Off Stump

The first innings of Tendulkar's that I can recall watching fully is his match-winning knock of 62 in the game that marked South Africa's return to the international cricketing arena. I had followed his career pretty closely till then but hadn't had the chance to watch an innings played by him fully on TV. The timezone in Pakistan was too close to India meaning that his debut series clashed with school (one more reason to hate school ;-)). New Zealand and England timezone differences made it difficult, more so because at the age of 12 it was hard to have your way with parents when it came to sleeping/waking times. And for some reason (I can't recall why now, so I'll put it down to an early disdain for meaningless one-day cricket), I hadn't watched any of the ODIs India played in 1990. So it came about that this historic, much hyped match against Clive Rice and team was the first time I properly saw the little man bat. It was a difficult Eden Gardens pitch where...

The day finally had to arrive and after November 18, Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar will not step onto the field as a player again. I still don't know what I truly feel about that given that he has been a fixture in the Indian team for almost the entire 25 year span that I have followed the game for. At least the fact that he has chosen to retire in phases (one format at a time) has meant that I (and I'm sure many other cricket fans) have had the chance to wean ourselves off the "SRT habit" slowly. There's so much to write about this little man and so many ways in which he shone but for me three things stand out. First, there's the impact he had on Indian society at large (cricket fans or otherwise). In a country that's often needed reasons to hope and celebrate given the bleak episodes that otherwise abound, Tendulkar has been a source of unadulterated joy and strong inspiration for more than two decades. For a people that are easily disillusioned and prone t...

I've been lucky this year that the busiest period at work has coincided with the lull in the international cricketing calendar. So just before the new season kicks off tomorrow (though NZ-Ban is almost like a season warm-up), thought I'd pen down a few random (mostly unconnected) things that have floated across my mind since the Ashes wound down. 1) Modern day captains have it really hard: Michael Clarke is the most obvious example of this but looking around, I find it really odd/surprising that even the most successful captains like Cook, Dhoni, and Smith still face such barrages of criticism at times for mostly minor things. Its almost as if results are not what matters but how you deliver them which seems backward to me. Maybe its just that in today's world, memories get shorter and shorter and you're judged in an instant by media and fans with little patience. 2) Pot, Kettle, Black: Its the in-thing these days to blame all of cricket's ill on the BCCI'...