It gives me great joy that Chris Gayle has joined his batting style likesake Virendra Sehwag in making a triple ton. After the triple ton, Sehwag has gone on to make 4 centuries in one year, all above 150 (one double ton as well!). Not to count the 4 fifties in this period and he has replaced his childhood icon Sachin Tendulkar as India's master bastsman. Earlier, people in India would switch off televisions when Sachin got out, now the pedigree goes to Viru, as he is called. May Chris Gayle reach those exalted heights as West Indies Cricket needs to discover a new star to follow the footsteps of Brian Lara.
There is too much similarity between Indian Cricket and West Indian Cricket, that people would admit to.
- 'Rock Star' opener - Chris Gayle, Virendra Sehwag
- Mr. Dependable - Shivnaraine Chandrapaul, Rahul Dravid
- Cricket legends - Brian Lara, Sachin Tendulkar
- Dark Horses - Ramnaresh Sarwan, VVS Laxman
- Sleeping Beauties - Wavell Hinds, Yuvraj Singh
The key difference seems to me that India has a great captain in Sourav Ganguly, something that WI has lacked in the last few years. Granted that Sourav has not been in the best of form - but i think it is a great dis-service to pay our respects where due; Sourav has led the Indian team much better than his predecessors. Also his eye for talent (he encouraged quite a few youngsters in the team), his never say die attitude and his commanding skills has earned him respect from his players. Forget the Indian fan, they get wild when we lose & will start worshiping cricketers when they start winning.
I also think that the difference between the Indian team and WI team is in its bowling department - especially the spin duo of Harbhajan Singh & Anil Kumble make the difference between otherwise quite ordinary medium pacers.
This comparison should alarm the Indian board that we might be basking too much on the success in the last 2 years and that the recent Pakistan tour was an indication that others are catching up.
That leaves me with a thought: Sourav Ganguly has repeatedly been fined for slow over rate. Accepted, But i wonder if match throwing by Shoaib Mallik isn't a more serious crime that slow over rates? What destroys cricket more - Losing matches to prove a point or not completing matches on time. I guess everyone knows the answer & therein lies the hypocricy of ICC.
2 comments:
hi,
thanks for stopping by my blog. the ipod was sadly never found again. ah well. life.
Kalyan, Agree with most of the views about except for the comparisons. Generally I am against comparing two persons.I think dravid is more dependable. hinds is not as talented as yuvaraj. Sarwan and Laxman are not comparable. Probably you could compare Laxman with Martyn of Australia.
The blog was very good, with all the hyperlinks to cricinfo.
The way ICC handling slow over rate and doosra is not acceptable.
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