No words can describe how I am feeling right now!
We won!
Sachin Tendulkar
The one that matters!
I loved the way India played in this series.
In the first test they showed that they had the balls! The fought back in a manner reminiscent of the Aussies of yore! Till the last wicket fell you Australia never gave up (remember those Steve Waugh innings?), and India seems to be learning that lesson, slowly but steadily. Even bowlers seem to value their wickets, and are trying to make the opposition earn it.
In the second test, India played like a number one team should play. With assurance. Like the toss didn’t matter. Like losing Sehwag early didn’t matter. If it had been more than 5 years back we would be talking of the Indian team shutting shop to prevent a defeat. Now India went for an outright victory. Commentators said that the SG ball would reverse after 40 overs – they said lets do it before that. Sachin playing like he always does nowadays. M Vijay and Pujara playing really well. The bowlers doing an exceptional job – all of them. Remember that the tail wasn’t allowed to wag. Stuff good teams are made of.
We still have some distance to go to be ranked alongside the West Indies of 80’s or the Aussies (of 1940s and 2000s). The fielding needs to go up by many a notches. The batting, the middle and lower order, still tends to collapse every once in a while. And our biggest worry, our bowlers. They need to be more consistent and injury free. Harbhajan needs to rediscover his mojo and compliment the tight lines of Ojha with wicket taking. Zaheer needs a couple of good partners. I am believe that we have the ability to get there – all it needs is nurturing by the BCCI, instead of them focusing all their energy in going kinky on Lalit Modi’s ass.
Finally, a lot of people talked of Australia losing three in a row. What I am more interested in is seeing when was the last time a team won three in a row scoring more than 200 in the fourth innings!
The Man, The Master, The Boy Wonder
No one else has deserved any record any more!
Failed promises
Failed promises – that is what the youngsters in the Indian team are. Not one young player, since Dhoni and Gambhir debuted in 2004, has kept the promise shown in the initial few matches.
Ishant has been but a pale shade of the bowler who bowled that amazing over to Ponting during that awesome Oz trip. Sreesanth was moved more by movies and glam than cricket. About the batsmen, the lesser said the better. The Jadejas, Sharmas, Pathans, and Utthappas have just shown a lot of promise and then quietly faded away after an initial hoopla has subsided.
Not one player, other than Raina probably, has shown any sort of consistency. Yes they look good on the field on the occasional days that India fields well. Other than that you can’t depend on them for anything. And yes, we have given them enough chances. They just don’t have the balls to grab the opportunity and prove that they are good enough. Heck they even lack basic cricketing knowledge – Jadeja was a classic example today! What on earth was he running for?? As Jrod says,
Those were the ten dudes. A collection of shit hot batsmen who were made to look like dribbling fools compared to Sachin.
And I am just talking about the ODI team. I don’t even want to imagine what happens to the Test team when Sachin, Laxman, and Dravid retire, with Sehwag not too far behind.
Faith restored!
There are millions out there who want to believe in God, and profess their love for the religion. However, they have always looked for excuses to not profess their love and faith. The ghosts of 1999 will, hopefully, finally be buried.
Yesterday, the God removed that final hurdle. Now those disbelievers will have no more excuses. You will not need to have any more excuses to profess that cricket is your religion.
And no it is not that vulgar and obscene version. It is the pure and serene version that gives us the high like nothing else. Test cricket will for ever be my first love.
There are good batsmen, the Pontings and the Haydens. There are great batsmen, the Inzys and the Dravids. There are sublime bastsmen, Lara. But there is only one God – Sachin. He is the hope of millions. He is the man who comes closest to Atlas in the modern world. And he has not shrugged for nineteen very long years now. He is the heart beat of the Sydney crowd, who I think love him more than anyone in the current Aussie dressing room. He is the darling of millions across the world. He may not anymore be the wicket to be taken. But as long as he is out there, India believes.
I believe, and always have.