Cricket, Musings

As always I was watching sports channels on my television today. I saw the whole of Daniel Vettori's test hundred against Pakistan. Later that night I saw India beat Sri Lanka in the second T20 match. Earlier in South Africa, England became the third country to win an ODI series in South Africa, its victory's architect being Paul Collingwood.

People worship skill, I do too but it is the grind-out-types that I hold in greater respect. Collingwood, not the most talented cricketer, but always gives his whole to the game and that is much better than a highly skilled one who doesn't put in all his efforts. Ditto with Vettori's batting. They might be clumsy and dirty to watch but the effort they put in is amazing. The never-die attitude, the will to keep fighting, the gutsiness, the strength. That is what makes them the Mr.Dependable in their respective sides. The thing with people who rely on skill and talent is that there is a chance they might forget or lose their touch/quality. Such situations cannot arise for the gutsy ones since that is in their nature and what they are. Its not something that they have learnt or cultivated that could possibly be lost some day.

Now coming to the T20 game. Lets forget the poor standards of fielding and outfield cricket of the sides. I was concentrating on the chasing Indian batsmen. Everyone says that T20 is a batsmen's game, and we need to spare a thought for the poor bowlers who toil hard without equivalent return. But picture this - a bowler gets whacked at a rate of 9 runs per over. Now that is a decent return for the bowler in sub-continent pitches where runs are scored in buckets. But a batsman gets out for a naught. I am sure the selectors will persist with the bowler and ditch the batsman. All that I am trying to put forward is that it's the batsmen who are under pressure to perform in a T20 game as it's a forgone conclusion that T20 is a batsmen's game. The stakes are high for a batsman than for a bowler. So even if a bowler has a bad outing, it's ok but a batsman cannot and should not falter.

Graeme Swann's batting average after 13 tests and 15 innings stood above 40. That is more than what regular English batsmen or regular batsmen from any part of the world muster. And mind you those tests were against good oppositions including India, Australia, South Africa.


Today we had Baghban movie playing on one of the channels. It's a movie about family relationships, parent-kid interaction and all. Mostly interesting elderly people. And guess what commercials were played - use X's oil for cooking since it has less cholesterol, how many people will be affected by heart diseases by Y year... Interesting pattern...