Weekly speaking

Business as usual for the Windies: it's a measure of how low the once-mighty windies have sunk that the prefix 'once mighty' now seems like little more than a very distant memory. after yet another abject surrender by an innings and some runs - this time to the south africans - you wonder whether the windies will ever regain their place closer to the top of the cricketing ladder. (not, if you ask us.) with shiv chanderpaul, for once, contributing next to nothing in the first innings and being unable to bat in the second due to illness, the gulf between the clinical south africans and the incompetent tourists transformed itself into an ocean, which the islanders from the caribbean couldn't come even close to navigating. how the south africans contrived to lose the first test of the ongoing series to this bunch of no-hopers is a mystery we'll never get to the bottom of. then again, i suppose we should thank our stars for that. if nothing else, it made the first three tests of the series just that bit more engaging for the people following it; and a little more worthwhile for the people who run cricket nowadays - the advertisers.

Monkey v/s Bastard: the people that decide these things in the hallowed portals of the icc are going to find it very hard to convince the people who worship a 'monkey god' that calling someone a simian is racist. but call an indian a 'bastard' and you've probably hit him where it hurts the most. you see, the majority of indians are overly sensitive about their parentage and morality. almost anywhere you go in india - including the most forward-thinking parts - a child born to unmarried parents is frowned upon and ostracized. (assuming such a child is allowed to be born at all.) so if the aussies are going to insist on making an issue out of harbhajan calling andrew symonds a monkey, the indians are going to get pretty medieval about this latest fracas and make hogg pay for calling them 'bastards'. (god knows, they're not good enough to make these aussies pay on the field.) that the aussies chose to go the whole hog and do everything within their power to make harbhajan pay for taking the monkey out of symonds - despite having won a test they had as good as lost on the first day itself - is a reflection of how strained the relations are between the two teams. if the men from down under had even an iota of grace, they would have savoured their 'assisted' victory in the second test at sydney and not tried to rub salt into the wounds of the already smarting indians by getting harbhajan banned. after this, for many indians, australia is likely to be the new pakistan.

Advertisers bat for Yuvraj: seeing that their young, marketable star has proved to be totally incapable of making any runs in australia - even against a second string attack - a consortium of advertisers have contacted the indian team management and requested that they be allowed to bat for him. the ever-studious but no-longer bespectacled indian skipper quietly informed them that batting for yuvraj involved a lot more than just putting pressure on the the management to juggle the team around the needs of their star. it required playing responsibly, delivering when the chips are down, keeping one's head firmly planted on one's shoulder, making a significant contribution in any which way possible and not descending into an almighty sulk at the drop of a hat. suitably chastised, the consortium withdrew their support for yuvraj and thanked their stars for the 'racism' controversy that had kept the audiences glued to their television screens. (even though, the outclassed indian team hadn't.) last we heard, the very same consortium had placed a punt on sehwag coming good in the perth test. not a bad gamble, we think, when you consider that the likes of nathan astle and lou vincent - slashers with minimal footwork and similarly questionable technique - have done well in the past on the bouncy waca wicket.

Footnote: our team for the third test against australia is sehwag, jaffer, laxman, sachin, sourav, dravid, dhoni, kumble, pathan, rp singh, ishant sharma. we're also, unlike most of the official mouthpieces, quite certain the indians will not lose at perth. that's assuming billy bowden and asad rauf don't do a bucknor and benson on them. let the game begin.

Hidden Gems - Rahul Dravid, opening batsman

let's go back to the time when everyone was questioning the need for rahul dravid in the odi side. initially reluctant to take on the dual role of a wicket-keeper batsman, rahul was made to understand that doing so was, perhaps, the only way he could hold his own in the team. with no way out, the additional challenge spurred him on to become a fitter, stronger, more accomplished and much better batsman.

we believe, oftentimes, the lack of options can be a great motivator to scale unthinkable heights.

depending on how you look at it, unfortunately or fortunately, rahul dravid is at a stage in his career where he is now, fairly or unfairly, in some danger of losing his place in the test side.

but why? you might, as a hard-boiled dravid supporter, be compelled to ask.

fact is, yuvraj is not good enough to be an opening batsman. if forced to open the batting to keep his place in the side, yuvraj will, quite swiftly, be sorted out by new ball bowlers around the world and might well end up in a hole similar to the one sehwag finds himself in today. do we want that? especially, when we know that we have in our midst a batsman with just the kind of game and temperament suited to opening the batting? certainly not. exactly!

there's no question that rahul dravid plays the moving ball better than yuvraj. that rahul dravid handles short-pitched deliveries better than yuvraj. and that a more positive rahul dravid will be a very hard man to dismiss with the new ball. (we've already seen proof of that by way of the number of balls it took theis very good australian attack to get past his stubborn defenses in the just concluded test match.)

that apart, rahul dravid is not the kind of batsman who can be called upon to annihilate the old ball the way laxman, sachin, sourav and yuvraj can, lower down the order. the same line-up that failed so spectacularly in melbourne must be given a chance to come good again. a batting order with rahul, jaffer, laxman, sachin, sourav, yuvraj and dhoni makes for a formidable combination of solid defense, silken skills and blistering attack. better than anything else india can offer with a different combination of players. the caveat: rahul must persuade rahul that this re-alignment is good for him and team india.

of course, for all this wishful thinking to fructify, we need to go back in time and do whatever it is that was done to give india the new, improved batsman that the unexploited keeper in rahul dravid helped create. when the only way forward is to take the plunge, a person with all the strokes needed to swim will not sink.

Yawn!

sorry, but is it too early to switch off and wait for the australian juggernaut to walk all over another bunch of losers? let's consider what the indians can do from here on to avert the ominous gaze of defeat staring them in the face.

for one, they've got to get that gary kirsten sidekick - the upton guy - or someone else to come over and have a chat with dravid. obviously, whatever it is that kumble told him before he came out to - let's say it once again - reluctantly open the innings didn't work. disturbingly for the indians, if his own state-mate and skipper is unable to get dravid out of the mighty depression he seems to have gone under with, he must be, how should we say this, jettisoned. the indians can ill-afford the negativity of their batting lynch pin to influence the rest of the side. even more so, against a relentlessly aggressive and clinically merciless team like australia.

when the team's most technically correct batsman plays a no-brainer of an innings at the very top of the order and meekly hands back a very hard-won initiative to the australians, it's time for a searching examination. when he does it for the second time in a little over 3 months - remember that 12 of a million odd balls he scrounged for against england at the oval - it's time to get his head sorted out.

tragically for the indians today, the man in the eye of the storm and the cause of the strife over dravid's place in the batting (and pecking) order looked to be almost as weighed down by the proceedings as the 'pasha of pressure', dravid, himself. not that yuvraj can be blamed for it. all this talk centered around who will open the batting and who is willing to do more for the team and who does and does not deserve a place in the side can't have done the protagonists in this on-going saga any good.

the way things look, what the indians need is to consider opening the batting in the second innings with yuvraj and jaffer. if that doesn't work for yuvraj, they must seriously contemplate roping in sehwag for the second test. which still leaves the question of what to do with, probably, the best batsman in the side who can be happily included only if their best young batsman is not. things are not looking good for india. not just in this test, but also for the rest of series. let's hope, against hope, for the sake of a much-needed contest that rahul dravid finds his mojo in the second innings and re-invents himself as an opening batsman. (right.)

evidently, we're back to doing what every team confronting the aussies is forced to: hope and pray for the best. (and, that the australians will be well off their best.) quite clearly, the expections of a ripper-of-a-series were wildly optimistic. sadly for the indians, one bad day for the australians does not an indian summer make.

Cricket Quotas

fosters in hand (thank you for the cheque, fosters), sony dictaphone in the other, we walked into the football-stadium-sized dressing room that kumble described in his column with a well-known paper we'll never be sober enough to write for. who needs them? we're here. only because only we can get you the best cricket quotas in the universe. straight from the players who won't know we've been there listening to them and having imaginary conversations that lead to them spilling the beans because nobody ever aknowledges us. good. it helps when you want the best cricket quotas to be that way, in nobody's way. so, let's see what we got from the gang on the eve of the boxing day match.

"it's not like we're confused even though we may be so what if we don't know who's going to open the batting for us we know who it ain't going to be and that's not a bad place to start seeing that we're so confused. you want to open the batting?" beleaguered captain kumble still looking for an opening batsman to parter wasim jaffer. we politely declined citing our important job of delivering the freshest news to our devoted audience.

"all i need is one good innings to find my touch. though, i think dravid's the best guy to open with jaffer. bumping into virender sehwag and his bowling machine...perhaps the only bowler in the world of cricket who still hasn't figured out the way to dismiss him.

"it's not like i have a problem opening the batting for india. i just don't fucking dammit bastards don't want to do it! why the fuck should i be the fall guy after being the best fuckking batsman in the fucking side!" too petrified to wait and apologise to rahul dravid for bumping into him and who seemed a bit miffed with being, again, thrust the onerous task of opening the fucking indian batting...erm, apologies. we...kinda...sorta...feel for the senior pro.

"how do i look? you think they'll make me captain soon? did you say the way i hit my off-drives in that innings of 169? i looked so good enough for a double hundred, didn't i? how do i look? i think i'll go in at 6...no...5...no, 6. never mind. i'll make up mah mind on the day of the match. yeah, tomorrow." yuvraj doing a shoaib akhtar while waiting for his god-given place in the indian middle order. just then, from the corner of our eye we see dravid walking very quickly towards yuvi. contemplating the possibilities of a juicy exchange of quotas, we retired - not yet hurt - to a corner of the dressing room the size of a football field waiting for the explosion to happen and the hurt to follow.

some silent minutes later: it really was an extrvagantly endowed dressing room the size of a footy field with a corner so far that we were unable to hear anything at all of the spat that took place between yuvi and rahul. we did though hear the sms we recieved on our good old motorazr (thank you moto for the cheque) from kumble saying he was very disappointed with us for having hurriedly declined his gracious offer of a place in the indian side as an opening batsman. so disappointed in fact that he had decided to take matters into his own hands and partner jaffer at the top of the order.

yuvi, meanwhile, is getting used to doing a shoaib akhtar. rahul is waiting for yuvi to decide so that yuvi doesn't come after his own place in the batting order. sachin is practicing batting better in the 90s. dhoni, looking assured as ever, is drinking milk, eating biscuits and dreaming of his honey. then there's an australian guy sitting in the corner of the football-field-sized dressing room - but of course beer in hand - painting the scene. sure that his masterpeice would show up on channel 9 to be hawked as limited edition cricketobelia, we proceeded to invest the next few minutes of our time into painting a sign. see you, tomorrow morning. look out for a wild-eyed guy holding up a beer and a hand-painted, limited edition, up-for-sale signboard that says, what else, "please read TPR".

Proposed SAARC meet to discuss wickets

in a move clearly aimed at restoring relevance to an august institution of regional development that has had nothing significant to do since the time of its inception, the south asian association for regional co-operation (SAARC) has called for an urgent meeting to discuss the state of the wickets in the sub-continent.

the BCCI has reacted to this newest challenge to its hegemony by launching the south asian association for regional non-cooperation (SAARNC) and, furthermore, banning anyone who decides to play for SAARC. on being politely informed that SAARC was not a new cricket league but, rather, another group of self-serving individuals with nothing better to do than...well, non-cooperate, the BCCI swiftly revoked the ban, instantly dissolved the still-unborn SAARNC and decided to reach out to the SAARC on common grounds.

in another related development, bollywood has issued a statement wholeheartedly supporting this coming together of SAARC and the BCCI because it firmly believes that without lively wickets, cricket becomes a dull sport, which means fewer opportunities for their own stars to advertise their set of wares to a captured audience. shahrukh khan, in particular, has requested that he be allowed to attend the SAARC-BCCI summit meeting so that he may promote his most newly developed body part. it is believed that the BCCI and SAARC have politely discouraged him from doing so because they feel his presence will hamper their continued efforts to do nothing at all.

meanwhile, the south asian wickets curators association (SAWCA) have requested that they be sent the minutes of this most important summit meeting. simultaneously, they have also promised to constitute a sitting committee on the matter to ponder the future course of inaction.

the parties most affected by the state of the wickets in the sub-continent, the players, are adopting a wait and watch attitude to these latest developments in the hub of cricket. off the record, though, the batsmen are believed to be somewhat unhappy because it promises to change - for the worse - the one part of the world they could safely pad their batting averages in. the bowlers,on the other hand, are thought to be enthusiastically pessimistic about these latest round of initiatives because they know full well nothing much will come out of it.

but the last word on this matter must go to the dodos who have forwarded an ever-growing list of extinct species to all the parties concerned with the promotion of good cricket, urging them to consider using analogies other than 'dead as a dodo' to describe the state of wickets. misinformed sources tell us that the shirt-makers of the world (SOTW), too, are considering sending in a similar petition to combat the preponderance of the 'flat as a shirt-front' comparison.

finally, in another opportunistic attempt to promote himself, shahrukh khan has urged the BCCI, SAARC and the highly clannish association of cricket editors and writers (HCACEW) to seriously consider the use of the metaphor 'this is a wicket that's as flat as king khan's abs' to solve the dodo and the SOTW's problem. last we heard, the members of the BCCI and SAARC - wholly in keeping with their illustrious record - have postponed the proposed meet until people cease to further notice.

Loin of Punjab and Bengal Tiger feast on Pakistani lambs to the slaughter

admittedly, tpr is not too keen about the excessive length of the headline. (much, much longer than the five or six word limit that's considered proper by the important people who decide on these things.) but, as our time in the badlands of advertising falanas and dimkanas has taught us, less is not always more. even more so, when there exist a profusion of punning opportunities that we're sure our highly literate audience will most definitely appreciate.

and so, pleased as a skilled minesweeper for having deftly side-stepped our way out of a potentially tricky issue, time now to dig into another one of our characteristically unmeasured takes; this time on the incandescent brilliance of the two princes of indian cricket who lit up the four corners of chinnaswamy stadium with an array of chops that would have done a masseur proud. and, in the process, consigned the moral victory achieved by pakistan at eden to the forgotten reaches of short public memory.

on a day when - in the grander scheme of things - almost everything went swimmingly well for india (save for gambhir's continuing inability to nail down a place in the test side), the pakistani bowling attack, once again, looked more toothless than a gummy geriatric. shoaib akthar's consistent inability to bowl more than a handful of overs at express pace on the first day of two of the three test matches in this series has meant that the indian top order has never had to tackle anything like the questions that might have been thrown at them in a more evenly matched contest. (that a gentle trundler like yasir arafat still managed to reduce the indians to 61-4 is something the australians will have gleefully made a note of.)

that said, the first day's play was not about shoaib's latest injury worries. it was not about gambhir's inability to, yet again, find a better way negotiate the so-called 'corridor of uncertainty' outside his off-stump. it was not about jaffer's mildly disturbing penchant for getting himself out without offering a stroke - in our memory, he has done it three times in his short career so far. it was not about vvs laxman's not-so-special habit of playing half-cock and exposing himself to the vulnerability of being bowled or leg before wicket more often than not in the early part of his innings. it was about the two princes of indian cricket who provided a fitting riposte to their naysayers.

the pressure on sourav - who hasn't ever, at least, in our memory, followed up a big score in a test match with more of the same in the next - to keep his place in a middle-order bursting with resources must have been immense. and the conditions to do so were far from ideal. probably, the prospect of playing his 100th test match on boxing day in the backyard of the old enemy - australia - must have fuelled an appetite for runs in sourav we have rarely had the privilege of seeing. sourav was always a captain with a cast-iron stomach for combat, but it is in his 'post-greg chappell avataar' that the former captain and prince of calcutta has considerably tightened his defenses and buckled down to concentrate harder on the business of scoring runs. and it showed.

while the youthful heir apparent yuvraj scored faster, more attractively and more, it was the mature dada who looked the more assured and at no time in any great danger of losing his wicket. so will sourav get it right this time and go on to score a double hundred? if his near flawless performance on the first day is anything to go by, we would bet on it. we'd also be very interested in watching how dinesh kartik rises to this occasion. considering how stiff the competition is for the one or, maybe, two available batting slots in the side and how ravenously everyone is competing for them, day two promises to be a most revealing one.

will dinesh kartik, with his superior batting technique, strengthen his case for inclusion in the side as wicket-keeper batsman at the expense of dhoni? should india pick a regular opener like gambhir or sehwag or, even akash chopra, to partner with jaffer in australia? who in the middle order will make way for yuvraj in the next test match? will it be dravid? can they afford to leave out dravid against the likes of lee and company on the fast australian wickets? and in the midst of all these india-centric issues, shouldn't we spare a little, eensy-weensy thought for the delightfully-eccentric younis khan?

indeed, we must. the beleaguered skipper was - on a first day wicket fresher than anything seen so far in the series in a test match pakistan had to win - forced to fall back on the likes of salman butt and yasir hameed to buy wickets. in all the years of consuming cricket, never have we been witness to a series in which the indians have regularly taken the field with a more potent new ball attack than that of pakistan's - something the think tank would do well to factor in while preparing for australia.

The Guess Who - An Auld Game

it would only be a marginal inaccuracy to refer to our man as a 'saucy or impudent girl'. except, this person happens to be rather more disciplined, almost as straight-laced as a victorian corset and plays in a manner that can hardly be described as saucy. even the nickname given to him by his team-mates is boringer than watching grass grow on a dead wicket. so much so, one of the two most conspicuous things about him is his name. the other of course is his first-class record before he got his break as an international player with an appetite for large constructions. no, he was not born in zimbabwe. and no, he does not flinch from genuine fast bowling. so that should straightaway eliminate many comparisons with other players who had illustrious, longer-than-usual domestic careers to go before their initiation into the big, bad world of test cricket. speaking of late bloomers, there's much about misbah that reminds us of this man - no, not misbah's comedic running between the wickets. rather, it's the quiet, systematic and calm way in which they both go about establishing their presence in the middle. (come to think of it, our conundrum for the day happens to be one of the finest runners between the wickets.) in other news: it took him 166 days of test cricket to beat andrew strauss' world record. actually, from just the looks of it, strauss and he share a fair bit in common. going forward, captain kumble and company would do well to spend a little time reading up on him. for they can be sure as his front and back foot play that he'll be eagerly awaiting their arrival shortly. though not quite in the same manner as we shall for the arrival of your non-existent answer in comments.

Pakistan seal moral victory

the great thing about moral victories is that while they might feel a bit unsatisfying they do leave you rather hungry for the real thing. what's more, they also infuse you with the confidence to believe that you have turned the corner and are ready to taste success. after getting out of what - against a better bowling attack - might have looked like their alcatraz of this tour of india, pakistan and, in particular, their makeshift captain younis khan will be waiting for bangalore as eagerly as andrew symonds and company will be awaiting the arrival of sreesanth. to think it all started with one unlikely atlas holding the fort in almost lost cause.

right from inaugural edition of the t20 world cup, which is when he first laid his eyes on the indian attack, misbah has developed an affection for them that ought to make them blush. what he started in the delhi test - but couldn't quite finish - he brought to fruition, appropriately enough, in the garden of eden. and from the looks of it, it needed misbah - and, of all the distinguished batsmen, a sami - to knock sense into the rest of the pakistani batters. so that even though the atlas from mianwali, for once, failed to settle in for the long haul, the two Ys were rejuvenated enough to remind the indian bowlers what they might have to deal with much more of when the gladiators reassemble in bangalore; of course, with help from the inspirational misbah. (if his yousufesque record against india is anything to go by, now that he has failed once, he's due for a big one.)

on reflection, it's quite obvious that india, yet again, missed most the services of an aggressive bowler like rp singh or sreesanth. munaf, notwithstanding his startling dismissal of misbah in the second essay, didn't look like much more than a hardworking trundler. at 150 for 5 in the first innings and down for the count, india needed a better bowler to rattle the likes of akmal. and, crucially, the stumps. for the next test, we believe either rp or sree or, even, the shrewd pathan deserve a look in. in fact, we're not quite certain why pathan - with his ability to out-think the batsman, which would have proved invaluable during periods in the kolkatta test when it looked like the indian attack had run out of fuel and ideas - was not given the nod over munaf in this game. the vote of confidence would have done pathan a world of good in the run-up to the tour of australia - for which, we're convinced, he should be selected. and what about munaf? more about him in another piece.

speaking of pieces, kumble in his post-match piece said moral victories mean nothing to him. perhaps the studious-looking skipper has a point. (because as a studious-looking sort he must.) but we'd like to point this out. without a moral victory, india might not have gone on to win the recently concluded test series in england. without a moral victory in the test series, nasser's flintoff may not have gone on to win england the odi series and bare his chest. and without moral victories, cricket would not be a mind game. but it is. that's why when a team that needs nearly 300 runs to stay in the series does so, in some style, with the help of only one top order batsman and one out-of-form wicket-keeper fighting for his place in the side, it's not just a moral victory. it has all the makings of a momentum shift, the repercussions of which are likely to go some way. maybe all the way down to india's tour of australia.

Misbah rocks the casbah

he came. he saw. he conqured. he remained unconquered. but has the 'flaky' misbah done enough to save pakistan? let's, quickly, consider how much the maestro from mianwali has toiled to keep the men from his side of the wagah afloat in this match...and the series

today, he played more than half the number of deliveries bowled during the entire duration of the pakistani innings. he was at the crease for over 80% of the time the pakistani first innings lasted. at the end of it all, he wasn't dismissed. he rarely looked in any kind of trouble. and we won't say we told you he was going to be the next inzamam-ul-haq. we'll leave that for the other more well-known mouthpieces. all this to say without misbah, this series would have by now been decided in india's favour. that said, it still looks like it's going that way.

just when it looked like india had dropped the ball, lost the plot and handed back the initiative to pakistan - despite, shockingly enough, having scored over 600 runs in the first innings - kumble, laxman and the gods of cricket conjured up a moment of magic to add to the glittering array of memories and stars this wonderful match has throw up for our entertainment and enrichment. rarely have we been witness to a match with more brilliant performances. jaffer. dravid. sachin. laxman. sourav. dhoni. bhajji's 5 wicket haul. kumble's tireless spell. misbah. akmal. sami. jaffer again. the return of a refreshed, radiant but sadly luckless shoaib in the second innings. and we've still got a potentially gripping final day's play to come.

as is often the case after a team scores big...very big in the first knock on a wicket with only marginally more life than in a fossil, it's up to that team to make more things happen. so far, that team - india - have held the initiative for most part of this match....with a little help from a lackluster display by the pakistani top order batsman. come tomorrow, it'll be up to the indian bowlers, and fielders, to better their largely average first innings performances with a series of superior, decisive knock-out punches. Ys or no Ys, they can be certain as sunrise that one man will be calmly waiting for them. misbah.

Misbah-ul-Haq to Captain Pakistan

after younis khan declined to be, even, the makeshift captain for the third test, despot dictator general mushy stepped in to solve this latest crisis and appointed misbah-ul-haq as emergency skipper. in a very brief follow up address to the nation he barked, "in pakistan emergency is the answer to all crises."

immediately after, the vastly experienced cricket scholar, dr. shahid afridi added that misbah-ul-haq will have to be more aggressive as a captain. when the respected pundit was reminded that this is exactly what he had said to the former skipper, dr. shahid afridi promised to be more aggressive in his next set of statements.

in his first press conference after the appointment, captain misbah appointed sami as his vice-captain. he said, "sami is the one guy i have spent the most time with. i trust he will return the sentiment." in his first press conference after his appointment, sami flicked back his lustrous locks and politely returned the favour. it is believed the newly appointed captain misbah - being so used to doing everything to save pakistan - is considering taking on the responsibility of the vice captaincy too.

on the flight back to australia geoff lawson, the former coach of pakistan, said he had learned a lot during his stint with the pakistani team. when pushed for a quote, he said he had learned to keep his mouth shut.

in his second press conference after being made skipper, misbah-ul-haq cited family commitments meant that he regretfully wouldn't be able to take over the additional privilege of captaining pakistan. seeing that the next in line for the job would, logically speaking, be the vice captain, general mushy, fighting back tears, invited the vice captain misbah-ul-haq to take over from captain misbah-ul-haq as captain of pakistan. vice-captain misbah-ul-haq has asked for some time to consider the offer.

on that gripping note about the behind-the-scenes happenings from the world of crocket, this is tpr signing off with wink and a smile.

Akmal keeps the faith

we're not quite sure what gets into their heads but there is definitely something about pakistani wicket-keepers that makes them play out of their skins against india. the pakistani think-tank needs to be commended for persisting with a man whose neck has, for some time, been on the chopping block.

yesterday, akmal did to the indian attack what he has done just as brilliantly a couple of times in the past, most memorably, at mohali and karachi. and akmal is not the only pakistani keeper the indians have had trouble against.

during the 80s, the feisty salim yousuf often reserved some of his better performances for india. then, there was the inaugural match of the short-lived, poorly conceived asian test championships in which pakistan were reduced to 6/26 on the first morning only for moin khan to kick-start one of the greatest rearguard actions in the history of cricket and give his team the much-needed fillip to come back and win the test match.

that match, though, is most remembered for a young shoaib akhtar's double strike to castle rahul dravid and sachin tendulkar of consecutive deliveries - oh, how the mighty have fallen - and the disgraceful reaction of the eden crowd to a disputed 'sachin run-out' in the second innings that resulted in the match being completed in front of empty stands. will we see more of the same if kumble's indians contrive to somehow lose this one? in the current climate of commendable bhai-chara and neighbourly love we seriously doubt it.

anyway, the whole point of this trip down memory lane is to...well, point out that such are the problems indian teams have historically had against keepers from across the border. in the light of which, it seems only right that akmal delivered a long overdue big one. after all, it's rare for an indo-pak series to be completed without a notable contribution from a pakistani wicket-keeper.

truth be told, we're glad the simple, unassuming akmal, finally, decided to make his presence felt in a series that was rapidly turning into a terribly one-sided one. thankfully, for the jittery indians, he didn't take it too far. (had india not managed to get rid of akmal just before close of play, they would have had a bit too much to think about.)

the way things stand, it looks likely that india will go on to dismiss the pakistanis for less than 416 and enforce the follow on. (will they? we think yes.) and if they do, the question most indians will be confronted with is what if the two Ys and the ever-consistent misbah fire together? and what if akmal is still not done? will india be left chasing a tricky target on a crumbling fifth day wicket? thanks to akmal, misbah and india, the second test looks poised for a thrilling finish.

the eden crowd, meanwhile, holds on to its projectiles, and hearts, with bated breath.

Ball in India's court

only one team can save this test match. and while this might sound odder than a chinaman to the untrained ear, that team is not pakistan.

after being fortunate enough to have won the toss and batted first on a wicket flatter than a permanently pressed bespoke shirt-front, the home team have left the visitors with the mammoth task of scoring over 400 runs to save the follow-on and the series.

and yet - if only for the purposes of re-iterating how clever we are - it'll be down to india take 20 wickets and save us from enduring a high-scoring snorefest. but for that, they'll have to get past some historically troublesome ifs and Ys.

in the two Ys, younis and yousuf, pakistan have masterful players of spin bowling who, rather surprisingly, missed out at kotla and will be determined to partake of the run-feast the indians have gorged themselves on.

apart from his monumental 267 in bangalore to set up a series levelling win during pakistan tour of india in 2005, younis also made 147 at Kolkata and a pair of centuries during India's trip to Pakistan in 2006. as is clear from his record, his will be a wicket kumble and company will fervently hope they can snaffle soon tomorrow.

yousuf hit nine centuries in 2006, which is a world record for most centuries in a calendar year and also equalled bradman's record of scoring six centuries in successive Tests – although it took him only five matches to do it. he was also among pakistan's top run-getters in the just concluded odis.

it would be foolish on india's part to expect these two big match, big knock badshahs to be as generous as the profligate pakistani bowling attack has been so far.

in addition to the two Ys, regular readers of our views will already know how high an opinion we have of salman butt, who's still there. sadly, for us, our other favoured young guns from pakistan, shoaib malik and shahid afridi are not. good on india.

all this to say, it'll be captain kumble who'll have to do muost of the running in order to find ways to put it across some formidable obstacles that still stand in the way of a series clinching win for team india.

kumble has often said that he finds it much easier to take wickets once the batsmen have put runs on the board. well, we'll see how easy. his batsmen have played their part. it's now up-to kumble, and the other bowlers, to take this match by the...umm, balls and turn it. for if they don't, the two Ys are quite capable of batting their way to what might be a face-saving, series-turning draw.

if pakistan do manage to bat their way out of the hole their half-baked attack has dug them into, they'll go into the next test on a huge high. and we all know what younis khan did the last time these two teams met in bangalore.

Jaffa calls the shots at Eden

from 22/175, Bazaar Road, Mumbai to taking centrestage at arguably the greatest cricket ground in the world, it has been a long and bumpy ride for the elegant wasim jaffer. we hope, after this trip to the eden gardens, he'll stay on track and finally give india the great opening batsman she has so long craved for. the determination and perseverance that wasim jaffer has shown in weathering the ups and downs of his career so far make us think we might have found one of the two men we'll so desperately need to compete against australia in australia. now if only we can somehow locate the old virendar sehwag, life would be truly beautiful. that said, wasim jaffer in full flow does make for some very comely viewing.

on a day when half the pakistani team was indisposed with some ailment or the other and the rest that were on the field going through their shambolic motions rather than trying to play a competitive game of test cricket, the indian batsmen must have felt like kids given a free reign in a candy-laden store. that a radar-less sohail tanvir was forced to bowl a spell of leg spin and the peerless shoaib akhtar managed only 9 overs...yes, 9 overs of impotent fast-medium on this the first day of a most important test match for pakistan is a sad reflection of the mismatch this series is fast turning out into and, if we may be forward enough to add, the sad state of this lawson-coached, leaderless pakistani team. rahul and sachin must be kicking themselves for not going on and doing a jaffer, while dinesh kartik will hope his generosity for taking on the much avoided make-shift opener's job is rewarded with an equal, if not greater, dose of selectorial largesse while picking the team for the tour of australia.

while a contest more one-sided than admiral horatio nelson is not quite our cup of see, tpr is certainly over-the-top of cloud 9 to note that wasim jaffer is finally turning into the batsman he has long threatened to be - in, of course, the characteristically non-threatening manner he goes about conducting all his business. after the pretty little 50 he stroked his way to in the last test at kotla, this was, indeed, the main course we were hungrily waiting to dig into. and...it's not over. it is our heartfelt hope that he will not do a sourav on us tomorrow morning by getting himself out without making a big, big one. it's high time the blue-in-the-face billion got itself another triple centurion in tests. no? yes. (sigh, where oh where is that sehwag?)

tpr hopes that these pakistanis quickly find their mojo and come to the party - fact is, this indian team desperately needs a fosters-like wake-up call prior to the series of much sterner tests that await them down under. unfortunately, as is often the case with pakistan, in the absence of a strong leader they look quite incapable of playing a sound, consistent game. then again, as the mother of all cliches with respect to pakistani cricket go, they're most dangerous when down...but not quite out. and on that optimistic note, tpr - in a flash of utterly un-tpr-like initiative - is off to find the lost sehwag. lagey raho, jaffer!

The Guess Who - An Auld Game

the first time we watched this player do his thing, we wondered how someone who looked so vulnerable against the far-far-from-fearsome likes of venkatesh prasad managed to get away with so much. over time we realised it had much to with the fact that this man had a bit of atherton in him. and a bit of marvan too. and sunny gavaskar. and border - in fact, a lot of border...and a kiwi, too. oddly enough, for someone who was so much like so many other very fine players, he had few of the talents that his copiously endowed half-brother possessed. thankfully, with the kind of skills he had, or not, he was smart enough never to try and emulate his lavishly gifted half-sibling. quite obviously, he was never the kind of player crowds would travel great distances to watch. and yet, he was always the player in his side that opposition teams would try their hardest to see the back of. for a while, it looked like there were one or two surefire ways to send him on his way back to the pavillion. until, as was characteristic of his nature, he went back to the drawing board and devised a way to plug these seemingly glaring technical loopholes. perhaps it was the hairstyle or the fact that he didn't smile all that much, but he always seemed a little older than he was. calm and level-headed, he brought a healthy degree of common sense to the art of batting, which possibly explains why off the field and in the dressing room the dafter side of his personality surfaced. he enjoyed particular success on the sub-continent - where other players have floundered against the turning ball. might that be the reason he chose to come back? answer in comments.

BCCI commissions 'Guru Gary'

it never fails to amuse us how many times we're presented with the opportunity to say 'we told you so'. and so, repeatedly amused, we'll say this, again, we told you so.

it has come to our considered notice that certain people of considerable power in the bcci are asking certain other people who are not 'in' the bcci to come up with a suitable response to that hurtful piece of emotional drivel guru 'the not-so-great' greg okayed in the equally not-so-great documentary titled 'guru greg'.

these certain people in the bcci, who are believed to be the very secretive and invisible readers of tpr, swiftly cottoned in on how popular the term 'guru gary' is likely to become and so to make the most of the advertising revenues that will accrue from this imminent spike in the google-wordiness of 'guru gary', they have decided to produce a reality show in which the transparent process of choosing guru gary will be aired like dirty laundry in 13 equal episodes.

the participants of the already documented show were of course not aware that they were being recorded. which makes us more certain than the likelihood of another selectorial snafu that the bcci has a surefire hit on her hands. (no, no. it is only fair that tpr gets no partake of it.)

out in the blue corner - in what we suspect is a shrewd move to welcome the man whose job he nearly killed to have - guru greg is believed to have initiated hectic parleys with the assistance of the dashing, ambitious and scheming lalit modi to corner all the media noise and once-again reiterate that what he would like most is to be left alone.

First look: Guru Gary

first of all, let's drop the 'kirsten' from gary. for gary is way different from his far more talented brother kirsten. and that's what makes tpr certain as another sachin 90 that he's the right man for the job. what do you mean, what job? there is only one job worth thinking about. it's the job of the coach of the indian team. ladies and gentlemen, please welcome guru gary. the new, improved avataar of john wright? the doosra though doesn't think so. if tpr were into betting, it'd put all its ill-gotten gains as a moonlighting cricket writer on the distinct possibility that tpr will be proven wrong in investing his hopes on the unknown as a parsvnath share, guru gary. who? perfect. but, the doosra still seems to think chappell was the right man for the job. and the indian team wrong in rejecting him. maybe the doosra is right. tpr is known to has been proven spectacularly wrong in its predictions. case in point: misbah-ul-haq for the next inzy? hah! salman butt, shooting up like a reliance share? iffy...like the stock market. we'll have to wait and see. misbah is flaky. salman is inconsistent. yes. and yes. but...they've got personality. what personality? we'll have to wait and see. its that personality they've got that makes us bet on them. and reluctantly laud the indian selectors for getting it right. that's three times in a row they've done the right thing. let's make them stock-pickers. note to self: put together that stock market meets cricket game. spend less time writing this unknown blag. right. but why does tpr like so much guru gary? the perfect time, we think, to move to the next paragraph.

tpr can't help but fall back on the obvious and draw our non-existent audience's attention to the last good coach the india stars had. he was a left handed opening bat. he was dour as scrub. doughtier than the oldest piece of nan. dogged as a porn star and boringer than growing grass, he was reliable as a chappati. his was a talent as run-of-the-mill as daily bread - which, he made the most of. no, the answer we're coming to is not guru gary. but it could be. we've never met coach wright but from what we've seen of him as a player and a coach, he was the perfect personality for that india side. ditto with respect to coach gary who we gut-feelingly believe in our...umm, gut, is the right personality to coach this india.

big names need coaches with complimentary and complementary personalities. often these coaches have to deal with being things that don't do much more than ply players to various places. greg chappell, mbe would never have been able to coach shane warne. the indian team is full of shane warnes. and that's why the india stars will not be coached by a richards or a sunil gavaskar or a kapil dev - who in any case is banned because he's now part of the icl, bless his simple soul - or even the most beloved greg chappell. they need someone like gary or gary or gary. its pretty obvious, we think guru gary is perfect. most of all, simply put, in a nutshell, last but not the least and - insert parting cliche here - because he doesn't think he's a guru. the doosra, though...never mind.

Sourav survives Kotla test

so we started writing this match report a few hours ago until we asked ourselves what's the big idea writing something that dilip, over at the doosra, will do a predictably evocative job of. and so he has.

dilip has said almost everything that needs to be said about india's gabbaesque record at the kotla. almost. thankfully, he has left us with one or two things more that are worth writing home about, one of which - the sourav show - we will proceed to dwell upon in some detail.

after a typically loose dismissal through the gate in the first innings, a typically chancy contribution with the ball and the bat in the second effort ensured that the 'long in the tooth but far from short on determination' bengal tiger lived to fight another day...and two more test matches. good on him.

luckily for captain kumble and sourav, the latter managed to somehow successfully negotiate shoaib's thunderbolts during a most crucial time of the match last evening. where a more adventurous captain might have considered sending in dhoni at the fall of dravid's wicket, kumble, as is his wont, did what was expected of him.

against a more inventive and better endowed team than malik's pakistan, kumble will have to demonstrate more initiative in order to deal better with challenges involving the likes of brett lee, mitchell johnson and company. it'll be interesting to see how much extra over the ordinary our new captain is likely to be. or not. we think not.

the next test is going to be held at the eden gardens. we wonder what sourav, laxman and dravid, all of whom have fond memories of this one of the world's more dramatic cricketing venues, will serve up for us.

the last time the indian's played pakistan here, it took shoaib akhtar two balls to change the complexion of the game. two magic balls. balls even more magical than the one he bowled to breach the wall's defenses in the kotla test. a feast awaits us.

The Guess Who - An Auld Game

this player reminds me of the marvelous marvan atapattu. like marvan, once this player gets his eye in, he's hard to dislodge. like marvan, it's very rare that this player will not make a start count. and, finally, a bit more like marvan, if you scan this player's stats, you'll find that he either makes very little or quite a lot. so much so, even their career batting averages are more or less the same. and yet, he has a long, long way to go before he can be considered as sound and as determined as marvan. he has time. because, unlike marvan - who has called it a day - this young man promises his fans many more days of elegant cricket. apart from marvan, who else might this player remind us of. well, he's a bit like vinod kambli. that said, when it comes to his methods against fast bowling, he's a cut above vinod kambli. he's also a bit like sachin tendulkar. then again, when it comes to his methods against fast bowling, he's a few notches below the little master. speaking of which, if he tightens up his defense and works on his concentration (sooner rather than later), this man has it in him to be the next rahul dravid. interestingly enough, he shares at least two things in common with mr. navjot singh siddhuism - neither of which has anything to do with the genial sikh's penchant for mouthing off. it's pettily unfair to say this, but it might be useful to point out that he nearly lost us the first test match of this series against pakistan at the ferozshah kotla. fortunately when he got his chance to make amends, he didn't disappoint. were it not for him, india would find it impossible to win - if not any, certainly many test matches - abroad. shoaib akhtar, malcolm marshall, dennis lilee, kapil dev, curtly ambrose, brett lee and mashrafe mortaza are not just the names of some very fine and fearsome cricketers, they also happen to be our final set of clues. any clue who this smoggy word-picture of ours is, quite clearly, alluding to? answer in comments.

First look: Misbah-ul-Haq

for starters, the one batsman misbah most reminds me of is the titan with whom he shares a part of his name and whose not-so-inconsiderable boots he was brought back into the pakistani side to fill - inzaman-ul-haq. (even more so, after he found yet another inventive method to get himself out in this his first test against arch-rivals, india.)

thanks to misbah contriving to come up with ever original ways to terminate the nerveless sojourns his knocks have a happy habit of turning into, my top 3 inzy 'dismissal bloopers' are quickly being replaced by 'mindless misbahs'. but devising farcical ways of ending until then chanceless plays isn't the only reason this late bloomer from mianwali, punjab, reminds me of the mountain from multan.

unlike other mortal players who need a few 10 deliveries or two to find their feet, misbah, right from the ball go, looks - quite in the manner of the the gentle giant - utterly unflappable. also, much like inzy, misbah's backfoot play is far more assured than the tentative pokes he is reduced to dabbling in when drawn forward. (note to clueless opposition bowlers.)

if inzy fell on his wicket to get himself dismissed off a panesar delivery, misbah 'jumped' to his doom. if inzy blocked a throw from the fielder because he, blithely, thought the ball was no longer in play (when it very much was), misbah lovingly guided a ball that was decidedly rather wide and outside the off-stump all the way back to his leg stump. and if inzy was the man pakistan depended on to counter quality fast bowling in the past, misbah is the man they will turn to in the future.

with the mercurial nature of the two immensely talented Ys in the team hanging like a sword over the young skipper shoaib malik's head, tpr firmly believes that misbah is the rock pakistan's opponents will have to work hardest to find a way around and a thorn the size of kashmir that india will repeatedly have to contend with. assuming of course, misbah doesn't make it his business to do the job himself with more 'inzys'...no, make that 'misbahs'.

First look: Captain Kumble

today was a day when the pakistani batsman chose to do newly made captain kumble a big favour by deciding to entertain everyone around by getting out for what seemed like the fun of it. maybe they were just too bored of playing on this still, cold, smoggy delhi winter day and thought it fit to instead play games with silliness.

india's newly appointed skipper, anil 'very old' kumble will be praying for more such days in his time at the helm of affairs. with a team that very much resembles dad's army, he'll need them all when he comes up against the intimidating force of australia.

perfect as it might have looked, tpr is sadder than a soft-boiled cynic to report that anil kumble's innings as captain promises to be just like his one and only test century. gritty, jumpy, exciting, boring, pedestrian, inspired, earnest, a lot less than brilliant. and contradictary.

tpr is graciously inclined to agree with the pundits' view that a player's captaincy generally tends to mirror the manner in which he plys his primary skill - batting or bowling. (which might explain why jonty 'fielder' rhodes never became captain.) though, in mike brearely's case, his primary skill must have been captaincy. for a long time, sourav's primary skill, too, seemed to be captaining 'his' team.

speaking on about captain kumble, tpr would now like to play turncoat and dispense to all of india's oppenents a piece of information fresher than yesterday's news. kumble's captaincy will be like his skills - 99% perspiration, 1% inspiration. opponents will lose the plot if they attempt to over-rate and over-analyse him. furthermore, in the true traditions of unasked for advice, we will profess to kumble and his think tank this one piece of gyan. be advised that the aussies will come at you a lot harder. much, much harder than this pakistani team that is turning out to be even softer than their captain's smile. nothing this lot of most-oftenly uninspired pakistanis can throw at you will prepare you for what the mighty australians have in their mentally-disintegrating store for you.

as my link buddy, dililp 'the doosra' premchandran wrote, the only way to beat...no, compete with the aussies is to first play out of your own skin and play as a team. to which we'd like to add, definitely more so, when you are led by a captain who's not the best man for the job. only the perfect man under the circumstances.

in passing, tpr has this to say about the last few captaincies. if sourav's was all to human to sometimes superhuman and dravid's captaincy was a case of a superhuman proving to be all too human. kumble's turn at the job, tpr predicts, will be an under-appreciated one.