LoC - the Love for Cricket

Bearing the early Delhi winter-chill, I have been waking up at 5.30 in the morning for the last week or so, and mind you, for what? To Study and read...NO?  Guess once more, and it's not for hooking myself onto social networking.   I've been watching live Cricket early morning all these days, and again you'll be grossly wrong if you promptly said I was watching some slam-bang version branded something like ICC T-20 or even DLF IPL. 

I've been watching the Ashes for the past five days, and this version of Test Cricket played between England and Australia have been a revelation, tradition apart.  Some pure and sublime artistry was on display.  Batting efforts by   Andrew Strauss and Alaistair Cook as also Mike Hussey, Brad Haddin have been flirty and inviting, and the swing bowling of Peter Siddle and James Anderson has been a thing of beauty. 

I think Test Cricket is at an absolute high right now, with a lot of exciting games being played between Australia, India, England, Sri Lanka and West Indies.  What needs to be highlighted is the fact that all these games have been played with a lot of respect for the tradition of Cricket being a Gentleman's game. 

The Englishmen are known to make the most difficult cricketing strokes looks ridiculously simple and on the same vein, Australian players are known to play Test Cricket in the most simple and basic way in a consistent manner.  Also, they combine themselves together to form a formidable unit, making them the world-beaters. 

In the instant case, the first Ashes Test was intensely played between the two teams (Ironically, the drawn result itself was exciting), with the match swinging both ways will only add intensity and focus on their rivalry in the coming matches.