Cricket and Beyond

Hi all,

I have mentioned in my profile that Cricket is one of my passions. That actually is an understatement. I am (all the extreme adjectives can be used: on the pro of-course) intense fan of cricket and Indian cricket in particular. As i am forced to go to work by the vagaries of life, i am not able to follow the game completely. But i still am keeping track of the matches going on.

The ongoing series with Pakistan is not up to my liking. As a matter of fact, even the series previous to it. Although the results were different in both, (for the ignorant lot, We lost to Australia and won against our so called bitter rivals Pakistan) the aggression and the intensity was just missing. Even if it was, it was not there for the entire match or innings.

I feel India performs well when they are like the underdogs. This time though, it was not the case. There were two reasons to it. One, India came home with a World Cup to boot (50 or 20 over, who cares) and they could now not be considered underdogs to the 50 over World Champs Australia. Two, the Australian team which toured India, was not at all a World beating side. It was the Australian team minus Hussey(one of they batting mainstays), McGrath(one of the best line and lenght bowlers of all time) and Warne(one of the best leg spinners of all time). Although the depth in the Australian bench saw to it that the national team did not suffer because of this, one could see the aura of invincibility of the mighty Australian team wearing off. Warne was possibly the one guy whom the Australian team would not have missed as he has dismal record in India and Indians in general. So these factors made the Australian team more humane and average.(Compare this team to the previous Aus teams which toured India). As i had mentioned before, India were not the underdogs this time and hence, we lost the series. There were many more factors involved in the loss to Australia as a matter of fact but this was the psychological part.

Coming to the Pakistan series, our captain Dhoni, 'matured' after a maiden series against Aussies at home, inspired the team to win the series against Pakistan. I would like to mention this- Although the previous captain Dravid(One of my ALL TIME FAVORITE cricketer) played many a blinder of innings during his captaincy, he never was successful in inspiring the team. So internal duels in the team did not help then. Personally, Dravid will always be the best buddy of a captain and never the captain himself. He simply is not made for it. He has played unbelievable innings for India under Azhar and Ganguly and i expect him to do so under Dhoni too. Come to think of it, our most successful captain Ganguly, was helped in many a way by Dravid to build his tally.(Imagine, dravid in his peak- Century after century and catch after catch). But this is not true for Dhoni. Its very heartening that he's finding runs with bat and his keeping has improved by leaps and bounds(thanks to Dinesh for keeping Dhoni on toes) after he's become captain. More importantly, he's put the internal struggles behind and helping the team focus fully on the cricket. Some super partnerships between Yuvraj and Dhoni and the brilliance of Sachin took us through. Yuvi is in unbelievable form since the England series. I don't need to say anything about Sachin. He's beyond words.

Personally, i am fan of attacking cricket. You would be wondering how come i would be a fan of Dravid if i like attacking cricket. Let me tell you a scenario. The battery of world's fastest bowlers are bowling at a batsman. Say the average velocity of the delivery is around 150 Km/H.

As soon as i tell you this scenario one'll think this bombardment will go on for say 20 overs max. If a batsman like Dravid is defending the deliveries like it should not travel 2 metres from the crease, think of the pain it causes to the bowlers. He'll try to do something different and go for runs. His temperament is unquestionable. So he'll defend all the 20 overs if he's given the opportunity. On the bowler's side, think of bowling at a wall for 20 overs(with no result of-course)!

Will say more on my next post.
Cheerio