Flashbacks

Test Match #2239: India vs England, Mumbai

Virat Kohli and Jayant Yadav put on a double-century stand (215 unbeaten at Lunch on Day 4), grinding down the English bowlers to put India into a commanding position in the 4th Test of the series. During the course of the innings they created a new Indian record for the highest 8th wicket partnership in Test cricket, breaking the old record of 161 between Azhar and Kumble made in 1996 against South Africa at Eden Gardens.

And what a game that was. Still have distinct memories of the game. Inspite of the fact that I was in school and only saw the highlights at the end of day's plays. And while the scorecard  says, South Africa won by a huge margin of 329 runs, this game still holds lots of wonderful memories for the Indian fan.

South Africa had galloped ahead and India were playing catch-up throughout the game. The openers put on a double century opening stand but were reined in by Venkatesh Prasad, probably the gentlest of medium-pacers, who took a 5-wicket haul in a space of five overs. This man had the ability to produce something special out of nowhere. (Never forget "THAT" response to Aamer Sohail!!!).

In response, the Indian top order collapsed. Nothing unusual in those days specially in the face of the top quality fast bowling. Azhar had to retire hurt, while Sachin, Dravid, Ganguly, VVS (the last 3 in their 1st year of Test cricket) were all dismissed cheaply. A follow-on seemed imminent before Azhar returned and in Kumble's company just hammered everything in sight. Eden Gardens has witnessed many a spectacular performance and this certainly was one of them. Our class was updated of the score by the teachers and also one enterprising fellow who had smuggled in a pocket radio. The score certainly moved at T20esque pace with Azhar having taken a particular liking to the debutante Klusener. The highlight was Azhar hammering Klusener for 5 boundaries in a single over. 

Source: Cricinfo

The partnership brought India back into the game. Azhar recorded the fastest Test century by an Indian batsman. When he got going, it wasn't a flash in the pan but a lightning storm. But it soon got over. Meanwhile we willed on Kumble to get to his first Test century but that wasn't to be. (Kumble did eventually score one a decade later).

As is wont with the Indian fan, the partnership flashed hopes of an unlikely victory. But it wasn't to be as the ruthless South Africans put in a big score in the second innings and gave us an even bigger target in the second. And Lance Klusener had his redemption picking up 8 wickets in the second.

But for that glorious afternoon when Azhar got going and Kumble stayed on, What a wonderful passage of play that was. The ones which stay in your memory even twenty years later!

P.S. Jayant Yadav got to his maiden Test hundred and the partnership ends at 241.

P.P.S. End of Amit Mishra's Test career? Or he makes another comeback?

The Trophy

Not often you  get a chance to get up close and personal with a trophy. So even though the tournament may have been tainted by the corruption charges, why miss the chance. After all the trophy wasn't. 

Congratulations to the Mumbai Indians for winning the IPL. Please continue providing match tickets and such photo-ops and may you continue the winning streak :)

One for the memories.

The World Cup Memories - 1992

The 10th edition of the ODI World Cup is almost here. So its time to turn back and recall some of the memories I have associated with the World Cups. The 1992 edition is the first one which I remember.  The 1975 & 1979 editions belong to the Before Nishant era. 1983 - I was barely born. 1987 may have watched it but certainly do not remember it. So 1992 is what I would call my debut World Cup. 

I was in Std 5 in Patna then. Cable TV had just arrived and Prime Sports was the channel which showed all the matches, although DD also was showing most of them as well. The matches in Australia & New Zealand meant waking up early (and unlike now those days host countries did not keep Indian viewers in mind while scheduling the games). Most of the matches would be over by the time I returned from school. Even the final was held on a week day. 

India had just been through a long, loss filled tour of Australia. And the disasters continued in the World Cup. Close losses against England and Australia opened the campaign and it went on going worse and worse. The only saving grace from that tournament was the win over Pakistan. This game also gave the never to be forgotten scene of Javed Miandad jumping up and down in front of Kiran More after a few heated words. A few other things which come to mind about this edition, the rain rule which robbed South Africa in the semi-finals, Inzamam's stunning daylight robbery in the other semi-final, Jonty Rhodes flying in to run out Inzamam, Ian Botham taking out Australia single handedly. And also all teams in coloured clothing which was a first. And finally Imran Khan lifting the cup.
So this was 1992 World Cup as I remember. Hope to follow up on the other editions soon.

Bat-Ball To Cricket

I guess you can call me a cricket-crazy guy. And I have no hesitation in saying that you are right. I think the Star Cricket channel was made solely for people like me (which shows that I am not the only one).

Probably its all in the blood. My grandfather had a big register. In that he kept a log of all cricketing action which he was able to catch on TV/Radio (not much in these days). The book had ball-by-ball account of these games. The entire scorecard was recorded. In the pre-cricinfo era, it was a virtual treasure trove of cricketing information. And I felt really proud when I was permitted to make entries into that book. The sports book (or rather books, it ran into multiple volumes) hasn’t been use in years now.
Interest in the game was further aided by Big Fun. In the Nineties, it was a pretty popular chewing gum. People would keep chewing while playing, in a bid to emulate the cricket heroes. Now with Big Fun would come a cricket player sticker (probably the real reason for its popularity). In the mid-nineties they started giving Trump Cards with player career stats. I had a pretty huge collection of over 100 cards. Name labels for school books with cricketers on them were amongst the more popular ones.
Then there were a plethora of board games. They were totally unrelated to cricket, but the scoring pattern was in runs & not points. Computer & video games hadn’t really come in a big way those days. So these were the main pastimes.
Then there were the cricket books. I have read all of Sunil Gavaskar’s writings, Keith Miller’s autobiography, World Cup books and many more. Television coverage had also improved with matches being telecast from all over the world.
In the “noughties” came the internet in a big way. Cricinfo became one of favorite websites. I could follow multiple matches from all over the world at the same time, while continuing with other activities also.

And with all this the simple game bat & ball was transformed into cricket.
My cricket watching career roughly follows Sachin Tendulkar’s cricket playing career. And I remember almost every match result since then. Amongst the 3 forms, Test Cricket is my favorite, ODIs have been over-killed and T20 should be limited to national level and World Cup, there shouldn’t be any bilateral T20 matches.
Among the activities/hobbies picked up at Planet-I was blogging. The blog was supposed to be about and every thing in this world. But quite a few posts turned out to be on cricket. So I decided why not have a fully dedicated cricket blog? And hence this blog came into existence. It was also a part of my New Year resolution (do something which I love doing). I liked writing, I loved cricket, so why not write about cricket. And hence the birth of this blog. I am not sure if anybody would read another website/blog on cricket. However the posts would keep on coming, mostly on the current happenings. An occasional down the memory lane kind of post would also be there.

The Game of Bat & Ball

Cricket is not just any other sport. It’s the “Gentleman’s Game”. And it is probably the only sport which has its own “spirit”. Not sure about the meaning of all this, but cricket certainly is one of the most complex pass times invented by human kind. The rules are complex, the duration is long, it can be beautiful without producing any result and be boring while producing one, it’s a game filled with numbers and more numbers, a true statistician’s delight. One can’t learn cricket at one go. It’s a process which evolves with time. For me it evolved from the game of Bat & Ball.
As a kid growing up, I remember a plastic bat & ball set amongst the first toys. The game was pretty simple then. Hit the ball, which was thrown towards you with the bat (Me holding the bat, and my father doing the bowling). From this humble beginning the game grew on me.
As I stepped out into the neighborhood play area the game evolved further. Slowly concepts like runs and getting out also came in. The bat became wooden. The ball would become a tennis ball, and occasionally the proper cricket ball. One learnt the rules as one played along. Bowled, caught and run out were the only modes of dismissal available. Of these the bowled was the most controversial as the stumps being a set of 3 lines drawn on the wall. There were interesting rules made up for our own convenience.

• Hitting the ball in specific areas got different amount of runs (2,4,6)
• Late Run was not allowed. The batsmen should have started the run immediately after hitting the ball. (Generated quite a few controversies)
• Double Bat – Contact twice with the bat was out.
• Ulta Bat – Getting hit on the back of the bat was out.
• Half crease No Ball – It was a no ball if the ball bounced before the half way mark on the pitch.
• One Hand One Bounce – During certain games, if the fielder catches the ball with one hand after it has bounced once you can get out.
• Single Batsman playing - Generally the last man played alone.
• Half Pitch Run Out - With single batsman on the crease, for a batsman to be run out, the throw had to hit the stumps on the side towards which the batsman was closer.
• Multiple Times Out for really young fellows in the team. They had to be dismissed more than once before they could be finally given out.
• Batsman exchanging bats - Generally only one decent bat would be avaialable. Sometimes after completing one run, the two batsmen would start off. If the throw was coming in fast then, they would stop mid-pitch and exchange bats, claiming that this had been their real intent throughout.
• No Bad Light - It would be pitch dark, but the overs had to be completed. Nobody winning the toss ever chose to field.
• No LBW - Well to be honest as an youngster nobody really knew the rules of this method of getting out, so wasn't ever used. (Quite a few pronounced it as LPW for some reason)

However once the game shifted to playground more of the traditional rules came into play. And these became obsolete. In such games depending on the number of players available, the non-striker would serve as the umpire; both teams would be fielding etc. Games were played in the evenings with 5-10 overs a side games being played. (Twenty20 is the form of the game closest to the one which I have ever played. Although it certainly is not my favorite form)
So this was the story of how the game began for me. As a simple game of Bat and Ball.