Liverpool Football Club: Being re labelled as “the selling club”

I wrote an article for Weekender (Daily Tribune) during last week of December 2014 “Big stars are Liverpool? May take another season of TOP 4 Finish”.

My argument was this: When a player of the quality and record of Cesc Fabregas (36 Million), Diego Costa (40 million), Alexis Sanchez (44 million) look for a football club shift, they look for a pedigree, consistency in management, ownership, football at top flight and trophies.

Liverpool has a huge history and without a shadow of doubt, they are one of the most followed clubs in the world, but they have not won a Premier league title since its inception.

They had a fantastic last season (2013-2014) and reached Champions League again. But, from 2014-2015 onwards, the club needed to show that it was not a one season wonder thing, and they can maintain their TOP 4 status, if not winning the League title or some trophies like FA cup.

But how did this season go?

Liverpool lasted only in the group stages of Champions league this year, winning only one game against Ludogorets. They had a very bad start to the Premier League Season, loosing 7 of the first 16. Then came a turn around and they went ahead with 13 games without losing. But it went downhill again, losing to United and Arsenal, making their position extremely difficult for a top 4 finish. After the league cup semi-final exit at the hands of their recent nemesis Chelsea, the club was left with one big hope – to win the FA cup. This too lasted only till the Semi Finals.

Now what from here?

Press is full of claims that Liverpool has become a “Selling Club”. With one trophy in 9 years, Liverpool will be forced to sell more players this summer. Can you deny that so many big players who left the club in recent past, has already won major honors with their new clubs? I actually respect the way the new Liverpool owners has handled the club, in terms of handling the debt and their player wage policy. But, to compete with the likes of Chelsea and City, to win the Trophies, they need to reconsider the strategy and mission.

Or this, once a great club, will soon become a Southampton. Dream and objective each year will be Top 4 finish, players will be developed at the club, which is a fascinating thing. But they will eventually leave the club “for Trophies”.

Indian Premier League: Another Indian Tamasha or a Real Cricket League

During the Opening Ceremony of IPL season 8, Sourav Ganguly says that “IPL has done wonders for Indian Cricket”. 

Though I agree that an IPL is better than no IPL at all, as it helps so many young cricketers who may or may not make the final 11 or final 15 of the National Team, to enjoy cricket with Indian and International stars and also earn good money, But “IPL working wonders for Indian Cricket”. Am I missing something or people are just paid to say what they are supposed to say?

Let’s compare the performance of Indian Cricket Team in both tests and one day internationals between pre IPL Period and Post IPL. And for the sake of really testing the capabilities of the team with respect to challenging situations, let’s compare their performance outside home, especially in England, Australia and South Africa. Because this has been the week area for Indian Cricket and we all know about it.

IPL was founded in 2008, so as per Sourav’s claims, it must have planted its improvement since 2009? Hypothetically at least. Let’s compare Test Cricket Team’s Performance First:

From 2002 to 2008 (6 seasons), Indian team managed to register “One Test Series Win, 2 Series were drawn and they Lost 2”. This includes a test series win in England and a Series in Australia ending 1 match each. They lost only in England, by one match. Then came IPL and from 2009 till date they “haven’t won a single test series in these countries, drawn 2 and lost 5!” This includes miserable whitewashes in England and Australia. The way they lost in England and Australia during 2011 and 12, it’s hard to understand what Sourav is saying.

May be I should not talk about test cricket? Though that should be the first priority if you are a cricketer, right? But anyhow, maybe he was suggesting one day cricket performance? Let’s see about that. From 2002 and 2008 again, Indian team managed to “Win 3 one day series in Australia and England”. Where as from 2008 until now, they have “Won 2”. More or less same? Or worse?

If we talk about World Cups, during the pre IPL period, India was finalist in One and Lost out in Group Stage in West Indies. During the Post IPL period, they Won a cup and reached one semifinal. The cup they won was obviously in India, as you know. One noticeable achievement was winning champions trophy in England. But that’s about it, that stands out.

I still don’t understand how IPL has done Wonders to Indian Cricket. Do you?

And the Winner takes it all?

Is winning everything in sport? Yes? So what role the remaining 10 teams played in the Cricket World cup? And if you are thinking of only Australia as the winner, what role did other 13 teams play?

Definition of Sport from WikiPedia: Sport (or sports) is all forms of usually competitive physical activity which, through casual or organised participation, aim to use, maintain or improve physical ability and skills while providing entertainment to participants, and in some cases, spectators.

Though it also says: In competitive events, participants are graded or classified based on their "result" and often divided into groups of comparable performance, (e.g. gender, weight and age).

Yes, every time a sports man comes out to the field, all that is there in his mind is to give his most competitive, best shot and emerge as a champion. It makes sense; a sports man provides the best sporting skill (which is what we are watching on the TV) only when he gives his most competitive best in the sport. Only the best foot forward is the most entertaining and eventually a “winner”.

But, sometimes, a looser or the second best man/men/team wins your heart, if I am a spectator. The whole world minus the Aussies, wanted New Zealand to win the final. Why? One reason is that they wanted a change in the order. Australia had won it 4 times before this one; New Zealand had never even emerged in the final before this one.

It’s the love for the underdogs, the story of dreams, and the story of revenge. That is always more beautiful than the story of Sporting Mastery to the level of monopoly – the super power.

The story of a team who played like gladiators and laid down tactics to counter punch the superior power, to bring down the almighty power. The story of rebels uprising.

It wasn’t to be the case this time, it happened in 1983 when India won the cup defeating the almighty West Indies, or in 1992, when Pakistan did so to England. But the Gladiators from the kiwiland did win our hearts. 

They might still be under the shadows of the “All Blacks” (their Rugby team who has ruled the sport), but this time though they can hold their heads high, as the they took one major step forward. They made the Rugby obsessed country, talk about this team.  

Cricket World Cup 2015: Too Long, But not too Frivolous

By the time you read this article, Cricket World Cup 2015 might be at its final stage and South Africa or New Zealand would have reached their First World Cup Final Ever. And either of them would be getting ready for either Australia or India.

But from what we witnessed so far in this edition, few things will remain in our memories and few will be quite unique to this World Cup.

For me, among all, the performance of the Associate Nations stood out. I have reflected in my earlier articles on how teams like Ireland and Afghanistan gave top test playing teams a run for their money and a reminder to ICC on what they have not done properly at all – and that is to help these teams grow beyond “the once in 4 years World Cups”.

This World Cup broke batting records I guess. No other world cup saw so many teams scoring 300 plus totals. In fact, we even saw scores of 400 plus. This did not come as a huge surprise to me, as the initial indication was to encourage good batting tracks and the likes of AB de Villiers and Glenn Maxwell were bound to exploit it, with their fearless batting, which in itself, is a testimonial to modern day “I play my way” cricket.

But a pleasant surprise though, was a reminder to every cricket fan that fast bowling is not dead in shorter format of the game. No matter how big the bats become, how flat the pitches and how audacious the batting, if you can bowl your heart out at 140 KPH plus, you can still put the batsmen on the back foot and in fact turn the game completely. The ‘chin music’ is here to stay!

Wahab Riaz’s scorching spell at the Aussie batsmen, Mitchell Starc’s 150KMH Yorkers at the Kiwis were two of my favorite moments from the cup.

What were your stand-out memories?

Why Cricket is a Better Sport than Football

During a Cricket World Cup game, I came across an advertisement which says “while you wait for the next over to start, you can go to our website and compare various insurance policies and save Rs. 7000”. At first, it sounded like every other Indian Advertisement. But, I gave it a thought and it’s not totally bizarre. That’s the beauty of this game.

Unlike football, I don’t have to dedicate myself to a cricket game completely. I can use washroom while a fast bowler goes back to his long run up, rubs the ball with his pants, spits on it a couple of times, etc. I can take a break after the first hour of the game (15 overs or so) , go to grocery shopping with my wife and come back after an hour, and last hour of the game (the most entertaining one) will be left still. I can then take another break, may be respond to my emails or eat my lunch and come back for the second innings. Can I do all this with Football?

I have the privilege to watch my team play our arch rivals or neighbors again and again. How often England football team play Scotland or Ireland or their rivals Germany? In Cricket, India plays Sri Lanka twice in a year (for a full series). It’s easy; there are hardly 10 regular teams in the cricketing world. Familiar foes, familiar game, all the time. It’s so comforting, the usualness of it.

It gets even better when you move to Indian Premier League: Beautiful cheerleaders, 100s of Sixes, Spicy commentary by the likes of Navjot Singh Sidhu. I will never get this kind of entertainment ever in football. The so called legends and pundits of football are too boring and they focus too much on the game and analysis. I can read a newspaper for that. I am not watching the game to learn anything from it, I just came back from my office, and I need entertainment.

I want my game’s experts to tell me “it’s gone for four” when it’s “gone for four” and also to let me know that “players are shaking hands” when “players are shaking hands”. I mean I can see what’s happening on TV, but instead of over reading the game, analyzing it etc, I love my TV to let me know exactly what’s happening on TV, right?

Cricket World Cup 2015: Performance of Associate Nations, a reminder of what the game could have been

Continuing and concluding my last week’s article on how ICC is failing in its mission to globalize the game of cricket, let’s look back at this year’s cricket world cup thus far and you will be amazed how the “associate cricket members” like Ireland has performed so far.

Ireland “handsomely” defeated West Indies in their group game, New Zealand lost 7 wickets chasing Scotland’s minor total, Afghanistan nearly triggered an upset at the cost of SriLanka. Now these Associate sides do not face regular cricketing teams other than in World Cups, and yet, they are good enough to compete with them. So imagine how competitive the game can become, if they are allowed to play with these teams more regularly.

Why this doesn’t happen that way then? Reason is simple. Unlike Football bodies like FIFA, International Cricket Council does not put growth of the game as their agenda, at all. That’s it. Simple.

That’s not the priority, that never was. And they decided on it long back, when they decided not to include cricket in Olympics (which will give global exposure to the game, with much larger audience, taking game to new countries and generation). The only agenda for the cricket body is to focus on three main members of the council (India, England and Australia) and make them richer, more richer than they already are.

World of Cricket cannot survive without these 3 – even SriLanka, South Africa , New Zealand and others are dependent on these boards to survive. These 3 countries are the custodians of the game, because they are the ones who are financing the sport. Hosting a tri series between India, Ireland and Afghanistan would not bring even a tiny percentage of what sponsors can bring to the table for an IPL or a series between regular members.

A Cricket World Cup involving 14 nations this year is already quite interesting and you can only imagine how it would be if only ICC don’t tag teams like Ireland as “Associates”.

International Cricket Council: The Guardians of Sport’s Growth (Part 1)

If you go to International Cricket Council’s website, home page highlights their Strategic Direction – “Our long-term success will be judged on growth in participation and public interest and the competitiveness of teams participating in men's and women's international cricket” its mission says “promoting the global game”. 

How about if you really judge their success in terms of this mission?

Since 1989, ICC has added Bangladesh and Zimbabwe to its Full Member List (10 out of a total membership of 106) along with South Africa who was anyways “reelected”. Out of 106, these 10 are Full Members and rest either Associates or Affiliates.

As you know by now that it’s the Full Member nations: Australia, Bangladesh, England, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, West Indies and Zimbabwe who have the right to play Test Cricket – this also means that they don’t have to qualify for the World Cups. And you know these teams very well; they are the only ones who play cricket for you, right?

Associate members on the other hand are supposed to qualify for the World Cup Tournament, though; they are eligible to play One Day Cricket with Full Members as well. From ICC’s website:

“ICC  One Day International  World Cricket League One Day International status, which allows associate and affiliate teams to be eligible to play the full members and play-official ODI cricket.”

Do you know that Afghanistan (who nearly pulled off a set back against Sri Lanka on 22^nd Feb Game), Ireland (who crushed Full Member West Indies on Feb 16th World Cup Game), and Scotland (who made New Zealand work hard for their game on Feb 17th game) are actually eligible to “grow by playing more one day internationals against full members”?

Now, when was the last time you saw these Associate Members touring or inviting any of the Full Members? And do you know that the next two world cups might be played only between 10 countries and not 14 like in this world cup? So no Ireland and Afghanistan in the next World Cup.

How then ICC will reach its mission of “promoting the global game”? (To be continued…)

Cricket World Cup 2015: Romancing the Quarter Finals

This world cup has to be one of the lengthiest in terms of number of matches and duration – 42 matches over a period of one month. It may sound as if it’s a treat to cricket lovers, but a lot can be asked about the format of the tournament.

There are 14 teams in the tournament: 10 ICC full members and 4 associates. 14 teams are divided into 2 groups of 7 each and they fight out with each other to “qualify for 8 quarterfinal spots” – 14 teams reduced to 8 teams for the quarterfinals, right? Now, if Bangladesh does not manage to perform beyond expectations (which is the expectation), which 8 nations will qualify for quarterfinals? This won’t be a million dollar question, would it be?

So, then, we have 8 traditional test playing nations “trying to qualify for 8 quarter final spots”. I assume that as each of them play 6 matches each in the group stage, they will qualify, even if they go thru one rare/unexpected result with an associate team. So even the out of form, out of sorts West Indies will, in all probability, qualify.  And then they could end up playing one of the better teams – Australia or New Zealand in the quarters. And, one fine day of cricket will take them to semis, or, 2 fine days of cricket will take them to final, or, 3 fine days of cricket will win them the cup.

So, it takes 3 fine days of cricket to win the world cup after all! In Football world cup, you have 32 teams  and even these 32 teams go thru a tough format to even qualify to play for the world cup – such is the competition and hence, 16 teams from 4 groups qualify for the pre quarterfinals. It’s needed, it makes sense. But in cricket, where you can make a guess on quarter finalists even before the opening ceremony, the format is more helpful to a West Indies than an Australia or New Zealand.

On the other side though, If results of 16^th Feb (Ireland upsetting West Indies) are repeated, we might be in for an interesting one.