The GOAT Who Doesn't Like Dirt

He's the most breathtakingly artistic tennis player to be seen in the last 20 years. He's flamboyant yet consistent, inhumanly skillful yet robotic. He's The One. The only potential GOAT (Greatest Of All Time) since Sampras. Roger Federer plays perfect tennis on his good days, and magnificent tennis on his average ones. And yet, lately, some have had the audacity to call Rafael Nadal 'The One' too. Even if only The Claycourt One. 77 consecutive victories on clay is no joke. Admittedly, Federer's 48 consecutive victories on grass is hardly kindergarten stuff either. Yet, Roger Federer has just seen the rug pulled from under his feet, by a a couple of dirtballers called Guillermo Canas and Filippo Volandri, and Nadal, his exasperatingly exceptional nemesis of the last two years. The All-Surface Grand Slam dream has never seemed more distant. Federer's 4-tournament title drought is cause for worry too, but a very minor one compared to the ever-troublesome Grand Slam challenge. This is GOAT stuff we're talking about - Federer needs that Roland Garros trophy.

What is it about claycourt tennis anyway? Why is it that a surface which produces tiring, artless slug-fests is considered so important to test a player's ability? No tennis follower ever lapses into lyrical nostalgia about the great claycourt specialists. Who remembers Guillermo Vilas, Mats Wilander or Thomas Muster? Well okay, maybe a few do remember these all-time greats, but certainly not in the same vein or numbers as people reminisce about Bjorn Borg, Rod Laver, Pete Sampras, or even Goran Ivanisevic. Pete Sampras never won the French. Heck, he never even reached the final. Sure, Borg did win both Wimbledon and the French five years in a row, but his legend lies more in his astonishing ability to switch between the two surfaces, year after year, than any particular dexterity at 'grinding it out' on clay. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the grass and hardcourt greats, rather, the non-claycourt specialists, have always been considered the more legendary and irresistibly endearing champions, as opposed to the claycourt greats, who've more often than not been consigned to the dreary areas of records and streaks.

Why the big fuss, then, about Federer being unable to stand up to the unshakable clay demon that is Nadal? Maybe it's because a No. 1 player is not supposed to lose as consistently to a single player as Federer loses to Nadal. Maybe it's because the sheer length of the claycourt season is too large to ignore. Or maybe, it's because Federer is, simply, the best player of all time, and so him not being able to win the French can turn out to be a damning indictment of the reasoning behind using different surfaces in tennis. Sigh! If only there weren't all these logical explanations! Then we could all just happily ignore the filthy red surface and rejoice in the jaw-dropping genius of the Swiss maestro.

But we are humans, and blessed as we are with the powers of logic and reasoning, we should necessarily agree that Federer has to win at Roland Garros. The bad news is that he's in worse form than he's been at any time in the past 3 years. And oh, he's just split with his coach Tony Roche, and will travel without a coach to Paris. Most worryingly for him, however, Nadal is playing almost perfect claycourt tennis, and it's pretty much a given that Federer will have to defeat Nadal to win the tournament that Nadal has won almost effortlessly for the last 2 years. Impossible? Well, it does seem pretty bleak right now. But doing the impossible shouldn't be that difficult for the GOAT (I know, I'm using the term far too often, but I've taken a strange liking to it). This is Roger Federer we're talking about. The man who can make the Roddicks, Hewitts, Blakes and even Agassis of this world look like mesmerized bystanders. Surely he can turn it around in time? Surely Nadal has to suffer an injury sooner or later?

A Slow-Paced, Boring, Melodramatic Must-See

An alien symbiotic creature that clings to a piece of clothing, a man with a curious ability to conjure and resize his clothes entirely from sand but who wilts when exposed to water and a fully grown superhero weeping like a two-year-old when his girlfriend dumps him. 'Spiderman' was never about being realistic anyway. And with Spiderman 3, the improbability stakes go up just that bit higher. But who's complaining, when the stunning action scenes, breathtaking cinematography and lightning pace keep the audience obscenely entertained, right? The trouble is, Spiderman 3, for all its action-packed thrills and feeble attempts at philosophy, just cannot keep you glued to your seats - it is, quite simply, boring. And for a series as record-breaking and amusingly awe-inspiring as Spiderman, that's not good news at all.

The movie attempts to deconstruct the psychology of superheroes (now isn't that a Herculean task!) and underline the most basic doctrine of all - being bad is fun. The old guard of Tobey McGuire, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco and Rosemary Harris reprise their roles as the central Spiderman characters in this mildly dark and very slow-paced affair. The movie starts off with Peter Parker (McGuire) and Mary Jane (Dunst) firmly ensconced in a compromising yet carefree romance, who spend their time together entangled in gigantic spider webs. Parker is still without a permanent job, but this time, MJ joins him on the list of the unemployed after being kicked out of a ridiculously dull stage performance the like of which I'm pretty sure will not find a single a viewer in the real world. The relationship begins showing signs of strain, what with Spiderman being such a hero and all and poor Miss MJ being reduced to working as a singing waitress. Things take a turn for the worse for the cranky couple with the appearance of the shockingly unimportant Gwen Stacy (Bryce Dallas Howard, utterly wasted) and her snotty boyfriend Eddie Brock (Topher Grace). For some reason, Spiderman thinks it a good idea to share a passionate kiss with Gwen in the presence of a shell-shocked MJ, which makes one wonder whether Spiderman is inherently evil after all, Venom or no Venom.

Meanwhile, Flint Marko (Thomas Haden Church), a predictably wronged convict on the run from the police, gets transformed into the invincible Sand Man under highly mysterious, not to mention amusing, circumstances. The script's excuse is that a 'particle physics' laboratory carries out highly dangerous, 'demolecularizing' experiments in frightfully unguarded pits, under the open skies, with not a hint of a worry about any thing or being falling into the pit accidentally and getting its molecules ripped apart. So Flint Marko, now Sand Man, comes to be a pretty invulnerable monster who is furious at the world for some reason, but who also has a human side to him, compassionately trying to rob every bank in sight to gather funds for treating his daughter's incurable illness (no idea what the illness is). All this while, the alien 'Venom' stealthily sizes up the emotionally ploughed Parker, waiting for the right moment to cling inseparably to the noble superhero and turn him into an arrogant, aggressive demon. And wait, there's another crucial subplot - Harry Osborn is finally ready to take up his due post as the new Green Goblin or the Hob Goblin (the name fans of the comic will assure you is the correct one) and avenge his father's death. A bout of amnesia for this one considerably eases things for poor Spidey, who has his hands quite full with not one but five different adversaries (MJ can be counted as an adversary too - she barely looks at him with anything other than pitying disdain during the movie). A case of too many villains? Fans of Spiderman the comic will wholeheartedly agree.

The film has plenty of moments to savour - the action scenes are brilliant as usual, and the fight sequence between Peter and Harry, (not the one between Spidey and Goblin) is fantastic, with the underlying simmering tension and deep-seated affection between the two spilling over quite dramatically. The episode where Spidey willingly gives up his sickeningly saccharine self in favor of the evil yet cool alter ego guided by Venom's venomous ways has been handled with wonderful deftness. You can actually feel Parker's enjoyment at being allowed to be bad, and McGuire, it has to be said, does a thoroughly efficient job in these parts. The character development is really shoddy though - there doesn't really seem to be any point to the Sand Man character, and Venom is quite unceremoniously dumped to the sidelines by all the romance and irritating sequences concerning the murder of Parker's uncle (turns out he was killed by Sand Man after all). Gwen Stacy is laughably insignificant - it seems the makers intended to give her a full-blown role at the beginning but forgot all about her somewhere in the middle. Nothing else can explain why they chose an actress as brilliant as Howard for the part, or why she accepted it.

The dialogues are predictably trite, but that's completely forgivable in a Spiderman flick. The acting is fairly average, though one wishes McGuire would tighten up his act in the emotional scenes - all he had to do was look at Dunst, who undoubtedly is the best performer in the movie, even if her character is horribly annoying. James Franco and Topher Grace do adequate jobs, and Rosemary Harris, thankfully, has very little to do in this one, because there's only so much of Aunt May reminiscing about her poor old husband and their lame times together that one can tolerate.

The romance is overbearing, the action too little, the pace too slow and the storyline too hackneyed and melodramatic. And yet, Spiderman 3 deserves to be watched at least once - the 'evil is fun' theme is far too irresistible, and the movie's box office returns are far too humongous to be ignored. There are many movies that are deserving contenders to qualify as the definitive movie of our generation, but none as strong as the Spiderman series. This is Hollywood at its costliest, loudest and most extravagant - let yourself be overawed by the hype, it's fun. Even if it is boring.

Erm, Time Travel is a Ridiculous Idea, Hollywood

Hollywood filmmakers really do know how to get on your nerves. They may use a lot of fancy special effects, get the most photogenic actors to prance around like saintly superheroes and dress up all of their movies with the snazziest of technology and production values, but at heart they're only really out to surprise, confuse and thoroughly irritate their unsuspecting audience. In the midst of all this, if the audience are lightly entertained for even a second, then it's a monumental victory for the average Hollywood moviemaker, and is taken as his cue to start work on a string of similarly logic-defying scripts, or better still, to make a sequel. Okay, that may sound a little insane, but at least it can explain the stream of movies based on time travel constantly coming out of Hollywood studios, and with all top drawer actors, no less. I just finished watching Deja Vu, a movie based on time travel, which stars Denzel Washington, of all people, as the main lead. And to be very honest, after two hours and six minutes of fairly entertaining, fast-paced thrills, I was only left wondering who on earth could have written such an outrageously ludicrous script, and why in God's good name Washington ever agreed to be a part of it.

The thing with time travel is that it is inherently such a ridiculous idea that when Hollywood scriptwriters take the concept and try to construct intricate plots replete with loads of sci-fi hogwash around it, they end up thrusting the most insanely unbelievable tripe at their audience. I know that sci-fi is supposed to be unbelievable, but most sci-fi movies do have a central logical theme to their plots that at least makes some sense with a degree of imaginative leeway on the part of us watchers. But time travel! It makes no sense whichever way you look at it.

Now I don't claim to have watched all of Hollywood's time travel movies, but I have watched a fair few - The Terminator movies, The Time Machine, Kate and Leopold, Deja Vu, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and The Butterfly Effect, the last of which was a surprisingly high quality product for a genre of such fatuousness. The Terminator series concentrated more on the robot/cyborg element, with time travel being just an auxiliary part of the plot, so I guess we can forgive the utterly crazy premise of humans and evil robots sending ultra-stylish marshals to the past to protect and destroy, respectively, the future leader of the human race. Kate and Leopold is a romantic comedy, and frankly speaking, is actually more believable than the slew of mindless, coincidence-abounding fairytales that are the norm for the genre, even with the 'crack in time' theory and Hugh Jackman playing the inventor of the elevator who somehow finds himself in the apartment of the remarkably unflustered Meg Ryan, who incidentally exists 120 years in the future. The Butterfly Effect, a completely fanciful venture that is mainly preoccupied with human emotions and fate, is darkly depressing yet unexpectedly stirring, and would certainly have had a very large cult following had Ashton Kutcher been a little decent at acting. It manges to get away because of the underlying supernatural theme, but only just.

It is when the filmmakers try to bring science into the equation that the plots fail spectacularly. In Deja Vu, for instance, Denzel Washington uses modified satellites to travel to the past and prevent a terrorist attack that he knows has killed hundreds of people. The trouble is, he also has to reverse the death of a beautiful young woman who conveniently yet bizarrely is crucial to the attack. And this, as you may very well have guessed, sparks off a series of confounding and fantastically ludicrous events that only the director can fully explain (though I'm not sure even he can). Apparently, the story moves through four different and discrete timelines, with Mr. Washington existing in two different forms in any given timeline, and each of these two forms is wholly oblivious to the existence of the other. At one point, we are even told that there is a 'dead' Washington who somehow managed to take along his mobile phone through the time machine even though he was strictly advised not to carry any extra baggage when making the leap, and an 'alive' Washington who notices, to highly amusing effect, that a victim of the attack (in other words, the dead Washington) receives calls at exactly the same time that he himself does. So in the la-la land of Deja Vu, mobile phones can travel through time too. If you think all of this is stunningly laughable, you should check out the 'theories' about the film at www.imdb.com. They'll leave you in very pleasant splits, I assure you.

I know this may sound a little biased, with me being such a big Harry Potter fan and all, but I honestly believe that J K Rowling's version of time travel is far saner than most other theories. In Potterworld, 'reality' cannot be changed no matter how much anyone may fiddle with 'time turners'. There can only ever be one timeline, and even if somebody does go back or forward in time, his or her actions will somehow be aligned with the existing reality as we know it, so that there can never be alternate universes or bringing of the dead back to life, thus eliminating at least two of the most worryingly unbelievable phenomena of time travel. In short, 'destiny' cannot be changed in Potterverse: Time is only a function of Fate, and no amount of time travel can bring any sort of disharmony to this fundamental truth. In spite of this rosy, intellectual-sounding explanation, however, the fact remains that the time travel part of the Harry Potter books and movies is still the most misunderstood and hotly debated Potter concept. Which just goes to show how terrifically inconceivable and needlessly confusing a concept time travel is: people are willing to accept flying on broomsticks and storing parts of one's soul in many different inanimate objects, but they refuse to accept time travel, even in as perfectly imaginary a work as Harry Potter. Something for Hollywood to think about?

A Tournament with many Losers

As the Aussie juggernaut, no wait, I'll have to rephrase that - 'juggernaut' is really quite a horrible cliche; so, as the Aussie missile tank cruised towards a thoroughly wondrous third successive World Cup triumph, the predictable SMS's of dejection and doom began doing the rounds. "These Aussies are invincible", went the more obvious ones, but there were some gems around too, like "Australia should be given a wild card entry into the final for all future World Cups so that we'll have to watch only one miserable Australia match" or "They should rename the World Cup the 'Australian Open' or the 'Aussie Invitation Trophy'". I quite like the idea of giving a different name to the World Cup. But I suppose the ICC might not be be too keen on giving up the the uneasy prefix 'ICC' attached to the name. Honestly though, the prefix actually sounds quite embarrassing now, after the utterly disgraceful mess that the officials somehow managed to create at the end and the torpid yet autocratic organisation of the tournament in general. I don't think there can be any worse indignity for the ICC than some people labeling this the worst World Cup ever. But we'll get to that later.

The final in itself was yet another damning indictment of the very wide gulf between Australia and the rest of the cricketing nations. Sri Lanka are no pushovers; their bowling attack is actually better than Australia's, and they've got some fantastic firepower in their batting. But their greatest strength is the wonderful sense of camaraderie and enthusiasm amongst the team that has been largely attributed to Mahela Jayawardane's astute leadership. All of this was, however, brought to a dismal naught by Adam Gilchrist's truly fearsome knock. There have been calls for his head by some former Australian cricketers considering his rather poor form in the last 6 months, but the fact remains that a Gilchrist on the rampage is far more worrying for an opposition captain than anything that Matthew Hayden or Ricky Ponting can come up with. This may sound sacrilegious to some, but I do believe that after Shane Warne, Gilchrist has been the most special payer of this utterly dominating Australian team. And history will remember him so too; if he retires now, I scarcely think any farewell by any cricketer can top what Gilchrist managed yesterday.

The Sri Lankans did, of course, keep interest alive in the match fairly long; Jayasuriya was at his slashing best, and Sangakkara kept unfurling shots of the most delectable order, almost as though he was hell-bent on winning the unwinnable battle of the wicket-keeper batsmen. Glory for Sri Lanka was not to be though, thanks to some steady Aussie bowling and the permutations of the very confusing and at times very unfair Duckworth-Lewis system. At the end of 33 overs, the Sri Lankans found themselves at 206 for 7, needing another 63 runs to win off 18 balls. A done and dusted game, surely. There was also the small matter of the ground being in near pitch darkness because of the heavy cloud cover. So the umpires offered the light to the batsmen, and the Sri Lankans took off, which was not altogether surprising given that Shaun Tait was lurking around the corner. And this was the beginning of the most embarrassing farce ever witnessed in a match of such significance. The Australian players dissolved in ecstatic celebrations, the scorecard flashed out 'Congrats Australia!', the ground staff began preparations for assembling the presentation stand, the Aussie fans embarked on their typically rumbustious rejoicing, and then Aleem Dar decided to have a bit of fun with the rule-book, going up to a delirious Ponting to inform him, quite like a stern parent would admonish a misbehaving child, that the match was not over yet! Dar then proceeded to shoo off the staff making preparations for the presentation, ordered Glenn McGrath to put the stump that he had yanked out in jubilation back in its place and decided, after talks with the two captains, to resume play on the agreement that Australia would only employ slow bowlers. The looks on the faces of the Australian players said it all. So back came Lasith Malinga and Chaminda Vaas to take guard against Michael Clarke, and everyone who was watching was quite sure that Aleem Dar, and perhaps even Steve Bucknor and Rudi Koertzen had lost their minds. Apparently, the umpires were convinced that the Lankan tailenders facing 3 overs of gentle spin bowling in a hopelessly lost cause would bring thrills of the most electrifying kind imaginable to the millions of viewers. Either that, or they really did forget the rule that a match could be ended by the Duckworth-Lewis system once the minimum 20 overs a side had been bowled, and that there was absolutely no need to resume the match the next day to play out the 3 overs. The match referee, at any rate, wants us to believe that it was a simple matter of poor memory that caused such an indescribably horrendous farce. Mark Nichols, the TV commentator, went nearly apoplectic with rage and outrage at the remarkably deranged behaviour of the officials. He wasn't the only one.

So was this the worst World Cup ever? The tragic murder of the Pakistani coach Bob Woolmer bang in the middle of the tournament certainly makes a very strong case for that kind of statement. Then, of course, the sheer number of one-sided games right till the very end of the tournament tilts the balance even further. The security was inadequate, the attendance at the grounds poor, and even nature was not on the tournament's side, with many games being affected by rain. Captains complained thunderously about the poor training facilities in the Caribbean, and the crowds complained about nearly everything, right from the high ticket prices to the ICC's ridiculous restrictions on the weapons of mass destruction that are musical instruments, and the shockingly dangerous Mexican wave. Moreover, there was never really any competitive tension in the tournament, what with Australia reducing everything that came in their way to pitiable dust.The rest of the teams, left to merely squabble amongst themselves like a pack of hyenas and identify the team least likely to be humiliated by Australia, often employed petty tactics like deliberately 'resting' their premier players against Australia in the hope that their confidence wouldn't be shattered by the walloping they were sure to receive at the hands of Ponting & Co, which only resulted in even more one-sided matches. Phew, the list of negatives doesn't seem to end.

Sure, there were a few unforgettable moments to savour. Lasith Malinga's 4-wickets-in-4-balls burst was a truly magnificent spectacle, as was Herschelle Gibbs's astonishing 6-sixes-in-an-over butchery. Inzamam-ul-Haq bid a tearful farewell to the one-day game after Pakistan's rather humiliating early exit, and Glenn McGrath finished his international cricket career like only an Australian cricketer can, with jaw-dropping success, clutching the Player of the Tournament award and surrounded by euphoric teammates. But perhaps the most enduring and endearing moment of the World Cup will remain Brian Lara's farewell lap around the Kensington Oval ground at the end of his last international match followed by a sensationally regal retirement speech, coming at the heels of yet another inglorious performance by his team. There was never anything even remotely inglorious about Lara though, and he made sure that his end will remain forever etched vividly in every cricket follower's mind with a single line, "Did I entertain?". There are many who will testify that they never saw a more passionate response given to a cricketer than the rousing reply given to Lara's query, but there are also some who will admit that they couldn't stop the tears at a moment so poignant and evocative. Lara was special, right till the end.

After analyzing all the pros and cons, I'll have to agree - this was the worst World Cup ever. The ICC should have mass sackings for the excruciatingly long debacle that they thrust upon the cricketing world. Well, as long as I'm wishing for impossible things, I may as well wish for Lara to come out of retirement. Or for Sourav Ganguly to go into retirement. Or for Kevin Pietersen to go back to South Africa where his talents will find much more support than in the woeful team that is England. Or for Sony Max never to telecast any cricket match again. Ok, I'll stop now.

Red Alert! Close Matches in Danger of Extinction!

Graeme Smith has got plenty of explaining to do. For the past one year or so, he's talked about his team's 'strength of character', he's talked about the new brand of cricket adopted by his team which is both 'brave' and effective, and he's talked about how his team ruthlessly 'demolished' their chokers' tag. He's pretty much exhausted the supply of English words in trying to showcase the supposedly gritty and combative nature of his team, which we all expected would find dazzling expression in the semi-final against Australia. We expected a close match; heck, we deserved a close match. If only someone had told that to Ponting and his men. One look at the steely stares on the faces of nearly all the Aussies as they took to the field was enough to remind us that the phrase 'close match' doesn't figure in the mindset of any Australian cricketer at the moment, not even remotely. What followed was 40 overs of the most cruel and demoralizing walloping imaginable, even if the scorecard doesn't say so. Graeme Smith owes us a semi-final. Perhaps he should spend less time with a dictionary and more with a trainer, preferably a therapist, because this South African team needs help.

People have found it hard to come up with new adjectives to describe the mind-numbing dominance of Australia thus far in the World Cup. Australia haven't just beaten all of their opponents on their merry way to a fourth consecutive World Cup final appearance; they've totally, mercilessly and brutally pulverized them. Some people have criticized the 'run for cover' tactics of Stephen Fleming and Mahela Jayawardane in shielding their best weapons, Shane Bond for New Zealand, and Muttiah Muralitharan, Chaminda Vaas and Lasith Malinga for Sri Lanka, in their respective matches against the Aussies. But in all fairness to these two fine gentlemen, they had to think of something to pull a fast one on the rampaging juggernaut that is the Australian team, hadn't they? It's another matter that these questionable but potentially-effective tactics resulted in two crushing defeats for the innovative captains. Perhaps they were expecting to be pummeled in any case. Ponting would whole-heartedly endorse the latter view, and with a broad, supercilious smile to boot.

Australia are currently on a 21-match winning streak in World Cups that stretches back to that glorious semi-final (ah! the days!) against South Africa 8 years ago. Erm, why haven't the rest of the teams died of shame yet? Three batsmen of Australia have scored over 400 runs this tournament; two of them have scored above 500. Three of their bowlers have taken more than 20 wickets, which is a stunning statistic no matter how you look at it. They've piled up more than 300 in every match that they've batted first, and bowled out the opposition inside 50 overs in all matches save for the one against Bangladesh which was a 22-over game. Every single thing that Ponting has touched in the last 6 weeks has turned to gold - when Symonds was inured, Brad Hodge filled his shoes and smashed a blistering century against Holland; when Symonds returned he promptly made a brutal half-century against England. The reserve bowlers - Mitchell Johnson and Stuart Clark, haven't warranted even a side-ways glance, so good have been the frontline ones. When Glenn McGrath has opened the bowling, he's routinely snaffled a bunch of bemused opposition batsmen before you could say 'accuracy' or even 'retirement'; when he's bowled first change, he's twice picked up a wicket in his first over. Mike Hussey, that ridiculously prolific batsman-machine, hasn't had to arrive at the crease before the 30th over in a single match, which renders his modest numbers so far almost completely insignificant. Has there ever been a more imperious performance by any team in any tournament ever? Honestly, if Australia go on to lose the final, it will probably be the greatest injustice in the history of the sport.

Mahela Jayawardane and his band of infectiously enthusiastic men will, however, have other ideas. Everyone who saw Jayawardane's innings of 115 against the Kiwis has raved and ranted about the incredible polish and awesome effectiveness of his batting. He's an extraordinary leader, that man, and it may just be possible for him to dig out some massive reserves of pluck and spur his talented team to come up with a truly special performance and upstage the Aussies. For that to happen, however, a certain Muttiah Muralitharan will have to be at his magical best, spinning out outrageous offbreaks and bewildering doosras in generous doses. And of course, the rest of the team will have to push the boundaries of their endurance and stamina to the very farthest, and put on a show both heroic and epic in equal measure. Or, they can just hope for Australia to have a stunningly horrible day. The frightening thing is that even if all these fascinating things happen, Australia may still emerge winners. Talk about depressing odds.

The Man Who Could Make Time Stand Still

When you hear deeply agitated fans whine about Kevin Pietersen’s lack of ‘sportsmanship’ in throwing down the stumps to bring the career of Brian Charles Lara to a premature, run-out induced end or express disgust at Pietersen's ridiculously long-drawn celebration at Lara's fall, you know you're talking about a man truly remarkable. And I’m not talking about Pietersen. That Lara's last innings had to end in a run-out was, in many ways, a perfectly symbolic climax to a quite special journey. For one thing, the fact that no bowler could get him out in his last innings reaffirmed Lara's complete and utter dominance over the best bowlers in the business through the years. For another, his teammate Marlon Samuels's very questionable call for a run which clearly didn’t exist was a painful reminder of the lack of support Lara has received from his compatriots throughout his career. And, perhaps most poignantly of all, Lara's controversial dismissal gave the millions of viewers something to talk about, awakening us quite emphatically to the simple truth that all that Lara really stood for during his entire career was entertaining the masses.

I must admit that I didn't quite think of all these things the moment that Lara got out. Right then, all I could think of was how truly horrid a person Marlon Samuels was. The fact that run-outs like the one to have struck Lara today are quite commonplace in cricket or that Lara himself may have been responsible for many a teammate's demise through bad calling didn't quite register in my mind. Nothing else mattered then, except that Lara was out, never to return to hold a bat again. The packed stands gave him a resounding ovation as he departed, but Lara was clearly furious at not being able to produce one more of his magical knocks in his final match. This was hardly a surprise, considering his amazing ability to rise to the special and most significant occasions, an ability that he’s demonstrated with astonishing ease so often in his career.

To say that Lara made batting look beautiful would be saying the obvious, and the oft-repeated. The thing that has always struck me as odd about Lara is that when off the field, his body movements seem a little uncoordinated and disorganized. Even his stance is a little peculiar, a little crooked, with the feet much too close together. It's almost as if his body was made for the cricket field, because the same disorganized frame suddenly acquired a grace that was almost balletic when he held a bat. This may have been repeated a million times before, but Lara's strokeplay was indeed absolute eye-candy - the elegance that he brought to a simple cover drive or the poetic artistry of his movements when he came down the track to the spinners was, there's no other word for it - breathtaking. Even his leaving of the ball was lyrical, as were his defensive blocks - batting looked more like exalted dance than a humdrum matter of scoring runs when he was at the crease. And yet, the power and momentum that he packed into most of his shots would have made Mohammad Ali proud; perhaps this had something to do with that extravagant backlift or the whiplash motion of his wrists, because Lara was anything but raw muscle while batting. No, raw muscle was for mere mortals, not for the colossus that was Brian Lara.

There have been many who have pointed out that Lara was nowhere close to a flawless genius. His mood swings, lack of discipline, arrogance, disdain for rules, and most importantly, rather poor captaincy skills have invited as much scathing criticism as his batting skills have earned awed praise. But what his detractors don't get is that when gifts as extraordinary as Lara has been blessed with find expression in such rapid and spectacular manner as two monumental, record-breaking innings of 375 and 501 mere weeks apart, and that too just 3 years into his young career, it becomes almost impossible to lead an uneventful life. Lara couldn't possibly have discarded his innate flamboyance and penchant for the impossibly glorious in exchange for a disciplined, run-machine career. And he didn't. But we must only be thankful for that, because I scarcely think any cricketer, with the possible exceptions of Shane Warne and Viv Richards, has inspired as passionate a fan following that cut across lines of culture and country as has Lara, which had as much to do with his logic-defying ability to win matches single-handedly as his refusal to conform to norms and follow the straight path. His indescribably brilliant innings of 153 against Australia at Barbados may be remembered for many centuries to come, but so will his child-like knock against Kenya in the 1996 World Cup that prompted calls for his head from many. It takes the good, the bad and the ugly to make a legend, and Lara made sure his mesmerized audience witnessed it all. His incredibly inadequate leadership skills perhaps diluted some of the joy that cricket followers all over the world, and particularly in the Caribbean, derived from his career, but genius must be granted its excesses. Besides, there are some who believe that the reason Lara failed so abysmally in arresting the decline in West Indian cricket through any semblance of inspired leadership is that he could never quite come to terms with the less prodigious abilities of his teammates. A classic case of extraordinary talent being surrounded, even overawed by mediocrity, something which could never really have been experienced by the great captains of history, the Clive Lloyds and the Steve Waughs. Raw, untamed, unfettered genius like Lara's comes only once in a century, but such remarkable flair doesn’t always translate into great team-management prowess, especially if the team you’re asked to manage is abysmally insipid. Ask Sachin Tendulkar.

At the end of the match, some of the English fans in the stands began to shed tears. No, England didn’t lose the match – they actually won by 1 wicket, but this day, all emotions were for Lara. Time seemed to stand still, as it did so often when he was batting, as he walked around the ground, waving to the spectators, shaking hands with the English players, wiping a stray tear or two off his cheek. His grief seemed a little incongruous at such a momentous occasion, but after a moment or two of reflection you realize that it was only appropriate. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that it is Lara who has been defined by the game of cricket, and not the other way round, and that it must have been terribly hard for him to let go of the one thing that roused his passion and emboldened and inflamed him to attain heights dizzying, dazzling, delirious. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that it was not cricket that lived for Lara, but Lara who lived for cricket.

They say that Lara’s most outstanding achievement remains, to this day, his reclaiming of the record for the highest Test score in an innings, exactly ten years to the day he first created it, on the same ground and against the very same opposition. Indeed, this is one feat so awe-inspiring that it is difficult to imagine anyone doing anything to even come close to matching it, ever. In fact, when Matthew Hayden had held the record for a brief while, I remember thinking how frightfully dramatic it would be if Lara were to regain the record, and then brushing the thought off as impossible, even for Lara. I need hardly mention how completely stunned I was when Lara actually went out and shattered the record only six months after Hayden’s feat, with all the poise of an indefatigable champion. And yet, statistics and great cricketing moments mean so little when you talk about someone like Lara. He is one sportsperson who has truly transcended his records and emerged as a legend so full of mystique and wonderment that it is beyond the realms of any kind of numbers. He is the man who, when in the mood, could do anything. And I mean anything. He may have been nicknamed ‘Prince’, but he was more majestic, more glorious, more splendid, more sublime and more imposing than any emperor could ever hope to be.

School Shootings: For Some Reason, Exclusively American Disasters

Towards the end of the Harry Potter series, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is threatened with closure because parents start worrying too much about the safety of their children to allow them to go to school. If yesterday's massacre at Virginia Tech University in the US is anything to go by, parents in the real world should start worrying about sending their wards to school too. Schools and universities, at least in the US, are suddenly terrifying places. They have become the quintessential modern hotbeds of blood-spilling; so much so, that Quentin Tarantino might just be tempted to have his next flick centered around an American university. That's right - if there's any place today more likely to attract gunfire and violence than a crowded locality in Iraq, it's got to be an American school. Sounds ironical? Not nearly as ironical as it would have if Cho Seung-hui, the perpetrator of the Virginia Tech slaughter, had been a native of North Korea rather than South Korea.

What comes across as an oddity, though not necessarily a surprise, is that school shootings are almost exclusive to the US. Of all the instances of gunfire-involving violence at educational institutions that have been reported in the last 30 years, nearly 90% have taken place in the US. So does this point to something inherently unstable about American youngsters? I wouldn't quite go to that extreme, but there's no going around the fact that the rebellious culture that has been prevalent in America has made picking up a gun and deciding to kill anyone who annoys you a lot less frightful than normal. Cho Seung-hui, a loner, had no apparent grouse with life other than 'rich kids', 'debauchery' and 'deceitful charlatans' on campus. Perhaps it is unfair to draw conclusions about the causes of these mishaps based on the unconfirmed emotions of a reclusive, possibly deranged student. But it is pertinent to note that there is an undeniable connection with the excesses reportedly observed in American universities and the angst, sometimes religiously motivated, that drives most campus killers.

There are other possible reasons for such shootings, of course. The most obvious among these would be that educational institutions, being invariably packed with a wide assortment of people, offer fairly irresistible attention-grabbing potential to the attention-seeking shooters. Then there's the inescapable fact that getting hold of handguns is remarkably easy in the US. In Virginia, for instance, any legal resident who is 21 years of age or older is eligible to purchase a handgun provided he or she has not been convicted of any felonies. Ridiculous? You bet. I wonder how the US lawmakers, in all their glorious wisdom, thought it fit to allow blatant selling of guns to every conviction-escaping potential criminal with such gleeful indifference. There was a movie adaptation of the John Grisham book The Runaway Jury some years back that changed Grisham's original cigarette/lung cancer plot to a courtroom brawl that had at its heart the prevention of indiscriminate trade in weapons. Though I was mightily annoyed about the change of plot, I couldn't have agreed more with the idea that handguns should NOT be sold without the strictest supervision and control. But that's just plain old common sense! It's amazing how notions of free trade and capitalism can sometimes blind one so completely to the benefits of basic reasoning.

The US needs to clamp down on such horrific incidents, and fast. After all, Mr. George W. Bush is out to reform the world and bring all savage (read: non-democratic) countries to American levels of civility and honour. It'd be a poor lookout for him if his own countrymen kept trying to drag American society into the revolting realms of barbarism replete with gun-toting madmen and tragic deaths of innocent people. Time for some soul-searching, Mr. Bush?