This being Indian cricket, the job of the media is now to speculate away as to who the second guy maybe. The speculators have so far thrown out the names of Arjuna Ranatunga, Duncan Fletcher, Graham Gooch, Mike Gatting and John Emburey. On the basis of this list I have concluded that the only two things the board is looking for in its next coach are: non-Indianess and a generous waistline. I do not see the logic in this, but since Greg Chappell is not obese, I am not complaining!

Even so, I do believe the board is overlooking one excellent prospect who fits their criteria. I think India’s next coach should be Inzamam-ul-Haq. Nothing is more non-Indian than Pakistani, and when it comes to corpulence Inzi can (Inshallah, God-willing) give any of the other prospects a leisurely stroll for their money. But what really, ahem, tilts the scales in Inzi’s favour is his ability to send the TV ratings through the roof. Imagine Inzi at the press conferences: four more years of “Boys play well” , in addition to the delicious irony of Inzi complaining about our pathetic fielding, fitness and running between the wickets. What a great way for the BCCI to keep the interest in the game alive! Given their recent track record, I am sure they wont miss the trick.

____

* What about Whatmore you wonder. To quote N “Yoda” Srinivasan, “We have established contact with Whatmore. You can say by implication that yes, he has been ruled out.”

Soon after, I moved to the US for my grad studies and fell in love with that wondrous one-breasted woman**! Amazon was all I needed and more. I loved their recommendations and reviews. Much of the joy of reading is in the discovery of books. Amazon’s collaborative filtering ensured that I “discovered” new stuff all the time. Occasionally, I would slip into a Barnes & Nobles or Borders but exit feeling lost in all the brick and mortar.

All this changed the first time I walked into the Harvard Book Store. I am not given to using words like “soul” in any context, least of all when I am talking about businesses. But I realized pretty quickly that HBS had an intangible element that I had no better word for. Friends of mine have often argued that serendipity was the key ingredient of indie book stores. I disagreed. I preferred (or at least I thought I did) the finely calibrated recommendations of Amazon tuned to my preferences to a random walk in an indie book store.

Now I realize I was off the mark. The value of serendipity hit me when I stumbled on a yellowing P G Wodehouse in the “Remainders” section of HBS. I was walking around the fiction section complaining as I always do that American book stores almost never carry Wodehouse. Even as I completed my sentence my eyes fell on a Wodehouse. It was more than a Wodehouse. It was the only Wodehouse in the store. It was also the Wodehouse I had read only the first 50 pages of at a friend’s place back in India a month ago. My left hemisphere instantly started channeling theories about the impacts of synchronicity being exaggerated by confirmatory evidence and suchlike. Nevertheless, I was suffused with a strange and overpowering joy.

In addition to the occasional instances of serendipity, the staff recommendations certainly add to the intangible element. They are erudite without seeming condescending and almost always delightfully quirky. Functionally they seek to serve the same purpose as the reviews on Amazon. But I nearly picked up a book on Lesbian Ethics on the basis of a staff recommendation. I don’t think too many Amazon reviews will swing me close to a purchase so tangential to my tastes.***

I still love Amazon. My wallet still votes for Amazon 8 books out of 10. But I really look forward to those two books I acquire from HBS. I guess Amazon is still my monthly paycheck whereas HBS is more of a treasure-hunt. I love the hunt and I look forward to the hour or so I spend every week doing it. When it comes to books, it’s personal, not business.

* I have since outgrown that phase. I now believe that the sum total of human knowledge is zero

** No, I am not some weirdo S&M perv. Go read up on your Greek myth before judging me:)

*** Well, now that I think about it, it’s the ‘Ethics’ bit that is tangential to my tastes

The constancy of this refrain pisses me off. In this context, Tendulkar’s two hundreds in consecutive Tests gave me hope. I was hoping that the idiots would finally shut up! But, alas, how naive of me.

Nothing has changed as Sidharth Monga proves here with his hogwash-masquerading-as-cricket-journalism. The basic problem Monga has with Tendulkar’s innings is that it was slower than the other three centuries in India’s innings. However, the tone of the article is so reprimanding that one would think that Tendulkar has notched 2 consecutive pairs, taken performance enhancing drugs, head-butted the bowler, tampered with the ball and slept with Percy Sonn’s wife. But that is hardly the case. The poor guy has just scored two freaking centuries in as many games.

The issue is not really with Tendulkar. It is with Monga and all other doofuses who insist that Tendulkar is not what he used to be. It is with the fact that these doofuses have a fixed mental model of Tendulkar. Monga, like a lot of other journalists, seems to go to every match with the same basket of adjectives he hopes to use to describe Tendulkar and his batting – glorious, easy, breathtaking, world’s best, stroke-filled, master-blaster and so on. When Tendulkar plays an innings that does not let him use these adjectives, he is disappointed. Instead of reaching for other adjectives that describe Tendulkar’s innings, he bemoans how Tendulkar does not fit his mental model.

If such an innings were played by Dravid or Steve Waugh, the words typical, gritty and hard-earned would have been generously used because those adjectives fit the predefined mental models these lazy journos have of Dravid and Waugh. But Tendulkar cannot be gritty, he can be either the young master-blaster or the aging legend with slowing reflexes who is struggling and should quit to protect his legacy.

What crap!

And what is with this protection of legacy? If Pete Sampras had bothered about protecting his legacy and retired in 2001 he would not have lost his last Wimbledon game (2002, Round 2) to the unknown George Bastl. But he also would not have won what is, at least to me, his greatest victory – the US Open in 2002. Greatness in sport is not about protecting legacies. It is about overcoming hurdles.

Yes, it is great to see the obvious superiority of the Federers and the Woods of the sporting world. But as a spectator, domination is enjoyable only for so long. The joy of seeing someone overcome hurdles after battling hard is eternal. Yes, Tendulkar is struggling, his game has evolved, he is not what he used to be. That does not mean he cannot be successful. His success will be unfamiliar and perhaps not very aggressive or dominant. But we shouldn’t fail to recognize it because it is cut from a different cloth.

Update your mental models (think of Tendulkar as the new Dravid, if that helps), refresh your adjective list, sit back and enjoy the struggle. Ideally, I’d want him to leave in blaze of glory. If not, I’d rather that he fade away than burn out.

The Callipygian Venus – disturbingly narcissitic!

It was just another Friday afternoon. The work-week was meandering to an uneventful end. Everyone had stopped being productive, dreaming about what beer they would order at the office-sponsored happy hour. Everyone, but me. I was dreaming about whether I’d order my usual – a Diet Coke with no ice – or Diet Coke with ice. There was also a part of me that was asking me to screw the conservatism and go the whole hog. Order a REAL Coke!

As I was wrestling my inner demons (diet Coke with no ice was winning, if you really want to know), BGJ interrupted with his “Yo, TM”.

BGJ is my cube-neighbor and more often than not, his “Yo, TM” shout outs are followed by some out-of-the-blue pronouncements. I turned around and gave him my go-ahead-with-pronouncement cue: “Wassup BGJ”

“Yo TM. I have been thinking about this for a while now. I know this is a huge decision, but I feel I am ready to make it. I want you to be the first to know.” Pregnant pause.

I am not very good with pregnant pauses. I can’t fill them in with some meaningful, soothing words that defuse the anticipatory tension. I am also not very good with being the first to know. It came with some nebulous form of responsibility that I can’t handle. I just let the pause play itself out and hoped it was not really a life-changing, big-ass “I have decided to break up with my girlfriend” kind of pronouncement.

“Syzygy. I have now officially decided that syzygy is my favorite word.”

My first reaction was a sigh of relief. This was not a pronouncement from BGJ the human being. This was a pronouncement from BGJ the word-nerd. But even as I was about to say something pat-on-the-shoulder supportive, I caught my nose wrinkling up in disapproval. Uh-oh, the word-nerd in me seemed to disapprove.

“Syzygy? Reeee-ally? I mean, I have nothing against syzygy. It describes a freaking cool concept and has a pretty sweet etymology. But I hate the way it sounds. Sy-zy-gy. It sounds like a snake moving. And I hate snakes. I hate all reptiles actually”, I finished quite emphatically.

Of course, I was bullshitting. My relationship with syzygy was much more complex. Much like BGJ, I had fallen in love with syzygy the first time I had encountered it as a freshman in college. I loved it so much that I recruited it to be my babe-killer-word. Now, the babe-killer-word is to the scrabble board what a friend, playing shotgun, is at a bar. A woman-snagging device that works by making you look good.*

I had it all planned out. Even as woman-to-be-snagged approaches scrabble board, I pull out Z, Y, Blank, G, S, Y. She looks perplexed, not seeing any possibilities with the tiles. I wait for the smile of recognition. She finally smiles, having realized she can actually spell out GYPSY with the tiles. And then I go berserk. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Pause. Make sure she sees that I am getting triple-word-score with the final Y. Bang. S Y Z Y G Y. And the rest, as they should have said, would have been history.

Of course, none of this ever panned out and I slowly fell out of love, in a sour-grapes sort of way, with syzygy. Obviously, I couldn’t go into my complex emotional issues with BGJ. But he was not too pleased with my reaction. He seemed stung, much like a man who has been told by his friends, that his new girl friend is one ugly ass bitch.

“Well, yes, I like Syzygy. And I will continue to do so. But what is your favorite word?”, he ventured, clearly hurt, but trying to deflect the conversation to less controversial grounds.

This was easy.

“Callipygian. The very thought that there exists a word that means ‘having shapely buttocks’ gives me the bejingles. You gotta love them Greeks.”

BGJ relaxed, “Ya dude, callipygian is an awesome word!”

“A word can tell you so much about a civilization,” I said suddenly throwing out some bad-ass linguistic anthropology. “I mean, can you imagine a civilization that has callipygian as a word but not callimammus. You know so much about Greek men and their preferences right there. But, I am totally disappointed that callimammus is not a word.”

BGJ was energized “Ya dude. Callimammus totally has to be a word. There is a word I would have used a lot of. You know what, you should submit it to unwords.”

Now I have always dreamt of leaving my mark on the English language and this ‘submitting to unwords’ seemed like an interesting idea. “What is unwords?”, I asked.

“Unwords. You don’t know unwords! Man, unwords is this awesome site with fake words that really should be words. It’s your shot at changing the English language one word at a time! My personal favorite is sarchasm – it’s the abyss between the creator of witticisms and the intended recipient who does not find the humor in it, from sarcasm and chasm. Kinda inspired me to submit my own entry, orchasm, you know, from chasm and orgasm” , he said chuckling at his own perverse creativity.

And so ended yet another week. BGJ and TM were still on talking terms despite their vastly different reactions to syzygy. They also decided to change the English language with orchasm and callimammus. Which leaves me nothing more to say, other than, what , my dear reader, are your favorite words – unwords?

* Yes, I had a babe-killer-word. I also had babe-killer-quiz-questions, babe-killer-JAM-objections and a whole list. So judge me:)

I acknowledge the problem. I find his solution risible. The crux of his argument is:
Current administrators are bad. Current adminstrators are not former cricketers. Therefore former cricketers will be good administrators.

It would be easy to dismiss his arguments purely for its logic, or lack thereof. But let us imagine what Ian’s solution would mean in the Indian context. I cannot see how replacing the current circus of clowns with Mohinder Amarnath (who famously said, “I did not bring a laptop, but I brought my lap.” during his coaching interview), Navjot Singh Sidhu, Machan Srikkanth, Kapil Dev and Sunil Gavaskar will makes things better. If anything, it might make them worse.

Ramiz Raja’s stint as CEO of Pakistani cricket made it no better. Clive Lloyd, Viv Richards and Michael Holding have played a role in the nothingness that is West Indian cricket. In fact the only good thing in West Indian cricket in the past few years was brought about by a rich businessman with a keen eye for a deal and a passion for cricket in the form of the Stanford 20-20. And therein lies the future of World cricket. The final solution lies in a rich businessman with a passion for cricket.

But it will take a while. I am still far from being the billionaire:)

But now WPUJC has been overshadowed. The next generation of cricket nerds will have to scale the seemingly impossible heights of I L Bula, a Fijian first-class cricketer. I L Bula is – if Shoaib and Asif will allow me the expression – like WPUJC on steroids! IL’s Bula is no ordinary Bula. His Bula when fully elongated stands for:

Talebulamainavaleniveivakabulaimainakulalakebalau

“What?”, you ask. “What in heaven’s name does that mean?”

It apparently means, “returned alive from Nankula hospital at Lakemba island in the Lau group”.

Whattay name! And here I was thinking Thoughtmogrifier is cool!

More here, here and here.

Setting: ABP, Harvard Square. A pleasant, breezy spring evening.

Characters:

1. Guy behind the counter (stubbornly refusing to serve TM his Mocha latte. Distracted)
2. TM (patiently waiting for his Mocha latte. Distracted)
3. Hot chick 1 (Long, flowing skirt. Breezy spring evening. Pleasantly distracting)
4. Hot chick 2 (Skirt. Neither long nor flowing. Still, pleasantly distracting)

*******************************************************

HC1: Can you point me to your artisan bread collection

GBC: Sure ma’am, anything particular you are looking for

HC2: Yeah, we heard that you guys have, like, some awesome baguettes

GBC: Of course ma’am, in fact we just pulled out a fresh batch of whole-grained baguettes from the oven (proudly swings his hands towards aforesaid baked marvel)

HC1: (looks alternatively at HC2 and baguettes) Mmmmm…

HC2: (can barely contain excitement) That looks awesome!

TM and GBC: (exchange “You thinking what I’m thinking?” looks)

HC1 to GBC: Yeah, guess we’ll do the whole-grain baguette

TM: (Chortles. Stops. Stares at the floor hoping HCs didn’t notice)

GBC: (Lets out audible gasp)

HC1 & HC2: (walk away, baguette in hand)

GBC: One Mocha latte…(TM collects his cuppa and exchanges “You pervert” looks with GBC)

*******

Curtains. Long, flowing.

For two years now I have been meaning to get slaughtered. I finally did today.

His name was Michael. He walked up to me as I was watching W.G. Grace dismantle a rookie. “You play? 2 dollar”, he offered.

I didn’t really want to play him. I wanted to play W.G. Of all the old men I had seen in the last two years, W.G. had been the only one to really stick in my head. I guess the fact that he wore a Texan bullhat with “Chessmaster” written on it had something to do with his stickiness. Also, his generous build, flowing beard and searing contempt for opponents triggered W.G associations in my head. I wanted to play W.G.

But Michael persevered. “Only 2 dollars”, he said. I decided to oblige. W.G. could wait.

Soon we were hunched over a stone tabletop tiled with green and brown squares, rapidly arranging our pieces, like generals calling troops to order. Michael wound up the clock. “5 minutes”, he said in his quiet, mild-mannered way. I nodded.

What followed was both entirely predictable and extremely surprising. The predictable part was that I was defeated repeatedly with tremendous ease in 5 embarrassingly one-sided, blunder filled games. My game veered from the predictably mediocre to the unpredictably horrendous. I later realized the only time Michael stopped to think in these games were when my moves were of the unpredictably horrendous kind.

The surprising part was the physicality and violence that Michael played with. Physical chess is a strange juxtaposition. In this case strange, but entirely true. Every move of Michael’s was played out as though it were an execution, with Michael being the macabre executioner thoroughly enjoying himself. The execution had three choreographed steps – he first removed the piece he intended to move like a sword from a scabbard with an exaggerated swoosh; second, he raised the sword to its apex and dangled it tantalizingly; third he brought it down on the target square with an incredible thud. He followed this up by banging on the clock with such violence that I was certain that it would either explode or be consigned to the nether regions of the earth by the force of the blow. In these three steps he clearly communicated to me that he considered me a lamb to the slaughter and I meekly agreed.

I am normally pretty aggressive when I play any sport. I try to compensate for my limited talent by getting the juices flowing. I am also extremely good (at least so I thought) at not mentally disintegrating when subject to aggression. But Michael beat me not just by playing better chess but by convincing me that I cannot even be seriously considering competing against him. That hurts more than losing at chess.

Kasparov said, “There is nothing cute or charming about chess; it is a violent sport, and when you confront your opponent you set out to crush his ego”. Today I got my ego crushed. But I think I will go back for more. And W.G. I still have to play you!

Notwithstanding his excessive love of the simple sentence and a misplaced belief in its ability to imbue narration with a certain breathless quality, UZELDMJ disappoints. Clearly scarred by Anand Jon and his snagging of all the “broadminded” girls, UZELDMJ’s tone is more school-boy jealous than reprimanding. But what really gets me are his descriptions of Madras in the nineties and the attempt at social commentary. At times informative and at times crystallized bullshit, it is almost always entertaining:

It was called Madras then. Rajiv Gandhi had just died in a blast and eve teasers chased dark girls on the streets saying, “Dhanu, Dhanu.” Jayalalitha began to wear what came to be known as the cape. The LIC, with fourteen floors, was the tallest building. It was the summer of ninety nine which could mean any month in Madras. — Informative

When he did not walk alone, he was surrounded by beautiful girls, of whom there were not many in Madras then.* — Bullshit

Read the full piece here.

* It is one thing to call Madras conservative and bemoan the lack of “broadminded, modern” eye-candy. It is quite another to make so broad and sweeping a generalization.

I see the question very differently. Notwithstanding Sehwag’s obvious lack of consistency, (I don’t think he is out-of-form in the traditional sense of the term. He still finds the sweet spot of the bat with ease and plays shots no one can even imagine. But he also unfailingly manufactures frustrating ways of getting out before he can make a meaning contribution), I think he should play. If Sehwag does not play, India will be tempted to play 5 bowlers (or four bowlers and Pathan), and that upsets the balance of the team. The conditions in the West Indies will suit the bowling styles of Sachin, Sehwag and Yuvraj and India should certainly assume that these three in combination will be their fifith bowler. I’d formulate the Sehwag issue as, “Where should Sehwag bat?”.
Sehwag’s widely recognized technical glitches are the tools that lead to his regular manufacture of innovative methods of getting out – an obvious weakness against the away swinging delivery and a Ganguly-esque ineptness against the well-directed short ball. Take away these glitches and Sehwag is still capable of scoring tons of runs. However, he doesn’t have the time to work these glitches away. The only solution is to bat him in a position where exploiting these glitches will be the hardest for opposition bowlers.

It is a fair bet that, given the conditions in the Caribbean, neither the outswinger nor the bouncer are going to be making too many appearances after the first few overs. A Sehwag batting at No. 5 or 6 will be effectively shielded from his greatest insecurities. What is more, Sehwag is perhaps one of India’s best players of spin. This in conjunction with his obvious abilities to play an explosive innings might transform him from a struggling opener to a dangerous finisher.

The only problem with doing this will be the need to either drop or open with Karthik. Karthik has done a very good job for India in the past few months. And he is also one of the few outstanding fielders in an unimpressive fielding unit. Despite these positives, I’d prefer Uthappa over Karthik.

Uthappa has a firepower that even Sehwag lacks. Watching Uthappa batting with Sehwag, one is reminded of the days when Sehwag burst upon the scene and made Tendulkar’s strike rate pedestrian. His refreshing audacity does however come with a risk. He has shown a tendency to be over-aggressive and has thrown his wicket away after coruscating starts. That said, he is a risk that the rest of Indian batting line-up can afford to take. Given the extent of class, experience and solidity in the rest of the line-up, India can absorb the risk for the potential reward.*

So here is my suggested 11:

Ganguly

Uthappa

Tendulkar

Yuvraj

Dravid

Sehwag

Dhoni

Agarkar

Harbhajhan

Zaheer

Munaf

That said, I am certain that at least in the Group matches, India will open with Sehwag and play Karthik in the middle order.

* In the interest of full disclosure, my schooling – and brief cricket career – at St. Joseph’s Boys’ High School in Bangalore was bookended by the emergence of two prodigious cricketing talents in the school cricket program- Rahul Dravid and Robin Uthappa.