Line & Length
R Mohan
Perfect triangle makes it nice
February 14, 2008
Cricket is a funny game. Test cricket has its intense demands. One-day cricket engenders more ups and downs than a rollercoaster ride. Twenty20 is like riding a bucking bronco at a rodeo show. If anyone can claim to be a master of all versions of the game all the time, then his name must be God.
The modern game is infinitely more complex because of the three versions. The greats of any earlier era may have coped proficiently with these triple demands of the modern game but it is extremely doubtful if they could have handled all of it with aplomb as they did the first class game in their prime.
History seems to suggest that Don Bradman never hit too many sixes in his Test career; Cricinfo database credits him with only six sixes. To play all along the ground was the mantra of early Test cricket and well into the modern era, even after World War II. Imagine then the batting of someone like Adam Gilchrist who has hit 100 sixes in Tests, 144 more in ODIs and 13 in the increasingly popular T20.
There were quite a few lessons to be learnt from the three crazy games of the triangular in Australia in which the conqueror of a team by 128 runs was beaten by another team in the very next game, soon after which the conqueror was humbled in a shortened game by the underdog.
The perfect triangle breathed life into a series hit by wet weather at the start. While India can be justifiably proud over beating Australia in their lair, MCG, after a little over two decades, their defeat at the hands of Sri Lanka was by no means a humiliation, comprehensive though the islanders' victory was. India lost the lottery when the coin fell in Mahela's favour.
India had two champion batsmen opening their innings. They too needed that bit of time to assess the pitch conditions, otherwise there may have been another house-ofcards collapse as in the Twenty20. By the time it sank in that the pitch, despite all the rain around Canberra, was an absolute belter, the match had tilted in Lanka's favour, more so after both Sehwag and Sachin fell to their favourite slog through the offside.
Team India should not brood over this defeat even if it did bring them back quickly to face the shocking reality of the one-day game. The team would rather try to replicate the kind of bowling performance the seamers put in at the MCG. The coliseum Down Under suits quicks best. Even so, it has been years since an Indian fast bowler torpedoed the opposition as Ishant Sharma did.
The teenaged beanpole has put a hex on Ponting not seen since the Ashes 2005 in which the England seamers Jones and Hoggard and the quick Flintoff subdued the batsman who is ranked by computers to be the number one batsman in contemporary cricket.
In an amazing sequence of cut, pace and variations of bounce, the Delhi lad has simply dominated Ponting to the extent the Australian batting machine must fear serious malfunction if the episodes continue.
The Australia-Sri Lanka contest ahead in Perth may prove absorbing because of the pace and bounce of the WACA pitch. Unlike in the India Test match that was played on the older part of the square not yet redone, the ODI is likely to be on the juicier part of the strip. If that happens, Lankan batsmen may not be the free-scoring strikers they were at the Manuka Oval.
Republished with permission from The Asian Age
The modern game is infinitely more complex because of the three versions. The greats of any earlier era may have coped proficiently with these triple demands of the modern game but it is extremely doubtful if they could have handled all of it with aplomb as they did the first class game in their prime.
History seems to suggest that Don Bradman never hit too many sixes in his Test career; Cricinfo database credits him with only six sixes. To play all along the ground was the mantra of early Test cricket and well into the modern era, even after World War II. Imagine then the batting of someone like Adam Gilchrist who has hit 100 sixes in Tests, 144 more in ODIs and 13 in the increasingly popular T20.
There were quite a few lessons to be learnt from the three crazy games of the triangular in Australia in which the conqueror of a team by 128 runs was beaten by another team in the very next game, soon after which the conqueror was humbled in a shortened game by the underdog.
The perfect triangle breathed life into a series hit by wet weather at the start. While India can be justifiably proud over beating Australia in their lair, MCG, after a little over two decades, their defeat at the hands of Sri Lanka was by no means a humiliation, comprehensive though the islanders' victory was. India lost the lottery when the coin fell in Mahela's favour.
India had two champion batsmen opening their innings. They too needed that bit of time to assess the pitch conditions, otherwise there may have been another house-ofcards collapse as in the Twenty20. By the time it sank in that the pitch, despite all the rain around Canberra, was an absolute belter, the match had tilted in Lanka's favour, more so after both Sehwag and Sachin fell to their favourite slog through the offside.
Team India should not brood over this defeat even if it did bring them back quickly to face the shocking reality of the one-day game. The team would rather try to replicate the kind of bowling performance the seamers put in at the MCG. The coliseum Down Under suits quicks best. Even so, it has been years since an Indian fast bowler torpedoed the opposition as Ishant Sharma did.
The teenaged beanpole has put a hex on Ponting not seen since the Ashes 2005 in which the England seamers Jones and Hoggard and the quick Flintoff subdued the batsman who is ranked by computers to be the number one batsman in contemporary cricket.
In an amazing sequence of cut, pace and variations of bounce, the Delhi lad has simply dominated Ponting to the extent the Australian batting machine must fear serious malfunction if the episodes continue.
The Australia-Sri Lanka contest ahead in Perth may prove absorbing because of the pace and bounce of the WACA pitch. Unlike in the India Test match that was played on the older part of the square not yet redone, the ODI is likely to be on the juicier part of the strip. If that happens, Lankan batsmen may not be the free-scoring strikers they were at the Manuka Oval.
Republished with permission from The Asian Age
