India Vs South Africa Test Cricket: Cape (Town) Fear Conquered!

India becomes the first Asian cricket team to win a Test at the Newlands Cricket Ground in Cape Town, thus breaking its 7-attempt jinx and conquering a longstanding fear. However, the dream of conquering the Last Frontier in Test Cricket still remains unfulfilled for India with Rohit Sharma being only the second Indian captain to be able to draw a series. In the two-day wonder that unleased in Cape Town yesterday, the second test match between India and South Africa in the 2-match Test Series, India beat the hosts by 7 wickets today just one hour after lunch and had drawn the Series. It was the strongest possible reply to the first test where India was totally outplayed with South Africa registering an innings win. The 6-wicket burst from Jasprit Bumrah cut short South Africa’s fightback as they began the day at 62/3 and restricted them to 176 all out, giving India a target of only 79 runs to win. You must have wondered at the start of the Series what Yashasvi Jaiswal was doing in the team as an opener, because he has emerged only as a specialist short-format batsman and to replace a performing regular opener (Gill) was something you, like this writer, must have found indigestible, that too after the endless quest for an opener from the likes of KL Rahul onward, and also the perplexing indecision regarding selecting Surya Kumar Yadav for the World Cup-2023 ODI team even though that lay very much within the short format. Perhaps the selectors wanted to try a left-hander which had become rare commodity in Team India’s top half of late. But anyway, the selectors got vindicated to ecstasy! On a treacherous wicket even the 79-run target looked ominous and a player like Jaiswal was just the need of the hour: a brave hitter who could entirely damage the opposition with his initial burst. And that was exactly what he did today after lunch—he made 28 in only 23 balls and did permanent damage to the hosts’ expectations with Rohit steadying the other end till the end.

In the first innings as South Africa won the toss electing to bat first the 6-wicket burst from Mohammed Siraj did them in for a paltry 55 runs in their own land, in their own ground, looking shell-shocked as to how a pitch, prepared and curated by their own people, could be so unpredictably brutal to they themselves, and this created a curious situation, very similar to that Ahmedabad pitch which proved to be an equally unpredictable nightmare for the top-form local boys. Or maybe in both cases.

Facing an incredible opportunity to try take a massive lead and conquer the Fear by forcing a big win India started well with good contributions from Rohit, Gill and Virat. And then the match delivered the second shocker which in fact became a world record: from a position of 153/4 India collapsed to 153 all out, that is to say, they lost the last six wickets for zero addition to the total, including the likes of KL Rahul and Jadeja. The match was back to square on, although all happening during the first day itself. South Africa added three more wickets to the day’s tally, and this created the third wonder of the match which too almost became a world record: 23 wickets fell in a single day and this ‘achievement’ is only next to that of 25 wickets that fell in a match more than a century ago, 1902, to be exact.

As for the fourth wonder of the match, Aiden Markram has become the first batsman to score an incredible century (106 in 103 balls) in the second innings while all other batsmen failed to reach a score of even 20 odd runs in either innings of the match. The final wonder of the match: this becomes the shortest test in cricket history by the number of balls delivered with just 107 overs bowled and lasting for one and half day.

This memorable test match is good for Test Cricket in yielding exciting results, even though ideally a test should last at least three days, like in Australia mostly. The match is also particularly good for the Indian captain Rohit Sharma who had had to undergo excruciating pain in that pitch-marish World Cup-2023 Final at home, and again after the devastating defeat in the first test match against South Africa. It is also to be noted that he has got the result without the services of Shami and Pandya, and Test specialists like Pujara, Rahane and all, or maybe the latter are no longer required. Pandya, already made captain of Mumbai Indians replacing the India captain, could possibly be fit only during the IPL. Well! For the IPL, every bought player have to be fit at any cost!

Cricket: SKY, Pandya and the Formatted Hassles!

The World Cup-2023 Final still remains a nightmare, a bad dream that refuses to go, in the minds of most of Indian cricket lovers: their home team on home grounds crashing to a humiliating and a listless defeat in the grand finale after winning all the ten games leading to it. Well, for most of the sober cricket lovers win or defeat is always a part of any game and it’s never an issue to be distressingly sour or angry about; but the problem was that their home team couldn’t offer a creditable fight against Australia that they defeated in the very first game of the event and also in the previous matches in a bilateral series and had gone down like a pack of schoolboys as if trying to understand or find what’s the game of cricket all about. And that rankled, and still does. Expectedly, the fans or the organizers started crying hoarse about the pitch being doctored unnecessarily or mistakenly even though it belonged to their own country and to the supposedly biggest stadium of the country never blaming their favorite stars. For me it was the Kohli-Rahul partnership, perhaps the slowest in recent years concerning any country in the one-day format, that put the match beyond India’s reach, beyond any intended fightback and most unfortunately, beyond their bowling attack which was undoubtedly the best in the World Cup. And that brings the Surya Kumar Yadav (SKY) factor into focus.

Of course, he was not selected for the playing eleven and there was no indication of that happening. Till the pivot of the new Indian team, Hardik Pandya, got injured and was ruled out of the tournament. Since Pandya is considered to be one of the great emerging all-rounders in world cricket, his replacement was not easy—the team management had to think about both the batting and the bowling possibilities. They finally made the decision to bring in Mohammed Shami to replace him in bowling and as Shardul Thakur, as a supposed all-rounder, had been doing precious nothing in those four matches SKY was also brought into the playing eleven. That Shami, the victim of arguably the most horribly wrong decision in team selection, made history afterward is not our point here. We want to discuss the SKY factor, and then Pandya.

Bringing someone into the playing eleven during the biggest event of cricket means that the team management really trusts his abilities. No doubt, SKY has been going through a lean patch in recent months, but still he was a tremendous force to reckon with on his day. In the matches that followed SKY was not fully in his elements as an electrifying batsman, and the management should’ve replaced him again if they lost trust and confidence in him. If they hadn’t indeed lost the trust in him, they would’ve definitely allowed him to play the Final in his usual place; but they didn’t.

For the first time in ten games the batting order was changed and Ravindra Jadeja was sent in ahead, when, after laboring continuously in his excruciatingly slow partnership with Rahul, Kohli managed to complete his half-century and then fell. Jadeja only succeeded in putting the final nails in the Indian coffin. When finally SKY stepped in it was already too late. But then, as the Final-nightmare lingered on SKY was made captain of the T20 Team India which somewhat meant they still trusted him for the shortest format. However, trusted cricketers normally play all the three formats and normally as well succeed in all formats too. But not with Surya Kumar even as there was no news of Pandya getting fit. So, we still don’t have an answer to the trust-riddle concerning SKY.

While conceding to the fact that Pandya was sorely missed in the Final, it was also clear that India under the captaincy of Rohit was all set to win the World Cup-2023 without Pandya. But the selectors cum the management, following sincerely the somewhat clichéd objective of making way for the new-generation Team India, continued to believe in Pandya as the future captain of India which made it clear that the SKY factor was only a stop-gap arrangement for them, with the T20 World Cup coming up next year. Nonetheless, Rohit who was unanimously hailed as the most strategist Indian captain during the World Cup is more or less set to lead India in the T20 World Cup too, unless he happens to retire from that format which is probable after what Mumbai Indians did to him. And that again brings in the Pandya factor.

In a move that was somewhat anticipated the IPL franchise Mumbai Indians bought Hardik Pandya and afterward announced that he’d replace Rohit Sharma as the captain. In a cash-rich tournament we cannot expect the loyalty ingredient at all, and therefore, Pandya had no apparent qualms leaving Gujarat Titans that he led to a debut Championship-2022 victory and again led it to the 2023 IPL Final. It was also probable that the captaincy promise was a part of the transaction, and if so, that was highly unjust. Normally a successful India captain gets rewarded with more responsibilities like MS Dhoni who still leads the Chennai Super Kings and who is much older than Rohit. Besides, Indian cricket icons, much older than Rohit had been made franchise captain in the initial IPL years. Fans as well as playing and veteran cricketers are divided on this decision. Personally speaking I feel that it is a humiliation for Rohit who, under his leadership, made Mumbai Indians Champions five times since 2013, and that he should no longer play under Pandya, nor for the franchise. In this context his announcement of retiring from the T2O format seems imminent.

Since long years I’ve been advocating the idea of having three specialized captains for the three formats. In spite of making so many captains in recent years the picture is still the same: maybe Rohit still for the Test format, KL Rahul or Pandya or whoever for the ODI and Pandya for the shortest format who, after all, is set to consume the captaincy in all three formats in near future. Hassles, contradictions and what not! That’s Indian cricket! 

Two Drivers with Nothing in Common!

 

In present times it’s common to find the soothing slogan ‘help is just a call away’ at every step of life while in actuality it could be ‘help is just an eternity away’, particularly for elderly people whose perception of them being burdens on the booming younger community is so very tantalizingly turned into a reality by the latter! Of course, we cannot generalize because there are good souls—younger or older— still available on our tortured earth. Just the other day we encountered two app cab drivers that uphold and differential both the statements made above. 

We had to catch a late-night flight. As usual we, I and my wife, both elderly and I a senior citizen, had to somehow drag and carry our bags and heavy suitcases down the stairs round to the street corner where the cab was supposed to pick us up, because we didn’t want to wait for eternity for ‘help’, and we didn’t mind that at all out of experience! In that laborious process the cab driver called saying he was already on location and insisted that that was the right location despite my pointing out that the location was shown very clearly on the app. The driver’s tone was very casual, indifferent and bereft of human emotions. Anyway, he was at last persuaded to proceed to the location that we reached painstakingly.

 

The cab stopped beside us. The driver sat like a statue in his seat and the only movement he made was to open the boot for us. We really struggled to load the things inside the narrow boot. It was very hard for me as I had to lift the heaviest suitcase with both my hands and then adjust it inside. Well, I assured myself, the driver was just one of the multiplying ‘casual’ community and there was absolutely no point expecting help from him nor finding fault with him. Finally, getting ourselves installed inside he did the favor of driving us toward the destination; however, he did it casually and carelessly too, narrowly averting a bump into a vehicle in front on the way. Ditto was his behavior at the airport. In fact, he wanted to abandon us at the first gate he found even though the right gate was also recorded on the app. After delivering us at the right gate on my insistence he sat on like a statue, apart from opening the boot again. Fearing the driver would run away once I settle the fare then and there, I immediately alighted from the cab and looked for a trolley first. Then, again that laboriously process of unloading the boot and loading the trolley. After we finished doing that, I made the payment. All the time the driver sat in his driving seat.

 

Reaching the destination airport I again booked an app cab and waited in the allotted alley. Sighting the cab at a distance I motioned the driver to come up to the place where we stood which the driver did promptly. And then the driver not only opened the boot but also left his seat to help us load, to our hearts’ content and gratification. All the way he talked in a very friendly and homely way, informing us of the weather in the city and the changes that have been taking place of late. Arriving at our residence the driver again left his seat and helped us unload and carry the luggage up to the steps. He waited till we entered the building, and only then he drove away. I waved him a loving goodbye.

 

It’s indeed a solace that at the time when our Planet Earth seems to racing into the thick of a torrid and very uncertain future the good souls, indeed a raging minority, are still not drying up entirely.

(I was happy to find Blogger is taking the intended photos again when I checked out the last time. Hope it stays that way so that I get encouraged to be more regular with my posts. Nowadays without even photos, the videos are the buzzword, post are going to attract even a stray reader!)