Cricket Shastra

While the rain played spoilsport at Brisbane, and promising to do so in Sydney too, a ray of sunshine broke through.

I just read about Haladhar Das, a wicketkeeper-batsman from very humble roots (he hails from a small village in Orissa) and cannot help but think why were the nineties so bleak in terms of quality wicketkeepers who could just bat a bit. Right now we have no dearth for quality wicketkeeper-batsman – Dhoni being the numero uno, Karthik pushed his way into the Indian Team just on the basis of his batting (and also out of it currently only because of his batting, anyways I think he deserves more chances), and remember Parthiv Patel (yeah the one to whom Steve Waugh retorted in the last Australian tour that he has been playing cricket even before Patel was born) – he has been scoring prolifically in the domestic arena (had he been scoring such runs few years back, Dhoni would have found it very difficult to break into the Indian team); and now Haladhar Das. Where were the wicketkeepr-batsmen in the late nineties and early years of present decade? Anyways because of that problem, at least India found one of its premier batsmen – Dravid saved his ODI career owing to the same problems.

I’ll be surely following the career of Haladhar Das and hope he gives Dhoni, Karthik, Patel some sleepless nights, and the Indian Team a happy dilemma to be in.

From 83 for 4 to 267 for 4 !!
Not bad at all .. I would say. Quite a fantastic recovery from India.
Lets focus on the positives first. Gambhir has started finding his feet in the international arena ever since his wonderful batting exploits at the top of the order during the T20 World Cup. He can now be put down as a reliable Number 3 player for India, at least in the 50 over version. This has more to do with the lack of options present, than with his talent. Among the present pool of batsmen India has, no one is more suited for this role than him (I am counting out Rahul Dravid, as he probably will find it tough to find way back into the ODI team .. whatever be the result of this series). The onus is on Gambhir to take his role seriously and deliver in crunch matches. Even Today, he almost threw away his wicket while on 10 and had Sangakara not grassed that chance, the scoreboard might have read a lot different.
I have always had doubts about Dhoni’s ability to bat in tough conditions. He always seems to be able to bat in only two modes, either overly aggressive or overly defensive. I am yet to see a aggresive defense or a defensive aggression from this chap. He just seems like he wants to hang in there when the conditions are tough, even if he gets bad balls. At other times, he seems like he wants to get the match over at the earliest, and starts banging every ball out of the park. But I was pleasantly surprised today with his batting. His innings was a fine example of how to build one’s innings. After the couple of quick dismissals, one due to an umpiring horror and the other due to outright stupidity from the batsman, his calmness brought some method in the madness that was prevailing in the middle.
Together, the two understated batsmen fought off the chances of mid innings collapse. By the time the allotted quota of overs were bowled, one of them had helped himself to a truly deserving century and other one had played a wonderfully paced captain’s innings. For quite some time, I had thought that this inning would also go the same way as the one against Australia. But these two displayed great skills in keeping the good balls out and swatting others for boundaries , especially towards the end of the innings.
Now its time to get on with the negatives. Yuvi was the one player who was supposed to make the batting order strong. But he always had problems playing quality spin bowlers. He can swat them for a couple of boundaries, but he definitely can’t bat consistently well against them. Today too, Murli had him bamboozled. It wasn’t so much about the quality of the shot that he played, but about how easily Murli had foxed him. Remember the Manoj Tiwary dismissal against Brett Lee ? Bouncer, bouncer , bouncer and then out of nowhere, a yorker length delivery. With Yuvi batting, Murli bowled three flat fast-ish deliveries on his stumps and gave the next one some air. Yuvi was enticed into the drive and ended up giving a catch at slip. I don’t think there is any prettier site for a bowler than to see his plan work out against one of the top batsmen in the opposition team.
I do feel sorry for Rohit Sharma though .. He had batted so well against Australia the other day that Ian Chappell had said “I think India have found the ideal replacement for Sachin when he retires, for the number 4 test spot”. The cover driving, the square drives and the lethal cuts were all excellent, but its yet to be seen if he is able to keep scoring his runs when bowlers around the world have worked him out. Right now, he seems to be too intent to cut deliveries. May be that is something that teams can exploit in the future, if he does go on to play for a long time. Today he got a very poor decision from the umpire, but he will have his chances in the series.
Sachin and Sehwag were good at the top of the batting order. I just hope Sachin notches up at least a couple more centuries on this tour. Its not too tough, considering the sort of form he is in.

Update : Match canceled due to Rain .. Both Teams share 2 points each.

Sachin Tendulkar, as he has done a zillion times already in his career, proved once again that god does exist – in Him.

What we saw at Adelaide Oval was no mean achievement. Here was a guy – under pressure from the selectors, considering others younger than him were being dumped from the One Day Squad like heavy vessels from a sinking ship. And yet, he walked off at the end of the day with his head held high, having just reached a personal milestone – A Century at Don’s home ground. There will still be doubters, those who think that he is a burden to the cricket team and those who think that it’s only his stature that saves him from being dumped. But the present lot of selectors have shown scant regard for reputations, and quite rightly so. It would have been oh-so-easy for him to intimidate any bowler on earth,

make a stroke filled 50 and then depart having done enough to secure himself a berth for the next tour. But here is a man, who is now ready to take his rightful place amongst the cricketing greats, not just by bulldozing the opponents, but by grinding them to the ground. He had shown the temperament to stay in the middle in England where people said that he was too slow and he had shown the will to dominate the bowlers in Sydney and Melbourne. In Adelaide, it was more of a measured response to a tricky situation. At the moment when Sachin’s partnership with Laxman started, India were evenly poised. They had two recognized batsmen at the crease, but a wicket then could change things very quickly. It was even more important that these two stuck around, because in Perth, Indians had shown tendency to go back to the pavilion in pairs.

Laxman is no doubt the go-to man whenever India is in trouble. He is one man who has literally fished India out of trouble a zillion of times, but a lot of his efforts have been lost in the effervescence of those who could hit the ball over the boundary 6 times in an over. And make no mistake, Laxman is no Wall .. he isn’t the person who would block incessantly. He makes his presence felt through timely, silken strokes on the leg side but it is his off drives that don’t get the same attention they should. I am sure his off drives would feel like a neglected child in the presence of his leg side play, but the fact is .. that on the whole, Laxman offers the variety and stability in the lower middle order that most teams in the world would kill for.
But, lets not deviate our attention from the man of the moment. Laxman’s day would come, but its not this day .. the day belonged to Sachin Tendulkar.
I read here that Bradman had once said of his innings of 254 was his best because every shot went exactly where he wanted it to. Sachin echoed the same words and to do that against supposedly the best bowling attack in the world in their home ground must be something really really special, so what even if he is the best batsman in the world.
A Second innings failure at Adelaide would again see the doubters and critics emerging, like the worms come out in rainy seasons. But I still believe in what I see and when I see Sachin, I sense a calmness about his batting that says that in spite of all odds .. I will fight on. There is not an iota of doubt in my mind that the day Sachin chooses to retire, he will leave a huge void in Indian Cricket, one that will take a couple of generations to fill. People will come in and play the one day innings in the same slam-dunk style, that fans and admirers will look and admire and say “This is what Sachin played like”. There will be others who will be compared to him, and yet .. in spite of all these comparisons .. no one will reach close to the amount of faith and respect this one man has generated in Indian Cricket .. no one man will inspire more people to take up Cricket like Sachin has and most definitely no one man will stand up the same way for India and say “I am not done yet”.
Lets take our hats off and Bow .. To the new Don.