“A great techie is out – good T-20 technique still continuing!”

Oct 09, 2011 Sports

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Colin E. H. Croft
Once again, before we can go on to cricket and sport, let us spend a few thoughts on the loss of one closeted with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Albert Einstein, Bill Gates and Thomas Edison, all tremendous innovators, legacy-makers and outright geniuses.  What a creative man Steve Paul Jobs had been!
I agree with a tweet I got from Canada:  “There have been three very significant apples in our lives – firstly, the one that Adam and Eve ate in Garden of Eden, then that apple that fell on the head of that great scientist, Sir Isaac Newton, discovering gravity, and, finally, the ‘Apple’ created by Steve Jobs!”
I have never owned an ‘Apple’ product.  I do have much respect and knowledge of the late Mr. Jobs.  Having worked at IBM during my tertiary education in 1980’s; my first lap-top was an IBM 760-ED, in 1995; I have been hooked on “P-C’s”, but I also acknowledge that “Macs” are very, very comparable too!
The man was one of few to have affected our lives so profoundly the last 100 years.  Our very thinking has been absolutely influenced by the works of Jobs.  No-one who uses any form of technology and computers, regardless of make or model, would not have recognized the input to our lives of Steve Jobs!

As someone who has used modern technology tremendously in aviation and sport, I had to know everything about I-phones, I-pads, I-pods, Apple, I-Mac, Mackintosh and Pixar, some words that Job has left with us.  After all, from time to time, I had to buy these stunning ‘toys’ for my off-spring too!
Everyone is right.  Our lexicon, theoretical and practical, will include these names forever.  I would wager that at least 50 percent, at an extremely conservative guess, of the nearly seven billion people in our world, have used, are using, or will soon use, one of Steve Job’s gadgets in their lifetime!
‘Apple’, whose estimated value is around US$350 Billion, is the world’s most valuable technology company, and 2nd most valuable brand in the world, period, after oil giant Exxon-Mobile.  Most of this is due to the innovation, and unbelievable marketing skills, of one of its founders, Steve Jobs; out for 56!
Let us close this chapter with an ‘Apple’ motto:  “The world is immeasurably better because of Steve!”
If you like T-20’s, you might also think that the world is better off because of its invention too, one that has only been around less than 10 years.  The Nokia Champions League T-20 2011 has been excellent!
Trinidad & Tobago, as a group, represented the Caribbean well, and should hold their collective heads up with pride for the effort made in India.  They may not have progressed to the semi-finals, but that could be accounted to the facts of some strange in-play decisions.  They did do quite well anyway.
One thing that T-20 cricket has done, along with improve out-fielding and under-light catching much, is that it forces captains to make decision in split-seconds.  There simply is little time to think anymore.  Even as a captain contemplates what changes he might make, two or three vital overs could have gone!
The long, ponderous, sometimes exciting Test cricket allows for planning that takes five days, if not longer, while 50-overs cricket, as will be played in Guyana this month with West Indies “Regional Super-50”, could sometimes be so pedestrian, as it meanders along.  T-20 cricket is nearly as fast as lightening!
Somehow, this is like comparing the speed and reaction times required by the relatively slow, but highly reliable and successful 700-MPH Boeing-747-400, to that of the speed and reaction times needed for the much more agile, acrobatic, speedy, if sometimes temperamental F-22 Raptor Interceptor at Mach 2.0!
T-20’s also allow that all players, individually, including captains, must contribute significantly, either in his/her speciality – batting or bowling – or be relatively good at all three aspects of the game, batting,  bowling, and fielding.  Good, even great leadership alone, in T-20’s, do not allow captains any leeway!
Darren Ganga has been very good as Trinidad & Tobago’s captain, in all forms of the game – 4-days, 50-overs and, until recently, T-20’s too.  However, his dismal run of batting form made him a liability in Nokia CLT T-20 2011.  I believe that that slump in form affected his decision making; hence mistakes!
Confidence brings bravado, regardless of who you are.  Just ask some great sportsmen and women – Muhammad Ali, Serena Williams, John McEnroe, Danica Patrick and Michael Johnson.  Failure with one’s own game forces confidence to ebb.  Nothing, not even convincing one’s self, helps after that!
It is from such sports stars that we glean that playing and looking good make no sense at all if you do not win.  No-one cares how good you look in losing.  Most, at least the successful stars, not only want to win, but need to win.  It is not for nothing that, like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, ‘the world likes a winner!’
Emotion aside, practically, Trinidad & Tobago should have qualified for semi-finals Nokia CLT-20 2011, having the experiences of past competitions, and especially after those two qualifying games for the 2011 tournament, against Sri Lanka’s Rahuna and England’s Leicestershire; T&T winning both!
Against Mumbai Indians, 1st in Nokia CLT-20 proper, T&T’s batsmen let themselves down, with bad cricket.  Only Adrian Barath may have been genuinely dismissed.  All others literally gave wickets away.  98 in 20 overs is not even a below par score.  It should always be a losing score, but for good bowlers.
T&T’s bowlers were excellent, the fielding just less so, perhaps affected by the batting failure – lack of runs brings less confidence and more pressure.
Had it not been for the skills of the bowlers, T&T could not even have been close, but they went for broke, knowing that it is very hard to defend 98 runs!
One understands Sherwin Ganga being left to bowl over 20; 11 runs needed.  The effort was to dismiss M-I, not restrict them, hence the extended use of better bowlers earlier.  But a mistake was then made.  19.5 overs; two runs to win, one to tie, one wicket to get; the field set allowed a single!  Two runs had!
Smarting from that debilitating loss to M-I’s, T&T then lost the next game, to New South Wales Blues, again from bad decision making.  Here, captain Ganga seriously confused ‘West Indies’ to mean ‘best’.
Samuel Badree, one of T&T’s best three T-20 bowlers – the other two are Sunil Narine and Kevon Cooper – is not only better than, as a T-20 bowler, but is also senior to Ravi Rampaul in T&T’s team.
If Badree could ‘open bowling’, and restrict so well, how come he did not bowl that “super over” with totals tied – another T&T batting slump – at 139, after 20 overs?
Winning the last two games, Cooper showing what confidence in his bowling brought to his batsmanship, was good for T&T’s ego, psyche and for headlines.  They did show some resolve.
By then, it was too late.  I am sure that when the emotion and breast-beating is completed, the entire T&T team, the country, and the region, will rue missed opportunities!  Enjoy!

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