Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Taking fresh guard

For me, it is Sunil Gavaskar who began the practice of asking the umpire for a fresh guard when he reached his century. That's probably factually incorrect; it is something that almost any batsman will do, every once in a while during an innings. But since Gavaskar scored more test centuries than any batsman before him, he had more opportunities to do it in the public eye. In a sense, today's post follows this habit; having reached a hundred, I looked for a fresh start - without having to do away with all the previous posts!

And that's where this milestone helps. Considering its significance, there should be some kind of monument around it. It stands quite forlorn, without anything to indicate it's significance. And it's location, almost at the apex of the railway overbridge on Muthuswamy Road is not a convenient one to build any kind of elaborate marker. Apparently, it is the norm for highway engineers to locate the 'zero point' of a road at a place where there is no possibility of overlapping roads; for them, the zero point of a road is just a technical indication. This milestone is considered the zero point for the three National Highways in Chennai; though only NH45 (to Trichi) is marked, NH4 and NH5 (to Bangalore and Kolkata respectively) also begin here.

From a historic perspective, the zero point of Madras was within the walls of Fort St George; and convention then was to measure distances from the gates of the Fort. I have not had an opportunity to go inside the Fort for a long time. Maybe the next time I do, I should look to see if there is any memory of the 'Zero Point', which was once the centre of Madras!



8 comments:

LVISS said...

There is another interpretation to this taking guard after reachin a milestone. The bowler heaves a sigh of relief and expect the batsman to play a lose shot after achieving a milestone . If the batsman takes a fresh guard it demoralises the bowler.
Good to know that u r taking a fresh guard to provide more photos and not preparing to lower ur guard.

Anonymous said...

Hey way to go ......

Hilda said...

Congratulations!

But your TOC says this is your 102nd post, so now I'm confused.

sreesnake said...

Clap!clap!we look forward for more!!

bitingmidge said...

hehe... be careful!

It's amazing how often a batsmen loses concentration just after that century mark!

Congratulations by the way.

Sunshine Coast Daily - Australia

Shantaram said...

>> Ravindran>> Thank you - yes, let me see how many I can reach!

>> Ram>> Thanks!

>> Hilda>> Thank you! No confusion - 'Chennai 0' was the 101st photo. My first post was a placeholder without a photo...

>> Sree>> Thank you thank you!!

>> BM>> Thank you - and yes, will certainly try to not lose it!

Unknown said...

hi, the hindu carried a couple of stories on the zero point last year. u might find those interesting.

Shantaram said...

>> Suresh>> Thanks a lot for the tip - I did dig up those news articles. One of them quotes a Suresh - is that you? :)