way of change. The fear of revolutionary change always led public to embrace tradition and theology. Hence, reformation is the way  of gradual and painstaking process. It can only be built-up through dialogues and struggles even it is usually termed as heresy by traditional pundits.

In closest friends, only Shreyash and Chandan, with whom I can shared highly controversial social and non- aesthetic ideas. I have observed that living a normal life in itself is one of the biggest challenges. Because there is no such thing as normal for any time and place. While rejecting extremist right and left political views, and I try to take a flexible position, although having a rather pessimistic, view of the society. I have question relevant and validity of values what has been taught to me by school, family and even friends. It may be called day dreaming, but that is however unsettling, new ideas has came inside my head through curiosity to explore new terrain of values. It has involved painful process of ignoring epidemic of ignorance in friends, family and society willfully. I have taken part in a survey on morals [Source] whose result is published below.





Man learns a lot more while he is traveling or reading. A open mind can hold two opposite views in mind at same time and understand dichotomy of the situation. I am enlisting four simple ways that opens the path of liberal thinking to an individual.

1- Diverse set of material in reading is must. Otherwise, books become propaganda. Through words, sometimes books have disturb the comfortable & comfort the disturbed state of mind.

2- Self Imposed Solitude takes away peer pressure and the limelight. One critically look at his knowledge and world around again with patience in that period. That is a rare thing to do.

3- Exile away from home gives most insights about tolerance of others values. Hostel Life and Travel thus make people more mature and open to new ideas.

4- Last way to chart on the path of liberalism is sarcasm and comedy. Make fun of everything/everybody that is sacred, powerful, or stupid.