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.