Mr Sobers, would you like to bat? : Wadekar

[eternalhope]

An interview the current Indian team should go thru to may be turn it around. Words of a genius and a great leader.

http://www.rediff.com/news/interview/mr-sobers-would-you-like-to-bat/20180817.htm

[eternalhope]

One of the question and his response

So, why were we not winning?

We were getting young players into the squad, like (Gundappa) Vishwanath, (Eknath) Solkar and others, but at the same time we were trying to play too attractive cricket.

I could see that because the Bombay team, those days, was very professional. We used to play for the team; winning the match was our goal.

Whereas the Indian team was more inclined to play attractive strokes and entertain the crowd. It is not that they didn't want to win.

But the result of the strokes was that we used to please the crowd, but the match used to be over in three days. So that was the main thing.

 

All Test matches have a five-day duration. So you have to at least try and play as many sessions as possible and only then do you have a chance of winning.

[Brainfade]

27 minutes ago, eternalhope said:

One of the question and his response

So, why were we not winning?

We were getting young players into the squad, like (Gundappa) Vishwanath, (Eknath) Solkar and others, but at the same time we were trying to play too attractive cricket.

I could see that because the Bombay team, those days, was very professional. We used to play for the team; winning the match was our goal.

Whereas the Indian team was more inclined to play attractive strokes and entertain the crowd. It is not that they didn't want to win.

But the result of the strokes was that we used to please the crowd, but the match used to be over in three days. So that was the main thing.

 

All Test matches have a five-day duration. So you have to at least try and play as many sessions as possible and only then do you have a chance of winning.

Another quote worth noting:

 

"We put a lot of emphasis on catching because we used to hear a lot of stories from old-timers, that earlier we had a lot of good spinners like Vinoo Mankad, Ghulam Ahmed and Subhash Gupte, and if we would have had good fielders we would have won a lot of matches. During those days, I believe that they used to keep the old players in the slips so that they didn't have to run too much.  In our case, if you dropped a player like Gary Sobers, Rohan Kanhai or Clive Lloyd, you had it; they would go on to get a hundred"

[Gollum]

Quote

How was it playing with Gary Sobers?

Sobers was my idol. I had seen him before I became an international cricketer. And I used to love him. He was a three-in-one man; a batsman, a fielder and a bowler. He was a natural. When I played my first Test in Bombay against the West Indies, I was a big flop (grins). At that time he saw me practicing in the nets. He came to me and said, "Young man are you playing this Test?" I said, 'Yes.' And he asked my name. Then he looked at my shoes, which were in pretty bad shape, and asked me whether I planned to play international cricket in those shoes. I said, 'Yes, these are my lucky shoes and I have been getting a lot of runs with them.'

 

Cricketers are, after all, a superstitious lot. So I told Gary, I am going to play in them. And he asked me what the size of the shoes was. I said 9 , and he said that's my size.

 

He had this girlfriend, Anjoo Mehendroo, who used to reside in Khar or Juhu, I think. So on his way to visit her, he dropped in at my place; I used to live at Shivaji Park. Only my mother was there at the moment and she wouldn't know who Gary Sobers, Rohan Kanhai or Geoff Boycott was. My mother asked him what he wanted; Gary told her he had come to meet her son who was playing in the Test tomorrow and gave a pair of new shoes to her, telling her that I must play in the new shoes.

 

I played with the shoes, but I was a big flop. I went up to Gary and told him, "Thanks for the shoes, but look at the result." Of course, I said it jocularly.

 

Then, when we landed in the West Indies, he had come to the airport to receive the team. They had this rum-punch at the airport. I didn't know what it was; it was so sweet and all. So Gary sort of said be careful, it has something in it. I said, "Like what?" and he said: 'Rum.'

No wonder Sobers is such a loved person. Modern cricketers lack this warmth, empathy and personal touch...everything is so PR driven these days. 

Edited August 17, 2018 by Gollum

[Tattieboy]

47 minutes ago, Gollum said:

No wonder Sobers is such a loved person. Modern cricketers lack this warmth, empathy and personal touch...everything is so PR driven these days. 

He was most charismatic cricket I ever met 

[Khota]

15 minutes ago, Tattieboy said:

He was most charismatic cricket I ever met 

Where did you meet him?

[Tattieboy]

Just now, Khota said:

Where did you meet him?

Was supposed to be playing against him but where I live are many great golf courses one being the famous at St Andrews golf course, he pulled out of the game and went golfing instead , he came to the ground after golfing , very impressive guy who liked his drink a lot. 

[Khota]

2 hours ago, Tattieboy said:

Was supposed to be playing against him but where I live are many great golf courses one being the famous at St Andrews golf course, he pulled out of the game and went golfing instead , he came to the ground after golfing , very impressive guy who liked his drink a lot. 

Mods get this man as interesting trivia writer for this forum. he has been around.

 

@beetle @velu

[velu]

16 hours ago, Khota said:

Mods get this man as interesting trivia writer for this forum. he has been around.

 

@beetle @velu

 

mods are like decorated posters maybe @Laaloo is an exception , have no real powers  

admins and site owners are the bosses here ..

 

i think @Tattieboy might have watched bradman's batting live  

[Tattieboy]

15 minutes ago, velu said:

 

mods are like decorated posters maybe @Laaloo is an exception , have no real powers  

admins and site owners are the bosses here ..

 

i think @Tattieboy might have watched bradman's batting live  

Now now Velu, no need for that, I thought Indians respected their elders 

[Khota]

28 minutes ago, Tattieboy said:

Now now Velu, no need for that, I thought Indians respected their elders 

Not this generation. We send them to old folk home as soon as we can.

[Tattieboy]

46 minutes ago, Khota said:

Not this generation. We send them to old folk home as soon as we can.

I prefer uncle homes 

[Clarke]

Looks like they took being cheeky to a whole new level. A must read for test cricket fans.

 

 

Quote

 

There was another strategy that we were successful in implementing.

The West Indies brought in Jack Noreiga, an off-spinner. He was quite good, could turn the ball and was getting a lot of wickets in domestic cricket.

But their best off-spinner was Lance Gibbs who had a lot of wickets to his credit and could have been really dangerous.

So in the match against the Board President's XI, we gave Noreiga as many wickets as possible, all the while ensuring that we do not lose the match.

So in the first innings he got six wickets, and in the second innings, he got seven or eight. And the West Indian selectors were in a fix. They had to pick him for the Tests.

In the first Test, he didn't have to bowl too much. But in the second Test, the wicket was really turning and Gibbs would have really troubled us.

We could play this guy easily and that's where our winning streak started.

 

Edited August 18, 2018 by Clarke

[Gollum]

13 minutes ago, Clarke said:

Looks like they took being cheeky to a whole new level. A must read for test cricket fans.

 

 

In 1976 we repeated the same strategy, only this time the target was Jumadeen. We gave him a lot of wickets in a warm up match and then milked him in that historic 406 run-chase in Port of Spain. That was the last straw for Lloyd who lost all hope in Caribbean spinners and went on to develop his pace battery.