Of jocks and jokes

Note: This interview was done in April 2007 for a Mumbai-based daily that was running a series of profiles of young achievers.

But this writer left the city soonafter, while the features editor of the paper quit. This is how the interview finally sees the day of light.

Name: Vikram Sathaye

Age: 32 years (He is 34 now)

Milestone moment: Comic spots for Extra Innings during the 2003 Cricket World Cup.

Innovation: Stand-up comedy in English — a rarity this side of Jerry Seinfeld. He’s had audiences in splits with his accurate mimicry of cricketers.

Alternative interests: Marketing management, film production.

Profile: MS Dhoni is wary of Vikram Sathaye.

During India’s tour of South Africa last year, Dhoni joked to Irfan Pathan pointing to Sathaye: "Irfan, don’t tell him anything. He makes his money by joking about us."

But cricketers respect Sathaye. His fan list is mighty impressive: among them are Sachin Tendulkar and Wasim Akram.

What’s the biggest compliment he’s received? "Someone told me I do better Sachin than Sachin does," he beams.

Then he recalls the time Wasim called him from Lahore. "Wasim used to tell his grandfather how funny my imitation of Inzamam-ul Haq is. So he called to ask me if I would imitate Inzy on the phone so that his grandfather, who was sick at the time, could listen to him and laugh a little. I said, ‘Anytime!’ That was perhaps the biggest compliment ever."

People know little of his accomplishments in marketing management, a career he chucked to be a full-time comedian.

"The year was 1997," he says, "and my batch mates at Symbiosis Institute of Business Management were heading to the Levers and Cokes. I wanted to be the manager of a basketball team — the whole Jerry Maguire thing was in."

An year-long stint at Sunil Gavaskar’s Professional Management Group followed, and then, a four year stay as marketing manager of MTV India.

At MTV, his part-time antics made him as popular as Cyrus Broacha. Then, he was heading a production company — SET’s Metalight Productions — and the talent for clean and effective humour was spotted in 2003 by Kunal Dasgupta, the SET CEO. Extra Innings followed.

"By the end of that year, I realised that the response was beyond my expectation. I decided I’ll be a full-time comedian," Sathaye says. Now, he’s on the road about 10 days a month doing about 7-8 shows for private audiences.

"Vikram can see the funny side of things, which seem perfectly normal to others," says columnist and popular blogger Amit Varma, who’s been Sathaye’s good friend from his Fergusson days. "And his humour is always good-natured, never harsh or malicious, and often very perceptive."

This is a country whose people need to laugh more often. Make them, Vikram.

Photo: The Hindu

   Like our blog? Would you like to read our posts in your email?

Click to read full post

Curtains! The Summer Madness Comes To An End

Third Man writes:

Beginning with a whimper, the IPL ended with a bang. Finally, what seemed like an interminable case of summer madness is over. As the 45th and final day of the IPL produced a Sunday night thriller – a dream, last-ball finish – even the purists must have been drawn into the thrill of the chase.

Though it’s difficult to fathom a pattern in the shortest format of the game – some say the only pattern is its capriciousness – something must be behind the complete dominance of the Rajasthan Royals in the tournament. They frequently found themselves in tights spots in the tournament but, more often than not, they wriggled out. That’s what they did in the final, more than once.

Warne is, by all accounts, a remarkable leader of men – his boys, brothers and sons to him, look up to him. “You walk on the edge, and if you fall off, we’ll hold you,” his coaching assistant, Daren Berry, says of the role Warne sees for himself.

And the Royals regularly walked on the edge; even after the calamitous dismissals of Shane Watson, Mohammad Kaif and Ravindra Jadeja, Warned egged on Yusuf Pathan to keep going for the big shots. When Pathan slipped, run-out with direct hit from Suresh Raina, Warne calmly stepped in and held the team. And the dream endured.

The Royals had men who were supposed to be inexpensive, bargain buys – men who were not a marketing dream; but the team ended up with a remarkably high number of match-winners: Swapnil Asnodkar, Shane Watson, Graeme Smith, Yusuf Pathan, Sohail Tanvir and Warne himself. The young were fearless, the (cricketing) aged were firm and in body and mind. The result was not surprising. Expected to bring up the rear, they were the favourites by the time they got to the semifinals.

So, thus ended first edition of the IPL – a success, surely, in terms of the hype it generated, and the impossible amounts it brought into the game.

But I suspect there’s much more to IPL than was visible to the naked eye – it could well be much, much bigger. We’ll know in a year or two what the fruits are of what we’ve sown. The fruits of success are not always sweet – if you love cricket, you may not love the taste of things to come. Click to read full post

The Men Who Sold Cricket

Third Man writes:

All good men who love sport and cricket say privately they don't like the shape of things that the IPL promises. The IPL's biggest success is that it's turned sport into a commodity like never before, and venality into a widespread practice.

Big money, to be made or lost, ensures silence.

Those of you who are going bananas over the Indian Premier League may not like this, but the Third Man has a good mind to don a red shirt and turn into an anarchist. Only the direst incendiary acts against the IPL would satisfy the Third Man. Why? Because this is not cricket – this is ego massage and money-making in the most lurid form.

The cricketers are commodified like never before. The basis of the IPL is not sport, it's money. A team owner like Vijay Mallya can wrathfully declare that "unfortunately, in cricket, unlike in any other sport, the captain is the boss". What, does he pretend that he knows cricket more than Rahul Dravid, whom his flunkeys in the media are slandering for not picking the right team? Dravid's worst cricketing strategy would be better than Mallya's best. It's easy to be wiser after the event – in February, Mallya had declared grandiloquently that he'd got a very good team.

Mallya lacked sportsman's spirit

In sport, victory is not a given; in T20, no respecter of reputations, iconoclasm is the essence. Mallya, surly in defeat, refused to go the Man of the Match ceremony after the games his team lost. Rich in spirits, he's lacking completely the sportsman's spirit.

All good men who love sport and cricket say privately they don't like the shape of things that the IPL promises. The IPL's biggest success is that it's turned sport into a commodity like never before, and venality into a widespread practice. Big money, to be made or lost, ensures silence.

Media, the tireless crusader of the IPL

The media has turned into a cheerleader for Lalit Modi's money-making enterprise. Newspapers in Delhi devote a good two-three pages to the IPL. Only marginal, weak voices speak of the massive frauds inherent in the concept of the IPL. It's turned into a family enterprise, and contracts and sub-contracts are handed out to cronies and sub-cronies. Indian Express reported this a few days ago, but others just talk in hushed tones – the possibility of loss of advertising has turned editors into submissive errand runners of the marketing people.

The day of the strong editor is long past. Would you know the name of the editor of the Hindustan Times or the Times of India, for instance?

Third Man bumped into the editor of a Delhi paper during a game; the man blithely declared, without a trace of a blush, that the "whole thing (his paper's coverage) is being run by the marketing folks". Perhaps freedom of press is just a joke, and was always a joke – you write what the owner wants you to write, or you buzz off.

Just a carnival

Sombre thoughts, but the way the media has turned the IPL – which is just a carnival with little or no serious cricket – into something massive is just disgusting.

Some of you might say that the Third Man is furious only because no IPL crumb has been thrown at him; perhaps you would be right, for moral resistance is frequently inversely proportional to temptation.

That may be so, but the fact is that any kind of cricket that makes Dravid and VVS Laxman look like fools is not worthy of the serious fan.

   Like our blog? Would you like to read our posts in your email?

Click to read full post

The batting record that isn't

Geoff Allot was a mighty fine left-arm swing bowler, but he owns a strange world record.

The former New Zealander holds the record for the longest time taken to score a duck in first class cricket – 77 balls and 101 minutes against South Africa in 1999.

After Darryl Cullinan's 275 took South Africa to 621, the Kiwis were a were a wicket away from a 300-run deficit when last-man Allot joined Chris Harris.

The two batted a little over 27 overs for 32 runs. The Wisden Almanac noted:

"It was the best duck I'll ever make" said Allott. The sparse crowd gave more generous applause to his non-batting than to Cullinan's patient accumulation.

Allot's career was cut short by injuries. He finished with 102 First Class wickets, and a mere 105 runs.

Sportoids showcases rare sport nuggets. Would you like to read them in your email?

Click to read full post