A year ago I posted this,
The secret to carrying the bat on a green top lies in tackling the balls in the corridor of uncertainty, ducking the bouncers, shouldering arms to the out swingers, being decisive with your footwork and dispatching the half volleys. The same applies to new year resolutions more or less.😉 Here’s wishing the best with yours. Happy new year.😀
It was a metaphor but I posted this with an eye on the beginning of a tough year for the“flat track bullies”, the Indian Cricket team. And, here we are through the ups of Jo’burg, lows of England and ending the year on a high at the MCG. It’s been quite a roller coaster ride and I can’t help but talk about it. (*Makes excited roller coaster tycoon noises*)
It was probably somewhere in June 2017, Bumrah over steps by Mohammed Amir’s(*cough cough*) standards and a nation lost its mind. So brutal was the response, Jaipur Traffic Police put up this cheeky billboard below. (Yep Jaipur has one, they mostly make memes.)
Fast forward a year and half, its MCG day 3, the last ball before lunch (and my dinner) and Bumrah bowls a peach of a slow yorker, that leaves Marsh bamboozled and me jaw-dropped! It will probably be the moment of the series and the year in cricket for me. Bumrah is a phenomenal find. He has smart cricketing brains. That slow yorker was a result of him setting up the batsman in the entire over, just to bring out the Jaffa!
Bumrah is 10 test matches old and he is already one of the best test bowlers in the circuit right now. This has been a recurring theme in Indian cricket for sometime now. The new kids look like they belong in the top level. Prithvi Shaw, Mayank Agarwal, Kuldeep, Shreyas Iyer and Khaleel Ahmed to name a few. India have taken a methodical approach: Shine in Ranji, make it to India A, play well there and break into the main team. While this system is not flawless (Eg: Mayank had to break the door, walls and the entire building down to get in. Shreyas Iyer, who dis?), it certainly seems to be paying off. The bench boasts great strength and this is a good thing!
Much credits to the influx of talent should go to the work done silently by the selectors (yes the same ones who did the Kedar Jadhav blunder.) and Rahul Dravid. That reminds me of Pujara’s contributions with the bat this year. This year was a sweet reminder to the thick-skulled(eyes on Shashtri) that you don’t leave Pujara out of the playing XI. He reminds me of Dravid (with a less pleasing technique though), deadbatting delivery after delivery like it is some EA Cricket07, and batting like those balls could hurt his bat.
Before 2018, it had almost been 10 years since India achieved anything meaningful abroad. Same 10 years since we saw peak Ishant Sharma deliver the goods his talents promised. But this was his year too. I now feel confident every time he has the ball. (He can still work on his follow through though and stop falling over). He consistently hits the deck hard, has brought a delivery that straightens into his armory(that outswinger won’t come though.) and his bouncers are now ferocious as his facial expressions.
Another one with some in your face expressions is your god, Kohli. I will not talk about his batting, because there is nothing left to be said(shandaar zabardast zindabad).
I know he’s your God but you can’t seriously like him as a bloke.
- Tim Paine.
Kohli’s captaincy though..it’s bipolar. His press conferences even more so. But if you look closely, I see he his ready to accept change that’s driven by data. (Yeah cliche, I know) The back room staff has been doing a great job with video analysis and the data stuff, and Virat seems to be making his decisions off it. Attacking field placements, having a plan for each batsman(Dhoni’s was just bowl spin for 8 years! FFS) and intelligently rotating his bowlers and bowling them to their strengths. He is not a perfect captain and not your Aadarsh gentleman but he is not as bad as Sunil Gavaskar(Foxtel, thanks for not getting him to comm’ box) or Naseeruddin Shah(Dude, do a a sequel to Wednesday or something. Someone send him his Manali wala stuff yar.) say he is.
Not all is green as I painted it above. The tale(or tail) seems to have gone missing, our keeper still can’t keep well(Even his banter is poor. Shashtri, this is something you can help him with), our openers are still not there yet and there’s KL Rahul(Before the hate brigade piles on him, I would say give him the same time you have give Brohit!). But, Indian Cricket Team sitting on the top of the test rankings is no fluke. It’s been a successful year and I just hope we can top it off in Sydney.
