Cricket: Day light saves test

Two days, two drop catches, two reasons, two wickets, mades sure India weren’t two nil up in the series. The weather, unfanciful declaration can be deemed as possible reasons for the draw and Indians notching just the series 1-0 which could have been so easily 2-0. The fact remains that Kiwis, just faced 94 overs or so when they could have made to play more than 105 overs. 10 more overs, you could have betted for Indian bowling to take last two Kiwi wickets.

Yes the weather does did us in, but the most annoying reason was DST. I mean if clocks were shifted an hour back, why wasn’t the match timings shifted an hour back. How insane was that. I mean India in tropic light fades really quickly. I confess that I haven’t been too Kiwi land but I assume that light is good enough to start play at 10 A.M. local time. The play should have started early, considering light will fade in the evening. The second reason was Kiwis played 20 overs or so less on the fourth day. These were the two reason which caved in India’s march. Rain just placed the juggernaut on the wrong side of slippery slope.

It was a good victory though. Kiwis like many cricketing countries all of a sudden experiencing formation of a new core of players. Aussies have certainly go through this phenomenon, English tend to go through this as well. SAfs experienced it following the exit in 2003 world cup. Sri Lanka too is looking through to get a settled side as well. But they have some exciting prospect especially for the shorter version of the game namely ODI and T20 with talks of Mr. Bond likely to make a come back in a near distant future, thing will start to get really good. Kiwis have a good batting line up, Taylor, Ponting a class batsmen, perhaps a little more stupid. I am not equating him to Ponting, I just have a feeling that he seems to play like Ponting, off course Ponting is in his own league when it comes to piling runs on a green top. Jesse Ryder, is power personified. Guptill looks good and impressed. A settled opening partnership would do good for Kiwis. The there are the all rounders, McCullum, I am sure he is one of the finest finisher playing the game today along with Albie Morkel, Yuraj, Dhoni, Flintoff, Hussey. I think he should be down the order in ODIs as well. Vetorri is arguably the best slow bowler in limited overs cricket, both ODI and T20. The fact that he has had much success against the Indians especially in T20 just underlines the presumption of mine.

The wall is still rock solid but isn’t expanding much.

Dravid, played damn well. I consider Dravid scoring runs, is the single most important criterion of India wining matches abroad. The first test which we won was perhaps the only one, in which he didn’t contribute by the way of century. He has won us matches all over. But perhaps to mentally adjust his game to the emergence of Viru and Gambhir as stable openers in all form of the game, especially in Test. I mean all Dravid had done until couple of seasons back was to follow openers, virtually to the crease. Now consistently coming out to bat with a solid opening partnership would certainly be a case to rejoice, but I wonder if that hasn’t affected his game. His quality of stroke play has no question mark. He is one of the few with more than10K runs in both form of the game. No mean achievement that.
I would love to see him back in first slip and get back to making delightful centuries. He has contributed not by the way of runs alone. He has to his name most number of catches as well. He is in his twilight, and would perhaps want to leave the game on top of his game.
Gambhir and Zaheer two reasons of this series win.

Batsmen tend to be valued more. It is some thing of a downside of this game. Although Zaheer bowled his heart out. The bowler will win you test matches and Test series. Bhajji was always to be tough to handle for Kiwis, but interesting to note hear, that it was guile and spin rather then turn and bounce for Bhajji that got him the wickets. On other hand Zak tend to bowl well within himself, and seems to have this amazing control of letting the ball do the talk. Ishant meanwhile was found napping, I expected him to steam roll Kiwis in the fourth inning with is pace and bounce, but Ishant continued to remain under bowled and didn’t respond in kind in terms of wickets.

All and all, the greedy Indian cricket fan wanted Indian team to win 2-0 but we will have to settle now for 1-0. Next on the menu is IPL, T20 world cup. I have no idea about Champions trophy or India’s next Test assignment.

Also I am looking forward to dance of elephants, the general elections I meant. The people who are fed up of people switching sides must wait till mid way, when the real politics will come to fore.