Game of Glorious Uncertainties

What an amazing Test Match it was! For some time, It looked like Aussie would reach the target, seeing the way, Warner and Rogers were going after the bowling, but the batting collapse, triggered by Swann and then Broad and Bresnan was incredible.  Aussies were left short of the target by 74 runs.  The match brought out all the unpredictability of the Cricket as a game we are used to.   Test Cricket is certainly a game of glorious uncertainties. 

From 109 for the loss of one wicket, Stuart Broad brought down the Aussies with a Six wicket haul in 45 deliveries, conceding just 20 Runs on the way.  This is classic bowling lessons for any budding Seam Bowler.  Pitch the Ball up, Keep it Straight and find some side-ways movement in between. It’s as simple as that!!!

But, before, the collapse was triggered by some fine piece of bowling from Greame Swann and Tim Bresnan.  Swann had accounted for Rogers and Khwaja and then came the magical moment of the test match.  Alastair Cook, asked Swann to take back his Sweaters from the Umpire as he handed the ball to Tim Bresnan.  Till now, Bresnan has been quite harmless with his seamers and the Cricket Pundits sitting on the Commentary Box wondered why Cook is doing this foolishness.  But at times, a good captain is kept apart by that instinctive decision, which can then, change the course of the match. 

At that point, if England had any chances of winning the match, then it would have been through the champion off-spinner who had just accounted for the first innings centurion and a sturdy looking Usman Khwaja. But it was not to be, as Cook and Bresnan came on top.  The English fielding unit which got expanded while Warner was going hammer and tongs got contracted again as they closed in on with every wicket.  

Glorious Uncertainties Indeed!!!  

 

The Day surely promises to be exciting...

Mmm…and interesting day ahead… four of the most exciting Test Teams in World Cricket are matching themselves against each other.  Australia against England in the Ashes series, as also later on the day, India takes on South Africa.  And as I write this, the second Ashes test is already underway, and how much worthy it was to stay back and watch the match a little. 

Half an hour into the match, and there was a visual treat which will linger on for days and I am talking about the stupendous catch Paul Collingwood took to dismiss Ricky Ponting.  The pitch was full of pace and the ball was flying all around when Englishmen were put into bowl.  As an obvious strategy, there were six men guarding the slip-gully corridor, and here it was, a tame defence from Ponting to a rising ball flying towards the fourth slip. 

Collingwood, rather than waiting for the ball, decided to pounce on the ball, and dived, stretching himself fully, air-borne, almost a meter and a half above the ground.  All the while he kept his soft hands behind the ball, intact, and let the ball to remain there, as he came back to ground with a thud.  He literally picks the red-cherry out of thin air.  Super technique of catching, impossible to mimic, and a great treat for the eyes.  These sort of catches are never practiced on net sessions and training sessions and comes out of  impulse, super-reflexes, and a commitment to excel in the highest way possible.  

Writing about the other match that is waiting around the corner for me to watch, this surely promises to be great advertisement for test cricket.  I don’t know how much a three-match test series can be a ‘Final Frontier’ as the India media projects it, but the rain is surely trying to play spoilsport as reports suggest.  Even then, it still appears to bring all the classic elements of a test match simply because of the actors involved.  Players like Smith, Kallis, Amla, DeVilliers, Steyn as also Sehwag, Dravid, Sachin and Laxman,  in action, on a wobbly track will surely be a purist’s delight. 

Something about the statistics, and I am compelled to bring to my notice the amazing fact that in the 15 test matches that south Africa played in SuperSport Park (the name of the ground), it has won an amazing number of 11 matches, while loosing only one.    It will be a tough ask, for Indian batters to face the quartet of Steyn, Morkel, Parnell and McLaren, but India also have its battery full.  Harbhajan needs to take a leaf out of Greame Swann’s book and look at how the Englishman had bowled quite aggressively, when England toured South Africa.  Swann chased wickets rather than trying to contain batsmen.  Who ever told that pace and bounce is only for fast bowlers? If one bowls with a consistent plan and on the right areas, spinners too prove to be lethal in such surfaces.  

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.