Not cricket

It’s always a little tricky to mix cricket with politics. But tomorrow is the day of the trust vote in the Indian parliament. It is likely to be a petty and pathetic event with historic consequences. Since my interest in politics rivals that in cricket, and since the stakes of this are very high, I thought I would throw my two cents into the picture here.

First of all, my political affiliations, which might well put off some of those who agree with my cricket views. I am rabidly opposed to the BJP. I think far-right, fundamentalist parties that at the end of the day base their politics around xenophobia are dangerous anywhere in the world, and they have shown time and again to be dangerous to the Indian context. Regardless of whether one is a secularist who does not like the communalization of the polity; a socialist who wishes to have political priorities set for the common man rather than the elites; or a globalization supporter who wishes to create a stable climate for the growth of business or capital; the BJP’s myopic and hate-based politics is antithetical to those interests. There was a time a decade or so ago – before the BJP actually had much experience governing – when they could make the claim to be “the party of good governance”, and people believed them. After 6 years of BJP misrule at the centre, and any number of similar experiences in various state governments, even that claim cannot stand scrutiny. Another myth is that the BJP is not problematic when it practices a “soft” Hindutva, of the Vajpayee version. But so-called “soft” Hindutva has simply been a mask to legitimize virulent Hindutva, just as John McCain’s so-called “moderate” Republicanism is completely in sync with the most right-wing elements of American politics and society. At the end of the day, all fundamentalist parties – and both the BJP and the Republicans are examples of this – have at their core the belief that some people are inherently superior to others. And such a core belief is always one step away from violence, exclusionary politics, war and in extreme situations genocide. Regardless of my opinions of the nuclear deal, there is no way that I can support a situation that facilitates their return to power.

Then there is the Congress. They have hardly covered themselves in glory over the nuclear deal. Again, regardless of the merits of the deal per se – they have bungled the situation both from the perspective of policy and politics. Both sound policy and their own political interests would have been facilitated had they been open and transparent about the deal, had they actually made even a gesture of taking the nation into confidence, had they actually tried to argue the merits of the deal in a public forum. Instead, they have been secretive and intransigent; have gone on about the fact that the nuclear deal is in the nation’s interests without at any point indicating how; have dug their heels in the most unbecoming manner; and have further sullied their image by openly practicing in horse-trading in the lead up to the confidence vote. Even if the Congress was to win the confidence vote, their image would be seriously tarnished, and they will spend their last year in office kowtowing to the whims and fancies of Mulayam Singh Yadav and sundry others. Any legitimacy that they might have will be thrown out the window.

The first political mistake the Congress made was to not call a mid-term election a year ago, when their position was far more secure. Now, they have suffered a string of electoral defeats at the state level, they will be blamed for rising inflation (even if other structural factors are at play), and their credibility will be seriously tarnished regardless of the outcome of the confidence vote. Whether they survive another week or another year, they have created the ideal conditions of possibility for the BJP to form the next government.

The larger mistake of the Congress however was not political but policy, and that was their failure to adhere to the Common Minimum Programme that they drew up with their coalition partners when they came to power. The CMP was in fact a quite remarkable document, because it attempted to meld an imaginative global-oriented market agenda with policies that focused on human resource development. The mistake of both the Narasimha Rao government and the BJP government was that they both assumed that an embrace of the free market alone would trickle down to solve basic problems like education, health, electricity, water and other human resource issues, even though trickle down has never worked anywhere in the world over the last two centuries. And they both assumed that pretending that the majority of Indians simply don’t exist, and catering to the elite urban ruling class, would be sufficient to keep them in power – a point whose lie was dramatically demonstrated in the 2004 elections, when no amount of India Rising or India Shining nonsense could hide the fact that basic developmental issues had been neglected for a large majority of the Indian population, and those were the issues around which most Indians voted. Adhering to the CMP would have allowed a terrific opportunity to experiment with an embrace of the market (important for all sorts of reasons) with a serious attention to questions of human development. A focus on basic issues such as poverty alleviation would have made not just good policy, but also good politics, and could have allowed the Congress, over time, to wipe the BJP off the electoral map. Instead, the Congress played the same old dalal game that they have played for the last four decades – doing business with powerful and opportunistic elites abroad, and doing business with ruthless and opportunistic political interests at home. At the end of the day, dalal politics can only provide transient gains, because the other parties who are involved are going to look after their interests before they consider yours. In this way, the Congress has lost a historic opportunity to re-establish its hegemony as the legitimate ruling party of India. Regardless of one’s opinion of the nuclear deal, it is more than a tad pathetic that the matter of “principle” that Manmohan Singh has staked his government’s survival upon is honoring an agreement with George Bush.

However, none of this absolves the Left. Their “principled” opposition has been based in a hidebound, reactionary and reactive stance. If the Congress has done a poor job in explaining the benefits of the nuclear deal, the Left has made no effort whatsoever in explaining why it is bad for the nation. “Anti-imperialism” is a trite, jingoistic slogan; to say that every agreement that is made with the US is necessarily imperialist is simplistic. The BJP, the certain beneficiary of the Left’s high dudgeon, will not only rush to have nuclear agreements with the US, but will, unlike the Congress, try and use nuclear diplomacy towards an aggressive weapons program, as opposed to just civilian uses. But for me, the biggest irony is that the Left’s principled opposition to “imperialism” doesn’t seem to extend to its own backyard. After all, the Communists are the only party in the country to have embraced global capitalism so aggressively that they have inflicted violence and police brutality on villagers in order to dispossess them to construct Special Economic Zones, as they did in Nandigram. At that point, Leftist intellectuals / apologists assured us that Leftist violence was better than Rightist violence, because the Left at least defends secularism. And yet here is the Left engaged in games of political brinkmanship that are guaranteed to replace a secular government with the most odious of fundamentalist governments.

This is not the first time the Left has let the country down. Indeed, every time the Left has had an opportunity to take a historic stance in the national interest, it has failed. It opposed the Congress during the Quit India movement, effectively siding with the British Raj. It sided with Indira Gandhi during the Emergency instead of joining the democratic opposition to it. When it had a historic opportunity to lead a Third Front government in 1996, it decided against doing so, thereby dealing a severe blow to the long-term possibility of developing a viable Third Front. It attacked villagers in the state that it rules in order to protect the interests of capital. And now it is pulling the rug from under a secular government in ways that will most certainly benefit the BJP. When I was in college, Prakash Karat was for me the shining hope of Indian politics – articulate, principled, brave. He has now revealed himself to be an eighth-rate individual with absolutely no political intelligence.

The role that the Left is playing today is akin to the role that Ralph Nader played in facilitating Bush’s election win in 2000. But it is worse. In 2000, fair-minded people could argue that there was no difference between Democrats and Republicans because they had not experienced the extremes of Bush rule. In 2008, the Left ought to know the consequences of BJP rule, since we have experienced six years of it. The Left is acting like Nader in 2008. Imagine that Nader had the power this year to scuttle Obama’s chances of winning the election; imagine that he did so on a single issue in the full knowledge that on virtually every other issue, there were significant differences between the two candidates; imagine that whatever this single issue was happened to be something that Nader took the great moral high ground on, declaiming as if he was a saint and everyone else sinners; and imagine that on the side, he had also sent the police to kill a few people in rural Virginia so that the very sorts of policies he was voicing opposition to in one context could be upheld in another. And you have the Indian Left parties. They disgust me.

In terms of what will happen: In my opinion, the Congress is in a no-win situation regardless of the outcome of the vote. If the Congress loses the vote and there are elections, the BJP is bound to win, and might even come close to an absolute majority. If the Congress squeaks through, they will effectively be a lame-duck government for the next year, and will spend most of their time and energy attending to the whims and fancies of the Samajwadi Party. Their credibility will be so tarnished that it will just help the BJP in the coming months.

From the perspective of the Congress, the best outcome would be as follows: that they lose the confidence vote but, instead of elections, a government gets formed under Mayawati’s Prime Ministership. Regardless of one’s opinion of Mayawati – and I am certainly no fan of hers – one will have to concede that the possibility of a Dalit Prime Minister is as historic as the possibility of an African-American President in the US. There is however no possibility of Mayawati forming a government unless either the BJP or the Congress supports it, because the numbers don’t exist for the so-called Third Front to form a government on its own at this point. There is absolutely no hope of the BJP supporting a Mayawati government when an election is almost certain to bring them to power. So the only possibility for a Mayawati government would be for the Congress to give it outside support.

If the Congress loses the vote, I think it will be a stroke of political genius for it to support Mayawati from the outside rather than call elections. This will stymie the BJP; give the Congress time to regroup; and allow the Congress to build bridges with a politician who is likely to be a major player in the formation of governments after any future election. It will also allow the public to measure the performance of the Congress against that of its successor; there is a very good chance that the Congress will start looking rather good in comparison. But most of all, it will give the Left a kick where it hurts most. It will be impossible for the Left to be supporting the same government as the Congress after creating all these shenanigans; a Mayawati government supported by the Congress will be the ultimate testament to the Left’s political irrelevance. And that is a lesson they deserve.

Failing this, I cannot imagine any other outcome than five more years of BJP rule, either sooner or later. And that is a very dark thought indeed. One that the Communists can take pride in making possible. What a glorious legacy, Mr. Karat.

Team for Sri Lanka Tests

Now that the utter boredom of two meaningless one-day series is coming to an end, we can get back to worthwhile business with the Test series in Sri Lanka. This will be an interesting series in many ways. In recent times, India has definitely looked the better of the two Test sides, but the Lankans have always been a handful at home, and India has tended to struggle there. Added to that is the fact that we will have some jaded players in our ranks, so this is definitely not a series to be taken lightly.

Of late, the core of the Indian Test team has looked settled, so there really isn’t too much to think about except around the edges. But those edges are crucial if India is to really go beyond being an aspirant to a really top Test team. The batting looks almost entirely settled, with the big 4 in the middle, Sehwag the certainty as one opener, and Dhoni a certainty behind the stumps. My only plea there as always is that Laxman be played at 3, but that as always is likely to be a plea that falls on deaf ears.

So the only batting question for the playing 11 really concerns Viru’s opening partner. I have been a huge fan of Wasim Jaffer’s, but the questions were being asked already in Australia, and I think the South Africans further raised doubts about his ability against the very best attacks. Jaffer will likely be good enough to get back amongst the runs against the Lankans, whose seam attack is useful but not frightening, especially if Lasith Malinga remains injured. But with the next Test series being the home series against the Aussies, I don’t know whether that is reassuring enough.

I think, therefore, that it is time to give Gautam Gambhir a chance at the highest level. The talent has always been there, but over the last year Gambhir has developed a steely temperament that has made him India’s Mr. Dependable in shorter forms of the game. Now, he deserves a proper run at the Test level, which is something he has never got so far. There used be a weakness around off-stump, and even more than that an impetuousness that would see him throw his wicket away too often. But now the technique is much tighter, and the impetuousness is gone. (If anything, it is Jaffer who has all too often thrown his wicket away after getting starts). Gambhir provides a right-left opening combination, and the value of his close friendship and understanding with Viru has already borne fruit in one-dayers and T20 games. Gambhir deserves the confidence of being selected for a few Tests running, and really should know that bar injury the opener’s spot is his for the series.

When it comes to bowling, I am assuming and hoping that both Zaheer and Sreesanth will be fit again. The certainties here are of course Zak, who without a doubt remains our Test spearhead when fit, and Kumble. I would personally go in with three seamers rather than two spinners, given how well the Lankans play spin. So the only question concerns Zak’s seam partners.

The four other seamers who must go on tour are Irfan, R.P. Singh, Sree and Ishant. There are lots of young seamers coming through the ranks in India now, but I think there is quite a gulf between these five and anyone else when it comes to being undoubtedly international class. The only other seamer I would consider unquestionably international class is Praveen Kumar, though at this point he looks more certainly a one-day bowler than a Test bowler. He would probably be my first reserve, especially if Zak or Sree fail to be fully fit.

So the question then is who gets to play in the starting 11. There isn’t too much to separate the four, because all of them are enormously talented, but all of them also have a capacity for great inconsistency. And all of them have been bowling a lot over the past few months. Irfan’s advantage is his batting, but the batting is already deep, and while Irfan has bowled beautifully in one-dayers, he is probably still not the Test bowler he was three years ago. Over the past year, R.P. has been generally magnificent, but he lost it completely against the South Africans and has been inconsistent since then. You never know which side of the bed Sree will get up from, though now we know that the secret to get him to focus on the job at hand is not the Paddy Upton Pep-Talk but the Harbhajan Singh Slap. And when he is good, he is very good. Ishant has looked every bit the Test bowler against Australia and South Africa, but looked flat in the IPL and since, suggesting a classic case of a fast bowler who hasn’t been well tended to. In other words, there is little separating these four in terms of ability; and betting on form with these four is a crap-shoot. So I would give first preference to Sree and Ishant simply because they provide the most variety and the best balanced seam attack – one right-armer who can hit the deck, one who can swing the ball, and a left-armer. Both R.P. and Irfan replicate Zak’s strengths, so unless one of them is undoubtedly in top form, as R.P. was in England last year, I would keep them in reserve.

Bhajji’s man-of-the-series performance against South Africa gets him in as reserve spinner. Even though many of those 19 wickets were expensive and not mission critical, he has managed yet again to do just enough to make dropping him a controversial decision. In any case, his back-up qualities as pugilist make him an invaluable part of Kirsten’s motivational team, and demonstrate hidden talents that could prove just as helpful with an R.P. or Ishant down the road as they have done with Sree in recent times.

The only question then concerns the two back-up batsmen. One of them ought to be an opener. Jaffer has strong claims to this spot, but I can’t help be tempted also by Dinesh Karthik. Jaffer is probably more of a specialist technically, but DK brings an aggression and a positive attitude that is utterly refreshing. He has been treated very badly over the past year, being dropped after being top-scorer in England, and not even getting a look-in in the CB Series in Australia. I personally think that is because Dhoni is threatened by him, and that it is politics rather than merit that is keeping him out, but that’s a topic of speculation for another time. What really clinches it for me, of course, is that DK provides a back-up wicket-keeping option, which means he is backing up not just Gambhir and Viru, but also Dhoni. Given the amount of cricket that Dhoni has played of late, having such a back-up for a three-Test series is important. DK is at least as good a keeper as Dhoni, and as capable a Test batsman as Dhoni is (which is why I think Dhoni is so threatened by him – had he not been one-day captain, then purely on ability and performance, there would have been little separating the two for the Test keeper’s spot, and DK’s ability to double as opener would have made Dhoni doubly vulnerable if we decided to play five front-line bowlers). Selections, however, cannot be made based on Dhoni’s insecurities, and have to also take the team’s interests into consideration. That is hard on Jaffer, but I would prefer DK in my team for his versatility and the balance he provides.

For the final spot, the selectors have consistently turned to Yuvraj Singh. But the man’s enigma continues. Is he a great Test batsman unable to break in to a star-studded line-up? Or is he a flat-track short-order bully who doesn’t really have what it takes to cut it in Tests? I personally do not have the definitive answer to that. What I can say is that if one went by merit rather than pecking order, my spot for the reserve middle-order batsman would be not Yuvraj but Subramaniam Badrinath.

Let me first make the case against Yuvraj before making the case for Badri. Yuvi was a sleep-walking disaster in Australia, which means that even if he – like Jaffer – if good enough to play Tests against most, he is not necessarily good enough to play Tests against the best. And if we keep Jaffer out with the thinking that we need to be building the best team to take on Australia in October, then the same standards that are applied to Jaffer should apply to Yuvi. But added to this is the fact that Yuvi’s form even in one-days and T20 in 2008 has been nothing to write home about, and those are his bread-and-butter formats. Had his form been unstoppable, then there would have been reason to persist with him in spite of doubts about his ability; but with mediocre form, I see no reason to do so. And then, even if he does get a game, he will have to handle Murali and Ajantha Mendis, and Yuvi’s weaknesses are definitely against quality spin. Sri Lanka arguably has the best spin bowling duo in the world in these two, and I really don’t see Yuvi cutting it against them.

Set against that is Badri, who has been the colossal run-getter in domestic cricket for the past three years. There is no doubting that he has the technique for Tests; he has an implacable temperament; he has performed against the best teams he has had an opportunity to play against, including South Africa A at the start of the season; he was brilliant in the chances he got in the IPL, even though Dhoni used him very, very badly; he is as electric a fielder as Yuvi. There is absolutely no justification for keeping him out of the Indian side for any longer, when those with far less performance backing them such as Robin Uthappa, Suresh Raina and Rohit Sharma have been given chances. (Of all of these youngsters, I think Badri without a doubt has the best game for Tests). He is 26, and, as Sidhaartha wrote to me during the IPL, he deserves his break this year if we aren’t to lose him like we have lost so many other talents by neglecting them. (Indeed, Sidhaartha, I tried responding to your comments and questions about him, but the mail bounced back, so this post is my only way of acknowledging them). If the selectors give Badri his due now, then I think he is good enough that his could turn out to be a Michael Hussey story. If they continue ignoring him, it could turn out to be an Ambati Rayudu story. Badri may not have as many ad endorsements as Yuvi, or dance as well as him, or trumpet his own abilities as loudly, but in my mind he is a far better selection for this tour at this point. With much of the rest of the side more or less selecting itself, the key point of interest for me is really whether the selectors will have the foresight and courage to include Badri.
My team:

Playing XI:

Gautam Gambhir
Virendra Sehwag
V.V.S. Laxman
Sachin Tendulkar
Rahul Dravid
Sourav Ganguly
Mahendra Dhoni (V) (W)
Anil Kumble ©
Zaheer Khan
S. Sreesanth
Ishant Sharma

Reserves:

Dinesh Karthik (W)
Subramaniam Badrinath
Irfan Pathan
R.P. Singh
Harbhajan Singh

[Back-up: Praveen Kumar in case Zaheer or Sreesanth unfit]