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.

Oh for those days… redux

If  it was the memory of Les Taylor and David Gower yesterday, it’s BC Pires’ turn today to make me yearn for the halcyon days when cricket was a game. Pires wants to pit Shoaib Akhtar and Allan Donald against Sunil Gavaskar and Ian Botham. But it’s not the matchup that interested me. It’s Pires’ reasoning to arrive at the choices.

…my choices are living cricketers whose grace and elegance captivated me. Never mind their averages: these are men I could watch bat for duck or bowl 90 overs without taking a wicket.

Oh well…

Oh for those days…

Some random surfing on an idle weekend led me to a certain Leslie Brian Taylor, one of an illustrious line of anonymous seamers to have played for England in the 1980s. The Leicester lad played just two test matches, against Australia in that glorious summer of 1985, when England won the Ashes on the back of David Gower’s dream run with the bat. England won both the tests Les played in, but that is not the point of this post.

Les was apparently a genuine No. 11. In a county game against Surrey, Les walks in after the 9^th wicket falls, with Leicestershire still needing 20 to avoid the follow-on.  The bowler is that gentle medium pacer, Sylvester Clarke. And what does the Leicester captain David Gower do? He says, “I just can't do it,” and declares.

Who’s next?

The happy season is on us. Ex-cricketers are realising that playing cricket is not a bad idea at all. First was dear old Harmy re-discovering some patriotism (and, to the surprise of every one including I reckon the man himself, form). He’s even gone to the extent of saying that his return is for the long term and not just for this one series. Whispers confirm that this decision has nothing to do with Stanford and other such trivial matters – Steve Harmison is just out to give his best for his nation.

Hardly had the champagne glasses moved off the lips than similar news shook the cricket world in the Southern hemisphere. Harmy’s Aussie alter-ego, Shaun Tait has put his hat into the ring, albeit on a slightly smaller scale, by agreeing to play in one-day internationals for the Australia A team on their tour of India, thus suggesting that he is ready to stake his claim for the big one – the main Australian team. Brett Lee, your time is up.

A bird apparently saw Marcus Trescothick lug a year’s supply of mint from the local supermarket, but the England team management said they’re not reading too much into it; it is believed that they could not confirm whether the brand name was Murray.

Bat tampering

Even as the media occupies itself with Mintgate, a gentle reader, Abdul Haque Mirza, makes an incisive comment on Sambit Bal’s piece on Cricinfo: License to fudge.

What is this all fuss about ball tampering? Has anybody ever taken notice of “bat tampering”. Applying oil to the blade of a bat is the oldest form of bat tampering. Then use of a dozen of grips (remember Clive Lloyd), long handles, thick blades, curvatures, making holes for free flow (remember Gavasker) – is it not bat tampering? Surely, the answer is going to be – no, no it is a ‘right’ of the batsman to use the most ‘convenient’ bat. If that is the argument, then why the same length and breadth of the bat is allowed for a 5 feet player as it is for a 7 feet player. Of course reducing of a few inches in length in former case and an increase of a few inches in later will make the bat much more ‘convenient’ for the user. If that is not allowed then the practices I have mentioned should come under ‘bat tampering’. There is no surprise that no one has ever given a thought to this because batsmen are always the ‘privileged’ class and poor bowlers are always at the receiving end.

Good shot, sir.

99.94

Some great videos on the great man to mark his 100th birth anniversary here, on a blog rather brilliantly called 99.94. May be we should’ve celebrated the birthday one day ahead to celebrate that tantalising test batting average of the man. Here's the link again.

Cricket horror

(story picked up from Patrick Kidd)

No, this is not a reference to India’s batting form in Sri Lanka. A new horror film releases this week and it’s rather originally titled I Know How Many Runs You Scored Last Summer. Here’s the IMDB on the film’s plot.

A cricket team are dismissed by a moustachioed serial killer with a razor sharp cricket glove and an arsenal of sharpened stumps. One by one the killer exacts revenge for the torment he endured 20 years earlier.

Sounds like a good way for England to handle Australia, except that the film surprisingly is from Australia.

Here’s a YouTube trailer of the film.

I’d rather watch Yuvraj Singh against Ajantha Mendis.