“Eight hours play and it’s a tie? You are kidding me!?”
I’ve been hanging out a bit with an American journalist, sent to India to see if he gets cricket. He did. He loved it. He was even hooked before yesterday’s game, now I think he will be a fan for life.
Wright works for one of the big sport magazines in the States. He has five weeks to write one article about the Cricket World Cup. I wish I had his job.
I met Wright in the hotel I was staying in, in Delhi. He’d just arrived from Dhaka where he’d watched the build up to the tournament and the opening game between Bangladesh and India. He described the excitement in the country as unlike anything he’d ever seen, even after their team had lost: not a bad statement from someone who’d done Superbowls, Ryder Cups and World Series.
Wright had clearly done his research before he came out to India. He’d never seen a game before, had no real interest in it before this assignment, but I’d tell him about, for instance, Saurav Ganguly and he’d say “oh that was the guy who took his shirt off at Lords…” For someone so new to the game, he knew plenty and was keen to learn more.
He also knew Test matches last five days and can end in a draw. He gets it.
So his statement, above, was partly tongue in cheek but also it raised a good point. How could such a magnificent game end up with both teams only getting a point? If it had rained all day, and both teams had stayed in their hotels playing darts and playing Playstation, they would both have had they same reward: a point.
A few years ago, England would have been declared winners of that match, having lost fewer wickets than India. I reckon that’s probably a good rule and I’m not sure why it got changed, especially when Duckworth Lewis (the obscure formula that decides who wins rain effected matches) takes into account how many wickets are lost.
By the way, I’m not suggesting England woz robbed, etc. Had England needed just one to win, instead of two, India would have set a different field and England may not have been able to scramble the dramatic single they did. Rules are rules and a tie was fair.
I digress. What a game. It was cricket at it’s best. I hasn’t justified me coming here (I was brought back down to earth with a bump afterwards when I called home and heard my son bawling) but having given up and put so much on my family, at least it wasn’t an awful game. It was everything cricket can be: thrilling; electric; both teams taking it in turns to lose winning positions; and it contained two brilliant innings. I’ve seen a few Tendulkar hundreds, that was the best. Complete control, able to do exactly want he wanted to do to every ball. And when Sachin bats, India comes alive. Every single greeted as if it’s the winning goal in a Wembley final.
Then Andrew Strauss produced an even better innings. If you were making a highlights package it would have been far more difficult to put together, but if you were producing a DVD masterclass in how to keep your head when chasing a massive total, there would be no editing required. Unflappable, knowing his strengths; It summed up this England team: not flamboyant but totally aware of how to get the most from its parts and prepared for every situation.
Then the drama: Zaheer’s inspiration; the guts and skill of the England tailenders. The silence of the crowd as England looked set to win: thee half hour of utter madness at the end; the wall of noise; and three sixes in the last two overs that made the impossible almost possible.
If every game of cricket was like that, I wouldn’t just hook America, it would signal the end of their ridiculous sports.
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Nice blog Dan. The kids will understand one day.
ReplyDeleteOllie B