The Elusive Art of Bowling

India and Australia are currently locked in an enthralling bilateral series in the subcontinent. Of the six games played, both sides have won two each with the visiting cyclone taking the other two. As you'd expect in India, batsmen have been ruling the roost. But not like before. Excluding the half game at Ranchi and the washout at Cuttack, both sides have scored over 300 each time they've batted, save for India's collapse for 232 in the very first game. That, of course, included the fairytale 360-run chase by India in Jaipur.

Heave-ho: Bailey has been a prime slogger so far

Although their bowling hasn't fared much better, Australia have been playing a settled eleven in all the games thus far. India, on the other hand, have been playing Russian roulette with their tailenders. Ishant Sharma has till now been the most notable victim with Ravichandran Ashwin tempting fate with every passing game. But the slam-bang in this series so far has even rattled Captain Cool MS Dhoni who quietly confided after the last game that he no longer knows what constitutes 'good bowling'. Indeed, the very art of bowling has started to prove increasingly elusive at least in the subcontinent. The new rules of ODI cricket (Google them if you want to) has left MS Dhoni fuming at times and exasperated at other times as captain on the field. All is well when his batsmen know how much to get. But as George Bailey has found out twice already now, it's anybody's guess how much is enough to restrict the willow-wielders wreaking havoc these days.

Of course, beyond a doubt, watching batsmen on a rampage is highly entertaining. For years now, the sole objective of cricket's lawmakers has been to increase the number of fours and sixes. They have done this by bringing in the boundary ropes a mile from the crowd, making grass become nearly frictionless (I'm a science student and I find this particularly intriguing), replacing the batsmen's earlier sticks with thick wooden clubs, tightening the popping crease on the hapless bowler and asking the captain to leave the farther outfield virtually deserted. In result, with each passing game and each new debutant, world cricket's erudite rulers have allowed past batting records look silly. Worse still, bowling has been reduced to mere formality. Gone are the days of bowling skill in the one-day game when the strength of the pacer and the vile of the spinner could win you games. If the game that Andy Roberts and Malcolm Marshall played back in the 1970s was called cricket, this isn't cricket.

The sad part about the one-sided batsman's game we now watch is that bowling isn't the only casualty; slam-bang cricket also takes the sting out of fielding and captaincy skills. The fact that your bowlers aren't expected to win you games anymore means that your fielders are less motivated to turn in outfield brilliance. Captains too have become helpless on the field with all those restrictions putting a cap on their thinking and imagination. It's alright these days to concede 300+ bowling first simply because you know you can chase it.

All this isn't to say that the modern day batsman is an untalented slogger. Indeed, some of Virat Kohli's silken drives and Rohit Sharma's late cuts invoke memories of old, when batting was far more tested and runs scarcer. But both the spectator and the lawmaker need to understand that cricket isn't simply a game of batting - no more than baseball is a game of slugging. But unlike the baseball pitcher who has a natural advantage with the pace he generates and the weight of the ball he chucks, the modern day bowler has little in the game to safeguard his rights. It's certainly harder to get the slogging batsman bowled today than it is to go past the baseball slugger for three strikes. Some say that cricket has evolved. I don't think that should mean a streamlining of skill. The rest, of course, is for the crowd to decide.

The Master Graduates

It's the biggest news of them all - Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar will soon be history (of course, he's also made enough of it). The next few days will see tributes flowing in from across the cricket world, even before Tendulkar plays what will be his final Test at the Wankhede against the West Indies. Personally, I had wished that Tendulkar retired after the magical World Cup win in 2011. It was a World Cup after all. And it was his home ground too. And he was being carried around the field by a third generation of cricketers whom he's shared the dressing room with. What could be more romantic than a goodbye at that point? But Tendulkar had only scored 99 international hundreds by that day (yes, I said 'only'). And fairytales don't happen in sport. Remember Sir Bradman's last innings?

A Final Wave: Tendulkar now leaves cricket

When Sachin Tendulkar finally bids adieu to the cricketing world at the Wankhede, he would have played a total of 200 Test matches in a career spanning 24 years. That's literally almost the size of two high-quality professional careers on its own and Tendulkar's cricketing odyssey is older than my own little story on Earth. After Sachin Tendulkar retired from ODI cricket late last year, Harsha Bhogle made a rather interesting observation - "What percentage of Indians is below the age of 23? That's the number of Indians who've never known an Indian team without Tendulkar!" Indeed, I've never seen an Indian team without Tendulkar hanging around it somewhere. When injured, the world hollered to see him back. When dropped (who dared do that?), Mumbai shut down. When 'rested', the captain had a tough time answering pressers.

But the greatest tribute I've yet read to a sporting legend came in TIME's May 21 edition last year. I found it rather striking to see a cover story on a cricketer in an American magazine, going to the extent of calling him the 'world's best athlete'. Surely, they loved baseball more? But as I read the article, I got increasingly fixated by it, until I came across an interesting comparison somewhere in the middle. Here's what the author said, in essence - To understand Sachin Tendulkar, imagine Michael Jordan for a moment. Imagine Jordan played for the United States of America and not the Chicago Bulls. Then imagine that the population of the United States is 1.2 billion and consider that at least a billion out of that number take basketball to be a matter of life and death. And imagine Team USA toured the world all year long, tirelessly. And now imagine that Michael Jordan is the single greatest American sportsman in history and has been doing all of this for a period of 23 years. Now you have Sachin Tendulkar.

The author then further went on to say - In most sports, you would find that one 'great man' who transcends them all, but you would also find someone breathing down his neck, waiting to break his records. Not Sachin Tendulkar. The man second best to him is Australia's Ricky Ponting, who has 71 international hundreds to Tendulkar's 100.

In conclusion, the author says, Sachin Tendulkar is the 'world's best athlete'.

The numbers apart, there are many reasons to cherish Tendulkar's legacy. Consider the fact that he entered the Indian team at the age of 16 and was promptly sent off on a tour to Pakistan - a place where India used to send more soldiers than cricketers at any given point in time. And he didn't simply explode onto the scene - it took Tendulkar no less than 5 years and 78 ODI innings in order to get his first limited overs hundred. But unlike a number of other perhaps equally talented child prodigies who burst onto the scene - Hasan Raza made his Pakistan debut at the age of 14 and Tatenda Taibu for Zimbabwe at 18 - Tendulkar did not simply fade away. He kept himself grounded and gazed dreamily at the skies in pursuit of his legacy; and built it across three generations of Team India.

Today, as the world listened to Sachin Tendulkar announce his retirement, one is inclined to recall how Indian cricket has evolved during Tendulkar's career - from the shy, under-confident outfit of 1989 to the young and rather brash World Champion unit of 2013, the story of Indian cricket is tightly woven around Tendulkar's own. I know there are those out there who'd have loved to see him go on forever. But finally, the Master graduates.

Era of Legends

Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar are currently facing off each other (unfortunately, yes, they're on opposite sides) in what will be their last limited overs game in competitive cricket. That's quite a big moment for Indian cricket. The Dravid-Tendulkar combine has scored a total of 29315 runs in the Indian Blue. I'm not going to try counting the List A domestic one-day runs here. The figure is astronomical and rather unnecessary to quote. And there is no need of stats and figures to measure the legacy of the Dravid-Tendulkar era. Both of them took Indian sport to new heights, not just on but also off the field. The dignified nature of the duo will be sorely missed in modern-day cricket - a place where young kids face off mercilessly, each one writing his own code of conduct.

Hall of History: Roger Federer with Sachin Tendulkar

When one thinks of modern sport and the legends that adorn it, a number of names spring to mind - Sachin Tendulkar, of course, but also inevitably, Roger Federer, Tiger Woods (against his ex-wife's wishes), Lance Armstrong (until his bubble broke), Michael Schumacher (before he ruined the aura of invincibility around him), and perhaps even Usain Bolt (the self-confessed 'legend'). Discussing this landmark Champions League game, one of my friends asked me - "Do you think anyone will ever come near Federer or Tendulkar in our lifetime?"

That's a toughie. I'm a big fan of the former - someone I consider as the greatest sportsman I've seen - and also a dreamy admirer of the latter. To me, Tendulkar and Federer (indeed, even Dravid) are not merely names attached to a string of numbers. Undoubtedly, the scoreboard is all important in the world of sport. But then there are those who, over a period of time, transcend it. There are those who become independent of numerals for their survival in the Hall of History. Tendulkar and Federer sit at the top of that list. They are those who define their respective sports, rather than the other way round.

But leaving the romantic rhetoric aside, my friend's question still is a very interesting - and certainly complex - one. Consider the current crop of players. Many say that Virat Kohli and his fiery brand of cricket has already taken him to places Tendulkar had never been to at his age. Yes indeed, when you add the fact that there is far more cricket being played today, at least by India, than there was during Tendulkar's heydays, Kohli has a chance of not just surpassing Tendulkar's record, but maybe even setting a new one in some far distant statistical galaxy.

But that's not as easy as it sounds. Tendulkar became Tendulkar, not just thanks to his run-scoring ability, but also his longevity. 24 years is an awful lot of time in any profession these days, let alone sport. In a tumbling global economy, one now sees 40-year-old software engineers get laid off. But not Tendulkar. Indeed, the man is well past his prime, and probably has been for a couple of years now - maybe more. But even the harshest Tendulkar critic would agree that the maestro's best days stretched right from 1989 to at least 2004. That in itself is 15 years - the average span of some of the greatest players in modern history. Kohli's challenge then won't just be to score runs; it'll be to keep them coming for a sustained period of time. That would take great fitness, agility, mental aptitude and strength of character, including a cool head. There are reasons to be sceptical about the young man yet.

Come to Federer now. Roger Federer entered professional tennis in his teens as a hot-headed young man. It took over a year of mental conditioning thereafter for Federer to reinvent himself. When he returned, he took court to become one of the greatest sportsmen in history, now sitting on a record 17 Grand Slams. But the Federer stats chase is a little more complex than the Tendulkar stats chase. Unlike Tendulkar, Federer has a reinvigorated Rafael Nadal rushing up the ladder with 13 Slams against his name. Will Nadal catch up? He could, and certainly has a greater chance than Virat Kohli has in Tendulkar's case today, but again, it's a question of how long he can last. Nadal's knee injuries are the stuff of tennis folklore and despite some dramatic bounce-backs, few can guarantee his body will last the long haul. His style of play is particularly damaging on the knee and every time Nadal tries to change the way he plays, he simply doesn't look as scary. But there are other factors too: Federer spent a total of 237 weeks as world number one between February 2004 and August 2008. That was a period when the Swiss master went largely unchallenged, save again, for Rafa Nadal. Nadal doesn't have the luxury of dominating world tennis the way Federer did, not just because of his knee, but also because he lives in the era of Djokovic and Murray. It seems to me that for the next 3-4 years at the least, Nadal, Djokovic and Murray will share Grand Slam honors with each other, with one of them or someone else winning the fourth Slam of the year. Even that should be enough for Nadal to beat Federer's Grand Slam record, unless he loses his stronghold at Roland Garros. But again, Nadal's greatest enemy when it comes to longevity is not Djokovic or Murray, but his own knee.

In many ways, as amusing as it may seem, Nadal's knee will decide the settings of tennis history for the next few years to come. Kohli's attitude on the cricket pitch may too do the same.