AR Hemant

Blogger

AR Hemant was born two weeks after India’s 1983 win. He took to cricket late, and has spent the best part of the last decade convincing himself that it's OK to make a living talking about the sport. You can follow him on Twitter [http://twitter.com/arhemant].

Blog Posts by AR Hemant

  • In praise of straight talkers

    And how a cricketer’s playing style reflects in the way he talks

    By AR Hemant | Yahoo! Cricket – Wed 9 May, 2012 11:17 PM IST

    Sehwag: straight as an arrow, sharp as a knife

    Cricket press conferences are dour affairs. For good reason too. In the age of 24x7 media, every word players utter in the public sphere ends up in the news. The news is then subjected to more scrutiny by hair-splitting pundits. Heavens forbid a cricketer makes a loose comment. It can snowball into a full-blown national calamity in minutes.

    This is why cricketers tend to avoid masala quotes that can whip up media frenzy. Instead, they provide inquisitive journalists their stock quotes, delivering them with practiced ease game after game.

    “We will stick to our basics.”

    “It was a team effort.”

    “We will do well if we execute our plans.”

    “We want to stick to our strengths.”

    And here’s the most ludicrous one which somehow never goes out of fashion.

    “Bangladesh are not to be taken lightly.”

    This tedium, this masquerade, has been persevered with game after game, year after year. Cricketers will not tell you what they really think. It can cause trouble. There are also financial disincentives to

    Read More »

  • Hogg-ing the spotlight

    Rertired in 2008, back in 2012, and how. Here's the story of the man with the most famous tongue in cricket.

    By AR Hemant | Yahoo! Cricket – Sat 28 Apr, 2012 8:01 PM IST

    Hogg celebrates a wicket in IPL5. In the ongoing IPL where match after match passes by in a blur, this will be one of the standout moments. Against Rajasthan in Jaipur, Chris Gayle — arguably the most dangerous T20 batsman of all — was indisposed and was scheduled to bat at No. 4 instead of his usual opening slot.  

    On the field, Rajasthan’s Brad Hogg had been wired to speak to the commentators on air. One told Hogg there was a good chance he would bowl to Gayle in the middle overs. Hogg, 41, said he was up for the challenge. Remember: this was a semi-retired bowler trying to defeat a destructive batsman in his prime. “But how would he plan to get Gayle out?” Hogg was asked.

    Hogg said, “I’ll push him back, try to get him LBW or bowled with the wrong ‘un.” With his third ball to Gayle, Hogg had him on the backfoot. The ball turned in. It hit Gayle in front of leg-stump. Asad Rauf gave it out. Hogg ran what may have been the quickest 50 metres anyone has covered while celebrating a wicket (barring, perhaps, Sourav Ganguly

    Read More »

  • The old man’s game

    Far from unearthing fresh talents, T20 competitions like the IPL seem to be nurturing over-the-hill veterans.

    By AR Hemant | Yahoo! Cricket – Sat 14 Apr, 2012 5:00 AM IST

    After a brush with the IPL in its first season, Ricky Ponting stayed away from it. National duty comes first, he had reasoned. In 2009 he was relieved from his contract. “Dropped from KKR” was how Lalit Modi put it on Twitter. In 2010, with a security threat clouding the IPL, Ponting told his team-mates not to tour India. The team-mates, who’d normally walk on hot coals for their captain, were said to have dissented. And why not? They stood to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars by taking his advice.

    There’s water under the bridge now. Ponting has been axed from the Australian one-day squad. He has hung on to the Test side by a thread. Now that his cricket calendar has freed up to a degree, it was interesting to hear his most recent views on the IPL. He said:

    “New Zealand just don't schedule any international cricket when the IPL’s on for the simple reason they would have lost most of their players to IPL and been left with next to nothing. I think there's something to be learned
    Read More »

  • Curtail the summer madness

    IPL 2012 will have 76 games over 55 days. Can the enormous length of the tournament guarantee great cricket?

    By AR Hemant | Yahoo! Cricket – Sat 7 Apr, 2012 8:18 PM IST


    Here’s a little exercise for you.

    Strain your memory for a bit and answer this simple question: who were the four semi-finalists of IPL 2011?

    Write the four names down. Then, check your answers.

    Maybe you’ve named the four correctly, maybe you haven’t. Maybe you’ve also noticed that this was a trick question: there were no semi-finals last year. This writer must admit he tried this test and could only name three — despite having seen most of the games in the tournament.

    How does one go through a tournament this long and remember so little of it? After all, if one were to believe the hype, the IPL has been the greatest thing since two-minute noodles. No prizes for guessing why: it’s the length of the tournament that has proved counter-productive.

    ***

    THIS YEAR, the IPL is down to nine teams. But the tournament will still be 55 days long and comprise 76 matches. The previous edition, with 10 teams, was three days shorter and had two games less. Now let’s put these numbers in context.

    The

    Read More »

  • Fruits of the season

    Kohli is India’s best at the moment. His efforts tell us why India must persist with youth.

    By AR Hemant | Yahoo! Cricket – Fri 23 Mar, 2012 6:06 PM IST

    KohliA few months ago, Virat Kohli had failed in four straight innings in the Melbourne and Sydney Tests. We heard calls to axe him. We were told how the Indian youth was not ready to take over from the veterans. Young, reckless, arrogant — the list of characteristics ascribed to Kohli ran long. His rude gesture to fans in Sydney made it worse for him.

    Imagine if he had been dropped from the Perth Test. Imagine the effect it would have had on his confidence which had been dented by those failures. If he had been dropped then, we probably wouldn’t have had the chance to see what we did — the gritty 75 in Perth, the 116 in Adelaide, and then his fearful slaying of Sri Lanka in Hobart and Pakistan in Mirpur.

    The Adelaide innings wasn’t a mere hundred – it was a coming-of-age moment for Kohli. You only need to see the list of Indian Test centurions in Australia to know that Kohli has put himself in the company of India’s greatest. His slaughtering of Sri Lanka and Pakistan were bonus additions

    Read More »

  • 30 Days, 30 Questions: One cricket law you want to change

    Cricket's 42 laws aren't without some absurdities. Is there one you want to get rid of?

    By AR Hemant | Yahoo! Cricket – Wed 14 Mar, 2012 4:28 PM IST

    Today in 30 Days, 30 Questions:

    Pakistan's Umar Akmal appeals for an LBW against England's Kevin Pietersen in Abu Dhabi on February 15.

    Question: Cricket has 42 laws, each overseen by many ifs and buts. There's always one that annoys us and we wonder why it isn't changed. If you could change a cricket law, which one would it be, and why?

    Yahoo! Cricket's answer:     Sample Law 36 which governs LBWs. It is a complex, hard-to-fathom rule (worsened by the intricacies of the DRS rules). It maybe cricket's answer to football's off-side rule: you have to be a connoisseur of the sport to make sense of it.

    The LBW rule was implemented to curb unfair use of the pads. But off late, most tweaks in cricket's laws have tended to favour batsmen. We live in the age of small boundaries, ridiculously heavy bats and standardised wickets. Batting averages have shot through the roof. There's little help for bowlers.

    For the sake of restoring parity between bat and ball, we'd like two tweaks in the LBW law. One — allow an LBW to be given even if the point of impact is outside the line of the stumps. Two — and this Read More »

  • Dravid retires from international and First Class cricket

    The run machine from Bangalore retires as the second-highest Test scorer.

    By AR Hemant | Yahoo! Cricket – Fri 9 Mar, 2012 5:31 PM IST

    Dravid celebrating the winning runs in the Adelaide Test, one of India's greatest wins of his era, on December …

    In a move that would sadden cricket fans around the world, Indian run-machine Rahul Dravid announced his retirement from international and domestic First Class cricket.

    He finishes his prolific 16-year international career having scored the second-most runs in Tests and seventh-most in ODIs, but before he had the chance to see his team set right their recent rotten run in Test cricket.

    Dravid, who had turned 39 in January, had informally informed Yahoo! of his decision on Thursday, but made the formal announcement before the media on Friday noon at his home venue, Bangalore’s Chinnaswamy Stadium.

    "I leave with sadness, but also with pride," he said, reading from a statement, with BCCI president N Srinivasan and former India captain and statemate Anil Kumble sitting next to him. Also at the press conference were his wife Vijeta, and sons Samit and Anvay.

    "I was comfortable with what I had achieved. Deep down, I felt the time was right to move on and let the youngsters take over."

    Read More »

  • Dhoni caps off thrilling chase for India

    Gambhir's 92 sets up India's chase for 270 in the 4th CB Series ODI against Australia in Adelaide.

    By AR Hemant | Yahoo! Cricket – Sun 12 Feb, 2012 5:51 PM IST

    Match Scores | Action Images | Strange ways of Indian cricket

    Dhoni's massive six in the final over off McKay sealed the deal for India. (Getty)India weren’t perfect today. But they beat Australia the hard way. And nothing satisfies a team more than a hard-fought win when it is going through a rut.

    A pale-looking MS Dhoni got off to an agonisingly slow start of three runs in 17 balls. But he caught up with the pace at the end, capping off a tight chase for 270 by getting India the 13 needed in the final over from Clint McKay.

    It helped India burst past some glass ceilings – they had never beaten Australia in an ODI in Adelaide, and had never chased more than 242 against the hosts in their country. More importantly, the win would take the attention away from the howls of protest after Sachin Tendulkar was rested today.

    Gambhir Shines

    The chase was set up by Gautam Gambhir’s 92 and a couple of thirties from Rohit Sharma and Suresh Raina. But each time they seemed at ease, Indian batsmen got out to rash shots to complicate matters.

    Virender Sehwag (after adding 52 with

    Read More »

  • The Case Against Personal Records

    By AR Hemant | Cricket Editorial Blogs – Fri 25 Nov, 2011 5:58 AM IST

    The clamour to let Tendulkar get his hundred has drowned out saner opinions on Indian cricket.

    A young fan is dejected after Sachin Tendulkar was dismissed six runs short of his 100th hundred in international cricket in the Mumbai Test. A young fan is dejected after Sachin Tendulkar was dismissed six runs short of his 100th hundred in international …

    A young fan is dejected after Sachin Tendulkar was dismissed six runs short of his 100th hundred in international cricket in the Mumbai Test.

    Confusion of goals and perfection of means seems to characterize our age, Albert Einstein once said. Such was the story at the Wankhede Stadium on Friday.

    Just after Sachin Tendulkar narrowly missed the milestone everyone has been waiting for, Laxman Sivaramakrishnan quipped that India ought to follow on to give Tendulkar another shot at that hundredth hundred.

    The quip was demeaning to the sport. It also belittled two fine young cricketers — Virat Kohli and Ravichandran Ashwin — attempting to minimise India’s damages while trying to secure their careers. Should they have thrown their wickets so Tendulkar could bat again?

    It overlooked the fact that India were miles away from saving the follow-on, and further away from securing the match. Aren’t

    Read More »

  • Day 3 at the Wankhede

    By AR Hemant | Cricket Editorial Blogs – Thu 24 Nov, 2011 10:12 AM IST

    (During the course of the third Test between India and the West Indies at the Wankhede stadium in Mumbai we’ll post live updates, analysis, reader comments and reactions. Please hit F5 periodically for new posts.)

    Tendulkar was unbeaten on 67. Tomorrow may be the day.

    Stumps, Day 3 - India 281-3 - Before individual milestones take over, the bigger picture stands as thus: India are still 110 runs from avoiding the follow-on mark. But given the docile nature of this pitch, a stalemate is the most likely outcome in Mumbai.

    Tendulkar had raced to 26 off 31. The highlight shot of his innings was the uppercut for six off Fidel Edwards, immediately after Edwards beat him with a short ball first thing after lunch. But since then, Tendulkar has dragged on painfully slowly, finishing the day with 41 more runs off 102 balls.

    As Sanjay Manjrekar said, "He's made too much of an issue about Bishoo."

    This would hardly rate as one of Tendulkar's better knocks. But hardcore fans may disagree. They

    Read More »

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