Some thoughts on Cricket

Written on Dec 15, 2019

I started listening to the Hindi commentary first. I got irritated and changed it to English. But the English commentary was being given by Sanjay Manjarekar. I guess fate finds its way. 

T20 has brought the unrestricted gully cricket into the mainstream sport. Hence, very few recent players have learned the essence of patience and gained the maturity that Sachin, Sourav and Rahul showed. The maturity diminishes because of the money and opportunities. It doesn’t matter if a player gets into the National team, they’ll still have money. Don’t know if that’s good or not. I guess we would soon start remembering players by which club they belong to. Much like the EPL. Rishabh Pant has half the maturity as Kohli in 2011. Kohli is a very aggressive player(watch his match against WI today), but REMEMBER HIS INNINGS FROM 2011 WC FINAL, when Sachin and Sehwag, the stalwarts failed. Yuvraj and Dhoni have exhibited maturity during their respective careers as well. Too bad Kohli would never be rated above Sachin. He has the aggression of Dada, a scoring ability like Sachin, patience like the Wall. As a captain, he has the aggression of Dada and the spirit of Mahi. Captaincy has affected the playing capabilities of a lot of players. Except for him. You know who else had that. That bastard Ponting. God, I hated that guy. He was so good. In today’s match, WI bowlers tried to intimidate Kohli. I guess they won’t have tried that with Ponting. Maybe because traditionally Indians have been known to be timid. I hope Kohli is not hated as Punter. Maybe because of the sportsmanship he learned from Mahi. I wish Kohli was a part of the 2003 squad. The mighty Australians were too strong though. Oh, man, I hated that team. They would win every match. They were like the first boy in the class. In 2003 Aus won even without their greatest match-winner: Shane Warne. Our brain knew Aus would win, and our heart felt that India would do some miracle. The first ball was a wide with four. That was it Once it started raining. We were hopeful. But then nothing happened. It didn’t stop. The humiliation continued Mcgrath played more with his mind than Dale Steyn ever did and got Sachin out in the very first over. Steyn was more skillful. 

Speaking of the timid nature of Indian players, there was a time when everyone would bash India. Especially Sanath Jayasuriya and the whole Pakistan team having the likes of Saeed Anwar, Izaj Ahmed, Salim Malik. Those were the days. Manoj Prabhakar, at last, tried spin bowling so as to stop Jayasuriya's bashing during the group match of 96 WC. That was his last match by the way.  Then came Sehwag. He won't show aggression in behavior, or curse or go up to the bowler and say things. He was an unpredictable batsman who had extraordinary hand-eye coordination with zero footwork and had a knack for hitting every delivery. He was the Shoaib Akhtar of batting. Both were happy to stay as the junior cricketers under the tutelage of the stalwarts.  No wonder both are such good friends (rather I would like to believe it, and both talk similar)

Btw, Sachin at the age of 23 was the only batsman in his 96 WC squad. Maybe that's why Sachin would be rated higher than Kohli.

Fielding over the years has improved. Previously Indian fielders would wait for the ball to arrive. Washing machine liquid ad would be there to say “please dive to catch the ball, we would wash it for you”. Then came Yuvraj and Kaif. And who brought them? Ganguly.