Blood, sweat and shoes - Dale Steyn

First time I drew blood by hitting a batsman
I hit Craig Cumming, the New Zealand opening batsman, in the face (in Centurion in the 2007-08 series) and he's never played Test cricket again.

First time I didn't sleep because I was excited about performing the next day
My debut Test. I can't remember having closed my eyes even for a moment.

First batsman who made me feel helpless
Actually two: Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara, when they built the world-record partnership against us on my first trip to Sri Lanka in the very first Test. I can't remember the exact number of runs [624, for the third wicket] but it was a ridiculous amount. Mahela was on his way to breaking the record for the highest Test score, and we felt really helpless for two-and-a-half days.

First bowler about whom I thought, "I want to bowl like him"
Allan Donald. Before I even knew how Donald bowled, my friends in primary school had already named me "White Lightning" [Donald's nickname]. When I got to know who "White Lightning" was, I wanted to be like him.

First time I bowled in someone else's shoes
Polly [Shaun Pollock] used to be my shoe sponsor in my early years in Test cricket. I played my debut in my spikes but once he realised how bad they were, he started to give me his used boots.

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A player of two parts( For Sachin Tendulkar-INDIA)

In November 1989, a London-based writer came to the Indian team's nets in Karachi to seek out a player he was told had the "best on-drive in the game". That player, Sachin Tendulkar, was 16 and yet to play a Test, but he already had his future mapped out - by others as much as by himself. Anything less than the most centuries and the highest aggregate in international cricket would count as failure.

Nearly two decades later, when the inevitable has come to pass, fans may be merely satisfied rather than overcome, and even quite blasé about it. If it was ordained, where is the surprise? Such is the tyranny of inevitability. It throws a veil over the hard work, the physical toll, the mental strain that have gone into the making of a record-breaker. Of the 19 batsmen who have scored more than 8000 runs, only five have held the highest aggregate record, only three have played 150 Tests, but only one, Tendulkar, has been two different batsmen.

Tendulkar made his debut in Pakistan. Of his team-mates then, one has become an insufferable television commentator, and two others have become good ones; one was convicted of murder and sent to jail, another banned for life for match-fixing. One eliminated the line between whistle-blower and perpetrator, one ran a banned series of matches, another was chairman of selectors. One has dropped out of the public eye and another has turned television actor. But Tendulkar bats on. Longevity is intrinsic to greatness.

At 19, the Mumbai boy was already the world's best batsman. Interestingly, Tendulkar seemed to agree with this assessment in a quiet, matter-of-fact way. This lack of arrogance possibly caused him to be less destructive in Test cricket than he might have been, but it was a crucial element in his becoming a national icon. Indians don't like their sporting heroes to be conceited; they give their hearts to modest players who underplay their emotions while performing consistently.

Of the two Tendulkars who played for India, the first had three or four shots for every ball; the second seemed conscious of three or four ways it could have got him out. Yet, amazingly, the spirit of the boy is ever present in the batsman, whether 16 or 35. A decade after making his debut, he was still teaching Shoaib Akhtar at the World Cup the difference between a good batsman and a great one. When pushed to the wall, Tendulkar continues to exhibit a rare creativity. It is not enough to somehow escape, it is necessary to escape while teaching the bowler a lesson he will never forget.

In sport as in art, late works usually crown a lifetime of effort. Looked at from either end of their careers, sportsmen present a harmonious picture. Occasionally, the "late style" (to borrow a phrase made popular by Edward Said) is about intransigence and unresolved contradictions. It doesn't fit into the whole.

Of the batsmen who have made over 9000 Test runs, six found their idiom at the start of their careers and kept with it (including, so far, the four still active). The later Brian Lara was not much different from the early Lara, the Allan Border who made his first run was the same as the one who made the 11,000th. The two exceptions are the Indians, Sunil Gavaskar and Tendulkar.

It is not uncommon for batsmen who began their careers as leading stroke-makers to finish as part of the supporting cast. Age converts the carefree into the careworn. Rohan Kanhai is a good example of a batsman who began by inventing strokes against the best bowling and ended by playing "experienced" innings in the shadow of the next generation.

Experience often means that players are more aware of things in their own game that do not work, and are chary of taking chances. Why attempt a risky boundary when there is a safe single to be had? Firebrand speakers become merely adequate, daredevil adventurers become boring teachers, those renowned for thinking out of the box show how comfortable they are sitting in it. It is the same with sportsmen.

"Late style is what happens," wrote Edward Said in his study of musicians and writers, "if art does not abdicate its rights in favour of reality." Great players go against the grain as well as place themselves at the head of a trend.

Gavaskar who began his career as a generic name for batting technique, discovered late the joys of hooking fast bowlers; a ferocious attack on Malcolm Marshall and Michael Holding featured in his 29th Test century. It took him just 94 deliveries, and was one of the fastest in the game's history. This from a batsman who once took 60 overs to make 36 not out in a World Cup match.

Tendulkar's journey, though in the reverse direction, is no less dramatic. If Gavaskar found his responses within the tenets of orthodoxy, Tendulkar, no less orthodox for being a more attacking player, extended the reach of such orthodoxy. Five years ago he began to play a shot to the left of third man, which began with him withdrawing from the line of the ball delivered by a fast bowler and glancing it fine - but on the off side. It called for remarkable control and steely wrists. It wasn't as ugly as the reverse sweep, but lacked the grace of the "straight-bat pull", where he (and later, Virender Sehwag) whipped the ball, tennis-style cross court. Both strokes were created for the one-day game, but are no less effective when played wearing whites.

It may have been the Chennai defeat against Pakistan a decade ago that first sowed the seeds of the new Tendulkar. He was distraught at getting out so close to a win. He saw the need to be around; occupancy of the crease was not just a personal quirk but a team requirement. Tendulkar, the champagne cricketer with a dancer's footwork, curbed himself. He didn't actually become a clock-watching clerk, but he understood the need.

Sydney 2004, when he scored most of his runs on the on side in a devastating display of self-denial

The series of injuries that followed - toes, back, elbow - meant that effervescence was replaced by effectiveness, the straight and narrow was preferred to the fantastic. Like great batsmen of any era, Tendulkar often seemed to be playing on a different planet altogether, keen to sculpt an innings that both merged with the team effort and stood out for its uniqueness. His Sydney double-century in 2004, when he scored no boundary between the bowler and point, came after self-examination revealed that he had been playing away from his body too often. It was almost as if the off side did not exist; on display was discipline as well as proof that he could get the bowlers to bowl where he wanted them to.

The boy who hit Abdul Qadir for three sixes in Peshawar had moved aside for the man who let the ball go outside the off stump with the realisation that not playing was an integral part of playing. In 110 matches before that Sydney Test, Tendulkar was involved in 31 wins; in the 39 Tests following it, he played his part in 16. The win percentage had gone up from 28 to 41 (obviously, there were other circumstances too). Tendulkar, an intelligent man, could not have been unaware of this. When individual effort does not contribute significantly to team victories, there is unhappiness all around. By 30, with nothing left to prove as a batsman, he set about correcting this nagging anomaly, this disconnect between his performance and the team's. If that meant he would have to cut out the flamboyance, then so be it. If fans complained that he was playing within himself, he could point to India's wins.

But Tendulkar is more than the sum of his figures. His mere presence is a morale booster, both for his ten colleagues in the team, and the billion supporters outside it. As remarkable as his record is his self-possession. His head hasn't changed size, his boots haven't grown smaller. He alone knows what it means to be Tendulkar, with its frustrations, its sacrifices, and the need to be Tendulkar at all times. He is a one-man university that teaches sportsmen how to handle money, fame and pressure.

Indians refuse to give Tendulkar the luxury of failure. The mirror he holds up to us is a distorted one, making us seem, like him, invincible, rich and accomplished. When he fails, therefore, it is as if we fail. That is the biggest compliment fans can pay their hero. But it is a heavy burden, even if Tendulkar seems to carry it lightly.

A rough calculation shows that he averages over 200 days in a year travelling for cricket, playing it at the highest level, or practising for it. Two-thirds of a year devoted to cricket, and not one bad day at work? Even Mozart was allowed an occasional off day. The future will treat Tendulkar much better than we have, although we were given the privilege of watching the boy grow into a man and live up to potential. Even that is a remarkable feat. Not every promising player accomplishes as much as he promises. Tendulkar has. Let us celebrate that. His record will be broken. But his impact will last.

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The IPL and the art of management

It is likely Kolkata Knight Riders will soon announce the sacking of John Buchanan as their head coach. Franchise insiders are already discussing possible successors, from Paras Mhambrey to John Wright. Buchanan is being blamed for the team's dismal, last-place finish in the second edition of the IPL. More than a cricket failure - can a team do much if Chris Gayle, Brendon McCullum and Sourav Ganguly decide to lose form at the same time? - Kolkata's problems are being attributed to management failure.

There is a two-layered analysis necessary here - of Buchanan's management failure, and of the failure of those who managed Buchanan. At a larger level, two seasons of the IPL, two seasons of eight teams run by stodgy business corporations and flamboyant control freaks, have put on display an array of sports-management styles.

Is a pattern discernible? "Each team reflects the personality of its owner," says the CEO of one franchise. "For the most part, teams owned by institutions and corporations have done better than those run by high-profile individuals." Yet there are exceptions to this rule. Indeed the (over) empowerment of one key individual failed in the case of Buchanan and Kolkata, but tried in another fashion worked for Deccan Chargers.

That is, however, getting ahead of the story, which must begin with Kolkata. Shah Rukh Khan's franchise operates, as one insider puts it, on the "Big Tent" approach, organising its cricket team like a movie production.

What does this mean? Consider how a film is made. The financier and producer hire a director and give him the creative authority to alter the script, choose the lead actors, decide on the music score, collect talent from all parts of the country or world. Within broad parameters they allow him to choose locales to shoot the film. In sum they trust his creative ingenuity and leave the film in his hands. When the film is shot, it's all over. "The Big Tent is dismantled," as one source puts it, "and everybody goes home." Indeed Kolkata have so far operated on a very loose and liberal management principle, with team executives and back-room people split between Mumbai, Delhi, Australia and Kolkata, the notional home of the franchise.

The "Big Tent" management technique was applied because it was the one Shah Rukh and his co-owners understood from their line of business. It also entailed trusting one man completely and making him the cricket supremo of the franchise - like the director of a film.

As such, Buchanan centralised all decision-making. This led to him taking sole ownership of some crucial calls. One, he chose half-a-dozen coaching assistants, taking them all - including his son, as well as a wicketkeeping coach and a nets coach - to South Africa for the duration of the IPL. Two, this past winter, he proposed a training camp at the Centre of Excellence in Brisbane (Queensland). Kolkata's international and Ranji Trophy players were not available. Others in the franchise hierarchy argued the camp would be a waste of money. Buchanan said it was necessary to build a future relationship with the Queensland cricket authorities. It was a thin argument, but Shah Rukh went along with it.

Three, in sending Aakash Chopra and Sanjay Bangar home from South Africa, Buchanan didn't realise it, but he demoralised younger Indian cricketers. "The message they got," says a player who was in South Africa, "was, one failure and you would be on the plane home."

Finally Buchanan reduced the captain to a cipher. For instance it was he who decided Ajantha Mendis would bowl the Super Over to Yusuf Pathan in the Kolkata-Rajasthan Royals match that Kolkata lost. Many in the team dugout thought Yusuf was too accomplished a player of spin, and that Ishant Sharma, bowling at express pace, may have sent down a couple of game-changing dot-balls.

Giving a film's director complete independence, or hiring a CEO for a company and giving him the freedom to hire and fire at will, change the corporate culture, shuffle the product mix - neither is unusual. What this also means, however, is that absolute power is expected to produce results. Otherwise the director is not hired again, or the CEO is turfed out.

The point is, traditional cricket is unused to such wild swings. "It is governed by a separation of powers," says an IPL associate who watched Buchanan grow larger than life and then implode, "by built-in checks and balances."

Take the Kolkata experience again, and place it against Buchanan's previous job as Australia coach. He contended with a variety of stakeholders - Cricket Australia (CA), a selection committee, a strong captain, the public. If he wanted a camp at the other end of the world, CA may have had budget issues. If he wanted to select a player on a whim, the selectors may have argued. If he wanted a spinner to bowl the Super Over, Steve Waugh or Ricky Ponting may have overruled him.

As such, if Australia lost a series, Buchanan would not have been held disproportionately responsible. "At KKR," says a sympathetic franchise source, "he was on a treadmill. He kept pushing and kept getting his way. And he couldn't stop."

How did other teams do it? After the drubbing in 2008, Deccan Chargers tried a variation of the "empowered CEO" model. The cricket aspect of the franchise was handed over to new captain Adam Gilchrist and coach Darren Lehmann. They had the veto on all matters related to cricket, team selection, the works. Perhaps they were more realistic than Buchanan or perhaps they were just luckier. Whatever it was, the two Australians who ran the Deccan Chargers team succeeded in winning.

Delhi Daredevils follows a faceless business corporation model, in keeping with the infrastructure company that owns it, with a well-defined clarity in functional roles. It helps that the CEO, Amrit Mathur, has a background in both cricket and the civil service, understanding how sport works as well as how India works. He also has a clear-cut charter - to make Delhi Daredevils profitable as a business in three years.

In a media company the publisher is somebody to whom both editorial and marketing report. Mathur's role is similar. He is overall in charge of both the commercial and cricket ends of things, playing adjudicator in case of differences down the line. For example, when the IPL transfer season opened, coach Greg Shipperd wanted to trade Shikhar Dhawan for Ajit Agarkar (Kolkata). Virender Sehwag, the captain, wanted Ashish Nehra of the Mumbai Indians. There was a stalemate and the matter went right up to Mathur. He decided in the captain's favour.

Over two seasons the relationship between cricketers and investors/owners who have no previous experience of running a sports franchise has been as easy to map as Brownian motion. There has been comedy: in 2008 a Reliance Industries director was watching a Mumbai Indians game and suddenly announced the rival team had 12 men on the field. In full view of the rest of the box, two subordinates were ordered to count the number of fielders and report back. There has also been irony: in 2008 again, a brash business heir, with little but his surname to show for himself, gave Yuvraj Singh, a man who has played two World Cup finals, a lecture on the will to win and the psychology of excellence.

	Unlike Kolkata, Deccan Chargers handed CEO-like powers to a man who knew when not to push his luck

Finally there is the un-model model - that of Rajasthan Royals. This is a team that depends not so much on an empowered CEO as a messianic evangelist. In 2008, Rajasthan were so disorganised and unprepared that they even outsourced talent scouting and recruitment of young Indian players to a Mumbai-based cricket academy. With their degree of preparation, they had no business doing well in the IPL. Yet they made one extraordinary choice: naming Shane Warne as captain.

Over two seasons Warne has not been the detached superstar. Rather he has been the touchy-feely, matey senior bloke in the team - the CEO who rolls up his sleeves and pays his dues on the shop floor. He has talked up younger players, given them supreme confidence. "He made young boys feel they were special," recalls an admiring Mumbai Indians executive, "took them to the big names and said, 'Hey Glenn [McGrath], you must meet the next big thing in Indian cricket…'"

Soon enough, Warne's men were ready to go to war for him. In 2008 the momentum took them to the podium. It was magical, but magic cannot be institutionalised and replicated at will. Perhaps that is why the formula didn't repeat itself in 2009, and Rajasthan failed to make the semi-finals.

So which model will outlast the others and become the template for other IPL franchises? Deccan Chargers' victory this year may provide a recipe: a tight business corporation empowering two cricket specialists, who know when not to push their luck, to run the team their way. Is this the IPL way? More important, is it cricket's old new way?

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