Saturday, March 13, 2010

The Art of Chasing Impossible Targets - by Yusuf Pathan

Yusuf Pathan has taken it upon himself to prove that any target in cricket can be chased. However hopeless maybe the situation. There is always something to fight for. Since February he has played the lead role in 3 sensational chases, all in domestic cricket and across the 3 formats. Though he ended up on the winning side in only one of these.
An unbeaten 210 in the Duleep Trophy Final helped West Zone to chase a target of 536 set by South Zone (the highest successful chase in the history of first class cricket)
80 off 39 balls, in the Deodhar Trophy final against North Zone. Sitauation was hopelss at 108/6 before Yusuf almost took them home.
100 off 37 balls for Rajasthan Royals against Mumbai Indians in the IPL. Rajasthan needed 144 off the last 10 overs when he started hitting it around. Yusuf almost saw them through but Rajasthan lost by 4 runs in the end.

He has always been a big hitter, but never seemed to be fulfilling his true potential, specially when playing for the country. He seemed to be becoming the Indian Cricketing equivalent of Football's Thierry Henry. Great performances for the club but always under-delivering for the country. This recent run of big scores should be a big confidence booster though. Hope the big hitting continues.

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