DON BRADMAN -- 87 NOT OUT -- CRICKETING OBSERVATIONS

DON BRADMAN -- 87 NOT OUT -- CRICKETING OBSERVATIONS 

1. The Don is simply the greatest. His matchless intellect and articulation as evidenced in this interview is proof enough of that. His batting skills must have been the outflow in physical form of this finer dexterity reigning behind.The greatest bowler of olden times.

2. Sydney Francis Barnes was the ultimate professional in an era when amateurs dominated the 'gentleman's game'.

3. Opening the batting is significantly more difficult than playing in the middle order, for the new ball has to be negotiated. Thus, it will be clear why opening batsmen have relatively lower career batting averages generally than their brighter middle order counterparts. And these ought to be kept in mind when assigning rankings to the all-time great batsmen.

4. WHEN NEHRA FOULS THE AIR

Listening to the Hindi commentary on the current India-England Test series (2021 in England) has been the most disgusting experience of my life. Especially Ashish Nehra with his unending voluble talk that distracts one from concentrating on the visual element of the match and prevents one from reflecting on its course. The only alternative is to mute commentary while viewing. These garrulous commentators do not even know the basics of television commentary and ought to take cues from Richie Benaud, John Arlott, Brian Johnston, Ian Chappell and Bill Lawry before they proceed next to air their views. Added to this is the barrage of frivolous advertisements in between overs and you have the complete package of verbal nuisance spoiling discourse in a game that has the unique tradition of great storytelling by eminent commentators during a test match.

Written by Sugata Bose

5. Charlie, the chucker? So, Nari Contractor had to pay the price for his unfairness of the short ball?

6. SugataBose @Utsav Datta : Perhaps, you are of a different generation and not quite aware of Mankad's phenomenal attainments in those early years of Indian cricket.

7. Sugata Bose @Utsav Datta : Statistics needs analysis to understand. When Sehwag had admitted that he had never heard of Vinoo Mankad, it can be understood in your case. Our cricketing literacy is rather poor. Depth-reading and research will reveal an altered picture altogether.

8. Listen to what John Arlott has to say about Vinoo Mankad and then come to terms with your estimation about this great all-rounder who I rate as India's greatest cricketer of all time.

9. Sugata Bose @Sushanta Banerjee : Bradman himself accounts for two batsmen rolled into one. This was Bradman's own formula as revealed in the book BRADMAN'S BEST written and published posthumous to Bradman's passing away. The book chronicles Bradman's choice of his ideal best-ever team based on his formated blueprint for selection. It includes five specialist batsmen, an all-rounder, a batting wicket-keeper, three fast bowlers of which one is a specialist in swing, and two leg-spinners. I have altered it in including the off-spinner et al in Murali. However, I agree with your contention as well. It is bowler-heavy from the ordinary selection perspective.

10. Unless tomfoolery leaves this country (India) en masse, there is no hope of its redemption in any sphere of activity. Cricket must necessarily suffer the consequences of mass levity.

11. শেষে গাভাস্কারও চ্যাংড়া হয়ে গেলেন ? যুগের হাওয়া, ভারত specific ! [ In old age people become lying masks of men. -- Swamiji ]

12. We need to improve the quality of cricket commentary in India. It is of distastefully low quality bordering on the ridiculous when one considers the level of levity that characterises it.

13. 

John Snow's deliberate, hard pushing of Sunil Gavaskar, precipitating him when he was taking a run in 1971 in the first Test match of the India-England Test series, was an unbelievable act of crudeness and hardly the brightest act of British fairplay, sportsmanship and superior civilisation as they are so wont to boasting about. That the TCCB did censure Snow and dropped him from, first the remaining two Test matches and then only the second Test match as such, was quite in keeping with the spirit of the game, though.

Written by Sugata Bose

14. 

To me Gavaskar as a batsman and as an individual is ahead of Tendulkar by miles.

15. বাচ্চা ছেলেগুলোর খেলা দেখে মনে হয় বুড়োগুলো আর ক'বছর আগে অবসরপ্রাপ্ত হলে দেশের প্রভূত কল্যাণ হত |

16. টাকা কী জিনিস ! বিখ্যাত ক্রিকেট খেলোয়াড়রা সব বিক্রী হয়ে গেছে |

17. Third grade commentators busy cracking nonsensical jokes, cheap entertainment being provided where expert comments ought to be forthcoming.

18. তেজ জিনিসটা নষ্ট হয়ে যায় টাকার প্রতি এইরকম অতিরিক্ত আসক্তি থাকলে | খেলোয়াড়দের এটা ভাববার বিষয় | বর্তমান ও অতীতের খেলোয়াড়, উভয়ের পক্ষেই এই মন্তব্য প্রযোজ্য | খেলেছেন ভালই | এখন ভাঁড়ামোটা না করলে ও টাকার জন্য নিজেকে বিক্রী না করলে চতুর্থ ইনিংসের খেলাটা যথোচিত হবে |

19. Cricket is a two innings, five-day affair whose test is in the Test match as goes by its very name. Its single innings, abbreviated one-day, 50-over, 20-over version is its aberration and may be duly termed 'crick' but certainly not 'cricket'. It is a cricketing circus of sorts, no doubt, but it is just not cricket in its true and pristine form.

20. ভারতরত্ন mutual fund বেচছেন | মন্দ নয় ! ঠিক ঠিক ভারতরত্ন !

21. An Indian fan in the crowd displays a card that says he has OCD or Obsessive Cricketing Disorder which is indeed unfortunate for a country oblivious of its larger responsibilities. And this disorder runs through the nation -- as yet in its nascent state of maturing -- from the famous to the ordinary citizen, all distracted by the Enchantress Divine and yet again submitting to Her delusive designs at destruction of the nation. 

22. Golden win 1971-2021. Chandrasekhar's 6-38 is celebrated again today. Well done, Kohli and boys !

23. Sony TV's Hindi anchor of Extra Innings should be sacked. His ludicrous behaviour is totally unwelcome to viewers, going by my own distaste for it.

24. Sony TV's Hindi anchor of Extra Innings should be sacked. His ludicrous behaviour is totally unwelcome to viewers, going by my own distaste for it.

25. Not many people remember that Gavaskar had scored his first 19 Test centuries in his first 45 Test matches. He then went on to score another 15 centuries in his next 80 Tests to finish with 34 Test centuries from 125 Tests.

26. Rajdeep Sardesai may be Dilip Sardesai's son but he does not understand much about cricket. His knowledge of the game is superficial, observations ordinary, widely deflected and in general he, like many other journalists of his era, tends to draw out expected answers from his interviewee by asking typical questions that pander to the audience. He is generally shallow, dull and not fitted to the job of interviewing eminent cricketers on cricket, a subject about which his knowledge is a little better than nil. He even confidently misquotes data as when he says that Tendulkar scored 158 in the Chennai Test of 1998 against Warne and company, when asked by Warne if he was correct in saying that it was 156 or 158. In real it was 155.

27. After watching Sehwag on television indulge in frivolous chit chat bordering on cultural degeneration I have lost respect for the great batsman.

28. Beginning to lose respect for our famed cricketers of the recently retired lot as they indulge in frivolities bordering on the ridiculous and culturally degenerate on television and social media.

29. Television journalism has touched rock-bottom. Commerce has corroded personality, self-respect, civilisation et al.

30. POINT TO PONDER -- READ ON TO DO SO

Bishan Singh Bedi has said that had it not been for cricket he would have landed up being, perhaps, a bank clerk or so. If with Bedi's clear thinking capacity but ordinary education this is what to his reckoning his fate would have been, what would Tendulkar's have been in a like manner sans cricket? Gavaskar for sure would have excelled as an author or so but what about Tendulkar?https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dXu_MAR2ZMY&feature=share

31. The Don's IQ stood out and his character strength. Plus his natural abilities of course. His refusal to make money out of cricket is a standout in today's cheap commercial world of cricket where famous players have sold themselves to the copper coin.

32. Watch this video. See how Bishan Singh Bedi and Rajdeep Sardesai both thrash the system that is so corrupt. Rajdeep lambasts Tendulkar, Kohli and the rest of the cricketing celebrities for their compromise with cash, self-promotion and the like. I am happy at last to find some solid idealists among our countrymen. I used to feel a terribly isolated voice protesting against the hypocrisies of the age in which prominent national personalities have become integrated units. Now no more. Hail India ! Everything is not lost as yet. India lives still.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=33i85AKaq_c&feature=share

The average urban, educated Indian needs to be less frivolous and deeper in both understanding and appreciation of the imperatives of the times, the problems and their possible solutions. Cheap egoism need not be the defining feature of the over-vocal anchors.

33. Too pretentious a person this Harsha Bhogle is. Tries the manner of over-softness to win the friendship of all. Lacks, therefore, in dignity and self-respect as he hides his real self to win his way through the commercial corridors of cricket.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UO-wmU1fceg&feature=share

34. Sugata Bose @ Boria Majumdar : Flatter cricketers of eminence less. That will do you journalistic good. It will also bolster your character. Moreover, the mock serious pretence you put up is too transparent despite its cultural coarseness and can be seen through. Put the game ahead of your personal promotion.

35. The best of prose is in the novel and the best of cricket is in the Test match.

36. T20 isn't cricket. It is commerce garbed as cricket.

37. Boria Majumdar is a trifle too loud, both in real and in figurative terms, which is not the way with well-groomed anchors but unfortunately is what it is with untrained speakers who are perhaps temperamentally unsuited to curbing their conscious or unconscious drive for seeking the limelight. An anchor, however erudite, must have the civility to curb this self-blazoning attribute and concentrate on eliciting the best out of his interviewees. Hence, his role must be that of the soft catalyst and not that of the hard heater that brings chemicals to the boil. Courtesy demands gentleness of speech, greater melody in moderation of a programme and overall a certain delicacy of manner which Majumdar so evidently lacks. Would it were otherwise! Boria's strong grounding in cricketing lore would then have a stellar shine which owing to his overloud style is sadly clouded.

38. Michael Holding is a man of principles today. He abstains from T20 cricket which he deems not cricket. But he was pretty ruthless in his playing days when he bowled 'bodyline' in 1976 at Sabina Park, Kingston against the visiting Indians at the instance of his skipper, the losing Lloyd.

39. Why does Sachin allow the anchor to flatter him as 'the great Sachin Tendulkar'? He is said to be humble. How is it then that he does not resist this unnecessary epithet heaped on him? An address made by an anchor need not always be appended with adjectives that are intended to flatter.

40. Ganguly's citing of statistics is all wrong. His reasoning is flawed as well. Shallow thinker, slipshod, unprepared on data, wandering in references that are patently extraneous and, so, not well worth considering when it comes to comparing Tendulkar with Bradman.

41. Everybody forgets that Azharuddin scored 90 in his fourth Test after hitting three successive centuries in his first three Tests, thus narrowly missing what would otherwise have been a devastatingly difficult record ever to break. (This post is factually incorrect and ought to be ignored. To prevent the comments of friends made below from suffering deletion, especially that of Uttam Ghosh who has pointed out the glaring misinformation presented here, I am not removing the post as such but request all to ignore it.)

[Sugata Bose @Uttam Ghosh I checked it up. It was a queer misconception that I had, obviously some overlapping of image in my memory. I stand corrected. Thanks a lot for helping me out of this incorrect data-feed in my head.]

42.