Wednesday, 7 September 2016

Run records fuel fears over bat-ball balance

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NEW DELHI: After first England and then Australia rewrote the cricket record books just days apart, some commentators are warning that a glut of runs risks wrecking the art of bowling and turning off fans.
Australia cruised to victory on Tuesday in the first match of a T20 series against Sri Lanka after spanking 263 runs in their innings, breaking the previous best of 260 scored by their hosts against Kenya in 2007.
The performance came exactly a week after England posted the highest ever total in a 50-over international, scoring 444 for three against Pakistan.
The last fortnight has also seen a new record for the highest number of runs in a T20 international, with India and the West Indies totalling a combined 489 runs in a match in Florida on August 27.
Such run-fests may be great entertainment for spectators, but some commentators say they could end up doing more harm than good.
“Bowlers are being reduced to bowling machines. It is a terribly one-sided affair, there is no contest at all,” Indian spin great Bishan Bedi told AFP.
“I don't mind being hit for a four or a six but it's being hit so easily and consistently. The charm of true cricket has been thrown out of the window.”
In a series of tweets after Tuesday's carnage in Sri Lanka, former India international Sanjay Manjrekar urged administrators to “respect the intelligence of fans” who “don't come to watch just 4s & 6s”.

‘Lopsided balance’

“The lopsided balance between bat & ball in T20s must be monitored” and should not be allowed to “reach ridiculous proportions”, added Manjrekar, who is now a TV commentator.
Players past and present say much of the credit for the record-breaking trend must go to the batsmen who have endlessly raised the bar in terms of skill, inventiveness and fitness since the advent of T20 cricket at the beginning of the last decade.
Glenn Maxwell's match-winning 145 in Pallekele came off just 65 balls and included 14 fours and nine sixes, combining textbook strokes with awesome power-hitting. England's victory over Pakistan was founded on a similarly stunning 171 by Alex Hales, the highest score for his country in an ODI.
Like many of their modern-day counterparts and team-mates, both men use much heavier bats than those wielded by previous generations, allowing them to clear the boundary with much higher frequency.
While there are limitations on bat length (when the lower portion of the handle is inserted, it cannot be more than 38in/96.5cm) and width (4.25in/10.8cm at its widest part), none currently exist on weight.
The International Cricket Council's cricket committee recommended in June that new restrictions on the size of bats needed to be brought in, a call that is being heard ever more widely.
In a speech in July, former Australian captain Ricky Ponting said he wanted to at least see restrictions in Test cricket, predicting different rules for different formats.

‘Unbelievably big bats’

Speaking before embarking on the tour to Sri Lanka, Australian fast bowler Josh Hazlewood said he was in favour of some kind of restrictions.
“Some of those cricket bats going around the dressing sheds at the moment are unbelievably big,” said Hazlewood, who was rested for the T20s.
Others say that a glut of batting-friendly pitches is the main reason for the increase in run-scoring, with Indian legend Sachin Tendulkar among those saying bowlers need more help from the groundsmen.
“In the Twenty20 format, even the greatest of the bowlers [are] being reverse-swept. In one-days, 300 is no more a competitive total. It is a par total,” Tendulkar was quoted as saying on a recent trip to London. “You've got to look at changing the surfaces.”
Bedi said the myriad fielding restrictions that have been brought in over the years had all favoured the batsmen.
“All these field restrictions are just gimmicks to see the batsmen go over the top,” he said.
“What we are doing is really crippling the role of a bowler. The majority of bowlers, there are exceptions of course, seem to be existing merely as bonded labour.”

We make heroes and villains after one game: Sohail Tanvir

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All-rounder Sohail Tanvir is likely to make a Twenty20 International (T20I) comeback after a 10-month-long hiatus during Pakistan's one-off contest against England at Old Trafford, Manchester today. The 31-year-old last donned Pakistan's colours in November 2015 in a T20I contest against England at the United Arab Emirates.
Dawn: After performing in CPL you're now coming back in the national side, how are you feeling?
Sohail Tanvir: I am very happy. When you wear the green shirt, it gives you happiness ─ unmatched happiness. There are financial benefits attached to playing in leagues around the world, but nothing is bigger than playing for your country.
I am in good rhythm and in good form. I have bowled consistently in the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) and the Pakistan Cup. I hope that I'll carry the form to the international level.
There was only one match; It is difficult to make comebacks. It was a bit harsh to drop me after I was the highest wicket taker for Pakistan in 2015.

"I'm at a stage where I want to play cricket consistently."

Dawn: Your performance in the leagues has been better than that for Pakistan. What are the reasons behind this?
Sohail: I don't think I have underperformed for Pakistan.
Every player goes through ups and down. In my case, when I am going through a rough patch, there are some people who exploit that.
In leagues, you have chances to cover up for poor performances. But, in international cricket there are only a few games in a series and if you are playing in only one format that is a disadvantage for you.
I bowl two overs in powerplay and two in the death. My economy rate is 7.15, which is not bad. I have one wicket per game, which is again not bad.
Sohail says players should be given some time to prove themselves. — AFP

Dawn: Pakistan has not been up to the mark in the shorter formats and our performance graph is showing a downward trend. What are your thoughts about it?
Sohail: Our T20I performances have fallen in the last one-and-a -half years and it is because our contemporaries have improved. They are taking the T20I seriously and they do their homework.
Our cricket standards have fallen, I don't know what are the reasons. We have the players, it is only about their utilisation in the team.
We should think about the combinations of youth and experience like other teams.
Dawn: You're playing the National T20, what do you think? Why is new talent not coming in the field?
Sohail: There are many reason for the decline of interest in cricket in our country.
The first one is the security. Parents don't send their kids out to play. The street cricket is dying!
Moreover, there is no international cricket.
If I look at my childhood, we did not have any activity other than going to ground after our school time. Now kids have many indoor activities like online gaming.
Parents also desire to keep their children indulged in the indoor activities. These things have translated into a lack of cricketing-talent in the country.

"My economy rate is 7.15, which is not bad. I have one wicket per game, which is again not bad."

Dawn: You will now play under a new captain, are you looking forward to it?
Sohail: Sarfraz has a history of leading cricket teams ─ He has led the [Pakistan] under-19 team, Karachi, and Quetta Gladiators in Pakistan Super League. I don't think there will be any problem for him to take up the captaincy.
It is a big achievement to lead Pakistan. We have played a lot of cricket together and we understand each other.
I wish him all the best!
My goal, right now, is to cement my place in the team. I'm at a stage where I want to play cricket consistently. When you are struggling for your place in the team, you cannot set higher goals for yourself.
Dawn: Do you agree that new players don't get proper chances, just after one or two bad performances the management tends to drop them?
Sohail: Players should be given time to prove themselves. You need to have an eye to detect the talent.
It all boils down to the ability of the people who identify the young players. Our culture is different, there is a lot pressures on us ─ like that of social media. Our people tend to get very emotional.
Dawn: After a few bad performance fans start to "troll" sportsmen. As a player what do you feel about this?
Sohail: Players are also human beings and they get hurt when bad is spoken about them [on social media].
We have friends and family who convey all the happenings of the social media to us. When I come across such stuff, it stays at the back of my mind.
We make heroes and villains on the basis of a single game. I think people should only speak those words that they can listen for themselves.

Smokers’ Corner: Angry young men from reel to real life

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The arrival of James Dean and Marlon Brando in the 1950s in films such as Rebel Without a Cause and The Wild One heralded a new kind of cinematic idol. He was the ‘angry young man’ a brooding type with a propensity to explode into sudden bursts of anger. His character became even more complex by the presence of bottled-up emotional vulnerabilities which he carried as a burden. He was a contradictory character with the good intentions of the conventional hero but (simultaneously) exhibiting an ambiguous ethical disposition.
The character became an immediate draw, especially among the youth who vented their frustrations against the sterile socio-political conformity imposed by the American post-war establishment through him. The cinematic angry young man symbolised the tumultuous underbelly of suburban serenity.
In Bollywood, the cinematic angry young man did not arrive until 1973’s Zanjeer, starring Amitabh Bachchan. His role was of a brooding cop prone to bursts of anger which saw him undermine the system by bypassing the apathy of the bureaucracy and the police, and taking on the villains on his own terms.
Amitabh’s character in Zanjeer was a way for the audience to vent their own resentments, especially against the degenerating law and order situation and the rising political and economic corruption in India in the 1970s.

The new-age angry young man can be seen storming TV talk-shows and political rallies, specially those covered by news channels

And even though Bollywood’s angry young man would continue in this vein across the 1970s and early 1980s, his character in films, no matter how menacing, intense and angry, was always about a conscientious entity up against crooked individuals, never the state itself.
Indian film critic and author Nikhat Kazmi, in her book Ire In The Soul, suggests that even though the worsening political and economic situation in India in the 1970s and the lack of any political leader who clearly articulated the pitfalls of the situation inspired the creation of Bollywood’s angry young man, he might just have been created by the Indian state itself.
In other words, popular ‘angry young man’ films were never about masses of people rising up against state institutions. Instead, the films were about a renegade individual getting rid of the rotten apples who were spoiling a system that was otherwise okay. The system was never blamed. Only individuals were.
So Amitabh’s angry-young-man roles were weaved more as an instrument of collective catharsis, rather than as exemplary cinematic motifs of mass revolution.
By the 1980s, however, Bollywood’s angry young man character started to seem rather irrelevant in India’s shifting sociology, politics and economics.
Strangely, till the late 1970s, heroes in Pakistani cinema remained rather straight-arrowed and conventional, apart from Nadeem’s character in the ‘socialist’ film Har Gaya Insaan (1973).
All this began to change from 1975 onward when, due to the Z.A. Bhutto regime’s haphazard nationalisation policies and his growing autocratic tendencies, the country’s politics and economics began to come under severe stress.
It was, thus, in 1979’s Maula Jat that Pakistani cinema first witnessed the creation of its very own angry young man. He was played by the late Sultan Rahi. Rahi’s character was quite unlike that of Bollywood’s angry-young-man. Whereas Amitabh’s roles in this context were street-smart, brooding and ideologically-charged, Rahi’s role was that of a man steeped in the rugged and earthy myths of honour and revenge in rural Pakistan.
Maula Jat’s theme of an angry young man in a Punjabi village taking on cruel feudal lords and eventually his main nemesis — the cool, calculated psychopath Noori Nath — went down well with audiences to whom these villains symbolised the uncaring and exploitative ‘establishment.’
When hordes of working-class Pakistanis and peasants started venturing into cinemas to watch the film, the Zia dictatorship stepped in and demanded the director re-cut certain scenes of violence from the film.
According to the film’s producer, Sarwar Bhatti, this happened because Gen Zia’s regime — which had by then established a working relationship with various anti-Bhutto members of Punjab’s landed elite — was alarmed by the film’s ‘anti-establishment’ tone.
But by the late 1980s, just as Bollywood’s angry young men had become unintentional self-parodies, so did Rahi’s roles. They became disconnected with the changing political and economic dynamics of a transforming society. Economic liberalism had unleashed an unprecedented streak of consumerism in both India and Pakistan and their film heroes became either sanitised consumer brands, or untouchable and implausible superheroes.
But the new urban middle-class prosperity had an underbelly as well. This time it was the frustrations of a class which had gained economic mobility but felt that its aspirations to achieve political power were being blocked. The manifestation of this particular frustration did not come in the shape of a new version of the angry young man. Rather, it did produce one, just not on the silver screen, but on the political podium!
The new angry young man has emerged on TV talk-shows and in political rallies, specifically those covered by TV news channels. Imran Khan in Pakistan and Arvind Kejriwal in India are prime examples. They are real flesh-and-blood men (though not very young). But as angry political entities brilliantly utilising the media, they are largely scripted characters and acts written by the circumstances of an urban class which wants to vent the political frustrations which betray their economic wellbeing.
Narendra Modi too represents the same. But instead of being cast as the angry young man, he has been scripted (by the same class), as the new Bollywood hero: the superman.

Imran uses turmoil within MQM to lash out at Altaf

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KARACHI: In what appeared to be an attempt to take advantage of the ongoing crisis within Karachi’s dominant political party, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chief Imran Khan on Tuesday lambasted Muttahida Qaumi Movement founder Altaf Hussain for his last month’s vitriolic speech, but assured the Urdu-speaking community that he would always stand with them as “being a Mohajir is not an insult”.
The MQM has been in the throes of a serious crisis following the Aug 22 anti-Pakistan speech of Mr Hussain. The Karachi-based leadership had already severed ties with him and has been running the show from here.
Mr Khan, who arrived here on Monday evening, used harsh terms at his party’s Pakistan Zindabad rally at Nishtar Park to describe the MQM’s “reign of terror” in Karachi.

PTI to march towards Raiwand on 24th

The event was held amid high security and with extra measures to protect the women sitting towards the right side of the stage. The usual fervour, which earned the PTI a majority of supporters from Karachi in the 2013 general elections, was missing this time around. It was evident from the half-empty ground.
Patriotic rhetoric and MQM-bashing replaced the usual fervour as one after the other PTI members raised slogans of Long Live Pakistan with Mr Khan, criticising the MQM supremo for “wreaking havoc in Pakistan”.
The PTI chief began his speech at around 10.30pm by criticising Mr Hussain, saying that a citizen of the United Kingdom was wreaking havoc in Pakistan and despite his anti-Pakistan slogans no concrete action had been taken against him.
He said that Mr Hussain “should be the last person to speak about Pakistan being a centre of terrorism, as he has contributed a lot to it by working along with Indian spy agency RAW”.
Referring to a meeting with journalists belonging to the Hindustan Times in 2003, he said that they told him that the MQM supremo was working for the Indian intelligence agency.
Speaking about the murder of slain MQM chairman Azeem Tariq in 1993, he alleged that an insecure Mr Hussain got him murdered as he was far more educated and informed individual.
Assuring the Urdu-speaking community of his support, he said, “Being a Mohajir is not an insult. You are not alone.”
The PTI chief said that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif “is accused of a bigger crime and that is of corruption which was revealed through the Panama Papers leaks but the focus shifted from it”.
He announced that he will lead a public march towards Raiwind on Sept 24, adding that PM Sharif has “taken over institutions and needs to be countered”.
Addressing the courts, he said that what other way the PTI should seek to counter corruption, money laundering and tax evasion practised by the Sharif family.
He also congratulated the Pakistan army for “protecting the state against terrorism”.

Saudi-Iran war of words heats up as Iranians miss Haj

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TEHRAN: Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif accused Saudi authorities of “bigoted extremism” late Tuesday in an increasingly bitter war of words over Iran's exclusion from this year's Haj.
Javad Zarif was responding to a claim by Saudi Arabia's most senior cleric, Grand Mufti Abdulaziz al-Sheikh, that Iranians were "not Muslims".
"Indeed, no resemblance between Islam of Iranians and most Muslims, and [the] bigoted extremism that Wahhabi top cleric and Saudi terror masters preach," Zarif tweeted.
Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was due to meet later on Wednesday with the families of some of the more than 400 Iranian victims of a stampede that killed nearly 2,300 pilgrims at last year's Haj.
He published a scathing open letter on Monday, accusing the Saudis of failing to protect pilgrims.
"The hesitation and failure to rescue the half-dead and injured people... is also obvious and incontrovertible. They murdered them," he wrote.
For the first time in almost three decades, Iranians have been blocked from the annual pilgrimage to Islam's holiest places in Saudi Arabia after the regional rivals failed to agree on safety and logistical issues.
That has sparked acrimonious exchanges ahead of the start of the Haj on Saturday.
Khamenei described the Saudi royal family as "small and puny Satans who tremble for fear of jeopardising the interests of the Great Satan (the United States)”, and called on the Muslim world to end its management of the Haj.
The grand mufti responded on Tuesday, telling the Makkah daily: "We must understand these are not Muslims, they are children of Magi and their hostility towards Muslims is an old one."
"Magi" was a reference to the Zoroastrian religion that was prevalent in Iran before Islam, and is sometimes used as an insult against Iranians.
Iran and Saudi Arabia often vie for regional dominance, backing rival sides in conflicts from Syria to Yemen.

Obama nominates Pakistani-American to serve as federal judge

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WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama made history on Tuesday by nominating for the first time a Muslim to serve as a federal judge.
Abid Riaz Qureshi, an American national of Pakistani origin, has been nominated to the US District Court in the District of Columbia, The Huffington Post reported.
“I am pleased to nominate Qureshi to serve on the United States District Court bench,” Obama said in a statement. “I am confident he will serve the American people with integrity and a steadfast commitment to justice.”
Qureshi, born in Pakistan, received a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University in 1977 and a law degree from Harvard Law School in 1997. He has been partner at a Latham and Watkins, a law firm based in Washington DC since 2006, leading their pro bono efforts since 2012, reported The National Law Journal.
President Obama’s nomination has been hailed as a milestone by Muslim advocacy groups.
“I commend President Obama for taking this important step in continuing to pick the best and brightest from every community to serve as part of our nation’s judiciary,” said Farhana Khera, executive director of Muslim Advocates, a legal advocacy organisation.
"A judiciary that reflects the rich diversity of our nation helps ensure the fair and just administration of the law, and it is vital for American Muslims to be included. Mr. Qureshi’s profound commitment to the rule of law and justice for people of all backgrounds makes him an exceptional nominee.”
The nomination comes towards the end of Obama’s final term in office and in the midst of a racially-charged election campaign in the country.
The success of Qureshi’s nomination remains uncertain, however. With just months left in Obama’s term, Senate Republicans have virtually stopped confirming his judicial picks.
But the nomination does carry symbolic value for judicial diversity in a campaign in which Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump has expressed insecurities regarding fair treatment by a Muslim judge.
Trump said it is "absolutely possible" that he would receive unfair treatment if a Muslim came to serve as federal judge.

Sohni and Lovely ─ The two snow leopards in captivity in Pakistan

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On a recent visit to the mountain resort of Nathia Gali in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK), I clambered up the narrow and steep path to the Lalazaar Wildlife Park to revisit the snow leopard being kept in captivity there.
I was attending a workshop on climate change organised by the Heinrich Boll Foundation based in Islamabad with a group of journalists interested in environmental reporting.
The last time I was there in 2012, I wrote a blog piece "Snow Leopard in a Birdcage" in which I had criticised the local wildlife department for not feeding the snow leopard properly and for housing it in a small enclosure meant for pheasants, causing injury to the animal.
I had hoped things would change for the better for the male snow leopard named Sohni or Sundar.
Promises were made of shifting him to a larger, purpose-built enclosure and there was plenty of talk of money being allocated for it by the provincial government.
Four years on, the only thing that had improved for Sohni was that his birdcage had grown in size.
He looked bored but otherwise healthy as he sat atop his shed looking at us lazily in the cool, summer evening.
Sohni has been living in a birdcage for the past six years. Photo provided by the author

The sun was setting yet hundreds of tourists were still trekking up to Lalazaar.
But not everyone was happy about what they saw.
One lady, who had brought her three children to see Sohni, was disappointed after finding out that the snow leopard was kept in such cramped conditions.
She didn't think it was worth trekking up and told me her children felt really bad for Sohni.
Sohni's past is certainly more colourful than his present. Shahbaz Sharif’s eldest son, Hamza Sharif, allegedly acquired the snow leopard cub from a source in Central Asia illegally.
The Convention on the International Trade against Endangered Species, to which Pakistan is a signatory, bans the trade of endangered animals.
Sharif kept the cub in his house for six months in nearby Doonga Gali, where it was reportedly taken care of and fed well.
But six years ago, WWF-Pakistan learnt about Sohni being kept in illegal captivity and approached Sharif, convincing him to hand the animal over to a local zoo to avoid bad publicity.
This is how Sohni ended up in the Lalazar Wildlife Park.
I had hoped that the environmentally inclined Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government would do more for Sohni after coming to power in the 2013. But so far, there has not been any action taken to improve his lot.
As one friend recently quipped, “perhaps you should tell the PTI that it’s a political defection from the Noon League and they might do something about it!”
Experts say that only around 3,500 to 7,000 wild snow leopards remain in the mountain regions of Central Asia, including the 200 or so in the mountain ranges of Pakistan. In addition, there are between 600 and 700 snow leopards in zoos around the world.
In Pakistan, there are currently two snow leopards in captivity: Sohni and a female snow leopard Lovely, also known as Lolly, in Gilgit-Baltistan (GB).
Lovely was found in December 2012 by local villagers in the nearby Khunjerab National Park after being abandoned by her mother.
The villagers say the injured six-month-old cub was deserted by her mother when the cub failed to cross a river in Khunjerab with her.
Snow leopard cubs cannot survive in the wild once taken from their mothers because it is their mothers who teach them how to hunt.

The wildlife department of GB was alerted by the villagers and the cub was moved to a rehabilitation centre in Sust, the closest town near the Khunjerab National Park.
The centre has a small wire mesh cage with a flimsy notice put up by the Park and Wildlife Division Hunza-Nagar, urging visitors not to give the animal “any food or other items without the prior permission of the wildlife authority”.
Unfortunately, the snow leopard was treated so poorly in the last few years that she currently suffers from malnutrition and sits listlessly in her cage, barely switching her tail.
Dr Ali Nawaz of the Snow Leopard Foundation in Pakistan has been actively trying to do something positive for Lovely.
The organisation has designed and raised funds to construct a purpose-built enclosure for her up in the picturesque Naltar valley, which should be open to public soon.
He told me that by the end of August this year, they would be shifting the female snow leopard to the enclosure, which they have designed in accordance with international standards.
They will then hand the centre over to the GB government to run it. 



While Lovely has a bright future, what about poor Sohni stuck in Lalazaar?
So far, Dr Nawaz has not been asked to develop a new enclosure for Sohni but he is ready to provide technical support should the government ask.
Every winter when it snows in Nathia Gali, Sohni is sent down to Abbottabad. Dr Nawaz told me that it must be stressful for the animal. He said it would be better to shift the snow leopard to its natural habitat.
As for any suggestion to house both Sohni and Lovely in the same enclosure in order to encourage breeding, Dr Nawaz is against such a proposition. They can barely take care of these two — imagine the headache if there were more.