The Fast Fest

(Image courtesy: New Indian Express)

L Suresh looks at the latest version of cricket – marketed in a sachet pack.

Year after year, players from across the world scream blue murder when the itinerary for the forthcoming season is released. And year after year, the ICC and the Boards miss no opportunity in giving the golden goose a vigourous shake, just to see if they have missed out another golden egg that could be hiding in there, somewhere. The 1975 World Cup was a masterstroke - it took four years and 18 one-day internationals for the ICC to decide on one of the game’s biggest money-spinners. And now, half that time and after 17 Twenty20 matches, the stage is set for the first ever Twenty20 World Cup.

For the first time in the history of a major cricket tournament, the buzz that has been created is not about the stars who are going to battle each other, but about those who have been kept out for a host of reasons. As always, India took the lead in the matter, when Sachin, Sourav and Dravid were 'asked to be left out'. That was just the curtain raiser - the drama followed soon. Sachin was reportedly miffed with Dravid at not being consulted over this decision. Sourav was quoted by the news channels as being disappointed that he couldn't represent India in the Twenty20 World Cup. Dravid, at his usual political best, tried to underplay the issue by stating the obvious - that things had been quoted out of context. Other minor bombshells included promoting Dhoni ahead of Yuvraj as the team captain and the omission of new improved Zaheer Khan, whose Version 2.0 includes a thinking cricketer as part of the package. But these were damp squibs in front of the bigger fireworks.

What fires here explodes there - and soon enough, across the border, pandemonium broke out when leading stars were left out of the squad. Abdul Razzaq, the one-day specialist and Mohammad Yousuf, the bearded, helmeted version of the Viking who had just returned with a sackful of runs he had pillaged from England, found themselves out of the team. And in their place came players with little or no experience - Misbah-ul-Haq, Abdur Rehman and Fawad Alam.

Surprisingly, South Africa, the team that always believed in playing its best players (if you ignore its quota system, that is) chose to omit Kallis, considered by his peers as one of the best allrounders in the present era. The reason given by the Board was a crowded schedule - if that were true, then why was he part of the provisional 30-man squad selected for the tournament and that, as vice-captain? Obviously, something was not right and the man who saw through it and spoke out got into trouble himself. The Board wasted no time in reprimanding Boucher that chatter was best reserved for behind the stumps and not in front of the media.

Meanwhile, England had no problems with keeping their stars out. Injury was taking care of that. (The latest casualties being Flintoff and Ravi ‘Sachin’ Bopara, who could be missing out on the tournament.) The Kiwis have lost their ace players too - Fleming, Cairns, Chris Harris and Nathan Astle are expected to make a beeline for the ICL after they've decided to let national cricket carry on without them.

As in every tournament, Australia looks to be firm favourites in this third version of the game as well and one can only hope for some resistance from teams that have posed a semblance of a threat to them in the recent past - West Indies and Sri Lanka. Both teams came up against their nemesis in the finals of the Champions Trophy and the World Cup respectively - and both were found wanting as they were outplayed in the opening overs of the game. There's yet another similarity to both sides, in that they both rely heavily on their explosive openers - Gayle and Jayasuriya - to provide them with a good start. And should they fail, the rest of the team will be no match for the men in yellow.

Australia will miss some of its key players for sure - Ponting looks all set to give the tournament a miss, and they're already without McGrath, Shane Warne, Damien Martyn and Shaun Tait. The fact that they are still considered favorites shows not only their bench strength, but also their ability to adapt to any condition, any form of the game and to any combination of players, regardless of who's in the team and who's not. The fast bowling department currently resembles a Mumbai Fast Local, with players desperately pushing and jostling to get in. The good news for the team is that Brett Lee is finally ready for action, with his 145 kmph toe-crushers. The good news for other teams is that he will be allowed to bowl only four overs per game.

Despite being far ahead of the pack, Australia has been the only side thus far to have had a special camp - at least for the bowlers, as Troy Cooley went about developing new strategies for bowling in such short duration matches. South Africa spent its time pounding a lifeless Zimbabwe, Pakistan decided that it was the opportune moment to take on Bangladesh and India and England busied themselves with a one-day series that could have been dubbed 'Biggest Loser Jeetega' (Biggest loser wins). If India's bowling and fielding matches the lowlife form that it currently maintains on a regular basis, there's hardly any chance of us getting past Scotland.

The fact that India will be playing without its big guns doesn’t seem to be bothering anyone, except possibly the sponsors. After the World Cup debacle, the blue billion has chosen to believe in the fatalistic interpretation of the philosophy of the PGA Tour – ‘Anything’s Possible’. On the brighter side, all those who have been advocating for a younger team will now get one. And perhaps a few debates can be settled for good. Like exactly how valuable are Sachin, Sourav and Rahul to the team, or will India do well to hedge its bets on youth than experience.

But another terrific trio who had offered India the best of youth and experience not too long ago find themselves in the wilderness and will be waiting for an opportunity to redeem themselves. Folklore has it that Charlie Chaplin once won the third prize in a Chaplin-lookalike contest when he came in as himself, the first prize going to someone else dressed as him. Virender Sehwag, Harbhajan Singh and Irfan Pathan will know how the world’s funniest man felt, with makeshift openers like Dinesh Karthik, makeshift spinners like Sachin and Yuvraj and makeshift allrounders like Sourav blocking them out in different versions of the game.

Ironically, despite that sinking feeling that the fans share as India sets forth to the first ever edition of this tournament, the fact remains that the team is at the top of the pile, if one were to set Twenty20 rankings for the eleven teams that have played the game officially. One match played, one won – and so India has a 100% track record, one that it shares with Bangladesh. England, South Africa and the West Indies have lost more matches than they have won, while Australia, Sri Lanka and New Zealand have experienced the unpredictability of this slam-bang contest.

Back home, there has been some effort towards organizing an inter-state Twenty20 tournament in the country. But as with most other initiatives – like the Challenger Series and other India A matches – it ended up being a farce. The selectors, who were in full attendance for the finals played between Tamil Nadu and Punjab, obviously misread the quote ‘the winner takes it all’ as ‘the winner is not taken at all’ – not one member from the winning team found his way into the national side.

While team selection, omissions and injuries have taken away the limelight from the tournament, it is also debatable if all the teams are taking this version of cricket seriously. The Kiwis, in their first match against Australia in 2005, seemed to take more interest in their weird facial hair and weirder hairdos to complement their 80s look uniforms, than in the game. The Aussies meanwhile, have experimented with their names, replacing them with their nicknames on the back of their shirts. (Imagine a champagne-filled moment of the Twenty20 World Cup winning team splashed in the sports pages with a caption that reads, ‘From left to right: Church, Stickers, Bear, Hilfy, Catfish, Notch, Binga, Andy G, Roy, Punter, Huss and Haydos.) You can bet your last can of Fosters that the men from Down Under don’t hold this game in high esteem. They are not to be blamed – anyone who can suffer the ignominy of a 100-run loss to England in a Twenty20 game and yet live to tell the tale will be expected to show signs of quirkiness.

But Twenty20 is a great leveller, more so than a one-dayer. If Bangladesh and Ireland could beat India and Pakistan in the World Cup, the Twenty20 could see anyone from Zimbabwe to Scotland take on any of the mighty teams of the world. As in the World Cup, one wrong move could well see India out of the tournament. In some corner of the world, Greg Chappell will be watching India’s progress keenly. This was what he had always advocated – an India shorn of its aging warriors and anointed messiahs who have been offered lifetime membership to the team. The moment of reckoning is fast approaching. And at 20 overs a side, it’s not likely to last long.

(Appeared in the New Indian Express Sunday Supplement on 09 September, 2007)