Of Ishant Magic and Dull wickets
October 10th 2008 08:32
I watched a magic moment which I wanted to share with you folks. The day was dull and dreary, the sun was beating down and the Aussie pair of Hussey and Haddin seemed to have been cemented to the crease. There were singles for almost every ball that they touched with the bat and there were misfields galore from Ganguly and Zaheer which were painful to watch. The total was slowly but surely swelling almost beyond the 350 mark and the spinners could not make any sort of impression. (I will come back with my thoughts on this aspect at the end)
Kumble had turned for some inspiration to the dynamic duo of Harbhajan and Ishant. Harbhajan was tight but not penetrative. The batsmen were not thrashing him but neither were they having a problem defending or milking him. But it was a different matter with Ishant. They were alert, nervous and diffident when facing him. Backlifts shortened, feet moved faster but did not necessarily get into the correct position and strokes were hurried. That the pitch had vagaries in bounce (well, the ball stayed low) did not help.
After bowling in the high 130s almost through all of yesterday and today (till then), Ishant pounded in and bowled the slow off cutter. The way he does it, the ball lands fuller than most and he actually imparts some spin through his index finger. The result is that the ball lands closer than almost all of his normal deliveries. This gets the batsmen to smack their lips, widen their eyes and launch into a drive. Only one problem - their bat got to the drive before the ball got to the seemingly agreed upon rendezvous. The bat comes to a painful halt and a sickening plop sound results when the ball makes contact. Haddin watches as the ball lobs almost higher than the tall Laxman at short cover. But the tall graceful Hyderabadi stretches and pouches the catch easily. Laxman always has the knack of making it look easy, but that catch was tricky indeed - given that Laxman was at full stretch and the ball was not going too fast. Sometimes these slow balls are tricky because the fielder too gets there beforehand. Not so this time.
Celebrations allround - the biggest cheers of course were for Ishant who not only had the vision to bowl this ball but he also had the skills to get the execution spot on. But spare a thought also for the persevering captain Kumble who had the sense to have a short cover and to also find a good, smart catcher for that position, Laxman - who completed a job well begun.
I am not sure how significant a ball this is in terms of this match, but this was a beautiful piece of cricket action. I would like to call to the attention of the readers a similar sort of bowling exhibition from Ishant in the Irani Trophy match where he picked up Dhoni (is it a coincidence that he got two wicket keepers in similar fashion?). And that too was very much against the run of the play.
Kudos too to Venkatesh Prasad on inculcating the confidence required for such bowling.
I almost forgot to add that piece about the wickets. Bangalore, I believe, has a pitch specialist from New Zealand on call. Lets think about this. What has this external help done as far as helping us in producing better cricket as also giving us a home advantage. Nothing. By infusing soil from New Zealand or wherever it is they are outsourced from, we are only diluting the inherent nature of the wickets here - which is dryness, some brittleness and lots of spin. Now, why would anyone in the right mind do it?
Just like expatriates outside who know not whether they belong to their native country or to the country they are living in, such pitches with help from external experts cannot seem to decide whether they have to behave in typical Indian fashion or to assist bounce and seam. Consequently they end up somewhere in the middle - resulting in stale cricket.
It is time that this madness is put an end to.
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