Kohli and Smith, a la Tharoor

Now that Virat Kohli and Steve Smith are once again facing each other down under, a friend asked me to compare them—batting prowess and all. It was pretty late in the evening, and it would be a fair guess that I had guzzled quite a few shots more than what I should have. I cannot explain it, but somehow on such occasions a bit of Shashi Tharoor seeps into me.

The comparison, as a result, went like hereunder;

Kohli is all brio prior to steadying himself to face the ball. Thereafter, an uncanny blend of organization and destruction, fricassees a delectable stew. Smith appears antsier with his outre and wacky routine at the crease. You agonize whether that is an idiosyncratic boondoggle or an act of some substance. For some recondite reason though that prefatory drouks quietude in him, and readies him to lacerate the bowler: the final product a non sequitur to what was transpiring when the bowler was readying himself for the run up to the crease. Or, is it a carefully woven phantasmagoria?

Quite a study of contrasts. Kohli, more symphoric than Smith. Smith less aesthetic than Kohli. Kohli, all style and will carve out a shot that calls for picking up your jaw from the umbilicus level and thereabouts. A call for banning those kind of rubbery wrists that uncoil into a Russian knout is in order to restore an even playing field in the game of cricket. Don’t get me wrong though; he can at times commit inexplicable lapsus calamis in that last fraction of a second.

Smith, all fidgety for some agonizing seconds, but transforming into a grace all his own and executing a shot from gauche positions that flies in the face of logic; an eldritch spectacle that will confuse your facial muscles on what configuration to assume—a cricketing patois of substance. I mean gripping the bat as he does he shouldn’t be able to effectuate those offside shots.

You may consider taking your 12-year old through Kohli’s videos but will have to find a way to explain his short backlift and short follow through. Smith’s you will consider a tad too burlesque to qualify as batting touchstone, and will probably skip his videos.

***

Comments

Life Experiences

Like all my friends, I too was once a 17-year old awkward looking human in that shaded area when you are considered a naïve boy in certain estimations and a grown up man in the other situations. It leaves you so confused that you behave as neither of those. And I have also used the adjective ‘awkward’. It is because, at that age, facial hair appear to the extent that you are unsure whether to shave or not. In those good old days nobody asked you, “Son, what do you want to be when you grow up?” You generally were preached to from the pulpit. Unsure about what future held, I had to sit through sessions where three, mostly idle, older cousins and uncles ruled the roost. The agenda invariably was what I should be doing with my life. My Dad, an engineer himself and rather a busy man, didn’t have time for idle chatter. He gave all of two minutes to the first of those meetings and announced that I should go for an engineering career at Roorkee. He walked away and chose not to part...

An immigrant’s America: two chapters and a long interlude

Back in mid-1960s, I loved everything American. This mindset developed after reading whatever American material I could lay my hands on—that included ‘Old Man and the Sea’ on one end and dozens of Earl Stanley Gardner mysteries on the other. Sunday morning shows of Hollywood movies of all genre couldn’t be missed. The menagerie included Ben Hur, Roman Holiday, Who is afraid of Virginia Wolf, Guns of Navarone, The Great Escape, and a lot many other classics. To me, America was synonymous with modernity, spirit of inquiry, technological development and the ultimate destination for those who had a reasonable chance to get there. After my engineering degree, getting into a US Graduate School was the extent to which I allowed myself to look into future. Nothing else mattered. It happened. I was accepted at a great college in America’s southeast—cloud nine and all that. After a month of orientation with the new environs, I ventured out a bit. On a blind date, sought by me, I drew...

Privatisation: Let’s learn from Tanzania

I wonder what this for-and-against ballyhoo is on privatisation of PSUs in India. It is simple; Government has no business running businesses. Other than the inevitable reduction in unnecessary manpower and therefrom creating some unemployment, there is generally no downside to privatisation. Is it then a debate on efficiency versus spurious employment? Tanzania — much smaller economy – privatised over 400 public companies within 10 years. They knew the manpower complements were 3 to 10 times bigger than what the work called for. The country chose to bite the bullet and directed their attention to finding gainful employment opportunities thus making a positive contribution to the economy. In India, PSUs showing reasonable gross profit are only in the oil and gas space, and in power and its distribution. These are areas the government is in a comfort zone because they fix the product prices. Coal India—not in the two above mentioned business areas—is perhaps the only n...

Pradeep Goorha

Search This Blog