The Men Who Changed the Face of Cricket: Part I

Sports Kaleidopedia Feature

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

Sports Kaleidopedia Feature

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

Sports Kaleidopedia Feature

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).