The Men Who Changed the Face of Cricket: Part I

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Cricket, today, features amongst the top sports of the world and its shimmering luster is getting shinier with each passing day. While not yet in the same league as Soccer, Golf, or Formula One, the sport has managed to carve a niche for itself. Call it globalization or commercialization, but the sport continues to attain new zeniths despite all odds. Even in sports rich countries like Australia, England and South Africa, where plethora of different sports—both indoor as well as outdoor—are available at disposal, Cricket still holds a special place. The English and Aussies still look upon Ashes as the greatest challenge of grit and determination and take a lot of pride in the outcome of the series. Similarly, the people of the sub-continent, most notably India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh, adhere to cricket as their religion. Cricket is also followed with almost the same vigor and intensity by the people of Caribbean, who have many great memories of ancestral heroics attached to the decorated sport. With the ICC’s initiative to take Cricket to all the nook and corners of the world, the associate nations have been emerging well as potential hot spots for Cricket in the days to follow. But, as it is with all the great things, they don’t become great overnight, for they need to be fed with years of sweat and blood. Well, Rome wasn’t built in a day! Cricket, too, has run its course from its nigh obscure beginnings as an aristocratic sport in early 16th-century England to becoming the raison d’être for sports maniacs all across the globe. At almost every point of time in its history, the game of Cricket has seen itself undergo a tremendous transformation thanks to the peremptory intervention of the prime movers of the game. Whether for the better or the worse, the impact that these colossal figures have left on the sport has been staggering.

The Dying Art Of Fast Bowling

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It seems eons ago when the cricket teams used to have a battery of fast bowlers on whose shoulders the fate of a match rested upon. Gone are the days when there used to be an even competition between the bat and the ball, when the pitches had enough moisture to encourage the pacers to bowl their hearts out, when the edges and the miss timed strokes didn't clear the boundaries, when the pacers didn't hesitate to bend their backs and when the rules were not partial towards the batsmen.

Those were the good old days when a Jeff Thomson bouncer hit the top of the sight screen, when West Indian wicket keepers stood right next to ropes for the pacers, when Jeff Thomson's deliveries defied the speed limits and when batsmen courageously hooked and pulled without helmets. Many regard that period as the golden era of cricket.

The era saw sparkling batsmen whose skills bettered the quality of their bats, ferocious bowlers whose deliveries had more venom than their sledging, phenomenal all-rounders who were equally skilled with bat and ball, zealous wicket keepers whose agility overshadowed their chattering. Those were the days of the 'Gavaskars', the 'Greenidges', the 'Richards', the 'Boycotts', the 'Lloyds', the 'Sobers', the 'Holdings', the 'Garners', the 'Roberts', the 'Hadlees', the 'Marshalls', the 'Devs', the 'Khans', the 'Bothams', the 'Marshes', the 'Murrays', and the 'Dujons'.

Since then, the game has come a long way, growing further as a commercial sport and hasn't failed to produce great batsmen like Tendulkar, Lara, Ponting, Hayden, Dravid and others. It has even managed to produce world class spinners like Warne, Murali, Kumble and legendary medium pacers like Mcgrath, Akram, Pullock and others. But the breed of express bowlers that has been the game's greatest legacy is facing extinction.

Nowadays, one hardly sees a match (especially a test match) won by a genuine speedster, most of whom are forced to reduce their pace owing to the averse cricketing laws and career shortening injuries (due to lack of rest). Even the pitches are laid and maneuvered in such a manner that they offer no assistance to a pacer, even in the initial overs, deflating the very spirit and zeal which drives an express bowler, forcing him to run for cover.

The game's ruling body, the ICC is mostly responsible for the current disheartening scenario and the plight of the fast bowlers. It injected the game with commercially favorable rules which are extremely hostile to Fast Bowling like the restriction on short pitched bowling, stringent wide bowl and no bowl rules, powerplays, free hits, the over rate criteria, etc. Youngsters no longer dream of being a fast bowler, as they don't want to suffer the fate of an express bowler.

The Cricketing Boards are also least supportive of the rare breed of pacers, not taking the necessary measures to nurture the talent of those gifted with raw pace and instead inveigling them to cut down on their pace in order to prolong their careers (so that over rate and extras can be taken care of) thereby catering to the desires of ICC. It's time that shackles be broken and necessary steps be taken to revive the dying art of fast bowling, giving special attention to the existing breed (instead of cashiering them away), so that the game is not robbed of its greatest legacy.

- Murtaza Ali Khan

Brian Lara's 153 n.o in the 3rd Test vs Australia at Barbados in 1999

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Brian Lara during his match-winning knock of 153 n.o

Brian Lara's 153 n.o in the 3rd Test vs Australia in 1999 in my opinion is the greatest Test innings ever played.Chasing a target of 308 on a weary wicket, West Indies were in all sorts of bother at 78-3 (off 40.4 overs). In came the WI captain Brian Lara and within a span of 15 overs and 25 runs saw opener Griffith and Hooper fall to Gillespie. West Indies were now reeling at 105-5 (off 55.3 overs). 

West Indies are two-time World T20 Champions

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West Indies team celebrate after Carlos Brathwaite hit the winning shot

2016 can now be described as the year of West Indies cricket. Their Under 19, Women's and Men's teams are all world champions now. Darren Sammy's team showed the world that they are not a one-man team and every player is a potential match winner.

‪Marlon Samuels‬ was also the hero in 2012 and he did it again today with some great hitting in the end from ‪Carlos Brathwaite‬. I have always felt that Samuels is a highly underrated batsman who never gets his due. I hope it will change after today. Today, I am sure he would have silenced his 'good friend' Shane Warne. West Indies have a new star in Brathwaite. Few people know that he is a very good lower middle order Test batsman as well.

Sammy himself didn't do much with the ball or bat throughout this tournament but showed that a player be in a team merely as a specialist captain. No one but Sammy could have kept this bunch together. In 2014 when the Windies were eliminated because of rain, Sammy had said that God wanted Sanga and Mahela to win the world cup and his prophecy turned out to be true. At the onset of this tournament, no one gave this team a chance. Experts like Mark Nicholas ridiculed them, their own board didn't support them. But today these 15 Caribbean players have certainly proved everyone wrong, perhaps even fading the line between man and myth.

West Indies needed 19 runs needed to win of the final over. Carlos Brathwaite‬ was up to the task and struck 4 humongous 6s of the first 4 deliveries of the 20th over bowled by Ben Stokes to seal the match.

PS. Virat Kohli deservedly won‬ is the man of the tournament.

- Murtaza Ali Khan

England stun New Zealand to book their place in Sunday's T20 World Cup final at the Eden Gardens

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Jason Roy during his match-winning knock of 78

At the onset of the T20 World Cup, no one thought that England would have made it to the finals. After being hit by the Gayle storm, they announced themselves by chasing 230 against the Proteas, and in the Semi finals they have humbled the Kiwis, breaking their six-match winning streak. Roy at the top and Butler towards the end gave a fair estimate of the English fire power. Sodhi and Santer who have been the best bowlers of the tournament by some margin were made to look rather ordinary. The way Butler hit those sixes of Sodhi and Santner in the end was really scary. At last we will have a two time T20 World champion: for, India, West Indies and England are former T20 champions.

Virat Kohli's heroics take India to T20 World Cup semi finals

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Virat Kohli takes Team India home

As far as 1.3 billion Indians are concerned, Virat Kohli is the man. Tonight, as the asking rate was slowly going up, Michael Slater said on air that hopes of 1.3 billion Indians now rest on Kohli. And, Kohli once again was up to the task. His heroics took Team India to the semis. Take a bow! Today, Kohli reminded me of one of my all time favorites, Arvinda de Silva. No one has ever seemed more at ease while hitting 4s at will than Kohli.