As far as I can remember I always wanted to do two things- watch Cricket and be a writer. And that I could do two things at a time speaks a lot of dedication not sure there was enough necessary motivation. The game itself is such a grandeur and its players bespectacled me with their innovation everyday. And one such player is Kevin Pietersen. Kevin is in a league of his own maybe joined sometimes by Virender Sehwag. But the aura and the audacity of this Natal born Cricketer just amazes me. He is a batsman who has defied logic of English Cricket and made it a commodity- that sells, buys and rolls eyeballs.
English Cricket dates back to the imperialist days when couple of them played the game for a leisure. They were watched and enjoyed by a group of women who knitted and cradled their babies while the men enjoyed a sip of rum. Let me not get back to those earlier days but speak about 70's when they had a good run. The batsmen in their ranks played the game in their merits, leaving anything outside the off stumps, hooked, straight drived and lifted their cap on reaching a milestone. There was no reverse sweep, Dilscoop and a lot of many crazy things that almost defied the laws of MCC batsmanship charter.
Names of Denis Amiss, Colin Cowdrey, Geofreey Boycott used to be taken in reverence and for sometime Bottham started changing it. But then the game was played and the batsman in a typical conservative fashion. It was rumored that the English batsman would not be scoring 2 runs per over and will not be challenged to increment the run rate even it if the asking rate touched 6. A good example of their scoring could be evident in stats books but in One-Day Internationals they played poorly at 79 world Cup.
With this text book Cricket enters Kevin Pietersen. History suggests that he didn't get a chance to play in South African team and as time was running out he met the English authorities and spoke to ex-English captain Nasser Hussain about it. He scored plenty of runs in English County and then drafted to the team. And we saw a resurgence of English Cricket in 2005. He changed everything- the batting stance, aggressive attitude to bowlers especially spinners and outrageous shots.
Kevin has all the ingredients to be a suspense director. I mean his innings like suspense movies have a nervous start, patience middle, aggressive second half-with cuts and misses and then some mind blowing shots. With Kevin and Sehwag there is everything the crowd gets and expects more of excitement. There was a theory once that test cricket is boring. Well, it changes a Kevin and Sehwag bats for they not only makes it enjoyable but keeps you on the edge.
English Cricket dates back to the imperialist days when couple of them played the game for a leisure. They were watched and enjoyed by a group of women who knitted and cradled their babies while the men enjoyed a sip of rum. Let me not get back to those earlier days but speak about 70's when they had a good run. The batsmen in their ranks played the game in their merits, leaving anything outside the off stumps, hooked, straight drived and lifted their cap on reaching a milestone. There was no reverse sweep, Dilscoop and a lot of many crazy things that almost defied the laws of MCC batsmanship charter.
Names of Denis Amiss, Colin Cowdrey, Geofreey Boycott used to be taken in reverence and for sometime Bottham started changing it. But then the game was played and the batsman in a typical conservative fashion. It was rumored that the English batsman would not be scoring 2 runs per over and will not be challenged to increment the run rate even it if the asking rate touched 6. A good example of their scoring could be evident in stats books but in One-Day Internationals they played poorly at 79 world Cup.
With this text book Cricket enters Kevin Pietersen. History suggests that he didn't get a chance to play in South African team and as time was running out he met the English authorities and spoke to ex-English captain Nasser Hussain about it. He scored plenty of runs in English County and then drafted to the team. And we saw a resurgence of English Cricket in 2005. He changed everything- the batting stance, aggressive attitude to bowlers especially spinners and outrageous shots.
Kevin has all the ingredients to be a suspense director. I mean his innings like suspense movies have a nervous start, patience middle, aggressive second half-with cuts and misses and then some mind blowing shots. With Kevin and Sehwag there is everything the crowd gets and expects more of excitement. There was a theory once that test cricket is boring. Well, it changes a Kevin and Sehwag bats for they not only makes it enjoyable but keeps you on the edge.
No comments:
Post a Comment