Wild encounter with a Suvar'ez'

During my stint as a journalist for a leading national daily, I had this opportunity to come up with some really creative and out of the box imaginary Q & A's with sporting celebs, who are in the news for the right or wrong reasons. Readers then had to guess who was the interviewed celeb and take home a consolation prize apart from their names being mentioned in the newspaper.

I remember once doing a similar one with a nondescript Aussie cricketer called Michael Buchanan. You are right, his claim to fame was the surname Buchanan, and yes he was the son of coaching guru John Buchanan. 

That keeda still keeps coming out many at times. Therefore I have now decided to let it out, twice every week, I will let myself lose with a quick Q & A with the who's who of sporting world, with a very obvious clue to guess who the celeb is.

Here is this week's interview.


This Uruguayan footballer has done everything what's expected from a star. On or off the field, he has been the news maker or rather call it a headline maker. I caught up with him at a bar in Liverpool...

Q: So, what you have been up to exactly?
A: This is English football, played hard and fast. I can't get better than this.

Q: Hasn't your aggression gone beyond a limit?
A: Hmmmm.. Maybe my animal instincts are taking over.

Q: But your behaviour may cost the club big time or you may face a ban too...
A: Rubbish. The Liverpool fans are far more carnivorous than me. They will not spare the FA. Did anything happen to Uruguay after my deliberate handball?

Q: You can't take the club and the league for granted?
A: I am not. I am being paid to perform and score goals. I am performing also and am scoring too. Ain't I doing a good job?

Q: First you deliberately stamped on a player and now bit another. What instigates you to get so wild?
A: The stamping incident was inspired by a dance move from a Bollywood actor named Sunny Leone, no, sorry, Sunny Deol. And biting you should guess it that I watched the Mike Tyson bout a night before the match.

Q: But this isn't the first time you bit a player?
A: Exactly. So why are you guys reacting so much. 

Q: If banned then what you will do?
A: First I did that in Dutch League and moved on to English. Now I have done it in English, will go to Germany may be or Spain. Wherever my predatory instinct take me. 

Q: So you will continue to be like a wild animal?
A: You #*#hole, let me give you a taste of my wild side. (I try to escape but he bites off the back pocket of my jeans)

Stud then, dud now?

It's been a very intriguing bit last few days in the Vijender Singh's Heroingate (if I may call it). The arguments for and against Vijender have been silly as well as incisive. His brand managers feel that his stocks aren't going down the drains soon, they may be correct in their assessment for Vijender's involvement has been established for consumption and not peddling. 

And all that after denying at first, then his friend, accomplice and fellow boxer Ram Singh saying they consumed it thinking it was food supplement only few times and latest being that the former World No. 1 consumed it 12 times. From nothing to something. This shows that Vijender's link is supposed to be running deeper than consuming it as food supplements or for fun.

If Vijender had nothing to lie or hide, he or his team (managers) should have come out in open. But they didn't, cooking up their next plan of action. This all may sound like conspiracy theory or trial by media, but then you are a public figure, a sports icon and therefore subject to public scrutiny. It may be fair or unfair, but then not many people have faith in the system to find the real truth or even get a fair trial.

While many of his supporters, fans and of course stakeholders feel he deserves leniency or pardon, but doesn't he or all of us understand that he also was looked upon by many, and mind you not only the aspiring boxers. A rare breed of an Indian athlete, an Olympic medal winner, India's answer to Rocky, stuff of fantasy he was. 

Probably that went into his head. He could not manage to keep himself rooted to his modest background. He probably got everything on the platter, or say it on the house, after Olympics while his journey till then was about a bus driver father working double shifts to pay for the boxing training. That's where he has faltered. 

Self control, staying away from drugs, be it leisure or performance enhancing, will power, healthy habits define an athlete's life. And being a boxer, these are the things that would on the top of the 'things-to-do'. It's a crime, if proven guilty, what he has done and a rap on the knuckles will just not work. 

It's very similar to the Michael Phelps case where he was caught smoking a marijuana pipe. But in that case, the champion swimmer was straightened by US Swimming and was suspended from competition for three months.

Their statement too was pretty upright and message clear. "We decided to send a strong message to Michael because he disappointed so many people, particularly the hundreds of thousands of USA Swimming member kids who look up to him as a role model and hero," the organization had said in a statement then.

And Phelps being arguably the most decorated Olympian of all time too admitted his mistake and apologised saying, "It's a bad judgment. I can learn from it." But none of it what happened in case of Phelps is going to happen with Vijender. Neither the IABF is likely to do anything, nor Vijender looks like apologising, since he says he hasn't consumed it at all.

There is a lesson here for Vijender from Phelps. Confession might be the best thing. He can sober up after this as the nation watches him take the next step. And if he comes back harder, stronger and a winner, that will define if he was a real stud or a dud.

Can't get any worse for boxers in India

This Vijender Singh episode has just come at a wrong time. Like the entire country was fed up with the Federation and were feeling bad for the 'talented' boxers, Vijender's name being mentioned in this drug bust case has just made things worse than ever.

While the fans have taken the toll of unruly fiefdom in almost all sporting federations in the country, athletes were their only saving grace and with boxing, the fans and sports lovers can't even have faith in them anymore. While the investigations are getting murkier and doling out new names every second day, Vijender's reluctance for giving tests and coming out clean chit has really not helped his case and the counted-on-fingers boxing fans.

Thanks to my journalism stint and of course my adventure in boxing beyond my journalistic journey, I still am in good terms with a lot of who's who of boxing. And trust me the information, 'off the record' I have got from them isn't too encouraging. It may be the officials or the boxers. None have come out in defence of the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna awardee Vijender.

Now one may say that all of them have been jealous of Vijender's status and fame, but some of them are beyond that. Some boxers, who don't even aspire to be like Vijender, have said that finally this has come out in open. "He is like a Don in the camp. His clout is really strong and his word is 'patthar ki lakeer'. Being an employee of Indian Police, I was approached by similar people to help them in their activities."

The athlete in question here isn't someone who wants publicity and hasn't been in the national reckoning ever.  He knew I wasn't speaking to him as a journalist, nor I was going to write a piece in the newspaper. So he knew it was safe to speak to me. Another boxer, a national level champ and also represented India at various events said that it isn't easy to handle fame and Vijender is a clear case victim of that.

He said that the fact that Indian federation was suspended, the boxers didn't have much to do and it also played on their minds. This may not be a good reason to get into such nefarious activities. But then fame (India's most celebrated boxer), power (a senior post in Haryana Police), connections (wife from an influential Delhi family) and talent (a former world no. 1) is a heady mix. And that's what has shown its true colours.

Not that the country is baying for his blood, but Vijender will have to come out with some concrete explanations (read excuses) to come clean on this. My gut says the self-proclaimed 'cool dude' isn't as cool in this. But being a hero to many aspiring boxers, either he should have guts to admit the truth like Whip Whitaker (Denzel Washington) does in the movie Flight. Or maybe he wants to become Lance Armstrong, admit it after its all over and forgotten.

But boxing in India could have never been in a worse situation than this. Never!

Why do we love to hate Ravindra ‘Rockstar’ Jadeja

Restaurateur, rockstar, fielder, bowler and batsman, in that order Ravindra Jadeja’s strength and talent is at the moment. In his formative years, junior cricket days to be precise, fondly known as Jaddu was touted to don the senior blues well before his peers would. His good left arm slow bowling and more than decent batting played a big role in the U-19 World Cup winning campaign in Kuala Lumpur a good five years back, in 2008.

And living up to the reputation, Jadeja made his debut in the shorter and shortest format in Feb 2009. While he was supposed to be best suited and excel in those conditions. He hasn’t really set the stage on fire. Numbers don’t support him, well ignore that. Worse, he was on the other side of the fence on more than one occasion.

The bungee jump happened from May 7, 2010 to be precise. As 2007 World T20 champions, India were not even close to be the side to beat. And to add to the woes, Australia, a force not to reckon in this format, hammered us to submission. Jadeja's TRP got the biggest beating since then.

At Bridgetown, Aussies batting first clobbered the Saurashtra’s pride for 38 odd runs in his two overs. This included conceding six consecutive sixes. Shane Watson took the honours first in the third over of the match, swatting Jadeja’s last three balls for max. Dhoni threw the white cherry again to Jadeja a few overs later and then David Warner send the first three balls over the fence for maximum.

India lost the game convincingly enough with only Rohit Sharma showing glimpses of his exceptional talent, but in a wasted cause.

What dented Jadeja’s case further was the ‘Rockstar’ branding by Shane Warne. I remember, as a journalist then, when the team landed at the Mumbai International Airport after a poor run at World T20 in 2010, Jadeja was subject to some hostile crowd throwing choicest of abuses. He was obviously not amused but little he could do.

Puns were flying high on social media and regular one too. The worse was still to come. Trying to find a more lucrative deal with Mumbai Indians while still being contracted to Rajasthan Royals, the dude got banned from 2010 season of Indian Premier League (IPL). His ‘Rockstar’ script was becoming similar to that of the movie ‘Rockstar’.

He quit Royals and joined the ever-controversial and now banned Kochi Kerala Tuskers team. Scored runs, saved runs, took wickets and earned to be a regular member in the national T20 side. But he didn’t have statistics supporting him, leave aside the purists. But luck, Dhoni and Srinivasan didn’t desert him. The Gujju boy hit jackpot contract worth $2 million with Chennai Super Kings.

To pledge his commitment to the team, he got an awful hair cut and etched Chennai Super Kings in hair do. God! Really! Is that what a ‘Rockstar’ is like? Was he trying to be the Chris Gayle of India, be cool, be different types. He just about did everything to ensure he is never on the right side of the fence.

In the age, where Twitter is the platform where fates of every star, celeb, wannabes is made and broken, Jadeja has had the honour of trending even without a match being played. And the moment he has the willow or the five and a half ounce leather in his hands, its finger licking time for Twitterati. Well, he doesn’t have to care much. But then why not be a cricketer first? That’s why we love to hate Jadeja so much maybe.

The match looked fixed.. How can Pak lose like this..

In what looked like another rape in Delhi, forgive me to pun on the incident but the way we batted was nothing short of getting raped and by a gang, if I may use the word in good spirits, for the incredibly talented Pakistan team.

The match turned on its head at the fall of daamaadji Shoaib Malik and Mohammed Hafeez's wickets. And came out the dreaded 'F' word. Yes, everyone started saying 'Saala fixed thaa'. This word has been used, overused and abused and how many times. But then what to do, this much faith is left in people when it comes to the talent, capabilities of the Men in Blue.

Though the Pakistani team has been notoriously famous in dropping, no balling and throwing away matches. But I believe cricket is a funny game. And like some boring commentators, who still are seen on air, say "it's not over till its over" and blaah blloooh!. So this feeling, which always is floating in our heads, had to come out.

The Delhi fans, real winners of the match, would have loved the ultimate result, but then for braving that chilly weather, the quality of cricket was poor over and above. It surely was one of the lowest totals defended and a nail-biting end to the game, but neither there was good bowling on display and some idiotic to say the least batting exhibition of both sides.

Ajmal may have taken five wickets, but Indians batted like kings and emperors and donated wickets more than Ajmal earning them, like they have done in last one year, or say since the World Cup 2011 victory. Pakistan batting, barring man in form Junaid was nothing remarkable.

I think after a long, long time an Indian bowler's bouncer hit the helmet of a batsman. Yes, he was a tailender, so what? Shami Ahmed's snorter that shook the ground beneath Umar Gul was a welcome sight. Finally felt like there was a fast bowler in India.

But then the Pakistani batsmen made heroes out of Ravindra Jadeja, Ishant Sharma and R Ashwin. And somehow allowed India to put a leg in between the door of '3-0 whitewash'. Undeserving Team India won and a side like Pakistan which was whipping Dhoni's men suddenly looked like a school side.

How can you blame fans then to believe that India played well, exceedingly well and Pakistan played so poorly. Phir kaun nahi bolega ke fixed thaa. Yes, to change this perception, temporarily though, India needs to bring in some positive results and Pak needs to stop losing such matches. History kharaab hai boss!!!

If not American way, do it the Chinese way

As a passionate sports lover and a dispassionate journo, once upon a time that I was, I always wondered how long will it take for Indian sports to get professionalised. Well, it surely won't happen in my lifetime. Even the little professionalisation that has happened in a sport like cricket isn't really professional. While one sporting league has gone the American or call it the English way, others aren't even seeing the light of the day.

And we dream of becoming an Olympic nation. How? By getting the apex sports body banned, and one by one other federations attached to it also getting suspensions. While then as a journo it was easy to be an arm-chair critic, but even after coming on the other side of the fence, I have realised that I wasn't really only a critic. There is very little one can do of these babus sitting at the helm of various federations.

And even the one that is professional in its approach is so busy making money that the sport is secondary objective, revenue is primary. Well, fine, fair, but then something called accountability is so missing. Be it the unprofessional or professional setups. Team loses, players responsible, individual athlete loses even then it's his bad form. What leads to the bad form is no one's concern or how to resurrect isn't even a thought. Babus and autocrats running it aren't asked a question. Who has the authority to question them anyway?

As a hero-worshipping country, we tend to get high on one big victory and not look at what happens after that. India's 2011 Cricket World Cup win was commendable. But since then our team hasn't really played like world champions. A hard-earned ascendancy to Test rankings was all but lost in a matter of time. And the BCCI is busy making plans for IPL 5. Is it 5th or 6th edition?

I don't remember, every year its the same tamaasha. Nothing new to look forward to. The Australian Big Bash on the other hand has good quality cricket and something new for the fans to look forward to. Simple but never thought of innovation like lighting the bails and stumps have added value to consumer experience, even the spider cam.

A handful of medals in a handful of disciplines. What next? How to carry forward the momentum? Any blueprint, roadmap to 2016 Games? No. But the country's body is banned. Why? For a greedy babus quest for power and khursi. Can anyone question them. Yes. The sports ministry, but what can they do? Nothing till now. At least when Mr. Maken was at helm, there were answers and a few solutions acted upon, but Rahul Baba's friend Mr. Jitendra hasn't been able to come to terms with this.

If nothing, the sportsmen across all major disciplines need to be paid well. If they need to be at par with professionals across the world, they need to be paid like professionals too. PSUs, who have been the biggest employers to sportsmen in our country, aren't really good paymasters. At the end of it, with a nil-balance federation and a peanut paying job, all you get is a sub-standard athlete. Heard of this naa, "Throw peanuts get monkeys"

While there is a league coming up for every sport, none is going to get any M-boost for cricket always did, and will continue to take the majority of the spending pie. Simple reasons; played more, seen more, a few good results overshadow all the bad results and players made into larger than life figures. By the BCCI and by us too.

Corporates want RoI, they may pump in money saying its CSR and they feel for Indian sports and this and that. But at the end of it, what matters to them is the bottom line. Trust me on this. The day Indian hockey starts giving great results, cricket will find it difficult to keep the sponsors intact. While cricket has given us lot of glory to be proud of, hockey is an emotional favourite.

It goes for any other sport too. If the athlete is winning consistently, and being at par with the top guys, he or she will never find it difficult to find a sponsor and therefore in return will have to produce results too. Look at Saina. Has won so much at such an early age that every loss is now a decline story. Sania on the other hand was only a pretty face but could not do much for herself or the sport.

One Mary Kom, one Gagan Narang, one Abhinav Bindra and a few more won't do any good, especially once in four years. We need more of them. Plenty. For sports to become a discipline, it has to be run with discipline. Democracy at the moment isn't yielding results. Maybe sports should be handled the Chinese way if it can't be sold the American way. For everything you buy in this country, China is your alternate, why not for sports too? Food for thought.

Whaddyaaa Playaaaa!!! RIP Tony

Anthony William Greig, at 6ft 6 in, was heads and shoulders above all his teammates, always. It may be in the right or the wrong sense. Right for being a gifted all-round cricketer, always up for a challenge. Wrong, not being judgemental, for being the leader of the English rebel side in Packer's World Series. It may have plummeted his stocks for being on the rebel side, but this South African-born English cricketer was the one who marked the real beginning of professional cricket. So what was wrong in that. Anyway.

But for the generation who didn't see Tony's cricketing prowess remember him best best and most for the ebullient voice of modern commentary. The innovator of the term 'like a tracer bullet', the first to insert car key in the big cracks of the pitch, trying to check the hardness of the surface, the first commercial captain of cricket and first to build a commentary partnership. His commentary partnership with Bill Lawry is a stuff of legends.

His significance to the lives of my generation was kind of unsaid, unacknowledged. He was the voice that infused life into Sachin's 'Sharjah Storm'. While the entire world was awestruck the way Sachin was manhandling Steve Waugh & Co then, Tony was one of the key ingredients for all the television viewers who enjoyed the excitement of Sachin's once in a lifetime innings. Without Tony in the box, it wouldn't have been the same fun for sure.

The 3900 odd runs and 170 wickets in international cricket were not of any concern at least to my generation. It surely did make for a good record, but most of us will remember him as an ecstatic, emphatic, assured and unambiguous but not rambunctious (like you know who) commentator. Very few commentators have this innate ability to get their viewers mantramugdh, bring them the real, raw, uncut excitement of cricket. Tony was one of those rare species, trailblazer kinds.  

Many commentators tried to ape his style, but in vain. Not that they would agree that they were trying to do that, but then it wouldn't be any shame. The Indian Premier League (IPL) did pick up a few former internationals, to bring in the Tony Greigesque feel. But all these 'experts' (PR reps I would say) could manage is yell their guts out to sound exciting. They were not even half as audible or credible as Tony was. Here's a video tutorials for all of them. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AltJywqPXFs

Off late, he rubbed the Indian cricket fan, the establishment the wrong way. And to all of us he was the one on the other side of the fence. But then once he would start commentating, little would the Indians care. Whatever they had to tell him, they would blurt it out on his Twitter handle and enjoy his commentary later.

He passed away earlier this morning in Sydney while battling lung cancer, but trust me, he will remain the voice who brought cricket to life, and not to forget the voice who brought money too. Not many of them would acknowledge it, but this generation of cricketer owe gratitude to Tony for putting a value on cricketer for his art or call it skills. RIP Tony. Whadddyaaa Playaaa!!!