Pre-Preview: Border-Gavaskar Trophy, India, 2008!

So, it’s that time of the year! A time when Test cricket, surely, will be played hard but then you could never really guarantee as to whether it would be played fair. That’s thanks to the enormous amount of ill-will that was generated between the two cricketing teams in question. Australia and India will lock horns again in a few weeks from now and like a lot of pundits have already stated, I too simply cannot wait for the action to begin.

Back in 2001, Steve Waugh’s side had arrived in India on an all-time high and the skipper himself had declared that conquering India in India would be akin to have captured ‘The Final Frontier’. Till mid-way through the series, things seem to have gone as per the script; but then what happened thereafter would be marveled by VVS himself a few years down the line when he watches those videos from the comfort of his living room! Point is, the series ended up being closely fought though it wasn’t meant to go that way.

Despite that euphoria, few gave the Indians a chance when they toured down under in late 2003. After all, our record out there was perhaps shambolic to say the least and India’s best overseas batsman since ’02 had a less-than-impressive record in that country. However, India produced some of the best Test cricket it’s ever played and in the end the series was drawn 1-1. Infact, it had come precariously close to spoiling Steve Waugh’s farewell Test series and only some brave batting from the 168-test-veteran himself ensured that his final Test in front a packed home crowd didn’t end up on a losing note for his team. Once again, things not following the script.

Fast forward again to their next chapter in the rivalry and this time around too, few events went as planned. Despite the drop in form of their skipper, Saurav Ganguly and murmurs floating around as to how much of a liability he’d become in the line-up, Indians on the back of their impressive showing in the earlier two series were expected to atleast compete well with the visitors. This time around though, the Aussies were determined to emulate Bill Lawry’s team of 1969 [the last Australian team to have triumphed in India] and the series despite all the controversies surrounding the final Mumbai Test was pretty one-sided. Australia had finally beaten India in India and the script had once again gone for a toss.

3 years down the line when these two sides met, much had changed. Saurav Ganguly wasn’t the captain anymore, and well, it wasn’t even Dravid at the helm of affairs. Kumble, many felt, was a forced option and moreover, the team was coach-less! The Australians on the other hand, despite the absence of their two main bowling legends were expected to be a force on home territory. Also, this time around, it was ensured that the Indians had to play at Perth, a venue which many felt Indians were lucky to not have played on during their previous visit. What happened eventually during those dramatic 2 odd months must be utterly fresh in everyone’s mind and as that glorious victory in Perth of all venues would signify, the script that the pundits had predicted had for the 4th time in a row failed to follow the given course.

Now as these two cricketing powerhouses meet, for the 5th time in close to 8 years, is it easy to predict the outcome? Can it be a cakewalk for either side, for that matter? Can Kumble and Co. reclaim the BG trophy or will Punter be able to register his 1st win in India as captain and win the series as well? The kind of answers that some of these questions can generate makes me feel that the upcoming series could end up being one of the most closely fought and it would be naïve to predict the outcome, one way or the other!

Reasons being; for once, I feel, this time around the two sides that will enter the fray would both be battling their own kind of demons. Australia will finally realize what it means to field a XI [against a quality opposition] that’s not just minus Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne but also does not feature Justin Langer, Adam Gilchrist and even an Andrew Symonds. The Queenslander’s skill against playing quality spin bowling would be missed for sure and when you consider that their skipper himself has scored next to nothing in India thus far, it’d mean that their task is going to be anything but easy. The home team on the other hand has been playing with fire and their insistence on persisting with their Famous Four has gone on for far too long. And even as it looks like at least one of those four might have played his last Test, the poor form of Sachin and Dravid might come to haunt them in this all-important series. One of the easiest ways to defeat touring teams in India is to bat 1st, pile on the runs and then let the spinners take control of the game. But when the backbone of our batting, i.e the middle order looks as frail as it is now, it can only add to your worries! Not to forget, the captain himself hasn’t done too much to write home about in his last two series and his form is another cause for concern.

All in all, both the teams seem to have their share of headaches to ponder on and I personally think it would take a real brave man to punt his money on either powerhouse.

To cut a long story short, don’t write a script. You wouldn’t want to go wrong for a 5th straight time, would you?

Its all about that Will, that Hunger, that 'DESIRE'!

The legendary Napoleon Hill in his even-more legendary and all-time classic ‘Think and Grow Rich’ talks about the various characteristics and essentials that are required to succeed in life. As one would expect, there are a number of qualities that define champions and to zero in on any one quality is not the most easy of tasks. However, its not impossible either and the man through the most roundabout of ways talks about how critical a part does ‘DESIRE to succeed’ play. Infact, all said and done, in the very end, it does boil down to that 6-letter word ‘Desire’. How badly a man wants to succeed in his chosen endeavour, does, more often than not, end up playing ‘THE’ pivotal role in the eventual result. One such exemplary case-study was seen some 10 days back over the 2 weeks of high-voltage and highly-emotional drama at the Flushing Meadows, New York. No prizes for guessing whom I’m talking about. [Well, I wont even name him this time around :)]

True, its been quite some time now since the event saw its final point being played. And ever since then, numerous articles have been written on the man and all those odes have been well deserved allright! One thing though seemed to have caught more of my attention than all of the other things. Agreed, the achievement itself needs to celebrated [especially with the kind of un-Federer-like year that 2008 was till then]. Accepted, the feat of being the only man to have won 2 Slams 5-times on the trot needs to be highlighted. Fair enough, the display of the Master in the final which eventually turned out to be pretty one-sided affair needs to be written in golden words. But what caught my attention throughout the tournament and one that has managed to capture my imagination throughout the Genius’s 4 years of utter dominance was the reaction that every Grand Slam win manages to bring to the man’s face. His various outbursts [compared by his own standards i.e] and the n-number of emotional shouting and all that at NY’08 [Who can ever forget his war-cry like reaction after his 5-set win in the 4th Rd match] could still be attributed to the kind of year he’d gone through and what the victory hence meant to him. But this is nothing new to the millions of loyal fans that he can boast of across the globe.

Can anyone afford to forget the sight of a tearful Federer falling on his knees and crying like a baby after all, post his 5th straight win at Wimbledon? That child-like reactions and the sheer joy of watching the man jump up and down or collapsing on his back after his wins over the years at NY city is still so fresh in the mind. What about the post-final presentation at the Australian Open, 2006 which saw the great man actually crying on the dias and having to console himself in the arms of another great, Rod Laver.

Make no mistake folks, you’re talking about a man who much before even 2007, even when he was atleast 6 slams short of Sampras’s all-time record of 14 majors was already spoken of in terms of the ‘Greatest Ever’. You’re talking about someone who’s “dominated” [That word to be taken in the very true sense!] the game like no other person ever possibly has. Heck, the man’s been winning the ‘Laureus Sports Athlete of the Year’ award for the past 4 years, clearly telling us that not just in Tennis, but across all sports, the Swiss Master has been pretty much the ‘bloody best’! You’ll find a 1000 others sportstars otherwise who could have achieved a lot less and yet, fallen prey to the various hazards that popularity and fame come along with. But that wasn’t the case with Roger, hardly infact! Here we have a man who just couldn’t and who just wouldn’t rest on his laurels. He just wouldn’t let success get to his head, just wouldn’t let success make him think less of his opponents. Here was that one sporting idol that all of us are privileged to watch and one who truly symbolizes that one quality that Napoleon Hill thought was so essential to succeeding at the very top: DESIRE! His ‘desire’ to ‘remain the one to beat’ has been relentless, to put it mildly. And boy, was it there on full display during those two eventful weeks in front of the boisterous NY crowd, who by the way, truly seem to have made the SwissMaster feel at home in that city!

Its easy really for a man to start off his life with magnanimous desire and then to succeed as well. What constitutes true greatness though is ‘How badly does that person wants to reach the very top’ and ‘How motivated is he to remain there for a long period of time’. Its these traits that separates a Sachin Tendulkar from a Vinod Kambli, a Vishy Anand from a Pravin Thipsay and your Roger Federer from so many others. Point needs to be made though that people who were not so “expressive” on court despite achieving great feats are not being put down out here. A Pete Sampras rarely displayed great amount of emotions, atleast he didn’t in the 1st half of his career. That obviously doesn’t mean, his hunger to succeed was any less than Roger’s. Heck, no! What I’m trying to say is, Roger does make it very obvious what records mean to him, what history means to him, what winning means to him and finally, what Tennis means to him and to his life! And from whatever has been on display over the past 4 years or so, it does mean a HELL LOT!


Its been a real privilege, privelege of the highest degree to have watched him in full radar, for possibly the 1st time in the year and we, as fans, can only hope that the ‘aura of invincibility’ will be back in its entirety during the various season-concluding indoor tournaments. Even otherwise, you, Roger Federer [or as the famos Tennis guru Peter Bodo addresses, TMF] have given us enough reasons to be happy [such an overused word actually and such a rare commodity in reality]. Not just that, there’s so much to learn from you, lessons that we can only hope to apply in real life so that we could achieve atleast a quarter of what you have so far in your life! [Remember folks, that ‘Desire’ thing?]

Thank you for everything! Hope to see you collect yet another 5th crown, come November at Shanghai!