The Elixir of Celebrations

Remember the advertisement that used to hog television channels' space up until recently, especially during a cricket match? "Boost is the secret of my energy..." "Our energy.." The kid and the great one. I have gained a few years, and now around me this is what I hear more often than not. "Booze is the secret of my energy.." "Our energy..!!"
"The" drink. Supposedly : The liquid that erases bad memory, the beverage that takes you to new highs, the glass that gives you courage, the drink that gives and shares the joy. It is the season of festivities and joy. Hence I refer to it as the Elixir of Celebrations.
Such are the times, that celebration and booze have become equivalent. "Let's celebrate" always precludes "Let's get a drink or two, and enjoy." Such is the influence - both after taking it and before taking it(the fantasy does the work) - that the temptation is almost impossible to overcome. Well, at least for a few.
Historical records of alcoholic beverages being consumed date as back as 10,000 B.C. in the form of stone age beer jugs. 'Sura' is supposed to be the favourite drink of the king of Hindu gods, 'Indra'. 'Osiris', the only god that was worshipped all across Egypt, was thought to be the inventor of beer, and hence it was the understanding that he instructs the people of Egypt to drink, of course in moderation. Such details are found all around the world. Vessels to ferment and store beer have been found in numerous excavations across the globe, which point towards various time periods - from B.C. to A.D. Generally, in moderation, it was thought of as a medicine, and it still is today.
Today, booze has become quite a regular part of our day to day lives. Hey, I don't mean to say that all of us drink regularly. Think of it this way. I watch a booze addled "Charlie Harper" on laptop. I watch our to-be-idolized-I-don't-think-so heroes getting into their dashing characters with a bottle of beer or a glass of whisky in their hands. The liquor barrons are fighting to save their other businesses, of course at the expense of others and not their own money. From high-class Chardonnay to our item-number-country drinks we are surrounded with alcohol, no matter whether you drink or not.
In more personal life, today a large number of times I see our dinner tables decorated with a drink or two when I go out. I agree that it is a very good supplement to the celebrations. It symbolizes the carefree attitude of the youth, it symbolizes "yes, we can!" (Apologies Mr. Obama) The Christmas nears, and I remember the number of times I have demanded home-made wine from certain friends of mine. I have a simple stand for it, "Drink to celebrate, drink to the happiness. But never give in to your sorrows and have illusions that it will solve your problems for you." Hence I call it the Elixir of Celebrations, not a "Magic Drink." So far so good, eh?
There is however one issue I have with the concept, or shall I say a wrong concept. Is booze supplementary to the celebrations, or is it a necessity? Over past few years, there have been numerous experiences that gave me hint that it is in fact the latter in certain cases. While making plans for a night-out, I hear "Hey man, without booze what's the point of night-out? I would rather sleep at my home." This, and many such incidents. This is where I draw the line, and I never ever would want to give booze more priority than it deserves.
Be that as it may, these are the times to celebrate. In under a year's time, I will legally be eligible to buy alcoholic beverages. I think, maybe that's why Parle Frooti had this tagline, "Why grow up?" They perhaps knew, that as one grows up the choice of beverages start to deviate from Frooti. Maybe, maybe not. Enjoy the celebrations...!!!
                                    "Ooo booze, you let me loose,
                                      over the mild wind, you let me cruise,
                                      Whisky, vodka, wine, or beers,
                                      friends, family, celebrations, cheers..!!"
P.S. No judgements entertained, based on any part of the post..!! :D

Cricket-Criticism-Captain

I recently came across a picture on facebook. Of a couple and a donkey. Once they travelled on foot, alongside the donkey. Compassion, perhaps. Once, the man let the wife ride the donkey. Chivalry, maybe. Once, the man rode the donkey, the wife walked. Patriarchy, I guess. Once, the donkey had to carry both of them. Dominance of intellectual superiority, so we are proud to assume. But one thing was common. No matter what they did, the "public" always criticized them.
I go back a few years in history, in the times of Azharuddins, Jadejas, and of course Tendulkars(times is small word for this man, "era" is better fitting). All over, I used to hear, "Albeit Indian Cricket players are talented, they are not professionals, like Australians, or South Africans. The Captains, though intelligent, sometimes fail to act professionally." I come back to the present, I think of a person, M. S. Dhoni. And the first thing that comes to my mind is - A professional captain/player. The one, people in my memory were talking about. I assume that they should be happy with the fact. But hang on, at the taste of defeat, they are not. Following the tradition, perhaps of humanity, he went through what should I call, wrestler The Undertaker's "Last Ride". People, who happily carried him over their shoulders for World Cup Victories, for India's no. 1 Test ranking, are now rushing to bang him on the floor as hard as they can.
I absolutely understand, that every one who ascends to a throne has to step down at one point of time. But is it really the time for Dhoni, and is it really justified? That's the question I ask.
There's no dearth of criticism that Dhoni is facing at present. I will be providing a few statistics at some point of time in this post, but before that, I'll write about what I think about professionalism that he displays. "We have few slow fielders like Sachin, Gambhir, Sehwag in our side. So our batting has to compensate for those 20-25 extra runs that they may give away." Really, anything wrong with that? Is it not a fact? All of them, no doubt, are very safe hands as far as catches are concerned, but in the outfield, can they be compared to Kohlis, Rainas? And I don't think this sentence means that Sachin, Sehwag and Co. should be out of the side, it simply means that the batting has to click. And who's saying that they are less than capable of doing so?
Now, Dhoni as a batsman. Fortunately, so far, nobody doubts his batting abilities in One-days and T-20s. Tests, severely criticized. So, I will limit myself to the context of "Test Matches" in this post. No doubt, he is an un-orthodox batsman. But remember, he's a Wicketkeeper-batsman, not Rahul Dravid. And thus, I wanted to compare him with "Mark Boucher". I remember him always known as a dangerous, effective, quality player. And so, I felt, it's an apt comparison. So here are a few statistics.

	Matches	Innings	Runs	Average	HS	100	50	SR	Wickets
MSD	67	106	3509	37.33	148	5	24	59.96	192
MB	146	204	5498	30.54	125	5	35	50.17	530

So, if Mark Boucher, was very well fit into his role, are the above statistics not justifying Dhoni's place in the team as a Wicketkeeper-Batsman? In all terms? Only thing he lacks in, is perhaps wickets per match played. But, I don't remember him consistently making goof-ups behind stumps.
On his recent form, last 20 test innings, (maybe this England series not included), he has scored 611 runs. Almost the same as Boucher's career average, considering the worst case scenario of Dhoni getting out in all 20 innings. Last 10 innings, 299 runs, last 5 innings, 171 runs. And majority of the last few innings he played were away from home. This point, because of criticism that his away batting is "worst", or something of that sort. And he, most of the times, has to bat with the tail. A point worth noticing, isn't it?
Now, onto his captaincy. Another table of statistics, comparing Azhar, Ganguly, Dravid, Dhoni.

	Overall				Home				Away
	Played	Won	Lost	Draw	Played	Won	Lost	Draw	Played	Won	Lost	Draw
Azhar	47	14	14	19	20	13	4	3	27	1	10	16
Ganguly	49	21	13	15	21	10	3	8	28	11	10	7
Dravid	25	8	6	11	8	3	2	3	17	5	4	8
Dhoni	41	20	11	10	22	16	2	4	19	4	9	6

As we can see from the above table, in the overall win conversion factor, Dhoni beats all of them. At home conditions, hands down. The latest criticism is about his demand for pitches turning from day 1 -
My thinking : 1. Home advantage is used all over the world, in every sport.
                      2. He claimed, "If the pitch turns from day 1, it will play fair for both sides." England won, right?
Anyway, only major flaw in his record that I agree with is the away record. Though in the recent embarrassing 0-8 whitewash in two away series, the entire team failed to perform, on a broad basis; still, it is a major lacking in his record as a captain. And thus, I believe, in the couple of away series coming up in the near future, we need to back him as captain, give him and the team a chance to prove themselves. Even in those if he fails to perform as captain, maybe it would be justified to discuss about the change in captaincy. Going beyond statistics, I have genuinely appreciated some of the field placements, bowling changes, batting order changes he has made dynamically, and that characterises abilities of a captain, a tad bit more than statistics. He backs the players, and gives them a confidence boosting longer than critique-expected reign, and then when the players fail to perform (read Ravindra Jadeja, Rohit Sharma) he gets the blame. By the same people, who blame the selectors of not giving players sufficient opportunities.
Ricky Ponting, with a formidable australian unit, can only boast of a 50% win conversion rate in the away matches(19 wins out of 38 played), in a period when Australian team hogged the no. 1 spot for years. Dhoni deserves a chance to prove that he is capable of going near that record.
On a different note, Dhoni himself has said that he may have to quit one of the three formats by 2012-13, and I see him actually taking the decision. Time will tell. But I believe he's one of the rare professional cricket players that India has produced, a better-than-average Wicketkeeper, an un-orthodox and yet effective batsman, a good captain, perhaps the best of the choices available in the present.

P.S. I am not paid by Dhoni or anyone for this, neither am I a die-hard fan of Dhoni (Sachin, always). But having seen a lot of undeserved criticism towards him, I thought of doing a little research and writing about it.