They get extra chances, extra facilities, extra media attention, extra fan following and the utterly forgettable resultant - extra sponsorship deals.

You can bet that dour and gritty ex-India player and Railways all-rounder Sanjay Bangar never got to play those extraaa shots. He is your regular no-nonsense bits-and-pieces guy, born to do everyday jobs of far less national importance than making people flock to stadia just to watch him play.

So what kind of jobs do the Bangars do? Leading an unfancied Railways side to Ranji trophy triumph, for example. Or setting little big examples of solidarity that help alleviate perennial woes of his railway mates making do with a non-existent support system. And helping bind his bunch of men-on-wheels together to make this team perform wondrously better than the sum of its parts.

Unfortunately the options of extra chances, extra facilities and extra attention fly out extra quick through of the window when a blue collar guy enters the scene. That brings us to another question: what does a Bangar get back for his contributions? Let us explore.

A Test batting average of 47.85 at home. Hmm, that is a steady start. That figure is 18 points more than his overall Test average, something he can mention to his grandchildren with a ‘been there done that’ nod. Pity Bangar the bowler could never back it up and remained wicketless in his six home Tests, or he could be a rather handy all-round horse for the Indian course. Let’s see what more we have in the Bangar baggage of collections.

OMG, he is the guy with the most unforgettable ‘only fifty-plus Test score on foreign soil’ on earth! Wow, wonder how this most temporary of openers had the audacity to partner Dravid in exorcising the resident evil ‘genie of away losses’ out of its permanent abode, the Team India bottle, on that crucial first day of the 2002 Headingley Test.

“Aw c’mon, look at the stinking ODI stats of this all-rounder…”

Truth hits you hard and snaps you back to reality with a batting avg of 13.84 and bowling avg of 54.85. That batting average is a full two points less than Agarkar’s! I’m afraid the fairytale has ended and we have no more knots to unravel inside Bangar’s backpack…he will now have to walk away into the horizon clasping his pedestrian record close to heart. Sadly the bag is all empty now. But at least Bangar has been guaranteed of some applause along his exit route after showing off those extraa bits of his.

Hold on a second, what of that only ODI fifty he managed in 15 matches? Scoring 57 off 41 balls at five down with 96-to-win in a fifty-over-match enroute an overhaul of West Indies ‘ 325 in India was surely no joke. There there, even his only 50-plus knock in ODI’s threw a punch worth remembering. Dravid was again the partner watching from the other end.

Given that Sanjay Bangar played just a handful of matches for India and did not exactly set the stage on fire in those, it is unusual that we remember almost every notable performance he put up in India colours. Some people have all the luck indeed. Perhaps they deserve no less.

A few extraa claps for Sanjay Bangar please.

[cross posted at Pavilion View]

The original ICC ruling on the ball tampering controversy gave little indication of this grave eventuality. It only carried a mild rebuke for the umpiring community in general, urging them to take a pro-active role in times of strife rather than sit pretty and point to the rule book at every opportunity.

I dislike the operating philosophy of Darrell Hair, as do most other people who love to see the cricket and cricketers take centrestage rather than rules and umpires. Yet I did not entirely like the tone of the final portion of that verdict statement read out by Ranjan Madugalle on 28th September 2006.

It read:

(1) The Umpires would do everything possible to try to defuse tensions in the dressing-room by explaining that a team is entitled to raise any grievance through the ICC but that it is not in their interests, or in the interests of the game, for the team to interrupt play.
(2) The Umpires and other officials should do everything possible to ensure the resumption of play. And they should not return to the field of play and then declare the match to be forfeited unless and until they are absolutely sure that the team is refusing to play the rest of the match. All other options should first be exhausted, involving discussions with the team captains and management.

The worst scenario I had imagined then was of Hair getting tactfully held back from all series involving Asian countries. But the lame, ‘insecure’ excuses offered by ICC and BCCI for removal of Hair from ICCCT’06 duties heightened the suspicion of Hair’s nosediving furtunes. And now we all know that the decision on Hair’s ouster was taken back then. The announcement was delayed only to avoid unleashing more bears in the equity market ahead of the lucrative Champions’ Trophy.

When ICC expressed its stand on the events of the Oval Test, I personally felt that the message, apart from being ambiguous in purpose, had a not-too-subtle undermining effect on the authority of international umpires. James Sutherland, CEO of Cricket Australia, expresses that feeling today only as a reaction to the ban on Hair. Things would not be so bad for Hair if the people supporting him would make him see things as they were instead of presenting a picture too radiant to retain its glow.

This may be the right time to look back at Darrell Hair the umpire and try to reach an objective assessment of his mid-career calamity.

We must be fair to umpire Darrell Hair on two things:

1) He was a good umpire; and
2) Obnoxious though his role was in each one of those controversies over the past decade, Hair can still look his critics in the eye and claim to have simply implemented the rulebook in virtually all of those instances.

Let us take the oldest egg in his basket, the Murali affair. Even Murali’s supporters like me have no choice but to agree that Murali’s action looks a little weird unless you are aware of his medical deformity (a fact confirmed by biomechanists at a later date). So if Darrell Hair was doing a job on the field in 1995 and was expected to be honest about what he thought he saw then maybe calling Murali was not the worst decision of all time.

The point is, he could have done it very differently. He could have tried a chat with Arjuna during a break and expressed his reservations. That would be a more effective way to be firm and yet be humane, instead of the hit-the-nail-on-the-head approach favoured by Hair all through his umpiring days. The rulebooks never elaborate these aspects in as many words, and probably he deserves some of this ill-feeling for being so insensitively inept at reading between the lines. He merits it all the more because he ends up behaving in this fashion particularly against the Asian sides.

But in the end the sole argument against Darrell Hair is his method of putting things across to certain people rather than his actual decision making on the field of play. Moreover, he could continue with this disdainful treatment of Asian sentiments only because a section of ICC allowed him to behave in that fashion for no less than 10 years and thus led him to believe that he could go on doing it. In other words, by not correcting his approach when it needed a reprimand the ICC set Darrell Hair up for this “Asian wrath”.

I mean, where were James Sutherland and the like when these on-field controversies kept happening around this same man time and again? Surely they could have done it differently too. Instead of maintaining that patronising silence and playing up the Aussie PM’s Murali bashing, these oh-so-righteous bosses could have called on Darrell Hair and said,”Hey you are a great umpire but your job in the robot factory was over last century; it is about time that you come to terms with dealing with humans.”

It might just have saved the career of a scarcely sensitive but honest umpire who, whether on the field or off it, was always prepared to stand by his judgement even in the face of adversity and pressure.

To end this grim assessment on another note, it was amusing to learn that Hair actually ended up with three votes in his favour. Surely this was no coincidence but a reiteration of our speculation from this take-off on the Hair saga. These were the three witches within the ICC that, along with many more in the wilderness Down Under, led the ‘Macbeth’ of Darrell Hair to this tragic end.

[cross-posted on Pavilion View]

• Virender “Why is Jaffer here? To breath down my neck?.. I can bowl.. Can he bowl?” Sehwag
• Sachin “I should do well in SA .. no McGrath there” Tendulkar
• Wasim “Why am I here? If I fail in the ODIs, would I be jeopardizing my test chances?” Jaffer

Middle Order:

• Rahul “what is happening to this team? Aren’t we sticking to the process enough?” Dravid
• Mohammad “For a change, I don’t feel guilty for keeping Laxman out.. that’s Raina’s job now” Kaif
• Suresh “why is Jaffer here? yeah Kaif is right.. I admit it.. I’m guilty for keeping Laxman out” Raina
• Dinesh “Sorry Laxman, Feel for you, know exactly what you are going through” Mongia

Wicket-Keepers:

• Mahendra Singh “Kaarthick being in the squad doesn’t affect me” Dhoni
• Dinesh “Can both keepers play? I’m a better keeper, especially off Anil Bhai’s bowling” Kaarthick

Seamers:

• Irfan “hmm.. Zaheer is back.. I can bat at No.3.. Can he?” Pathan
• Zaheer “I can’t be as bad as Irfan.. my grandfather can’t be as bad as Irfan” Khan
• Shantakumaran “They should have never dropped me for the Champions Trophy “ Sreesanth
• Munaf “Zaheer or no Zaheer.. I’m the No.1 seamer in the country” Patel
• Ajit “Damn it Morton.. What did my finger do to you?” Agarkar

Spinners:

• Harbhajan “Anil Bhai, you do realize that I’m the No.1 spinner now, Don’t ya?” Singh
• Anil “Finally, someone sensible is heading the selectors” Kumble

Standby:

• VRV “Hope Ajit’s finger is as brittle as the Indian middle order.. no the WI middle order” Singh

Missing Names:

• VVS “Fitness? What do you want me to do? Run a marathon” Laxman
• Ramesh “Anil Bhai, you can’t do this to me” Powar
• Rudra Pratap “If they hadn’t picked me for the Champions Trophy, I would have made it to SA” Singh

Sachin Tendulkar needs 97 runs to complete 25,000 runs in international cricket. If he gets to do that in this game, India would be better placed to reach the semis. Also, his record against McGrath and Co. in recent times hasn’t been that great - scores of 5, 8, 27, 12 and 4 in his last 5 innings against the world’s best should hurt his pride. He would be real keen on setting the record straight on what is supposed to be an Aussie-friendly pitch.

Sehwag has played 13 innings against Australia so far. He scored 2 half-centuries in his first 3 innings and has failed to score any since then. He averages just 22.15 against the World’s best. With his ability to bowl restrictive spells, he does bring in a fair bit of utility value even when he fails with the bat. He is the right man to open with Sachin and for India to do well in the World Cup next year, he needs to fire big time at the top of the order. The Australians would be looking to test him with the short stuff and Sehwag would hope to have some answers to that kind of bowling.

If the pitch behaves the way it did in the SA vs Pak game the other day, there is no point sending in Irfan Pathan at No.3. His continued persistence at No.3 shows the amount of faith that the team management has in Irfan’s ability as a batsman. But on a hard and bouncy WACA-like pitch, he just isn’t the right man to walk in that early. Irrespective of where he bats, Irfan would be hoping to get some wickets in his opening spell. He is a much better bowler if he gets an early wicket.

MS Dhoni would be playing his first game against his idol, Gilchrist. He played a fairly uncharacteristic (atleast for the most part) knock in the previous game and would like to play one of his regular-type knocks against the World’s best.

In the 13 games that India played Australia after the World Cup, the team managed to win only twice - VVS Laxman, the so-called test specialist had scores of 102 and 103* in those 2 games. Through out this tournament, because of the pitches on offer, the bowlers have been bowling to test-match like field settings (three slips and a forward short-leg) for most part of the innings. As Ian Chappell said, it is time the batsmen played like they do in a test match. Too bad, India doesn’t play its test specialist in the ODI team. Suresh Raina is in the team ahead of Laxman because of his superior fielding skills. Raina is a real live-wire on the field, but his batting has been a huge let-down. Raina would probably be replaced with either Kaif or Mongia for the next game, but he would be hoping to get one more chance to convince the selectors that he can do more with the bat.

Agarkar fractured his thumb in the game against the West Indies and Sreesanth has been flown in as his replacement. Sreesanth is likely to get a game straight away. He would be hoping to make a strong impression and embarrass the selectors for ignoring him in the first-choice squad.

Adam Gilchrist needs just one more dismissal to complete 400 victims in ODIs - he would be eager to grab any nick that comes his way (or the slips’ way).

McGrath hasn’t been his usual self this season. He has picked up just 4 wickets in 6 games at 37.25 apiece. Those figures pale in comparison to his overall average of 22.60. He bowled first change in the last game, but would want to have a go at Sachin and Sehwag first up in the game on sunday.

After his exploits in Malaysia, Mitchell Johnson would want to have a real crack at the Indian top-order. It would be real interesting to see who gets to open the bowling. Something about bowling to the Indian top-order, just about everyone fancies a chance against them.

What am I hoping for? I would like to see India go in with Sreesanth and Mongia in place of Agarkar and Raina respectively (and Kaif in place of Yuvraj if Yuvi doesn’t recover from his injury). Given the nature of the pitch, Dravid would want to go in with 4 seamers (too bad for Powar, who did so well against England). I would really like to see the Indian top-order bat well. They haven’t batted well this season and I would like them (Sehwag, especially) to come real good against the World’s best. Now, is that too much to ask?

If the ICC had a cut-off of eight teams for the ICC Champions Trophy, why didn’t they just pick the first eight teams in the list and get the competition moving, rather than an extra stage?

At no point of time in the history of the ICC’s rankings have Bangladesh or Zimbabwe come anywhere close to the top 8.

Aside from the once-a-year superlative performance resulting in wins against Pakistan, India, Australia & Sri Lanka, Bangladesh has been pathetic. Zimbabwe has been equally bad, and the fact that it beat Bangladesh in a one-day series does nothing to indicate any sort of ability to play with the other higher-ranked teams.

The ICC Champions Trophy really ought to be called the ICC Champions Atrophy!

Cross-posted on Cricket 24×7.