Cricket

I follow the cricket series in Pakistan as best as I can, all thanks to Rediff. Needless to say, I was very disappointed with the way the series was shaping. The first two were comic capers and the third had some promise in it.

And what a beginning it had. The bowlers had nothing but to twiddle thumbs in Lahore and Faisalabad and here a hat-trick in the first over. Who could have imagined???

Anyway, the Pakistanis bowled just as well and no team ended up the better after the first innings. The Pakistani batsmen though smarted soon and played a stupendous innings and set a tough target for India. Tough, but not unattainable.

And this is where we started falling.

I reckon batsmen have simply forgotten the art of playing test match cricket. Well!, I am not a puritan or anything and would rather watch the highlights than watch 13 players trod along all day meaninglessly. But every single batsmen seemed to play like they had a train to catch...forgive the cliche... OK! like they had to pee immediately.

Why the hurry? 120 odd overs, 570 runs... fine! you need to score over 4 runs an over if you want the match to have a result. But what the heck! you were four down for 74. Do you really think you were playing for a win? Yuvraj maybe a great one-day batsman but if he needs to continue playing tests he should forget strike rate of 85.

Yeah Yeah!!! Indians were outplayed and they were brave to play for a result and played some attacking cricket. But the greatness of test cricket is in the dodge; clawing the opponent, denying him the joy of victory, frustrating him, make him cry, lose all hope. (Remember Jimmy (P)Adams in the famed Mohali test). Saving a test is great feat, perhaps even greater than a blitzkreig 100.

Down! Down! to quick scoring. Jeez! Never thought that would come from my mouth.