ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 - A preview

Four years ago, I had blogged extensively about the 2011 World Cup and while I may not be able to be so prolific this time around, I will try to blog my views on it – with an India perspective of course!

The Indian ODI team is now a reasonably settled unit with established competencies in batting and fielding. The bowling continues to be India’s Achilles heel and the weaknesses are too many to be unfamiliar to the Indian cricket fan.

Firstly the batting – with Rohit Sharma being prolific at the top of the order and Kohli and Rahane also being very consistent, the weak link is Shikhar Dhawan at the top. He seems to enjoy the (misplaced!) confidence of the team management and has retained his place against all odds. I can only hope that he comes good in the first couple of matches or else he should make way for a Rahane-Rohit combination at the top. Kohli seems to want to bat at #4 which leaves #3 open for Rayadu. Suresh Raina selects himself at #5 and Dhoni in ODIs is too good to bat lower than #6. This leaves a critical position open at #7 and Stuart Binny seems to be the man being groomed for the job. In the absence of Binny, Ashwin will need to come in at #7. For the bowlers, Yadav and Bhuvi select themselves which leaves two more slots. Shami is well worth persevering with and Mohit Sharma would round off the playing eleven.

There is unlikely to be room for Ravindra Jadeja, unless of course Rayadu makes way for him and everyone moves up one slot to accommodate Jadeja at #7.

The fielding is now quite competent with only a couple of notable slow movers like Ashwin and Bhuvi. Yadav has a rocket of an arm and while he may not dive around, stealing a second against him is likely to be fraught with danger.

Now, how about the chances of the Indian team in the World Cup? It has been a long season ahead of the World Cup in Australia for the team and unsurprisingly it hasn’t gone too well. Dhoni’s retirement from Test cricket was a shocker on tour and may have unsettled the dressing room. The results have not been forthcoming and except for the last warm up game, India have had a miserable tour. One can only hope that the World Cup pumps everyone up and they think about the match at hand rather than taking the next flight home.

India seem to be well placed in Pool B with the serious competition coming from South Africa and Pakistan. Given Pakistan’s uncertain form (perennial dark horses of every cricket competition!), both India and South Africa should sail through. The West Indies just may spring a surprise, however they haven’t been consistent for a long time now and there is no reason to think that it will be any different this time around. Ireland may harbor hopes of springing a surprise at the cost of the West Indies.

Given that four teams qualify from each Pool, the teams in Pool A should be heaving a sigh of relief, else it could have been the group of death. Here, the big 4, Australia, England, Sri Lanka and New Zealand should make it through with Bangladesh sniffing at their heels. However, of the two Pools, Pool B with Ireland may have the only realistic chance of causing an upset. Pool A is too strong for Bangladesh to make an impact.

So, on current form, Australia looks favourites with India, South Africa and New Zealand capable of making it to the semis. One cannot discount the determination of Sangakarra and Jayawardene for Sri Lanka and if Dilshan fires at the top of the order, they could come very close. Pakistan is the eternal enigma team of World Cricket and I suspect the tone of their campaign will be set by the opening game against India.

My gut prediction is an India South Africa final whereas my brain tells me that it is likely to be an Australia South Africa final. The oracle has spoken!

The Election that Changed India - by Rajdeep Sardesai

Eminent journalist and news TV anchor, Rajdeep Sardesai, has written an engrossing book about the 2014 Lok Sabha elections in India which led to Narendra Modi and the BJP storming to victory in what has been described as a political tsunami. People from my generation (I am very close in age to Rajdeep) would have earlier identified him as Dileep Sardesai’s son, however in the last 20 odd years he has successfully carved out his own identity as a journalist, schooled at the NDTV stable and later moving on to CNN-IBN and now Headlines Today.

The book offers a lot of insight into the events leading to the 2014 elections, the primary players, and the way campaigns were run by the two major political parties, the BJP and the Congress. The BJP cast of characters is headed by the big three – Narendra Modi, Amit Shah and Arun Jaitley, whereas the Congress comes across as headless and rudderless with Rahul Gandhi as the token head. The BJP fought the election on the explicit agenda of Governance and Development with identity politics being the implicit unsaid agenda. The Congress during UPA-I and UPA-II had been bringing about a range of subsidies and legislations – MNREGA, Food subsidies, RTE, Women Empowerment, etc. meant to benefit the underprivileged and underserved sections of society, and made these the basis for them to appeal for votes.

However, the real story of the elections lies in the preparation of both parties and here the book excels in giving us an insight into the meticulousness of the BJP’s strategy and execution. One can but admire the professional manner in which the entire exercise was carried out (modeled on Obama’s campaigns in the US – no wonder Modi referred to him as Barack on his recent visit to India, he might have thought that he was already on familiar terms with POTUS!). The subtext is that the BJP outspent its rivals by a humongous margin and this by itself raises worrying questions about election funding. By Sardesai’s estimates, the BJP spent upwards of 5000 crores, and one wonders about the payoffs expected by the heavy hitters who have ‘donated’ money to the party.

The book offers some insights into the characters of Modi, Shah and Rahul Gandhi, however it essentially remains an outsider’s view (a very knowledgeable and informed outsider to be sure!). Rahul Gandhi, as anyone who would have watched his infamous interview with Arnab Goswami would attest, is at best a political novice and at worst someone who lives in la-la land and has really no idea about governance, leave alone crafting an election strategy. For an insider’s view of the Gandhi family, I would strongly recommend reading Tavleen Singh’s Durbar. That book deserves a blog to itself, however suffice to say after reading it as background, Rahul Gandhi’s fumbling responses and inability to speak to the media should not come as a surprise.

As for writing style, Sardesai writes in a very no-nonsense manner and avoids literary flourishes in the interest of telling a story. He does a great job of giving us facts, his opinions, quotes from people in the know and sometimes the inevitable sources who spoke off the record. There are the occasional tidbits (Jayanthi Natarajan’s functioning in the Environment Ministry – now very much in the public domain), but by and large, he stays away from becoming judgmental, and that is perhaps the biggest strength (or weakness depending on your point of view) of the book.

I consider myself a reasonably well informed person, however reading the book gave me an understanding of what it really takes to run an election campaign and how it is won. So, while the Gujarat model may well be debatable, but there is no doubt that the BJP model for winning the 2014 election is well likely to be the benchmark against future elections are compared and may well become a business school case study.

Kudos to Rajdeep Sardesai and I can only hope that he finds the time to write more. Note to readers of this blog – please read this, whether you are Indian and have a stake in what happens here or someone who is curious about the workings of the Indian democratic process.