A Day at the Ground

I am at the entrance to the Oval in South London, peering through the iron-wrought gates, trying to figure out if a match is indeed happening. It is fifteen minutes to start time, according to both my watch and the Cricinfo schedules page I had checked in the morning, but the completely deserted look about the place makes me wonder if I have got the date wrong. A security man suddenly appears out of nowhere and allays my fears. Yes, the match is indeed on! The hosts Surrey take on Leicestershire in the weekend’s Clydesdale Bank 40 fixture in ten minutes!

I am directed to a quiet booth around the corner, where a pretty girl sells me a ticket for ten pounds. “Err…which stand is this for? Is it free seating?” I ask, rather foolishly. She beams at me with all the grace reserved for a first-timer and says, “Anywhere.” I beam back, half suspecting she is fooling around with me.

I am now at the entrance to the ground itself, and catch my first glimpse of the Oval turf. It is quite a large cricket ground, much larger than what I remember from TV when Murali ran through the English batting line-up a dozen years ago. It is also one of those typically ‘open’ grounds, where you have a lot of scope to get some sun on yourself while watching the cricket. I stand at the entrance scanning for a good spot to do exactly that, keeping in mind the ticket-girl’s encouraging words. A burly security woman makes my decision quicker by insisting I seat myself before play begins. This isn’t Wimbledon, I grumble behind her, making my way to a nice sunny seat, six rows from the boundary.

Surrey bat first, and as the batsmen walk out, there is scattered applause from the smattering of a crowd that has turned up. My nearest neighbour is two rows ahead of me. He is from New Zealand, judging by the All Blacks cap that he has on. He also has a scoresheet with him, which he proceeds to dutifully fill up at the end of every over. I build the Kiwi image further in my mind, thinking of how he resembles a younger John Wright.

Steve Davies opens the batting, and the local Surrey spectators greet him warmly. A middle aged couple to my right lead the cheers. I take a liking to the couple instantly. They are obviously married for a long time, and they have obviously been watching county matches for an equally long time. They watch the game quietly, occasionally chat amongst themselves, and generally relax. They have the comfortable feel of being regulars here. Maybe it’s even their favourite seats.

The general atmosphere is one of peace and calm, even as the batsmen are going at it hammer-and-tongs at a rate of more than six per over. I marvel at the impact that the environment can have on a live sporting experience. I also marvel at the glass of cider I have just bought at the stall for an exorbitant price. My opinion is reinforced today that a cold glass outdoors on a warm day can do wonders for a sunny disposition. I aim to capture the mood for posterity, and attempt a fancy photo of the action in the centre with the cider in the foreground. But balancing the glass on my thigh, while fiddling with the camera and applauding a silky cover drive to the boundary at the same time is a task too arduous for me, and I give up.

Surrey, after a dash and a stutter, end on 206 in 40 overs. The announcer in his formal understated tone declares that the public can access the playing area during the interval, as long as they keep off the pitch. I am delighted at this piece of news, and make my way down to the boundary line, wondering if the grass really is as smooth as it looked when the fielder at the boundary dived all around it. I find that it is, and it’s a pleasure to just walk on the green carpet. I see that everyone else seems to have come prepared for this. A father and his young toddler son are having a practice session with their pink plastic bat and ball. There are couples sprawled out on the grass, making the most of the half hour they have. I feel I have walked into a garden tea party, but for some reason, I feel blissfully happy.

Leicestershire’s reply begins, as more spectators now trickle into the grounds. We cheer for quirky reasons. A pigeon near the playing area has a problem with its wings, and hobbles about pitifully. The wicket-keeper proceeds to gently gather the pigeon in his gloves and carries it to the boundary line, and we cheer. The sun suddenly comes out from behind a cloud and bathes the ground in the kind of late evening brightness that makes me reach for my non-existent pair of sunglasses, and we cheer. A short, sharp and loud blast resonates from what sounds suspiciously like a vuvuzela. A murmur runs through the crowd, we all turn in the general direction, and we cheer.

I like the sight of Yasir Arafat. The strong run into the crease, the well-directed yorkers, the positive body language. What is it with these Pakistani pacemen? How do they keep generating this kind of talent? A pair of young boys, not more than sixteen, have taken up the seats directly behind me. They carry on a continuous conversation, of which I hear every word. They seem to have met today after sometime, and are catching up on mutual acquaintances, football, girls, football, academics and football. One of them whips out his iphone at regular intervals and provides the other with the latest updates on the football premiership match in progress. They start off on a passionate discussion on Carlos Tevez, and I lose interest. I look around, and I see that John Wright has lost interest too. He is nodding off, with his cap providing good protection against the drowsy sun.

The match is heading for a close finish. Mathew Hoggard, of all people, blasts a six into the stands to revive Leicestershire’s hopes. The connection of cork on willow makes a pleasing sound, and gets the spectators cheering. Even a few placards with ‘6’ written on it are whipped out and displayed. But the excitement doesn’t last long. Surrey blast out the last remaining Leicestershire tail-enders, and they win by 15 odd runs. At the stroke of the last wicket, the few remaining spectators start packing up their picnic hampers, putting on their coats, and making their way out.

The announcer makes the formal declaration of Surrey’s victory, and the boys behind me are jolted from their personal discussion. “Oh, I thought there was one more wicket left” they say, before they get up and join the departing crowd, immersed in their football conversation once more. They were never here for only the cricket, I think to myself. And I realise that might actually be a general truth. Cricket isn’t something that evokes passion here, in its birthplace. Instead, it chooses to relax. Even its most ardent fans wouldn’t go rabid over their team’s (mis)fortunes. Instead, a game is where you head to on a lazy weekend, when you want to clear your head and get some sun. In that sense, it remains a quietly dignified game, a throwback to an earlier age when time was slower and things were rarely as important as they seemed. And I think to myself, that can’t be all bad.

The Change in Seasons

Winter is on its last legs now. You can see the signs everywhere. Leafless trees are suddenly bursting into a riot of colours, the days are become inordinately longer, the birds are chirping their hearts out, and you know that spring has finally broken through. Watching the gradual transition is quite comforting really. It makes you appreciate the seasons more, makes you look forward to the experiences of the season ahead, and assures you that you can trust in the inevitable cycle of the natural world.

Which makes it pretty amazing that we have an international tennis schedule, which does the same thing! Aside from the regular complaints of an overcrowded itinery, the ATP calendar is a great advertisment for the virtues of familiarity and order. The early hardcourt season Down Under and in the States, transition to the extended hustle-and-bustle of the European red clay, followed by a brief skirmish with the green grass of Europe, and then the seemingly never-ending hardcourt season culminating at the end of the year in London. Each provides a flavour of its own, with individual tournaments serving as season-markers with their own distinct personalities. The perfect context against which we follow the course of our favourite sport – how the rivalries pan out, how stars emerge, how heroes fade, how the sport evolves. It goes to show that all a good sport needs is context. How I wish international cricket would learn from this. But that’s a tale for another day.

As far as tennis goes, the clay court season is upon us already (Monte Carlo is well underway). The grunts are in the air at full strength, the slides are coming out on the dirt-red surface, the baseline grinders are putting in their extra hours (but is there actually a baseline grinder left in the game?), and all under the pleasant European spring sun. And this year, the tussle at the top promises to be exciting indeed.

For the first time in half a decade, the overriding theme of men’s tennis discussion will go beyond the perennial plot-within-the-Fedal-plot, “Can Federer beat Nadal on clay?” And that is primarily because we have a new contender for the throne in Novak Djokovic. He has just come off a stupendous run in the hardcourts this year, beating both Nadal (2-0) and Federer (3-0) time and again, and signalling his intentions to finally bring the curtains down on one of the most enduring hegemonies of sport. The Djoker has always been a consistent performer on clay without being spectacular. This might be the season he takes the next giant step forward.

The man he will try to usurp, Nadal, is only one of the all-time great clay court specialists. Well, all-time greats, period. And he is in fine form himself. But will the pressure of defending all those points from a pitch-perfect summer last year take its toll on him? And we would be ignoring Federer only at our own risk here. Like Nadal, he has had a solid year so far, but has been overshadowed by the Djokovic show. Will the mantle of a No. 3 ranking prove to be an extra incentive for him, or will the lack of pressure, relatively speaking, enable him to play more freely?

The trends of the top three players going into the clay court season are pretty interesting. Djokovic is clearly on the way up, while Nadal is in cruise-control and getting into his favourite part of the year. It’s harder to place Federer who is still playing well enough not to lose to anyone but these two, but within the troika, he definitely comes third. And this subtly changes the context of the Fedal rivalry too. Can it actually accomodate a third member on a sustained basis, especially given that the rivalry might be in its twilight stage anyway? Lots of intriguing questions to be answered over the next few months.

And in the hype of the Djokovic show, let’s not forget the supporting cast who could set up stirring storylines themselves. Will Andy Murray finally get himself off the ground? We know from Monte Carlo that he has won at least one match post the Australian Open. Will the gentle giant from Tandil, Del Potro, continue his steady comeback from injury? Will the Ferrers and Almagros of the world show us again what bloody-mindedness can achieve on a clay court? Will the Next Gen players announce themselves? And will they be among Raonic, Harrison and Dolgopolov? And is Robin Soderling finally past his extended purple patch, the patch which began with that memorable toppling of King Rafa at Roland Garros a couple of seasons ago?

It’s a brand new tennis season, and the questions before us are new and different, and yet vaguely familiar at the same time. But that’s what a fresh season brings, I guess. New perspectives, new expectations, new experiences, all against a familiar background.

Full Stop to the World Cup

The day finally dawned, to a lack of buzz which I found excruciating. People were out for their morning jogs, breakfast was being made, the traffic was steady. It was, for all purposes, just another day in everyone’s lives here. And that’s when it struck me how far away from home I was, and I felt what can only be described as home-sick.

But deciding to make the best of the situation, and also to avoid the trials of unpredictable live streams from dodgy websites, I, along with a couple of  equally buzz-seeking companions, decided to spend the ‘red-letter day’ of our cricket watching lives in that great British establishment, the sports pub. And this place was promising. Not only did it have the usual suspects of Indian expats with British accents, it had a couple of young Sri Lankan female supporters who could pass off as WAGs for their national team. Throw in a couple of members of that hard-to-find species – the British cricket fan, Sky Sports in high definition (and therefore, without Sidhu), and some good cider, I was ready for the grand finale, comfortable in my surroundings, and confident with Team India.

Being confident with the Indian cricket team doesn’t come naturally to me. All those years of experiencing disappointment and frustration do leave their scars, I guess. And that’s why I’ve felt surprised at how easily the tag of favourites rests on the shoulders of the current bunch. The much famed batting line-up actually delivered consistently through the tournament (notwithstanding their inability to take on the Batting Powerplay), the fielding improved gradually right through, and the bowling managed to keep things together. But most importantly, the team seems to be confident of its ability to manoeuvre itself out of tight corners, it seems to believe that it is the best team out there, and the feeling is gradually percolating to me, the normal Indian spectator. Is this how the Aussie cricket fan used to feel in the last decade?

After the fiasco of the toss which reminded you of gully cricket between ten-year olds, the first innings started sedately enough. Zaheer seemed intent on exorcising the ghosts of 2003 and came up with the stingiest possible opening spell. The Lankan top order batsmen played their part by being demure in their attempts at strokeplay. In fact, for a match in which around 550 runs were scored, there were no real explosive phases where the batsmen went ballistic. This again goes to prove that there are so many ways in which the game can flow in the 50-over format, in which lies its appeal.

Jayawardene’s silky-smooth century brought hearty cheers from everyone at the pub, especially the Lankan WAGs. And at the half-way stage, a target of 275 in a World Cup final seemed to put the Lankans firmly in front. But even then, I found myself quietly confident about the run-chase. India’s bastmen were in form, this was Sri Lanka against whom they enjoy a mental edge in recent times, and above all, there was this new found confidence (for me) in the team. Maybe it comes down to the skipper, Captain Cool himself. MSD’s style of captaincy can be eccentric at times. You can see he is an intuitive captain, much like Dada, and he really backs himself. So much so, that if one radical move of his doesn’t come off, the only way he feels he should react to it is with another radical move! Case in point would be Sreesanth’s inclusion in the playing 11 ahead of Ashwin, a move that ultimately did not work out. The best way to redeem himself, he decides in his own wise way, is to promote an out-of-sorts bastman (himself) up the order at a critical juncture ahead of a batsman who is the frontrunner for the Man of the Tournament. And the amazing part of the ploy is, it works! Time and again! The detractors and doubters and proponents of the ‘lucky captain’ theme are still waiting for MSD to fall flat on his face, but this latest addition to his glittering CV makes you wonder if he has actually cracked the captaincy code. One thing is for sure, his evolution as a player and captain in the years to come is going to be fascinating to watch.

Despite all this, India’s run-chase ran into choppy waters early on. Sehwag ended the tournament with a performance that was the polar opposite of his opening-match blitzkreig, and then….Sachin edged behind to slinga Malinga. Sachin, for whom the stars seemed to be coming together, for whom the fairytale script was in readiness to be enacted, for whom the 100th ton in a World Cup winning cause seemed so predestined as to be blatantly obvious, for whom I had manipulated my Fantasy Team to make him my trump. And he edged behind to slinga Malinga. You could have heard a pin drop in the pub at that moment. So naturally, we were able to hear the Lankan WAGs shrieking in joy and hugging each other. And that was the closest I felt to my conviction in the Great Indian Run Chase being shaken that day. But even as Gambhir and Kohli went about steadying the ship, you knew it was just a matter of time before things were back to normal. The Indian batting line-up just could not flop in this tournament! MSD came in at the fall of Kohli, much to my consternation, and promptly went about crafting a masterpiece of an innings. And as time went by, Sri Lanka’s highly experimental bowling line-up headed by a maestro literally on his last legs, withered against the steady onslaught of the Indians.

MSD’s tournament-clinching six, which was the closest he has come to delighting the cola sponsors with his helicoptor shot, was lost in the pub in a delirium of cries, hugs and high-fives. For a place used to shouts of ‘Rooney’ and ‘Goal!’, we satisfactorily managed to bring the roof down with chants of ‘India’, ‘Dhoni’ and ‘Sachin’. A little bit of ‘Sreesanth’ too, for good measure. But we were happy. The Cup that Counts had been won by India, by the pre-tournament favourites, by the team most confident in its abilities, by the best cricket team around. That’s how it should be, and that’s what made it so satisfying.

MSD’s six also served to enlighten me on an earlier typically cryptic comment of his at a press conference

” Till the full stop doesn’t come the sentence is not complete”

Reading past the ambiguous use of the double negative there, MSD chose to end the sentence himself, and not with a full stop, but with an exclamation.

The Serious Side of John McEnroe

Link will be up soon

One Shot Wonder

He walks in to bat with 14 runs required off the last over. He strides into the middle of the raucous experience he’s always been told to expect in the World Cup, and be in awe of – ‘a mad Indian crowd backing the Indian cricket team’. And this is a crowd which has danced to the tune of a zillion runs being scored already that day, and are now smelling blood with India making an improbable comeback into the game.

He does the running for the first couple of deliveries in the final over, before he gets strike. He is now nicely warmed up, and England require 11 runs off 4 balls. With the number of runs scored that day, he knows the match already has its place in history. He takes strike. The floodlights beat down. The crowd roars. The bowler sends down a juicy full length delivery. He clears his feet, swings purposefully without a hint of exaggerated strokeplay, and sends the ball sailing over the long-on fielder for six!

Ajmal ‘Shazam’ Shahzad had just contributed hugely towards the final outcome of the game. In the process, he also walked into my list of favourite cricketers. This was eye-popping stuff! The fact that it was such a delightfully clean strike, that it came off the first ball he faced, that it came from a player with next-to-nothing international credentials, and that it came under those intense circumstances, just made it extra special.

By definition, cricket has never been a game where an awful lot depends on a split-second action, unlike say, a 100 metre dash. In fact, cricket lives by its ebbs and flows, and each cricket match acquires its own personality and traits, drawn out over an extended period of time. That’s why a bowler smashed for consecutive boundaries can afford to shrug it off; he knows he always gets another shot at the batsman with the next ball. And though batsmen might complain about how ‘one good delivery is all it takes to get one out’, that’s precisely why at least half the team are batsmen, who can, between them, make up for the inevitable batting failures of each other.

But there are those occasional moments when this maxim is not true. When the entire weight of a match can hinge on a fateful moment, and everyone knows it. And when someone makes a wholehearted attempt to grab such a moment with both hands, it makes for great freeze frames in our minds. Like Douglas Marillier with his scoop shot against an unamused McGrath in Perth, like Hrishikesh Kanitkar hoicking Saqlain Mushtaq away to the mid-wicket fence in the Dhaka smog, like Lance Klusener clobbering through the covers time and again in the ’99 World Cup. Ajmal Shahzad just added himself to that list.

But this is not intended to take anything away from the rest of the happenings on a very eventful day. The symmetry of both teams’ innings stood out for me, in terms of masterful centuries scored by an opener, incisive spells from a seamer which brought the bowling side back into the game, and general floundering around by batsmen at the death. And the match kept twisting back and forth, as a result of quite a few ‘special’ moments, like Pietersen’s rocket finding Munaf Patel’s hands rather than the long -off boundary, Bell being told by technology that technology wasn’t good enough to give him out, the ‘other’ six hitters right at the end for England who heaved in with a couple of lusty blows of their own, and finally, the small matter of the match ending in a tie.

It was a special occasion indeed.

Boundary Line Thoughts

The World Cup is now truly underway, with almost all of the 14 teams having had a say in proceedings so far. The only truth established in the first week has been that ‘the glorious uncertainities of the game‘ has got a worse thrashing than the Associate Nations put together. But then, didn’t we expect this all along? It was always known that the tournament was going to meander around laboriously for the first 30 days, suddenly burst into life for the next 8 days, and before we realised it, leave us behind in a stream of blurred memories of matches we didn’t pay enough attention to. It’s gone according to script so far, and I have successfully settled into a routine of keeping a superficial eye on proceedings, without really getting involved in any game yet. As a result, some peripheral views from the first 6 days of world cricket’s premier event.

The best effort in the field so far has to be Zimbabwe’s Christopher Mpofu running out Ricky Ponting. Don’t you love it when those tall, thin Africans with endless limbs lope around the boundary line and score direct hits on the full at the non-striker’s end? Apparently, Ponting doesn’t, what with his TV breaking incident immediately afterwards.

The Netherlands almost made Nagpur their home that night. The only Associate Nation to put up a semblance of a fight thus far, and it nearly resulted in a victory! ten Doeschate and the boys in orange ran riot for a while, and I have to admit I was hoping they would cause an upset there. Just for the symbolism of the Orange Team making history in the Orange City, nothing else. Juicy headline opportunities like that dont come knocking every day, after all.

I wonder why UDRS decisions can’t be displayed on the big screen. Instead, it’s the poor on-field umpire who has to make contrite gestures with his hands on chest, looking suitably aggrieved at going from playing God to naughty schoolboy in a minute. I realise he might feel quite differently whenever his initial decision is justified. But surely, it’s better to keep the spotlight away from an erroneous lawkeeper than to put the spotlight on an efficient one. After all, we never get to see the linesman’s face in tennis after his call has been overruled by a challenge, do we? By the way, the UDRS seems to be working fine so far for the tournament, with or without the HotSpot. Hopefully, this will be the way forward.

The best quote in the commentary box thus far – David Lloyd’s instinctive  reaction on seeing James Anderson and Kevin Pietersen gape at each other while allowing a skier to fall right between them, “Ander-son, Pieter-son, ….after you, son!” followed by a typical bout of “ho-ho-ho”. Not bad at all, especially when there are people like Alan Wilkins around, mouthing off banalities every other second.

Just 4000 general public tickets are available for the World Cup final in Bombay, with the rest being distributed to the ICC, member associations and other such anonymous faces. It’s a story we’re familiar with in India, but it never feels less frustrating. My sympathies lie with the ardent Mumbaikar who fails to get one of those priceless entry passes into Wankhede, ends up at home in front of the television on the 2nd of April, only to see the World Cup Final being played to empty seats in the stands.

But before we get to that fateful day, we have a long and winding road ahead of us. More minnows to be crushed, more trash talk ahead of key matches, more expert cliches from the commentary box, more player injuries, and hopefully, a keen contest or two.

Onward the cricket caravan.

The Far Away Cup

The cricket carnival is upon us again…only, I am struggling to feel it in the air right now. I shall blame it on my current location, of course. I might be living in the birthplace of the sport, but right now, this is the cricketing world’s Timbuktoo. With perenially gloomy, dark skies overhead, and an interest in sports being synonymous with an interest in the English Premier League, this is a far cry from the hot, noisy cauldron of a subcontinental cricket World Cup. Add to that the crisis of confidence that the ODI format itself is going through, being lambasted by T20 fans and Test fans alike, it’s not surprising that my build-up has been slow. But all said and done, the World Cup remains that one cricketing constant we’ve all grown up with, we know the records and statistics by heart, we know the anecdotes and folk tales through the years, and we know we will only be adding to that over the next month. Thus, we remain loyal to history, if not anything else. This edition though, does seem to be the most open tournament for a long time, and there definitely are a few things to be excited about. Apart from pondering over the the perennial questions of which side of the bed the Pakistanis will get out of, which big match the South Africans will choke away, and how many centuries Sachin Tendulkar will score, here are a few things I am going to be keeping an eye out for over the course of the tournament.

Is this Bangladesh’s time? Their fans definitely seem to think so. Reports from the opening ceremony seem to suggest the kind of pre-tournament frenzy in Dhaka that could actually carry the team through for some distance. People hope for a run similar to India’s in 1983. God knows they have played long enough, and the conditions are ideal for their cause. They are playing at home, fresh off a thumping win against the Kiwis, and for the first time, there will be justified disappointment if they don’t make it to the knock-out stages. The only problem seems to be the lack of a 1983 Kapil Dev in their side. Will Shakib Al Hasan be able to fill those big shoes? Their first match at home against favourites and co-hosts India might give us an idea of what to expect.

How far will the West Indies go? They are expected to struggle to make it to the knock-out stages, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see them being embarassed. But I have to admit, I do like their batting order. The explosiveness of Gayle at the top, the very exciting Darren Bravo to follow, the solidity of Sarwan and Chanderpaul, and the all-round skills of Dwayne Bravo and Sammy to round things off. Their bowling might be weak, their fielding might be indifferent, and they might rarely think like winners. But that’s not going to stop me from hoping against hope that something clicks along the way. Sammy’s rise to captaincy, which does seem to be appreciated by his colleagues, and Richie Richardson’s new role as coach might, just might, prove to be a catalyst for change. I hope so, because the Windies in full flow remains a unique sight in world cricket to this day. After all, Sammy did seem to enjoy the rickshaw ride more than any of the other captains at the opening ceremony!

What role is Kevin Pietersen going to play? For a team that was riding a crest just a couple of months back, England seems to have slipped back into a more familiar back-bencher role after a nondescript ODI series against Australia, and a string of seemingly never-ending injuries. That’s why I liked the move to bring Pietersen to the top of the order for the two warm-up matches that they played in the lead-up. Just the fact that they are thinking of bringing their star aggressive batsman up the order signals intent and purpose, which might be just the kind of manufactured strategy required to shrug off all the negativity holding the team back. Maybe the man in the England team to really look out for in this tournament is Andy Flower!

Is this the end of Australian dominance? A lot of people seem to think so, but we will know for sure only when the tournament kicks off. There has been an obvious decline in their Test credentials, but we know you dont essentially need players of the calibre of McGrath and Warne to win ODIs consistently. A fair dose of the famed Aussie toughness should do, and this team still has it in good measure. Nevertheless, Mike Hussey and Hauritz are going to be missed sorely, which is only going to make things interesting all around.

So, as the dust settles on the opening ceremony pyrotechnics, expert analyses and predictions are being wrapped up, and finishing touches are being put to Fantasy Teams, things are finally in order for the action to begin on the field. As I strive, in vain so far, to capture the elusive buzz of the World Cup, I realise that the words of the wise marketeer actually ring true. This really is ‘the cup that counts’. Enough said. Let the games begin.

And oh, by the way, “Jeetega, bhai, jeetega! India jeetega!” …where’s my vuvuzela?

The Green, Green Grass of Home

Sporting pilgrimages are always fun. You do it for the history, for all the tales you’ve heard about it, for checking if the real place actually compares to the hyperbolic image your mind has. And irrespective of how the comparison turns out, the experience can never let you down. After all, you are visiting the birthplace of heroes.

Thus, the bleak, overcast skies of a cold English winter couldn’t get my spirits down as I found myself at the gates of the hallowed lawns. Walking down the main street of Wimbledon Town provides you with an immediate impression. You see things as mundane as the Wimbledon Theatre, the Wimbledon Fire Station, the Wimbledon Train Depot, all normal, urban structures, and none of them have anything to do with tennis! For a follower of the sport, whose earliest (rather, only) exposure to Wimbledon has been a TV diet of lawn tennis every June-July, it can be slightly overwhelming to see a Wimbledon sign whichever way you turn, with none of them having any relevance to tennis!

Beyond this, let the pictures take over.

As implied earlier, winter is hardly the ideal time to make a trip here. The sky is gloomy, the sidelines on the court are missing, and the grass is left to grow wild, within reasonable limits. As a result, the courts resemble a neighbourhood park ideal for an evening stroll, rather than a gladiatorial amphitheater where sweat and tears are spilled. This court, for example, is adjacent to Court 18, where Isner and Mahut played their duel-to-the-death last year. It’s interesting to see how a match steadily seeps into popular folk-lore at Wimbledon. Court 18 is already a must-stop on the guided tour, and the guide patiently takes a quarter of an hour coming up with tid-bits of trivia spread over the three days the match took to complete. Looking at the peaceful patch of grass today though, it requires quite a bit of imagination to recreate that atmosphere, despite the guide’s best efforts.

This is the view from the top of Henman Hill. From what I could gather, the title continues to persist, and the locals haven’t re-christened it with an alternative alliterative name, for a more contemporary player. Not yet, anyway.
Sitting on Henman Hill, I realised what I liked about Wimbledon. It’s just about the right size. At least, it was smaller than I had always imagined it to be. I guess all the history and traditions end up adding to the physical dimensions of a place too, in our heads. In reality, the stroll through the court complex was quite a short one. Even the courts are pretty compact, and a spectator is always close to the action. Also, the traditional colours of purple and dark green dominate the landscape, going hand-in-hand with the natural green everywhere, and they serve to create an easy sense of familiarity.

The Champions’ Board always makes for good reading, evoking memories of that player you had forgotten all about, drooling over the memories of that match you swear you will never forget. One thing that strikes me is how often there have been repeated champions here, and in quite a few cases, in succession too. Winning seven matches in a row, in the toughest field of players possible, has always seemed a highly difficult challenge to me. But there have always been guys managing that feat with aplomb, with a regularity that must make a mockery of the statistical probability of it happening. Maybe it’s all about winning the first one. A champion’s mindset towards a title must be starkly different to a player who has never done it before, and that skews the odds in his favour more than anything else. Maybe.

Another enduring image of the Championships for me. And I mean the Rolex, not the Radio Wimbledon. I love the fact that advertising does not find a place within Wimbledon. I find it very intriguing that in this day and age, one of the most prominent sporting events in the world does not believe in its commercialisation. Trust the British to come up with a reason involving ‘tradition’ and ‘gentlemen’. But I do find it very appealing. For one, this is the main reason that the distinctive purple and green of Wimbledon really stick in our mind, and not the ubiquitous cacophony of colours seen elsewhere. And the invisibility of corporate sponsors allows the fan to indulge in an illusion of the tournament being played only for the lofty goals of glory, perfection and truth, rather than the crass pursuit of money. It must be said here that the jackpot of one million pounds for the eventual champion does put a slight dampener on this train of thought. Ironically, these are the thoughts that spring to mind on seeing Rolex, the one corporate brand distinctly associated with the Championships. In its masterful positioning as the Official Timekeeper of the Tournament, Rolex hitches its brand to an even bigger brand – Wimbledon, and in the process, makes a few others go green, I suspect.

Centre Court, at last! And in all its off-season glory! Special attractions of the season include a lighting apparatus which supports the grass in its attempts at photosynthesis in the gloomy murk, and an electrified fence around the perimeter of the grass, supposedly to keep out the adventurous local jackal. While I tried to get myself a quiet moment amid the distractions, and figure out the exact spot where Nadal might have crashed to the ground in ecstasy in the deepening gloom of that 2008 evening, I couldn’t help but feel slightly aggrieved that a jackal might have got closer than I ever would to the grass of Centre Court.

Every seat in Centre Court is covered with its own individual seat wrapper, which evoked a vague feeling of exasperation in me just looking at it. I wonder who had the patience to actually carry out the task. Anyway, by this time, our guide was in his element, waxing loquacious about past events in the Court, and I felt a stab of envy for his job. He was engrossed in narrating tales of sporting bravery, triumph and despair to a crowd of people who had been hoping for something exactly like that to make their day, and were now hanging on to his every word.

 

 In the end, I guess it made my day too.

The Raison d’Etre

It’s been almost seven years now, but the memory is as fresh as ever.

It was five in the morning, and the TV was on at the lowest volume level possible in order to not wake anybody up. But VVS Laxman’s cover drive far, far away at the Adelaide Oval still sounded loud enough to me to rouse everyone in the vicinity.

This was actually Rahul Dravid’s match. Having scored a double century in the first innings, he remained unbeaten in the second, guiding India to its first Test victory in Australia in over two decades. But all these years later, the rest of the match has reduced to nothing more than a set of inconsequential facts and figures for me – Ponting’s double-ton, Agarkar’s heroics, Dravid’s mammoth effort, even the actual moment of victory. The only image that remains is the sight of Laxman on a gloriously sunny day, creaming the fast bowler to the mid-off boundary with minimal footwork. The sight of the seagulls on the ground being scattered by the shot, only served to accentuate how rooted to the spot the Australian fielders seemed as the ball sped past them.

Which invariably begs the question – why was I watching this in the first place? Could I really have been looking forward to the silky wrists of a genial Hyderabadi more than the actual moment of a historic Indian sporting triumph? What was I, a common fan, looking for in a televised sporting event, at the unearthly hour of five in the morning? After all, why do we watch sport?

An enduring cliche in response to this has been that ‘sport is a microcosm of life’. And as many enduring cliches, that might well be true. You see your daily struggles, your victories and defeats being enacted in front of your eyes. You speak from your own experience when you wish the young brat would put a price on his wicket, when you urge the hard-working bowler not to lose hope in the middle of a wicketless spell. And when things work out the way you hoped it would, you are gratified. And when they don’t, you are frustrated. Just like life. It might also explain why no two fans have the same opinions or the same favourite players. You bring your own personality, your own understanding of life into your appreciation of sport.

Personally, I know why I watch sport. It’s for those very human moments, when you can feel the gooseflesh all over you. When Nadal sinks to his knees after beating Federer in the deepening gloom of an English summer evening. When Steyn steams in against Tendulkar with a hostile sense of purpose and a vocal home crowd behind him. When Flintoff offers Brett Lee his hand immediately after a heart-wrenching Ashes loss at Headingley. When Ivanisevic finally lifts the Wimbledon trophy, after all those years.

…And yes, when Laxman uses those magical wrists of his.

In the end, I watch sport for the memories. Perhaps, that’s raison d’etre enough.

And perhaps, that’s also raison d’etre enough for this blog.