Before we hang the Men in Blue by their cropped locks (long curls and pony-tails seem passé for India’s young brigade) first, the fundamental flaw. And second, how TV ratings and the Big Boss attitude of BCCI and it’s incestuous sponsors ensured India’s abbreviated presence in the ICC Champions Trophy 2009.

The ICC Champions Trophy format for entering the semi-finals was inherently skewed. They tried the FIFA combination of making it into a mini-league tournament without even the basic comprehension that FIFA matches are all fully completed ones (even if a drawn result). That is what makes the final result of league winners beyond dispute and unnecessary conjecture. Thus, it is a “fair and just” league format. This is precisely where the ICC blundered big-time.

If we have just 2 groups of 4 teams each, every game becomes a virtual knock-out for an early loser or net run-rate based good-fortunes becomes germane. The prime pre-requisite is a “completed match” otherwise teams are subject to whimsical weather conditions depriving them of a fair competitive opportunity. Ideally, they should have made each team play the other twice to establish fair results (since only the Top 8 teams were playing anyway), but since the more lucrative T20 Champions League awaits instant inauguration in a few days, that luxurious benefit had to undergo an austerity measure. So there were no rest days which in reality should be mandatory for international tournaments. Thus, India got somewhat literally washed out of the Australian clash depriving them of any scope for resurrection. When you are already trailing behind, a drawn result is like kissing your sister.

The ICC could have just gone for a do-or-die knock-out tournament like in Kenya 2000, but hey, that would have been little moolah for the sponsoring TV channel as there would be barely 7 matches to telecast. With the ODI version awaiting some tough examination, the ICC failed in giving the tournament what it desperately required – a serious competitive edge. South Africa, India and Sri Lanka tumbled out for their generous contribution in the Joy of Giving week . And overall, almost expectedly the public reception remained as frozen as a margarita. Frankly, the tournament has been a woebegone flop-show.

The Indians were distinctly insipid against their traditional adversaries Pakistan, but the latter deserves maximum credit for mounting a determined effort. Even if for only a brief period till the next T20 World Cup, Pakistan is riding high on that unexpected triumph in England and is relishing the world champion tag. The consequent buoyant confidence is evident. Thus, our neighbors have broken their dismal jinx against us in ICC championships. We beat the Windies convincingly, Tendulkar batted just once, and the rain took care of the rest. We were left ruing the consequences of mounting hubris.

In short, India has basically paid an astronomical price for BCCI greed and sponsor’s arrogance. Let me ask you; why was India’s match scheduled for prime-time TV viewing on a Saturday, days after the tournament had commenced? Don’t other countries in similar time zones or better ones also have a right to their peak audience? Since South Africa has several cricket grounds, why was India’s match delayed for week-end viewing? Why was our second crucial match slotted within 48 hours on a national holiday of Dussehra on Monday? Isn’t that perhaps the real reason why there was no rest day, otherwise India would have ended up playing on three consecutive days? And finally, wasn’t that one unfinished game against the Oz perhaps ultimately responsible for our early elimination, making the West Indies match as inconsequential as a video-game?

The truth is that ICC has blatantly followed BCCI sponsor diktats , and schedules India’s games at sponsor friendly times even at the cost of manipulating standard operating procedures for international matches ( the annulment of buffer days). It is really ridiculous. The fact that a Sunday has became a rest -day before the final being held on a Monday is atrocious and ideally makes no business-sense. But you know what I suspect? There was a supercilious assumption that India would enter the semi-finals anyway ( week-end traffic) , and that is where the TRPs would be staggering. If they reached the finals, knowing the crazy Indian hysteria, even a Monday would not matter.

Just because we have global cricket’s ATM machines centralized in India, we are behaving as if have a natural birthright to world championships. As the last two tournaments have established, overseas cricketers are using our hospitable turf for both match practise , summer diversion and windfall earnings and moving on to play serious cricket in their home tournaments. What are we doing instead? We are going even beyond the IPL and creating city-based T20 corporate leagues, and soon a Sachin Tendulkar or MS Dhoni will also be playing for Dabur , DLF or Dharamsi Morarji Chemicals. We are making our international assets into club cricketers. Mukesh Ambani and Preity Zinta might soon decide India’s and ICCs Test calendar as well. It is time we lowered our foolish aspirations of winning major tournaments, as our obsession to constantly manipulate international cricket is boomeranging on our faces.

Last I heard, some team called Cobras were busy hissing around at practise on our desi-soil. . Champions or Losers League, I don’t quite care. I am not joking, but I seriously suffer from ophidiophobia.

One of the most astute moves made by a cricketer recently went largely unnoticed, as perhaps several felt that was a sulky over-reaction to a devastating emotional loss of the Ashes. And that too a catastrophic second time on the enemy’s well-laid battle-field. I am referring to Ricky Ponting’s (34) determined decision to quit T20 cricket to further lengthen principally his Test career, now in it’s testing last quarter. On the face of it, it looks professionally imprudent and commercially unwise, and evidently swimming against mounting tides. After all, we have had diametrically opposite reactions from the majority of cricketers, including Adam Gilchrist and Matt Hayden amongst others, who have preferred the pragmatic get-rich-quick-scheme of T20 over whatever remained of their Test and ODI careers. Then there were others like Shane Bond who switched sides to ICL with speed as fast as a bowling machine can capture, their national commitments and official records be damned. That is what makes Ponting’s decision, in my opinion, a tactically brilliant one, well-conceived, thoughtfully internalised. But most importantly, with a purpose.

Ponting has not explicitly admitted it publicly but the truth is that the Australian captain has deep down inside complete contempt for the meaningless travesty that is T20. It was amply manifested in the casual cavalier manner of the Aussies’ inglorious performance in the inaugural T20 World Cup in South Africa. It happens after you have scored more than 12,000 Test and 10,000 ODI runs, you do not quite feel the motivational urge to re-establish your towering credentials in another format, no matter the popular call or money imperatives. Sachin Tendulkar (36) like Ponting is equally foxed at the T20 marketing phenomenon benefiting from the irrational exuberance of TV ratings and excited administrators.

Sachin and Ponting are the world’s best classical Test players and ODI batsmen. Given a choice, Sachin will honestly prefer to be a gleeful spectator along with his family watching the Mumbai Indians in their evening entertainment sweat-out while munching popcorns. But unlike Ponting, he does not have much of a choice. I suspect the deadly trio of BCCI-IPL-Mumbai Indians will not let him go that easily and he is fully aware of that. Because if Sachin quits T20, expect a massive calamitous fall in TRP ratings across networks for a few seasons. Think valuations. This man is not just a cricketing genius, he is an awesome brand power, India’s national treasure.

Ponting and Tendulkar are separated by 20 months in age, 1,428 runs and four centuries in Tests, the only true barometer of international class, of genuine comparison of greats. The only kind of cricket that Sir Don Bradman, Len Hutton and Vivian Richards played. The difference between them based on pro-rata extrapolation is within striking distance for Ponting. In ODIs, Tendulkar is virtually as insurmountable as the Himalayan peaks.

True greatness lies in Test cricket and both Tendulkar and Ponting will give their right arm and elbow to go down as the ultimate greatest. And there are two undisputed measures for that; Test aggregate runs and centuries list; both manifest dominance, longevity and brilliance. Of course, on further investigation one will have to add match-winning knocks as well, but maybe we can discuss that some other time.

Ponting realises perhaps that he may have missed out on the media hype factor to Sachin, but the urge to overtake Tendulkar is high. Ponting can lay claim to having additionally shouldered responsibility for being a fairly successful skipper (barring the dismal Ashes loss 2009) and more importantly led Australia to two successive World Cup victories and even the elusive ICC Champions Trophy. Tendulkar abdicated captaincy, Ponting relished it and even vanquished his foes. But batting records will not capture those impressive leadership feats.

Maybe Ponting’s searing patriotic pride of retaining the masterful title of the modern Bradman on native home turf will give him that motivational prop. For Tendulkar, it will be about preserving that anointment through his customary grit and that insatiable hunger.

They are both undoubtedly great. But who will perhaps end as the greatest-of-all-time of our modern era is still subject to debate and maybe two years.

WARNING: IF YOU DON”T HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOR, PLEASE STOP RIGHT NOW!

Sex has always been a very popular subject largely because it is so centrally located, I guess. Indian cricket coach Gary Kirtsen ably assisted by  one Paddy Upton  of course has tried hard to make a Peccadillo Circus of it , dazzling billboards standing erect from it’s towering frame. I am referring to the willful “leak” of his nocturnal plans for tired limbs, parched emotions, gnawing loneliness and severe depreciation of  prize assets of Indian cricketers . A  perfect tool-kit as it were. I won’t be surprised if that extraordinary exposition was circulated by Kirsten in hard cover as well, just in case his message failed to hit the bull’s eye . It could also be termed as fairly  user-friendly gesture from the team’s GPs ( Gary and Paddy).. .

When I first read Gary’s  patchily researched thesis on sexual tension affecting on-field performance of Indian players in screaming headlines in a normally conservative newspaper , I felt an unfathomable empathy for our bechara bachachas ( poor boys!)  in that wild country, cooped up in their dreary empty rooms watching their own muscular frames in large mirrors, in utter loneliness as their testosterone levels dipped towards the midnight hour. One also realized that we were into something not explicitly discussed in the more somber Fourth estate—the swinging libido of our paneer-paratha- swallowing stud-machines. It’s a corny issue. Or a horny one, whichever one you might choose. Either way, from the juicy instructions given out like a process note to undergrad chemistry students in their first day in the lab , it makes for some hilarious reading. It’s ticklish, for sure.

Firstly, since most of our chaps have attained puberty I hope , do they need the cricket coach to give them detailed sermons in fine print on basic raw instincts ? For heaven’s sake, I assume they hang out till choked by claustrophobia together, so can’t all this silly sex education be given as part of a chatty discourse? Now Kirsten reminds me of a local Chandni Chowk sexologist we used to get fascinated as kids to see in huge hoardings , who was India’s first official quack—he wore a massive turban and his moustache literally brushed his large ears. I also do confess to hearing some real salacious gossip about some celebrity Indian cricketers in Sri Lanka, the island nation clearly offering much more than just sand, sea breeze and salmons. So the truth is that Kirsten may be dealing with guys who are past-masters at figuring the mandatory work-out to boost sagging spirits to a T(estosterone).  .
I repeat unless Gary and Paddy  feel that our chaps are benign bozos ( and rest assured, some of them may be) you do not have to circulate such claptrap. Some of our guys are , I am assuming  happily married men with kids  , who the last time they may have been in another woman must have gone visiting the Statute of Liberty. I am sure GPs circulation will cause them with a lot to explain for their Man of the Match awards and those amazing records to their suspicious better-halves. The “Man” of the Match award may soon in any case become a misnomer. Everyone’s curiosity will be on that mysterious deserving woman responsible for those on-field pyrotechnics. .

My real objection is to Kirsten’s sloppy historical reference which manifests both factual inaccuracies and a trite explanation of the Indian national attitude. Sorry guys, but that was truly a lot of cock and bull crap.

As for MSD’s men , they will now with official approbation try their hand at sex  ( pun unintended) . Self-help has indeed been redefined.