After a long time, I dozed off before before midnight yesterday. As sleep decided to give way I woke up to a chilly Bangalore morning at 6 30 am and realized that I had not switched off the lights in my room.
However my first instinct was to switch on the TV, hoping that some miracle would have happened in far off Sydney. The TV came to life with the voice of Ian Chappel (most probably him, as I was still half asleep to be really sure). My room was fully lit but I soon realized that there was no light at the end of the tunnel for team India! Captain Clarke was batting on 97 (and as I say this well on his way to scoring all the 291 runs that we managed, on his own) and Ricky Ponting was few runs short of his first century in 2 years. It was a quintessential bang gang... opposite of u know what ;) going on!
It is now a statistically provable hypothesis (in fact a fact!)that any batsman anywhere in the world who is
a) completely out of form
b) a class act struggling off late
c) trying to cement a place in his national team
d) about to be sacked
can turn around his fortunes in an India series (memories of Matty Hayden back in the early 2000s in the Turbanator series are refreshed)
But yes, hats off to you Ricky Ponting. If there was ever any doubt that 'Form is temporary, Class is permanent' is just another stupid phrase coined by Sunil Gavaskar... you have laid those doubts to rest. For you have demonstrated what playing under pressure means, what bouncing back is all about... and its a TIGHT SLAP on the face of all the skeptics who doubted you even after the brilliant century in the WC2011 qtr finals.
I know i have violated the rule of 'Ladies first' so back to talking about the ladies in the field today i.e. us (but Punter deserved a special mention). Although I had no interest in watching the match after the early morning jolt, a few things come to mind viz. is this the same pitch we are playing on, are we really serious about test cricket, are we well prepared, has too much cricket killed us and finally even if this team is the World Cup winner... do we lack the Killer instinct??
Disclaimer: I am by no means a Ricky Ponting or Aussie fan. I am a die hard Indian cricket fan. I am a test cricket lover. It is this passion that compels me to write this even as I sit in office and encroach upon my lunch time.
Is this the same pitch we are playing on? Yes, simple, straightforward answer and the ugly truth. This pitch is far from the MCG wicket which was a tricky one. For all the talks of a green top, it is a actually a good pitch to bat on. The question is about applying ourselves...did we do that? A certain SRT who tried to do that (and this i say without any bias or God fearing sentiments) saw wickets falling around him. 191 in the first innings after winning the toss is just not done! It takes my mind to the days when the top order would succumb to playing outside the off stump and the tail would be bounced out by the opposition. It sends a chill down my spine to even think about the recurrence of this old problem..brrr!
Are we well prepared? Are we taking test cricket seriously? Has too much cricket killed us?? Big questions that our non cricketer, poltus and black money minting BCCI officials have to answer.
All one can say is that we make a mockery of our cricket calendar. WC, IPL, WI tour, Eng tour, WI home series... seriously who are we kidding?? Wasn't the site of Zaheer Khan coming back home after a 1 day outing in England a good enough alarm bell?? Do we even have time for preparation? Lets just juxtapose 2 facts... how many man days of domestic cricket have been played by all our 15-16 squad members this year and how many days did we spend for acclimatization on our overseas tours? Compare this with other national teams and the answer is out there in the open.
It is good to see cricketers making money. At least it doesn't subject us to watching the hilarious benefits matches where cheques of 1 lac each are given to the great Indian cricketers of yesteryear's. At least, our boys are not tempted to ball no balls for $5-10K each. These guys deserve it, they have worked as hard if not more as anyone of us. The BCCI obviously makes money, probably a million times more than these people combined. But is that all? It is the game that makes the players, boards, the money and not the other way round. Some of the people reading this might call me a cynic but lets face it... nothing justifies burning out talented players for this, nothing justifies making a mockery of the India jersey like what is happening now. Nothing justifies all this... not even all the money in Mr SPs Swiss accounts.
Finally, have we lost our Killer instinct?? I doubt we ever had one! Yes, we always show glimpses of it and that too regularly, after Ganguly and Dhoni took over(WC final, T20 finals, Natwest finals). If yes, then why didn't Laxman score a 200 when we were down, why didn't a SRT dig a tent and stay put for 2 days on the SCG wicket?? How did out of form Clarke and Ponting manage it??
Again, I reiterate, I love Indian cricket, I love test cricket... sadly, right now both are out of action. It looks like 11 people going through the motions and the Aussies, 2 at a time taking turns to milk us.
Hope... that life will be restored to team India soon... hope to see the 100th 100 in the next 3 days, hope to see Laxman tormenting Clarke in his nightmares, hope to see a Killer Indian side and some top class test cricket.. luckily there are 13 more days of test cricket left.... Boys, lets make them count!!
Bleed Blue!!
P.S. - I am not the kind of person who would get so serious about a lot of things in life... but I myself am amazed at the passion certain things will evoke in certain people! Cheers!
However my first instinct was to switch on the TV, hoping that some miracle would have happened in far off Sydney. The TV came to life with the voice of Ian Chappel (most probably him, as I was still half asleep to be really sure). My room was fully lit but I soon realized that there was no light at the end of the tunnel for team India! Captain Clarke was batting on 97 (and as I say this well on his way to scoring all the 291 runs that we managed, on his own) and Ricky Ponting was few runs short of his first century in 2 years. It was a quintessential bang gang... opposite of u know what ;) going on!
It is now a statistically provable hypothesis (in fact a fact!)that any batsman anywhere in the world who is
a) completely out of form
b) a class act struggling off late
c) trying to cement a place in his national team
d) about to be sacked
can turn around his fortunes in an India series (memories of Matty Hayden back in the early 2000s in the Turbanator series are refreshed)
But yes, hats off to you Ricky Ponting. If there was ever any doubt that 'Form is temporary, Class is permanent' is just another stupid phrase coined by Sunil Gavaskar... you have laid those doubts to rest. For you have demonstrated what playing under pressure means, what bouncing back is all about... and its a TIGHT SLAP on the face of all the skeptics who doubted you even after the brilliant century in the WC2011 qtr finals.
I know i have violated the rule of 'Ladies first' so back to talking about the ladies in the field today i.e. us (but Punter deserved a special mention). Although I had no interest in watching the match after the early morning jolt, a few things come to mind viz. is this the same pitch we are playing on, are we really serious about test cricket, are we well prepared, has too much cricket killed us and finally even if this team is the World Cup winner... do we lack the Killer instinct??
Disclaimer: I am by no means a Ricky Ponting or Aussie fan. I am a die hard Indian cricket fan. I am a test cricket lover. It is this passion that compels me to write this even as I sit in office and encroach upon my lunch time.
Is this the same pitch we are playing on? Yes, simple, straightforward answer and the ugly truth. This pitch is far from the MCG wicket which was a tricky one. For all the talks of a green top, it is a actually a good pitch to bat on. The question is about applying ourselves...did we do that? A certain SRT who tried to do that (and this i say without any bias or God fearing sentiments) saw wickets falling around him. 191 in the first innings after winning the toss is just not done! It takes my mind to the days when the top order would succumb to playing outside the off stump and the tail would be bounced out by the opposition. It sends a chill down my spine to even think about the recurrence of this old problem..brrr!
Are we well prepared? Are we taking test cricket seriously? Has too much cricket killed us?? Big questions that our non cricketer, poltus and black money minting BCCI officials have to answer.
All one can say is that we make a mockery of our cricket calendar. WC, IPL, WI tour, Eng tour, WI home series... seriously who are we kidding?? Wasn't the site of Zaheer Khan coming back home after a 1 day outing in England a good enough alarm bell?? Do we even have time for preparation? Lets just juxtapose 2 facts... how many man days of domestic cricket have been played by all our 15-16 squad members this year and how many days did we spend for acclimatization on our overseas tours? Compare this with other national teams and the answer is out there in the open.
It is good to see cricketers making money. At least it doesn't subject us to watching the hilarious benefits matches where cheques of 1 lac each are given to the great Indian cricketers of yesteryear's. At least, our boys are not tempted to ball no balls for $5-10K each. These guys deserve it, they have worked as hard if not more as anyone of us. The BCCI obviously makes money, probably a million times more than these people combined. But is that all? It is the game that makes the players, boards, the money and not the other way round. Some of the people reading this might call me a cynic but lets face it... nothing justifies burning out talented players for this, nothing justifies making a mockery of the India jersey like what is happening now. Nothing justifies all this... not even all the money in Mr SPs Swiss accounts.
Finally, have we lost our Killer instinct?? I doubt we ever had one! Yes, we always show glimpses of it and that too regularly, after Ganguly and Dhoni took over(WC final, T20 finals, Natwest finals). If yes, then why didn't Laxman score a 200 when we were down, why didn't a SRT dig a tent and stay put for 2 days on the SCG wicket?? How did out of form Clarke and Ponting manage it??
Again, I reiterate, I love Indian cricket, I love test cricket... sadly, right now both are out of action. It looks like 11 people going through the motions and the Aussies, 2 at a time taking turns to milk us.
Hope... that life will be restored to team India soon... hope to see the 100th 100 in the next 3 days, hope to see Laxman tormenting Clarke in his nightmares, hope to see a Killer Indian side and some top class test cricket.. luckily there are 13 more days of test cricket left.... Boys, lets make them count!!
Bleed Blue!!
P.S. - I am not the kind of person who would get so serious about a lot of things in life... but I myself am amazed at the passion certain things will evoke in certain people! Cheers!
Way back too less money was the problem (benefit matches and all)and now too much money is the problem. Both are distracting talent in the game.
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