What a game!

It was riveting stuff, it really was. Two teams evenly matched in a low-scoring game. And a last over finish to boot, culminating in a two-wicket victory. A left-arm spinner decides the fate of the game (no, it’s not Monty Panesar, you poor Pom) with figures of 10-2-22-4 (that he made an unbeaten 23 in a chase of 125 adds to the impact). Other dream figures include 10-4-11-3 and 10-3-21-3, both from the losing team. It made me get back to blogging, so you can imagine how much it captured my attention. Pity the teams were evenly matched not in their intensity to win but in their inability to do so.

See the scorecard if you must here.

The buck does not stop

Steve Bucknor is nothing if not neutral – bat and pad are the same to him. You just had to see the first-ball dismissal of Mohammed Rafique off Morne Morkel (yes, Bangladesh and South Africa are playing out a test series, in case you care) to convince yourself of that. I’ve seen batsmen being given out lbw off a bat-pad, I’ve seen batsmen being given out lbw when the ball was either going too high or was missing the stumps, I’ve even seen batsmen being given lbw for being hit on other parts of the body, but Mohammed Rafique was perhaps the first to be given lbw for playing the ball with the bat – there was barely any pad in that defensive push of his. Well, ole’ Buck is just proving that those Sydney decisions were not malice-driven. Sigh!