Wanted! Indian Celebrities with a Social conscience.

Wanted! Indian Celebrities with a Social conscience.

George Clooney famously co-founded 'Not on our Watch' organisation which brings attention to violation of human rights across the world.

Mohammed Ali lost four boxing years in his prime refusing to join the army in Vietnam citing moral reasons.

Eric Cantona is lining up a token bid for the French presidency to bring attention to low cost housing problems in France.

Angelina Jolie, Oprah Winfrey,...the list is endless.

and then you have the Indian Sportsperson and Celebrities.

Very rarely we come across a Indian Celebrity or a Sportsperson protesting for a cause.
And to make it worse, often they are the problem.

Amitabh Bachchan called himself a farmer and swindled land meant for poor farmers.
He 'graciously' :-( returned the land to farmers after this was exposed in the media decades later.

After the death of an Indian Right wing Politician ('He who shall not be named' here for safety reasons) whose legacy was full of violence against linguistic and religious minorities,
Sachin Tendulkar tweeted that he wished he was available in the city to pay respect.

Now a huge list of Bollywood Billionaires (Salman Khan, Madhuri Dixit, Mallika Sherawat,...) accepted taxpayers' money and participated in a massive celebration in Saifai in UP; displaying a shocking lack of apathy for victims of religious riots in relief camps just hundreds of kilometers away.

Dreaming about a day when we in India will have our own Mohammed Ali, George Clooney and Angelina Jolie.
At present all we have is a big list of Bollywood stars whose real life characters are as shallow as their movie scripts.

Sachin Tendulkar 89 of 42 - The innings which changed the future of ODI Cricket

March 27, 1994. Sachin Tendulkar 89 of 42 balls in Auckland, New Zealand.

If ever there was a single event which changed the future of the ODI Cricket world, this was it.

We have had many events which have distinctly shaped the future of Cricket.

In 1992, Mark Greatbatch of New Zealand shook the world in the Cricket world cup with his explosive hitting at the top of the innings.

In 1996, Sanath Jayasuriya and Kaluwitharana shocked the work with their consistent pinch hitting. Sri Lanka even went to win the 1996 ICC Cricket world cup before the other countries could react to the surprise thrown at them.

Sachin's back to back centuries in Sharjah in 1998 catapulted his Cricket and the nations Cricket Interest to a whole new level.

In 1983, India won world cup against all odds in 1983 and sealed India's fate as a Cricket crazy nation.

However, if there was a day, if there was an innings, which scripted a different future for the entire ODI cricket world, this was it.

Sachin in 1994 vs New Zealand

Sachin opened the innings for the first time in his career. In an innings which lasted just 22 scoring shots, he won the match and announced his arrival as a Opening batsman.

The image of Sachin dancing down the track with disdain for the bowlers even as they were still completing the delivery stride still remains in the mind of the people who watched the game live.

The impact of the innings was at various levels. 

a) With Sachin as opener, every stadium was full (sometimes a full 3 hours before the start of the match) and every ODI was watched by millions around the world on TV.

b) Later that year, he scored his first ODI hundred (after 78 ODIs!) and then went on to score Century of Centuries 

c) The opener's spot remained his for the next 2 decades except for a brief period in 2003.

d) With his explosive batting at the top of the innings, Millions tuned in to watch Sachin open the innings and tuned out when Sachin got out.

There are many questions which we can ponder retrospectively.

a) Would one day cricket become so popular (at the expense of Test cricket even) in India had Sachin stayed as a middle/lower order batsmen in ODI? 

b) Would Sachin reached the magical mark of a Century of Centuries as a middle/lower order batsman?

c) Would we have reached the Semi-Finals of the 1996 World Cup, the finals in the 2003 World cup?

d) As a nation would we have become this this Cricket Crazy?

I leave it to you to answer.

Lara, Sachin, Ponting - So, who is a 'Match winner'?

As we near Sachin's inevitable retirement from Cricket, we would perhaps be treated one more time to 'but he never was a match winner' debate.

Sometimes, Pundits even take it to the next level and say greatness of a cricketer should be measured by how many matches he wins.

A quick glance at Test results/Centuries of Brian Lara, Ricky Ponting and Sachin Tendulkar (3 of the best batsmen of their generation) should alone make everyone stop using these lines.

30 of 41 centuries by Rick Ponting resulted in an Aussie win (A whopping 73%).

Ricky Ponting - 'I score a century and Australia wins'

Sachin and India fare relatively bad - 20 out of 51 test centuries resulted in an Indian win (An average 39%).

Sachin - 'I score and century and batting collapses soon'

However, only 7 of the 34 centuries by Brian Lara resulted in a West Indies win (A paltry 21%).

Brian Lara - 'I score a century ...and the opposition start batting soon'

Does this mean that Brian Lara is not a 'Match winner'? 
On the contrary the win ratio shows how good the teams were and has got very little to do with the players themselves.

In Chennai in 1999, when Sachin scored 136 out of team target of 271 against Pakistan and got out at team score of 251, the rest of the team folded like a pack of cards.
One of his best test knocks, resulted in a team loss.
Maybe, just maybe, if he had an Australian lower order (A Steve Waugh perhaps ;) ) to follow him, the match would have been won.
Then we would perhaps debate if this was Sachin's best knock ever.

So, maybe next time someone talks 'Sachin was not a match winner', the reply should be an equally stupid 'Yea..and Lara was such a match loser'.

My argument is not that Sachin is blameless, (that's a separate debate - future blog post perhaps), but don't blame him for the failure of his team.
After all nobody would blame Iker Casillas & Gerard Pique when Villa, Llorente and Torres fail to score and Spain vs Brazil ends 0 - 0.