Sports Quotient

Coach Gary Kirsten’s mantra for Indian cricketers to have sex to boost competitiveness could soon lead to the following scenarios.

Coaching academies across the country also starting sex-education classes to ensure that their wards are in top quality mental shape.

Coaches accused of molesting their pupils pleading that they were merely trying to get them mentally prepared for the action.

The BCCI sending under-performing players to a recovery program in the red-light district of Amsterdam. This could also lead to a situation of players under-performing on purpose to get more ‘sexual’ treatment.

Dressing rooms to have a new section called the ‘undressing room’.

Viagra getting banned by the ICC as an illegal performance enhancing drug.

John Buchanan’s entourage of trainers and assistant coaches getting a new addition – a stripper. Also Buchanan coaching his players to be ambidextrous - in the practise of the going solo technique.

The next IPL could be sponsored by Playboy.

The ‘Kitkat break’ getting replaced by the ‘Kamasutra break’.

Tournaments  will also have an official condom like official drink, official chewing gum and official carrier.

Luckily for the Australians, Shahrukh Khan and the Knight Riders have let go of the great John Buchanan, his army of assorted coaches and his visionery five year plan.

Cricket Australia should immediately offer him a five year contract. In this hour of Ashes induced distress, Buchanan is the man to lift the morale of the entire Aussie nation.

Wonder which blokes would be joining Ricky Ponting on the captains panel once he implements his multiple captain theory?

In a desperate bid to bolster their brittle middle-order, the England selectors are mulling over bringing back the likes of Mark Ramprakash or Marcus Trescothick. The current county form of these two batsmen coupled with the fact that they have always managed to raise their game in Ashes encounters is encouraging the wise men of the board to think on these lines.

The same logic had been used in 1974-75 when Colin Cowdrey had been called out of retirement to face Lillee and Thomson in Australia. Cowdrey was then the highest run getter in test cricket and known for his courage when facing fast bowling . While there was no doubting his courage, his batting skills had waned considerably and Cowdrey’s last Ashes became the worst one of his glittering career.

In 1988, in a far bigger shocker, Colin’s son Chris was unexpectedly recalled to renew an England career which had long been over. The selectors handed Cowdrey Junior the reins of the side, expecting him to replicate his success as captain of Kent against the marauding West Indies. Marshall and co ensured that the Kent captain beat a hasty retreat to county cricket, without even bothering to add to career test aggregate.

Fast forward to 2009 and the wise men of English Cricket are once again willing to take a chance based on past Ashes records and current county form. In the biggest match of the season. Think of the huge psychological boost it will give to the now resurgent Aussies. There has be no learning from the failed experiments of the past.

Wonder who are worse

The England middle order batsmen or the group of English national selectors?

Reverse Swing came out of Pakistan. Their bowlers perfected the art and passed it down. And now even club level bowlers can reverse swing the old ball. It took a while before bowlers from other countries learned to master the art. But even today most cricket playing nations are clueless about it and are given to dismissing it as an unfair practise brought about illegally damaging or distorting the ball. The likes of Alec Bedser and Fred Trueman even refused to accept that the ball could reverse swing.

The Doosra ( the off spinners equivalent of the googly) also came out of Pakistan. Ever since Saqlain Mustaq first bamboozled batsmen with the one that went the other way, there has been a virtual assembly line of offies from Pakistan, with the ability to ball the mystery ball. However, hardly any western bowlers have managed to master it. Most cricketers, past and present , have been dismissive of it –“ it can’t be done without an illegal bending of the arm”. Recently some former Australian spinners and coaches went as far vowing never to teach anyone how to bowl a ‘doosra’ because it wasn’t a legitimate delivery.

England won the 2005 Ashes on the back of a pace quartet which ‘reverse’ swung the ball to deadly effect. Suddenly Bedser and Trueman had no misgivings about reverse swing. It was a perfectly honest thing to do.

Are we similarly waiting for a white skinned offie to spin the ball in the other direction before the ‘doosra’ can be hailed as the greatest addition to a spinners arsenal since the googly.

And what about acknowledging Pakistan’s contribution to the game?

If you leave the early innovations in the art of batting and bowling, has any other country made such a significant addition to the art of bowling ?

Or have they just borne a couple of illegitimate deliveries which have defaced the purity of the gentleman’s game?

For the last 20 years, I have been reading and hearing that cricket in the West Indies is suffering because West Indian youth are selecting American sports like the NBA over cricket. The glitz and glamour of these sports seems to be too much of a draw as compared to the more sedate sport of cricket.

So I checked.

How many West Indians are actually making a name for themselves in American sports? After all if you need to make it to enjoy the glitz and the glamour.

The answer is this.

Hardly anyone.

Save for a few Jamaican- Americans like Patrick Ewing who were raised in America and didn’t really have to choose basketball over cricket, there are hardly any West Indians who have enjoyed even a moderately successful NBA career.

So what is driving the West Indian youth towards American sports if there are no role models and no success stories to emulate?

So either the West Indian youth are like moths chasing a flame or its time cricket observers in the West Indies put the NBA theory to rest and looked at other issues.

What will John Buchanan have if the IPL grants him his wish of having a fifth foreign player in the playing eleven?

He will have an excuse to ask for the sixth one