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The charisma of the game of cricket is such that the true fan falls in love with the format of the game he is watching. When IPL was in full flow, one thought which idiot of a man invented the test cricket. A five-day game of cricket? How boring. But the current series between India and England, in England, has mesmerized me. Now I wonder why they don’t have more test matches! I know India has fared very, very poorly in the two tests played, plus the disappointment of the elusive hundredth international hundred for Sachin Tendulkar….it does get on to the nerves but then, there were ups and downs that kept the audience spell-bound, and there was certainly no dearth of drama. My own hero Rahul Dravid made back to back centuries in vain, and he must be feeling awful for that. The depleted Indian team without Viru, Zak and Gauti looked uncertain of itself from the very start of the first test, and coupled with poor form of top order players like Tendulkar, Yuvi, Dhoni, and Bhajji the debacle was only waiting to happen. Imagine, the turbanator managed to scalp just two wickets in four innings! And the English players are supposed to be ‘bad’ players of spin bowling! MSD chose a wrong match to show that he could play the game fairly, when he re-called Ian Bell who went on to smash a scintillating century. Then there was Micheal Vuaghan who sparked controversy with his Vaseline remark on the appeal that was turned down against Laxman. But honestly, one has to give it to the British players. All of them were in form- Pieterson, Strauss, Bell, Prior, Morgan, etc. Even some of their bowlers batted well. Bresnan did well, and Stuart Broad is emerging as a promising all-rounder. Not only did he bat very well, he did not in the least look like he was the guy who had once got hammered by Yuvi for six sixes in a T-20 match! In all, he scalped 15 wickets in two tests!!
Well, like in politics, there can never be permanent positions in cricket. The current English team is the best I’ve seen in a long, long time, and they richly deserve the newly gotten number one test team status. With two bad losses in two tests, the best that can India hope for is a 2-2 final tally. But that seems a tall order. Unless Viru and Zaks make it back into the team.
2 comments:
In a cricket crazy nation where murderers are ministers, the only people who cannot afford a bad day at work are the cricketers. They play like slaves and make the billions for old buggers at BCCI who even refuse to pay taxes for it.
Unprepared, disinterested, not worthy of the number 1 test status - these are things you hear everywhere and they could be true to some extent, but I can't help but feel sorry for the men in blue(currently playing in white). Apart from the endorsements, money and fame, they can be turned from demi gods to villians within no time. Occupational hazard perhaps?
And that being said, Bell had already made his century when the "incident" took place and scored only 22 runs after. Also, England still aren't the number 1 test team. They would be only if they beat India with a margin of two games. So if India wins a game and manages to draw the other, India still remains No. 1.
Let us see what Sehwaag can do in the remaining matches.
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