PLANS FOR THE LONG RUN...

AN economist is the last person you'd think of when running, but John Maynard Keynes has been on my mind lately. I am seriously considering extending my running distance and making a dash (well, more like a labored trot by the end of it, anyway) for the half marathon - 21 km. Now, that would be quite a long run and if I recall right, Keynes had said, 'In the long run, we are all dead'. Uh Oh!

Emboldened by my two successful runs over 10km and regular running practice, it is only logical to think of extendinng the distance and making a leap to the next level. The catch? The next 'level' is a 110% jump in distance over my current maximum. Ouch! I am still confident of running the distance, though, just not
confident if I will be standing afterwards. And the other thing that has been bugging is a study that has come out lately suggesting that running long distances may actually be detrimental to cardiac health. So much for running for a healthy heart! “In our study,” say the German researchers who studied 108 marathon runners, “regular marathon running seems not to protect runners” from coronary artery disease. “In fact,” they continued, “we even cannot exclude the possibility that exercise to this degree has deleterious effects on coronary arteries.” Yeah, whatever!

And why should all these petty considerations come in the way of enjoying a bit of a dare anyway. What's life without a few risks? (An insurers dream, if you ask me!) There is a certain sense of rebirth in pushing your body to limits you didn't know existed, feeling spent and then regenerating fresh out of it. I may have said this before, but the 'life force' you feel after a good, long run is incredible! And what about the knee (once I cross 50), the heart (after crossing 40) and the rest of the joints? Well, who really cares. After all, in the long run, we are all dead, anyway!

SEX AND THE CT, AND OTHER CRICKET TALES

I HAD stopped my weekly blog on cricket about three years back but the buzz around the Champions Trophy has blown my veil of a sabbatical from cricket blogging into smithereens. And what a week we've had! Struggling for its own survival, the One Day game has showcased some of the more intriguing contests seen all year, proving quite conclusively that what might kill the ODIs is overexposure and meaninglessness, not the format. Put some needle in the contests and suddenly you have pricked the balloon of apathy. And the upsets did not hurt either!

Having started as two of the weakest teams on paper, New Zealand and England (West Indies were not fielding their first squad) have suddenly upset the equation driving Sri Lanka to the brink of elimination and lettinf South Africa complete the formality of crashing out early of another tournament. The difference has been the approach to the game from these teams. Especially England, who have taken a fresh, positive and exciting view of things yielding great results. Here's a team that had lost 6 straight ODIs and now they have won 3 straight! What a difference a week makes. By the way, their victims include the ICC top ranked ODI team as well as couple of more top 5 scalps. Meanwhile all the hullabaloo about Gary Kirsten's apparent decision to play out his own version of 'Sex and the CT (Champions Trophy!)' throwing out the playbook for the Kamasutra and proposing to swap performance enhancing drugs with Viagra, India's on field concentration has wavered as evident from a disjointed bowling and fielding performance in that big match against Pakistan at Centurion. West Indies, unwittingly reduced to a minnow in a test nation's clothing (they were drubbed 3-0 by Bangladesh - a team not even in the Champions Trophy - at home) have fought hard too, sadly their inexperience caught them out short against the Aussies.

But the moment of the week for me remains one from the India-Pakistan encounter. It was a classic match and had many brilliant moments (Afridi's superb spell, Shoaib Malik's calculated end innings assault, Mohammed Yousuf's calm and fluidly effortless innings) but when Mohammed Aamer bowled a superb delivery to get rid of Sachin Tendulkar having him caught at slip, the beauty of the moment was hard to miss. Here was a teenager who'd just dismissed a master who's been playing the game for a longer time than Aamer's been on this earth! Whether you're an Indian or a Pakistani fan, a supporter of the shorter or the longer format, you cannot but help admire a moment of this sort. It provides you with the perspective of how the game can bring joy to life. The India Pakistan encounter had hype surrounding it because the two teams hadn't clashed since the 26/11 attacks last year. Maybe there's a lesson in there for the ICC. Familiarity has been breeding contempt for the One Day game and remedying that may hold the key to saving the format.

If sex has been the flavour of the week, then here's a bit of advice for the One Day format. Ask anybody and they'll tell you that the secret to great lovemaking is the foreplay. If ODIs are to hold on to their mojo, the audience needs time for that foreplay to sink in.

THIS OLD RUSH!

TIM De Lisle, in a lovely article on Sachin Tendulkar’s recent match winning century at the Compaq Cup final, used the term ‘The Old rush’. Indeed looking at the world of Indian sport this week, it’s quite relevant. Leander Paes won his 10th grand slam and he isn’t exactly a teenager right now and the same is the case with Sachin. Both of them, for Indians, are era defining sportsmen in their respective disciplines. But, personally, my connection with them runs deeper. Since my initiation into watching either cricket or tennis, these have been two names that have been a constant. The sad passing of Michael Jackson this year meant that the music world lost an irreplaceable icon, but it was apssing of an era for me, someone who’d literally grown up knowing only one real pop star. No one, or nothing in the music world will be like that again.

In sport? I won’t even wish to contemplate what it would be like to watch cricket in a Sachin less era, knowing that his flashes of genius and masterclasses of talent will not be seen again. Or who would be an Indian tennis player I can empathize as much with, and get enthused by the burning passion like Leander Paes. Forget about their stats – they are much too good, anyway – what makes them stand out is their constancy. It’s a thrill to see them going great guns, and the only thing I hope for is to be able to enjoy this ‘old rush’ as long as possible and cherish it.

FREELANCE FLINTOFF AND THE FUTURE OF CRICKET

Andrew Flintoff is on his way to becoming the first cricket mercenary after he turned down the ECB’s ODI contract, opting for a freelance role instead. Greame Smith has mentioned in an interview that unless ‘meaningless’ tours are ended, this might become the norm than an exception. The aberration that is Flintoff can well become the standard. What will the ICC do about this? Possibly, nothing. Cricket has been struggling to reconcile the sudden explosion in money making opportunities to the current structure of the game for long. And increasingly, the national format has been losing favour among cricketers and administrators. Rock N’ Roll sold out a long time ago and now it’s the turn of cricket to mortgage its soul to profit mongers. Apparently, one day cricket has become formulaic and tests are still considered the real thing, but nobody seems to want them. Oh yes, a surfeit of anything will sound formulaic; secondly, let’s stop this hypocrisy of calling test matches the ‘real deal’ and yet avoiding them like the plague.

I just read the latest Dan Brown novel, and much as I enjoyed ‘The Da Vinci Code’, I was utterly disappointed to see how a talented writer has decided to stick to the same template (maybe even dumb it down), just for sheer blockbuster success. The ICC, the BCCI and the cricket world seem to be heading in much the same direction. T20 gives an opportunity to cash out and it’s being peppered across the calendar making it more and more crowded. The diminishing marginal utility concept seems to have set in and as a result the One Day game is struggling for survival. In the recent India vs. Sri Lanka final at the Compaq Cup, I watched 25 riveting overs of the Sri Lankan chase as the match hung in balance and it was a brilliant study in tactics and small incidents that shape the destiny of a match. T20 doesn’t give you that pleasure. And if you’re looking for more such encounters, the way forward is less ODIs and not more. Make people hungry for action, not provide them a sensory overload of it.

In a 24/7 internet world everything gets amplified and so have the potential deficiencies in the One Day game (the length, the one sidedness etc.) but with a few tweaks it can still be saved. The solution could be Sachin’s idea of 25-over two innings formats or the 40-Over match but that’s secondary. The primary issue is rationalization of the calendar. Good, quality cricket doesn’t have a mode (T20, Tests or ODI); it flows whenever the top guys in the trade strut their stuff. It’s just that they cant strut it day in, day out all year long.