CDS General Bipin Rawat Dies In Chopper Crash: An Unthinkable National Tragedy, Our Salute!

This is unthinkable, even unpardonable. That the helicopter carrying the topmost military officer of India—the first ever Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) next only to the Supreme Commander of the India Army, the President of India—should crash in spite of the highest security being attached to the trip and the fool-proof technical checks being obviously carried out by the best of pilots before the trip. But it has happened still—a monumental national tragedy. CDS General Bipin Rawat, one of the bravest and the most decorated military officers of the country, had left his Delhi residence around 9 this morning and boarded a special Indian Air Force (IAF) aircraft for Sulur Air Base near Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu along with his wife and seven others including senior military officers and security commandos. Arriving at Sulur around 11.30 AM he boarded a Mi-17V5 helicopter, supposedly the most advanced one being manufactured and delivered to India between 2013-16 by the Republic of Russia, with five more members including the crew joining the flight, making the total passengers in the chopper 14. The chopper took off around 11.45 AM for the Wellington Defence Services Staff College, Tamil Nadu.  

 

Just five minutes away from the destination the chopper crashed in Coonoor amid the forests of the mountainous district of Nilgiris around 12.20 PM. As the area was almost inaccessible the first ones to come to know of the crash were the local tribals who alerted the police. A lot of time thus was wasted before the actual rescue operations began. As per the tribal eye-witnesses shown by some news channels the helicopter reportedly hit a tree amid heavy fog and burst into flames before hitting the ground. The Tamil Nadu government had confirmed 5 fatalities, 2 badly burnt passengers taken to military hospitals and rescue operations going on for the rest. The ANI (Asian News International) had confirmed 13 fatalities out of the 14 quoting sources, the victims being identified through the DNA testing. No information about the condition of General Bipin Rawat and his wife was available till the last reports came in.

 

In sad reality, it is hoping against hope for the safety of the top General. Matters about high officials always involve a protocol and nothing is confirmed or announced in a hurry. The Defence Minister of India, Rajnath Singh, is the proper authority to make the final announcement after confirming fully with the Chief of the IAF. First, the Defence Minister briefed the Prime Minister Narendra Modi; then he consulted the IAF Chief who immediately rushed to the site of the tragic crash; and then the PM in consultation with the Defence Minister had called for a Cabinet meeting and a highest-level security session later in the evening. The Defence Minister then visited the residence of General Rawat in Delhi which was significant. The President of India, Ramnath Kovind, had also canceled his Mumbai event and rushed back to the capital. Dignitaries including the Army Chief and others have also been visiting the General’s residence. All these are pointers to an unthinkable tragedy.

 

The IAF has already ordered an inquiry into the crash. Many experts believe weather conditions have something to do with it. Tamil Nadu had witnessed unprecedented rains in the recent days and today it was reportedly very bad weather and heavy mist in the Coonoor hills. However, the emergency controls in the arguably most advanced chopper ever should have been able to maneuver and land safely, and the failure to do so with none other than the Chief of the military on board confounds one and all. The Defence Minister was to address the Parliament which is in session this evening, but it was then deferred to sometime tomorrow, possibly considering all aspects of a very sensitive incident involving national security and bilateral cum multilateral relations.

 

Unfortunately, over the last few decades we have been getting used to witness numerous chopper accidents involving various kinds of helicopters including the MIG and the Mi-Series types, most prominently; not only in India, but across various other countries too. Many dignitaries of the country including senior military officers, pilots, Chief Ministers, political leaders and others have either perished in those crashes or just survived. This leads us to question the very use of helicopters in modern times when other modes of air travel are easily available. Why not do away with helicopters for good?

 

The sad news has come. The IAF has confirmed just now that the brave General and Chief of Defence Staff Bipin Rawat (1958-2021), his wife and 11 other officials have died in the crash. Our tributes and homage to all the martyrs, our condolences to the General's and other officers' families. The whole of India has been praying for the General’s safety. But God always has other plans. An irreparable loss for India. 

India Win Test Series 1-0 To Score The Maximum Points In WTC Rankings Crushing New Zealand In Mumbai!

It was inevitable that India would beat New Zealand in the Test Series decider in Mumbai after the Kiwis were bowled out for a pathetic 62 in their first innings giving India a lead of 263 runs; only the margin of the victory was of interest. It could have been by an innings and some runs had India enforced the follow-on at the last session of the second day. That surprising decision was somewhat explained by the Head Coach Rahul Dravid, happy with his first series win as a coach, that it was to give some batting experience to the Indian young guns and that there was no worry at all as India had ample time to bowl New Zealand out in the second innings. Perhaps, the decision was also to enable the inconsistent Pujara who came out to open in the second innings with Mayank and captain Kohli to have some batting practice too ahead of the South Africa tour starting from 26^thof this month. And more importantly, considering the fact that India’s top order or middle order or both has been failing at most times in the recent matches covering all the formats with only the lower order performing consistently, it was possible that Team India might have been worried of chasing even 100 runs in the last innings, because the lower order could not be depended upon every time.

 

Whatever be the reasons for not enforcing the follow-on, India had beaten New Zealand by a mammoth margin of 372 runs in the morning session of the fourth day of the second and last Test match in Mumbai today thus winning the series 1-0 and scoring 42 in the WTC-2021-23 (World Test Championship) points table which is the highest for all teams so far; but due to India’s winning percentage of 58.33 being less than Sri Lanka’s 100% and Pakistan’s winning percentage of 66.66, India occupy the third position at the moment.

 

The Wankhede pitch, traditionally a bit difficult for free scoring, has been a mystery in this test match. After two days of continuous rain in the city prior to the day of start the pitch definitely had moisture underneath which should have helped the Kiwi fast bowlers attacking the Indian batsmen on the first morning. However, as it turned out, they, Southee and Jamieson prominently, failed to capture even a single wicket in both the innings while India’s Siraj got three scalps on the second day and Umesh Yadav also got a lot of help from the pitch. This leads to the incredible feat of the Mumbai-born Ajaz Patel taking all the 10 India wickets in the first innings and taking the tally to 14 in the match thus equaling Kumble’s record. Of the other Kiwi spinners, Rachin Ravindra and Somerville, only the former managed 3 wickets in India’s second innings.

 

Ajaz Patel’s feat of being the third bowler ever to take all 10 wickets in a Test innings has a unique twist as even after his incredible performance his team not only could not win, but suffered a mammoth loss and he failed to qualify for the player of the match or the player of the series. This was not the case with Jim Laker who took 19 wickets in that match against Australia in 1956 or Anil Kumble who took 14 in that match against Pakistan in 1998 with their respective teams registering huge wins over their opponents thanks to their feats. This does not reduce Ajaz’s marvelous performance in any way, his misfortune is that he happened to be a part of the losing team.

 

Mayank Agarwal was justifiably declared the player of the match for his definitive 150 in the first innings and 62 in the second innings. Ravichandran Ashwin was declared the player of the series for his consistent performance of taking 8 wickets in the match—4/8 in 8 overs in the first innings and another 4/34 in 22 overs in the second innings—which never allowed the visitors to launch a comeback in the match. Jayant Yadav chipped in with 4/49 in 14 overs in the second innings, restricting New Zealand to just 167 all out. Axar Patel starred as a batsman in both innings—extremely useful 52 and 41—apart from his 3 wickets.

 

The match would put the Kiwis in a lot of introspection as to what exactly led to the absolute surrender of their batsmen who defended the first test with a sensational draw and the fast bowlers languishing wicketless despite a helpful pitch. They are sure to rue for a long time the fact that they could not capitalize on Ajaz Patel’s record haul of wickets. As for India, Virat Kohli would be very happy to achieve the feat of winning 50 international matches each in all the three formats and this Series victory ahead of the South Africa tour. As he said after the match his team enjoys a veritable luxury of selecting players for the final eleven with the young guns firing and the rested seniors joining the team for the coming tour.

India Vs New Zealand: Incredible 10-Wicket Haul By Ajaz Patel To Become Only The Third Bowler in Test Cricket History!

photo: espncricinfo.com

History is repeated at the Wankhede stadium in Mumbai today, the second day of the second and last Test match between India Vs New Zealand, when the New Zealand left-arm orthodox spinner Ajaz Yunus Patel captured all the 10 wickets in the India first innings total of 325, to become only the third bowler to take 10 wickets (10/119) in a Test innings after Jim Laker in the 4^th Test between England and Australia at the Old Trafford in England in 1956, and Anil Kumble did in the second Test between India and Pakistan in 1998-99 at the Firoz Shah Kotla ground, Delhi. However, both Laker and Kumble achieved the incredible feats in the second innings of the opponent’s batting respectively while Ajaz becomes the first bowler to do so in the first innings of a Test in world test cricket history. The 33-year-old spinner made his Test debut in 2018 against Pakistan and has also been playing in the T20Is since that year. So far, Ajaz has played only 10 Tests for New Zealand with 29 wickets and also played a handy role as the last batsman like he contributed toward a sensational draw in the Kanpur Test.

 

Significantly, the English right-arm off-spinner James Charles Laker took an almost perfect haul of 19 wickets (19/90) in that historic test match which came to be known later as Laker’s match. His haul of 19 wickets in a test match is still unbeaten. Laker played 46 Tests for England taking with 193 wickets and made his Test debut in 1948 against the West Indies during England tour of West Indies in 1947-48 taking 7 wickets in the first innings on debut. Laker was an all-rounder too with two half-centuries in Tests and 2 centuries and 18 half-centuries in first class cricket. He took 9 five-wicket hauls in Test cricket (an incredible 127 fivers in first class cricket) and over 10-wicket hauls in a test match 3 times. His best was his historic 10/53 against Australia, the first time ever. He played his last Test in 1959 against Australia and passed away in Wimbledon in 1986.

 

Anil Kumble, one of the greatest leg spinners in world test cricket history, became the second bowler to take 10 wickets in a test innings in 1998-99 during the Pakistan tour of India, taking a total of 14 wickets in that 4^th Test match. Kumble played 132 Tests for India and had a massive tally of 619 test wickets—the fourth highest wicket-taking bowler of the world so far. He had five-wicket hauls 35 times in test cricket with over 10 wickets in a match 8 times and 72 fivers in first class cricket. His best was 10/74 in that historic match against Pakistan batting in the second innings and it was reported later that the other bowlers/players of his team helped him achieve the feat by bowling wide of stumps or not trying to take catches off them! Kumble made his Test debut in 1990 against England and played his last Test against Australia in 2008. He had also been a handy batsman having 1 century and 5 half-centuries in Tests. The 51-year-old great cricketer has always been engaged with Team India in various roles apart from the IPL.

 

It seems Ajaz Patel is not going to have a real chance of increasing his tally in this historic match for him as the Indian pacers, in sharp contrast to the NZ fast bowlers, mopped up 3 early wickets (all 3 going to Mohammed Siraj who replaced Ishant Sharma in this match) and later, the three spinners—R Ashwin, Axar Patel and Jayant Yadav (replaced an injured Ravindra Jadeja, making a comeback to India Test team after a record 9^th wicket batting performance for India with Virat Kohli in 2016 at the Wankhede only)—taking 1 each and making New Zealand reel at 38/6 at Tea. The Kiwis are missing the injured regular captain Kane Williamson sorely as the stand-in captain Tom Latham falling for just 10 runs, after a good performance in the Kanpur Test. As was inevitable the Kiwis got all out for a mere 62, giving India a massive lead of 263 runs. Ashwin finally made it 4 wickets for him for 19 runs and 3 for Siraj, 2 for Axar and 1 for Jayant Yadav. Surprisingly, India did not enforce the follow-on, and therefore, Ajaz gets a chance to increase his match tally.

 

photo: wionnews.com

The good part about the second Test in Mumbai is that the debut sensation Shreyas Iyer was not dropped as speculated with Ajinkya Rahane going out due to reportedly a hamstring niggle and not being fully fit, even though he was facing the specter of being dropped after poor batting and not being able to force a win in the Kanpur Test. The regular captain, Virat Kohli, coming in for this Test was out for a duck following Pujara’s. Not just because of this, but in general the BCCI would do better to appoint captains for the full series, rather than dividing the matches between two or three. India progressed to a pitch-specific good total of 325 runs in fits and starts, and largely thanks to opener Mayank Agarwal’s brilliant century (150 off 311 balls), his third Test ton, sticking on almost to the end of the innings, aided by an equally brilliant half-century by Axar (52), 44 by opener Shubman Gill and 27 by wicketkeeper Wriddhiman Saha.