Batsman/Bowlers from Chennai
Arjun Pandit
Can somebody help me compile a list of players (batsman or bowlers)
from Chennai who have contributed something of importance to Indian
test cricket.
What do we have?
Venkataraghavan [seems an average bowler from stats]
Srikkanth [an okay batsman, good to watch sometimes]
Robin Singh [nothing great, good commitment thoe]
Sivramankrishnan [nothing great after a few matches]
S Ramesh [too early but seems decent]
Raman [Crap]
Chandrashekar [Crap]
Thiru Kumaran [Crap]
T Shekhar [Crap]
Seems too little contribution in the last 50 years. But Chennaites give
an impression that they produce the best cricketers. Am I missing
somebody?
Thanks
-AP
[A student of Chennai cricket]
--
vande sri ramanarser-acaryasya padabjam,
yo me'darsayad-isam bhantam dhvantam atitya
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Rocky Raccoon
> Hi,
>
> Can somebody help me compile a list of players (batsman or bowlers)
> from Chennai who have contributed something of importance to Indian
> test cricket.
>
> What do we have?
>
> Venkataraghavan [seems an average bowler from stats]
> Srikkanth [an okay batsman, good to watch sometimes]
> Robin Singh [nothing great, good commitment thoe]
> Sivramankrishnan [nothing great after a few matches]
> S Ramesh [too early but seems decent]
> Raman [Crap]
> Chandrashekar [Crap]
> Thiru Kumaran [Crap]
> T Shekhar [Crap]
>
> Seems too little contribution in the last 50 years. But Chennaites give
> an impression that they produce the best cricketers. Am I missing
> somebody?
Yes. The fact the Bombay mafia headed by Don Gavaskar & later by Don
Tendulkar
kept out a lot of others who could have made a lot more contributions.
Did you ever watch the camera zoom into the pavillion during Gavaskar's
days ?
Did you ever see Gavaskar & Venkatraghavan/Srikanth together ?
Do you have a similiar Bonda & vadapav list of contributors ?
Mike Holmans
deja.com> writes
>Hi,
>
>Can somebody help me compile a list of players (batsman or bowlers)
>from Chennai who have contributed something of importance to Indian
>test cricket.
>
>What do we have?
>
>Venkataraghavan [seems an average bowler from stats]
>Srikkanth [an okay batsman, good to watch sometimes]
>Robin Singh [nothing great, good commitment thoe]
>Sivramankrishnan [nothing great after a few matches]
>S Ramesh [too early but seems decent]
>Raman [Crap]
>Chandrashekar [Crap]
I assume you're talking about VB Chandrasekhar of Tamil Nadu rather
than BS Chandrasekhar of Mysore/Karnataka?
Cheers,
Mike
--
1969 - most recent previous England series win over WI
1966 - most recent previous England innings victory over WI
1957 - most recent previous series v WI in which England won three matches
Will the same lengths of time have to pass before these things recur?
samarth harish shah
> In article <8sklt9$4q5$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, Arjun Pandit <arjunpandit@my-
> deja.com> writes
> >Hi,
> >
> >Can somebody help me compile a list of players (batsman or bowlers)
> >from Chennai who have contributed something of importance to Indian
> >test cricket.
> >
> >What do we have?
> >
> >Venkataraghavan [seems an average bowler from stats]
> >Srikkanth [an okay batsman, good to watch sometimes]
> >Robin Singh [nothing great, good commitment thoe]
> >Sivramankrishnan [nothing great after a few matches]
> >S Ramesh [too early but seems decent]
> >Raman [Crap]
> >Chandrashekar [Crap]
>
> I assume you're talking about VB Chandrasekhar of Tamil Nadu rather
> than BS Chandrasekhar of Mysore/Karnataka?
No, he's talking of R. Chandrasekar of Mambalam Mosquitoes.
-Samarth.
samarth harish shah
> Hi,
>
> Can somebody help me compile a list of players (batsman or bowlers)
> from Chennai who have contributed something of importance to Indian
> test cricket.
Good flame bait, RI. :-) I'll bite, anyways.
I will be the first one to agree that TN hasn't produced nearly as many
great cricketers as Bombay or Karnataka. There are a bunch of reasons: (a)
the "paper score 25 syndrome" (b) worst politics - second only to DDCA in
this respect in whole of India (c) the "split season" effect wherein the
NE monsoon disrupts TN's season mid-way, completely throwing the
cricketers out of their rhythm.
But I'm sure you aren't interested in the above excuses. I can elaborate,
if, by chance, you are interested. The fact is that TN hasn't really
rocked in the domestics, and I don't see why you'd be concerned as to why.
OTOH, Bombay batsmen would constitute a fair portion of my all-time India
top-order. Overall, along with Karnataka, Bombay would dominate my
all-time India team.
Given that, let's examine your list:
> What do we have?
>
> Venkataraghavan [seems an average bowler from stats]
> Srikkanth [an okay batsman, good to watch sometimes]
> Robin Singh [nothing great, good commitment thoe]
> Sivramankrishnan [nothing great after a few matches]
Yeah, I agree. Although, IMHO, he won us 1 more test match than all Bombay
bowlers of the last 40 years put together. And he won us only one test
match... How do you think he compares with Nilesh Kulkarni and Sairaj
Bahutule, BTW?
> S Ramesh [too early but seems decent]
True. What is your opinion on Wasim Jaffer, BTW? Similar opinion?
Different?
> Raman [Crap]
True, once again. BTW, what do you think of Ashok Mankad? Similar opinion
or different?
> Chandrashekar [Crap]
Dead right. BTW, what do you think of Ghulam Parkar and Lalchand Rajput?
> Thiru Kumaran [Crap]
Agreed. So far, at least. No complaints. However, he did better than
Agarkar down under in the practice games. The only reason - ONLY reason -
why Aggy got picked ahead of him was because of Aggy's supposed batting
talent. (Hit 60+ against NSW, I think?)
In the test matches, Aggy vindicated the captain's faith in his batting.
NOT!
> T Shekhar [Crap]
Agreed entirely. BTW, what is your opinion on Raju Kulkarni? What about
Balwinder Sandhu?
> Seems too little contribution in the last 50 years. But Chennaites give
> an impression that they produce the best cricketers. Am I missing
Perhaps you can tell us who gave you this impression and how?
<snip>
-Samarth.
Uday Rajan
> Agreed entirely. BTW, what is your opinion on Raju Kulkarni? What about
> Balwinder Sandhu?
I don't mean to interrupt this war of regionalism, but
please leave Balwinder Sandhu out of it. For all his faults,
Balwinder Sandhu is a magical name in Indian cricket. Just
the memory of that bemused look on Greenidge's face on June
25, 1983 is enough to warm one's heart.
apa...@my-deja.com
>
> Good flame bait, RI. :-) I'll bite, anyways.
>
This flame bait was a direct result of the "sissy Mumbai batsmen" post.
:-)
>
> I will be the first one to agree that TN hasn't produced nearly as
many
> great cricketers as Bombay or Karnataka. There are a bunch of
reasons:
> (a) the "paper score 25 syndrome"
Whats that?
> (b) worst politics - second only to DDCA
OK.
> (c) the "split season" effect wherein the
> NE monsoon disrupts TN's season mid-way, completely throwing the
> cricketers out of their rhythm.
Doesn't TN have something similar to the Kanga league of Bombay?
SVM used to play in the Kanga league even in 1992 so that he could
master his skill of playing spinners on a wet pitch. (IIRC)
> > What do we have?
> >
> > Venkataraghavan [seems an average bowler from stats]
> > Srikkanth [an okay batsman, good to watch sometimes]
> > Robin Singh [nothing great, good commitment thoe]
> > Sivramankrishnan [nothing great after a few matches]
>
> Yeah, I agree. Although, IMHO, he won us 1 more test match than all
Bombay
> bowlers of the last 40 years put together. And he won us only one test
> match... How do you think he compares with Nilesh Kulkarni and Sairaj
> Bahutule, BTW?
>
Siva should be DA best Leggie (along with Hirwani) in the 80s for India.
> > S Ramesh [too early but seems decent]
>
> True. What is your opinion on Wasim Jaffer, BTW? Similar opinion?
> Different?
I became a fan of Ramesh after the Pak99 series. Trouble is that I had
never seen him bat. When I did see him bat in the WC99, I was shocked!!
Ramesh seemed to have scored all those runs against Pak inspite of
rather than because of his technique!!!
Anyhow, I still support him since he is our best opener currently.
>
> > Raman [Crap]
>
> True, once again. BTW, what do you think of Ashok Mankad? Similar
opinion
> or different?
Never saw Ashok Mankad bat. But, I think that their stats must be
similar.....
>
> > Chandrashekar [Crap]
>
>Dead right. BTW, what do you think of Ghulam Parkar and Lalchand
Rajput?
Lalchand Rajput was better than Chandrashekar.
> > T Shekhar [Crap]
>
> Agreed entirely. BTW, what is your opinion on Raju Kulkarni? What
about
> Balwinder Sandhu?
Using Shantanu's logic Sandhu won us a World Cup :-)))
Raju Kulkarni was the Short-pitch-outside-the-offstump kinda bowler
(similar to Mhambrey). Sekhar was probably similar.
regards,
Abhay
The Cynic
> Good flame bait, RI. :-) I'll bite, anyways.
...
HA HA HA. Great reply Samarth. AP nalla sooth-adi vaageena :-)
[ AP got his butt kicked ]
Add to it, Srinivas Venkataraghavan helped India win its first ever
match against WI in portofspain 1971.
set POSTER=shantanu;export POSTER
Give me one Venkat over 1000 gutterchap batatavada eating Vinoo Mankad
and Subhash Gupte who could not help india win one match abroad.
unset POSTER;
RK-
cricke...@my-deja.com
100...@ux11.cso.uiuc.edu>,
many
> great cricketers as Bombay or Karnataka. There are a bunch of
reasons: (a)
> the "paper score 25 syndrome"
Surely this is present in most big cities?
(b) worst politics - second only to DDCA in
> this respect in whole of India
Really? Didnt realize it was that bad - though Ive often heard
complaints about how Districts players are ignored due to favouritism
for Madras players, and how the only Districts players who ever make it
are ones who moved to Madras to play Club Cricket there (which appears
to me to be bias that is more "lack of exposure" related than
political). In what way do you consider the politics to be so bad in
the TNCA? And in what way is it worse than, say, club-related politics
in Bombay or Hyderabad or any other place?
(c) the "split season" effect wherein the
> NE monsoon disrupts TN's season mid-way, completely throwing the
> cricketers out of their rhythm.
>
I actually think the schedule in TN is good for South players in
general - the Buchi Babu and KSCA and Moin-ud-Dowla are all pre-season
tournaments that are given much importance in the south, and it enables
the players to be very ready and in-form by the time the domestic
season (Iranis and the early-season Test matches) roll around. Bombay,
OTOH, regards those tournaments without much enthusiasm at all - the
BCA used to send a "Colts XI" many years ago, but doesnt even do that
nowadays. So now we only have the occasional player like Paranjpe
playing the odd game down South in early-season preparation. And this
hurts Bombay players badly when the season rolls around - they are
often not in great form to start the season, until they have played
some good hard cricket (in, for example, the Times Shield etc). They
usually hit their stride only later in the year (last year, for
example, the Superleague 4 outright-win performance in the "Grou[ of
Death" surprised even ardent Bombay fans, from a team that had failed
to beat Saurashtra outright and had given up the first innings lead to
Baroda early in the season).
> But I'm sure you aren't interested in the above excuses. I can
elaborate,
> if, by chance, you are interested. The fact is that TN hasn't really
> rocked in the domestics, and I don't see why you'd be concerned as to
why.
>
Actually, I'd be very interested, if you can find the time to expand on
this. One of the most interesting pieces Ive ever read from someone who
knows a region on this sort of issue was in Dilip Doshi's
autobiography, on his well-thought out reasons as to why Bengal hadnt
produced a sufficient number of great Indian cricketers. Something
similar from the TN point of view would be greatly appreciated (even on
rsc), I think.
Sadiq [ who thinks Bombay Colts should play Buchi Babu oftener] Yusuf
>
> -Samarth.
samarth harish shah
> > I will be the first one to agree that TN hasn't produced nearly as
> many
> > great cricketers as Bombay or Karnataka. There are a bunch of
> reasons:
> > (a) the "paper score 25 syndrome"
>
> Whats that?
If you make 25, your name appears in the paper. According to one of my
coaches, this was one big reason why TN batsmen, although they will never
admit it, scored a quick 25 full of blazing strokes (cf. Srikkanth, TE
Srinivasan, VBC) and were back in the pavilion before the Bombay batsman
had even middled one ball. :-)
I am not sure whether this was said in seriousness or in jest, though.
Basically, the implication however is that in tough situations, TN batsmen
are probably not going to hang in there and grind it out. On a flat
batting track, it's OK. But batting in difficult circumstances needs good
temperament. Temperament was never the forte of KS, TES, VBC, etc.
Sometimes, though, I think that these fellows have given TN batsmen a bad
rep. There have been good, solid, temperamentally sound TN batsmen also.
> > (b) worst politics - second only to DDCA
> OK.
>
> > (c) the "split season" effect wherein the
> > NE monsoon disrupts TN's season mid-way, completely throwing the
> > cricketers out of their rhythm.
>
> Doesn't TN have something similar to the Kanga league of Bombay?
> SVM used to play in the Kanga league even in 1992 so that he could
> master his skill of playing spinners on a wet pitch. (IIRC)
Currently, the wickets used in first division cricket in Madras are much
better maintained than the Kanga league wickets of Bombay. These are
test-standard wickets and maintained as such. (Mostly, when the Indian
team has a camp in Madras, they practice at IIT-Chemplast, CPT-India
Pistons, Guru Nanak-India Cements grounds or, of course, the MRF Pace
Foundation.) These wickets are not played on if wet, and are maintained as
if they were test wickets. I have myself seen the Indian team practice at
the Guru Nanak College grounds because the ground/wicket was in better
shape at the time than at the MAC. These grounds are maintained by
corporate sponsors and they don't leave any stone unturned in the
maintenance.
Anyway, what I meant by the split-season effect is that the NE monsoon
hits Madras right in the middle of the cricket season. We play in
August/Sept/first 3 weeks of October. Then, the monsoon hits. No cricket
until mid-December. This is when the cricket season is in full flow in the
rest of the country! Now, all over again, the TN cricketer has to find his
touch and regain full form and fitness. (Diwali sweets have to be worked
off. :-))
By the time one reaches any sort of form, it is mid-January. 3 months have
been lost. Also, the pain of regaining form once in late-August/Sept.
(when the season starts all over India) and then all over again in
Dec-Jan.
Think of it this way: it is like being hit by injury and having to skip 2
months of the season - EVERY season!
NE monsoon also hits Orissa and coastal Andhra, but then these are not
traditionally strong cricket teams. No other team in India is affected.
> > > S Ramesh [too early but seems decent]
> >
> > True. What is your opinion on Wasim Jaffer, BTW? Similar opinion?
> > Different?
>
> I became a fan of Ramesh after the Pak99 series. Trouble is that I had
> never seen him bat. When I did see him bat in the WC99, I was shocked!!
> Ramesh seemed to have scored all those runs against Pak inspite of
> rather than because of his technique!!!
> Anyhow, I still support him since he is our best opener currently.
Seems out of form currently. I wonder what he's going to do in tests. It's
not good to say, "that's the way I play" and not work on your game. That's
what Srikkanth did and he got worked out pretty soon. Currently, Ramesh is
successful, but on good attacks on quick wickets, he will get worked out.
He can't just sit back and think "I made runs against Pakistan with this
technique, so I will not try to improve/change it."
> > > Raman [Crap]
> >
> > True, once again. BTW, what do you think of Ashok Mankad? Similar
> opinion
> > or different?
> Never saw Ashok Mankad bat. But, I think that their stats must be
> similar.....
Dead right. Similar stats in tests as well as in domestic cricket. (Well,
tons of runs for both in domestic cricket, anyways.) If Raman is crap,
Mankad is also crap. But no Mumbaikar will accept it. :-)
<snip>
> Using Shantanu's logic Sandhu won us a World Cup :-)))
I cannot counter that logic. I bow my head and completely agree. :-)
> Raju Kulkarni was the Short-pitch-outside-the-offstump kinda bowler
> (similar to Mhambrey). Sekhar was probably similar.
There's an interesting story about Sekhar bowling as a net-bowler to the
1983-4 West Indies batsmen before the Madras test. Basically, Sekhar and
other TN "pace" bowlers bowled all morning to the main batsmen in the
nets. Finally, they got tired, and the West Indian tail-enders came to
bat. The coach in charge of the nets (Mr. PK Dharmalingam) walked up to
the West Indian manager (don't know who it was) and asked, "the boys are
tired, can they bowl spin?"
The West Indian manager replied, "what were they doing all this while,
then?"
-Samarth.
samarth harish shah
> samarth harish shah wrote:
>
> > Agreed entirely. BTW, what is your opinion on Raju Kulkarni? What about
> > Balwinder Sandhu?
>
> I don't mean to interrupt this war of regionalism, but
> please leave Balwinder Sandhu out of it. For all his faults,
> Balwinder Sandhu is a magical name in Indian cricket. Just
> the memory of that bemused look on Greenidge's face on June
> 25, 1983 is enough to warm one's heart.
Shantanu, enough is enough. Posting as Javagal Srinath is bad enough, but
to start impersonating Uday Rajan is utterly disgraceful.
-Samarth.
samarth harish shah
<snip>
> (b) worst politics - second only to DDCA in
> > this respect in whole of India
>
>
> Really? Didnt realize it was that bad - though Ive often heard
> complaints about how Districts players are ignored due to favouritism
> for Madras players, and how the only Districts players who ever make it
> are ones who moved to Madras to play Club Cricket there (which appears
> to me to be bias that is more "lack of exposure" related than
> political). In what way do you consider the politics to be so bad in
> the TNCA? And in what way is it worse than, say, club-related politics
> in Bombay or Hyderabad or any other place?
Yeah, the Districts folks keep asking for more representation, and they
have to be pleased with the token Districts player in all state teams.
You might not believe it, but there's also a lot of caste politics! Or so
some people would make you believe. (You really can't tell whether the
selector is biased or incompetent or whether he really saw a spark in a
player; you can only guess. For example, I don't see how Dahiya got into
the team because Paul was the favorite and Ratra was supposed to be second
choice! I could attribute it to Madan Lal's regionalistic bias, but I
can't be sure of it. Similarly, some selections *might* look biased, but
you can't tell for sure.)
There's also age-politics, school-politics and ENORMOUS parental politics.
You will find that a bunch of office-bearers in the TNCA have played
absolutely NO cricket at all and only got where they did because they've
been playing politics with the junior teams to have their wards selected.
And by-and-by they get promoted.
A prime example of this is Prof. G. Nandakumar, who was the manager of the
Indian Under-19 team to Sri Lanka which won the World Cup. He is a #1
politician, and I know this not from hearsay but from personal experience.
He hasn't played 1 ball of cricket in his life and only got involved with
the TNCA because he kept pestering the selectors to get his son selected
to various state teams. Players like Anand George, S. Badrinath have
fathers who could put Richard Williams, Jim Pierce, Peter Graf et al to
shame. (I know Anand George's father personally and he's a very nice chap,
except when it comes to his son's cricket career.)
There's also school politics. Santhome vs Don Bosco. Santhome "boycotted"
DB (when they were the best 2 school teams in Madras) for about 3 or 4
years before things patched up. Even years later, Santhome vs DB matches
used to be more tense than India vs Pakistan matches, with the coaches on
either side verbally abusing players willy-nilly. (Lost to Santhome,
you're fired!)
There's also company politics, but since I never got that far up the
cricketing ladder, I don't know much about them. We know about the big
fallouts: Robin Singh left MRF for arch-rivals Chemplast reportedly
because of the money, and that was at the time BIG news in TN cricketing
circles. The MRF-Chemplast rivalry which at the time only existed on the
field was out in the open, with the TN Ranji captain in the eye of the
storm. There are such company-rivalries, also.
> (c) the "split season" effect wherein the
> > NE monsoon disrupts TN's season mid-way, completely throwing the
> > cricketers out of their rhythm.
> >
>
> I actually think the schedule in TN is good for South players in
> general - the Buchi Babu and KSCA and Moin-ud-Dowla are all pre-season
> tournaments that are given much importance in the south, and it enables
> the players to be very ready and in-form by the time the domestic
> season (Iranis and the early-season Test matches) roll around. Bombay,
> OTOH, regards those tournaments without much enthusiasm at all - the
> BCA used to send a "Colts XI" many years ago, but doesnt even do that
> nowadays. So now we only have the occasional player like Paranjpe
> playing the odd game down South in early-season preparation. And this
> hurts Bombay players badly when the season rolls around - they are
> often not in great form to start the season, until they have played
> some good hard cricket (in, for example, the Times Shield etc). They
> usually hit their stride only later in the year (last year, for
> example, the Superleague 4 outright-win performance in the "Grou[ of
> Death" surprised even ardent Bombay fans, from a team that had failed
> to beat Saurashtra outright and had given up the first innings lead to
> Baroda early in the season).
See other post. This Buchi Babu Trophy, etc. are in part 1 of the season.
There is no such thing to get the TN players prepared for part 2 (i.e. the
knock-out part) of the season!
If you need evidence on the NE monsoon affecting TN cricket, you just have
to look up old Ranji score-cards. You will find literally DOZENS of home
games at the MAC affected by rain, abandoned after one session of play,
etc., etc. Even away games are played by badly out-of-practice players.
<snip>
-Samarth.
Anthony Swann
# Yes. The fact the Bombay mafia headed by Don Gavaskar & later by Don
# Tendulkar
# kept out a lot of others who could have made a lot more contributions.
# Did you ever watch the camera zoom into the pavillion during Gavaskar's
# days ?
# Did you ever see Gavaskar & Venkatraghavan/Srikanth together ?
Strange. I remember Gavaskar and Srikkanth opening for India on their
tour here in 1985/86.
--
remove "antispam." to reply.
Topgun
> Yeah, I agree. Although, IMHO, he won us 1 more test match than all
Bombay
> bowlers of the last 40 years put together.
How is that related to being an overall great cricketer of India who has
played atleast 10 years at International level? And don't give excuse
for Siva's self-indulgence in drugs which lead to his decline.
>And he won us only one test
> match... How do you think he compares with Nilesh Kulkarni and Sairaj
> Bahutule, BTW?
How about comparing him to Kumble, Raju, Chauhan etc rather than the
Mumbai bowlers alone?(note the original poster had mentioned about both
Mumbai and Karnataka's dominance!).Typical example of anti-Mumbai
feelings of a guy from Chennai.
> > Raman [Crap]
>
> True, once again. BTW, what do you think of Ashok Mankad?
Crap players come from each zone but we are talking about the number of
good players from Chennai here in case you have forgotten.
> > Chandrashekar [Crap]
>
> Dead right. BTW, what do you think of Ghulam Parkar and Lalchand
Rajput?
Look above.
> Agreed. So far, at least. No complaints. However, he did better than
> Agarkar down under in the practice games.
What a pathetic excuse this is!!! C'mon man, you'll be the last guy
defending Kumaran. Even Chennaites have lost hope on him. BTW, what
did the great Kumaran do in bowling vis-a-vis Aggy in the series
against RSA or in Dhaka if you are so interested in a head-head
comparison??!(remember 10 overs for 86 runs???!!! incidentally
worse than Bhandari playing his first match!!!)
>What about
> Balwinder Sandhu?
That he bowled Greenidge(opener of the best all time oneday team) with
a beauty initiating India's only claim to International fame in the last
20 years-winning the World Cup.
> Perhaps you can tell us who gave you this impression and how?
You just confirmed that impression. What AP was saying is the amount
of analysis that Chennaites like you do about players from other
zones(nitpicking them on every oportunity) gives a feeling that
Chennai players are above all these weaknesses when the stats
prove the reverse. But i will just polish off AP's post by saying
that most Chennaites take cover behind the Karnataka umbrella while
bashing Mumbai players and when the nail is hit right on the head
by a post like that of Arjun Pandit, they start giving all kinds
of pathetic excuses since they have nothing good to say about
players from their city.
-Tops
--
"B'less Bondanath-can't even decide whether to quit the game or
not--what to say of bowling yorkers"
Arjun Pandit
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > Can somebody help me compile a list of players (batsman or bowlers)
> > from Chennai who have contributed something of importance to Indian
> > test cricket.
>
>
many
> great cricketers as Bombay or Karnataka. There are a bunch of
reasons: (a)
> the "paper score 25 syndrome"
FYI, this is invalid when it comes to cricketers like VBC like you
mentioned in a reply to Abhay Pande. VBC has only 1 score > 10. So 25
paper score syndrome (he gets out when he reaches 25) is hardly an
excuse you can offer for him.
>(b) worst politics - second only to DDCA in
> this respect in whole of India
No idea.
>(c) the "split season" effect wherein the
> NE monsoon disrupts TN's season mid-way, completely throwing the
> cricketers out of their rhythm.
Monsoons are there everywhere.
> Given that, let's examine your list:
I think you got the whole gist of the post wrong. By picking up a small
subset of Mumbai cricketers to prove Mumbai cricketers are as bad as
Chennai Cricketers, you are making me laugh. If you mean to say
A small subset of(Mumbai) = Complete set of Chennai, I have no
problems. I have picked the whole set of Chennai cricketers barring a
few like TES etc about whom I have no clue. You have picked a small
subset of crappy Mumbai cricketers to turn the whole thing. Very
Convenient!
>
> > What do we have?
> >
> > Venkataraghavan [seems an average bowler from stats]
> > Srikkanth [an okay batsman, good to watch sometimes]
> > Robin Singh [nothing great, good commitment thoe]
> > Sivramankrishnan [nothing great after a few matches]
>
> Yeah, I agree.
If you agree, why are you debating?
> > S Ramesh [too early but seems decent]
>
> True. What is your opinion on Wasim Jaffer, BTW? Similar opinion?
> Different?
Of course Ramesh is decent, Even if he flops in the next 2-3 tests, I
wont have any problems if he is given 10 more. He seems a decent
prospect. And I am not being generous here like I was in the case of
Raman or VBC where I thot of them as just crap.
Regarding Jaffer, he deserves a couple of tests. I liked what I saw in
the only innings of his I saw, when he scored some 20 odd. Whats wrong
with that? Before you ask me to give some time to Kumarans, I saw some
of his ODIs. He has no pace at all. As is, now we see people asking for
some Mahesh in the team. Even Chennaites have forgotten Kumaran.
>
> > Raman [Crap]
>
> True, once again. BTW, what do you think of Ashok Mankad? Similar
opinion
> or different?
No clue about Ashok Mankad. Why dont you compare Raman to SRT or SMG or
DBV or somebody else? With this "I am crap, but he is also crap, so its
OK" mentality, you will never make any progress :-)
>
> > Thiru Kumaran [Crap]
>
> Agreed. So far, at least. No complaints. However, he did better than
> Agarkar down under in the practice games. The only reason - ONLY
reason -
> why Aggy got picked ahead of him was because of Aggy's supposed
batting
> talent. (Hit 60+ against NSW, I think?)
>
> In the test matches, Aggy vindicated the captain's faith in his
batting.
> NOT!
You mean the recent Aus series? Where Aggy took more wickets than
Srinath [India's strike bowler] , Prasad [India's most intelligent
bowler] and Kumble [INdia's best spinner]? Yeah Samarth, in case you
dont remember Aggy took more wickets than all of Prasad, Srinath and
Kumble in that series. I am sure his captain must have been really
happy with his performance. As far as batting goes, where were the
Dravids and Gangulys? AFAIK both were chosen by the captain for their
batting alone. Did they vindicate the captain's faith in his batting.
NOT! Atleast Aggy got one of his roles (3rd seamer) perfectly right.
Player M Balls Mdns Runs Wickets Avg 5w Best Eco
A.B.Agarkar (India) 3 648 24 351 11 31.91 - 3-43 3.25
J.Srinath (India) 3 756 18 461 10 46.10 - 4-130 3.66
B.K.V.Prasad (India) 3 639 25 356 7 50.86 - 3-83 3.34
A.Kumble (India) 3 878 22 450 5 90.00 - 2-72 3.08
>
> > T Shekhar [Crap]
>
> Agreed entirely. BTW, what is your opinion on Raju Kulkarni? What
about
> Balwinder Sandhu?
What can I say about Sandhu? His very mention brings smiles to millions
of faces :-)
>> Seems too little contribution in the last 50 years. But Chennaites
>> give
>> an impression that they produce the best cricketers
>
> Perhaps you can tell us who gave you this impression and how?
Perhaps you should read RSC more. You seem to be skipping a lot of
recent posts.
Regards,
-AP
--
vande sri ramanarser-acaryasya padabjam,
yo me'darsayad-isam bhantam dhvantam atitya
Rocky Raccoon
>
> > Yeah, I agree. Although, IMHO, he won us 1 more test match than all
> Bombay
> > bowlers of the last 40 years put together.
>
> How is that related to being an overall great cricketer of India who has
> played atleast 10 years at International level? And don't give excuse
> for Siva's self-indulgence in drugs which lead to his decline.
>
> >And he won us only one test
> > match... How do you think he compares with Nilesh Kulkarni and Sairaj
> > Bahutule, BTW?
>
> How about comparing him to Kumble, Raju, Chauhan etc rather than the
> Mumbai bowlers alone?(note the original poster had mentioned about both
> Mumbai and Karnataka's dominance!).
Point.
> Typical example of anti-Mumbai
> feelings of a guy from Chennai.
>
> > > Raman [Crap]
> >
> > True, once again. BTW, what do you think of Ashok Mankad?
>
> Crap players come from each zone but we are talking about the number of
> good players from Chennai here in case you have forgotten.
Point, again.
>
> > > Chandrashekar [Crap]
> >
> > Dead right. BTW, what do you think of Ghulam Parkar and Lalchand
> Rajput?
>
> Look above.
>
> > Agreed. So far, at least. No complaints. However, he did better than
> > Agarkar down under in the practice games.
>
> What a pathetic excuse this is!!! C'mon man, you'll be the last guy
> defending Kumaran. Even Chennaites have lost hope on him. BTW, what
> did the great Kumaran do in bowling vis-a-vis Aggy in the series
> against RSA or in Dhaka if you are so interested in a head-head
> comparison??!(remember 10 overs for 86 runs???!!! incidentally
> worse than Bhandari playing his first match!!!)
Point.
>
> >What about
> > Balwinder Sandhu?
>
> That he bowled Greenidge(opener of the best all time oneday team) with
> a beauty initiating India's only claim to International fame in the last
> 20 years-winning the World Cup.
Point.
>
> > Perhaps you can tell us who gave you this impression and how?
>
> You just confirmed that impression. What AP was saying is the amount
> of analysis that Chennaites like you do about players from other
> zones(nitpicking them on every oportunity) gives a feeling that
> Chennai players are above all these weaknesses when the stats
> prove the reverse. But i will just polish off AP's post by saying
> that most Chennaites take cover behind the Karnataka umbrella while
> bashing Mumbai players and when the nail is hit right on the head
> by a post like that of Arjun Pandit, they start giving all kinds
> of pathetic excuses since they have nothing good to say about
> players from their city.
>
> -Tops
Nice post, Topgun.
--
cheers
http://www.bigfoot.com/~rrocky/
Rocky Raccoon
> I think you got the whole gist of the post wrong. By picking up a small
> subset of Mumbai cricketers to prove Mumbai cricketers are as bad as
> Chennai Cricketers, you are making me laugh. If you mean to say
> A small subset of(Mumbai) = Complete set of Chennai, I have no
> problems. I have picked the whole set of Chennai cricketers barring a
> few like TES etc about whom I have no clue. You have picked a small
> subset of crappy Mumbai cricketers to turn the whole thing. Very
> Convenient!
I was just about to post this, when I saw you & Topgun have already
mentioned it.
--
cheers
http://www.bigfoot.com/~rrocky/
The Cynic
to topgun / AP / RR
How about counting the number of players from Mumbai who played for
india and compare it with Chennai.
To put it in the words of a all time # 1 hater of Mumbai rsc'er "if
1000 players from mumbai get a chance to play for india, few of them
would turn out to be good. One can not use the example of those few as
an indicator of so called high class standard of Mumbai cricket".
I fully agree with this. Given that 95% of indian cricketers are
substandard, the chances of all 5 players from TN failing is much
higher than all 100 players from Mumbai failing.
Such comparison does not make sense because the sample size is
different. Come to think of it, since 1973 (nearly 30 years) Mumbai has
produced only 2 great cricketers. SMG and SRT. Rest all vary from Dilip
Overrated Vengserkar to Sanjay disappointing manjrekar and finally vinod
not-test-class kambli. Compared to this list, Delhi has produced two
great, Mohinder and Bedi and Karnataka 3 (GRV,BS,EP). You guys talk as
if each and every mumbai player is world class.
RK-
cricke...@my-deja.com
>
> <snip>
>
> > (b) worst politics - second only to DDCA in
> > > this respect in whole of India
> >
>
> You might not believe it, but there's also a lot of caste politics!
Or so
> some people would make you believe.
Well, just because some people believe it doesnt make it true, no? :-)
Most of the Pakistani cabbies I used to watch cricket with during the
India/Pakistan series last year were all totally convinced that there
was serious religious bias in India that prevented good Muslim
cricketers from making the national side - which, they said, was a
major reason for India doing so poorly. Of course, when you actually
follow Ranjis, you know that isnt true - that no Muslim player had the
domestic performances to earn a spot in the side a year ago, and few
did even well enough to be contenders. That has changed lately - Kaif,
Jaffer and Zaheer are all contenders now - but thats due to
performances, not due to change in religion-politics :-)
So do you think there is really caste politics in TN? And if so, do you
think its of the "discrimination" or the "quota" kind? And of a major
level?
>(You really can't tell whether the
> selector is biased or incompetent or whether he really saw a spark in
a
> player; you can only guess. For example, I don't see how Dahiya got
into
> the team because Paul was the favorite and Ratra was supposed to be
second
> choice! I could attribute it to Madan Lal's regionalistic bias, but I
> can't be sure of it. Similarly, some selections *might* look biased,
but
> you can't tell for sure.)
>
Well, Dahiya made it because he had the best performances over the past
3/4 years :-) Paul was the favourite - of the media, which knows
nothing about this stuff anyway (remember, this is the media that asked
Dahiya "why were you dropped by Delhi last year?", when he had never
been dropped at all :-) And Ratra couldnt be picked, IMHO - he is a
very good keeping prospect, but he has never shown he could bat, even
at domestic level (or u19 level). Dahiya might have had a weak season
with the bat last year, but at least he has shown his batting ability
in the domestics in the past. Ratra hasnt, yet (mostly due to being
very young).
But I agree - you cant tell for sure if there is bias. But you can
often make a good guess.
> There's also age-politics, school-politics and ENORMOUS parental
politics.
> You will find that a bunch of office-bearers in the TNCA have played
> absolutely NO cricket at all and only got where they did because
they've
> been playing politics with the junior teams to have their wards
selected.
> And by-and-by they get promoted.
>
> A prime example of this is Prof. G. Nandakumar, who was the manager
of the
> Indian Under-19 team to Sri Lanka which won the World Cup. He is a #1
> politician, and I know this not from hearsay but from personal
experience.
> He hasn't played 1 ball of cricket in his life and only got involved
with
> the TNCA because he kept pestering the selectors to get his son
selected
> to various state teams. Players like Anand George, S. Badrinath have
> fathers who could put Richard Williams, Jim Pierce, Peter Graf et al
to
> shame. (I know Anand George's father personally and he's a very nice
chap,
> except when it comes to his son's cricket career.)
>
Heh ok. Not sure if this is a big problem in Bombay, the "pushy father"
syndrome (in fact, people like Abdul Ismail, who did brilliant for
Bombay and still coaches regularly ended up pushing their kids into
tennis rather than cricket :-)
> There's also school politics. Santhome vs Don Bosco.
Santhome "boycotted"
> DB (when they were the best 2 school teams in Madras) for about 3 or 4
> years before things patched up. Even years later, Santhome vs DB
matches
> used to be more tense than India vs Pakistan matches, with the
coaches on
> either side verbally abusing players willy-nilly. (Lost to Santhome,
> you're fired!)
>
Not unusual in most parts of India, I think - most big cities, at any
rate. The Shardashram-Anjuman battles in Bombay used to be legendary,
with very hard cricket being played (and yes, tons of sledging too :-)
Even Shardashram-St Marys used to be really rough - I remember the Mary-
ians tearing down the tents in celebration when Tendulkar was dismissed
in the Giles Trophy final, many years ago :-)
Many of those Shardashram boys have gone on to big things at the state
level. Fewer of the Anjuman boys have, but there have been the odd
ones - Iqbal Khan and Wasim Jaffer, to name two.
> There's also company politics, but since I never got that far up the
> cricketing ladder, I don't know much about them. We know about the big
> fallouts: Robin Singh left MRF for arch-rivals Chemplast reportedly
> because of the money, and that was at the time BIG news in TN
cricketing
> circles. The MRF-Chemplast rivalry which at the time only existed on
the
> field was out in the open, with the TN Ranji captain in the eye of the
> storm. There are such company-rivalries, also.
>
That used to be a big issue in Bombay too - the Tata's/Mafatlal contest
of the 70s and 80s. There were many non-Bombayites playing too, of
course - Brijesh Patel and the like. There is still some residual
effect, but Iam not sure its a huge problem in India anymore.
>
> See other post. This Buchi Babu Trophy, etc. are in part 1 of the
season.
> There is no such thing to get the TN players prepared for part 2
(i.e. the
> knock-out part) of the season!
>
> If you need evidence on the NE monsoon affecting TN cricket, you just
have
> to look up old Ranji score-cards. You will find literally DOZENS of
home
> games at the MAC affected by rain, abandoned after one session of
play,
> etc., etc. Even away games are played by badly out-of-practice
players.
>
Well, TN players are v well prepared for the start of the season. And
that continues till what, late November/early December? And then they
sometimes travel for Duleeps etc, and play Ranji knock-outs in January
or so? Yes the monsoons affect them - but the state players often get
to play somewhere or the other, no? But its true, we dont have anything
mid-season - we just end up starting too late, which kills our players
early in the season.
Sadiq [ Bombay's first Ranji game this year - December 2nd!] Yusuf
> <snip>
The Cynic
The Cynic <mr_c...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> How about counting the number of players from Mumbai who played for
> india and compare it with Chennai.
>
> To put it in the words of a all time # 1 hater of Mumbai rsc'er "if
> 1000 players from mumbai get a chance to play for india, few of them
> would turn out to be good. One can not use the example of those few as
> an indicator of so called high class standard of Mumbai cricket".
>
> I fully agree with this. Given that 95% of indian cricketers are
> substandard, the chances of all 5 players from TN failing is much
> higher than all 100 players from Mumbai failing.
>
> Such comparison does not make sense because the sample size is
> different. Come to think of it, since 1973 (nearly 30 years)
> Mumbai has
> produced only 2 great cricketers. SMG and SRT. Rest all vary from
> Dilip
> Overrated Vengserkar to Sanjay disappointing manjrekar and finally
> vinod
> not-test-class kambli. Compared to this list, Delhi has produced two
> great, Mohinder and Bedi and Karnataka 3 (GRV,BS,EP). You guys talk as
> if each and every mumbai player is world class.
Here is a mathematical proof on why mumbai contribution > chennai
No of players from Chennai who played for india: 5
No of players who turned out to be good : 0
No of players from Mumbai who played for india : 100
No of players who turned out to be good : 2
Since 2 > 0, Mumbai > Chennai.
Is anything wrong in this proof. I think it is correct mathematically.
It's one thing to irritate Chennai for fun, it is another to believe
in non existant superiority of Mumbai in cricket.
RK-
karthik_...@my-deja.com
Delhi in which L. Sivaramakrishnan made his Ranji debut. On the
penultimate day Delhi was all out, with Siva taking bagful of wickets,
leaving TN to score around 250-260 with a hour on that day and the last
day to go. TESrini opens against the bowling of Madanlal who was fresh
from an impressive performance against Eng (Calcutta/Kanpur?) but TE
treats him like a club bowler and hits four exquisite fours in the very
first over! However, not much later he was out for a personal score of
about 20-25 (my memory is not what it used to be!). The way he had the
upper hand over the bowlers he could have scored whatever he wanted to
but his temperament failed him. Incidentally TN couldn't meet the
target, despite a valiant effort by P. Vijayakumar, and lost the match.
All said and done this is my opinion about Bomaby vs Madras:
(1) TN has not produced world class batsmen in the mold of SMG, DBV and
SRT; TESrini could have been another DBV if only he had more chances;
(2) TN has not produced world class bowlers either, other than marginal
Venkat; however since Bombay has not, at least in the last thirty
years, produced any bowler worth talking about; bottomline is Venkat
is superior to any bowler from Bombay in the last thirty years.
(3) Since (1/1000)*SMG OR (1/10)*DBV OR (1/1000)*SRT [I am not inclined
to give better respect to DBV for two reasons: (a) of course he is
inferior to SMG or SRT; and (b) I really think that TESrini could have
easily achieved what DBV achieved] >>>>> any TN batsman and since, if
at all, TN holds only marginal edge in bowling due to Venkat, I would
say the score is heavily in favor of Bombay. No excuses.
- Karthik [hoping that Ramesh will break the mold] Sankaran
cricke...@my-deja.com
samarth harish shah <shs...@students.uiuc.edu> wrote:
>
> > > I will be the first one to agree that TN hasn't produced nearly as
> > many
> > > great cricketers as Bombay or Karnataka. There are a bunch of
> > reasons:
> > > (a) the "paper score 25 syndrome"
> >
> > Whats that?
>
> If you make 25, your name appears in the paper. According to one of my
> coaches, this was one big reason why TN batsmen, although they will
never
> admit it, scored a quick 25 full of blazing strokes (cf. Srikkanth, TE
> Srinivasan, VBC) and were back in the pavilion before the Bombay
batsman
> had even middled one ball. :-)
>
Its a nice apocryphal story - but I think this "25 paper" thing is true
in most parts of the country :-) I think the rule of thumb in Bombay at
the lower levels was usually that 30 runs or 3 wickets got your name in
the paper, usually.
> I am not sure whether this was said in seriousness or in jest, though.
> Basically, the implication however is that in tough situations, TN
batsmen
> are probably not going to hang in there and grind it out. On a flat
> batting track, it's OK. But batting in difficult circumstances needs
good
> temperament. Temperament was never the forte of KS, TES, VBC, etc.
> Sometimes, though, I think that these fellows have given TN batsmen a
bad
> rep. There have been good, solid, temperamentally sound TN batsmen
also.
>
Yes there have. Its just that usually bloody-mindedness has been the
trademark of Bombay batsmen - the desire to bat 6 hours a day, for days
on end if possible, and crawl to a big score. There are, unfortunately,
few of those kinds of batsmen left - Amol and Jaffer are probably the
last of that breed. A lot of reasons for that - too many ODIs infecting
the kids (one friend claimed that all the kids who batted well at age
13/14 a year or two ago that he knew were trying their hand at bowling
as well, to be bits-and-pieces ODI allrounder types :-( Generally too
many distractions for kids nowadays (why, hamare zamane mein, kids only
batted all day every day in the summers, none of this MTV/Channel V
nonsense). And, of some importance, the Bombay Schools cricket had been
switched to a 75 over per inning contest a few years ago - thank God
that abomination is now over, and theyve moved back to unlimited overs
once again.
> > > (b) worst politics - second only to DDCA
> > OK.
> >
> > > (c) the "split season" effect wherein the
> > > NE monsoon disrupts TN's season mid-way, completely throwing the
> > > cricketers out of their rhythm.
> >
> > Doesn't TN have something similar to the Kanga league of Bombay?
> > SVM used to play in the Kanga league even in 1992 so that he could
> > master his skill of playing spinners on a wet pitch. (IIRC)
>
> Currently, the wickets used in first division cricket in Madras are
much
> better maintained than the Kanga league wickets of Bombay. These are
> test-standard wickets and maintained as such. (Mostly, when the Indian
> team has a camp in Madras, they practice at IIT-Chemplast, CPT-India
> Pistons, Guru Nanak-India Cements grounds or, of course, the MRF Pace
> Foundation.) These wickets are not played on if wet, and are
maintained as
> if they were test wickets. I have myself seen the Indian team
practice at
> the Guru Nanak College grounds because the ground/wicket was in better
> shape at the time than at the MAC. These grounds are maintained by
> corporate sponsors and they don't leave any stone unturned in the
> maintenance.
>
Its not quite fair to compare Madras First Division wickets with Bombay
Kanga wickets, BTW - an apples to oranges comparison. The Kanga League
is strictly a monsoon league in Bombay - played *only* during monsoons,
only on Sundays, for a period of 13 weeks. The outfields are overly
grassed too, often wet. It is just something used to have some sort of
club cricket over summer - and it is fun because the top players all
used to play it, and the conditions can be incredibly difficult if the
weather elements all come together.
The correct comparison to Madras First Division would be our own First
Division cricket, probably - the Times Shield. Which has excellent
pitches, most of the time, and very good conditions.
In the heirarchy of Bombay Cricket, the Times Shield is the premier
tournament. It is followed by several other in-season tournaments - the
Police Shield, maybe the new Khandwala sponsored tournament etc (these
are club tournaments). All these would consequently have better pitches
and facilities than the Kanga's.
> >
> > I became a fan of Ramesh after the Pak99 series. Trouble is that I
had
> > never seen him bat. When I did see him bat in the WC99, I was
shocked!!
> > Ramesh seemed to have scored all those runs against Pak inspite of
> > rather than because of his technique!!!
> > Anyhow, I still support him since he is our best opener currently.
>
> Seems out of form currently. I wonder what he's going to do in tests.
It's
> not good to say, "that's the way I play" and not work on your game.
That's
> what Srikkanth did and he got worked out pretty soon. Currently,
Ramesh is
> successful, but on good attacks on quick wickets, he will get worked
out.
> He can't just sit back and think "I made runs against Pakistan with
this
> technique, so I will not try to improve/change it."
>
There is no reason to think he will think that, BTW - he doesnt seem
someone who is unwilling to work at his game. His technique is similar
to Raman's, but his temperament is far better IMHO. And Iam not sure
he's out of form at the moment either - he just had 1 bad innings in
the Irani's, is all. He'll be fine once the tests roll around.
> > > > Raman [Crap]
> > >
> > > True, once again. BTW, what do you think of Ashok Mankad? Similar
> > opinion
> > > or different?
> > Never saw Ashok Mankad bat. But, I think that their stats must be
> > similar.....
>
> Dead right. Similar stats in tests as well as in domestic cricket.
(Well,
> tons of runs for both in domestic cricket, anyways.) If Raman is crap,
> Mankad is also crap. But no Mumbaikar will accept it. :-)
>
Actually, I think Mankad's domestics are a little better - both total
runs (Mankad is #4 alltime in domestics) as well as average (where
Mankad is also probably ahead - I have career stats only from a year or
so before Raman retired, but at that point he was 3700 runs at 57, to
Mankad's 6600 runs at 76).
But, seriously, I dont think you'll have any problems finding
Bombayites who dont think Mankad was much good at all - if you go to
Bombay and ask the average fan, I think he'll say that to you before
you even have to ask him :-) Mankad was mostly known in Bombay for
being a Ranji king who didnt do any justice to himself in tests - most
fans only remember him today for a *very* astute cricketing mind. It
was mostly due to his supposed tactical acumen that he was tapped to be
Bombay's Ranji coach. But overall, there is no such thing as a Mankad-
fan base in Bombay - even in the 70s, I think people were much more
into Gavaskar and Vengsarkar and Sardesai and Engineer (and even
Wadekar and Solkar etc - at least in 1971 :-)
> <snip>
>
> > Using Shantanu's logic Sandhu won us a World Cup :-)))
>
> I cannot counter that logic. I bow my head and completely agree. :-)
>
> > Raju Kulkarni was the Short-pitch-outside-the-offstump kinda bowler
> > (similar to Mhambrey). Sekhar was probably similar.
>
> There's an interesting story about Sekhar bowling as a net-bowler to
the
> 1983-4 West Indies batsmen before the Madras test. Basically, Sekhar
and
> other TN "pace" bowlers bowled all morning to the main batsmen in the
> nets. Finally, they got tired, and the West Indian tail-enders came to
> bat. The coach in charge of the nets (Mr. PK Dharmalingam) walked up
to
> the West Indian manager (don't know who it was) and asked, "the boys
are
> tired, can they bowl spin?"
>
> The West Indian manager replied, "what were they doing all this while,
> then?"
>
Heh. You dont seriously think this story is true, do you? :-) Just
another of the apocryphal ones, Iam sure.
Shekar wasnt a great bowler by any stretch - but he was certainly
quick. Not quick by WI standards of 83/84 of course (no Indian ever has
bee :-), but certainly very fast by Indian ones. To compare him or Raju
Kulkarni to Mhambrey is silly, IMHO - Mhambrey was always a medium-
paced swing bowler (albiet one who was incredibly effective at domestic
level, and quite successful at "A" level as well). Kulkarni and Shekar,
OTOH, were both far quicker pace bowlers (but much more erratic as
well) - they sprayed it around on occasion, but were both considered to
be among the fastest bowlers in India in their time. That is certainly
not a statement that could be made of Mhambrey - he was always the 3rd
fastest in his own team, usually (after Ankola and Kuruvilla :-)
Sadiq [ the old Madan Lal = fast offspinner theory ] Yusuf
> -Samarth.
Rocky Raccoon
>
> In article <8sncnn$bad$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> The Cynic <mr_c...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> > How about counting the number of players from Mumbai who played for
> > india and compare it with Chennai.
> >
> > To put it in the words of a all time # 1 hater of Mumbai rsc'er "if
> > 1000 players from mumbai get a chance to play for india, few of them
> > would turn out to be good. One can not use the example of those few as
> > an indicator of so called high class standard of Mumbai cricket".
> >
> > I fully agree with this. Given that 95% of indian cricketers are
> > substandard, the chances of all 5 players from TN failing is much
> > higher than all 100 players from Mumbai failing.
> >
> > Such comparison does not make sense because the sample size is
> > different. Come to think of it, since 1973 (nearly 30 years)
> > Mumbai has
> > produced only 2 great cricketers. SMG and SRT. Rest all vary from
> > Dilip
> > Overrated Vengserkar to Sanjay disappointing manjrekar and finally
> > vinod
> > not-test-class kambli. Compared to this list, Delhi has produced two
> > great, Mohinder and Bedi and Karnataka 3 (GRV,BS,EP). You guys talk as
> > if each and every mumbai player is world class.
>
I easily consider DBV, SVM, RS, Sandip Patil, Vijay Manjrekar to be
better
than all of the Chennai batsmen listed in RI's list. Care to dispute
this ?
I consider Agarkar to have done more in Indian cricket than all the
quick bowlers
in RI"s list.
Likewise even Kuruvilla. Likewise Balwinder Sandhu.
The Cynic
> I easily consider DBV, SVM, RS, Sandip Patil, Vijay Manjrekar to be
> better
> than all of the Chennai batsmen listed in RI's list. Care to dispute
> this ?
Nothing to dispute. Perhaps u didn't read my mathematical proof :-)
> I consider Agarkar to have done more in Indian cricket than all the
> quick bowlers
> in RI"s list.
> Likewise even Kuruvilla. Likewise Balwinder Sandhu.
I consider Venkat to be a better bowler than any mumpai bowler bcos he
helped us in one victory abroad, something no mumpai bowler ever did.
I consider Siva to be a better bowler than any mumpai bowler after
1961, since he helped in winning one home match.
To answer to ur other thread:-
>What's so bad about it ?
of course nothing wrong. all of us are expected to become wiser after
the event. what is bad is to bait others on hingsight, like topgandu
did to rakesh gupta as follows:-
>Just a curious question--just one tournament back, you were heaping
>praises on Robin, suddenly Robin becomes your 12th man and i also
>remember you praising Agarkar some months back. So after Sharjah,
>what --Prasad should be dumped and sent to Jhumri Talaiya and Aggy
>retained in the team????!!!!! Very much hindsight, i say!
Gotcha?
>It's better than people who will have Robin Singh playing a zillion
>years for India (thank you RI).
Robin Singh!!!
The guy who emailed me is not a RS supporter, or at least I have never
seen him supporting RS. Heck, he is not even a tamil :-)
RK-
Slowhand
karthik_...@my-deja.com wrote in article
Talking of L Siva, what ever happened to his attempted comeback? There were
lots of rumours in Madras a few years back that he was giving it a good
shot, and L Siva himself made some noises in the press about it. I presume
it didn't amount to very much. What a great pity about this guy - I can
still remember the buzz around Madras when he took all those wickets
against England in his debut in Bombay.
What does he do for a living, then, anyone know? Samarth?
Slowhand
Arjun Pandit
>
> india and compare it with Chennai.
I dont see how this makes any difference, read below.
> To put it in the words of a all time # 1 hater of Mumbai rsc'er "if
> 1000 players from mumbai get a chance to play for india, few of them
> would turn out to be good. One can not use the example of those few as
> an indicator of so called high class standard of Mumbai cricket".
>
> I fully agree with this. Given that 95% of indian cricketers are
> substandard, the chances of all 5 players from TN failing is much
> higher than all 100 players from Mumbai failing.
OK Rk. Can you give me this atleast: The ones who made from TN to India
team should obviously have been the best of the TN lot. Better than
those who didnt make it?
Since those who made it to India turned out to be crap, what gives that
those who didnt make it were great material????
Got it? In other words, those who didnt make it from TN must have been
crappier than those who made it. So all this bigger set means more
chances of success talk is just crap.
> You guys talk as
> if each and every mumbai player is world class.
Nopes. What I am saying is all players from Channai have turned out to
be crap. Thats all.
Regards,
-AP
--
For questions regarding family, marriage, love, romance, sex, business,
profession, financials etc email PanditG at arj...@usa.net
Rocky Raccoon
> -AP
Should think of changing this signature. AP seems like Abhay Pande.
> For questions regarding family, marriage, love, romance, sex,
business,
> profession, financials etc email PanditG at arj...@usa.net
Maybe you should call yourself Dr. Arjun Pandit & sign your posts
DR :-)
samarth harish shah
<snip>
> nonsense). And, of some importance, the Bombay Schools cricket had been
> switched to a 75 over per inning contest a few years ago - thank God
> that abomination is now over, and theyve moved back to unlimited overs
> once again.
Not just "some" importance. This is *very* important. Schools cricket in
Madras is *strictly* limited overs for the most part. Only the semi-finals
and finals of ONE tournament (TNCA tournament) are two-day unlimited overs
affairs. There are a *bunch* of other tournaments, some with 50-over games
and some with even 30-over games!
<snip>
> Heh. You dont seriously think this story is true, do you? :-) Just
> another of the apocryphal ones, Iam sure.
Mr. PK Dharmalingam to me this himself. He refused to divulge the name of
the bowler, but from the fact that he made a big deal out of it, I guessed
it must be TA Sekhar. Dharma nodded, smiled and said, "yeah, he was one of
the bowlers". :-)
-Samarth.
samarth harish shah
> karthik_...@my-deja.com wrote in article
>
> Talking of L Siva, what ever happened to his attempted comeback? There were
> lots of rumours in Madras a few years back that he was giving it a good
> shot, and L Siva himself made some noises in the press about it. I presume
> it didn't amount to very much. What a great pity about this guy - I can
> still remember the buzz around Madras when he took all those wickets
> against England in his debut in Bombay.
Yeah, he was picked out of nowhere for the Irani Trophy match against
Karnataka in 1999. It is said that Tendulkar recommended him, although he
wasn't even a regular in the TN Ranji side, let alone being one of the top
bowlers. He didn't bowl particularly well. Got one wicket - the tailender
Anand Katti, I think. Didn't impress. Was immediately shoved back into the
wilderness.
> What does he do for a living, then, anyone know? Samarth?
Used to work for India Pistons. (Basically, he played 1st division cricket
for them, and got paid for it.) He probably still does.
-Samarth.
Prasad, Dipak [NC1:3H16:EXCH]
> Kulkarni and Shekar,
> OTOH, were both far quicker pace bowlers (but much more erratic as
> well) - they sprayed it around on occasion, but were both considered to
> be among the fastest bowlers in India in their time.
While talking about the 'fast' bowlers of the time: R.S. Ghai (albeit not
from TN/Bombay)
As far as TN bowlers are concerned, how come no one has mentioned (and I
shudder) Bharathi Arun
Dipak
Rocky Raccoon
> > I consider Agarkar to have done more in Indian cricket than all the
> > quick bowlers
> > in RI"s list.
> > Likewise even Kuruvilla. Likewise Balwinder Sandhu.
>
> I consider Venkat to be a better bowler than any mumpai bowler bcos he
> helped us in one victory abroad, something no mumpai bowler ever did.
> I consider Siva to be a better bowler than any mumpai bowler after
> 1961, since he helped in winning one home match.
You should apply this Shantanu Desai/RK Logic only when countering
Shantanu
Desai's posts :-)
> >It's better than people who will have Robin Singh playing a zillion
> >years for India (thank you RI).
>
> Robin Singh!!!
> The guy who emailed me is not a RS supporter, or at least I have never
> seen him supporting RS. Heck, he is not even a tamil :-)
Never said he was. I am just saying nothing wrong in Topgun dropping AA.
Better than some people (read Bombayites, Tamil's, Karnatakaites, Bongs
etc)
who never want their state player dropped, irrespective of whatever,
just
because they are their hometown players.
Rocky Raccoon
> As far as TN bowlers are concerned, how come no one has mentioned (and I
> shudder) Bharathi Arun
Was this the same fat guy who fell down while bowling his first
delivery for India ?
samarth harish shah
>
>
> > Yeah, I agree. Although, IMHO, he won us 1 more test match than all
> Bombay
> > bowlers of the last 40 years put together.
>
> How is that related to being an overall great cricketer of India who has
> played atleast 10 years at International level? And don't give excuse
> for Siva's self-indulgence in drugs which lead to his decline.
I agreed right at the beginning that Siva is nowhere near being 'great'.
However, I just wanted to see if the original poster, who called him crap,
will have the guts to reply and call Bombay bowling of the last 40 years
crap.
> >And he won us only one test
> > match... How do you think he compares with Nilesh Kulkarni and Sairaj
> > Bahutule, BTW?
>
> How about comparing him to Kumble, Raju, Chauhan etc rather than the
> Mumbai bowlers alone?(note the original poster had mentioned about both
> Mumbai and Karnataka's dominance!).
The post I was responding to (Ravi Iyengar's first post starting the
thread) neither contained the word 'Karnataka' nor the word 'Mumbai'. I
just did a grep again. I suggest you do so, too.
Typical example of anti-Mumbai
> feelings of a guy from Chennai.
>
> > > Raman [Crap]
> >
> > True, once again. BTW, what do you think of Ashok Mankad?
>
> Crap players come from each zone but we are talking about the number of
> good players from Chennai here in case you have forgotten.
I can admit that Chennai players X, Y and Z were crap. Mumbaikars can't
admit Mankad was crap, from what I've seen so far, at least.
>
> > > Chandrashekar [Crap]
> >
> > Dead right. BTW, what do you think of Ghulam Parkar and Lalchand
> Rajput?
>
> Look above.
There are a couple of tubelights, a false ceiling and some air vents.
> > Agreed. So far, at least. No complaints. However, he did better than
> > Agarkar down under in the practice games.
>
> What a pathetic excuse this is!!! C'mon man, you'll be the last guy
> defending Kumaran. Even Chennaites have lost hope on him. BTW, what
Really? How many Chennaites do you know personally? BTW, Sadiq defended
him, at least partially, on another post on this thread.
<snipped rant>
-Samarth.
Rocky Raccoon
> I can admit that Chennai players X, Y and Z were crap. Mumbaikars can't
> admit Mankad was crap, from what I've seen so far, at least.
Whom are you talking about ?
I don't remember reading any post here which extolled the virtues
of Ashok Mankad.
The Cynic
>OK Rk. Can you give me this atleast: The ones who made from TN to India
>team should obviously have been the best of the TN lot. Better than
>those who didnt make it?
>Since those who made it to India turned out to be crap, what gives that
>those who didnt make it were great material????
Very wrong way of looking at it. That should be, "best from TN played
for india and also best didn't play. the best who didn't play might
have been better than the best who played". :-)
Sometimes a player does not get selected due to bad timing. VVKumar
was argubaly the best spinner from TN. Yet he just played 2 tests. He
might have turned out to be better than even Venkat, what to talk of
Siva. Close to ur home Shivalkar is the best example.
>For questions regarding family, marriage, love, romance, sex, business,
>profession, financials etc email PanditG at arj...@usa.net
No need to email. Sometimes u get it unsolicited also from PanditG like
the one I got.
RK-
=================================
Indians rely heavily on friends for info on sex
Bangalore News, October 20, 12:15 AM IST
Indian parents are hardly forthcoming on sex. As a result, most people
in the country have to depend on friends or the television for their
share of information on the subject.
This has been shown in a global sex survey conducted by condom makers
Durex over the last 12 months.
Only 3 per cent of Indian mothers discuss sex with their children. With
fathers, it is a low 1 per cent.
Neither do Indian school curricula have much to offer on sex education.
Only 5 per cent of the Indian population aged between 16 and 55 years,
who were surveyed, said they received sex education at school.
These factors combine to ensure that most Indians (22 per cent) satisfy
their curiosity on the subject through friends and 30 per cent through
television, radio and cinema.
A late initiation into the act too could stem from these factors -
Indians are initiated into sex at the ripe old age of 21. In the US, a
person has had sex by the time he/she is 17. The same can be said of
Brazilians,Germans, Canadians and the British.
In Japan too, where a person has had sex by the time she/he is 19, only
3 per cent of mothers talk sex with children. And fathers do not
participate in such activities at all. However, 38 per cent of Japanese
say they were taught about sex at school.
In contrast, 22 per cent of US mothers impart education to their
children on sex, and 14 per cent of the population is educated at
school.
Thirty-two per cent of the Dutch get their share of information on sex
from their mothers against a worldwide average of 12 per cent.
However, friends are the best source of sex education in the world.
Twenty-five per cent of the population depends on friends.
On being initiated into sex too, Indians lag behind. Only the Taiwanese
and Chinese come behind.
Neither do Indians believe in changing sexual partners as frequently as
the French or the Greek.
While the average number of sexual partners around the world was 8.2,
it was 16.7 for the French and 15 for the Greeks. For, Indians, it was
a measly 1.8.
Indians were also among the fastest to change lifestyles under the
shadow of AIDS.
While 58 per cent of the global population changed sexual behaviour due
to concern over AIDS, 65 per of Indians surveyed were up to the task.
Indians were not too bad either in terms of frequency of sex, clocking
95 a year against the global average of 96.
And surprisingly, only 3 per cent of Indians said they did not use any
form of contraception against a world average of 13 per cent, 17 per
cent in Australia, 33 per cent in Israel and 26 per cent in the Czech
Republic.
Rocky Raccoon
The Cynic <mr_c...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> Arjun Pandit <arjun...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> >OK Rk. Can you give me this atleast: The ones who made from TN to
India
> >team should obviously have been the best of the TN lot. Better than
> >those who didnt make it?
> >Since those who made it to India turned out to be crap, what gives
that
> >those who didnt make it were great material????
>
> Very wrong way of looking at it. That should be, "best from TN played
> for india and also best didn't play. the best who didn't play might
> have been better than the best who played". :-)
Conjecture. Anybody can say something like this for any state.
Even assuming selection was biased towards Bombay, even then TN lags
behind most other places in India, considering even places like Haryana
or Bengal.
> Sometimes a player does not get selected due to bad timing. VVKumar
> was argubaly the best spinner from TN.
Sounds very similiar to Shantanu/Shridhar's argument that had Kuruvilla
been taken at the right time, he would have been better than Malcomm
Marshall.
> Yet he just played 2 tests. He
> might have turned out to be better than even Venkat, what to talk of
> Siva. Close to ur home Shivalkar is the best example.
In other words that happened for states other than TN also.
Arjun Pandit
In article <8sno9k$m7p$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
Rocky Raccoon <rro...@bigfoot.com> wrote:
<snip>
asi...@my-deja.com
cricke...@my-deja.com wrote:
> Its not quite fair to compare Madras First Division wickets with
Bombay
> Kanga wickets, BTW - an apples to oranges comparison. The Kanga League
> is strictly a monsoon league in Bombay - played *only* during
monsoons,
> only on Sundays, for a period of 13 weeks. The outfields are overly
> grassed too, often wet. It is just something used to have some sort of
> club cricket over summer - and it is fun because the top players all
> used to play it, and the conditions can be incredibly difficult if the
> weather elements all come together.
>
> The correct comparison to Madras First Division would be our own First
> Division cricket, probably - the Times Shield. Which has excellent
> pitches, most of the time, and very good conditions.
>
> In the heirarchy of Bombay Cricket, the Times Shield is the premier
> tournament. It is followed by several other in-season tournaments -
the
> Police Shield, maybe the new Khandwala sponsored tournament etc (these
> are club tournaments). All these would consequently have better
pitches
> and facilities than the Kanga's.
Sadiq, here's one place where we finally disagree :-)
I have seen the grounds & wickets at Chennai and Mumbai and I can state
unequivocally that Chennai grounds & wickets are miles ahead of Mumbai.
I have played at the Azad & Cross Maidans, seen cricket at the
University Grounds, Shivaji Park, Wankhede, Brabourne et al, and they
bear no comparison to Chennai. For instance, the IIT-Chemplast ground
is used by the Indian team for their conditioning camp. It is a huge
lush green ground with 4-5 turf wickets laid side by side. Each wicket
has been created differently so that they favour various kinds of
bowlers. From green top to rolled mud. The ground itself is FLAT, very
unlike the hills and crests of Mumbai grounds. Most league cricket in
Chennai is played on test class conditions.
--snip---
>But overall, there is no such thing as a Mankad-
> fan base in Bombay - even in the 70s, I think people were much more
> into Gavaskar and Vengsarkar and Sardesai and Engineer (and even
> Wadekar and Solkar etc - at least in 1971 :-)
>
> > <snip>
I don't think there were very many Sardesai or Wadekar fans :-) SMG
would be #1, SRT #2, DBV #3. However, on his day, Sandeep Patil
inspired the kind of fan following and loyalty that few players can
attain in their lifetime. I remember, Bombay playing Saurashtra in the
1984 Ranji's during my XI std. Saurashtra scored 349 ao in 96 overs.
The next day, most of my batchmates at Mithibai college "bunked" class
to have a dekko at Patil. And they were not disappointed.
He scored 178 of the most audacious runs you can ever hope to see.
Bombay got 365/4 decl in 57 overs. I repeat 57 overs. From CricInfo,
here's a look at the bowling figures of Saurashtra;
Bowling O M R W
Keshwala 9 0 62 1
Ghavri 7 0 50 0
Parsana 18.2 2 86 3
Joshi 12 0 79 0
Patel 11 0 56 0
There were 15,000 people at the Wankhede stadium. This, on a weekday
when Bombay was not playing Kar, Delhi or any of the big teams. I can
assure you that almost all the 15,000 cricket fanatics had come to see
a Patil massacre & he fulfilled their wish. On his day, Patil was
awesome and remains one of my favorite batsman.
Take a look at CI for the Ranji stats of Bombay during that period and
check out the performances of stars like RJS, SMG and DBV. You've got
to admire their commitment to Ranjis. The tradition continues with SRT,
Kambli, Kuruvilla and co whenever they've been available.
>
> Shekar wasnt a great bowler by any stretch - but he was certainly
> quick. Not quick by WI standards of 83/84 of course (no Indian ever
has
> bee :-), but certainly very fast by Indian ones. To compare him or
Raju
> Kulkarni to Mhambrey is silly, IMHO - Mhambrey was always a medium-
> paced swing bowler (albiet one who was incredibly effective at
domestic
> level, and quite successful at "A" level as well). Kulkarni and
Shekar,
> OTOH, were both far quicker pace bowlers (but much more erratic as
> well) - they sprayed it around on occasion, but were both considered
to
> be among the fastest bowlers in India in their time. That is certainly
> not a statement that could be made of Mhambrey - he was always the 3rd
> fastest in his own team, usually (after Ankola and Kuruvilla :-)
>
I think Sekhar was quite quick. He wasn't a long term prospect for
India. Though, to be fair to him, he was picked for a tour in which all
Indian bowlers got mauled by Pakistan. Apart from that, I distinctly
remember Vengsarkar at first or second slip dropping two dolly catches
off Sekhar's bowling in a test. That made his bowling figures look far
worse than it seems now. :-)
On the other hand, you have to utilize whatever chances you get. Kapil
Dev was from lowly Haryana which didn't exactly set cricketing fields
alight. He was picked for a high pressure Pak tour too and did well,
didn't he? So did a 16 year old kid.
That is what separates the Vishwanaths, Gavaskars, SRT's, Kapils from
the rest. You *knew* during their debut tests that they would serve
India for a long time to come.
Sadly, I thought the same of Patil, Sadanand Vishwanath and L. Siva
too. They had the class and the temperament. They just did not have the
ruthless, single-minded dedication that a Shastri, Mohinder or Gavaskar
had.
> Sadiq [ the old Madan Lal = fast offspinner theory ] Yusuf
Cheers
Arun
cricke...@my-deja.com
karthik_...@my-deja.com wrote:
> Talking about "paper 25 syndrome", I remember the match between TN and
> Delhi in which L. Sivaramakrishnan made his Ranji debut. On the
> penultimate day Delhi was all out, with Siva taking bagful of wickets,
> leaving TN to score around 250-260 with a hour on that day and the
last
> day to go.
February 1982 at Madras. Big spin pitch. Delhi 414 all out (Venkat
7/145, Siva 2/77). TN 298 all out (Maninder 3/82, Kirti Azad 3/55,
Rakesh Shukla 2/44). Delhi 2nd inns, 117 all out (Vasudevan 3/28,
LSivaramakrishnan 11.3-3-28-7 :-)
TN set 234 to win in 2nd innings.
>TESrini opens against the bowling of Madanlal who was fresh
> from an impressive performance against Eng (Calcutta/Kanpur?) but TE
> treats him like a club bowler and hits four exquisite fours in the
very
> first over! However, not much later he was out for a personal score
of
> about 20-25 (my memory is not what it used to be!). The way he had
the
> upper hand over the bowlers he could have scored whatever he wanted to
> but his temperament failed him. Incidentally TN couldn't meet the
> target, despite a valiant effort by P. Vijayakumar, and lost the
match.
>
TES lbw Shukla 20.
TN were all out 213, to lose by 20 runs. Maninder opened the bowling(!)
and took 5/80 in 31 overs.
TN were 144/8 chasing 234, then 192/9 and 209 all out (got 4 bonus runs
at the end, for slow overrate or whatever). P Vijayakumar 52* at end
(last man out, LSiva run out for 8).
Madan Lal had 7 overs, 2 for 40. But only 4 wickets fell to pace in the
entire match (Madan had 1/28 in 7 overs in the first innings, opening
the bowling with Mohinder Amarnath. And Bharath Kumar had 1/52 on the
first day for TN).
> All said and done this is my opinion about Bomaby vs Madras:
>
> (1) TN has not produced world class batsmen in the mold of SMG, DBV
and
> SRT; TESrini could have been another DBV if only he had more chances;
> (3) Since (1/1000)*SMG OR (1/10)*DBV OR (1/1000)*SRT [I am not
inclined
> to give better respect to DBV for two reasons: (a) of course he is
> inferior to SMG or SRT; and (b) I really think that TESrini could have
> easily achieved what DBV achieved]
Hum. The guy did end up with 17 test tons, and almost 7000 runs - and
averaged 50 over a full 10-year period, stretching over 90 test
matches. Surely if it was so easy to achieve what he's achieved, it
would have been done by lots of other folks by now?
Sadiq [ Delhi eliminated TN from Ranji Trophy in 82, 84 *and* 85.
So why does poor Bombay bear the brunt of rsc protest?:-)] Yusuf
samarth harish shah
> > I will be the first one to agree that TN hasn't produced nearly as
> many
> > great cricketers as Bombay or Karnataka. There are a bunch of
> reasons: (a)
> > the "paper score 25 syndrome"
>
> FYI, this is invalid when it comes to cricketers like VBC like you
> mentioned in a reply to Abhay Pande. VBC has only 1 score > 10. So 25
> paper score syndrome (he gets out when he reaches 25) is hardly an
> excuse you can offer for him.
Er... we're talking abt domestic cricket, here. He lacked the temperament
to grind it out and make big scores. Make 1000 runs in a Ranji season
which would put him in contention for the Indian team, for example. If you
do it time and again, you are likely to be picked time and again. And
hopefully, you will grab one of these opportunities. He wasn't the 1000
runs per season sort of batsman, and hence never got the opportunities.
His fault, of course.
<snip>
> >(c) the "split season" effect wherein the
> > NE monsoon disrupts TN's season mid-way, completely throwing the
> > cricketers out of their rhythm.
>
> Monsoons are there everywhere.
How much rain does Bombay receive on an average from the NE monsoon in the
months of October, November and December?
> > Given that, let's examine your list:
>
> I think you got the whole gist of the post wrong. By picking up a small
> subset of Mumbai cricketers to prove Mumbai cricketers are as bad as
> Chennai Cricketers, you are making me laugh. If you mean to say
> A small subset of(Mumbai) = Complete set of Chennai, I have no
> problems. I have picked the whole set of Chennai cricketers barring a
> few like TES etc about whom I have no clue. You have picked a small
> subset of crappy Mumbai cricketers to turn the whole thing. Very
> Convenient!
I am not at all trying to prove that Mumbai cricketers = Chennai
cricketers. I agree wholly with Karthik Sankaran that Mumbai's
contribution to Indian cricket > TN's contribution. The initial part of my
post was meant to convey that message.
I have been repeating time and again that it is not the Mumbai cricketers,
but the Mumbai supporters who make me frown. TN supporters can accept that
their players are crap. I have done so time and again in my post. Mumbai
cricketers can't accept their cricketers are crap. This rant of yours only
proves that. I asked you about your opinion of the likes of Ashok Mankad,
Nilesh Kulkarni, etc. and not once could you stand up and say, "yes, he is
crap". The point of my post is not that Mumbai cricketers are crap, it is
that *some* Mumbai supporters are crap. Biased, to the core. Will bash
people from other states, but can't utter a bad word about the (few)
crappy Mumbai players that are there.
To give you more evidence, you will find that I bashed Reuben Paul on RSC
and recommended that he not be chosen to play for India. Now, last Ranji
season, his performance as both batsman and keeper was superior to that of
Sameer Dighe. Yet, Sadiq Yusuf, at least until a couple of weeks back
thought Dighe was a candidate for the spot. Why should I bash Reuben Paul
when Mumbaikars can't accept Dighe (as of now, at least) is worse than
him? To hell with being fair and non-regionalistic! I want Reuben Paul in
the team. He is India's savior.
> Regarding Jaffer, he deserves a couple of tests. I liked what I saw in
> the only innings of his I saw, when he scored some 20 odd. Whats wrong
> with that? Before you ask me to give some time to Kumarans, I saw some
> of his ODIs. He has no pace at all. As is, now we see people asking for
> some Mahesh in the team. Even Chennaites have forgotten Kumaran.
That's because we're fair. We will not ask for Kumaran to be part of the
team unless he has some performance to back him up, which last year, he
did, hence all the support.
We saw Jaffer's performance and Dighe's performance in the team. The
Mumbaikars are *still* backing him up even though he has no performance.
Yeah, in your opinion Kumaran has no pace. In my opinion Dighe is a lousy
keeper and an even worse batsman. Your opinion and my opinion counts for
nought. Both have no performance (not even in domestics in the last 1
year) and hence both need to be out.
Chennaites will accept it about Kumaran but Sadiq will never accept that
Dighe doesn't deserve to be anywhere near the Indian team.
> opinion
> > or different?
>
>
> No clue about Ashok Mankad. Why dont you compare Raman to SRT or SMG or
> DBV or somebody else? With this "I am crap, but he is also crap, so its
> OK" mentality, you will never make any progress :-)
I am just trying to see if you will agree that Mankad was crap.
So far, I have only seen that *some* Mumbaikars are quick to call players
from other places crap. When it comes to Dighe, Jaffer, Mankad, Sandhu
(cf. Uday Rajan's post), even sane people like Sadiq and Uday are
desperately dredging up some excuse to defend the players.
Can't you stand up and say, "he is/was crap"?
> > > Thiru Kumaran [Crap]
> >
> > Agreed. So far, at least. No complaints. However, he did better than
> > Agarkar down under in the practice games. The only reason - ONLY
> reason -
> > why Aggy got picked ahead of him was because of Aggy's supposed
> batting
> > talent. (Hit 60+ against NSW, I think?)
> >
> > In the test matches, Aggy vindicated the captain's faith in his
> batting.
> > NOT!
>
> You mean the recent Aus series? Where Aggy took more wickets than
> Srinath [India's strike bowler] , Prasad [India's most intelligent
> bowler] and Kumble [INdia's best spinner]? Yeah Samarth, in case you
> dont remember Aggy took more wickets than all of Prasad, Srinath and
> Kumble in that series. I am sure his captain must have been really
> happy with his performance. As far as batting goes, where were the
> Dravids and Gangulys? AFAIK both were chosen by the captain for their
> batting alone. Did they vindicate the captain's faith in his batting.
> NOT! Atleast Aggy got one of his roles (3rd seamer) perfectly right.
I agree with all that you say, here, and I *do* remember what the bowling
averages were like in the series. However, can you be sure Kumaran
wouldn't have done as good a job? After all, he was much better in the
warm-up games! We will never know, of course, but what we do know is that
Kumaran out-performed Agarkar with the ball, yet Agarkar was picked for
his ability with the bat. And he made 19, 0, 0, 0, 0 and 0 with the bat.
<snip>
-Samarth.
Rocky Raccoon
> high-scoring game against SL at Kanpur (SL made 420). He took the wickets
> of Aravinda De Silva and Roy Dias, and that of Asanka Gurusinha in his
> next test.
Why was he dropped ?
Who replaced him ?
>
> BTW, what is Agarkar's test bowling average again? Oh, I forgot, he was
> picked as "all-rounder", so bowling average doesn't count that much!
>
> BTW, Arun also hit 149 in a Duleep Trophy final against West Zone (in
> other words, Bombay bowlers).
>
> Shiva, kaettu vaangikkiriyae!
Hey, I wasn't trying to say anything bad about him. I was just
trying to jog my memory. Truly.
cricke...@my-deja.com
Actually, I was mostly pointing out that it wasnt fair to compare
Madras wickets to *Kanga* ones - as Kanga wickets are always terrible,
it being the middle of the monsoons.
> I have seen the grounds & wickets at Chennai and Mumbai and I can
state
> unequivocally that Chennai grounds & wickets are miles ahead of
Mumbai.
> I have played at the Azad & Cross Maidans, seen cricket at the
> University Grounds, Shivaji Park, Wankhede, Brabourne et al, and they
> bear no comparison to Chennai. For instance, the IIT-Chemplast ground
> is used by the Indian team for their conditioning camp. It is a huge
> lush green ground with 4-5 turf wickets laid side by side. Each
wicket
> has been created differently so that they favour various kinds of
> bowlers. From green top to rolled mud. The ground itself is FLAT, very
> unlike the hills and crests of Mumbai grounds. Most league cricket in
> Chennai is played on test class conditions.
>
Dont disagree with some of what you say above - Bombay has a space
crunch in general anyway, and the outfields are often a mess at
Azad/Cross due to train commuters walking across them :-)
But, OTOH, Times Shield might be played at Wankhede and Brabourne -
which are both test grounds. Bombay Gym - another very well maintained
ground. Bombay's 3rd best ground at the moment (after Wankhede and
Brabourne) is actually MIG Sports Club in Bandra - a Ranji game will
apparently be held there later this year.
And, as far as the pitch goes, the best pitch in Bombay is reputedly at
the Elf-Vengsarkar Academy - at the Oval Maidan.
The best Times Shield cricket is usually played at these grounds - much
more than the Kanga's, which are played all over the place.
> --snip---
> >But overall, there is no such thing as a Mankad-
> > fan base in Bombay - even in the 70s, I think people were much more
> > into Gavaskar and Vengsarkar and Sardesai and Engineer (and even
> > Wadekar and Solkar etc - at least in 1971 :-)
> >
> > > <snip>
>
> I don't think there were very many Sardesai or Wadekar fans :-) SMG
> would be #1, SRT #2, DBV #3.
Surely there were some Wadekar fans in the early 70s? After those early
tours of WI and England? :-) They all went away quickly enough,
however :-)
>However, on his day, Sandeep Patil
> inspired the kind of fan following and loyalty that few players can
> attain in their lifetime.
Yep, I agree - but I was talking mostly of the 70s, in re Mankad. He
did spill over into the 80s too, I suppose. Patil, of course, was
around in the very late 70s too - I just think of him as an 80s guy
(and Mankad as a 70s guy) in my mind, no sure why :-)
And, BTW, if youre talking overall, I think you'll probably find more
SRT #1 people now, than SMG :-) Why, even Ramachandra Guha is convinced
of it now :-)
>I remember, Bombay playing Saurashtra in the
> 1984 Ranji's during my XI std. Saurashtra scored 349 ao in 96 overs.
> The next day, most of my batchmates at Mithibai college "bunked" class
> to have a dekko at Patil. And they were not disappointed.
>
> He scored 178 of the most audacious runs you can ever hope to see.
> Bombay got 365/4 decl in 57 overs. I repeat 57 overs. From CricInfo,
> here's a look at the bowling figures of Saurashtra;
>
> Bowling O M R W
> Keshwala 9 0 62 1
> Ghavri 7 0 50 0
> Parsana 18.2 2 86 3
> Joshi 12 0 79 0
> Patel 11 0 56 0
>
> There were 15,000 people at the Wankhede stadium. This, on a weekday
> when Bombay was not playing Kar, Delhi or any of the big teams. I can
> assure you that almost all the 15,000 cricket fanatics had come to see
> a Patil massacre & he fulfilled their wish. On his day, Patil was
> awesome and remains one of my favorite batsman.
>
Yes, Ranjis unfortunately dont draw anything like that anymore. No
domestic matches do, actually - too many ODIs are responsible for it,
to a large extent. The Ranji semis and finals did draw about 20,000
last year - but that was *with* SRT and Kambli playing.
The batting is rarely like that too, I suppose :-) The similar
occasions might have been Bombay scoring 409 in 87 overs last year in
the Ranji finals. Or scoring 513 in 89 overs vs Punjab in the Ranji
finals a few years ago. Both pretty explosive days. (In the Punjab
game, Ashish Kapoor, who was actually in the Indian ODI XI at the time,
bowled 26.4 overs at the Bombay batsmen, claiming 1 wicket for 180
runs :-)
> Take a look at CI for the Ranji stats of Bombay during that period and
> check out the performances of stars like RJS, SMG and DBV. You've got
> to admire their commitment to Ranjis. The tradition continues with
SRT,
> Kambli, Kuruvilla and co whenever they've been available.
>
Yes it has, luckily. The Board must still do much more to make sure it
happens around the country, though.
Sadiq [ full-strength domestics are the only solution ] Yusuf
Uday Rajan
> .. Mankad was mostly known in Bombay for
> being a Ranji king who didnt do any justice to himself in tests
OK, I agree with this sentence.
> - most
> fans only remember him today for a *very* astute cricketing mind.
...and this one.
> But overall, there is no such thing as a Mankad-
> fan base in Bombay
What's with this thread, it seems to be open season on all my
favourite players here. No such thing as a Mankad-fan base in Bombay indeed!
The man won the Ranji Trophy for Bombay in '75-76, practically
single-handedly, and yet you youngsters who weren't around then claim there
is no such thing as a Mankad-fan base! TN has cause to dislike him for sure;
in the knockouts that year (I think it was the QF), Bombay were behind on
the first innings, Mankad hit a quickfire century, declared, and inspired
Abdul Ismail to bowl TN out for the outright win, with little time left on
the last day.
So what if he was a Ranji king? When did that preclude anyone from
having a fan base?
> - even in the 70s, I think people were much more
> into Gavaskar and Vengsarkar and Sardesai and Engineer (and even
> Wadekar and Solkar etc - at least in 1971 :-)
Eh? We loved them all. And why not? Gavaskar, to some extent, is
beyond comparison; Bombay has never produced a better Test batsman (no, not
even SRT. In terms of strokeplay, Tendulkar is the best Indian batsman I
have ever seen, but Gavaskar had a better temperament). Vengsarkar was quite
a newbie in the '70s, didn't really come of age until the late '70s or the
'80s. Sardesai...decent bat, reputed to be the best player of spin in the
country for a brief while (a mantle passed on to the much-maligned Mankad,
and then Gavaskar, and then...er, it appears, Sidhu). Basically a 30-ish
average bat in Tests, batted out of his mind on the WI tour of 1971, boosted
it by almost 10 runs. And the ebullient Engineer, it was impossible to not
love. Unless you were his partner at the wickets, I suppose. Engineer was a
Brylcreem man, like Denis Compton before him (something about Brylcreem;
their cricketing endorsements generally came from colourful players; e.g.
Compton and Miller). Unfortunately, he also seemed to have gone to the Denis
Compton school of running between the wickets. I remember watching a
Bombay-Maharashtra match in ...around 1970-71, I think, it may have been
1971-72. Bombay actually gave up the first innings lead to Borde and
Maharashtra. Engineer ran out Solkar, most egregiously, and the crowd
actually hissed and booed for a little while. But in the next over, he found
the boundary a couple of times with some marvellously inventive strokes, the
big smile was back on his face, and you couldn't be angry at him any longer.
As for Solkar athleticism at short-leg was unbelievable. Limited talent
batting wise, but he played his heart out.
Anyway, I'm not sure what started this ramble, but don't you young
fellows go about mocking my Mankads and Solkars and Engineers.
The following excerpt is from Samarth:
> > There's an interesting story about Sekhar bowling as a net-bowler to
> the
> > 1983-4 West Indies batsmen before the Madras test. Basically, Sekhar
> and
> > other TN "pace" bowlers bowled all morning to the main batsmen in the
> > nets. Finally, they got tired, and the West Indian tail-enders came to
> > bat. The coach in charge of the nets (Mr. PK Dharmalingam) walked up
> to
> > the West Indian manager (don't know who it was) and asked, "the boys
> are
> > tired, can they bowl spin?"
> >
> > The West Indian manager replied, "what were they doing all this while,
> > then?"
Nice story. The West Indian manager may even have said it, but he
was a good-humored bloke. One of the few fast bowlers ever described as
"genial". Wes Hall, it was. Whom Ravi Chaturvedi on Doordarshan insisted on
calling "Wezall". What between Salim Durani referring to "Marshall Malcolms"
and "Rojus Binny", and Ravi Chaturvedi to "Wezall", that was quite a tour
for Doordarshan.
> Sadiq [ the old Madan Lal = fast offspinner theory ] Yusuf
I remember listening to Tony Cozier at the start of the first day of
the first Test of the Ind in WI 1982-83 series. Kapil bowled the first over.
Then Balvinder Sandhu, he who flighted the new ball, comes in to ball.
Cozier goes "And here is Sandhu, to Haynes, ...and Haynes is a little beaten
by that one!" Slight pause, then, having found the tactful way to express
it, he continues, "I think Haynes expected that to come on to him a little
quicker."
Topgun
> > Very wrong way of looking at it. That should be, "best from TN
played
> > for india and also best didn't play. the best who didn't play might
> > have been better than the best who played". :-)
What about the players that did play? Did even one of them equal the
deeds of any good Mumbai player? If there are 10 good apples from
Kashmir and 2 good apples from Himachal, then the 2 good apples
from Himachal should be as good to taste as the 10 good apples
from Kashmir,right? Why talk about if 8 more apples had been
bought from Himachal when the talk is all about the 2 apples from
Himachal??!!!!
> Sounds very similiar to Shantanu/Shridhar's argument that had
Kuruvilla
> been taken at the right time, he would have been better than Malcomm
> Marshall.
Correction. I've been misquoted here :-). All this talk about Kuruvilla
equal to Marshall was started by Cynic before you came in rsc, Rocky.
When he had asked in a related thread whether Kuruvilla was quicker than
Marshall, i had replied back that he probably could have been as you
never know what his speed in '92-93 was. I never compared Kuruvilla's
abilities to Marshall, its just that Cynic has this tendency of giving
tags(by the name of famous quick bowlers) to Mumbai bowlers.
-Tops
--
"B'less Bondanath-can't even decide whether to quit the game or
not--what to say of bowling yorkers"
giris...@my-deja.com
Rocky Raccoon <rro...@bigfoot.com> wrote:
> > Crap players come from each zone but we are talking about the
number of
> > good players from Chennai here in case you have forgotten.
>
The point my dear mumbaikar, is that because of the admittedly large
number of competent to great batsmen that Mumbai has produced, Mumbai
succeeds in seeing even its crap players play for the country.
The mumbai press (TIMES OF INDIA, cough , cough) and former players
(Ravi Shastri, Dilip Vensarkar) praise and recommend raddi-chap players
and succeed in brainwashing the selectors.
Other regions do not have this advantage
.
samarth harish shah
> In article <Pine.GSO.4.10.100101...@ux7.cso.uiuc.edu>,
> samarth harish shah <shs...@students.uiuc.edu> wrote:
> > On Thu, 19 Oct 2000 cricke...@my-deja.com wrote:
> >
> > <snip>
> >
> > > (b) worst politics - second only to DDCA in
> > > > this respect in whole of India
> > >
>
> >
> > You might not believe it, but there's also a lot of caste politics!
> Or so
> > some people would make you believe.
>
> Well, just because some people believe it doesnt make it true, no? :-)
Well, I haven't experienced it myself.
However, I can *see* what is going on, can't I? For example, T.
Lakshmanamoorthy was left out of the state under-16 side, and he alleged
it was because he was from a lower caste. It resulted in an ugly scene
when either he or someone he knew punched a fist through the glass
window of notice board in the TNCA office at the MAC where the team was
put up and ripped up the team list pinned to the board.
(Such news travels really fast and really far, which is why I come to
know. :-))
> Most of the Pakistani cabbies I used to watch cricket with during the
> India/Pakistan series last year were all totally convinced that there
> was serious religious bias in India that prevented good Muslim
> cricketers from making the national side - which, they said, was a
> major reason for India doing so poorly. Of course, when you actually
> follow Ranjis, you know that isnt true - that no Muslim player had the
> domestic performances to earn a spot in the side a year ago, and few
> did even well enough to be contenders. That has changed lately - Kaif,
> Jaffer and Zaheer are all contenders now - but thats due to
> performances, not due to change in religion-politics :-)
>
> So do you think there is really caste politics in TN? And if so, do you
> think its of the "discrimination" or the "quota" kind? And of a major
> level?
Mostly of the discrimination kind. Frankly, most of the stories I have
heard have no merit, whatsoever. It's just a bunch of people cribbing. But
then, sometimes it is very credible people who are alleging it and it is
difficult to think they're just plain jealous.
I don't remember clearly now, but I do remember thinking then that
Lakshmanamoorthy did have a case. His keeping had improved a lot and one
of his lowest scores that season was 40-something against us!
Now, you can never tell, because I think today that Karim had a much
better case AFA the Indian team goes than L'moorthy ever had w.r.t. the TN
state side. Yet, not many people agree with me!
> >(You really can't tell whether the
> > selector is biased or incompetent or whether he really saw a spark in
> a
> > player; you can only guess. For example, I don't see how Dahiya got
> into
> > the team because Paul was the favorite and Ratra was supposed to be
> second
> > choice! I could attribute it to Madan Lal's regionalistic bias, but I
> > can't be sure of it. Similarly, some selections *might* look biased,
> but
> > you can't tell for sure.)
> >
>
>
> Well, Dahiya made it because he had the best performances over the past
> 3/4 years :-) Paul was the favourite - of the media, which knows
> nothing about this stuff anyway (remember, this is the media that asked
> Dahiya "why were you dropped by Delhi last year?", when he had never
> been dropped at all :-) And Ratra couldnt be picked, IMHO - he is a
> very good keeping prospect, but he has never shown he could bat, even
> at domestic level (or u19 level). Dahiya might have had a weak season
> with the bat last year, but at least he has shown his batting ability
> in the domestics in the past. Ratra hasnt, yet (mostly due to being
> very young).
>
> But I agree - you cant tell for sure if there is bias. But you can
> often make a good guess.
Which is all I'm doing. Making a guess based on what I can tell and what
other credible people are saying. A team-mate of mine, Joseph Daniel,
wasn't picked and there were a bunch of people saying that it was because
of caste-politics, what with him being a Protestant Christian (read: the
completely unrepresented kind).
It was plainly obvious to everyone, including me, that he should've been
there. But I think those alleging caste politics were barking up the wrong
tree. I think it had more to do with the fact that Joe D. didn't have a
"father figure" in the upper echelons of the TNCA and his own father, a
simple man, was unwilling to lick people's boots to get his son selected.
As it happened, he made a couple more 100s when the TN team was on tour
and was immediately picked for the rest of the season.
> Not unusual in most parts of India, I think - most big cities, at any
> rate. The Shardashram-Anjuman battles in Bombay used to be legendary,
> with very hard cricket being played (and yes, tons of sledging too :-)
> Even Shardashram-St Marys used to be really rough - I remember the Mary-
> ians tearing down the tents in celebration when Tendulkar was dismissed
> in the Giles Trophy final, many years ago :-)
>
> Many of those Shardashram boys have gone on to big things at the state
> level. Fewer of the Anjuman boys have, but there have been the odd
> ones - Iqbal Khan and Wasim Jaffer, to name two.
Exactly same with DB/Santhome. Santhome produced Sharath, Ramesh, Sriram,
Ravindran John, Hemang Badani, Kumaran, Mahesh, etc. which reads like a
whos who of TN cricket at the moment. DB was only one step behind - WD
Balaji Rao, Anand George, Siddharth and Satyajit Medappa are all
ex-DBians. The strangest case of the lot is Tanveer Jabbar, who turned out
for DB and then moved to Santhome.
There are so many stories about Tanveer Jabbar that one can write a book
on him alone. The reasons why he along with Raghuram Das left DB
(breaking an awesome opening bowling pair of Rohit Mahendra and Raghuram
Das), his fights with the authorities at Santhome, his turning up for
matches with toothpaste dripping from his mouth... If he bought a new bat,
it was news in Madras. He was the first person in Madras to buy a Symonds
Supersonic and the news spread like wildfire. One of the first times he
used the bat was against us and the moment he hit a straight six,
everyone was, "ah, what a bat. He patted the ball and it's flown out of
the ground" :-). No other bat was hyped in Madras as much as the
Supersonic (perhaps the SG "Sunny Gold" when it came out) and no other bat
flopped as spectacularly as the Symonds Supersonic.
<snip>
> > See other post. This Buchi Babu Trophy, etc. are in part 1 of the
> season.
> > There is no such thing to get the TN players prepared for part 2
> (i.e. the
> > knock-out part) of the season!
> >
> > If you need evidence on the NE monsoon affecting TN cricket, you just
> have
> > to look up old Ranji score-cards. You will find literally DOZENS of
> home
> > games at the MAC affected by rain, abandoned after one session of
> play,
> > etc., etc. Even away games are played by badly out-of-practice
> players.
> >
>
> Well, TN players are v well prepared for the start of the season. And
> that continues till what, late November/early December? And then they
Mid-October. In all my years in Madras, there have probably been less than
a handful during it has *not* rained on Diwali day. :-) You will currently
find a cyclone off the eastern coast of India - the first of the year and
the start of the NE monsoon, which basically is just a bunch of cyclones.
(Basically, the SW monsoon winds "relieve" themselves over the rest of
India and then reflect off the Himalayas towards the Bay of Bengal. They
pick up moisture from there and hit the eastern coast with full fury
between mid-October and mid-December.)
> sometimes travel for Duleeps etc, and play Ranji knock-outs in January
Yeah, but that really isn't practice is it? When you're touring, you're
playing with the game in mind, trying to get used to conditions in the
foreign location. You're not at the nets with your coach at hand sorting
out technical issues and the like.
In any case, you travel to a game about 24 hours in advance and you get
one practice before the game, maybe two. Then, you return to Madras. Your
next game is a week later. In that one week, you twiddle your thumbs as
you watch the rain falling in your backyard.
> or so? Yes the monsoons affect them - but the state players often get
> to play somewhere or the other, no? But its true, we dont have anything
Where? Everyone comes to Madras to play! The Madras cricketers don't go to
Bangalore or Hyderabad to play league cricket! Forget league cricket,
there are no net sessions. You cannot practice 5 days at a stretch. Just
look at the Ranji score-cards from the past years and you will realize.
Also, you will notice that traditionally, the Madras test has always been
played in January - even though a 5-test series in India starts in
Oct./Nov. This is because Oct./Nov. is prime monsoon season. (Think Bombay
in July.) Against NZ in 1995-6, a game was scheduled in October in Madras.
4 days were washed out. During the Reliance Cup in 1987, there were severe
rains a week before the match and then immediately after. Luckily, the
India-Australia match survived.
(The east coast *was* hit by a storm that year, though, which hit the
coast near Orissa and went further inland to MP. The Australia vs NZ
Indore match was affected by rain and reduced to 30-overs-a-side. On the
previous day, the ground was under 6 inches of water and it was deemed
impossible to play a game the next day.)
<snip>
-Samarth.
samarth harish shah
> "Prasad, Dipak [NC1:3H16:EXCH]" wrote:
> > As far as TN bowlers are concerned, how come no one has mentioned (and I
> > shudder) Bharathi Arun
>
> Was this the same fat guy who fell down while bowling his first
> delivery for India ?
Yeah, but he averaged 29 as a bowler in his 2 tests. Took 3/76 in a
high-scoring game against SL at Kanpur (SL made 420). He took the wickets
of Aravinda De Silva and Roy Dias, and that of Asanka Gurusinha in his
next test.
BTW, what is Agarkar's test bowling average again? Oh, I forgot, he was
picked as "all-rounder", so bowling average doesn't count that much!
BTW, Arun also hit 149 in a Duleep Trophy final against West Zone (in
other words, Bombay bowlers).
Shiva, kaettu vaangikkiriyae!
-Samarth.
Arjun Pandit
giris...@my-deja.com wrote:
> In article <39EF1D9C...@bigfoot.com>,
> Rocky Raccoon <rro...@bigfoot.com> wrote:
> > > Crap players come from each zone but we are talking about the
> number of
> > > good players from Chennai here in case you have forgotten.
> >
> > Point, again.
>
> The point my dear mumbaikar,
The point my dear chennaite brother is that you have got it all wrong.
> is that because of the admittedly large
> number of competent to great batsmen that Mumbai has produced, Mumbai
> succeeds in seeing even its crap players play for the country.
> The mumbai press (TIMES OF INDIA, cough , cough)
TOI has citywise editions in case you didnt know. Bangalore TOI makes a
case for Dodda Ganeshs while Madras TOI makes a case from Sridharan
Srirams. Mumbai TOI circulation is limited to Maharashtra and maybe
Gujarat. TOI is hardly biased, it publishes what local people relate to
and of course different zonal selectors read different editions of TOI.
So it could hardly be of any influence.
> and former players
> (Ravi Shastri, Dilip Vensarkar) praise and recommend raddi-chap
players
> and succeed in brainwashing the selectors.
Funny. The only players I have heard RS praising are Sodhi, Ratra and
Zaheer (he has now made it into the team) and neither of them are
Mumbaikars ( apart from Zaheer, who is as good as Mumbaikar :-) ). I
havent read DBV in a while, so I dont know about him. And if you also
include SMG, SMG cant make a case for his own son (possibly he never
tried). WHat to talk of Mumbai cricketers.
> Other regions do not have this advantage
*Sob* *Sob*
Regards,
--
vande sri ramanarser-acaryasya padabjam,
yo me'darsayad-isam bhantam dhvantam atitya
S Jagadish
> set POSTER=shantanu;export POSTER
> Give me one Venkat over 1000 gutterchap batatavada eating Vinoo Mankad
> and Subhash Gupte who could not help india win one match abroad.
> unset POSTER;
you forget [in case no-one has mentioned]
Give me one Cheeka over all these flat wicket bullies who've never
been part of a World Cup winning side.
i'm sure the logic sounds warped ... then again that is a Shantanu Desai
special Dosai
jagadish
S Jagadish
> Sadiq [ who thinks Bombay Colts should play Buchi Babu oftener] Yusuf
and get exposed for their inability to play spin ? naaah :-)
S Jagadish
> TOI has citywise editions in case you didnt know. Bangalore TOI makes
> a case for Dodda Ganeshs while Madras TOI makes a case from Sridharan
> Srirams. Mumbai TOI circulation is limited to Maharashtra and maybe
> Gujarat.
sorry to nitpick. chennai doesnt have TOI edition ... as of now at
least.
so *THERE'S* the reason !
jagadish
Mike Holmans
opine:
> [I am not
>inclined
>> to give better respect to DBV for two reasons: (a) of course he is
>> inferior to SMG or SRT; and (b) I really think that TESrini could have
>> easily achieved what DBV achieved]
>
>Hum. The guy did end up with 17 test tons, and almost 7000 runs - and
>averaged 50 over a full 10-year period, stretching over 90 test
>matches. Surely if it was so easy to achieve what he's achieved, it
>would have been done by lots of other folks by now?
I saw one of those Test tons, against England at Headingley. A very
good innings it was too - played on the sort of pitch Headingley was
superb for in the 80s. Almost impossible to play aggressively on,
oodles of help for the bowlers, but just slow enough that a batsman
who was really prepared to get his head down and graft for several
hours could make runs. His 102* in the second innings (following 61 in
the first) was as much as the whole England team had managed in their
first innings.
OK, he wasn't Gavaskar, and he didn't have the shots of a Vishy or an
Azhar, let alone a Tendulkar, but I've never understood why so many
Indians have a big downer on him, because he was a very good bat of
the second rank. Larry Gomes was the same for WI at the time.
Cheers,
Mike
--
1969 - most recent previous England series win over WI
1966 - most recent previous England innings victory over WI
1957 - most recent previous series v WI in which England won three matches
Will the same lengths of time have to pass before these things recur?
The Cynic
> OK, he wasn't Gavaskar, and he didn't have the shots of a Vishy or an
> Azhar, let alone a Tendulkar, but I've never understood why so many
> Indians have a big downer on him, because he was a very good bat of
> the second rank. Larry Gomes was the same for WI at the time.
DBV was the epitome of mediocre player. His career record, minus those
16 tests from Eng 1986 to WI 1987-88 [ 13 of which in India ] stands:
100 tests - Avg 35.xx - 9 100s.
Those 16 tests
16 tests - Avg 102.xx - 8 100s (wow)
Total career
116 tets - Avg 42.xx - 17 100s.
Very impressive. He was as much a second rank to SMG/SRT as apple is
to Windows in the desktop market :-)
Mr. C-
giris...@my-deja.com
Arjun Pandit <arjun...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>
> The point my dear chennaite brother is that you have got it all wrong.
So every mumbai player deserved his place in the side?
Including the likes of Samir Dighe, Nilesh Kulkarni, Mhambrey,
Sairaj Battavade,...
> TOI has citywise editions in case you didnt know. Bangalore TOI makes
Bullshit. The sports deparment is based in TOI's HQ which is in
(wait for it) Mumbai.
> case for Dodda Ganeshs while Madras TOI makes a case from Sridharan
> Sriram
> TOI is hardly biased, it publishes what local people relate to
ROTFLMAO. What crap do you think TOI shovels on us here in Bangalore?
> Funny. The only players I have heard RS praising are Sodhi, Ratra and
Funny. The leopard has changed his spots. Maybe he realised the harm
he was doing to his reputation by (as RK says) 'pimping' for the
likes of Amol Mazumdar, Samir Dighe, Nilesh Kulkarni &c.
> include SMG, SMG cant make a case for his own son (possibly he never
> tried). WHat to talk of Mumbai cricketers.
I DID NOT include SMG. He does not talk like a MCP. (M is for u know
what) He knows that his word carries weight and therefore does not
recommend ANYONE.
> > Other regions do not have this advantage
>
> *Sob* *Sob*
HEE HEE. As a kannadiga, we have recently started reaping
similiar benefits. About time too.
Mike Holmans
decided to opine:
>pos...@jackalope.demon.co.uk (Mike Holmans) wrote:
>
>> OK, he wasn't Gavaskar, and he didn't have the shots of a Vishy or an
>> Azhar, let alone a Tendulkar, but I've never understood why so many
>> Indians have a big downer on him, because he was a very good bat of
>> the second rank. Larry Gomes was the same for WI at the time.
>
>DBV was the epitome of mediocre player. His career record, minus those
>16 tests from Eng 1986 to WI 1987-88 [ 13 of which in India ] stands:
>
>100 tests - Avg 35.xx - 9 100s.
>Those 16 tests
>16 tests - Avg 102.xx - 8 100s (wow)
>
>Total career
>116 tets - Avg 42.xx - 17 100s.
>
>Very impressive.
I'm impressed, even if you aren't. 17 Test centuries is not bad at
all. Vengsarkar's stats are pretty similar, in fact slightly superior,
to Alec Stewart's. Even allowing for some runfests on easier Asian
pitches, you're not going to convince me he was "mediocre".
>He was as much a second rank to SMG/SRT as apple is
>to Windows in the desktop market :-)
Depends rather what you mean by "second rank". What I meant was
someone who's likely to be a regular in a Test side without being a
big star.
The Cynic
> I'm impressed, even if you aren't. 17 Test centuries is not bad at
> all. Vengsarkar's stats are pretty similar, in fact slightly superior,
> to Alec Stewart's. Even allowing for some runfests on easier Asian
> pitches, you're not going to convince me he was "mediocre".
actually I also don't think he was mediocre. He was just lucky to get
chances on and on in his initial years. But the real reason for bashing
is explained in 3 SQL statements. As u are also a DBA, I hope things
will be crystal to you after reading SQL statements.
1. SELECT PLAYER_SHORT_ID
FROM BATSMEN
WHERE PLAYER_COUNTRY_ID = "INDIA"
AND PLAYER_CLASS = "GOOD"
the output was:-
PLAYER_SHORT_ID
---------------
DBV
MAA
[ snipped other players for brevity ]
2. SELECT CITY_NAME,COUNT(*) NO_OF_BASHERS
FROM RSC_POSTERS
WHERE RSC_POSTERS_COUNTRY_ID = "INDIA"
AND PLAYER_SHORT_ID = 'MAA'
GROUP BY 1
the output was:-
CITY_NAME NO_OF_BASHERS
DELHI 3
CHENNAI 5
CALCUTTA 2
MUMBAI 1000
[ other cities deleted for brevity ]
3. this SQL is to shut up the likes of Shantanu
SELECT PLAYER_SHORT_ID,NO_OF_MATCHES_WON_OUTSIDE_ASIA
FROM BATSMEN
WHERE PLAYER_COUNTRY_ID = "India"
AND PLAYER_SHORT_ID in ('SRT','MAA','DBV')
the output was:-
PLAYER_SHORT_ID NO_OF_MATCHES_WON_OUTSIDE_ASIA
SRT 0 (he he he)
MAA 0
DBV 2
(he he he) was added by me. The database server didn't return that.
regards.
RK-
asi...@my-deja.com
> TOI has citywise editions in case you didnt know. Bangalore TOI makes
a
> case for Dodda Ganeshs while Madras TOI makes a case from Sridharan
> Srirams. Mumbai TOI circulation is limited to Maharashtra and maybe
> Gujarat. TOI is hardly biased, it publishes what local people relate
to
> and of course different zonal selectors read different editions of
TOI.
> So it could hardly be of any influence.
>
I shudder to think that TOI has any influence on the selection. Most of
what the journos of TOI write are a bunch of nonsense. None more so
than the champion of the Times Shield, the late Sundar Rajan, whose
column was published in *all* editions of TOI, across the country. You
really have to read Rajan to know what the word *partisan* really
means. I am a die hard fan of Mumbai cricket, but the fact remains that
the Bombay sports journos (Rajan, Srivatsa, Magazine, Waigankar etc)
are partisan. Having said that, I must commend former cricketers from
Mumbai RJS and SMG for appreciating talent regardless of the regions
that they come from. DBV is a far different story. If you had it his
way, the Indian XI would be the Mumbai XI :-).
This is not to say that journos from other regions are non-partisan. R.
Mohan used to root for Diwakar Vasu for 4 years :-) The Deccan Herald
journo would plug Bangalore players. The less said about Cal and Delhi
journos, the better. :-)
Imho, I rate 'The Hindu' during the R. Mohan days as the best of the
miserable lot in terms of covering cricket.
Incidentally, Bangalore TOI doesn't have a local journo. The Mumbai
journos write national columns, if I'm not mistaken. The supplement of
TOI (the trash rags) called "Saturday Times, Monday Times" etc usually
cover the most good looking/scandalous guy :-) " Spotted X at a party
thrown by Y where he was dressed so-cool, in an Armani outfit. Ooh,
Aah, Kiddies, you should've been there".
*sigh*, TOI is not what it used to be in the 70's :-)
Cheers
Arun
samarth harish shah
> samarth harish shah wrote:
> >
> > On Thu, 19 Oct 2000, Rocky Raccoon wrote:
> >
> > > "Prasad, Dipak [NC1:3H16:EXCH]" wrote:
> > > > As far as TN bowlers are concerned, how come no one has mentioned (and I
> > > > shudder) Bharathi Arun
> > >
> > > Was this the same fat guy who fell down while bowling his first
> > > delivery for India ?
> >
> > Yeah, but he averaged 29 as a bowler in his 2 tests. Took 3/76 in a
> > high-scoring game against SL at Kanpur (SL made 420). He took the wickets
> > of Aravinda De Silva and Roy Dias, and that of Asanka Gurusinha in his
> > next test.
>
> Why was he dropped ?
> Who replaced him ?
He played the first two tests against SL at Kanpur and Nagpur. The 3rd
test was at Cuttack on a total spin-trap. (If you threw a straight ball,
it would turn.) Kapil got his 300th wicket in this test and we won largely
due to a magnificent 166 from DBV, who later refused his MoS award because
he was pissed that Kapil got the MoM award. (Kapil did little of note,
except taking his 300th wicket, whilst DBV played the match-winning
knock.)
Anyways, Bharathi Arun was dropped for this test, presumably because it
was a square turner of a wicket, not suited to his medium pace.
Next month, Pakistan toured India. In the first test, Raju Kulkarni was
picked (he had made his debut against Australia about 3 months back) as
the opening partner for Kapil Dev. Arun never played a test again.
BTW, Raju Kulkarni ended up with a test bowling average of 46 and he never
had any batting talent whatsoever, whilst Arun actually had 149 in a
Duleep final against West Zone.
No prizes for guessing, however, as to who gets bashed more on RSC. "Fat"
guy who "stumbled" on his approach to the wicket on his debut, eh? Well,
he returned better test figures than the "thin" guy who did not stumble on
his approach to the wicket.
No prizes for guessing *why* the anomaly in bashing, either. Kaun kahaan
ka hain, tum hi dekh lo. Bharathi Arun was crap. Now, let's see a Bombay
man say the same about Kulkarni.
-Samarth.
Rocky Raccoon
> No prizes for guessing, however, as to who gets bashed more on RSC. "Fat"
> guy who "stumbled" on his approach to the wicket on his debut, eh? Well,
> he returned better test figures than the "thin" guy who did not stumble on
> his approach to the wicket.
>
> No prizes for guessing *why* the anomaly in bashing, either. Kaun kahaan
> ka hain, tum hi dekh lo. Bharathi Arun was crap. Now, let's see a Bombay
> man say the same about Kulkarni.
Samarth,
I think you are reading too much into my post here.
I never said Bharathi Arun was crap. And I was trying to jog my
memory when I said fat/fell. I made no comments whatsoever about
his bowling.
And Raju Kulkarni was pure crap, no two ways about it.
cricke...@my-deja.com
asi...@my-deja.com wrote:
> In article <8soq6t$goa$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> Arjun Pandit <arjun...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>
> > TOI has citywise editions in case you didnt know. Bangalore TOI
makes
> a
> > case for Dodda Ganeshs while Madras TOI makes a case from Sridharan
> > Srirams. Mumbai TOI circulation is limited to Maharashtra and maybe
> > Gujarat. TOI is hardly biased, it publishes what local people relate
> to
> > and of course different zonal selectors read different editions of
> TOI.
> > So it could hardly be of any influence.
> >
>
> I shudder to think that TOI has any influence on the selection. Most
of
> what the journos of TOI write are a bunch of nonsense.
They all write nonsense, mostly :-) We have a very poor crop of
cricketing journalists lately. I personally thought very little of the
ones in the 70s and 80s anyway, but the ones today might be worse :-)
> None more so
> than the champion of the Times Shield, the late Sundar Rajan, whose
> column was published in *all* editions of TOI, across the country. You
> really have to read Rajan to know what the word *partisan* really
> means.
I agree mostly about Rajan - sometimes didnt bother to read him,
because I didnt think he knew that much about the game anyway. One of
those guys who went with the "prevailing view" of the time, usually.
>I am a die hard fan of Mumbai cricket, but the fact remains that
> the Bombay sports journos (Rajan, Srivatsa, Magazine, Waigankar etc)
> are partisan.
I dont quite agree here - in fact, I believe Srivatsa and Magazine are
both *Delhi-ites* :-) They are also based out of Delhi, if Iam not
mistaken. And I havent read very much of Makarand Waigankar lately at
all - hardly ever see anything by him of late.
Do you mean Pradeep Vijaykar by any chance? I think he at least knows
some cricket, even if he isnt great.
>Having said that, I must commend former cricketers from
> Mumbai RJS and SMG for appreciating talent regardless of the regions
> that they come from. DBV is a far different story. If you had it his
> way, the Indian XI would be the Mumbai XI :-).
>
Again I disagree, in re DBV. Over the past couple of years at least, I
dont remember a single Bombay player he has had good words for (few old
Bombay hands have good words for their players when they dont win the
Ranjis, usually :-) OTOH, his eye for talent is very good - he was the
first person who ever said anything publicly about Yuvraj, and that was
when Yuvraj was 14 (a full 4 years ago!). Too many people have a
tendency to dismiss what he says, and end up being proven wrong. Like
when DBV said he watched the BPXI-WI-A game in Bombay, and found
Bharadwaj backing away vs Reon King - everyone dismissed it, and found
out the hard way in Australia that it was true (I talked to 4 or 5
friends who were at that WI-A game, BTW, on my last trip back - and
they all said exactly that, that Bharadwaj had looked poor against
King. In fact, a couple of them had not even known who the batsman was,
who was looking so bad vs King - they just wrote down the batting
position and runs scored, and looked at the paper the next morning to
find out :-)
> This is not to say that journos from other regions are non-partisan.
R.
> Mohan used to root for Diwakar Vasu for 4 years :-) The Deccan Herald
> journo would plug Bangalore players. The less said about Cal and Delhi
> journos, the better. :-)
>
> Imho, I rate 'The Hindu' during the R. Mohan days as the best of the
> miserable lot in terms of covering cricket.
>
You already *have* said something about Delhi journos - albiet
unwittingly :-) As for the R Mohan thing - I suppose Iam the last
person left alive who disagrees, but there it is :-)
Also, BTW, it is true that R Mohan had more influence on selection than
maybe any other journalist *anywhere* - in the early 80s, the Chairman
of selectors once told him to watch for a couple of players during a
Duleep match he was reporting on, and to let them know if they were
good enough for test cricket, since the selectors werent going to be
watching :-)
> Incidentally, Bangalore TOI doesn't have a local journo. The Mumbai
> journos write national columns, if I'm not mistaken. The supplement of
> TOI (the trash rags) called "Saturday Times, Monday Times" etc usually
> cover the most good looking/scandalous guy :-) " Spotted X at a party
> thrown by Y where he was dressed so-cool, in an Armani outfit. Ooh,
> Aah, Kiddies, you should've been there".
>
> *sigh*, TOI is not what it used to be in the 70's :-)
>
No it isnt - but then who is? I dont think there is a purely news
source left now.
And Iam not totally against the "Saturday/Monday Times" idea anyway -
they often have good restaurant reviews and the like, which prove very
useful to me :-)
Sadiq [ who doesnt care for any of them, much ] Yusuf
> Cheers
> Arun
Rocky Raccoon
> And Iam not totally against the "Saturday/Monday Times" idea anyway -
> they often have good restaurant reviews and the like, which prove very
> useful to me :-)
They also used to have something like "10 thing Sunil Shetty likes &
dislikes most about Bombay", Aishwarya Rai etc
which used to be truly painful.
One of the funniest section I have read used to be the "Pune Plus"
supplement to the TOI in Bombay.
Headlines with 1/2 page story used to be "Moped Driver hits Cow on
Kothrud".
Rocky Raccoon
Rethinking that no Mumpai player can really be crap [ :-) ], I went back
& checked
Raju Kulkarni's record. Guess what I found.
3 test matches.
No.1 Vs Aus at Bombay
1st Inning
R.R.Kulkarni 23 2 85 3 (Got both openers Boon & Marsh)
Kapil Dev 6 1 16 0 (The other pace bowler in the match)
2nd Inning
RRK 6 0 29 0
KD 6 1 24 0
No.2 Vs Pak at Madras.
1st inning
Kapil Dev 18 1 68 0
R.R.Kulkarni 7 0 41 1
2nd inning
KD 9 1 36 0
RRK 5 0 15 1
No.3 Vs Pak at calcutta
1st Inning
Kapil Dev 29 5 88 2
R.R.Kulkarni 13 1 38 0
2nd Inning
KD 19 7 41 1
RRK 7 2 19 0
So. In these 3 matches RK took 5 wickets, as compared to Kapil Dev who
took 3 wickets.
Now going on to ODI's.
10 matches.
Was the best pacer for India in the first match where not much wickets
well.
Has 2-28 in the 2nd one off 9 overs.
Was the best pacer again with 3-42 in the 5th match.
Was again the best pacer with 1-31 in the 6th.
Was the best pacer with 2-57 in the 7th.
2 things come out of this.
a) Conspiracy theory : Did Kapil the captain edge him out of the team
because of how
RK performed better than him in most of the matches. Seeing Kapil in the
recent Aus Series
not very unbelievable.
b) Are you biased ? You mentioned all details about the scintillating
debut of BArun, but failed
to mention these details about his successor. No, maybe not. Maybe as TN
person you follow TN players
more closely than other players, especially debutants.
Rocky Raccoon
> Sujith Sompapdi (TC)
LOL!!!!!
Moby Dick
> On Fri, 20 Oct 2000 11:03:54 GMT, The Cynic <mr_c...@my-deja.com>
> decided to opine:
>
> >pos...@jackalope.demon.co.uk (Mike Holmans) wrote:
> >
> >> OK, he wasn't Gavaskar, and he didn't have the shots of a Vishy or an
> >> Azhar, let alone a Tendulkar, but I've never understood why so many
> >> Indians have a big downer on him, because he was a very good bat of
> >> the second rank. Larry Gomes was the same for WI at the time.
> >
> >DBV was the epitome of mediocre player. His career record, minus those
> >16 tests from Eng 1986 to WI 1987-88 [ 13 of which in India ] stands:
> >
> >100 tests - Avg 35.xx - 9 100s.
> >Those 16 tests
> >16 tests - Avg 102.xx - 8 100s (wow)
> >
> >Total career
> >116 tets - Avg 42.xx - 17 100s.
> >
> >Very impressive.
>
> I'm impressed, even if you aren't. 17 Test centuries is not bad at
> all. Vengsarkar's stats are pretty similar, in fact slightly superior,
> to Alec Stewart's. Even allowing for some runfests on easier Asian
> pitches, you're not going to convince me he was "mediocre".
>
> >He was as much a second rank to SMG/SRT as apple is
> >to Windows in the desktop market :-)
>
> Depends rather what you mean by "second rank". What I meant was
> someone who's likely to be a regular in a Test side without being a
> big star.
The stats are better than the career stats of a certain ailing Australian
player some "contributors" are prone to get orgasmic over.
103 171 13 6593 153* 140 139* 41.72 17 38 15
Moby Dick.
The revolution is dead. Long live the revolution.
cricke...@my-deja.com
pos...@jackalope.demon.co.uk (Mike Holmans) wrote:
> On Fri, 20 Oct 2000 11:03:54 GMT, The Cynic <mr_c...@my-deja.com>
> decided to opine:
>
> >pos...@jackalope.demon.co.uk (Mike Holmans) wrote:
> >
> >> OK, he wasn't Gavaskar, and he didn't have the shots of a Vishy or
an
> >> Azhar, let alone a Tendulkar, but I've never understood why so many
> >> Indians have a big downer on him, because he was a very good bat of
> >> the second rank. Larry Gomes was the same for WI at the time.
> >
Hm. Did you see him much, outside of that one terrific innings on a
very difficult Headingley pitch, Mike? "Lacking shots" was never really
a problem for V'kar, IMHO - slow starting was. Once he was in, he had
prettier shots than most Indian batsmen IMHO.
> >DBV was the epitome of mediocre player. His career record, minus
those
> >16 tests from Eng 1986 to WI 1987-88 [ 13 of which in India ] stands:
> >
> >100 tests - Avg 35.xx - 9 100s.
> >Those 16 tests
> >16 tests - Avg 102.xx - 8 100s (wow)
> >
> >Total career
> >116 tets - Avg 42.xx - 17 100s.
> >
> >Very impressive.
>
> I'm impressed, even if you aren't. 17 Test centuries is not bad at
> all. Vengsarkar's stats are pretty similar, in fact slightly superior,
> to Alec Stewart's. Even allowing for some runfests on easier Asian
> pitches, you're not going to convince me he was "mediocre".
>
Not all runfests on easy pitches at all - some were spinning minefields
(by the mid-80s, spinning minefields at home were getting to be quite
common). We've had this thread on rsc before - V'kar had a very skewed
career, with a very poor start when 18 years old (average about 20 for
his first 18 or so tests), and a poor finish (no tons in his last 10
tests or so). The period in between lasted 10 years however, with 90
plus tests, over 6000 runs, and an average of 50.0x I believe it was (I
had done the stats on rsc a while ago, cant seem to access them now).
Averaging 50 over a 10-year period isnt all that easy to do, for
anyone, really :-)
> >He was as much a second rank to SMG/SRT as apple is
> >to Windows in the desktop market :-)
>
> Depends rather what you mean by "second rank". What I meant was
> someone who's likely to be a regular in a Test side without being a
> big star.
>
For almost 10 years, he *was* a star, if maybe the 2nd banana of the
side - and for 3 years he was the #1 rated batsman in world cricket by
Coopers and Lybrand.
As for your question on why most Indians have a downer on him, we turn
to Ramachandra Guha (from Karnataka, since these distinctions seem to
mean a lot on rsc ;-). From "Spin and Other Turns".
-------
For despite his magnificent record - over 7000 Test runs, including
three successive hundreds at Lord's (in the tests in 1979, 1982 and
1986) - Dilip Vengsarkar was, in his early career, overshadowed in the
public imagination by the presence of Sunil Gavaskar and, in his later
years in Test cricket, by the emergence of the second acknowledged
superstar of Indian cricket, Kapil Dev.
Suresh Menon of the Indian Express once penetratingly remarked that
were David Gower born an Indian, and Dilip Vengsarkar an Englishman,
they might have been properly honoured for their achievements. Gower
was both an extraordinarily gifted batsman and a man who visibly
enjoyed his cricket - two besetting sins in the eyes of the English,
who like their batsmen to be dour in countenance and safe rather than
spectacular in their strokeplay. Where Indian cricket followers might
have more readily recognized Gower, the man and the batsman, they never
quite warmed to Vengsarkar. They have mistaken his reserve for lack of
charm, for, unlike the English, the Indians cannot understand men who
are relentlessly focussed on their craft (as Vengsarkar was),
apparently lacking human contact and human touch. But while some
Indians might wish Vengsarkar to be reborn in Yorkshire, Iam happy
enough that he was born, in my time, in Bombay.
In an earlier study, I perhaps incautiously drew the following
homology: Sunil Gavaskar is to Ravi Shankar as Gundappa Vishwanath is
to that other great sitar player, Vilayat Khan. Some people protested
strongly, and a former teacher of mine even wrote, in red pencil on the
typed manuscript: "The tone of comparison is *off*". But I was
reassured when a friend who, pace Neville Cardus, knows his music as
well as his cricket in fact urged me to extend the comparison. "If you
wish to think of Ravi Shankar as Gavaksar and Vilayat Khan as
Vishwanath", he remarked, "why not think of Nikhil Bannerjee as Dilip
Vengsarkar?"
I seized on this almost immediately. Just as Nikhil Bannerjee - who was
perhaps 10 years younger than the other two sitar wizards - took his
early training under Ravi Shankar, Dilip Vengsarkar, almost inevitably,
was deeply influenced in his formative years by Sunil Gavaskar.
However, in common with Bannerjee, Vengsarkar in time came out of the
master's shadow to develop an independent career and distinctive style
of play. Ironically, like the Bombay batsman Bannerjee perhaps never
quite got his just desserts, in part owing to his early death.
......(story about when Guha first heard of Vengsarkar, after the inter-
university finals where V'kar hit Guha's university teammates around)
...
Vengsarkar came to wider public notice early the next season. Making
his first-class debut for Bombay against Rest of India, he hit a
brilliant 110, including six sixes, off an attack that included Bishen
Bedi and Erapalli Prasanna. This innings, which took the batsman
straight into the Indian team, was played at Nagpur, the birthplace of
Colonel C.K.Nayudu, and Vengsarkar was promptly nicknamed "Colonel".
The apellation stuck, but Bombay coaches and Sunil Gavaskar worked
relentlessly at reorienting his attitude and style of batsmanship to
the demands of international cricket. Under their influence, for a
while Vengsarkar, at least when playing for India, became excessively
cautious. Slowly the attackingt instincts reasserted themselves,
although he never quite recaptured the dash and abandon of his early
youth.
At his best Vengsarkar was an imperious player. By some distance the
tallest of the great Indian batsmen at six feet one inch, he stood up
straight and stroked magnificently through the off side both of back
foot and front. Like almost all his countrymen he played beautifully
off his legs, although he rarely cut and, in common with some other
tall men, was never really comfortable while hooking. He liked to start
slowly, but could accelerate very quickly indeed; he was to play quite
a few matchwinning innings in the limited overs games. In full flow he
was a thrilling sight, uniquely combining both elegance and power.
... (some more talk, then talk of memorable innings, especially noting
one Guha takes the most pleasure in)
...
This innings was played in the second Test, played at Delhi, of the
1979-80 home series against Pakistan. The visitors batted first and
scored 273, with that lazy, languid left-hander Wasim Raja (one of my
favourite cricketers) hitting a strokeful ninety-seven. This total was
made to look disporportionately large when Sikander Bakht, an eager
young colt making his first overseas tour, bowled India out for 126.
(Bakht, who took 8 for 69 with sharp inswing, and Raja were both
immediately sent specially struck gold medals on the rest day of the
Test byt he President of Pakistan, General Zia-ul-Haq.) Fifties by
Zaheer Abbas and Raja, again, took the Pakistan second innings to 242,
an overall lead of 389.
India went in to bat midway through the fourth day, with eight hours to
save the match or (not that very many people thought it likely) 390
runs to score to win it. Gavaskar left early, caught behind of
Sikander. Now defeat loomed large, a prospect made all the more
depressing by General Zia's flamboyant and widely publicized gesture.
The prestige of an entire nation rested on a few batsmen. The tension
in the Indian dressing room must have been unbearable, though the
absence of Imran Khan (through injury) offered some hope.
Vengsarkar came in to bat at number three. Through that long fourth
afternoon and the almost interminable fifth day, he was kept company
for the most part by two doughty but unsung heroes of Indian cricket's
coming of age, Chetan Chauhan and Yashpal Sharma. Vengsarkar himself
was sure but watchful, for like everyone else he had the dread of
defeat uppermost in his mind.
But slowly the Pakistan attack tired, and the terrier-like Yashpal was
urging his partner to run short singles. Vengsarkar's own drives began
to flow, and suddenly the chase was on. Huddled over a radio two
thousand miles away in Bangalore, I remember most vividly of all the
description of a huge, towering cover drive Vengsarkar hit off the slow
left-armer Iqbal Qasim. Now India began surging towards what would have
been a truly extraordinary win. Then Yashpal fell, and so did Kapil
Dev, after a quick twenty-one. Again Vengsarkar had no option but to
play for a draw. India finally ended at 364 for six, 26 runs short of
victory, with Dilip Vengsarkar 146 not out.
In his retirment Vengsarkar must look back with satisfaction on a
playing career of considerable achievement: including a record at the
home of cricket ummatched by any other batsman, and six Test centuries
against the West Indies. As he looks out from his balcony at the
monsoon winds coming over the Arabian Sea, I dare say the memories of
that long vigil at the Ferozshah Kotla must give him as much pleasure
as any other innings he played for India.
------------
Sadiq [ who likes Guha plenty ] Yusuf
> Cheers,
>
> Mike
> --
> 1969 - most recent previous England series win over WI
> 1966 - most recent previous England innings victory over WI
> 1957 - most recent previous series v WI in which England won three
matches
> Will the same lengths of time have to pass before these things recur?
>
asi...@my-deja.com
cricke...@my-deja.com wrote:
> In article <8sq27c$hts$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> asi...@my-deja.com wrote:
> I dont quite agree here - in fact, I believe Srivatsa and Magazine are
> both *Delhi-ites* :-) They are also based out of Delhi, if Iam not
> mistaken. And I havent read very much of Makarand Waigankar lately at
> all - hardly ever see anything by him of late.
>
> Do you mean Pradeep Vijaykar by any chance? I think he at least knows
> some cricket, even if he isnt great.
>
Waigankar. Vijaykar is quite unbiased, but is not a high quality writer
like Bhogle. Bhogle is above par really. Srivatsa and Magazine write
from Mumbai - or at least did from 1993-2000, unless I'm totally
mistaken :-)
> Again I disagree, in re DBV. Over the past couple of years at least, I
> dont remember a single Bombay player he has had good words for (few
old
> Bombay hands have good words for their players when they dont win the
> Ranjis, usually :-) OTOH, his eye for talent is very good - he was the
> first person who ever said anything publicly about Yuvraj, and that
was
> when Yuvraj was 14 (a full 4 years ago!). Too many people have a
> tendency to dismiss what he says, and end up being proven wrong. Like
> when DBV said he watched the BPXI-WI-A game in Bombay, and found
> Bharadwaj backing away vs Reon King - everyone dismissed it, and found
> out the hard way in Australia that it was true (I talked to 4 or 5
> friends who were at that WI-A game, BTW, on my last trip back - and
> they all said exactly that, that Bharadwaj had looked poor against
> King. In fact, a couple of them had not even known who the batsman
was,
> who was looking so bad vs King - they just wrote down the batting
> position and runs scored, and looked at the paper the next morning to
> find out :-)
>
Yeah, you told me about Neeran's comment when we met :-) But I still do
believe that DBV is a partisan columnist. This view has come after years
of reading his Saturday Column in the Hindu and therefore, I cannot cite
a particular instance (like Bharadwaj or Yuvraj) to point out his bias.
Mind you, I admire him as a cricketer and as a principled selector for
Bombay.
>
> You already *have* said something about Delhi journos - albiet
> unwittingly :-) As for the R Mohan thing - I suppose Iam the last
> person left alive who disagrees, but there it is :-)
>
I mean the types who feel that X or Y lost out due to Gavaskar/Bedi's
(insert your favorite player from another region here) politics. ;-)
> Also, BTW, it is true that R Mohan had more influence on selection
than
> maybe any other journalist *anywhere* - in the early 80s, the Chairman
> of selectors once told him to watch for a couple of players during a
> Duleep match he was reporting on, and to let them know if they were
> good enough for test cricket, since the selectors werent going to be
> watching :-)
>
LOL. That is funny :-) But Mohan was arguably the most respected journo
in India during the 80's and early 90's. So much so that test players
and captains used to confide in him and he respected their privacy. I
don't recall a single article where he betrayed their trust and quoted
something that was mentioned to him "off the record".
> > *sigh*, TOI is not what it used to be in the 70's :-)
> >
>
> No it isnt - but then who is? I dont think there is a purely news
> source left now.
>
> And Iam not totally against the "Saturday/Monday Times" idea anyway -
> they often have good restaurant reviews and the like, which prove very
> useful to me :-)
>
> Sadiq [ who doesnt care for any of them, much ] Yusuf
>
I sincerely believe that the Saturday/Monday Times is singularly
responsible for creating pseudo celebrities/socialites who aren't worth
a dime. I like the Asian Age supplements better. At least they have
Farokh Dhondy, Arun Shourie and the like.
asi...@my-deja.com
samarth harish shah <shs...@students.uiuc.edu> wrote:
> No prizes for guessing, however, as to who gets bashed more on RSC.
"Fat"
> guy who "stumbled" on his approach to the wicket on his debut, eh?
Well,
> he returned better test figures than the "thin" guy who did not
stumble on
> his approach to the wicket.
>
> -Samarth.
>
>
Acutally, Raju Kulkarni did too. He stumbled and fell on his run up in
one of the WSC matches in Aus didn't he? Or am I ramblin' ;-)
There..a Bombay-ite does say it :-)
Arjun Pandit
giris...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> So every mumbai player deserved his place in the side?
> Including the likes of Samir Dighe, Nilesh Kulkarni, Mhambrey,
> Sairaj Battavade,...
Yep. They deserved it as much as MSK Prasad, Dodda Ganesh, David
Johnson and Sujith Sompapdi,...
> > TOI has citywise editions in case you didnt know. Bangalore TOI
makes
> Bullshit. The sports deparment is based in TOI's HQ which is in
> (wait for it) Mumbai.
(waited for it) Mumbai might have the sports HQ, but they usually only
write events common to the country. Rest of it is all local journalism.
>
> > case for Dodda Ganeshs while Madras TOI makes a case from Sridharan
> > Sriram
>
> > TOI is hardly biased, it publishes what local people relate to
> ROTFLMAO. What crap do you think TOI shovels on us here in Bangalore?
I have been reading it daily for 1 year now. I dont see any references
to Amol Mazumdar or Wasim Jaffer in it at all. Apart from when any
Ranji type match is going on. But I do keep reading about Dodda Ganesh
getting married with his pic getting published in the FRONT PAGE, Dodda
Ganesh being ready for his second innings, the CM gifting Vijay
Bharadwaj a plot to build his dream home for making Bangalore proud and
what not ...
See, its okay. I dont have a problem with such news. Localites like
reading local news. The match articles and guest columns are usually
common to all editions, but remaining aspects are usually covered by
the local office.
TOI doesnt have a major influence on selection of teams, if you wish to
persist along this stupid inference you have made, lets call this off.
Selection of teams just happens on the whims of selectors and
regionalistic quotas. No selector reads to see what is written of Amol
Mazumdar in the papers to decide if he is to be included or not.
Else AM would have made it into the team LONG BACK.
>
> > Funny. The only players I have heard RS praising are Sodhi, Ratra
and
>
> Funny. The leopard has changed his spots. Maybe he realised the harm
> he was doing to his reputation by (as RK says) 'pimping' for the
> likes of Amol Mazumdar, Samir Dighe, Nilesh Kulkarni &c.
Yep. Just as funny as GRV keeping out Kuruvilla to give abundant
chances to Venkatesh Prasad.
> > > Other regions do not have this advantage
> >
> > *Sob* *Sob*
>
> HEE HEE. As a kannadiga, we have recently started reaping
> similiar benefits. About time too.
HOHOHO. And we have seen the kind of people that have been coming out
of Kannadiga state ....
MSK Prasad (CRAP)
Dodda Ganesh (TOTAL CRAP)
David Johnson (TC, not to be confused with The Cynic)
Sujith Sompapdi (TC)
These are benefits for kannadigas you are talking about? pooh.
--
vande sri ramanarser-acaryasya padabjam,
yo me'darsayad-isam bhantam dhvantam atitya
Arjun Pandit
>
> >
> > FYI, this is invalid when it comes to cricketers like VBC like you
> > mentioned in a reply to Abhay Pande. VBC has only 1 score > 10. So
25
> > paper score syndrome (he gets out when he reaches 25) is hardly an
> > excuse you can offer for him.
>
> Er... we're talking abt domestic cricket, here.
No... we're not talking about Chennai's performances in domestic
cricket.
We're talking about Chennai's performance in international cricket.
> > >(c) the "split season" effect wherein the
> > > NE monsoon disrupts TN's season mid-way, completely throwing the
> > > cricketers out of their rhythm.
> >
> > Monsoons are there everywhere.
>
> How much rain does Bombay receive on an average from the NE monsoon
in the
> months of October, November and December?
Mumbai gets plenty from May end to September. Advance your season or
put it back. Why
blame the monsoon for not getting chances to practise?
>> You have picked a small
> > subset of crappy Mumbai cricketers to turn the whole thing. Very
> > Convenient!
> I have been repeating time and again that it is not the Mumbai
cricketers,
> but the Mumbai supporters who make me frown. TN supporters can accept
that
> their players are crap. I have done so time and again in my post.
Mumbai
> cricketers can't accept their cricketers are crap. This rant of yours
only
> proves that.
See man, I am having a debate here. I cant say things that you want to
hear, else it dilutes the whole effect :-)
> I asked you about your opinion of the likes of Ashok Mankad,
> Nilesh Kulkarni, etc. and not once could you stand up and say, "yes,
he is
> crap". The point of my post is not that Mumbai cricketers are crap,
it is
> that *some* Mumbai supporters are crap. Biased, to the core. Will bash
> people from other states, but can't utter a bad word about the (few)
> crappy Mumbai players that are there.
Eh? This thread was started with the very same premise. All Chennai
players are crap, but Chennaites bash players from other states as if
their players are perfect.
Anyway, for the record, I feel Kulkarni is CRAP. TOTAL CRAP. I dont
know anything about Mankad. I can only go by his stats.
From stats:
Mankad:
M I NO Runs HS Avg 100s 50s 0s
22 42 3 991 97 25.41 - 6 3
Srikkanth:
Matches Inns Not Outs Runs Highest Avg 100s 50s 0s
43 72 3 2062 123 29.88 2 12 7
Mankad looks to be tad bit inferior to K Srikkanth (only 4 runs avg
difference, 50s and 0s seem more or less the same). Maybe Mankad also
suffered from the 25 paper score syndrome.
>
> To give you more evidence, you will find that I bashed Reuben Paul on
RSC
> and recommended that he not be chosen to play for India. Now, last
Ranji
> season, his performance as both batsman and keeper was superior to
that of
> Sameer Dighe. Yet, Sadiq Yusuf, at least until a couple of weeks back
> thought Dighe was a candidate for the spot. Why should I bash Reuben
Paul
> when Mumbaikars can't accept Dighe (as of now, at least) is worse
than
> him? To hell with being fair and non-regionalistic! I want Reuben
Paul in
> the team. He is India's savior.
I have made my opinion on this clear many times to you. If you want a
good
wk Sameer Dighe is the man. Dighe's batting is CRAP. If you want a wk-
batsman,
we will have to settle for Paul or Karim. Where is regionalism in this.
Anyway, along the same lines as you are posing questions, have you ever
seen a
Chennaite bash Robin Singh????? or a WV Raman?
>
> > Regarding Jaffer, he deserves a couple of tests. I liked what I saw
in
> > the only innings of his I saw, when he scored some 20 odd. Whats
wrong
> > with that? Before you ask me to give some time to Kumarans, I saw
some
> > of his ODIs. He has no pace at all. As is, now we see people asking
for
> > some Mahesh in the team. Even Chennaites have forgotten Kumaran.
>
> That's because we're fair. We will not ask for Kumaran to be part of
the
> team unless he has some performance to back him up, which last year,
he
> did, hence all the support.
Dont give me this Chennaites are holier than Mumbaikars crap. Have you
seen
anybody pimping for Mhambrey on RSC after the England series? Dont you
think
Mumbaikars are also fair????? We accept Mhambrey as crap and have
dumped him for
good to play for Mumbai. He does a fair job of terrorising batsmen from
Chennai :-)
Has anybody, I repeat anybody, made a case for Sairaj Bahutule in the
last six months? I spend occassional spurts of time on RSC, I have
never seen anyone make a case for Bahutule recently.
>
> We saw Jaffer's performance and Dighe's performance in the team. The
> Mumbaikars are *still* backing him up even though he has no
performance.
> Yeah, in your opinion Kumaran has no pace. In my opinion Dighe is a
lousy
> keeper and an even worse batsman. Your opinion and my opinion counts
for
> nought. Both have no performance (not even in domestics in the last 1
> year) and hence both need to be out.
Hmmm ... Arent you the same guy who keeps pimping for VVSL who has no
performance in international cricket despite many chances [18 tests
no?]. If you are unwilling to take into account Jaffer's performances
in 96-99 seasons, VVSL's 167 is not to be considered even. What does he
have besides that? Promise of delivering? Jaffer also has that promise
of delivering.
> Chennaites will accept it about Kumaran but Sadiq will never accept
that
> Dighe doesn't deserve to be anywhere near the Indian team.
As a keeper he has every right to be near the Indian team. As keeper-
batsman no.
>
> > opinion
> > > or different?
> >
> >
> > No clue about Ashok Mankad. Why dont you compare Raman to SRT or
SMG or
> > DBV or somebody else? With this "I am crap, but he is also crap, so
its
> > OK" mentality, you will never make any progress :-)
>
> I am just trying to see if you will agree that Mankad was crap.
He was slightly inferior to K.Srikkanth, I dont know how you rate
Srikkanth. So please draw an inference for me for Mankad as I have
never seen Mankad play and can only go by his stats vis a vis someone
whom I have seen play :)
Sorry Samarth, but I dont want to say what you want to hear ;-)
>
> So far, I have only seen that *some* Mumbaikars are quick to call
players
> from other places crap. When it comes to Dighe, Jaffer, Mankad, Sandhu
> (cf. Uday Rajan's post), even sane people like Sadiq and Uday are
> desperately dredging up some excuse to defend the players.
Yep. Just like when it comes to Robin "Keep Flying" Singh, *some*
Chennaites are always ready to defend him, even sane people like
Samarth.
> > You mean the recent Aus series? Where Aggy took more wickets than
> > Srinath [India's strike bowler] , Prasad [India's most intelligent
> > bowler] and Kumble [INdia's best spinner]? Yeah Samarth, in case you
> > dont remember Aggy took more wickets than all of Prasad, Srinath and
> > Kumble in that series. I am sure his captain must have been really
> > happy with his performance. As far as batting goes, where were the
> > Dravids and Gangulys? AFAIK both were chosen by the captain for
their
> > batting alone. Did they vindicate the captain's faith in his
batting.
> > NOT! Atleast Aggy got one of his roles (3rd seamer) perfectly right.
>
> I agree with all that you say, here, and I *do* remember what the
bowling
> averages were like in the series. However, can you be sure Kumaran
> wouldn't have done as good a job?
These are all hypothetical questions and no answers are possible.
> After all, he was much better in the
> warm-up games!
So? Agarkar after all had the fastest 50 wickets in ODIs!!!
> We will never know, of course, but what we do know is that
> Kumaran out-performed Agarkar with the ball, yet Agarkar was picked
for
> his ability with the bat.
C'mon. Maybe in 1 tour match he outperformed, but Agarkar obviously had
impressed India in many international ODI matches before. So what does
an unbiased captain go by?
And the final point is did Agarkar perform in the Aus series. Yes he
did.
> And he made 19, 0, 0, 0, 0 and 0 with the bat.
Kumble or Prasad (who both had attrocious averages and penetration that
series) could have been dropped to accomodate Kumaran. Why drop your
best bowler in the series to bring in a rookie? And Agarkar was our
best bowler in the series. Whether he will deliver again or not is
debatable.
Again to clear your misunderstandings about Mumbaikars (albeit *some*),
here are my clarifications:
R/N Kulkarni : CRAP
Bahutule : CRAP
Dighe : Good keeping, CRAP batting
Mhambrey : CRAP
Mankad : Tad bit inferior to Srikkanth from Mankad's stats (tests alone)
Jaffer : deservers more chances
Regards
samarth harish shah
<snip>
> HOHOHO. And we have seen the kind of people that have been coming out
> of Kannadiga state ....
>
> MSK Prasad (CRAP)
It might surprise you to know that MSK Prasad plays for Andhra, not
Karnataka.
<snip>
-Samarth.
samarth harish shah
<snip>
> > How much rain does Bombay receive on an average from the NE monsoon
> in the
> > months of October, November and December?
>
> Mumbai gets plenty from May end to September. Advance your season or
> put it back. Why
> blame the monsoon for not getting chances to practise?
Sure. I wish to advance our season. From now on, all other teams in
India must play TN only in August and September, because that period is
convenient for TN. I am sure all the other teams in India would love to
play as per TN's terms and conditions. We are willing to play in June,
July and August also, especially in Bombay. That suits us just fine.
<snipped rest - you win, dude; with arguments such as the above, I stand
absolutely no chance>
-Samarth.
samarth harish shah
<snip>
Oops! Missed this gem the last time around. :-)
> Anyway, for the record, I feel Kulkarni is CRAP. TOTAL CRAP. I dont
> know anything about Mankad. I can only go by his stats.
>
> From stats:
>
> Mankad:
> M I NO Runs HS Avg 100s 50s 0s
> 22 42 3 991 97 25.41 - 6 3
>
> Srikkanth:
> Matches Inns Not Outs Runs Highest Avg 100s 50s 0s
> 43 72 3 2062 123 29.88 2 12 7
>
> Mankad looks to be tad bit inferior to K Srikkanth (only 4 runs avg
> difference, 50s and 0s seem more or less the same). Maybe Mankad also
> suffered from the 25 paper score syndrome.
Actually, the difference between Mankad and WV Raman (whom you have
already deemed as "crap") is even less. Difference of only 0.5 in average!
I have already agreed that WV Raman was crap, even though he was only
less than a "tad bit" inferior to Mankad. *Now*, what is your opinion
on Mankad? :-)
-Samarth.
Harish Chandramouli
news:8sqmn2$3q1$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> As for your question on why most Indians have a downer on him, we turn
> to Ramachandra Guha (from Karnataka, since these distinctions seem to
> mean a lot on rsc ;-). From "Spin and Other Turns".
<snip superb piece on Vengsarkar>
Thanks for posting this. It has certainly made me appreciate Dilip
Vengsarkar a whole lot more than I used to. I've always enjoyed
reading Vengsarkar the *columnist*, but I guess I have never
really given Vengsarkar the batsman the credit he was really due.
And in that regard, this piece was a real eye-opener.
What is it about Ramachandra Guha anyway? The man is an
absolute legend in his own right. Very few writers have the sort of
innate ability to weave you around in a spell, and take you back
in time to the event in question, and make it seem almost as if you
*were* there all along, but, he is certainly one of them.
Ever since his piece on Ken Barrington ("Nonsense. I threw him an
orange myself, and he peeled it and ate it in front of my own eyes")
I've been a big fan of his - but this effort on Vengsarkar has just
elevated him to another level altogether in my eyes. What an utterly
fabulous writer.
Harish
Harish T K
While on the sibject of cricket writers, does anyone have any opinions on
Raju Bharatan (Hindu/SPortstar).
I personally find his painful puns (Sachink in the armour, Pepsip by sip, to
name just two) really excrutiating to wade through. I often find myself at a
loss to understand the main point of his articles. Has anyone else noticed
the same, or is it just me.
Harish
Harish Chandramouli <c.ha...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:8svtrn$jtu$1...@nntp9.atl.mindspring.net...
> <cricke...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
> news:8sqmn2$3q1$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> > As for your question on why most Indians have a downer on him, we turn
> > to Ramachandra Guha (from Karnataka, since these distinctions seem to
> > mean a lot on rsc ;-). From "Spin and Other Turns".
>
samarth harish shah
> Sorry for the intrusion.
>
> While on the sibject of cricket writers, does anyone have any opinions on
> Raju Bharatan (Hindu/SPortstar).
>
> I personally find his painful puns (Sachink in the armour, Pepsip by sip, to
> name just two) really excrutiating to wade through. I often find myself at a
> loss to understand the main point of his articles. Has anyone else noticed
> the same, or is it just me.
Agree completely with you. For every good article he writes, there are 20
absolute crap pieces.
-Samarth.
Rocky Raccoon
> Agree completely with you. For every good article he writes, there are 20
> absolute crap pieces.
Now that you have called a TN journalist crap, do you wish me, Abhay & RI to
call 10 Bombay journalists crap ? :-)
I am more than willing, if you let me know which journalists are from B'bay.
asi...@my-deja.com
errr, Bharatan is from Amchi Mumbai. He has an encyclopedic knowledge
of two areas: cricket and hindi film music (esp Lata Mageshkar). I
doubt if anyone in India comes near him. But I agree with Harish T.K.
If only Bharatan could match his writing quality with his knowledge.
Btw, I picked up a 1970-71 issue of The Illustrated Weekly of India (in
my univ library) in which Bharatan had recommended his XI for the tour
of WI. A comment went something like this.." The selectors could do
well to pick up the young opener from Bombay, Sunil Gavaskar, who seems
to have the right temperament to make it at the highest level."
Arun [loved that prediction] Simha
samarth harish shah
> samarth harish shah wrote:
>
> > Agree completely with you. For every good article he writes, there are 20
> > absolute crap pieces.
>
> Now that you have called a TN journalist crap, do you wish me, Abhay & RI to
> call 10 Bombay journalists crap ? :-)
>
> I am more than willing, if you let me know which journalists are from B'bay.
In fact, I am not sure Raju Bharatan is from TN. (His origins might be
from there, but then so are the origins of RI and Shridhar. :-)) And my
origins *are* from the erstwhile Bombay Presidency. :-)
If you think he's tamilian just because he writes for The Hindu, you're
wrong. Because he used to write for IWI (Delhi-based?) and currently also
writes for Rediff (Bombay-based?).
If anyone who writes for The Hindu is automatically a "tamilian", then
that would make Hillary Clinton a tamilian. :-)
I would be *very* surprised if Bharatan were even TN-based, because his
cricketing articles talk of his hobnobbing with Vijay Merchant et al and
he has written biographies of Lata Mangeshkar, RD Burman, etc. i.e.
Bollywood stars. (He was one of the most respected Bollywood journalists
of the 70s/80s and I doubt one can do that sitting in TN - especially
in those pre-liberalization, pre-cable TV days.)
Perhaps he's moved down south in his old age, but at the peak of his
journalism career, I doubt if he was TN-based.
-Samarth.
Rocky Raccoon
Just a joke, Samarth.
Because you tried to shove "Ashok Mankad was crap, Raju Kulkarni
was crap" down a lot of people's throat, just like I try to shove "Ganguly is
crap" down some
people's throat.
I don't usually pay attention to who was the author of the article, unless the
person was a
cricket player. I must have surely read articles by Raju B, Vijay L etc etc, but I
surely surely
don't remember that it was by them.
OTOH, I remember what SMG wrote, what RS wrote, what Srikanth wrote, what KD
wrote.
For eg. I remember for 6 months leading the WC, Kapil wrote articles in
India-Today, where he
used to advocate that Azhar should step down from captaincy, Sachin should play at
#4 etc.
I remember Gavaskar say "the ROB factor" in almost all matches India lose.
But I don't remember which other articles are written by which journalist.
The Cynic
>I would be *very* surprised if Bharatan were even TN-based, because his
>cricketing articles talk of his hobnobbing with Vijay Merchant et al
>and he has written biographies of Lata Mangeshkar, RD Burman, etc.
u are spot on. RajuBharatan is a mumbai tam. He has annoyed lot of Asha
Bhonsle fans by his unadulaterated 'sychophancy' of Lata M.
[I like Lata too much to use my usual substitute for 'sychophancy' :-)]
His biography of Lata, published somewhere in early 90s is a good read.
RK-
samarth harish shah
> samarth harish shah wrote:
>
> > On Mon, 23 Oct 2000, Rocky Raccoon wrote:
> >
> > > samarth harish shah wrote:
> > >
> > > > Agree completely with you. For every good article he writes, there are 20
> > > > absolute crap pieces.
> > >
> > > Now that you have called a TN journalist crap, do you wish me, Abhay & RI to
> > > call 10 Bombay journalists crap ? :-)
> > >
> > > I am more than willing, if you let me know which journalists are from B'bay.
> >
> > In fact, I am not sure Raju Bharatan is from TN. (His origins might be
> > from there, but then so are the origins of RI and Shridhar. :-)) And my
> > origins *are* from the erstwhile Bombay Presidency. :-)
> >
> > If you think he's tamilian just because he writes for The Hindu, you're
> > wrong. Because he used to write for IWI (Delhi-based?) and currently also
> > writes for Rediff (Bombay-based?).
> >
> > If anyone who writes for The Hindu is automatically a "tamilian", then
> > that would make Hillary Clinton a tamilian. :-)
> >
> > I would be *very* surprised if Bharatan were even TN-based, because his
> > cricketing articles talk of his hobnobbing with Vijay Merchant et al and
> > he has written biographies of Lata Mangeshkar, RD Burman, etc. i.e.
> > Bollywood stars. (He was one of the most respected Bollywood journalists
> > of the 70s/80s and I doubt one can do that sitting in TN - especially
> > in those pre-liberalization, pre-cable TV days.)
> >
> > Perhaps he's moved down south in his old age, but at the peak of his
> > journalism career, I doubt if he was TN-based.
>
> Just a joke, Samarth.
To put it bluntly, Rocky, your non-sense of humor compares with that of
Bharatan.
(The above would be a good example of a painful Bharatan pun, BTW.)
At least Bharatan has the knowledge. You are attempting to make jokes with
all your facts muddled. "TN journalist", eh?
<snip>
-Samarth.
Rocky Raccoon
> At least Bharatan has the knowledge. You are attempting to make jokes with
> all your facts muddled. "TN journalist", eh?
>
Please, I pray, forgive me. I will try not to do such things in the future.
samarth harish shah
> errr, Bharatan is from Amchi Mumbai. He has an encyclopedic knowledge
> of two areas: cricket and hindi film music (esp Lata Mageshkar). I
> doubt if anyone in India comes near him. But I agree with Harish T.K.
> If only Bharatan could match his writing quality with his knowledge.
>
> Btw, I picked up a 1970-71 issue of The Illustrated Weekly of India (in
> my univ library) in which Bharatan had recommended his XI for the tour
> of WI. A comment went something like this.." The selectors could do
> well to pick up the young opener from Bombay, Sunil Gavaskar, who seems
> to have the right temperament to make it at the highest level."
>
> Arun [loved that prediction] Simha
Hmm. Bharatan was always proud of his friendship with Vijay Merchant.
Conspiracy theory: Merchant tells Bharatan that he's going to select the
relatively unknown SMG for the 1970-1 tour of WI. Bharatan attempts to
justify his pal's selection and pre-empt raised eyebrows by making it
sound, in his column, as if SMG is a real contender. (I am assuming here
that his selection was at least mildly surprising.)
[:-)]^n
-Samarth [ let the flame-wars begin... ].
PS: Just wait till Saeed Ahmed Hattea finds out what an elaborate
conspiracy was hatched to select SMG, while he was left out. :-)
Gautham N
> In article <Pine.GSO.4.10.100102...@ux13.cso.uiuc.edu>,
> samarth harish shah <shs...@students.uiuc.edu> wrote:
>
> > No prizes for guessing, however, as to who gets bashed more on RSC.
> "Fat"
> > guy who "stumbled" on his approach to the wicket on his debut, eh?
> Well,
> > he returned better test figures than the "thin" guy who did not
> stumble on
> > his approach to the wicket.
> >
> > -Samarth.
> >
> >
>
> Acutally, Raju Kulkarni did too. He stumbled and fell on his run up in
> one of the WSC matches in Aus didn't he? Or am I ramblin' ;-)
Arun, actually even I recalled this incident, when this fat-guy thread
started. However, (you and) I have been pretty wrong in our recollection in
the past few weeks - so I just chose to be silent.
Does anyone with a better memory recall this ? Sadiq ?
- gautham -
Gecko Van Echoes
>
> asi...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> > In article <Pine.GSO.4.10.100102...@ux13.cso.uiuc.edu>,
> > samarth harish shah <shs...@students.uiuc.edu> wrote:
> >
> > > No prizes for guessing, however, as to who gets bashed more on RSC.
> > "Fat"
> > > guy who "stumbled" on his approach to the wicket on his debut, eh?
> > Well,
> > > he returned better test figures than the "thin" guy who did not
> > stumble on
> > > his approach to the wicket.
> > >
> > > -Samarth.
> > >
> > >
> >
> > Acutally, Raju Kulkarni did too. He stumbled and fell on his run up in
> > one of the WSC matches in Aus didn't he? Or am I ramblin' ;-)
>
> started. However, (you and) I have been pretty wrong in our recollection in
> the past few weeks - so I just chose to be silent.
>
> Does anyone with a better memory recall this ? Sadiq ?
You are right. He stumbled (not once, but twice) in WSC. I think we
played Australia in that match (might be wrong here). But he did not
stumble at the top of the run up (like Bharat Arun did, IIRC). He
stumbled just before delivering the ball.
This conclusively proves that Batata Vada bought in Matunga makes you
fall down much later in the run up than Adyar Bonda.
Ctrl-V *regulation ramble*
Regards
gve
--
Mail: sri...@me.umn.edu
samarth harish shah
> asi...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> > In article <Pine.GSO.4.10.100102...@ux13.cso.uiuc.edu>,
> > samarth harish shah <shs...@students.uiuc.edu> wrote:
> >
> > > No prizes for guessing, however, as to who gets bashed more on RSC.
> > "Fat"
> > > guy who "stumbled" on his approach to the wicket on his debut, eh?
> > Well,
> > > he returned better test figures than the "thin" guy who did not
> > stumble on
> > > his approach to the wicket.
> > >
> > > -Samarth.
> > >
> > >
> >
> > Acutally, Raju Kulkarni did too. He stumbled and fell on his run up in
> > one of the WSC matches in Aus didn't he? Or am I ramblin' ;-)
>
> Arun, actually even I recalled this incident, when this fat-guy thread
> started. However, (you and) I have been pretty wrong in our recollection in
> the past few weeks - so I just chose to be silent.
>
> Does anyone with a better memory recall this ? Sadiq ?
In fact, Abhay Pande mentioned this to me by e-mail when the thread
started. <FLAME_BAIT> Perhaps he didn't mention it on RSC for fear of
being lynched by the Mumbai Mob. :-) </FLAME_BAIT>
Anyways, I remember the incident, but I used to think it was Roger Binny
who fell. IIRC, Kulkarni's heel slipped as he landed into his delivery
stride - at least from what I could make out from Channel 9's infinite
replays from 4 different angles ((c) Abhay Pande).
-Samarth.
nobodie...@my-deja.com
cricke...@my-deja.com wrote:
> In article
<Pine.GSO.4.10.100101...@ux7.cso.uiuc.edu>,> > On Thu, 19 Oct 2000 cricke...@my-deja.com wrote:
> >
> > <snip>
> >
> > > (b) worst politics - second only to DDCA in
> > > > this respect in whole of India
> > >
>
Sadiq,
When I played the Giles and Harris Shield in Mumbai in the 70s
for my school, I never saw a player from Anjuman-I-Islam make to
the Ranji team in Mumbai. The matches between Balmohan(Sandip Patil)
and Anjuman Islam were already played at that level. I have seen
Sandip Bat as a 12-15 year old in the Inter-school matches, he was
awesome, I was expecting a few bowlers and batsmen at his level
play in the Ranji, since BalMohan and Anju-Islam played in the final?
I thought there was some bias,
Nikhil
> >
> > You might not believe it, but there's also a lot of caste politics!
> Or so
> > some people would make you believe.
>
> Well, just because some people believe it doesnt make it true, no? :-)
> Most of the Pakistani cabbies I used to watch cricket with during the
> India/Pakistan series last year were all totally convinced that there
> was serious religious bias in India that prevented good Muslim
> cricketers from making the national side - which, they said, was a
> major reason for India doing so poorly. Of course, when you actually
> follow Ranjis, you know that isnt true - that no Muslim player had the
> domestic performances to earn a spot in the side a year ago, and few
> did even well enough to be contenders. That has changed lately - Kaif,
> Jaffer and Zaheer are all contenders now - but thats due to
> performances, not due to change in religion-politics :-)
>
> So do you think there is really caste politics in TN? And if so, do
you
> think its of the "discrimination" or the "quota" kind? And of a major
> level?
>
> >(You really can't tell whether the
> > selector is biased or incompetent or whether he really saw a spark
in
> a
> > player; you can only guess. For example, I don't see how Dahiya got
> into
> > the team because Paul was the favorite and Ratra was supposed to be
> second
> > choice! I could attribute it to Madan Lal's regionalistic bias, but
I
> > can't be sure of it. Similarly, some selections *might* look biased,
> but
> > you can't tell for sure.)
> >
>
> Well, Dahiya made it because he had the best performances over the
past
> 3/4 years :-) Paul was the favourite - of the media, which knows
> nothing about this stuff anyway (remember, this is the media that
asked
> Dahiya "why were you dropped by Delhi last year?", when he had never
> been dropped at all :-) And Ratra couldnt be picked, IMHO - he is a
> very good keeping prospect, but he has never shown he could bat, even
> at domestic level (or u19 level). Dahiya might have had a weak season
> with the bat last year, but at least he has shown his batting ability
> in the domestics in the past. Ratra hasnt, yet (mostly due to being
> very young).
>
> But I agree - you cant tell for sure if there is bias. But you can
> often make a good guess.
>
> > There's also age-politics, school-politics and ENORMOUS parental
> politics.
> > You will find that a bunch of office-bearers in the TNCA have played
> > absolutely NO cricket at all and only got where they did because
> they've
> > been playing politics with the junior teams to have their wards
> selected.
> > And by-and-by they get promoted.
> >
> > A prime example of this is Prof. G. Nandakumar, who was the manager
> of the
> > Indian Under-19 team to Sri Lanka which won the World Cup. He is a
#1
> > politician, and I know this not from hearsay but from personal
> experience.
> > He hasn't played 1 ball of cricket in his life and only got involved
> with
> > the TNCA because he kept pestering the selectors to get his son
> selected
> > to various state teams. Players like Anand George, S. Badrinath have
> > fathers who could put Richard Williams, Jim Pierce, Peter Graf et al
> to
> > shame. (I know Anand George's father personally and he's a very nice
> chap,
> > except when it comes to his son's cricket career.)
> >
>
> Heh ok. Not sure if this is a big problem in Bombay, the "pushy
father"
> syndrome (in fact, people like Abdul Ismail, who did brilliant for
> Bombay and still coaches regularly ended up pushing their kids into
> tennis rather than cricket :-)
>
> > There's also school politics. Santhome vs Don Bosco.
> Santhome "boycotted"
> > DB (when they were the best 2 school teams in Madras) for about 3 or
4
> > years before things patched up. Even years later, Santhome vs DB
> matches
> > used to be more tense than India vs Pakistan matches, with the
> coaches on
> > either side verbally abusing players willy-nilly. (Lost to Santhome,
> > you're fired!)
> >
>
> Not unusual in most parts of India, I think - most big cities, at any
> rate. The Shardashram-Anjuman battles in Bombay used to be legendary,
> with very hard cricket being played (and yes, tons of sledging too :-)
> Even Shardashram-St Marys used to be really rough - I remember the
Mary-
> ians tearing down the tents in celebration when Tendulkar was
dismissed
> in the Giles Trophy final, many years ago :-)
>
> Many of those Shardashram boys have gone on to big things at the state
> level. Fewer of the Anjuman boys have, but there have been the odd
> ones - Iqbal Khan and Wasim Jaffer, to name two.
>
> > There's also company politics, but since I never got that far up the
> > cricketing ladder, I don't know much about them. We know about the
big
> > fallouts: Robin Singh left MRF for arch-rivals Chemplast reportedly
> > because of the money, and that was at the time BIG news in TN
> cricketing
> > circles. The MRF-Chemplast rivalry which at the time only existed on
> the
> > field was out in the open, with the TN Ranji captain in the eye of
the
> > storm. There are such company-rivalries, also.
> >
>
> That used to be a big issue in Bombay too - the Tata's/Mafatlal
contest
> of the 70s and 80s. There were many non-Bombayites playing too, of
> course - Brijesh Patel and the like. There is still some residual
> effect, but Iam not sure its a huge problem in India anymore.
>
> >
> > See other post. This Buchi Babu Trophy, etc. are in part 1 of the
> season.
> > There is no such thing to get the TN players prepared for part 2
> (i.e. the
> > knock-out part) of the season!
> >
> > If you need evidence on the NE monsoon affecting TN cricket, you
just
> have
> > to look up old Ranji score-cards. You will find literally DOZENS of
> home
> > games at the MAC affected by rain, abandoned after one session of
> play,
> > etc., etc. Even away games are played by badly out-of-practice
> players.
> >
>
> Well, TN players are v well prepared for the start of the season. And
> that continues till what, late November/early December? And then they
> sometimes travel for Duleeps etc, and play Ranji knock-outs in January
> or so? Yes the monsoons affect them - but the state players often get
> to play somewhere or the other, no? But its true, we dont have
anything
> mid-season - we just end up starting too late, which kills our players
> early in the season.
>
> Sadiq [ Bombay's first Ranji game this year - December 2nd!] Yusuf
>
> > <snip>
> >
> > -Samarth.
Arjun Pandit
100...@ux11.cso.uiuc.edu>,
>
> <snip>
>
> Oops! Missed this gem the last time around. :-)
You would have been better off missing the "gem" :-)
>
> Actually, the difference between Mankad and WV Raman (whom you have
> already deemed as "crap") is even less. Difference of only 0.5 in
> average!
>
> I have already agreed that WV Raman was crap, even though he was only
> less than a "tad bit" inferior to Mankad. *Now*, what is your opinion
> on Mankad? :-)
I can assure you one thing Samarth. You will never see anyone starting
a thread "Remembering Ashok M Mankad" and writing passionately about
the Cigarettes AMM smokes or which Pan ki Dukaan he frequents or the
name of the housing complex of his flat or how he lazes around :-)
Such sort of adulation would shock even the teen fans of Hrithik Roshan
and give them an inferiority complex ;)
Surely you cant be so passionate about someone whom you deem as crap?
Regards
Pandit
cricke...@my-deja.com
"Harish Chandramouli" <c.ha...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> <cricke...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
> news:8sqmn2$3q1$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
turn
> > to Ramachandra Guha (from Karnataka, since these distinctions seem
to
> > mean a lot on rsc ;-). From "Spin and Other Turns".
>
>
> Thanks for posting this. It has certainly made me appreciate Dilip
> Vengsarkar a whole lot more than I used to. I've always enjoyed
> reading Vengsarkar the *columnist*, but I guess I have never
> really given Vengsarkar the batsman the credit he was really due.
> And in that regard, this piece was a real eye-opener.
>
You couldnt have watched India play much from 85-87 or so, then, huh? :-
) Some of the best batting by an Indian, ever. Averaged over 90, over a
3-year span, and was rated #1 batsman in the world by C&L in that
period.
I dont think I'll ever forget those battles against WI at home
(Patterson might not have had a brilliant career, but he was
*frightening* that tour). Even the 1983 WI tour of India had a couple
of pretty solid V'kar knocks, against the best fast bowling Ive ever
seen in my life at least (Marshall in 83, that is).
> What is it about Ramachandra Guha anyway? The man is an
> absolute legend in his own right. Very few writers have the sort of
> innate ability to weave you around in a spell, and take you back
> in time to the event in question, and make it seem almost as if you
> *were* there all along, but, he is certainly one of them.
>
> Ever since his piece on Ken Barrington ("Nonsense. I threw him an
> orange myself, and he peeled it and ate it in front of my own eyes")
> I've been a big fan of his - but this effort on Vengsarkar has just
> elevated him to another level altogether in my eyes. What an utterly
> fabulous writer.
>
This wasnt actually an "effort" on Vengsarkar, per se - it was
something I sort of extracted from his book, "Spin and Other Turns". He
has a full chapter on the "Holy Trinity" (Bedi, Chandra, Prasanna). A
full chapter on Sunil Gavaskar. A full chapter entitled "For Country
and City" - which consists of talk on Bombay, and the batsmen it has
produced for India. It was from within this chapter that I extracted
the above on Vengsarkar (and I sort of cut out a couple of "nice
writing" bits from it too, since I was running short of time at that
moment - sorry, if you really want em, let me know and I'll tack em on
and mail you the complete "Vkar effort" thing :-) Within this chapter
he also talks of Merchant, Vijay Manjrekar etc.
In addition to the above, he also has a chapter in this book on
the "slow men of India". One on "The best loved cricketer" - almost
entirely about Vishy, but with a little bit on Duleep as well. A
chapter on "Stumpers of Spin". And one on "The One who wasnt there"
(this book is almost entirely about 70s cricket in India - the above
clearly refers to "pacemen allrounders" :-) That chapter is almost
entirely on Kapil, with brief mentions of CK and Amarsingh.
Anyway. Not a book for history, per se, nor one of any statistical
detail whatsoever (he doesnt believe in stats, Guha, and also has a
couple of ideas about Indian cricket that some of us will not agree
with, in all probability :-) But he is a cricket romantic, who clearly
loved his heroes of the 70s - and he spins a beguiling web of stories
and anecdotes. A very very fun read, IMHO (TOI called it "a joyous
exercize in cricket escapism" - quite accurate :-)
I agree with you about him being a terrific writer - in the romantic
sense, with stories, anecdotes, just pleasure reading. There are few
better (and no Indians who are, or ever have been, better) in that
sense, IMHO. Fantastic with nostalgic look-backs on the great ones of
the past.
But, by the same token, that is what he concentrates on - if you want
analytical pieces on Indian cricket today, hard-hitting commentaries on
the stupidity of today's selectors, match reports on a current game et
al, then he isnt really your guy. He doesnt do that very often, and
when he does, IMHO, it clearly isnt his forte.
Anyway, all IMHO. I love the nostalgic stuff myself, so Iam a bit of a
sucker for his kind of writing.
Sadiq [ who has read "Spin and Other turns" half a dozen times] Yusuf
> Harish
cricke...@my-deja.com
> > samarth harish shah wrote:
> >
> > > Agree completely with you. For every good article he writes, there
> are 20
> > > absolute crap pieces.
> >
> > Now that you have called a TN journalist crap, do you wish me, Abhay
> & RI to
> > call 10 Bombay journalists crap ? :-)
> >
> > I am more than willing, if you let me know which journalists are
from
> B'bay.
> >
>
> of two areas: cricket and hindi film music (esp Lata Mageshkar). I
> doubt if anyone in India comes near him. But I agree with Harish T.K.
> If only Bharatan could match his writing quality with his knowledge.
>
Yes, Bharatan is based in Bombay, and has been for a very long time at
least. Used to live on Marine Drive, too (I played tennis as a kid with
his grandson :-)
As for his cricket acumen - I really think its quite good. But he is
old - very old. He used to be top reporter and very good way back in
the 70s. And he wasnt exactly a Hindu writer too - used to be TOI, I
believe (definitely Illustrated Weekly - I remember his pieces there
even in the late 70s and early 80s). He then retired in the mid-80s,
and stopped writing (at least on cricket) completely - his successor
was actually Sundar Rajan.
He came back only in the late 90s, for the Hindu, as a columnist who
writes briefly (maybe once a week at best). And his pieces now are
almost always look-backs, relating current situations to ones past,
etc. And he is nowhere near as good as he used to be (and also a lot
pun-nier - I dont remember anywhere near the number of excrutiating
puns in the old days :-) I think maybe he always loved puns, but
couldnt ever use them in the old days as he was a serious writer and
probably had strict editors - so he makes up for it nowadays by using
them at every opportunity :-)
> Btw, I picked up a 1970-71 issue of The Illustrated Weekly of India
(in
> my univ library) in which Bharatan had recommended his XI for the tour
> of WI. A comment went something like this.." The selectors could do
> well to pick up the young opener from Bombay, Sunil Gavaskar, who
seems
> to have the right temperament to make it at the highest level."
>
> Arun [loved that prediction] Simha
>
Yeah. He used to know his domestics in those days as well :-) I doubt
very much if he pays attention to any of that stuff anymore.
Sadiq [ who remembers Bharatan in the old days ] Yusuf
Rocky Raccoon
> I can assure you one thing Samarth. You will never see anyone starting
> a thread "Remembering Ashok M Mankad" and writing passionately about
> the Cigarettes AMM smokes or which Pan ki Dukaan he frequents or the
> name of the housing complex of his flat or how he lazes around :-)
You have a remarkable memory.
Almost as good as Deja
http://x68.deja.com/[ST_rn=ps]/viewthread.xp?AN=622237062.2
asi...@my-deja.com
> PS: Just wait till Saeed Ahmed Hattea finds out what an elaborate
> conspiracy was hatched to select SMG, while he was left out. :-)
>
>
LOL. Hattea was a bowler, wasn't he? He bowled Pataudi for next to
nothing in the Irani at Mumbai in 70-71, right? That resulted in an
awful set of puns by Bharatan. Hattea had an English wife called Joyce.
No prizes for guessing Bharatan's puns on "joys and Joyce". Urrgggh.
Cheers
Arun
samarth harish shah
> > Oops! Missed this gem the last time around. :-)
>
> You would have been better off missing the "gem" :-)
Not at all. Don't flatter yourself, hon. :-)
> > Actually, the difference between Mankad and WV Raman (whom you have
> > already deemed as "crap") is even less. Difference of only 0.5 in
> > average!
> >
> > I have already agreed that WV Raman was crap, even though he was only
> > less than a "tad bit" inferior to Mankad. *Now*, what is your opinion
> > on Mankad? :-)
>
> I can assure you one thing Samarth. You will never see anyone starting
> a thread "Remembering Ashok M Mankad" and writing passionately about
> the Cigarettes AMM smokes or which Pan ki Dukaan he frequents or the
> name of the housing complex of his flat or how he lazes around :-)
Re: cigarettes and lazing around at the beach: The above were guesses as
to why Raman might have turned out to be crap in spite of being very
talented.
Re: Paan ki Dukaan/apartment complex: I can't help it if he lived close to
where I did. In any case, just because I know something about his personal
life doesn't mean I think he's a great (or even half-decent) test batsman!
By the same logic, since I know more about Raman's personal life than
Bradman's, I must consider Raman a greater test batsman than Bradman,
right? What ultimate logic!
> Such sort of adulation would shock even the teen fans of Hrithik Roshan
> and give them an inferiority complex ;)
>
> Surely you cant be so passionate about someone whom you deem as crap?
I see that you have not answered the question in my previous post.
Irrespective of what I think about Raman, *you* have deemed him crap. I
have proven to you that Raman ~= AM Mankad and asked you what you think
about Mankad, now.
You have not answered that question. Say it, RI, say it. You are only
confirming what I said early in this thread: that some Mumbaikars do not
have the guts to stand up and say, "Mumbai player X was crap."
-Samarth.
PS: Regarding the "paper score 25 syndrome" of Madras, I have recently
come to know that in the maidans of Mumbai, a score of 30 or above is
referred to as "cutting". Because one has to score >= 30 for one's name to
appear next day in the newspapers. Just FYI; it's quite unrelated to the
post above.
kuru_fan
>
>Arjun Pandit wrote:
>
>> I can assure you one thing Samarth. You will never see anyone starting
>> a thread "Remembering Ashok M Mankad" and writing passionately about
>> the Cigarettes AMM smokes or which Pan ki Dukaan he frequents or the
>> name of the housing complex of his flat or how he lazes around :-)
>
>Almost as good as Deja
My memory is even more remarkable than deja. Otherwise, I would have reposted
the article by Vinay Deolialikar on "How Kapil destroyed Kuruvilla And Ankola",
That post passionately recalled, how all in one package called Ankola had
variety of Akram, clinical precision of McGrath, pace of Marshall, bounce of
Ambrose, yorkers of Waqar, leg cutters of Croft, incutters of Imran so on and so
forth. Similar posts on Kuru too have been posted in this forum like "Kuru
faster than Marshall of 1991".
>http://x68.deja.com/[ST_rn=ps]/viewthread.xp?AN=622237062.2
Actually there is another story on how Sachin destroyed Ankola's career taken
from the book "Stories told by Ankola". Let's leave it.
Rocky Raccoon
> Actually there is another story on how Sachin destroyed Ankola's career taken
> from the book "Stories told by Ankola". Let's leave it.
Touche, RK.
I remembered this when I was following up of NS's conspiracy theory. I probably
thought, you would come out with it then, like "Sab convinience ka baat hain".
Der sey aye, par durust nahin aye.
The Cynic
>Touche, RK.
I have nothing to do with this post. I am not the only rscer to have a newsguy
account and indeed certain posts from newsguy were not posted by me. Generaly
follow this rule: If I deny a post, then it is *certainly* not my post. If I
keep quiet, it may or may not be my post :-)
RK-
Akbar
>
> Re: Paan ki Dukaan/apartment complex: I can't help it if he lived
close to
> where I did. In any case, just because I know something about his
personal
> life doesn't mean I think he's a great (or even half-decent) test
batsman!
>
Actually, you do seem to believe that he was a decent bat who wasn't
given his due since he did not play more than 2 consecutive tests for
India. This is something you wrote during the CC vs MM fight on RSC
about 3-4 weeks back.
At that time, it had been pointed out that Raman was infact played in
all the 3 test of the 1990 series vs NZ.
> By the same logic, since I know more about Raman's personal life than
> Bradman's, I must consider Raman a greater test batsman than Bradman,
> right? What ultimate logic!
>
Thats not the logic. The logic is "You wouldn't go ga-ga over a
batsman if you think he is crap". I don't think any MM goes ga-ga over
Lalchand Rajput or Suru Nayak even if they do know these batsmen
personally.
>
> I see that you have not answered the question in my previous post.
> Irrespective of what I think about Raman, *you* have deemed him crap.
I
> have proven to you that Raman ~= AM Mankad and asked you what you
think
> about Mankad, now.
To tell the truth, I never saw Mankad. Based on record, Raman and Mankad
are equally crap.
- Akbar Allahabadi.
--
ham aah bhii karatay hain to ho jaate hain badanaam
vo qatl bhii karatay hain to charchaa nahiin hotaa
samarth harish shah
> Samarth,
>
> >
> > Re: Paan ki Dukaan/apartment complex: I can't help it if he lived
> close to
> > where I did. In any case, just because I know something about his
> personal
> > life doesn't mean I think he's a great (or even half-decent) test
> batsman!
> >
>
> Actually, you do seem to believe that he was a decent bat who wasn't
> given his due since he did not play more than 2 consecutive tests for
> India.
But then, I also seem to believe VVS Laxman is a decent bat. At least I'm
consistent. :-) Other people (read: RI) think VVS Laxman is crap, but
won't say the same abt Mankad.
BTW, I do recall saying that he was not given enough opportunities.
Regarding "decent", it's all comparative. As an opening bat for India, by
comparison to some others, 25 is a decent average. However, compared to
good batsmen by international standards (avg 40+) and keeping in minds the
runs scored in Ranji Trophy, Raman and Mankad were total crap. Equally
crap, to borrow a phrase from you.
This is something you wrote during the CC vs MM fight on RSC
> about 3-4 weeks back.
> At that time, it had been pointed out that Raman was infact played in
> all the 3 test of the 1990 series vs NZ.
>
>
> > By the same logic, since I know more about Raman's personal life than
> > Bradman's, I must consider Raman a greater test batsman than Bradman,
> > right? What ultimate logic!
> >
> Thats not the logic. The logic is "You wouldn't go ga-ga over a
> batsman if you think he is crap".
Where "going ga-ga" = knowing a player's home address or where he hangs
out.
I'll tell you what "going ga-ga" is. See any post by any Mumbaikar about
Sameer Dighe. That's going ga-ga. Nobody on RSC at least went ga-ga over
Reuben Paul or even Robin Singh.
I don't think any MM goes ga-ga over
> Lalchand Rajput or Suru Nayak even if they do know these batsmen
> personally.
>
> >
> > I see that you have not answered the question in my previous post.
> > Irrespective of what I think about Raman, *you* have deemed him crap.
> I
> > have proven to you that Raman ~= AM Mankad and asked you what you
> think
> > about Mankad, now.
>
> To tell the truth, I never saw Mankad. Based on record, Raman and Mankad
> are equally crap.
Panditji will not say it. :-) <taunt> Darte hain. :-) </taunt>
-Samarth.