On the pretext of IPL ….

The 6^th season of IPL has entered final phase now and the new champion will be decided in less than 3 weeks. The completion for the top 4 spots has been at the peak and so is the expectation for the unexpected. The old heroes are making way for new ones. Last year’s champion has been knocked out before the knock-out stage and the caps, both orange and purple, are changing heads faster than the politicians around us. In this charged atmosphere, I want to introduce a novel concept that needs to be implemented immediately.

Cricket is supposed to be a team game. But then there are so many, soccer, rugby, baseball, basketball, kabaddi – to name just a few. But cricket and other team games are different on two major counts. For one, cricket is the least popular of the team games. Even kabaddi is played (and played seriously) in more countries than cricket. Cricket, on the other hand, is played in only about a dozen countries. So to count, no more than our hands and feet are enough. The second unique feature about cricket is the concept of ‘man of the match’.  Conceptually, Man of the match is supposed to be the person who has influenced the outcome of the match to the maximum extent. He is the one who has the biggest contribution. Otherwise, again theoretically, many will have to add their might to achieve the result. If a batsman tosses the ball up in air, at least somebody has to be there who catches it. It cannot be the bowler himself all the time. So each catcher will have his share in the result. But a catch and 4 wickets are not the same, by any wisdom. So this man of the match!

Of late, however, a trend is seen in matches. The result is often contributed by more than one player. If they happen to add to the same side, then you have no option but to choose one of them to be man of the match. This is more so because cricket still has not developed the concept of sharing the honours like man of the match. Usually only one beneficiary is chosen. But this system neglects the contribution of other persons, particularly if they are putting their might from the two warring sides. This is a wrong and lopsided system and should be corrected as soon as possible. As a solution to this problem of plenty, I want to suggest a new reward. I propose the reward to be called “VILLAIN OF THE MATCH”.

Hold on, hold on! It’s not that idiotic a concept after all. Let me explain the full logic of the award and then, I am sure, the concept would look acceptable. Understanding the theme is the best possible option here. Let us understand the concept by means of a few examples also. But let me first take examples from out distant past to avoid our emotions creeping in. I have plenty of justifying examples from the current IPL games also. (Otherwise, how would the concept have come to me at this time only?) But the events are too close to us. So neither have we freed ourselves from the emotions associated with those games, nor has the results settled in a real objective manner in our minds as yet. That’s why we begin with distant past.

You see, many times it happens that final result is influenced more by givers than by receivers. Remember the semi final of Reliance World Cup of Cricket, 1987. Kapil Dev led India against England. One of our bowling stars during the period, Manindar Singh, had troubled many batsmen in the World Cup. But English team management had seen the problem beforehand and had thought of the solution. Manindar bowled Gooch his leg-spin on the leg stump and Gooch swept to get a boundary. (Remember those days. Boundary means four runs, exceptions apart.) From then on, that became the story of the match. Manindar kept on bowling on the leg-stump and Gooch kept on sweeping. Neither Manindar could see what was happening and changed his bowling line nor did Kapil, as captain, instruct him to change the bowling line. In fact, Kapil, as caption didn’t even introduce a squarish fine leg to protect the area and reduce the run flow. For convenience of logic, let us call it Kanindar phenomenon. Kanindar phenomenon is the situation where the parties being exploited are not able to see and grasp what is happening and are unable to prevent it, probable due to blind intellect or slow rate of learning. That’s how we understand the terminology.

This Kanindar phenomenon seems to be patented by our people. Right from 10^th-11^th century, this can be seen. Somanath temple in Gujrat was looted 17 times since 1025 AD by Mahamud of Ghazani. Of the 17 loots, 14 were from the same Mahamud Gazani. Every time Kings in Gujrat rebuilt the temple, but none ever thought what was on and how to prevent it. Take the case of India in 16^th to 18^th century. We can see the same story repeated. British kept on winning state after state and province after province by the same trick – quality of weapons and forces. None in India, but, ever thought of how England gets better every time. Everything was happening before their eyes, but thinking was almost a banned activity. Kanindar phenomenon!

Now come back to cricket. It is an age-old knowledge that the best bowling at the end of the inning is Yorker balls. In the famous tie-test between Australia and West Indies, in December 1960, everybody knows what Warrel told Weslie Hall. “For God’s sake Wes, no no-ball. Else you won’t be able to get down from the aircraft, back home”. The moral- No ball at crucial position is an unpardonable crime. Rewind to what we saw in IPL. Royal Challengers are playing Chennai Super Kings in Bangalore. The latter need 2 runs of the last ball. The bowler, Mr. R. P. Singh, runs in and bowls a frontfoot no ball. The batsman hits it to third man and is caught. While the ball is travelling towards the fielder, the batsmen run for a single. The umpire has declared no-ball. A run accrues to CSK for no ball. Since the catch is invalid, the run they ran is allowed and CSK has won. Consider a situation where CSK required 8 runs from one ball to win the match. You surely expect that RCB is home already, don’t you? Not as long as Mr. RP has the ball, mind you. Think of what can happen. RP bowls a front-foot no ball. The batsmen score, say 1 run only. They get one run for no ball. So the requirement is a six of the free-hit that follows. And there are a few matches in this IPL season itself where chasing teams have scored 6 runs on the last ball to win the match. Remember Rohit Sharma’s 6 of the last ball? And that was not a free-hit ball, please remember. Obviously no-ball is unpardonable on the last ball of the match, unless the chasing team needs over 8 or 9 runs with one ball. I remember another match where Kapil, to avoid any possibility of a no-ball on the last ball of the over, bowled without any run-up. But who will tell Mr. RP Singh? Kaninder phenomenon again.

A much more glaring example of Kaninder phenomenon was, however, seen later this season, again from RCB. Against the lowly placed Kings Eleven Punjab, RCB almost did everything right by setting up a winning target of 193 to KXIP. But when David Miller took the attack to RCB camp, everything was lost all of a sudden. All the RCB bowlers were thrown out of the ground at will. That included our own Mr. RP Singh. However, none ever tried for a yorker length. They were trying to avoid the batsmen by bowling wide of the stumps (and were declared wide) at times. But no yorkers. Exactly same was seen when Hussey and Raina were milking Sunrisers attack in Hyderabad. In fact, Sunrisers’ case was more deplorable since Perera did try a couple of yorkers and could stop scoring on those balls at least. But even after seeing that, no other bowler tried anything like yorker. Whether they succeed or not is a different issue. Honest attempt is what we are looking for. But no! It’s not seen anywhere.

In good old days, I heard, bowlers used to practice in nets by keeping a coin on the practice wicket and try to pitch the ball on the coin. That’s how BS Bedi became such an accurate bowler. But with more of fan fare and less of sweat, now nobody goes for practice sessions. So the question of gaining accuracy does not arise. In this edition of IPL all the Yorker length balls in death overs have been bowled by non-Indian bowlers mainly Sri Lankans. Lasith Malinga has been the best bowler in death, according to the Indian captain MS Dhoni. He has admitted for CSK that their worry at present is about the bowling in death overs. We have seen Umesh Yadav, Vinay Kumar, Ishant Sharma, RP Singh, Irfan Pathan, L Balaji, Ashok Dinda and so on and on in IPL death overs. But for Bhuvaneshwar Kumar and to a miniscule extent Praveen Kumar, nobody is bowling yorkers in death. Your work in Champions Trophy appears to be cut-out Mr. Dhoni. It ultimately comes to scoring more runs than can be scored by other teams or take the bowlers to some unknown place and put them to practicing their lines and particularly lengths. Good luck Mr. Finisher!

Coming to our award, by now it is clear how the winners will be decided. The major criteria for judging are like this.

(1) The bowler should have thrown common bowling sense out of window.

(2) Preferably, he may be observing other bowlers able to control the batsmen by their styles, but would have refused to learn.

(3) Short-pitched and good length balls and wide balls should have been bowled in good numbers.

(4)   Preferably one or two front-foot no balls would be desirable.

(5) In death overs, at least one full toss (conceding at least 4 runs) would be appreciated.

(6)   No bowler having economy rate below 7 will qualify for the award.

By the criteria above, it would be clear who the winners are. For the RCB match with CSK, the villain of the match award goes to RP Singh. In the CSK versus Sunrisers tie, the winner is Ishant Sharma. In the RCB encounter with KXIP, the award is shared by RP singh, Vinay Kumar and Virat Kohli, Kohli being picked up for dropping Miller not due to a problem but by trying to catch him with hands covering the eyes. Better luck boys for the coming matches!!!