History was made last week in 2 different geographies duly separated by the
vast Indian Ocean. Usually, when a significant event occurs in any
part of the world, the only common denominator would be the people excluding
the circumstances that may have been prevalent and contributed to the historic
event in that place and at that point of time. However, there is a
perceptible link that connects the 2 regions which were mentioned earlier -
Cricket. As George Bernard Shaw had once famously said”Cricket is a game played by 11 fools and
watched by 11,000 fools". There were millions of fools, cheering
in the stadium, watching it on TV and checking out the scores on Mobile apps,
who were waiting with bated breath for the epoch-marking and headline grabbing
games to quickly begin in Nagpur and Adelaide respectively. Cricket matches, be
it ODI, T20 or the test version, happen throughout the entire 365 days in some
country or the other. So, what was special with these 2 venues?
In the land of the cricket-driven and cricket revered India, the
Proteas were on the verge of losing their highly consistent overseas track record
where they had not been beaten in a series by any country to close to a decade.
Having won the ODI series and T20 comfortably, they marched on a high and
brimming with confidence into the test series until they ran into the wily
Ashwin who simply terrorized the South African batsmen with his wide array of
tricks that were hidden secretly under his sleeve. Even the likes of the
ever dependable Amla, the dashing De Villiers and the dedicated Du Plessis
had no answer to the web spun around them by the Indian trio - Ashwin, Jaddu
and Mishra. The South Africans were like a cat on a hot tin roof on seeing the
prodigious spin and turn that the pitch was massively offering and assisting
the spinners. Though the Indians were supposed to be good at playing spin, even
they were tremendously troubled by the gentle likes of Harmer and Tahir. In the
end, the Indians won the first match. The second was washed out due to heavy
rains and the third was the final nail in the coffin for South Africa's away
wins. There was no denying that the pitch was not conducive to the batsmen to
play their shots but they made the pitch to look even worse and unplayable.
This would be covered in another blog but for now, the match as a whole is
covered. This was Virat Kohli's second series win in a row and is sure to
silence those who had questioned his captaining abilities when Dhoni retired
rather abruptly during the Australian series and was asked to fill up the big
shoes of MSD. The South Africans would have learnt a very good lesson that
despite an excellent line-up, they still have gigantic mountains to climb when
it comes to playing spin to be truly dominating the cricketing arena like the
West Indies of the 70s or Aussies of the late 90s. On the other hand, the
Indians should not have any sense of complacency for beating the Number 1 team
in the world as the pitch played its part as much as their spinners. Lessons should have been learnt but the
application of those lessons should be seen only in the upcoming tests.
When India was
hurtling spin missiles at the Africans and decimating them, the competitive
& combative Oz and the warm & friendly Kiwis were at loggerheads with
each other in Australia. The first match was won comprehensively by the
mighty Aussies. The second test ended in a draw. But, the historic moment was
captured in the third test @ Adelaide where the world’s first official
Day/Night test was to be held and the red cherry was to be replaced by the pink
Kookaburra. It was also the first time when the world witnessed the first
dinner break in the entire 138 year Cricket history! Under lights, it was
surreal to see the two neighbouring countries battling against the seaming
conditions on a pitch that has always favoured the batsmen. The pitch was left
so green that no hundreds were scored by either team during the 3 days of play.
The audience were left enthralled to the extent that it broke the house record for
the attendance @ Adelaide. The funny part is that it did not involve England! At
the fag end of the third day’s play, Aussies became the first team in the world
to win the first ever Day/Night test match amidst the heatedly disputed and controversy
surrounding over Lyon’s decision in the first innings.
Ultimately, it boils
to the incontrovertible fact that the chapters of Test Cricket were rewritten
in the swift span of only 7 days. The South Africans have a daunting task ahead
in front of them. The Indians, despite wrapping up the series, need to show to the
world that they can beat a challenging opponent on a sporting wicket. Last but
not the least, whether purists and traditionalists of the longer version of the
game accept it and like it or not, Day/Night test matches are here to stay.
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