Bowlers call the tune during the World Cup 1999. This has not been for the World Cup for the brave and the fearless. The rough riders who gallop down the track and back their instincts have been deflated a bit; their great friends, dead pitches, and dry weather have deserted them. So used to the ball being a meek child that quietly accepted a slap, they have been unable to come to terms with the fact that the bowler now has a voice. That, to my mind, has been one of the most wonderful things about the first stage of this World Cup. Mothers can now happily tell their neighbors that the middle son bowls a bit (you know he seems the ball around, and he was telling me that he gets quite a few caught behind!).
So, Shahid Afridi has to do a little more than worry about whether to clear long off or choose mid-wicket instead. Sanath Jayasuriya has to wait for the bowler to do something wrong instead of making a perfectly good ball look like a mistake. And the pinch hitter has virtually vanished. Instead, it has been a World Cup for the bankers, for batsmen who collect runs assiduously, who know that orthodoxy is not a religious movement but a method of batsmanship. They take their chances as they must, but only when a bargain presents itself or once they have enough money in the bank. The best batsmen have rarely looked ugly. This World Cup has also been a great showcase for attitudes. The supremely confident South Africans did not believe defeat was a possibility until.
I suspect, they briefly crossed the thin dividing line between confidence and arrogance. But as Michael Holding told Hansie Cronje at the presentation, if they had to have a hiccup, they chose the right time to have it! The outrageously talented gamblers from Pakistan so easily overcame a seeming nonexistent top order and gave their terrific bowlers something to bowl against. And the sad West Indians who, like the later Mughals. for whom talent has run out as if looked like a dynasty in decline and someone just shut the tap. If more young men tried to emulate, I have been most fascinated by the way England and India played their cricket in the initial stages. diffident side that now doesn’t only England were just unbelievable; they need fresh talent but a new psyche.
The English played like the nation they are: polite people who are happy to wait for might work well at the things to happen. That bank or the post office but on a cricket ground, they needed to be street smart. They needed to make things happen, to hustle their way ahead. They didn’t. Anil Kumble rather than Tendulkar, Indian cricket might actually emerge stronger. However, English football is different. It is energetic and creative, youthful and irreverent. And it attracts wonderfully talented young men. It is the sport of today, and it allows its best youngsters, most of whom come from working-class backgrounds, a financial option that otherwise would have been denied to them. Footballers are very rich in England and that in itself is a catalyst.
Football offers them the kind of opportunity that cricket does to talented Asian boys, and it attracts similar talents and crowds. But cricket is stuck in the middle ages, and I think that the great English tradition is actually weighing heavily on it. The past is a burden that English cricket can no longer carry and you can see that in the way they play cricket. There was a time when England set the trend. Now, they have to learn to recognize that the trends are coming from elsewhere. I suspect that all the years of looking down at other cricketing cultures have left them unable to imbibe fresh thought. Their fashions are outdated. The second day of their crucial match, they needed 159 to win (a tie would match against India illustrates this). have been enough for them) from 177 balls and had seven wickets in hand.
They started so cautiously that they allowed India to get into a game plan, and I could not help but approach the same situation. wondering how Pakistan would have Often in sport you make your own luck but England waited. The bus carrying it had long gone. Then, amazingly, they chose the wrong bowler to attack. With Anil Kumble, one of the best bowlers in the world, in a pressure situation, at one end and Sourav Ganguly at the other, they opted to slog Anil Kumble. As Andrew Flintoff charged like a highway truck without a steering wheel, I thought Anil Kumble did very well to prevent himself from falling over with laughter. Flintoff’s dismissal was as predictable as Ramesh’s against Zimbabwe.
Then Adam Holliaoke tried to slog, but in that kind of form, Anil Kumble wasn’t going to let one ball land anywhere other than where he wanted it to. England’s thoughtless cricket coincided with one of the finest hours that India have had. India have played better cricket than at Edgbaston and they have won closer matches but rarely have they played more thoughtful cricket. It helped that the bowlers bowled according to the plan and it was brilliantly executed. At the start of the day. Fast bowler Javagal Srinath had four overs left, Venkatesh Prasad had five.
Debashis Mohanty had two, Sourav Ganguly had eight, and Anil Kumble had all 10. The captain started with Srinath and Prasad, experienced bowlers who gave nothing away; finished Mohanty quickly after that, for the young man can get excitable; then, while the ball was with his best bowler, brought in Sourav Ganguly at the other end. sponsors and advertisers, but among the community of cricketers and connoisseurs, he stands among the very best. And that spell on a cold, cloudy morning in England was the stuff heroes are made of. There is more to cricket than clearing boundaries, but somehow, in the subcontinent, we seem to ignore that. You know, and this might sound completely ridiculous, if more young men tried to emulate Anil Kumble rather than Tendulkar, Indian cricket might actually emerge stronger. the attitude of a boxer; take a few knocks but stand up and give them back.
I hope this is not a temporary flood of self-belief for whether or not India wins the World Cup 1999, they must forge a strong and happy marriage with this new attitude and a passing thought for everyone to ponder over. Were Australia right in manipulating a cricket match to try and allow one team to qualify instead of another? The Australians said that there is no rule that says a match has to be won in a lesser number of overs and that is right in law. But, talking of the law, search the rules. Is there anything over there that says a team must try and win a match at all times? So, by their own interpretation, there should be nothing wrong in throwing a match if it helps a team.
For example, if Australia had already qualified for the Super Six, would they have been justified in losing a match if that helped one team rather than another to qualify? Whatever Australia might say, that is only one small step away from what they did.Anil Kumble being congratulated by his teammates in the world in a pressure situation. the match against England, is one of the best bowlers It would have been tempting to try and bowl out Sourav Ganguly quickly and keep the best bowlers for the end, but Azharuddin chose to attack, and he discovered that the opposition did not have the heart to launch a counterattack.
The moment he got a wicket, he placed aggressive fields, and how well Anil Kumble responded. This was a supremely confident man at work, aware that India’s future depended on how he bowled his ten overs. For some reason I have never understood, Anil Kumble does not excite, and his performance on the day, and the completely relaxed and confident manner in which he approached the job the previous evening showed that there is a different spirit in this Indian team.
They played poor cricket for a disastrous half hour against Zimbabwe and momentarily, their heads dropped. But that was the only time. On every other occasion, this team came out smiling and confident, and for the first time Indian cricket has shown, I have considered the parallel from football where teams start back-passing to use up time. But what Australia did was the equivalent of going 1-0 up in the first five minutes against a team that could not equalize and spending the next 85 minutes trying not to score a goal.
They were not defending, they were trying not to score. I have always admired the way Australia play their cricket. But this was unlike them. This was a diffident, negative gesture. The Aussies are proud of the fact that they play hard, fair and within the rules. This time they played hard and within the rules but they were not fair. Like lawyers, they looked for the loophole rather than for the spirit. And I thought it was in the fitness of things that it did not work.
