Rainman talks Cricket

 As much as I love cricket, I have to admit I suck at playing it. I always have. This bit of information is important for the story that I am about to tell. A story of a friend. A story of a friendship. This short story began a long time ago in my life. I was probably twelve years old when I began playing cricket with the kids from my colony. After years of dominating my drawing room cricket where the opposition primarily consisted of the wall and the furniture, I found the going more than just tough initially despite finding a group of kids who were extremely supportive and never nasty. However, when you are young, being shy and introverted with terrible skills means that you’re often ‘hidden’ in a team sport i.e you are batting lower down the order and are the last bowler whose services the captain will ask for. You neither are good enough to participate more actively nor are you vocal enough to ask the more established players to give you a go. For much of my growing up years, t...

The image of Brett Lee and Andrew Flintoff taken at the end of the 2005 Edgbaston is iconic in so many ways. So much that I don’t even need to post it for you to tell which image I am talking about. And why not? It came at the end of a nail-biting Ashes contest in one of the greatest Test series of all marking a moment of great empathy and compassion between two champions of the game. And you all know the story behind the photograph too.  But you haven’t seen this image. And you most probably don’t know the story of this image. Here’s what happened. Michael Holding while bowling a 1987 ODI to Ian Botham pulled his hamstring after delivering the ball. Interestingly, while he clutched his thigh he also realized that the ball has popped in the air and he went on to catch that ball with his outstretched hand. What followed is something very interesting. Botham who had just gotten out realized that the bowler is in terrible pain and while on his way to the pavilion, he gave Holding’s te...

Indian cricket took a quantum leap with the advent of the Indian Premier League in 2008 which transformed almost every dimension of an Indian cricket fan’s relationship with the game. Among the many well-documented changes that resulted from its arrival on the scene, one of the most positive was the elevation of fringe cricketers to the mainstream. The likes of Swapnil Asnodkar, Rajat Bhatia, Manoj Tiwary who were toiling away in domestic cricket for years were as visible as a Zaheer Khan or Sourav Ganguly for those two months of the Indian Premier League, and in some cases, as well paid. Although domestic cricket continues to be played across the country in front of empty stands even now, lives of a lot of domestic cricketers did change courtesy the Lalit Modi brainchild.  Another fairly unimportant fallout of the league was to affect me personally. In this piece, I want to talk about that - the change in the relationship I shared with the stars of domestic cricket before the IPL ...

# RandomCricketPhotosThatMakeMeHappy One thing that most people seem to remember from Monty Panesar's brief but eventful career is his inimitable style of super exuberant celebrations. In his book 'Monty's Turn', Panesar takes us to the origins of those celebrations. Such a massive fan he was of Sachin Tendulkar while growing up that he had a poster of the Indian batsman on his bedroom wall. In fact, in 1996, when Indian team played a tour game against Northamptonshire, he to ok his bat to get it signed by the little master. He recounts how he and his friends jumped and danced in joy in the stands when Sachin raised his bat in their direction upon reaching his 50. 5 years later when he toured India with England U-19s, he went back home with a massive collection of Sachin posters to adorn his bedroom walls with. 10 years later, making his Test debut against the man he grew up admiring, he managed to conjure up a delivery that beat Sachin's bat ...

# RandomCricketPhotosThatMakeMeHappy Seems like a fairly harmless photograph, right? Well, some English fans did get 'harmed' as a result of this moment in the photograph. This is a photograph from the West Indies vs England Test at Lord's in 1966. It shows a cricketer who has just completed his ton in the second innings being lifted by an over enthusiastic fan who has found his way to the middle, as fans so often used to back in the day. The batsman was none other than the gr eat Sir Gary Sobers whose 274 run partnership with his cousin David Holford had rescued West Indies from a precarious 96-5 in the match. In England's second innings and the fourth innings of the match, several English fan inspired by the West Indies fan decided to fete their hero of the innings the same way. The only problem this time around was that the man who scored a century for England - Colin Milburn - weighed 112 kilograms. So, once he completed his ton, out came several ...

#RandomCricketPhotosThatMa keMeHappy There have been few cricketers as eccentric as Jack Russell. While that's a well-known fact, another fact is that there have been few men as multi-talented as the former English wicketkeeper. Both the facts are well captured here in this photograph from 1996. As England stumbled from one disappointment to another in the sub-continent in their World Cup campai gn, here was their wicketkeeper taking his mind off from those disappointments doing what he discovered a love for almost a decade back in the same country. While he had already begun wielding the paintbrush, it was in 1987 that he got into it when he travelled to Pakistan as a reserve wicket-keeper to Bruce French. With just two and a half days of cricket for him from two months of the tour, he had a lot of time to hone his skills by making the myriad views of Pakistan his muse. He went back and put his 40 pieces of art on exhibition. In two days, they had flown off the walls. And, wit...

#RandomCricketPhotosThatMa keMeHappy Is this a cricket photo? YES, IT IS! The man here is David Frith and what he is eating is not food but paper. To be precise, he is eating the paper that carried his own prediction for the World Cup of 1983. Or 'Eating his words' as a certain Man Singh wanted him to. Before the tournament began, David Frith wrote in the Wisden Cricket Monthly that India should be made to qualify for the World Cup with the associate nations if they fare poorly in England, of which he was sure of. He gave them no chance at all and asked them to leave the tournament. And then 25th June, 1983 happened and Kapil's Devils proved Frith wrong. Emboldened by the turn in India's fortunes, Man Singh from USA wrote in a letter to WCM saying, "I will give him a sporting chance to eat his words now that the team he wrote off has won the World Cup. I will allow him to lace it with chocolate and wash it down with ale or stout." He added, "Be a goo...

#RandomCricketPhotosThatMa keMeHappy You don't see much, do you? It's a thigh pad. A thigh pad that belonged to Mark Waugh. Now, look closer. The thigh pad has annotations indicating the FC centuries Waugh Jr. made in his career. For every century scored, Waugh would draw a little matchstick man on his thigh pad with the name of the opposition against whom the century was scored written below. Cute.

# RandomCricketPhotosThatMakeMeHappy Dexter's 1993 Smog Prophecy In 1992-1993, when England visited India, they had no idea about the magnitude of disaster they were going to be a part of. They got some of it when, in the first Test in Kolkata, they floundered the trial by spin miserably after being put to sword by Azhar's classic 182. India coasted home with eight wickets in hand. The 'Brownwash' had begun for the English. Ted Dexter, the Italy born English Chairman of selectors, while dissecting his team's abysmal performance, put forward a reason for the loss that was dismissed by everyone with a chuckle. The seemingly 'sour grapes' kind of reason put forward by Dexter was that England's defeat was to be attributed to Kolkata smog. He even went on to announce that he had commissioned a report into the impact of air pollution in Indian cities. The subsequent inning defeats at Chennai and Mumbai discredited Dexter's cl...

#RandomCricketPhotosThatMa keMeHappy Botham, Pakistan and Mom-in-law For all his charisma and brilliance, Ian Botham was a bit of a loose cannon as well. In 1984, when England went on a hastily organized tour of Pakistan, Botham picked up an injury and left midway through the tour. After returning home from a tour that didn't go well for him, he made the following remark on a radio show. "Pakistan is the sort of place to send your mother-in-law for a fortnight, all expenses paid.” This obviously irked the Pakistanis and the board coaxed an apology out of the star all-rounder, but not before the statement had created quite a furore. In the 1992 World Cup match against Pakistan, after Botham was dismissd, Aamir Sohail asked him on his way back, "Who's coming next? Your mother in law?" In 2000, when England was to tour Pakistan again and Botham was to do commentary duty there, someone at Daily Mirror had this inspired idea of sending Botham’s mother-in-law Jan ...

# RandomCricketPhotosThatMakeMeHappy Wondering how's this a cricket photo? Read on. After defeating India on 15th March, South Africa had booked a place in the semi-final of the the 1992 World Cup. However, whether they would play or not in the Semi Final was dependent on a result that was beyond their control. A day after the India encounter, the referendum on Apartheid was to take place in South Africa. The team's participation in the World Cup was ensured only after ICC was assured that the whites will vote to end apartheid. However, if they had voted 'No', South Africa were most likely to sent back to isolation midway through the tournament which they had bossed till then. The White electorate voted Yes. South Africa stayed on to play England. Were robbed of a final appearance by a stupid rain rule. And yet, graciously went on to do a lap of honour for the fans in the end. So, if you wonder why don't we see South African cricketers crestfallen after a defe...

# RandomCricketPhotosThatMakeMeHappy For as long as he played for Pakistan, Shoaib Akhtar and pace were synonymous. And so were Shoaib Akhtar and theatrics. And that almost always made for great cricket viewing. You can ask anyone who was at the MCG on December 27 2004. In the final over before Tea on the second day, Justin Langer had driven one on the off side where substitute Afridi had brought to halt a proverbial tracer bullet. That got Akhtar going. He wasn’t pleased. A stare followed a spit in Langer’s direction and that got the batsman going. A bouncer followed and Langer had a few words to say to Akhtar who had almost reached the batting crease on his follow through now. The next delivery was better directed and hit Langer on the forearm who, sensing the danger, quickly asked for an armguard, something he usually never wore. And Akhtar was quick to mock it when at the beginning of his run-up of the next delivery, he laughed while acting as if he was hurt on...

#RandomCricketPhotosThatMa keMeHappy Plastered hand and perspective Among all the photos of Malcolm Marshall on the internet, I believe, this is the most important one of his for perspective. With his thumb broken at two places while fielding at gully, Marshall could have easily sat out in the third Test of a 5 match series in 1984 which his team was leading 2-0 against the hosts England. Instead, he came out to bat with a plastered hand to allow Larry Gomes score a ton and then bowled with a plaster cast to take 7-53 to win the match for his team. Was there any challenge that Marshall couldn't triumph? It didn't seem so then, at least for a man who finished his career with 386 wickets at an average of just 21. 15 years later, while he was coaching West Indies in the 1999 Cricket World Cup in the same country, his colon cancer was diagnosed. In no time, the man who could instill fear in the heads of the most fearless of batsmen in his prime, was reduced to almost 25 kgs by...

#RandomCricketPhotosThatMa keMeHappy If you are not a trivia cruncher, you might not know English leg spinner Eric Hollies. The major claim to fame for Eric Hollies is this picture where he's not even properly visible. To put it straight, Hollies is the man who denied Bradman a Test average of 100 by dismissing him for a duck in his final innings in the 1948 Oval Test. Now here's the story. Hollies didn't even want to play the match. As England had lost the Ashes 3-0 already, he thought it didn't make sense of him to play for the national team as fixtures for Warwickshire were lined up and playing the Test would have meant missing out on two Championship matches. But selectors insisted he played since he had picked up 8 wickets in a tour match against the Aussies. Interestingly Bradman’s dismissal wasn’t a stroke of luck for Hollies. Hollies had prepared himself for it. In a tour match earlier at Edgbaston, he had deceived Bradman with a googly. And then the wily cu...

# RandomCricketPhotosThatMakeMeHappy Iconic moments from a classic Ashes series that wouldn't have probably happened had the DRS been in place a few years before it eventually made its debut on the international stage. With 108 to get and only 2 wickets left, England pretty much had the match in their pocket. However, Warne, Kasprowicz and Lee staged one of the finest comebacks by a tail ever seen and brought Australia within 3 runs of an improbable victory. And that's when Kasprowicz gloved one to Jones behind him. Bowden raised his finger and sounded the death knell for Australian hopes to hand England a 2 run victory. Kasprowicz, however, wasn't out. Harmison's bouncer did brush Kasper's right glove as he took evasive action, but television replays revealed that his hand was about three inches off the handle at the time. Cricket rules state that a glove can only be considered part of the bat when contact is made "between the ball an...

# RandomCricketPhotosThatMakeMeHappy On 25th March 1980, Scunthorpe played Bournemouth. In the first few minutes of the second half, Ron Ashman' cup of woes seemed to be overflowing when Graham Pugh got injured with his team trailing by a couple of goals. With no option left, he decided to sub Pugh with a newbie who was taking the field for Scunthorpe for the first time in the match. And when he took field in the 52nd minute, drama, like always, couldn't resist itself from following the man! And it did. Following the debutant's introduction, the game turned on its head. From staring at a certain defeat, Scunthorpe went on to accrue three goals in eight minutes out of thin air to level the scores 3-3. In the dying minutes of this humdinger of a contest, Ashman's sub fired one towards the post. But as luck would have it, the debutant's shot was blocked on the line. And that's how what could have been one of the most memorable debuts in football...

#RandomCricketPhotosThatMa keMeHappy Dale Steyn once recalled a conversation he had with his skipper Faf du Plessis. With injury concerns and an ageing body occupying much of his headspace, he said to his captain, " Hey Faf, I think I'm not going to celebrate that hard when I get those dodgy wickets. The ones where the batsman smashes it to square-leg, because I haven't quite earned it. I would  rather celebrate the ones where I have worked the guy over. Wicket with an inswinger after two away-swingers kind of a thing." Faf didn't take time to shoot down the thought. He replied saying. "No. No. No. You don't understand how much the team enjoys when you celebrate like that, how much it lifts the team. And that's why you need to celebrate. To lift the side." Those celebrations will be missed. As will be those jaffas he could produce out of thin air. In an era, where we discredit batsmen because of how much the game has been tilted in their fav...

# RandomCricketPhotosThatMakeMeHappy Once you've picked your jaw from the floor or dialed down the judgment, I will tell you why this Sean Dempsey capture is much more than just another photo of a woman in lingerie. The lady in the picture is a former model named Debbie Lee who used to be the girlfriend of Australian cricketer Stuart Law when this photo was clicked in 1998. With fellow models Shelly Moore and Adele Graham, she had come to pose for a Lingerie fashion show at the Lord's cricket ground. After posing for several photographs, she sneaked into the famous Lord's Members' Area Pavilion where this photo was clicked. Not too long after the photos, security chief Jim Hogben probed her with questions like "How did you get here?" before telling her categorically, "You are not allowed in this area.'' This was a week after MCC members had voted to keep the membership of the club all male. A woman posing in lingerie in the...

#RandomCricketPhotosThatMa keMeHappy Since someone mentioned yesterday that most of my stories are about the major Test playing nations and not from other countries, well here's one for you. In 2014, Brendan Taylor decided to tie the knot at the age of 28 with Kelly Anne Readings. The date fixed was March 29th. But it wasn't going to be easy. The World T20 fixtures were announced soon after the date was finalized and Taylor calculated that if Zimbabwe progressed beyond the group stages, his wedding day might clash with one of the match days. And so, Taylor postponed it and found a new date for the important day. 29th April. On 12th February, Taylor found himself in a fix once again as something he wasn't expecting happened. An IPL franchise had picked him at the auctions. Due to elections, the IPL this time was to start on April 16 and end in June. Luckily for Taylor, his bosses at Sunrisers Hyderabad relented and he was allowed to join the team a little later, after h...

#RandomCricketPhotosThatMa keMeHappy Sambaran Banerjee averaged a modest 25 with the bat in 75 FC matches. In 1989, however, he led Bengal to a Ranji Trophy win. And in April 1996, he was at Delhi's Taj Palace as one of the selectors to select the squad to travel to England. The other selectors as well as Captain Azhar and Coach Sandeep Patil wanted Sunil Joshi. But Banerjee put his foot down for  he believed Joshi was a bowler who could bat a bit and instead tried to push the case for a batsman he knew could prove to be handy with the ball in English conditions. Banerjee had come to Delhi two days ago to meet ex-cricketers to convince them that media reports about the player's attitude were inaccurate. All his efforts paid off when he gave his player's career a new lease of life by putting him on that plane to England. Apparently, Azhar left the meeting extremely angry on being given a player he didn't want in his team. Little did he know then that Sambaran Banerj...