An open letter to Virender Sehwag

Note: This article was first published here on sportskeeda
Dear Viru

I know you will be happy with the way team India fared in this T20 World Cup. We fell just one step short of repeating the 2007 success. But even though our team did so well, I don’t feel bad any more when someone switches the sports channel when Indian batmen walk in to bat.

It is not that the runs are not coming or the batting collapses like cycles in a cycle stand. This team can post huge totals and chase big scores against many oppositions on many surfaces. But something huge is amiss under the cloak of these excellent Indian performances. It is something the scoreboards of the cricketing world can’t measure. And that crack is your absence, Sir. Without you, it is clockwork.

“India is batting” have always been the  three words that have made Indian fans skip offices, schools and everything else, just to catch sight of Indian openers smashing the opposition bowlers around the park. Sometimes watching the new openers play is going through the motions.
As an Indian fan who has watched cricket for the last 15 years, it is immensely disappointing to see my childhood cricket heroes retire or get dropped. But it is more saddening to see the baton being handed over to the next saviour fall. Even though our openers scored heavily last year and they have all immense cricketing talent, they don’t have the aura you had.

There was a magic in the way you intimidated the bowlers, even before they bowled a ball to you. Cricket, as they say, is played more in the mind than on the field and you were a testimony to this fact. The plump economy rates of the bowlers only showed the damage you did to those bowlers statistically.
The world remembers you for your mammoth 309 in Multan, a savage 319 against the Proteas in Chennai, the ODI double hundred in Indore, a lightening quick 195 in Melbourne, the 125 in Hamilton that decimated Kiwis and a belligerent debut innings at Bloemfontein in a time of crisis.
But those who have admired you for a nonchalant approach you brought to the crease, will also remember the times when you played those cameos to set-up wins, those boundaries in the first over to bring the opposition under mat, those slip catches, that laidback smile under a hat, the flouting of all the textbook rules –“Take a single after you hit a boundary”, “Have a good footwork”, “Get under the ball before hitting it”. It would not be hyperbole to say that a countless Indian wins happened because of the belief and hope you gave at the top.

Please, find that nick again and that effortless capability of dispatching balls outside the fence at a lightning speed. Find that because, however selfish I might sound, we need you now. We need you to come back, not to prove yourself, but to inspire the ones looking up to you in those dressing rooms. We need you so that the baton doesn't fall.

And I will be lying if I go on to say that you were perfect. No, you were not. As Sehwag fans, you disappointed us a lot too. There were times when we wished you didn’t give it away so easily. In your bad times, you had a string of bad scores, with each dismissal looking similarly reckless.
But a few long breaths told us that probably being a Sehwag fan is about accepting this whimsical nature of yours – may be it made your best innings even more special. After the selectors lost patience last year, I kept checking every Ranji score of yours only to feel disappointed to find the lack of that hunger.
We will feel unjust, as much as you will, if this entire journey ends in this dismal manner. A 75 off 53 against Haryana in the Syed Mushtaq Ali trophy, the other day, brought back the hope just like every time you found brought hope by finding form out of nowhere. Today, when we are just a year away from defen
ding the World Cup in Australia, I feel you are the missing piece in that jigsaw.
We need you for adding that ingredient of hope every time India comes to bat. For making the third-man watch the ball go over his head. For making us hold on the TV remote tightly when India bat. Till then, it is all clockwork.

A fan for life

Can Sri Lanka disrupt India’s momentum for their heroes: Castrol Activ Zip Factor

Familiar rivals will meet today at the climax of the T20 extravaganza
Castrol Activ Zip Factor throws all the archaic parameters for analyzing a T20 game out of the window. Here is how:

It is a dream shared by two but only one can achieve it.

This ICC Trophy will make India hold all the three big ICC trophies-a distinctive coveted feat of supremacy. It will be a new high for the captain cool Dhoni, who has yet again brought out his heart amidst the controversies in the background.  On the contrary, the Sri Lankans will look to avenge the 2011 World Cup loss by clinching the T20 trophy as a souvenir for the two modern-day legends Jayawardene and Sangakkara.

The records say that India has an edge over the neighbours with a record of 9-8 in all major finals between these countries since the T20 World Cup 2007. What will concern Sri Lanka more is that India has been more dangerous of late. India’s winning streak in this world cup has had an air of invincibility about it. Both the teams have played a lot and there will be nothing under the veil before the Asian rivals meet tonight at the Sher-e-Bangla National stadium at Mirpur. The in-form spinners in both camps will look to reproduce the good work they have done so far in the extravaganza.

All this hoopla about favourites and track record, however, is thrown out of the window in a T20 clash where lightening cameos and maiden overs can change the course of the match. The format of the T20 game is such that that just one impact player can play that jaw-dropping knock or bowl that astonishing spell and all the discussion about form and history becomes futile. This aspect of ‘impact’ is now captured by the new Zip factorFacebook App developed by Castrol Activ Scooter. .

This Zip Factor App is an uncomplicated way of measuring the impact of a player’s performances on the game.  In a format like T20, where the traditional factors like batting average and number of runs scored take a backseat, there was a compelling need to capture the ‘zip’ with which the game is played. Unlike a test or an ODI, a 6-ball 22 cameo is more impactful than a 40-ball 40. For every match played in the ICC T20 World Cup, Zip factor calculates the impact of each player using relevant parameters like strike rate and boundaries for batting, wicket and dot balls for bowling and run-outs and catches for fielding.

And it is so relevant in every bit of the logic the formula carries.

For instance, when a batsman plays an innings that has an immense impact on the game, does it even matter what credentials and CV he brought to the field that day? Does it matter how many runs he made if the pace of his runs was more important for the team? Obviously, no!

This is what the zip factor captures amazingly. It discounts all the things one has done in the past and calculates zip factor scores for a single day. A look at the table will tell the composition of impactful players in the Indian side.

Ravichandran Ashwin	49.67
Amit Mishra	48.09
Rohit Sharma	46.88
Virat Kohli	44.50
Ravindra Jadeja	37.21

The table ranks Ashwin’s impactful performance on a single day in the tournament. A glimpse at the table will tell Sri Lanka the players who can take away the trophy from them because of the bearing they can have on a game. The reputations don’t matter here, nor do past milestones. Surprisingly to many, Rohit has had more impact on a single day than Kohli, which has been the case when Rohit has set the stage on fire with his lightening cameos at the top.

The concept of analysing a game is made simple by a elementary question the Zip factor app asks instead of many irrelevant ones- “What is the impact that player has in the game?”

To know more about this concept and check zip factors for every game in the World Cup, you can go here:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/castrolcricket

Twitter: twitter.com/castrolcricket

App: bit.ly/ZFapp

Two best teams of this series will finally clash horns, deservedly. But the one with greater strength on paper won’t win. The trophy will belong to the one is more impactful.

Who can create more ‘impact’-India or South Africa ?

Does India hold the edge  today against the Proteas? Think again!
Castrol Activ Zip Factor throws all the archaic parameters for analyzing a T20 game out of the window. Here is how:

As the Friday evening sun sets in Dhaka, two contrasting teams will look to take a step closer to the ICC T20 trophy. The cricket analysts and pundits will call it a no-brainer to put the tag of ‘favourites’ on India. The Proteas neither have the form nor the past records in ICC tournament semi-finals to present their case. They have barely managed to win the last three wins with thin margins of 3, 6 and 2 runs. Meanwhile, their semi-final opponents have made quick work of all the teams they have faced in the tournament with an air of invincibility. Moreover, as the South African campaign shifts from Chittagong to Dhaka, they will be banking on their key players to do the trick in an unfamiliar territory.

All this hoopla about favourites and track record, however, is thrown out of the window in a T20 clash where lightening cameos and maiden overs can change the course of the match. The format of the T20 game is such that that just one impact player can play that jaw-dropping knock or bowl that astonishing spell and all the discussion about form and history becomes futile. This aspect of ‘impact’ is now captured by the new Zip factor Facebook App developed by Castrol Activ Scooter. .

This Zip Factor App is an uncomplicated way of measuring the impact of a player’s performances on the game.  In a format like T20, where the traditional factors like batting average and number of runs scored take a backseat, there was a compelling need to capture the ‘zip’ with which the game is played. Unlike a test or an ODI, a 6-ball 22 cameo is more impactful than a 40-ball 40. For every match played in the ICC T20 World Cup, Zip factor calculates the impact of each player using relevant parameters like strike rate and boundaries for batting, wicket and dot balls for bowling and run-outs and catches for fielding.

And it is so relevant in every bit of the logic the formula carries.

For instance, when a batsman plays an innings that has an immense impact on the game, does it even matter what credentials and CV he brought to the field that day? Does it matter how many runs he made if the pace of his runs was more important for the team? Obviously, no!

This is what the zip factor captures amazingly. It discounts all the things one has done in the past and calculates zip factor scores for a single day. A look at the table will tell the composition of impactful players in both the sides

Imran Tahir	58.42
Jean-Paul Duminy	51.78
Dale Steyn	50.42
Ravichandran Ashwin	49.67
Amit Mishra	48.09
Rohit Sharma	46.88
AB de Villiers	45.80
Virat Kohli	44.50
Ravindra Jadeja	37.21
David Miller	28.61

India might have had a dream run in the tournament but the top three dangerously influential players belong to South Africa. The 50+ zip factors of Steyn, Tahir and Duminy suggest that they are capable of winning the match single-handedly not because of the reputations and records they have built over the years, but simply because they have made most bearing on a single-match in the world cup.

The concept of analyzing a game is made simple by a elementary question the Zip factor app asks instead of many irrelevant ones- “What is the impact that player has in the game?”

To know more about this concept and check zip factors for every game in the World Cup, you can go here:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/castrolcricket

Twitter: twitter.com/castrolcricket

App: bit.ly/ZFapp

When the Proteas take the field against the men in blue, they might not have the upper hand in the books of history or might not have the odds in favour of them, but the zippy format of T20 will ensure that the semi-final will belong to the team who makes a better impact at the end of the day.