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mahendra singh dhoni
MS Dhoni on your crisps
By Alex Try 2 years ago, mid-November, 11 Comments »
One of the first things you notice as a foreigner in India is how readily complete strangers are willing to strike up probing conversations with you. When I explain I’m following England’s cricket tour they often laugh before explaining that their country is “cricket crazy” – as if they are somehow detached from it all. This impartiality usually passes within minutes and they fall to musing about the skiddy medium pace they bowled as a teenager, or the intricacies of Bhagwat Chandrasekhar’s action. Unwittingly they prove their own point.
On television there are several channels devoted to cricket: ICL, IPL repeats, highlights of old Indian ODI’s – on one I found a repeat of the Sussex-Lancashire C&G trophy final from a couple of years ago. Advert breaks bring you Sachin Tendulkar promoting the Royal Bank of Scotland and Yuvraj Singh advertising Pepsi. If you fancy a snack, Mahendra Singh Dhoni appears on the front of your packet of crisps.
The money flowing through the Indian game makes much more sense when you are here. The advertisements and the endorsements are the physical representations of the billion dollar television deals which are made by companies desperate to show live International matches. For a cricket follower it is a strange experience – I’m both ecstatic at the amount of cricket I can consume, and uneasy at how entwined with money and markets it has become.
As for England and their practice matches – few people have been talking about them. Pietersen and his colleagues have been footnotes in the English-language papers as Sourav Ganguly and Ricky Ponting have dominated the front, back and opinion pages. India’s victory over Australia was felt viscerally by many I’ve spoken to: “We hate the Aussies”, a man from Mumbai told me, “we even danced in the streets when England won the Ashes”.
This focus away from the upcoming one-day matches might give England an advantage, especially with Tendulkar rested and Ishant Sharma injured for the beginning of the series. This being said, modern cricketers should be accustomed to the seamless transition between different tours and contrasting forms of the game. England will have to start well against a country riding on the crest of a wave.
Alex Try is in India following England’s tour. Connection willing, he’ll be blogging for The Corridor
11 Comments »Dhoni is ‘Obama in white clothes’
By Will 2 years ago, mid-November, 20 Comments »
I enjoy Peter Roebuck’s writing, but this is taking things a little far, don’t you think? Talking about MS Dhoni, he says:
He came to cricket as might a passenger at a train station, reached captaincy, runs, fame and riches not as some ruined child or as a street urchin destined to cover himself in bracelets but as a grounded and gritty young man for whom wealth was a consequence and not an aim. He wanted to rise, but on his own terms; he was not hungry enough to sell himself short. He is Obama in white clothes.
Granted, India have beaten Australia 2-0 – a superb, seismic win given Australia’s dominance for so long, though India has been an incredibly difficult place for tourists to win for yonks. And, yes, Dhoni is a seriously impressive, composed, grounded character with a Gilchristian urge to entertain. But to say he is Obama in white clothes overstates Dhoni’s influence and underplays Obama’s feat.
Discuss.
20 Comments »“Do I have $1.5m for Mr Dhoni?”
By Will 2 years ago, at the end of February, 13 Comments »
The IPL cattle market is, for now, over and the players have been sold, branded and sent to their respective clubs. One of our chaps in India did a brilliant job of live blogging the whole thing (I think most media outlets stole/borrowed the details), and it was fascinating seeing which players went to which clubs and for what sum. Albie Morkel went for $675,000; Adam Gilchrist for $700,000. Chris Gayle cost $800,000 while Kolkata bid $950,000 for Ishant Sharma.
The hype of the IPL is almost overflowing at the moment, but I still can’t see the tournament lasting the long haul. Super-powered teams have been forced together in the past – World XIs and so on – without great success, so why will the IPL be any different? It’s a quick injection of easy money for the players and a bit of fun for us, but don’t expect it to last. He says, desperately hoping he is right…
What do you make of it all?
13 Comments »