The Joy of West Indian Cricket

Sometime back I had the pleasure of watching “Fire in Babylon”. It is a documentary which showcases the rise of the West Indian cricket team to the pinnacle of the sport. Led by a fearless leader, Clive Lloyd, the West Indian cricket team adopted the motto “one for all, all for one”. The West Indian team consists of players from all the Caribbean islands. All islands come under the same banner only for the West Indian cricket team. When people from so many cultures share the same dressing room, there’s bound to be conflict. Still, the West Indian players came together against the common enemy, Australia and England. West Indian cricket team ruled international cricket from the mid 70s to late 80s. They never lost a test series at home, in fact, till the mid 90s.

But, as the 90s rolled by, the decline had started. Players like Sir Vivian Richards, Malcolm Marshall and company retired one after the other. There was no successive planning in place to blood in the youngsters. And hence, the West Indian cricket team started their journey towards the wrong end of the world rankings. The nadir was when West Indies lost the home test series to Bangladesh. A lot of factors had played a part. The internal politics of the cricket board, the player’s strike, cricket been replaced by basketball as the most popular game in the Caribbean were some of the reasons which led to the downfall of West Indian cricket.

But, finally in 2012, the tide seems to be changing. The West Indies cricket team is the newly crowned World T20 Champions. In today’s West Indian team, they have no dearth of impact players like Chris Gayle, Kieron Pollard, Dwayne Bravo, Marlon Samuels and they have the best mystery spinner in Suniel Narine.

But, the unsung hero of the whole campaign was their captain, Darren Sammy. Experts have cast their apprehensions even on his place in the side but he has given everything he had to get the team to gel together and to top it, he has led from the front. He has managed all the egos in the dressing room to form a band of merry men who gave us such joy with their way of playing cricket and celebrating their win. If for nothing else, just for their inhibited celebrations, they deserved to win the T20 World Cup.

There are a lot of management lessons one can pick up from the story of the journey of West Indian cricket team. How to build a team , what not to do to destroy the legacy, how a leader should mould and lead their team, how to out-think your opponent, and most of all, how to beat the odds and emerge victorious.

The joy which West Indies cricket brings is really required at this time in international cricket. Whenever West Indies cricket is going well, world cricket is more interesting to watch.

Let the celebrations go on Gangnam Style!

Avengers - Reviewed by a Fan (Not A Critic)

CAUTION: The review contains spoilers. So read it only if you have already seen the movie or plan not seeing it at all!!

So, apparently Avengers took 6 odd years to complete. So, was all the money, time and sweat of people that went into making Avengers worth it? Does the movie stand up to the hype and hoopla surrounding it? And does the movie justify - me spending so much money to it in the theatres..?? The answer to all these questions is a resounding "YES"!!

First and foremost, Avengers gives you Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, The Hulk, Black Widow and that guy who is really good with the bow and the arrow, Clint Barton. There's also Nick Fury and his merry band of SHIELD agents. And then there's the super villain Loki! So many superheroes and others just for the price of one!! The effects are mind blowing and the story doesn't suck either!!

Let's start with the script. It is well scripted. Every Super-hero has been given equal screen time. The villain looks notorious enough. The scenes are well shot. The dialogues are comical. There's the customary tension between the super heroes when they first meet each other.

Moving on to the actors, Robert Downey Jr., I salute thee for the rendition of the Iron Man and even more for Tony Stark, the smart talking, playboy billionaire when the armour suit is taken away!! Infact he's more funny when he's not inside the armour suit. One of the most iconic lines in the movie comes from Robert Downey Jr. when he says "We got Hulk"!  He's funny throughout the movie and he's the one who holds it together!!

Chris Evans as Captain America is for me very vanilla. A lot of scope was there to make him more entertaining, after all he has woken up after 70 odd years. How was he coping up trying to adapt to this new world? He just does the strategizing and keep saying Soilder and Ma'am.

Chris Hemsworth as Thor sounds Australian throughout the movie. He does what he is supposed to do as the super villain is a brother he is trying to take home. The fight sequence between him, Iron Man and Captain America is really good. Also same is the case of his fight against Hulk.

Scarlett Johansson does what she does best - Looks HOT!!

Jeremy Renner tries really hard to cement his place in the starting line-up of super heroes and he does fairly well too. But falling to the super villain in the very beginning and then getting beat up by a girl doesn't really add up to a super hero.

And then there's Mark Ruffalo as the HULK!! And for me, he or let's say the computer generated green version of him was the surprise package of the movie. The Hulk was funny every time he was on-screen. The biggest cheers in the theatre were for him. The scenes in which he punches Thor, just for fun and the way he manhandles Loki were really really funny.

Now a word for Tom Hiddleston. The british actor plays an awesome super villain who is a match for all the 6 super heroes combined.

Samuel L Jackson as Nick Fury is solid. But what disappointed me the most was Cobie Smulders in a very insignificant role as Fury's sidekick! She has been wasted!!

Joss Whedon who is the director surely knew how to make an epic!

Hope who ever watched the movie stayed till the very end. There's  an extra scene after the credits. There's definitely going to be Avengers - 2. And I will be waiting for it!!!!!!!!

But before that The Dark Knight Rises....

The Great Wall of India

The year was 1996. Indian cricket team was on a tour of the British Isles. As usual the Indians were getting beaten left, right and centre. Navjot Singh Sidhu had flown home after a tiff with Mohd. Azharuddin. So, on 20th June 1996, two Indians made their debut for the Indian side at the home of cricket, Lord’s in London. Both the young men left an imprint that day. One made a century on debut and the other fell for 95. I am going to talk about the gentleman who made 95 on debut and was overshadowed by a century on debut, the perennial unsung hero of Indian Cricket, Rahul Sharad Dravid.

I don’t exactly remember when I became a fan of Rahul Dravid. It was right after he made his debut in England, I suppose. I was amazed by his calm demeanour, the seriousness in which he played the game. He was not brash in any way. Very down to earth. He has had ups and downs in his career like any other sportsperson. He had an amazing 1st year of International cricket. Then, he was dropped from the ODI side. The reason given was that his strike rate was not up to the mark. Also, he was predominantly a legside player. Dravid was still playing test cricket. He scored his first test century against South Africa in South Africa, an innings of 148 against the likes of the Allan Donald. He was recalled to the ODI side for the series against Bangladesh and Kenya. I had to sit and watch him struggle against Kenya I think where he scored 1 from 30-odd deliveries. It was very difficult to watch to see such a class act struggle. But he battled it out. He went back to the drawing board, worked hard on his game, and came back to the Indian side for the 1999 World Cup. Dravid was the highest run-getter of the tournament where India was knocked out in the Super Six stage. He then went on to score centuries in both the innings of a test match against the kiwis in New Zealand. Then Sourav Ganguly took over the captaincy and India started a journey towards redemption. I still get Goosebumps when I think of the Kolkata test against Australia in which India won after following-on. People will remember the heroics of VVS Laxman. But Dravid also played one of his most important innings. He contributed 180 to the score and batted a whole day alongside VVS to deny Australia even a single wicket on the 4th day. As the 2003 world cup rolled by, he was asked to keep wickets for the ODI team. He did it without saying anything. The Headingly test where Dravid again scored a century in very demanding conditions. The Adelaide test where he scored 233 and 72* in the second innings and helped India to a famous win on Australian soil after 22 years. Then he was appointed the captain of the side. India under his captaincy won the test series in England. But then came another low point. India got knocked out of the World Cup 2007 in the 1st round itself after embarrassing losses to Bangladesh and Srilanka. No one had asked for his resignation as the captain of the side but he stepped aside himself. And then he struggled, struggled a lot. Finally last year, he had an amazing year where he scored 6 centuries. And then the disaster called the Australian tour came and the rest as they say is history!

I think Dravid has made the decision to retire at the right time. India doesn’t have an overseas tour for the next year. Youngsters can be blooded in the Indian side in home conditions. The coveted No.3 spot is up for grabs.
Rahul Dravid has always handled himself in a very dignified manner, a perfect gentleman in a gentlemen’s game. He is a role model for all youngsters. You don’t have to abuse or show the middle finger to get a point across. Let your performances do the talking.

Rahul, you will be sorely missed. Best of luck for your future ventures. Hope you became a commentator. Atleast, it would give me an incentive to watch the game again. I don’t know if I will watch test cricket again! Thanks a lot for all the memories!

In the end, there is only one Rahul “The Wall” Dravid. There never will be another one!!

When You are Nervous

One of the meanings of Nervous given in Oxford Dictionary is anxious or apprehensive. Be it that test tomorrow for which you have not studied at all, or the presentation which you know how so much you prepare the chances of getting a positive feedback on that is 10% or less, or in some cases when you are going to take a major step forward in your life. The first day of a new school, college or work sets off the butterflies in the stomach. Now imagine the nervousness of a man when he stands next to a lady with a ring in his hand all ready to get engaged. What will be his level of nervousness?

One of my best friends went through it today. He got engaged! Congrats, you know who (don’t want to name him here). Anyways thinking of settling down first of all is a faraway thought. But actually going and doing it is sheer courage! In recent times I have seen quite a few of my friends getting married/engaged. And the symptoms are all the same for all cases and I mean the interviews and tests and all but the following are most accurate for the engagement.

It all starts with “Have I made the right decision?”. Then you waste a few hours thinking over it. Going over and over, playing each scenario, each one more improbable than the previous one. You fight yourselves into the corner. Finally, after boxing yourself into a corner, you get an absolute amazing idea. The idea is “Phone a friend”. Next you call up a friend who you think will understand your plight. But Alas, all he does is laugh at you for being a chicken! But after calling you a chicken, he does provide you with some encouragement like “you made the right choice”, “she is the best thing that happened to you, so count your lucky stars and be happy” or my favourite “you should have thought before”.

As the days go by and the grand occasion is coming nearer and nearer, you feel a sense of dearth. Again you call up that friends of yours who you think will understand. Again that friend makes light of the situation and tries to laugh it off. You also laugh along with him and realize that you are making a big deal out of nothing. So, you let it go.

Finally, the day arrives. Your dear friend calls you up and wishes you luck still making some joke or the other. The feeling is still not sinking in. You inhale and exhale deeply to calm yourself down. Finally, the moment is here. You take a deep breath. You say “I got to pee!” Go to the bathroom, you look yourself in mirror. And your bachelorhood whizzes past your eyes. Those drunken parties, those awesome trips. You think to yourself “Is it the end?”. But somehow you manage to pluck up some courage and go to the ceremony and 5 minutes later you are engaged! All the build up panic, apprehensions go away. You feel deflated. You are tired without exactly doing much. So you sleep. Your friend calls you up again and this time he just wishes you. Finally, the doubts are out. You feel at peace with yourself.

All I can tell you is that for the time being the panic attack is avoided. Now let’s wait for the wedding!

P.S: Congrats Chigi! I know I have made a quite a number of assumptions above and blown everything out of proportions, you ask why? It wouldn’t have been funny!!!!