Y'know, I was jumping up and down for joy and ready to make a deliriously delighted post about India's Totally Awesome victory at Durban, until Dhoni made a very curious comment, right toward the end of the post-match presentation. He said, (paraphrased slightly) "We will party tonight, but will not get drunk."
This team is not only awesome, but also socially conscious. Huh.
But really, I think it's just a reference to the last time they won a match in SA, 4 years ago. I heard they celebrated so hard they actually had to pay for damages done to the dressing room.
Aaaaanyway.
What a win! Laxman! Zaheer! Sreesanth! Bhajji! The whole frickin' lot of 'em! I was a little dubious about the amount of difference Zaheer's return was supposed to make to our limp-as-lettuce-in-a-McDonald's-burger bowling attack, but the important thing seems to be that they believed it. I don't know how much of the impact was psychological and how much of it was strategic, but it worked, and everything turned out to be - wait for it - awesome.
One of the things I adored was that right after I make a post about the SSD/NUD dynamic, Laxman and Zaheer pull together a fabulous SSD/NUD themselves in a match-winning partnership. Laxman is just becoming a second-innings go-to guy, and I adore him except for the unfortunate fact that he keeps instigating some of the worst cricketing cliches: shots that are "caressed", somehow managing to be "smooth as silk", yet "precise as a surgeon's knife" at the same time. God.
So here's a cliche I do like: never-say-die. These guys don't roll over after being kicked to the ground. They take what luck comes their way, don't whine when it doesn't (well, they do try), and give their best. I'm proud of you guys. Congratulations, and all the best for the next one.
Showing posts with label Zaheer Khan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Zaheer Khan. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Sunday, December 26, 2010
The art of 'protecting' a tailender
You know how it goes.
The match is at a crucial stage - you're 7, maybe 8 wickets down with a few sessions still lift to play - more likely to save the match than win it, but you're willing to count a draw as a victory. So you're the Settled Specialist Dude (SSD) over there, and the guy who comes out to partner you is notoriously unreliable.
What do you do?
I've seen a lot of batsmen consistently refuse singles in the first few balls of the over, while the opposition captain spreads out the field, saying, come on dude, single ready when you want it. Around the fourth ball the batsman begins to get testy. Can the Notoriously Unreliable Dude (NUD) survive two balls? Is it okay for me to take a single here? The field begins to come in again, and the SSD is pushed into a corner. Fifth ball, SSD's all, shall I go for it now? No no, no need to take a risk now, there's still one ball left. And when the sixth ball is coming 'round, he's sweating bullets. The NUD is grinning at the other end, already dreaming of ensuing batting heroics, and the SSD sees the grin and is doubly nervous. The opposition closes in like a shark with blood in the water, and so the bowler barrels in with the last delivery of the over...
I've seen this more often than not with the Indian team. The one NUD that I remember actually lives up to his name is Zaheer Khan. For instance, in the current match against SA, Dhoni's at one end, and facing Morkel. He plays off four balls and takes a single off the fifth. Just one ball, right? Turns out he forgot one of the fundamental truths of cricket: you might spend several deliveries planning and scheming through your innings, but it takes only one to make them all useless. One ball, and Zaheer was out.
Ishant came in, and Dhoni sighed, screw this and took a single off the second ball to let Ishant face the rest of the over. And he survived.
The NUD/SSD dynamic rarely works for this team. I remember a couple of successes, namely: Dhoni and Sreesanth at Lord's working with the weather to save a match we really ought to have lost, and Laxman and Ishant at Mohali pulling off a Totally Awesome Win out of nowhere.
Huh.
As I type, Dhoni gets out after a fighting 35. India 205/9, likely to be 205 all out soon enough as two NUDs conference before one of them takes strike.
Dale Steyn barrels in...
EDIT OF SUPREME AWESOMENESS: Zaheer and Harbhajan have gotten hold of some serious mojo: SA are 104/8 now, and completely on the mat. Somebody pinch me, please.
EDIT OF WTFery: So we dismissed them for 131, and promptly slump to 48/3 after being 42/0. Two wickets to Lonwabo Tsotosobe. All right, people. What the hell? At this rate, Dhoni might find himself ending the day at the crease, just as he started the day.
EDIT OF WHAT-THE-HELL-IS-GOING-ON-HERE: Wicket no. 18 of day 2 falls as Sachin is snapped up by Steyn. 56/4. I think SA and India are trying to go one-up on each other in pure batting ineptitude. Screw the swing, pace, bounce, all that bull shit - we are better than this! Lead is just one hundred and thirty runs and if we don't get some spine soon all of Bhajj's and Zak's efforts will have come to naught!
Hooooly shit.
The match is at a crucial stage - you're 7, maybe 8 wickets down with a few sessions still lift to play - more likely to save the match than win it, but you're willing to count a draw as a victory. So you're the Settled Specialist Dude (SSD) over there, and the guy who comes out to partner you is notoriously unreliable.
What do you do?
I've seen a lot of batsmen consistently refuse singles in the first few balls of the over, while the opposition captain spreads out the field, saying, come on dude, single ready when you want it. Around the fourth ball the batsman begins to get testy. Can the Notoriously Unreliable Dude (NUD) survive two balls? Is it okay for me to take a single here? The field begins to come in again, and the SSD is pushed into a corner. Fifth ball, SSD's all, shall I go for it now? No no, no need to take a risk now, there's still one ball left. And when the sixth ball is coming 'round, he's sweating bullets. The NUD is grinning at the other end, already dreaming of ensuing batting heroics, and the SSD sees the grin and is doubly nervous. The opposition closes in like a shark with blood in the water, and so the bowler barrels in with the last delivery of the over...
I've seen this more often than not with the Indian team. The one NUD that I remember actually lives up to his name is Zaheer Khan. For instance, in the current match against SA, Dhoni's at one end, and facing Morkel. He plays off four balls and takes a single off the fifth. Just one ball, right? Turns out he forgot one of the fundamental truths of cricket: you might spend several deliveries planning and scheming through your innings, but it takes only one to make them all useless. One ball, and Zaheer was out.
Ishant came in, and Dhoni sighed, screw this and took a single off the second ball to let Ishant face the rest of the over. And he survived.
The NUD/SSD dynamic rarely works for this team. I remember a couple of successes, namely: Dhoni and Sreesanth at Lord's working with the weather to save a match we really ought to have lost, and Laxman and Ishant at Mohali pulling off a Totally Awesome Win out of nowhere.
Huh.
As I type, Dhoni gets out after a fighting 35. India 205/9, likely to be 205 all out soon enough as two NUDs conference before one of them takes strike.
Dale Steyn barrels in...
EDIT OF SUPREME AWESOMENESS: Zaheer and Harbhajan have gotten hold of some serious mojo: SA are 104/8 now, and completely on the mat. Somebody pinch me, please.
EDIT OF WTFery: So we dismissed them for 131, and promptly slump to 48/3 after being 42/0. Two wickets to Lonwabo Tsotosobe. All right, people. What the hell? At this rate, Dhoni might find himself ending the day at the crease, just as he started the day.
EDIT OF WHAT-THE-HELL-IS-GOING-ON-HERE: Wicket no. 18 of day 2 falls as Sachin is snapped up by Steyn. 56/4. I think SA and India are trying to go one-up on each other in pure batting ineptitude. Screw the swing, pace, bounce, all that bull shit - we are better than this! Lead is just one hundred and thirty runs and if we don't get some spine soon all of Bhajj's and Zak's efforts will have come to naught!
Hooooly shit.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Clicking of the cosmic tumblers
It's been a nice few months without cricket - exams, a month-long trip to the USA (where if you mention "cricket" you will be handed a bottle of insect repellent), and a healthy dose of disgusted disinterest pretty much wiped cricket off my agenda. Things have been fairly crazy, India and Sri Lanka are playing each other to the point of hair-rending boredom, the usual cricket is corrupt! (seriously, cricinfo? The IPL Mess? That's very educated and so enlightening. I'm going to imagine you're talking about some communal meals programme that Lalit Modi very kindly started for all the players) cricket is racist! (you nominate a guy even you don't like. Then imagine just how much you loathe the organisation you're nominating him to) nouveau-riche India is holding the cricket world in its filthy, corrupt hands (Hi, rabid anti-BCCI agenda! Also, BCCI =\= India. Seriously.) and all that jazz. However! I'm back, and looking forward to watching some cricket after the self-imposed exile. Before that, of course, a few things need to be pushed off the table:
Oh yeah.
Despite everything, did I ever stop watching the IPL? Nosiree. Anything that has "Chennai" tagged on to it should be the best, and wow, were we ever awesome. Halfway through the tournament, only thick-skinned optimists (such as yours truly) hoped they would reach the semifinals. I ventured a belligerent "they could even win, you know", only to take it back almost immediately with an apologetic grimace.
But CSK, man.
Perhaps one of the most gratifying things about watching the IPL was that, despite the fracas going on in the background, and all the jabbering about Twenty20 as a flashy chip of paint off the strong and proud edifice of cricket (listen to me gag... or not), the players (the ones who mattered anyway) took it seriously. There is some payoff to all the nights I spent up, all the emotion, and all the time I invested, when I see someone like Dhoni literally punch his face in intense emotion after winning that game, after practically pummelling his team into the semifinals from an impossible situation. From seeing someone like Sachin Tendulkar (been there, done that, bought half-a-million T shirts- Sachin Tendulkar) risk worsening his injured hand just so he could play the final for the MI. To hear from both captains what the game meant to them in the post-match ceremony. As long as we can get commitment like that from the dudes that matter, the twenty-two dudes on the field, then I am willing to ignore pretty much everything else. I will remember the IPL for that emotion, and will continue watching it for the same.
Not to mention opening my eyes to the potential of quite a few players - Ashwin (who I was delighted to find lives in the same area of the city that I do, and is a super-smart school-topper-college-graduate), and, of course, Dougie Bollinger, who may be the Awesomest Person that ever Awesomed.
After that, the Twenty20 World Cup. I watched India's league matches, and assured by Raina's Century of Awesomeness against South Africa, I left for the US the night before we officially started our Super Eight campaign. For weeks I had no clue about what was going on in the tournament, as all the US papers were interested in talking about was baseball, some dude called LeBron James who was making some other dudes in Cleveland very angry, with little by-notes informing the presumably disinterested audience about the happenings in the world of tennis. I was finally able to find a paper that was published exclusively for NRIs, and even in that, buried somewhere in the back-pages was an article titled "England win World Twenty20" followed by a grinning Paul Collingwood holding up the trophy.
If you were anywhere in Southwestern Texas at that time in Mid-May, you might have heard my resounding cry of "England won a world title??!!"
(Seriously, people. I'm sorry. I'm still thinking the whole thing is some kind of cheese-induced dream. And USA eats a lot of cheese.)
((... England?... ))
Not that I expected India to win the title, or anything - although I'd hoped they would - but I'd placed even Zimbabwe with a higher chance of getting the trophy than England. Cha, now there's a perfect record permanently marred (Jokes apart, congratulations to the English team, who now suddenly seem to be in the form of their life - although even that is not enough to provide immunity to the Loss to Bangladesh Out Of The Blue Syndrome).
However! I did not see 90% of the tournament, so I have no further opinion on it. But what's a blog without shameless pandering of opinion, right? So let me tell you of what I did see that May.
The U S of A. It was an interesting trip, and I have a few observations:
1. It is huge. And I mean, HUGE. It crosses three different time-zones, which is kind of a bother when you're trying to cover as much as you can in as little time as possible. It is not fun to keep adjusting clock every other day, and oh, the jet lag? Unforgiving. (there is a trememdous amount of flying to be done. I, for instance, took thirteen flights within the US. My spine hasn't forgiven me since.)
2. As huge as it is, there is very, very little in between. Most people live in suburbs that are several kilometres away from the hub of the city, which means taking out the car and going for a long drive just to shop for groceries. Or clothes. Or go to school. This is completely weird, at least to me, because Indian cities like to fold on top of themselves, rather than really spread. I can't walk more than a few metres from my home without hitting several dozen shops catering to your every possible need squeezed together and spilling onto the pavement; a bus terminus and an MRTS terminus a few roads over; a hospital, and no less than three different schools.
3. Speaking of: the cars. There are just so many of them. Even high school kids. Except in a few select areas, public transport seems to be a near non-entity. Which, again, weirded me out, because, hey. For all our faults, we at least have an extensive public transport system.
4. There is a strange kind of beauty to the vastness, too: the climates and the surroundings change from place to place -- you might be in the scorching (well, compared to Chennai, rather pleasant, I thought, and cackled in mad glee that I was conveniently missing the worst of the Chennai summer) heat of the Nevada desert; another day in chill, windy New York; another day driving through Idaho and Wyoming where the land seems to hug the sky in a spectacular union of clouds, mountains, sleet and rain.
5. You really have to admire the American tradition of preserving and promoting their natural heritage. A visit to a National Park there is an exhilarating experience. I visited the Niagara Falls, Yellowstone Park - and it snowed! - and the Grand Canyon, some of the most breath-taking things I've ever seen, or ever will see.
6. They eat. A lot. Practically everything available there is super-sized. I ate the largest slice of pizza I'd ever had in my life (took pictures and everything before I took my first bite, too) and had the pizza guy tell me it was medium-sized. Medium-sized! Coffee, cheese, sugar, chocolate abound. McDonald's. Arby's. Wendy's. Subway. All just a few metres apart, literally, and so cheap; it occurred to me just how easy it would be to lose yourself in the food, how easy it would be to put a welcome sign on yourself to conditions ranging from atherosclerosis to stroke.
7. American Born Desis have the weirdest conceptions about India. First off, an almost Pavlovian reaction of supreme disdain to anything Indian (a muted version of which you can detect in their immigrant parents). Secondly, a habit of ending sentences with, "...oh, do they have that in India yet? Do they allow that in India yet?" (Because we're obviously Timbuktu circa 1845.) Thirdly, some of the weirdest theories. Writing papers about our infamous fairness creams ads, wherein our "obsession with fairness was obviously a consequence of the inferiority complex we still suffer from due to the centuries of subjugation by the British". Pop!Sociology, I have found your messiahs.
8. Faux-politeness. "Good Morning, how are we today?" "Fine, thank you" seems to be the traditional greeting there. Shop attendants. Airport security officials. Random people on the street. Everywhere. They go, "oh, I like your shirt; just where did you get that design?" and I'm sort of dumbstruck, because that's a complete stranger I'm just passing by, and we're just so unused to such manners from all quarters that it's doubly frustrating to come back to India and face people who obviously fell asleep when road rules were being taught; who spit at your feet and give you hostile glares if you so much as make a request for them to move so you can walk past. The politeness is all a facade - on a level, you're aware of that and it's disturbing, but still.
9. ... and that's all she wrote. About the USA, anyway.
Because, cricket? Right, cricket.
I saw some of the Fateful Zimbabwe Tour. Mr. Srikkanth, were you really kidding us? You think you could just slap on India colours to a bunch of IPL successes (Manpreet Gony and Yusuf Pathan ought to have provided sufficient deterrent to that method of selection by now) and they'll be all "look at our youth power! we're totally ready to fill in full time roles in the national team!"? Personally, they played like India A's second reserve team in an off-season. Cha.
I did see the Asia Cup. The India-Pakistan game did restore some of my faith in the game, and 'sides, I had a good time speculating about Obviously-Alternate-Universe-Century-Hitting Shahid Afridi. Our ODI team is just not looking settled: batsmen seem to be okay, apart from Sehwag busting his shoulder every other day, Yuvraj's happily feeding and twittering away, Rohit Sharma is the absolute worst excuse for an international cricketer I have ever seen. Our all-rounders are Yusuf Pathan and Ravindra Jadeja, an unenviable choice. I have no idea what's our bowling attack any more, except that it's Zaheer Khan, et. al.
But what's ZK now? A pretty, pretty princess that keeps falling on some pea practically every other week, missing important series just when she's working herself upto some real bowling form. And of course, he had to go to Jo'burg for rehab. And he even mentioned something about catching the football wc final there! I swear I saw red.
Also, just a word here: Mr. Haigh's rant raised quite a few hackles, but I just laughed and laughed, because as soon as I read it I was reminded of this:
And now? The Test series v Sri Lanka to look forward to, followed by ODI series no. 87678 between India and Lanka (with NZ making a guest appearance. Gawd.)
Will we win? Will Mahendra Singh Dhoni's marriage affect his performance? Will it affect his team's performance? Will it create more fissures in an already cracked team? Will India be able to exorcise the ghosts of 2008? Will Sreesanth ever get to bowl again for India? Will Ishant Sharma ever get a proper haircut?
As Arnab Goswami's dulcet tones discuss these burning issues, I will turn off the TV till July 18, and I will hum, "When I get older, I will be stronger..."
Because I can.
(Also, I dedicate this post to my best friend, A, for nagging, encouraging, and prodding me back to blogging. Love you and hope you like. :D)
Despite everything, did I ever stop watching the IPL? Nosiree. Anything that has "Chennai" tagged on to it should be the best, and wow, were we ever awesome. Halfway through the tournament, only thick-skinned optimists (such as yours truly) hoped they would reach the semifinals. I ventured a belligerent "they could even win, you know", only to take it back almost immediately with an apologetic grimace.
But CSK, man.
Perhaps one of the most gratifying things about watching the IPL was that, despite the fracas going on in the background, and all the jabbering about Twenty20 as a flashy chip of paint off the strong and proud edifice of cricket (listen to me gag... or not), the players (the ones who mattered anyway) took it seriously. There is some payoff to all the nights I spent up, all the emotion, and all the time I invested, when I see someone like Dhoni literally punch his face in intense emotion after winning that game, after practically pummelling his team into the semifinals from an impossible situation. From seeing someone like Sachin Tendulkar (been there, done that, bought half-a-million T shirts- Sachin Tendulkar) risk worsening his injured hand just so he could play the final for the MI. To hear from both captains what the game meant to them in the post-match ceremony. As long as we can get commitment like that from the dudes that matter, the twenty-two dudes on the field, then I am willing to ignore pretty much everything else. I will remember the IPL for that emotion, and will continue watching it for the same.
Not to mention opening my eyes to the potential of quite a few players - Ashwin (who I was delighted to find lives in the same area of the city that I do, and is a super-smart school-topper-college-graduate), and, of course, Dougie Bollinger, who may be the Awesomest Person that ever Awesomed.
After that, the Twenty20 World Cup. I watched India's league matches, and assured by Raina's Century of Awesomeness against South Africa, I left for the US the night before we officially started our Super Eight campaign. For weeks I had no clue about what was going on in the tournament, as all the US papers were interested in talking about was baseball, some dude called LeBron James who was making some other dudes in Cleveland very angry, with little by-notes informing the presumably disinterested audience about the happenings in the world of tennis. I was finally able to find a paper that was published exclusively for NRIs, and even in that, buried somewhere in the back-pages was an article titled "England win World Twenty20" followed by a grinning Paul Collingwood holding up the trophy.
If you were anywhere in Southwestern Texas at that time in Mid-May, you might have heard my resounding cry of "England won a world title??!!"
(Seriously, people. I'm sorry. I'm still thinking the whole thing is some kind of cheese-induced dream. And USA eats a lot of cheese.)
((... England?... ))
Not that I expected India to win the title, or anything - although I'd hoped they would - but I'd placed even Zimbabwe with a higher chance of getting the trophy than England. Cha, now there's a perfect record permanently marred (Jokes apart, congratulations to the English team, who now suddenly seem to be in the form of their life - although even that is not enough to provide immunity to the Loss to Bangladesh Out Of The Blue Syndrome).
However! I did not see 90% of the tournament, so I have no further opinion on it. But what's a blog without shameless pandering of opinion, right? So let me tell you of what I did see that May.
The U S of A. It was an interesting trip, and I have a few observations:
1. It is huge. And I mean, HUGE. It crosses three different time-zones, which is kind of a bother when you're trying to cover as much as you can in as little time as possible. It is not fun to keep adjusting clock every other day, and oh, the jet lag? Unforgiving. (there is a trememdous amount of flying to be done. I, for instance, took thirteen flights within the US. My spine hasn't forgiven me since.)
2. As huge as it is, there is very, very little in between. Most people live in suburbs that are several kilometres away from the hub of the city, which means taking out the car and going for a long drive just to shop for groceries. Or clothes. Or go to school. This is completely weird, at least to me, because Indian cities like to fold on top of themselves, rather than really spread. I can't walk more than a few metres from my home without hitting several dozen shops catering to your every possible need squeezed together and spilling onto the pavement; a bus terminus and an MRTS terminus a few roads over; a hospital, and no less than three different schools.
3. Speaking of: the cars. There are just so many of them. Even high school kids. Except in a few select areas, public transport seems to be a near non-entity. Which, again, weirded me out, because, hey. For all our faults, we at least have an extensive public transport system.
4. There is a strange kind of beauty to the vastness, too: the climates and the surroundings change from place to place -- you might be in the scorching (well, compared to Chennai, rather pleasant, I thought, and cackled in mad glee that I was conveniently missing the worst of the Chennai summer) heat of the Nevada desert; another day in chill, windy New York; another day driving through Idaho and Wyoming where the land seems to hug the sky in a spectacular union of clouds, mountains, sleet and rain.
5. You really have to admire the American tradition of preserving and promoting their natural heritage. A visit to a National Park there is an exhilarating experience. I visited the Niagara Falls, Yellowstone Park - and it snowed! - and the Grand Canyon, some of the most breath-taking things I've ever seen, or ever will see.
6. They eat. A lot. Practically everything available there is super-sized. I ate the largest slice of pizza I'd ever had in my life (took pictures and everything before I took my first bite, too) and had the pizza guy tell me it was medium-sized. Medium-sized! Coffee, cheese, sugar, chocolate abound. McDonald's. Arby's. Wendy's. Subway. All just a few metres apart, literally, and so cheap; it occurred to me just how easy it would be to lose yourself in the food, how easy it would be to put a welcome sign on yourself to conditions ranging from atherosclerosis to stroke.
7. American Born Desis have the weirdest conceptions about India. First off, an almost Pavlovian reaction of supreme disdain to anything Indian (a muted version of which you can detect in their immigrant parents). Secondly, a habit of ending sentences with, "...oh, do they have that in India yet? Do they allow that in India yet?" (Because we're obviously Timbuktu circa 1845.) Thirdly, some of the weirdest theories. Writing papers about our infamous fairness creams ads, wherein our "obsession with fairness was obviously a consequence of the inferiority complex we still suffer from due to the centuries of subjugation by the British". Pop!Sociology, I have found your messiahs.
8. Faux-politeness. "Good Morning, how are we today?" "Fine, thank you" seems to be the traditional greeting there. Shop attendants. Airport security officials. Random people on the street. Everywhere. They go, "oh, I like your shirt; just where did you get that design?" and I'm sort of dumbstruck, because that's a complete stranger I'm just passing by, and we're just so unused to such manners from all quarters that it's doubly frustrating to come back to India and face people who obviously fell asleep when road rules were being taught; who spit at your feet and give you hostile glares if you so much as make a request for them to move so you can walk past. The politeness is all a facade - on a level, you're aware of that and it's disturbing, but still.
9. ... and that's all she wrote. About the USA, anyway.
Because, cricket? Right, cricket.
I saw some of the Fateful Zimbabwe Tour. Mr. Srikkanth, were you really kidding us? You think you could just slap on India colours to a bunch of IPL successes (Manpreet Gony and Yusuf Pathan ought to have provided sufficient deterrent to that method of selection by now) and they'll be all "look at our youth power! we're totally ready to fill in full time roles in the national team!"? Personally, they played like India A's second reserve team in an off-season. Cha.
I did see the Asia Cup. The India-Pakistan game did restore some of my faith in the game, and 'sides, I had a good time speculating about Obviously-Alternate-Universe-Century-Hitting Shahid Afridi. Our ODI team is just not looking settled: batsmen seem to be okay, apart from Sehwag busting his shoulder every other day, Yuvraj's happily feeding and twittering away, Rohit Sharma is the absolute worst excuse for an international cricketer I have ever seen. Our all-rounders are Yusuf Pathan and Ravindra Jadeja, an unenviable choice. I have no idea what's our bowling attack any more, except that it's Zaheer Khan, et. al.
But what's ZK now? A pretty, pretty princess that keeps falling on some pea practically every other week, missing important series just when she's working herself upto some real bowling form. And of course, he had to go to Jo'burg for rehab. And he even mentioned something about catching the football wc final there! I swear I saw red.
Also, just a word here: Mr. Haigh's rant raised quite a few hackles, but I just laughed and laughed, because as soon as I read it I was reminded of this:
And now? The Test series v Sri Lanka to look forward to, followed by ODI series no. 87678 between India and Lanka (with NZ making a guest appearance. Gawd.)
Will we win? Will Mahendra Singh Dhoni's marriage affect his performance? Will it affect his team's performance? Will it create more fissures in an already cracked team? Will India be able to exorcise the ghosts of 2008? Will Sreesanth ever get to bowl again for India? Will Ishant Sharma ever get a proper haircut?
As Arnab Goswami's dulcet tones discuss these burning issues, I will turn off the TV till July 18, and I will hum, "When I get older, I will be stronger..."
Because I can.
(Also, I dedicate this post to my best friend, A, for nagging, encouraging, and prodding me back to blogging. Love you and hope you like. :D)
Friday, December 18, 2009
It started with a century...
... and ended with a misfield.
Thanks, Zaheer.
Never did get much out of catching half a dozen buses across the city to get to a TV showing the match, did I.
Oh well.
Thanks, Zaheer.
Never did get much out of catching half a dozen buses across the city to get to a TV showing the match, did I.
Oh well.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Floundering in hyperbole
... not to mention crashing through stacks of meaningless rhetoric, tangling up in a bunch of sticky metaphors, eventually to fall into a roiling adjective soup, breathless descriptions cloying on my skin and rolling onto my laptop in great lumps... pretty much the kind of situation I find myself in when Virender Sehwag decides to play yet another of those innings.
It is usually prudent to give oneself sometime to regain lost breath, lest one starts giving into that sticky tangle of hilarious exaggeration (the Neandrathal comparsion's my favourite. Somewhere, Charles Darwin is rolling over in his grave... again). There's something about watching Viru Sehwag (and I don't think it an exaggeration when I say that it was indeed a Divine Intervention that the only full day of Test cricket I managed to catch all year was day 2 of the Mumbai Test) play that provokes intense emotion out of you. He nonchalantly spanks all and sundry on his way to 100, 200, 300... and you think, here's an epiphany. Even with the commentators regurgigating their usual staple of "No footwork, it's all exquisite hand-eye co-ordination" you think, you are obligated to say something about this. Because Sehwag sure ain't. It is brilliant, it is brutal, it's a million Thesauri meshed together into a savage beast of Biblical proportions as you search for -- and fail at finding -- words to fit in everything you wanted to say about Sehwag's innings. You are only more intent on celebrating this "simple, yet brilliant" mind when he comes out later with things like "I see ball, I hit ball."
He still says that, now with a smug matter-of-factness, probably amused at how people are fascinated by that statement of his. He probably still means it, but I'd like to believe that a lot of care, a lot of careful thought and construction go into each of his big innings. But even the cynic in me is defeated when he goes, "I was hitting only the bad balls, but in the dressing room they were telling me I was hitting some good balls too", or something to that effect.
In short, Virender Sehwag = all that's awesome about the Indian team right now. When he fires, he really fires; when he fails, it's not in half-measures, either.
And what can I say about Murali Vijay, other than he was really unfortunate to miss out on a well-deserved maiden ton? He looked delightfully assured and competent at the crease, and not for a moment was Gambhir missed. I loved how he kept the tempo up in the beginning as Viru settled at the other end. He is just so much awesome right now I can't even.
And Dhoni got his second century of the series. Wow. When it rains, it pours, huh?
And what a difference the return of Zaheer Khan has made to the team. Even though he didn't really start pulling his weight until toward the end of the series, just his presence, I believe, could rejuvenate our suddenly-floundering pace attack. It might be the most important plus point EVAH.
The Sri Lankans stuck around, and, uh, that's about it, really. There've been renewed murmurings about the presence/absence of the Umpire Decision Review System (or what the hell ever it's called), with Sanga going as far as to say that a couple of bad decisions cost them as much as 500 runs and possibly a victory or two.
Maybe, but the argument is moot when strong protestations against the newfangled thing are sounding with the backing of rock-hard evidence from the Aus v Windies series going on right now.
Either way, it's like stirring an old pile of stale shit, so.
The other big thing going right now is India's supposed ascension to the top of the ICC Test rankings with the 2-0 win against Sri Lanka. Lot of congratulations and chest-beating going on, tempered, of course, by some well-founded cynicism from other quarters of the cricketing fraternity. I agree, India haven't won enough overseas, the no 1 position is very fluid right now and can change hands frequently, India definitely is not the all-conquering champion side that West Indies or Australia once were. Check, check, check. But for now? That little rankings table reads like the way every Indian cricket fan has always dreamt it would read, for the first time ever. It's a nice moment, and the team and its supporters deserve to savour it while it lasts (except, of course, oh noes! The largely-accepted-for-the-past-eight-years ranking system is suddenly all WRONG because INDIA is no 1! Isn't that all kinds of unnatural? I mean, it's okay when the table shows Aus or SA at the top, cos that's how it'a meant to be, but India? Nah. And, oh, the Evil IPL is Evil. Just in case you'd forgotten.)
It kind of reminds me of my travails with Hindi in high school. I used to hate the language, and I believe the feeling was mutual. I scraped through the subject, until I came to my tenth Boards - the last time I'd be writing an exam for that subject. I was a jingling pile of nerves the day of the exam, and, despite being the most pathetic Hindi conversationist even this side of the Vindhyas, and getting my tenses mixed up practically every other paragraph, I passed with the highest distinction in the exam. "Pratham Shreni" says the certificate, still, and my mind still boggles at the sight. And how did I do so well? Pure dumb luck in that a lot of the questions I'd memorised the answers to made their appearance in the question paper, the fact that I was taking a less advanced Hindi course, and a little bit of innate ingenuity on my part at the time of writing the paper. I was surprised, more than a little pleased at seeing the high ranking, but I also knew exactly how much work I needed to actually put into my Hindi. Certainly I could blame the system for assigning qualifications to people who don't exactly deserve them, for the way the language is taught in schools with more emphasis on memorisation and rote than on conversation and free reading, but that's the way things are. Hindi and I have a much better relationship now - I hope - and perhaps one day I'll be deserving of the distinction I was awarded all those years back.
So, at the end of it all, what am I trying to say, you ask?
I have no idea.
Addendum: Only two Tests in the next 6 months??
Ridiculous. Can't wait for the South Africa tour -- in a year's time from now, I think -- already.
It is usually prudent to give oneself sometime to regain lost breath, lest one starts giving into that sticky tangle of hilarious exaggeration (the Neandrathal comparsion's my favourite. Somewhere, Charles Darwin is rolling over in his grave... again). There's something about watching Viru Sehwag (and I don't think it an exaggeration when I say that it was indeed a Divine Intervention that the only full day of Test cricket I managed to catch all year was day 2 of the Mumbai Test) play that provokes intense emotion out of you. He nonchalantly spanks all and sundry on his way to 100, 200, 300... and you think, here's an epiphany. Even with the commentators regurgigating their usual staple of "No footwork, it's all exquisite hand-eye co-ordination" you think, you are obligated to say something about this. Because Sehwag sure ain't. It is brilliant, it is brutal, it's a million Thesauri meshed together into a savage beast of Biblical proportions as you search for -- and fail at finding -- words to fit in everything you wanted to say about Sehwag's innings. You are only more intent on celebrating this "simple, yet brilliant" mind when he comes out later with things like "I see ball, I hit ball."
He still says that, now with a smug matter-of-factness, probably amused at how people are fascinated by that statement of his. He probably still means it, but I'd like to believe that a lot of care, a lot of careful thought and construction go into each of his big innings. But even the cynic in me is defeated when he goes, "I was hitting only the bad balls, but in the dressing room they were telling me I was hitting some good balls too", or something to that effect.
In short, Virender Sehwag = all that's awesome about the Indian team right now. When he fires, he really fires; when he fails, it's not in half-measures, either.
And what can I say about Murali Vijay, other than he was really unfortunate to miss out on a well-deserved maiden ton? He looked delightfully assured and competent at the crease, and not for a moment was Gambhir missed. I loved how he kept the tempo up in the beginning as Viru settled at the other end. He is just so much awesome right now I can't even.
And Dhoni got his second century of the series. Wow. When it rains, it pours, huh?
And what a difference the return of Zaheer Khan has made to the team. Even though he didn't really start pulling his weight until toward the end of the series, just his presence, I believe, could rejuvenate our suddenly-floundering pace attack. It might be the most important plus point EVAH.
The Sri Lankans stuck around, and, uh, that's about it, really. There've been renewed murmurings about the presence/absence of the Umpire Decision Review System (or what the hell ever it's called), with Sanga going as far as to say that a couple of bad decisions cost them as much as 500 runs and possibly a victory or two.
Maybe, but the argument is moot when strong protestations against the newfangled thing are sounding with the backing of rock-hard evidence from the Aus v Windies series going on right now.
Either way, it's like stirring an old pile of stale shit, so.
The other big thing going right now is India's supposed ascension to the top of the ICC Test rankings with the 2-0 win against Sri Lanka. Lot of congratulations and chest-beating going on, tempered, of course, by some well-founded cynicism from other quarters of the cricketing fraternity. I agree, India haven't won enough overseas, the no 1 position is very fluid right now and can change hands frequently, India definitely is not the all-conquering champion side that West Indies or Australia once were. Check, check, check. But for now? That little rankings table reads like the way every Indian cricket fan has always dreamt it would read, for the first time ever. It's a nice moment, and the team and its supporters deserve to savour it while it lasts (except, of course, oh noes! The largely-accepted-for-the-past-eight-years ranking system is suddenly all WRONG because INDIA is no 1! Isn't that all kinds of unnatural? I mean, it's okay when the table shows Aus or SA at the top, cos that's how it'a meant to be, but India? Nah. And, oh, the Evil IPL is Evil. Just in case you'd forgotten.)
It kind of reminds me of my travails with Hindi in high school. I used to hate the language, and I believe the feeling was mutual. I scraped through the subject, until I came to my tenth Boards - the last time I'd be writing an exam for that subject. I was a jingling pile of nerves the day of the exam, and, despite being the most pathetic Hindi conversationist even this side of the Vindhyas, and getting my tenses mixed up practically every other paragraph, I passed with the highest distinction in the exam. "Pratham Shreni" says the certificate, still, and my mind still boggles at the sight. And how did I do so well? Pure dumb luck in that a lot of the questions I'd memorised the answers to made their appearance in the question paper, the fact that I was taking a less advanced Hindi course, and a little bit of innate ingenuity on my part at the time of writing the paper. I was surprised, more than a little pleased at seeing the high ranking, but I also knew exactly how much work I needed to actually put into my Hindi. Certainly I could blame the system for assigning qualifications to people who don't exactly deserve them, for the way the language is taught in schools with more emphasis on memorisation and rote than on conversation and free reading, but that's the way things are. Hindi and I have a much better relationship now - I hope - and perhaps one day I'll be deserving of the distinction I was awarded all those years back.
So, at the end of it all, what am I trying to say, you ask?
I have no idea.
Addendum: Only two Tests in the next 6 months??
Ridiculous. Can't wait for the South Africa tour -- in a year's time from now, I think -- already.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Fleeting Impressions and Post-Mortems
A week or so ago, inspired by the kazillion 'looking-back-on-2008's-cricket' articles to come, I sat down to write one of my own. It never got finished, distracted as I was by South Africa's exhilarating campaign in Australia, Bangladesh's attempts at renaissance against Sri Lanka, some entertaining domestic cricket, and the Gayle-show on as the Kiwis faced the Windies. Cricket squeezed the most it could out of even the very last days of the year, and right now, looking at the half-finished draft, I couldn't help but think, 'ah, chuck this'. The game transcends any attempt I could possibly make to sum it up, and 2008 was a more tumultuous year than most for this beautiful game. The normal Powers That Be on the cricket field are all out of whack, and therefore 2009 promises to be an exciting year for the game. I can only provide my fleeting impressions of how cricket this year affected me, because that's all my spectrum is limited to. I don't even play the game (hell, the only sport I took up seriously was tennis, and even that fell to the wayside for academics), but I adore it with an inexplicable passion, and therefore I sit here and type, despite the sleep tugging at my eyes.
The year started off interestingly enough, with the Eternal Drama Queens of Cricket presenting you their ultimate production: Sydneygate, Jan '08. More than anything, apart from all the accusations of racism, blackmail, threats, and the vitriol, it was the actual cricket that disappointed me most. Don't get me wrong - I thought Sydney played host to a fantastic Test match that week, but I was reduced to crying tears of bitter disappointment even as a confused Ishant Sharma gazed dazedly at his captain at the other end when he was the last Indian wicket to be dismissed with just five minutes left on the fifth day to be played out for a draw even as the Australians went completely - and undertstandably, in retrospect - berserk in delight. Mixed dangerously with the disappointment was anger and resentment, as the Test had also showcased every kind of blunder an umpire could possibly make on a cricket field, and the team most harmed by this incompetence from Benson and Bucknor was India. Sure, fine, the umpires make mistakes, we get it, but Sydney '08? Was too much to take in one go. Bucknor adjudging Andrew Symonds not out when he had clearly edged Ishant Sharma to Dhoni... I mean, what the hell? It was probably the only time I have ever seen Dhoni stare at the umpire in abject disbelief, and Ishant was left practically doubled over in agony, clutching his hair, and all I wanted to do was go and give the kid a hug. The bottomline was, at the end of the match, I was left feeling utterly cheated, and I suspected, so did many other Indians and that exacerbated every little ramification of whatever happened in that Test. The true extent of the BCCI's financial muscle was exposed, resentment built, Indo-Australian relations were almost irreparably damaged. I thought it was all great entertainment at that time, really, but this statement from Anil Kumble? Hit home in more ways than one: "Only one team out there was playing the spirit of the game. That's all I can say." in that firm, polite voice of his, barely glazing over a simmering anger... the first time I actually stood up and applauded. Kumble handled the fall-out of Sydneygate so well, and the way the team regrouped under him to record an unprecedented win at Perth... it was the absolute high-point of Kumble's captaincy stint. To have gotten his 600th Test wicket in the same game -the wicket being that of Symonds' , ha - was just a sweet bonus. What a man.
And after that was the triangular ODI tournament, and amidst all the furore about senior players being dropped in favour of younger greenhorns, the seemingly inexplicable faith being shown in a woefully out of form Yuvraj Singh, illegal gloves, verbal sending-offs, obnoxious weeds, shadow-boxing, streakers and rugby tackles, India shone through in the end, shored up by the brilliance of their bowlers and Sachin Tendulkar, and a batting line-up that finally managed to click. The finals were won, and the last-ever CB Tri-series trophy to be hosted by Australia was securely in Dhoni's hands, even as his ice-cool demanour was finally broken with a warm, proud smile as he asked the youngest member of his team to lift the trophy first. Talk about proving a point! Here was where we really got a feel of where he planned to take his team as a captain, and it was a portent for great things to come.
Despite all the euphoria however, our inconsistency as a team was once again highlighted as we struggled to draw the home series with South Africa that followed, leaving aside Sehwag's triple-century on a Chennai featherbed. Folding up for 76 on the first morning of the Ahmedabad Test within 20 overs has got to be one of Indian cricket's most humiliating moments.
Still! All was forgotten as soon after that, the IPL started. And everything else ended.
As a spectator, forgetting those two months ain't gonna be easy (not that I want to). Before the player auctions, I was half-considering ignoring the whole thing, faced as I was with the dilemma of whether I ought to support Dhoni's team or the Chennai team, Dhoni and Chennai being two things close to my heart. That was, of course, happily solved by the fact that Dhoni was bought by Chennai for an astronomical sum, but looking back now, I realise now that even if I'd wanted to, I could never have ignored it. The IPL was everywhere. On TV. On the ka-zillion news channels. On billboards. In TV ads. On the radio. In the newspaper. On the internet. My friends' conversations.
Just. Everywhere. It was mind-boggling. And a marketing masterpiece.
I watched and followed, open-mouthed, mind inundated with Twenty20. There was slapgate, there was glamour. There were half-naked cheerleaders, there was delicious controversy. Endless gimmicks. Great music. Horrible commentary. Non-stop advertising. Good-looking comperes (mm). And not to forget, some great cricket as well. Although admittedly, toward the end of the tournament, as a spectator I felt utterly exhausted and was relieved when it finally ended, leaving behind hungry cricket fans even where there were previously none (Nothing more frightening than having my hitherto cricket-phobic mother come with me to watch a match, and admire Adam Gilchrist's batting).
International cricket went inexorably on - the Indian ODI team, overworked in the unforgiving subcontinental summer, reached and lost a couple of finals, the final of the Asia Cup being the more significant of the two, as Ajantha Mendis rent the young batting lineup into pieces with his uber-mysterious spin bowling, announcing his arrival on the world stage as a formidable possible successor to Muralitharan. It was then that Dhoni decided enough was enough, that if the iterinary wasn't loosened, he was going to take matters into his own hands, and took a self-enforced break from the Test series against Sri Lanka, which was eventually lost 2-1 in a series that briefly exacerbated the whole seniors turmoil in Indian cricket, especially considering that the Middle Order collectively failed against the wiles of Muralitharan and Mendis. Dhoni returned for the ODI series, the bowlers shone with preternatural awesomeness, Dhoni almost singlehandedly held the threads of the fraying batting line-up together, the team made most of the little dollops of luck that came their way, and the ODI series was won, with India left a lot to think about.
Pakistan's terrorism-induced isolation in world cricket finally came to a head as the Champions Trophy scheduled to be held there was postponed (read: cancelled). India went on to win the Border Gavaskar Trophy after that, decimated England in the ODI series, won the Test series as well via one of the more memorable fourth-innings chases in Chennai, finally ending a mixed year with an anticlimactic Plod.
So? I don't disagree that it was a great year for Indian cricket, apart from the whole falling apart in Sri Lanka part. The reasons for this are manifold: things that previously used to be an uncertainty in Indian cricket are now our greatest strengths - a fantastic pair of opening batsmen, excellent up and coming pacers, a solid wicketkeeper-batsman, and an innovative, aggressive captain. Funnily enough, the previously rock-solid middle order turned out to be a little soft this year, though.
A lot has been written about how India finish the year as the no. 1 team. Uh, I'm not too sure about that. Like Sourav Ganguly said, we've played most of our Test cricket at home this year, and lost the only two overseas series that we did play (Australia and Sri Lanka). We have yet to play an overseas Test with Dhoni at the helm. With the Pakistan tour cancelled, his first overseas challenge will come in the form of a tour of New Zealand. I feel that India will falter there, but will hopefully come out of the experience a better team.
Moving on from India, the end of the year showed up who was truly now the best team in the world: South Africa. Topping off an excellent year with a first-time series win in Australia, with two absolutely phenomenal Test matches throwing up some fantastic names like deVilliers and JP Duminy, has given Graeme Smith plenty of reasons to smile, smile so hard his (non-existent) lips crack. 11 wins out of 14 Tests in the year? That's the freakin definition of phenomenal.
Australia, however, start the year playing the last Test of the series they've already lost - a position they haven't been in in nearly 16 years, 16 years where whole generations of cricketers have come and gone, either to bask in the glory of Australian dominance or to get spanked by it. Sure, Australia is in a tough position, presumably brought about by some mistaken belief in their old unshakable dominance, when clearly, with a retired Gilchrist, Warne, McGrath, an out-of-form Hayden, Lee and Hussey, lack of a proper spinner, a rash of injuries to key players, and the exposure of the limits to Ponting's leadership, they aren't. What surprises me, though, is the reaction of the Australian media. I mean, the death of Australian cricket? Over-reaction much? Sure the team had a tough year and it will be some time before they come close to being the team they once were, but these post-mortems from the Australian media aren't helping matters any. They seem to have firmly perched their rear on the panic button, and while that is admittedly funny and great to enjoy, it ain't pretty. And here I was, thinking only the sensationalist lookit-me-dammit Indian media did that. It is an international malaise, apparently, and somehow, that's not very reassuring. At all.
And the Australian selectors aren't helping matters any. Before the Border Gavaskar Trophy, I had no idea who Trevor Hohns or Andrew Hilditch was - to me the Australian selection board was just an anonymous bunch of suited men who had the most enviable job of typing out and selecting the best players in the world and sit back and watch them win match after match. Now, though? When faced with an actual crisis situation? They run around, completely confused. Australia have gone through a kabillion spinners for the Test team, some of them not even the first-choice spinners for their State sides, they have persisted with out-of-form players in Hayden and Symonds out of some apparent misplaced sentimentality, denying younger players the opportunity to play for the national team (hello, where's Marsh, Jacques, Rogers and the rest?). All this while, the Aussie selectors have had a team that they could put together like a complete jigsaw puzzle, all the pieces fitting perfectly against each other, forming a formidable team that demanded the highest intensity and great feats to be defeated. Now, though? Now, the jigsaw box has been upended, the pieces are all scattered and several are missing, and the selectors are trying to fill in the gaps with misshapen pieces of cardboard and glue.
So. 2009 promises to be a year which would finally decide who takes over from Australia, and my bets are on South Africa, although India seem to have a great chance as well. Exciting stuff. Also looking forward to the Twenty20 season this summer. I've enjoyed all the exhilarating Test cricket, now I think it's high time for some T20 action.
Oh, and because I couldn't help it, here are my 2008 teams of the year:
Tests
Virender Sehwag
Gautam Gambhir ( I know, I know, where's Smith? you ask. I say that while he's had a phenomenal year, I prefer to look at the opening combination as a whole rather than the individual batsmen. As a combo, VirunGauti have always been greater than the sum of their parts. A fantastic rocket-propellant at the start of the innings).
Ricky Ponting (Amla just misses out)
Kevin Pietersen
Shivnarine Chanderpaul (like, duh)
AB deVilliers (has had a great year with the bat, and is an awesome fielder)
Mahendra Singh Dhoni -wk, capt. (Need I even explain?)
Zaheer Khan
Dale Steyn
Ishant Sharma (sorry that Johnson had to miss out, but Zaks and Ishi have been so phenomenal, even on tracks least conducive to pace, and are one of the main reasons India has done so well this year)
Ajantha Mendis (all hail this special spinner. He promises even greater things for Sri Lanka in the coming years)
12th man: Hashim Amla
ODIs
Virender Sehwag
Chris Gayle (br... if I were a bowler, I would be afraid of this combo. Very afraid. )
Gautam Gambhir (highest run-scorer in ODIs this year, and has previously shown the temperament and ability to be a successful number three, as in Australia)
Kevin Pietersen (there's no getting away from this man)
Yuvraj Singh (ah ha ha, after I brainwash him to believe that every opposition he plays against is England)
Mahendra Singh Dhoni - wk, capt.
Andrew Flintoff
Daniel Vettori
Zaheer Khan
Nathan Bracken
Ajantha Mendis
12th man: Stuart Broad
Here's wishing everybody a happy and prosperous New Year 2009.
The year started off interestingly enough, with the Eternal Drama Queens of Cricket presenting you their ultimate production: Sydneygate, Jan '08. More than anything, apart from all the accusations of racism, blackmail, threats, and the vitriol, it was the actual cricket that disappointed me most. Don't get me wrong - I thought Sydney played host to a fantastic Test match that week, but I was reduced to crying tears of bitter disappointment even as a confused Ishant Sharma gazed dazedly at his captain at the other end when he was the last Indian wicket to be dismissed with just five minutes left on the fifth day to be played out for a draw even as the Australians went completely - and undertstandably, in retrospect - berserk in delight. Mixed dangerously with the disappointment was anger and resentment, as the Test had also showcased every kind of blunder an umpire could possibly make on a cricket field, and the team most harmed by this incompetence from Benson and Bucknor was India. Sure, fine, the umpires make mistakes, we get it, but Sydney '08? Was too much to take in one go. Bucknor adjudging Andrew Symonds not out when he had clearly edged Ishant Sharma to Dhoni... I mean, what the hell? It was probably the only time I have ever seen Dhoni stare at the umpire in abject disbelief, and Ishant was left practically doubled over in agony, clutching his hair, and all I wanted to do was go and give the kid a hug. The bottomline was, at the end of the match, I was left feeling utterly cheated, and I suspected, so did many other Indians and that exacerbated every little ramification of whatever happened in that Test. The true extent of the BCCI's financial muscle was exposed, resentment built, Indo-Australian relations were almost irreparably damaged. I thought it was all great entertainment at that time, really, but this statement from Anil Kumble? Hit home in more ways than one: "Only one team out there was playing the spirit of the game. That's all I can say." in that firm, polite voice of his, barely glazing over a simmering anger... the first time I actually stood up and applauded. Kumble handled the fall-out of Sydneygate so well, and the way the team regrouped under him to record an unprecedented win at Perth... it was the absolute high-point of Kumble's captaincy stint. To have gotten his 600th Test wicket in the same game -the wicket being that of Symonds' , ha - was just a sweet bonus. What a man.
And after that was the triangular ODI tournament, and amidst all the furore about senior players being dropped in favour of younger greenhorns, the seemingly inexplicable faith being shown in a woefully out of form Yuvraj Singh, illegal gloves, verbal sending-offs, obnoxious weeds, shadow-boxing, streakers and rugby tackles, India shone through in the end, shored up by the brilliance of their bowlers and Sachin Tendulkar, and a batting line-up that finally managed to click. The finals were won, and the last-ever CB Tri-series trophy to be hosted by Australia was securely in Dhoni's hands, even as his ice-cool demanour was finally broken with a warm, proud smile as he asked the youngest member of his team to lift the trophy first. Talk about proving a point! Here was where we really got a feel of where he planned to take his team as a captain, and it was a portent for great things to come.
Despite all the euphoria however, our inconsistency as a team was once again highlighted as we struggled to draw the home series with South Africa that followed, leaving aside Sehwag's triple-century on a Chennai featherbed. Folding up for 76 on the first morning of the Ahmedabad Test within 20 overs has got to be one of Indian cricket's most humiliating moments.
Still! All was forgotten as soon after that, the IPL started. And everything else ended.
As a spectator, forgetting those two months ain't gonna be easy (not that I want to). Before the player auctions, I was half-considering ignoring the whole thing, faced as I was with the dilemma of whether I ought to support Dhoni's team or the Chennai team, Dhoni and Chennai being two things close to my heart. That was, of course, happily solved by the fact that Dhoni was bought by Chennai for an astronomical sum, but looking back now, I realise now that even if I'd wanted to, I could never have ignored it. The IPL was everywhere. On TV. On the ka-zillion news channels. On billboards. In TV ads. On the radio. In the newspaper. On the internet. My friends' conversations.
Just. Everywhere. It was mind-boggling. And a marketing masterpiece.
I watched and followed, open-mouthed, mind inundated with Twenty20. There was slapgate, there was glamour. There were half-naked cheerleaders, there was delicious controversy. Endless gimmicks. Great music. Horrible commentary. Non-stop advertising. Good-looking comperes (mm). And not to forget, some great cricket as well. Although admittedly, toward the end of the tournament, as a spectator I felt utterly exhausted and was relieved when it finally ended, leaving behind hungry cricket fans even where there were previously none (Nothing more frightening than having my hitherto cricket-phobic mother come with me to watch a match, and admire Adam Gilchrist's batting).
International cricket went inexorably on - the Indian ODI team, overworked in the unforgiving subcontinental summer, reached and lost a couple of finals, the final of the Asia Cup being the more significant of the two, as Ajantha Mendis rent the young batting lineup into pieces with his uber-mysterious spin bowling, announcing his arrival on the world stage as a formidable possible successor to Muralitharan. It was then that Dhoni decided enough was enough, that if the iterinary wasn't loosened, he was going to take matters into his own hands, and took a self-enforced break from the Test series against Sri Lanka, which was eventually lost 2-1 in a series that briefly exacerbated the whole seniors turmoil in Indian cricket, especially considering that the Middle Order collectively failed against the wiles of Muralitharan and Mendis. Dhoni returned for the ODI series, the bowlers shone with preternatural awesomeness, Dhoni almost singlehandedly held the threads of the fraying batting line-up together, the team made most of the little dollops of luck that came their way, and the ODI series was won, with India left a lot to think about.
Pakistan's terrorism-induced isolation in world cricket finally came to a head as the Champions Trophy scheduled to be held there was postponed (read: cancelled). India went on to win the Border Gavaskar Trophy after that, decimated England in the ODI series, won the Test series as well via one of the more memorable fourth-innings chases in Chennai, finally ending a mixed year with an anticlimactic Plod.
So? I don't disagree that it was a great year for Indian cricket, apart from the whole falling apart in Sri Lanka part. The reasons for this are manifold: things that previously used to be an uncertainty in Indian cricket are now our greatest strengths - a fantastic pair of opening batsmen, excellent up and coming pacers, a solid wicketkeeper-batsman, and an innovative, aggressive captain. Funnily enough, the previously rock-solid middle order turned out to be a little soft this year, though.
A lot has been written about how India finish the year as the no. 1 team. Uh, I'm not too sure about that. Like Sourav Ganguly said, we've played most of our Test cricket at home this year, and lost the only two overseas series that we did play (Australia and Sri Lanka). We have yet to play an overseas Test with Dhoni at the helm. With the Pakistan tour cancelled, his first overseas challenge will come in the form of a tour of New Zealand. I feel that India will falter there, but will hopefully come out of the experience a better team.
Moving on from India, the end of the year showed up who was truly now the best team in the world: South Africa. Topping off an excellent year with a first-time series win in Australia, with two absolutely phenomenal Test matches throwing up some fantastic names like deVilliers and JP Duminy, has given Graeme Smith plenty of reasons to smile, smile so hard his (non-existent) lips crack. 11 wins out of 14 Tests in the year? That's the freakin definition of phenomenal.
Australia, however, start the year playing the last Test of the series they've already lost - a position they haven't been in in nearly 16 years, 16 years where whole generations of cricketers have come and gone, either to bask in the glory of Australian dominance or to get spanked by it. Sure, Australia is in a tough position, presumably brought about by some mistaken belief in their old unshakable dominance, when clearly, with a retired Gilchrist, Warne, McGrath, an out-of-form Hayden, Lee and Hussey, lack of a proper spinner, a rash of injuries to key players, and the exposure of the limits to Ponting's leadership, they aren't. What surprises me, though, is the reaction of the Australian media. I mean, the death of Australian cricket? Over-reaction much? Sure the team had a tough year and it will be some time before they come close to being the team they once were, but these post-mortems from the Australian media aren't helping matters any. They seem to have firmly perched their rear on the panic button, and while that is admittedly funny and great to enjoy, it ain't pretty. And here I was, thinking only the sensationalist lookit-me-dammit Indian media did that. It is an international malaise, apparently, and somehow, that's not very reassuring. At all.
And the Australian selectors aren't helping matters any. Before the Border Gavaskar Trophy, I had no idea who Trevor Hohns or Andrew Hilditch was - to me the Australian selection board was just an anonymous bunch of suited men who had the most enviable job of typing out and selecting the best players in the world and sit back and watch them win match after match. Now, though? When faced with an actual crisis situation? They run around, completely confused. Australia have gone through a kabillion spinners for the Test team, some of them not even the first-choice spinners for their State sides, they have persisted with out-of-form players in Hayden and Symonds out of some apparent misplaced sentimentality, denying younger players the opportunity to play for the national team (hello, where's Marsh, Jacques, Rogers and the rest?). All this while, the Aussie selectors have had a team that they could put together like a complete jigsaw puzzle, all the pieces fitting perfectly against each other, forming a formidable team that demanded the highest intensity and great feats to be defeated. Now, though? Now, the jigsaw box has been upended, the pieces are all scattered and several are missing, and the selectors are trying to fill in the gaps with misshapen pieces of cardboard and glue.
So. 2009 promises to be a year which would finally decide who takes over from Australia, and my bets are on South Africa, although India seem to have a great chance as well. Exciting stuff. Also looking forward to the Twenty20 season this summer. I've enjoyed all the exhilarating Test cricket, now I think it's high time for some T20 action.
Oh, and because I couldn't help it, here are my 2008 teams of the year:
Tests
Virender Sehwag
Gautam Gambhir ( I know, I know, where's Smith? you ask. I say that while he's had a phenomenal year, I prefer to look at the opening combination as a whole rather than the individual batsmen. As a combo, VirunGauti have always been greater than the sum of their parts. A fantastic rocket-propellant at the start of the innings).
Ricky Ponting (Amla just misses out)
Kevin Pietersen
Shivnarine Chanderpaul (like, duh)
AB deVilliers (has had a great year with the bat, and is an awesome fielder)
Mahendra Singh Dhoni -wk, capt. (Need I even explain?)
Zaheer Khan
Dale Steyn
Ishant Sharma (sorry that Johnson had to miss out, but Zaks and Ishi have been so phenomenal, even on tracks least conducive to pace, and are one of the main reasons India has done so well this year)
Ajantha Mendis (all hail this special spinner. He promises even greater things for Sri Lanka in the coming years)
12th man: Hashim Amla
ODIs
Virender Sehwag
Chris Gayle (br... if I were a bowler, I would be afraid of this combo. Very afraid. )
Gautam Gambhir (highest run-scorer in ODIs this year, and has previously shown the temperament and ability to be a successful number three, as in Australia)
Kevin Pietersen (there's no getting away from this man)
Yuvraj Singh (ah ha ha, after I brainwash him to believe that every opposition he plays against is England)
Mahendra Singh Dhoni - wk, capt.
Andrew Flintoff
Daniel Vettori
Zaheer Khan
Nathan Bracken
Ajantha Mendis
12th man: Stuart Broad
Here's wishing everybody a happy and prosperous New Year 2009.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Draw-ing the year to a close
Ahem, ignore lameness of title, kplzthnx.
Yeah, so the second Test match at Mohali ended in a tame, plodding draw, and yeah these 'farcical finishes' don't help the already-dwindling stadium attendances (uh, really?), the negative stuff 'kills the spirit of the game' (seriously?), and blah, blah, blah, but guess what made it worth it ALL? The moment where the plodding-along-knowing-the-result-anyway became a prelude to the BEST moment of the match??
Dhoni taking the ball to bowl the last over of the match.
Call me insane if you like, I'd've paid through my frickin' nose to watch him bowl (except it'd be mucous-covered and stuff, cos I'm so ill I don't know how I'm typing this crap).
All the inanity and Dhoni-Love aside, this Test ended with not much to go with it - except for the Dravid Comeback and Gambo scoring his usual truckload - and the over-snipping at the beginning and end of every day didn't help matters. India had a real chance of winning yesterday, though, rolling over England's last four for barely 20 runs in the morning. For some reason they indulged in a tortuous plod that did nobody any good - least of all the batsmen themselves, as two of them even got run-out (well, who asked you to go at 2 an over in the first place?), and by the time Yuvraj Singh came in toward the end of day 4 and started smacking the ball around (like I'd freakin expected the rest of them to, well, okay, not Dravid, but still) the match had already been killed - like had a stake driven through its metaphorical heart, players metaphorically dancing in its metaphorical blood, repeatedly flaying its metaphorical corpse, while not-so-metaphorically scoring more runs and damn if I'm not tired of metaphors by now. Yuvraj and Gambo entertained for a bit in the morning (ha ha, I came the closest I'd ever come to liking Yuvraj when he hit Prior - unintentional, yeah, but I loved it) then got out within a few runs of their centuries leaving several people (not least their generous declaration-delaying captain) rolling their eyes.
And then! England came and had some televised batting practice before the Moment of the Match happened, and then it was all handshakes and presentations and stuff (Zaheer Khan got the man of the series, by the way, and that was a pleasant surprise).
India win the series 1-0. I'm actually kinda disappointed Dhoni's 100% win record had to end. I'm spoilt, I say! Spoilt!
So the Indians wanted to make sure they could hold on to their 1-0 lead and not draw the series 1-1 in a bout of foolish bravado, sure, that's perfectly justified, but still. Like I said before: two Test series? Me no likey. This could've made for a wonderful five match series.
It's kind of disappointing for England to go home with absolutely no silverware at all, because they actually performed extremely well in the Tests - considering they'd been steamrollered in the ODIs and the disturbances and uncertainty that came in between. They don't deserve going home without even a single win to their name, to be fair, but India made sure it won the moments that mattered, while England floundered. (Plus, we have Dhoni. Unfair advantage much?)
So! All in all? A tame end to a frickin awesome year for the Indian team (other than the whole being decimated in Sri Lanka and the Asia Cup final by Mendis part, and oh, the infamous Ahmedabad Massacre by the Saffers), and I would so say more about this, except I'm worn out by illness and exams and stuff (kinda why the post is crazier than usual), so I'll spare the torture.
Oh, and a Merry Christmas to the precious few who actually happen to read this blog (I love you all, I do).
Oh, oh, oh, and!!!!
.... I... I... there're no words. Just.... just none. *dies*
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Yum, Test Cricket
It's been an interesting couple of days at Mohali.
Even as I type, Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff are doggedly extending their big stand for the fifth wicket, trying to up the tempo even while Zaheer Khan and co try to strangulate the hitherto impressive run-rate and I keep rolling my eyes and my conscience is hitting me with a white-hot poker to focus on reading for yet another Exam of Doom.
... But. Let's start at the beginning, 'kay?
So Rahul Dravid made hundreds of cricket fans around the world very, very happy by finally notching up a century. I've kind of forgotten what a typical Rahul Dravid century looks like, but experts claim that the 136 he scored was close enough, so I'm happy for him. To pull something like this while going through an extended and particularly horrendous run of poor form, is more than commendable. He and Gambhir (who put on 179 awesome runs himself), got in a mammoth 314 for the second wicket, even though the run-rate was crawl-worthy. The others came in and tried to force the pace, and perished for it - thanks to some tight and wonderful bowling from Flintoff and Swann. Still - ending up with 453 is pretty good, so.
Beginning of the 3rd day, and England start their innings. More like India start their bowling stint - and how! Zaheer Khan has Strauss captured leg before off the very second ball of the day, while Ishant Sharma - off the very first ball of the next over - makes a mess of the middle stump behind a very befuddled Ian Bell. 2/2, the scoreboard read, and I thought I would jump up and start singing (until, of course, I actually did jump up and sing... >.>)
KP and the insanely hot (what? He is!) Alastair Cook got together and through a period of some brilliant, positive batting, had notched up 100-odd runs in no time. To see England go at more than 4 an over while India had crawled at barely 3 in their innings had me disconcerted, I must admit (um, didn't the script usually read the other way round?) but soon we had snagged both Cook and Collingwood and the scoreboard read a precarious 131/4.
Enter Flintoff. I didn't celebrate.
And with good reason.
Still. An entertaining contest, what? India still distinctly on top - unless they get their butts moving and pick up a flurry of wickets, this match is likely to end in a draw. Plus, with all the delays and cuts in overs coming due to fog and the winter and the poor light? A draw's loomin' large.
But. You never know.
In my previous post, to illustrate the vagaries of this wonderful game, I had pointed to South Africa's 1st innings collapse from a good position in their 1st Test against Australia. Now, though? Now, take a look at the scorecard. It goes "South Africa win by 6 wickets" and you are tempted to go "what the hell" right? I was.
Turns out SA chased down 414 with centuries from Smith and deVilliers.
Losing just 4 wickets.
In WACA, Perth.
Against Australia.
HA HA. Post-McGrath&Warne is starting to bite Ponting's rear, hard, you may say.
I agree.
But still. Australia had SA all over the place for so much of the Test. They seemed so sure to win. I'm not sure I'm old enough to bet, but I was willing to put all my meagre pocket-money on it. What did the Saffers do? Why, go and pull of the second-highest run-chase in recorded Test history, that's what.
Coming on the heels of a equally spectacular chase coming in eerily similar circumstances pulled off by India in Chennai, it was just so wonderful to take in. Teams need not worry anymore, huh? You can be crap in the first three days, but you're still good enough to win - and win comfortably, spectacularly.
Just awesome.
Now Australia are struggling. The statement brings alarming joy.
What a selection of Tests we've had this year. Quite delicious.
That reminds me of an incident at college the other day. I was talking to somebody about the England-India Tests, before a curious friend overheard and asked me what score I was quoting. I told her, and her face pulled into a spectacularly exaggerated expression of disgust. "Test match?" she said. "Please. I'm not interested if it's not an ODI or T20." I thought of disagreeing, but just shrugged and went away. A couple of hours later she sidled up next to me in class and whispered frantically for the score. Not wasting the opportunity to ram in my point, I refused to tell her ("It's only a Test match like you said, right?"), until she was practically eating out of my hand at the end of the day.
Ha ha ha. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE.
Even as I type, Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff are doggedly extending their big stand for the fifth wicket, trying to up the tempo even while Zaheer Khan and co try to strangulate the hitherto impressive run-rate and I keep rolling my eyes and my conscience is hitting me with a white-hot poker to focus on reading for yet another Exam of Doom.
... But. Let's start at the beginning, 'kay?
So Rahul Dravid made hundreds of cricket fans around the world very, very happy by finally notching up a century. I've kind of forgotten what a typical Rahul Dravid century looks like, but experts claim that the 136 he scored was close enough, so I'm happy for him. To pull something like this while going through an extended and particularly horrendous run of poor form, is more than commendable. He and Gambhir (who put on 179 awesome runs himself), got in a mammoth 314 for the second wicket, even though the run-rate was crawl-worthy. The others came in and tried to force the pace, and perished for it - thanks to some tight and wonderful bowling from Flintoff and Swann. Still - ending up with 453 is pretty good, so.
Beginning of the 3rd day, and England start their innings. More like India start their bowling stint - and how! Zaheer Khan has Strauss captured leg before off the very second ball of the day, while Ishant Sharma - off the very first ball of the next over - makes a mess of the middle stump behind a very befuddled Ian Bell. 2/2, the scoreboard read, and I thought I would jump up and start singing (until, of course, I actually did jump up and sing... >.>)
KP and the insanely hot (what? He is!) Alastair Cook got together and through a period of some brilliant, positive batting, had notched up 100-odd runs in no time. To see England go at more than 4 an over while India had crawled at barely 3 in their innings had me disconcerted, I must admit (um, didn't the script usually read the other way round?) but soon we had snagged both Cook and Collingwood and the scoreboard read a precarious 131/4.
Enter Flintoff. I didn't celebrate.
And with good reason.
Still. An entertaining contest, what? India still distinctly on top - unless they get their butts moving and pick up a flurry of wickets, this match is likely to end in a draw. Plus, with all the delays and cuts in overs coming due to fog and the winter and the poor light? A draw's loomin' large.
But. You never know.
In my previous post, to illustrate the vagaries of this wonderful game, I had pointed to South Africa's 1st innings collapse from a good position in their 1st Test against Australia. Now, though? Now, take a look at the scorecard. It goes "South Africa win by 6 wickets" and you are tempted to go "what the hell" right? I was.
Turns out SA chased down 414 with centuries from Smith and deVilliers.
Losing just 4 wickets.
In WACA, Perth.
Against Australia.
HA HA. Post-McGrath&Warne is starting to bite Ponting's rear, hard, you may say.
I agree.
But still. Australia had SA all over the place for so much of the Test. They seemed so sure to win. I'm not sure I'm old enough to bet, but I was willing to put all my meagre pocket-money on it. What did the Saffers do? Why, go and pull of the second-highest run-chase in recorded Test history, that's what.
Coming on the heels of a equally spectacular chase coming in eerily similar circumstances pulled off by India in Chennai, it was just so wonderful to take in. Teams need not worry anymore, huh? You can be crap in the first three days, but you're still good enough to win - and win comfortably, spectacularly.
Just awesome.
Now Australia are struggling. The statement brings alarming joy.
What a selection of Tests we've had this year. Quite delicious.
That reminds me of an incident at college the other day. I was talking to somebody about the England-India Tests, before a curious friend overheard and asked me what score I was quoting. I told her, and her face pulled into a spectacularly exaggerated expression of disgust. "Test match?" she said. "Please. I'm not interested if it's not an ODI or T20." I thought of disagreeing, but just shrugged and went away. A couple of hours later she sidled up next to me in class and whispered frantically for the score. Not wasting the opportunity to ram in my point, I refused to tell her ("It's only a Test match like you said, right?"), until she was practically eating out of my hand at the end of the day.
Ha ha ha. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Day 1: Take a bow, Ricky Ponting!
Scorecard and commentary
Australia 254/4 at the end of day 1, Hayden 0, Katich 66, Ponting 123, Hussey 46*, Clarke 11, Watson 0*; Z Khan 2 for 39, I Sharma 1 for 49, H Singh 1 for 71.
After all the waiting and the hype, yeah, we got a full day of cricket. It was a day that mostly belonged to the Aussies - particularly Ricky Ponting - and they're now nicely placed for a big score, provided India's seamers - who're bowling wonderfully with the new ball - don't disrupt their plans with a few quick wickets tomorrow. Interestingly poised.
It was a day that had a weird up and down quality to it, plenty of seriously dramatic flares interspersed with some pretty monotonous cricket. I watched as much as I could, but you really had to look out for the drama. The moments just come out of the blue, and keeps your mind occupied until the next one comes and hits you upside the head. Classic stuff. This Border-Gavaskar tussle has created so much hype, and the matches so often live up to it and so often impossibly transcend the hype, that this is looked upon as an Ashes without the century-old history and the lack of competition. Because, competition? Intense.
The first over of the day - Zaheer Khan charging in and swinging the ball and generally bowling well, Hayden a little circumspect. Third ball of the day, he has a go at a Zaheer delivery outside off - or so it seems. The ball appears close to the edge, the edge appears close to the pad, and it's all generally confusing, but Dhoni collects centimetres from the ground and goes up in appeal along with the bowler and the slip cordon. Asad Rauf thinks about it for some time, decides Hayden did nick it, and lifts the dreaded finger. Out! Australia, 0 for 1! Hayden, Aus's Superman in India, out for a third-ball duck! Couldn't have asked for a more exhilarating first over for the series.
Ishant and Zaheer Khan bowled brilliantly in the first one hour, and troubled both Ponting and Katich (the other opener), both of whom survived several close lbw calls. After that, though, the two settled in, particularly with the advent of the spinners (whom Ponting played very well, so much for the much-anticipated Bhajji vs Ponting battle). The going was still slow, though - the run-rate almost never crossed 3 runs an over. Track was a little low, but appeared great for batting, as after the morning start that assisted the seamers, the bowlers hardly ever appeared threatening.
Australia reached Lunch at 75 for 1 - the rebuilding process well underway. It continued in the second session. The outfielding continued to be hopeless, and Katich and Ponting ran athletically and intelligently between the wickets. They turned on the juice a little this time - while the first session the run-rate was just a little over two, the run-rate here actually touched three. Both Ponting and Katich reached their half-centuries and seemed to be batting almost effortlessly. Zaheer and Ishant bowled well without getting the breakthroughs and Kumble and Harbhajan seemed singularly ineffective. Before Tea though, after a mammoth 166 run partnership, Ishant bagged Katich, caught behind by Dhoni. Ponting was joined by Mike Hussey, and as the teams went to Tea, Ponting had 94 next to his name and looking good for a ton.
After Tea, Ponting did get his century, and what a moment it was ! Hats off to you, mate. I'm not particularly fond of Ponting, but even I had to stand up and applaud. After all the bull-crap that's been talked about before this series about Ponting's dismal average in India, his struggles against spin and in particular Harbhajan, and the fact that his highest score here was 60, and all that he's had to endure, the pressure, the criticism and such-like, him grabbing the first opportunity he got and making the best use of it and proving a point to his critics was a great spectacle.
There was more drama to come when Kumble was bowling. Hussey was looking decidedly shifty at the crease as Kumble went through an inspired spell, and at one stage, with the scoreboard reading 201 for 2, Ponting played one back to the bowler that looked mighty close to being caught and bowled. Kumble appealed raucously accompanied by Dhoni and the close-in fielders to a lesser extent, but Koertzen was unmoved. Slow-mo replays showed that Ponting had indeed scooped back one to the bowler, and Ricky? Was lucky. And Rudi? Was given the Kumble Glare of Doom. An over or two after that, Anil appealed for a close lbw against Ricky, and was turned down by Koertzen again. But seriously, that appeal? Kumble looked so angry and desperate and almost ready to burst into tears, and Koertzen, annoyed by the over-the-top vociferousness (that is totally a word!) of the appeal, frowned and placed his hands on his hips, and I didn't know whether to laugh or to groan or to just magically teleport to Bangalore and give Kumble a hug as he turned away in despair and disgust.
Virender Sehwag bowled beautifully, late as he was brought into the attack, and got the elusive Turn and Bounce. Harbhajan who had rarely troubled Ponting through the day, finally confirmed to us that he still had Ricky's number - he had merely misplaced it till then - by bagging his wicket lbw when Ponting was on 123. Still, Bhajji, would've appreciated it if it had come, say, 100 runs earlier, yeah? Hussey and Clarke continued to plod on, though, but Zaheer Khan, in the last over the day, seemed determined to end it on the terms with which he had begun: he trapped Michael Clarke in front of the stumps with an absolute peach of a delivery. It was a dramatic end to the day, and took away a bit of sheen of the Australian innings, leaving the match better balanced.
... Okay, so general assessment? The Indian seamers bowled well today, but the spinners were mostly ineffective, the outfielding in general was not great, the field placements at times allowed too many easy singles... yet, the Aussies finished the day with an overall run-rate of much less than three, which surprised me. I mean, the cautious stuff in the morning was understandable, having received a setback so early. But why the diffidence throughout? Weren't the Aussies the ones to have made going at 3.5-4 an over in Tests the norm? Why couldn't they have pressed the accelerator at a time when they had India on the mat? In being so defensive, they allowed India to peg back a few before too much damage had been done to the host's chances in the game. Amazingly, despite Ponting's century and his big partnerships with Katich and Hussey, India go into day 2 with the slightest of advantages. Only 254 runs have been piled on, the inexperienced middle and lower-middle order has been exposed (Watson, judging by his IPL performance might be depended upon, but he's got precious little match-practice recently and Tests are a different ball game from Twenty20; Haddin the Batsman I'm not so sure about, but he did play well in the ODI series in India last year, but then again, he has proven problems against spin; White is an unknown commodity, he'll be hoping to pull off a Clarke; the lower order of Lee, Johnson and Clark looks strong; despite all of this, Aussies are so gonna miss Symmo and Gilly) and the second new ball is only 2 overs old. Come morning, and you can expect Ishant and Zaheer to be very dangerous, especially against a tentative seeming Hussey, and a brand-new-at-the-crease Watson.
I'm a little concerned about Kumble. I haven't the authority to judge his captaincy, but I just wonder. Does it really suit him? As in, on the field? He gets so angry and frowny everytime he bowls and he, IMO, just kinda sends out a bad vibe. Also, his Glares of Doom (that make even me squirm, even though I'm watching on TV hundreds of kilometres away) everytime somebody makes a mifield or fumbles a chance is something I don't like. You aren't that great a fielder yourself, you know, Anil.
Aanyway, so things are positioned for a cracker tomorrow. Early wickets are KEY, 'cause anything above 350, and the Indian Middle Order, already under so much pressure, would have to face much more. Let's see what happens, though.
... Oh, and there was a shot between overs that showed Dhoni thoughtfully chewing at his glove's webbing. Adorable! And can I just say that he looks incredibly cute in Test whites? With his uber-cool shades and sweaty and tousled hair and the nonchalant way in which he collected and passed the ball to slips? I'm SO fangirling him now.
... You know, because there just wasn't enough fangirling in this post.
Australia 254/4 at the end of day 1, Hayden 0, Katich 66, Ponting 123, Hussey 46*, Clarke 11, Watson 0*; Z Khan 2 for 39, I Sharma 1 for 49, H Singh 1 for 71.
After all the waiting and the hype, yeah, we got a full day of cricket. It was a day that mostly belonged to the Aussies - particularly Ricky Ponting - and they're now nicely placed for a big score, provided India's seamers - who're bowling wonderfully with the new ball - don't disrupt their plans with a few quick wickets tomorrow. Interestingly poised.
It was a day that had a weird up and down quality to it, plenty of seriously dramatic flares interspersed with some pretty monotonous cricket. I watched as much as I could, but you really had to look out for the drama. The moments just come out of the blue, and keeps your mind occupied until the next one comes and hits you upside the head. Classic stuff. This Border-Gavaskar tussle has created so much hype, and the matches so often live up to it and so often impossibly transcend the hype, that this is looked upon as an Ashes without the century-old history and the lack of competition. Because, competition? Intense.
The first over of the day - Zaheer Khan charging in and swinging the ball and generally bowling well, Hayden a little circumspect. Third ball of the day, he has a go at a Zaheer delivery outside off - or so it seems. The ball appears close to the edge, the edge appears close to the pad, and it's all generally confusing, but Dhoni collects centimetres from the ground and goes up in appeal along with the bowler and the slip cordon. Asad Rauf thinks about it for some time, decides Hayden did nick it, and lifts the dreaded finger. Out! Australia, 0 for 1! Hayden, Aus's Superman in India, out for a third-ball duck! Couldn't have asked for a more exhilarating first over for the series.
Ishant and Zaheer Khan bowled brilliantly in the first one hour, and troubled both Ponting and Katich (the other opener), both of whom survived several close lbw calls. After that, though, the two settled in, particularly with the advent of the spinners (whom Ponting played very well, so much for the much-anticipated Bhajji vs Ponting battle). The going was still slow, though - the run-rate almost never crossed 3 runs an over. Track was a little low, but appeared great for batting, as after the morning start that assisted the seamers, the bowlers hardly ever appeared threatening.
Australia reached Lunch at 75 for 1 - the rebuilding process well underway. It continued in the second session. The outfielding continued to be hopeless, and Katich and Ponting ran athletically and intelligently between the wickets. They turned on the juice a little this time - while the first session the run-rate was just a little over two, the run-rate here actually touched three. Both Ponting and Katich reached their half-centuries and seemed to be batting almost effortlessly. Zaheer and Ishant bowled well without getting the breakthroughs and Kumble and Harbhajan seemed singularly ineffective. Before Tea though, after a mammoth 166 run partnership, Ishant bagged Katich, caught behind by Dhoni. Ponting was joined by Mike Hussey, and as the teams went to Tea, Ponting had 94 next to his name and looking good for a ton.
After Tea, Ponting did get his century, and what a moment it was ! Hats off to you, mate. I'm not particularly fond of Ponting, but even I had to stand up and applaud. After all the bull-crap that's been talked about before this series about Ponting's dismal average in India, his struggles against spin and in particular Harbhajan, and the fact that his highest score here was 60, and all that he's had to endure, the pressure, the criticism and such-like, him grabbing the first opportunity he got and making the best use of it and proving a point to his critics was a great spectacle.
There was more drama to come when Kumble was bowling. Hussey was looking decidedly shifty at the crease as Kumble went through an inspired spell, and at one stage, with the scoreboard reading 201 for 2, Ponting played one back to the bowler that looked mighty close to being caught and bowled. Kumble appealed raucously accompanied by Dhoni and the close-in fielders to a lesser extent, but Koertzen was unmoved. Slow-mo replays showed that Ponting had indeed scooped back one to the bowler, and Ricky? Was lucky. And Rudi? Was given the Kumble Glare of Doom. An over or two after that, Anil appealed for a close lbw against Ricky, and was turned down by Koertzen again. But seriously, that appeal? Kumble looked so angry and desperate and almost ready to burst into tears, and Koertzen, annoyed by the over-the-top vociferousness (that is totally a word!) of the appeal, frowned and placed his hands on his hips, and I didn't know whether to laugh or to groan or to just magically teleport to Bangalore and give Kumble a hug as he turned away in despair and disgust.
Virender Sehwag bowled beautifully, late as he was brought into the attack, and got the elusive Turn and Bounce. Harbhajan who had rarely troubled Ponting through the day, finally confirmed to us that he still had Ricky's number - he had merely misplaced it till then - by bagging his wicket lbw when Ponting was on 123. Still, Bhajji, would've appreciated it if it had come, say, 100 runs earlier, yeah? Hussey and Clarke continued to plod on, though, but Zaheer Khan, in the last over the day, seemed determined to end it on the terms with which he had begun: he trapped Michael Clarke in front of the stumps with an absolute peach of a delivery. It was a dramatic end to the day, and took away a bit of sheen of the Australian innings, leaving the match better balanced.
... Okay, so general assessment? The Indian seamers bowled well today, but the spinners were mostly ineffective, the outfielding in general was not great, the field placements at times allowed too many easy singles... yet, the Aussies finished the day with an overall run-rate of much less than three, which surprised me. I mean, the cautious stuff in the morning was understandable, having received a setback so early. But why the diffidence throughout? Weren't the Aussies the ones to have made going at 3.5-4 an over in Tests the norm? Why couldn't they have pressed the accelerator at a time when they had India on the mat? In being so defensive, they allowed India to peg back a few before too much damage had been done to the host's chances in the game. Amazingly, despite Ponting's century and his big partnerships with Katich and Hussey, India go into day 2 with the slightest of advantages. Only 254 runs have been piled on, the inexperienced middle and lower-middle order has been exposed (Watson, judging by his IPL performance might be depended upon, but he's got precious little match-practice recently and Tests are a different ball game from Twenty20; Haddin the Batsman I'm not so sure about, but he did play well in the ODI series in India last year, but then again, he has proven problems against spin; White is an unknown commodity, he'll be hoping to pull off a Clarke; the lower order of Lee, Johnson and Clark looks strong; despite all of this, Aussies are so gonna miss Symmo and Gilly) and the second new ball is only 2 overs old. Come morning, and you can expect Ishant and Zaheer to be very dangerous, especially against a tentative seeming Hussey, and a brand-new-at-the-crease Watson.
I'm a little concerned about Kumble. I haven't the authority to judge his captaincy, but I just wonder. Does it really suit him? As in, on the field? He gets so angry and frowny everytime he bowls and he, IMO, just kinda sends out a bad vibe. Also, his Glares of Doom (that make even me squirm, even though I'm watching on TV hundreds of kilometres away) everytime somebody makes a mifield or fumbles a chance is something I don't like. You aren't that great a fielder yourself, you know, Anil.
Aanyway, so things are positioned for a cracker tomorrow. Early wickets are KEY, 'cause anything above 350, and the Indian Middle Order, already under so much pressure, would have to face much more. Let's see what happens, though.
... Oh, and there was a shot between overs that showed Dhoni thoughtfully chewing at his glove's webbing. Adorable! And can I just say that he looks incredibly cute in Test whites? With his uber-cool shades and sweaty and tousled hair and the nonchalant way in which he collected and passed the ball to slips? I'm SO fangirling him now.
... You know, because there just wasn't enough fangirling in this post.
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