The rise of Zaheer Khan, the greatness of Kapil Dev

Zaheer Khan had a great tour of NZ and raised his credentials not only as India's best current pace bowler in test matches, but also one of the three best. The other two being Kapil Dev and Javagal Srinath. The comparative figures of these three at the end of their 65th test are given below.

Bowler	T	I	O	M	R	W	BBI	BBT	Avg	ER	SR	5WI	10WT
Kapil Dev	65	105	2301.2	462	7048	251	9/83	11/146	28.07	3.06	55.0	18	2
Javagal Srinath	65	118	2479.2	587	7104	233	8/86	13/132	30.48	2.86	63.8	10	1
Zaheer Khan	65	119	2160.2	440	7107	210	5/29	9/134	33.84	3.28	61.7	7	0

It is obvious from above that overall Zaheer Khan is now India's 3rd best pace bowler and his record is improving in the last 2-3 years.

Even now, Kapil Dev stands supreme above all others. His record deteriorated in the later stages of his career with the strike rate dropping by over 9 balls per wicket and average bloating up by 1.6 runs per wicket. This was countered somewhat by significant improvement in the economy rate.

Neither Srinath nor Zaheer ever got close to Kapil's peak strike rate of 51.1 in his 24th test, Srinath's best was 60.8 in his 55th while Zaheer peaked at 60.3 in his 49th. At the same point in all their careers, the gap is still significant.

Between Srinath and Zaheer the numbers are favourable enough for Srinath to take the 2nd position. But Zaheer's record is improving from an intermediate decline and he could close the gap to match Srinath. Catching Kapil is another matter altogether.

This just goes to show how significant Kapil Dev was to Indian cricket if one adds his superior fielding and great batting skills. Inspite of Sachin Tendulkar, Kapil is by far India's greatest cricketer. In tests he has 40% of Sachin's runs and a World Cup. Sachin would need @174 wickets to be in the same league and win a World Cup as well. And if one goes by a per match contribution, the gap is larger esp. in Tests. In Limited Overs it is probably slightly tilted towards Sachin, but the World Cup deficit could dent that.

Guns and Bloody Roses

Yet another tragedy waiting to happen. A man of Vietnamese origin killing himself after shooting 13 people dead in Binghamton, NY, continues America's sorry story on gun violence. Then we have the usual scenario of reactive law enforcement doing its thing after the fact. Too little and definitely too late. I am more surprised by the surprise expressed in media over these incidents, when the chances are so much higher in the gun possession prolific US than elsewhere.

Some pundits have proclaimed through studies that there is definitely a connection between economic downturns and increase in violent incidents. Even a quick look at history will show that. Wasn't it poverty that lead to the violent takeover of the American continent by Europeans at the expense of indigenous cultures? They are reluctant to connect the difference in potential for violence with and without a gun.

A person with a knife or club or stick can rarely coerce 4-5 or more persons to bid his will unless he is a Bruce Lee/Rambo type of a fighting superstar. A person with a gun definitely can, even if he is the ridiculed 5 foot 80 pound local wimp. He could coerce 5 NFL footballers if he wanted, so long as they were unarmed and he was.

The promoters of gun culture in the US portray it as their right to defend themselves from attack in a violence prone society. The proliferation of guns actually makes the US a far more violence prone society in the first place. And in the majority of cases, the gun is used as a weapon of offence or coercion far more often than for any self defence. In a number of serial killing cases, the gun plays a very important role, though victims may be killed in some other way. One has to just go through the entire list of prolific serial killers in the US (which somehow seems to have a higher number here as well) to see how effective a gun made them.

So, inspite of having the world's best means, resources and technology to deal with crime, the free gun culture is a massive achilles heel to the entire US security infrastructure. They have the cure and no clue about prevention. This leaves it seriously vulnerable to terrorism in the future (Update below) . A patient enemy just needs its combatants to have a clean record, migrate to the US, get citizenship in the 6-10 year period and arm themselves and carry out coordinated massacres across the country. If they are open to suicide, this leaves a reactive law enforcement, however quick, too late to help counter such a strike and hence ineffective.

Till the US gets the balance between the freedom to carry a gun and the ease of using a gun for violence against fellow citizens, similar incidents will continue to be common place. The US will continue on all fronts including having the most people in prison, having the most in solitary confinement and having a massive drug control problem.

Update. The Pakistani Taliban is claiming credit for the massacre, though it is more likely a bluff, but this is sure to give them and the US security structure something to think about.