Its all in the mind

(Pic courtesy: Toon Pool)

Nadal just lost in the US Open final. That is not particularly heart-breaking. You win some, You lose some. However, he lost once again to the Joker from Serbia. Now that's a worrying bit. 

Today's match was extremely close. Was stretched to the 5th set and either player could have crossed the finishing line. The first set did not have anything spectacular. They both played decent (read: Okay) tennis. Rafa managed to take the first set. In the next two sets and the first half of the fourth test, Djokovic completely dominated Rafa. Djokovic did play brilliant tennis but Rafa allowed himself to be dominated and that is another worrying bit. 

Rafa picked up his game brilliantly in the second half of the fourth set to take the set and he kept the momentum in the first half of the fifth set. Though Rafa did lose the fifth set (and as a result the match), there was nothing to be ashamed of the manner in which he played the fifth set. He played extremely well but so did the Joker. That's fine and acceptable.   

However, the consistency at which Novak Djokovic has been beating Rafael Nadal is amazing and disconcerting. The results of the recent and consistent losses to the Joker is showing on Rafa. The defeats seem to have created a mental block and Rafa has not been playing his normal game (for the most part) against Joker.

Rafa is a gifted athlete, who slowly but steadily wears down his opponents through long rallies. Plus the angles that he creates with his shots make the court much larger to cover for his opponents. Though he is still successfully doing that against most opponents, he has been unable to do that consistently against Joker. So what is so different? What has changed off late?

No matter how much I dislike the Joker, I cannot stop myself from admitting that his game has improved immensely in the last year and half. He has always been strong with his forehand as well as backhand but his forehand has suddenly become a lethal weapon. Not only it has become much faster, it has also become much more accurate. With an extremely effective forehand, a decent backhand, a good serve and a supremely fit body, he is definitely a package that is difficult to beat. If only he was not so irritating, he would have won some more fans. Not that he cares. He should be happy with the rankings, trophies and moolah!!

The sudden improvement in Joker's game caught everyone by surprise. From being a close 3rd, he suddenly got into top gear and overtook everyone else. He has been beating everyone, including Rafa. The first 1-2 losses seemed like 'Rafa was defeated by a better player on that day'. On those occasions (first few losses), there was not much wrong with Rafa's game. It was just that everything was absolutely flawless about Joker's game.

However, the defeats started affecting Rafa (that is my theory, Rafa has not told me that. Honestly!!!). Now, there seems to be a mental block. Quite often, he becomes a little too defensive against Joker. The shots become much shorter, the angles are usually missing and he tries to keep the ball in play rather than make Joker run around. As a result, Joker gets to show off the might of his supreme forehand. He makes Rafa run all around the court and he beats Rafa in long rallies!!! It may be an exaggeration but Nadal's defensive strategy is pretty similar to what Martina Hingis used to adopt or was made to adopt against Venus Williams!!! In that case, of course there was a huge difference in the abilities (as per my opinion....and the statistics). Yet Venus Williams, through her powerful game, was able to affect Hingis much more mentally than anything else. The same seems to be happening to Rafa against Joker.

Rafa should try to exploit the weaker backhand (weaker only compared to the forehand) of Joker ut he seldom manages to do that. Moreover, he seems to be trying to do a little extra with his first serve, which has so far not been a particularly successful ploy. He ends up making mistakes and the decreasing first serve percentages are an indication. That is not alarming though. This ploy does help Rafa win some easy points. It is just that when it does not click, the situation is worsened by an extremely defensive and weak second serve. His second serve is nothing but cannon fodder for Joker!!!  

It is not that Rafa lags behind through out the game. When he sees a window, he picks up his game and starts putting pressure. He did the same thing at the end of the fourth set and through out the fifth set. He played like usual....brilliantly. Yet, Joker won the fifth set as he played marginally better and he handled pressure a lot better.

There is nothing wrong with Rafa's game. It is not that he cannot beat Joker. However, he needs to overcome the mental block. He has to believe in himself like I and his millions of fans believe in him. If he plays his usual game against the Joker, he should be able to substantially decrease Joker's dominance on the outcome. Today's match was indeed an evenly-fought contest but that was probably because Rafa played his usual game only in patches. Had he been his usual self, the result could have been different. 

You must overcome the mental block Rafa and should not allow Joker to manipulate your game.  I know that you can do it Rafa!!! Vamos!!!

And ya, well played today (in patches)!!! 

That's a bird....That's a plane.....That's my Super Gal!!!

Cooking: Nasi & Ayam Kari

Yesterday, I had my first serious shot at cooking. So far, my cooking has been limited to ready-to-eat meals and  instant noodles. I have always believed that I can be good at cooking but a serious handicap has always prevented me from becoming a good cook.....laziness!!

Yesterday, under the able guidance of the head chef of my house, I made chicken curry and rice. And it was not too bad. In fact it was "Yang Tidak Dapat Dilupakan"!!!!

Nasi & Ayam Kari or Rice & Chicken Curry

Please note: I did not make Carlsberg

I wish and hope to continue cooking and learn some more dishes. Right now, I plan to just learn the basics and learn the style of the head chef. Later, I will add my special...secret ingredient in the dishes and make them lot lot L-O-T better. My secret ingredient is....Creativity.

KL Tower or Menara KL: Caught in Rain!!!

For my little bundle of joy

You make me upset,

when you cry,

I am not good at it,

but I try,

I make funny sounds,

I make funny faces,

when you smile,

the stress vanishes,

A chance to meet you,

makes me walk in the sun,

we look at each other,

play and have fun,

I may not have the best life,

do not enjoy what I do,

but I am happy,

because I have you.

No Rafa, No tennis?

I realized that I have not watched a tennis match in last several months!!! Is it because I have been too busy or is it because of the rise of the Joker? Whatever may be the reason, it is surprising!!! C'mon Rafa, you are the one who can bring me back to tennis.

Straight from the heart.........

Few comments after India's defeat against Australia in the Perth Test;

• Who says nothing positive came out of the test match. Dhoni has been banned from the Adelaide test due to slow over-rate. That increases India's chances of doing well in the fourth test manifolds. There would be a better captain for the match and a better test batsman would come in. That is a HUGE positive
• Dhoni indicated that after the series he would start thinking about a 'thoughtful' way of phasing out the seniors. Though I totally agree that the seniors should be phased out, I think Dhoni should also put some thoughts about his future in the test team. He has been bringing the team down and he should expedite his decision of giving up test cricket
• Social networking sites are full of comments about how the seniors should be 'kicked out' from the team. As I have mentioned, I agree that the seniors should be 'phased out'. And I think Sachin, inspite of playing decently in this series, should also think about puting a end date to his glorious career. A lot of people are calling for his head but strangely, I have noticed that a lot of those people are die-hard Ganguly fans!!! At least thats true with people in my friend list. Some of them would start jerking off in excitement if tomorrow Ganguly gets selected for the test side but for now, they want the 'seniors' to be 'kicked out'. Guys, please do not use offensive words against Sachin (or Mr. 100th 100 as some have been calling him on Facebook). He is a legend. Just because you have a bitter taste in your mouth and you want your favorite player to be not the only one to be 'kicked out' of the team, you should not say offensive things about Tendulkar. I respect Ganguly and I genuinely feel that he was mistreated. I think players of the stature of Ganguly, Tendulkar, Dravid and Laxman deserve a decent farewell and I stand by it
• It is easy to blame the seniors for the humiliating performance. It is easy to say that okay these guys are 38-39 years old, they are 'not getting any younger' (as if everyone else is!!!), they are slow in the field etc. Good points but look at their records. No, do not open the history books. Look at their records in the past two years. Sachin and Dravid have been by far the best players in the Test team. Still, like most others, I want them to be phased out. I do not want them to be 'kicked out'. I am not blaming them for this disasterous tour and the last one. I just think that they deserve better and they are better off not playing for much longer
• Few months back, I had heard a Kapil Dev interview about how to phase out the seniors. He had suggested that in any test match, only 2 seniors should be included in the playing XI. That will help in giving exposure to an additional new talent. I think that was a brilliant idea. However, I think (or I hope) that there may not be a need for that. I hope Laxman announces that he would retire from all forms of cricket after the Adelaide test. That way, there could be farewell for him. He should not even dream of 'proving everyone wrong' or 'silencing his critics' as he is not likely to get that chance. This will help in testing another cricketer. Sachin and Dravid should continue for a 'little more time'. Till we are confident that we have a good enough team to field without them. However, in this period as well, they should skip matches. That will help in testing a new No.3 and 4 on a regular basis. In the next series, Laxman should definitely not be there and he should make that call himself. And Sachin and Dravid should play alternate games. They should help in building a team for the future and sign off 

Its mighty depressing...and humiliating

I cannot believe that I am letting it affect me so much. I had decided that I will not even check the proceedings after what happened yesterday but it was impossible. I can feel a strange heaviness on my chest. I am feeling depressed, disgusted and humiliated.

India is on the verge of another defeat in Tests away from home. I am not a man of numbers but I think it is seven in a row in as many test matches away from home. That is pathetic since in tests 'winning and losing is not everything'. You can draw a test match as well. 

For winning or drawing a test match, a team needs bowlers who can take 20 wickets and batsmen who can put decent runs on the board or give enough resistance to the opposition to bat out the sessions. India has neither the batsmen nor the bowlers. 

'India does not have the bowlers' should not come as a surprise as that has been a historic problem. Seldom has India boasted a bowling line-up that could consistently take 20 wickets in Test matches away from home. In India, these bowlers are 'kings'. You make a track that has uneven bounce, which starts to turn from the first session on Day 1 and then every bowler starts looking the best bowler in the world. Put these bowlers away from their 'comfort zone' and then you realize that they look as average as they truly are. 

Moreover, we pick bowlers based on their past performances. Not on the basis of what a bowler has been doing but what he did a zillion years ago. Before this test series, I was surprised that everyone was excited about what Ishant Sharma would do on Australian track. The reason for that excitement was his performance on the last tour to Australia. Come on people, wake up. Ishant Sharma has been a mediocre bowler ever since. The team management, for some reason, always defend him by making statements like 'Ishant bowled his heart out but was unlucky not to get a wicket'. If that is true then we need a luckier bowler. A good bowler would be 'unlucky' in 1-2 or 5 matches. If he is always unlucky then he should be unlucky in a domestic tournament. If you have to pick and send bowlers only on the basis of past performances then why not send Kapil Dev or Agarkar to Australia. They have bowled well in Australia in the past!!!

This bowling attack lacks variety to dazzle an opponent like Australia. Zaheer is good and is clearly the spearhead. No issues with him. Umesh Yadav has managed to surprise everyone (at least me). He has shown that he does not only have the pace but also has decent variation. In spite of his inexperience, he adds a lot of value to the bowling attack. We lack a third quality seamer. Injury to Praveen Kumar did not help but injuries are common and we cannot blame them. Sreesanth is injured and moreover, he is one inconsistent performer. Aaron, thankfully injured himself or this tour would have been a bigger disaster (if there is any room left). We need experience and variation. Sadly, we do not have enough choices. We keep hearing names like Dhawal Kulkarni, Deepak Chahar, Sudeep Tyagi, Arvind etc but none of them have got enough exposure to be suddenly put to fight the tiger. Moreover, these bowlers have also been pretty inconsistent. I firmly believe that an Irrfan Pathan would have added a lot of value to our bowling attack in Australia. He has been bowling well and seems to have rediscovered his inswingers. He has the experience and he can also bat. Still, the selectors chose to overlook him. I guess the selector of the west zone ran out of his quota after getting Sachin, Zaheer, Rahane, Rohit Sharma selected in the squad. He clearly does not have as big a quota as the chairman of the selection committee.....Dravid, Laxman, Ashwin, Mithun, Vinay Kumar and Ojha....impressive!!! If Sachin, Dravid and Laxman retire now, my money is on Murali Vijay, Badrinath and Abhinav Mukund to come as replacements....unless the chief selector is replaced!!!

Coming to the batters, it has clearly been a disappointing performance. And it is not a single performance that I am talking about here. They have failed to cross 300 runs in an innings mark in many innings across last several test matches. So much for the so-called best batting line-up in the world. It is the batting performance that truly surprises me. It is not that these batsman lack technique, experience or class. Sachin, Dravid, Laxman, Sehwag are truly world class batsmen. Though I am not a big fan of Gambhir, he has a good record in test matches. Kohli has not been performing well in Test matches away from India but he is a good talent. He is a straight bat and certainly has a long future in Indian cricket. All of them have scored runs but collectively they have failed as a batting unit. That surprises me. What is so wrong? 

What I want is that Sachin should score his 100th hundred in this series (and by that I mean the last test match) and retire. There are already calls for dropping Laxman. Sachin and Dravid have played particularly  well in the last few seasons but they should not wait too long. They should leave as Gavaskar did. People were surprised and questioned why did he retire? Players should not wait for so long that people start questioning why dont they retire.

In my opinion, the biggest issue with India's performance in Test matches is our captain. I do not think he is fit to be a test player. It goes without saying that Dhoni is an asset in ODIs and T20s but he clearly is not a test batsman. He does not have the temperament. He bats lower in the order but has hardly batted successfully with the tail. That is a trait that one should learn from Laxman, who has done that successfully many a times. He tries to bulldoze his way out of pressure situations. As a captain, he has been equally mediocre. He tries to restrict batsmen in Test cricket!!! That is when there is hardly any shortage of overs available to a batsman and especially when he simply does not have the bowlers to maintain pressure. You do not give any runs for 5 balls and then bowl a boundary ball.....mission failed!!!

Some heads should definitely fall. This performance and India's past few performances abroad have been shameful. It calls for some major changes in the team. Issue is...what changes. If one wants to change the Captain, the other logical choice is Sehwag but he has been surprisingly inconsistent. However, I guess that is a change which is definitely required. However, I doubt that change will happen soon. Dhoni plays for Chennai Super Kings, which is owned by N. Srinivasan., who is a biggie in BCCI. Krishnamachari Srikanth, our chief selector is the ambassador (!!!) of Chennai Super Kings and his son plays for the side. It is a family drama out there. This association makes Srikanth one of the biggest fans of Dhoni and I doubt if he would go against the boss of his son. Conspiracy Theory? Probably.

The other changes that needs to be made are infusion of fresh talent and finding a good wicket-keeper batsman. We should give more opportunities to the likes of Ajinkya Rahane, Rohit Sharma, Cheteshwara Pujara (I think he is pretty much in the scheme of things but is out due to injury), Manish Pandey, AT Rayudu while persisting with Kohli and Rohit Sharma. When the Big 3 retires, Yuvraj Singh should be included to provide stability to the middle order. 

Finding a wicket keeper batsman is going to be tough. Right now, the choices do not go beyond Parthiv Patel,  Dinesh Karthik and Wriddhiman Saha. Among these, Parthiv should be given the chances. Though, he is a mixed bag. He is neither a great wicket keeper nor a great batsman but he is decent at both. Karthik is a good wicket keeper but he is a unreliable batsman for the Tests format. Haven't seen much of Saha except IPL but have followed some of his scores in domestic cricket and there is nothing extraordinary about him. Or  we can try a new guy. No, I am not suggesting that we should make part time keepers like Rayudu or Utthapa to take up the gloves. It could be a fresh talent. I do not know how is Sreevats Goswami doing? All I am suggesting is we should make a change but keeping in mind the future.

As far as bowlers are concerned, the biggest issue is the lack of a quality spinner. What will make a big difference is the presence of a good leggie or a left arm spinner. Ojha is decent but inexperienced. Leggies like Mishra and Chawla have been disappointing. I like Rahul Sharma and I think if we persist with him, he could be a winner. We definitely need to find a good spinner and quickly.  

And we need to find a replacement of Zaheer pretty quickly as none of the others look good enough to fill those shoes. After Zaheer, PK is likely to spearhead the attack but he needs to avoid injuries. Early days but Umesh Yadav could be a choice. We need to find 1-2 good seamers.

So, there is a need for improvement and change in all the departments. No wonder we are performing so badly!!!

(Photograph Courtesy: FirstPost)        

       

Mind Your Language

Few days back, a colleague in my office walked to me and asked me if I could translate a Hindi sentence for him. He is Malaysian. I gladly agreed. Here is how it went;


Colleague: "Main Shaayar To Nahi"?
Me: Its a song!!!
Colleague: I know....but what does it mean???
Me: I am not a poet
Colleague: ....ok....hmmm...I will use Google Translate


I kept wondering why did he say that. Why did he want to use Google Translate when the human version is right in front of him. Only later I realized that he may have thought that I am telling him that I wont do it as 'I am not a poet'!!! 


I mailed him the translation of the entire song, along with the link to the video!!! 

4 baj gaye....magar party abhi baaki hai!!!!