Magnificent 700: Shane Warne crosses another milestone

It was a lazy morning after a long weekend and I was in no mood to go to work. Switched on the television while sipping on a hot cup of tea and saw that England had lost two wickets and Strauss and Collingwood were doing a job of damage control. But I was more intently listening to if Shane Warne had claimed either of those two wickets. Warne had entered the test match with his tally of wickets at 699.

Soon after the English had reached their century, Brett Lee unleashed a beauty to get rid of Collingwood. Warne came on to continue from the other end. The first ball didn’t pose any problems for a well set Strauss who was batting on 50. Warne came in to bowl the next ball, he gave it a good flight, the ball reached the peak of its trajectory, Strauss read it fine so far and took a stride forward to drive it…then the ball suddenly dipped, pitched outside off-stump, spun viciously and went through bat and pad and the death rattle sounded as it hit the middle stump. Wicket number 700 for Shane Warne! And what a perfect wicket it was – knocking back the middle stump of a top order batsman who had just scored his half-century. The entire ground erupted waving colorful placards with the number 700 printed on them.

It was as perfect a moment as a person can wish for – establishing a new record in front of your home crowd – and a well deserved one too. After going through a huge turmoil in his married life, being involved in the lewd message scandal and serving a one-year ban for using banned diuretics, Warne has come back stronger than ever and claimed over 200 wickets in the last 36 test matches (5.7 wickets per match!). And considering he hunted in pair with Glenn McGrath who himself has claimed over 500 wickets, it’s a great achievement.

Warne is definitely one of the greatest bowlers the cricketing world will ever see. He has single-handedly revived the art of spin bowling among the cricketing nations that do not come from the Indian sub-continent. As Warne is set to retire at the end of the current Ashes series, let’s wish him all the best for his future.

Sizzling Sachin

How does God announce his arrival?

He goes about doing his thing as if it’s business as usual.

It was touted as Sachin Tendulkar’s comeback game. After recovering from a shoulder surgery that kept him out for what seemed like ages, today Sachin Tendulkar was at his vintage best – caressing the ball to third man, flicking it off the stumps to square leg and effortlessly launching the cherry into the crowd towards the end of the innings. More importantly, he returned unbeaten with a big hundred scored at almost a run-a-ball.

As always, the little master let his bat do the talking for him by getting his 40th ODI century. That surely won’t stop the detractors from reaching for his throat, but hey, it’s a free world and even the village idiots have the right to voice their opinions right?

Welcome back Sachin!

England awarded Test match win

The latest news about the 4th Test match between England and Pakistan is that Pakistan has forfeited the match and England have been awarded a win. According to the laws of cricket, this is a correct decision in the event of Pakistan refusing to take the field after the tea-break on the fourth days play.

However, this incident has completely marred the entire series and the spirit of cricket in general. It is rather shameful that a match in which Pakistan has had an upper hand since the very first ball that was bowled, should be lost in such a manner. England, though in a good position, were still far from posting a challenging target for the Pakistani batsmen who seem to be in great touch – especially Mohammed Yousuf.

The way I see it is that no team would wait to lose the series and then tamper with the ball in a game that they were headed to win comfortably. At this point of time and from the way the match has progressed, I just refuse to accept that Pakistan tampered with the ball. No bloody way!

Is it just me, or do you see a pattern here? Good ol’ Darrell Hair is almost always the instigator of a controversy involving Asian cricket teams.

Hope the truth of the matter becomes clear as soon as possible. Seems like a bad week for cricket with South Africa pulling out of the tri-series in Sri Lanka and the series eventually being washed out by rains and now the resurgence of a ball tampering controversy.

Pakistan caught in ball tampering controversy…again!

With England trying to save the 4th and Final Test match, controversy struck in the afternoon session. At the end of the 56th over, umpire Darrell Hair went over to his colleague and the two seemed to discuss the condition of the ball. They then asked for a box of balls to replace the current ball. It seemed a routine change till Darrell Hair indicated a 5-run penalty awarded to England. This upset Inzamam-ul-Haq considerably as it directly hinted at ball tampering by Pakistan.

After the tea-break, the umpires and the English batsmen walked out on the field but the Pakistan team refused to take the field. The umpires took off the bails to indicate end of play and left the field. After some meetings, the Pakistani players appeared on the field. However, the umpires now refused to take the field and the players left the field again.

I don’t think this match is going to restart. No one knows for sure as to what exactly materialized out there in the middle, but whatever happened, it is definitely a shameful incident for the game of cricket. Keep checking to watch the story as it develops…

Sehwag: Staccato Performances

Virender Sehwag is the only Indian to score a triple-century in Tests and probably the only batsman in the world to reach that mark by hitting a six. This statement tells us two things about this blistering opening batsman.

• He has the temperament and the skills to play a big innings
• He very rarely adapts his game to the situation he is batting in

If we go through Veeru’s batting record so far, we can clearly see a number of huge knocks like 309, 201, 254, 195 and the recent 180. He recently also had two knocks in the nineties in the one-day series. The good part of these knocks is that they are extremely fast paced and exciting. The 180 was scored of only 190 balls and he scored 99 of those runs even before the lunch break. Once Veeru gets going, he is almost unstoppable and he completely annihilates the bowling.

The bad part of those scores is that they are far and few between large number of mediocre inning. The only thing that can stop him is his self-destruct button and this is where his weakness lies as he tends to tread perilously close to this button from almost the first ball he faces. The utter disdain with which he dispatches the bowlers away almost borders on being careless. He always seems to be playing to the crowds like he would have done while batting in the by-lanes of his locality.

If Veeru could add a little control to his destructive batting, it would be almost impossible to contain him and his scoring rate. To be the backbone of the Indian batting lineup, he needs to mature like Tendulkar and Ponting and pace his innings and not just score but also occupy the crease for as long as he can. Let’s hope to see more frequent big scores from Veeru.

Mumbaikars shine in the Carribean

After Ajit Agarkar emerged as the best bowler in an otherwise off-color Indian bowling attack in the one-day series, it was the turn of his Mumbai teammate Wasim Jaffer to shine in the batting department. And SHINE he did!!

Jaffer, after being recalled to the India team after 4 years in wilderness, has come back with a bang. Scores of 86 and 100 in the first test against England early this year saw him get selected for the West Indies tour. And now he has cemented his place with a solid, chanceless double-century.

I always felt that Jaffer was the answer to India’s woes at the opening slot. He has solid technique and an amazing temperament to score big. Being the youngest batsman to score a first-class triple-century and that too in only his second first-class game spoke volumes of his talent and resolve. Had the Indian selectors persisted with him after his debut series in the manner in which they persisted with some “no-talent” openers over the past few years, we probably would have had different results in quiet a few games. But let’s not get into the selection process.

This young and talented opener let’s his bat do the talking and I am sure this innings of 212 runs against the West Indians is going to be one of the many more brilliant innings to follow from his willow.

Good luck Jaffer! Go Mumbai!

Oh! I almost forgot. Just in case our “brilliant” Mr. Kiran More has not read the papers, Chris Gayle, the West Indies opener has asked, “Where is Ajit Agarkar? How did you leave out your best bowler from the Test side?”

Spin Wizard

With every game he plays, he just seems to be getting better and better. His performances seem to defy all laws of averages. Every time he comes in to bowl, something is waiting to happen. He has certain mysticism about him. I am talking about none other than the peerless Muttiah Muralitharan.

The white cricket playing nations had no answers to spin wizardry so they tried to stifle his progress with claims of an illegal bowling action. This did keep Murali out of action for a while. But you can never keep a champion down for long. And just like a champion, Murali returned bigger and better with new tricks up his sleeve.

A little skip at the start of the run-up, the eyes close in on the batsman, the right arm goes up, the lips form an ‘O’, the wrist turns and the ball leaves the hand spinning, buzzing through the air and before the batsman can figure it out, he is already caught out of position. It’s a sheer delight to watch this fellow bowl.

He has single-handedly won matches for Sri Lanka. Today was nothing different. In the final Test of the series, England, chasing a target of 325, were cruising at 104-1. Then the wizard cast his spell, mesmerizing the English batsman and bowled them out for a miserable total of 190. Murali’s contribution – 8 wickets for 70 runs!

Muralitharan is truly a living legend, the Gandalf of modern cricket.

You got to be kidding me!

Some people have the uncanny ability to make the most ridiculous comments and as much as it angers you, you just cannot help laughing at their downright stupidity. Here are two examples:

Our respected PM Manmohan Singh declaring, “I think the quota issue is settled”. Read about it here and here.

Ajit Agarkar was dropped from the Test team after having given probably the best performance of his life and being the most consistent bowler on the Windies tour so far. Kiran More justifies it by saying, “He’s more of a one-day bowler.” Brilliant Mr. More! That was even funnier than Miandad jumping up and down to imitate you.