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). 

West Indies are two-time World T20 Champions

Sports Kaleidopedia Feature

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

Sports Kaleidopedia Feature

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

Sports Kaleidopedia Feature

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. 

Tour de France 2013: The 13th stage of the 100th edition

Mark Cavendish: The winner of the 13th stage of Tour de France 2013

Number 13 has always been a much dreaded number. Unlucky for some, number 13 also has a phobia associated with it: Triskaidekaphobia. The 13th stage of Tour de France seem to carry the ominous touch of number 13. The stage proved to be a completely topsy-turvy affair as lucks of many riders seem to do a volte face. 

Chris Froome still leads the General Classification

Just when everyone was thinking that Chris Froome would easily succeed in doing a Bradley Wiggins, things seem to have taken a funny turn. While Froome (though he is still leading by 2' 28" over Mollema) lost more than a minute of his lead in the general classification to Bauke Mollema and Alberto Contador, Alejandro Valverde dropped out of top 10 following a nightmarish stage number 13. With as many as 8 more stages to go, the competition for the coveted Yellow Jersey seems to have opened up really well.

Rider to watch out for: Alberto Contador

And the juggernaut of Marcel Kittel that seem to be enjoying the rub of the green for the last couple of flat stages finally hit a major roadblock. But, there is always a flip side. Number 13 can also prove to be quite auspicious for a lucky few. A major beneficiary on the stage number 13 turned out to be none other than Mark Cavendish. The wheel of fortune finally favored the gritty Brit as the ace sprinter completed his record 25th stage win taking his points tally to 273 points. Peter Sagan, who finished second in the stage, still leads the points classification with 357 points.    

References:

1). Wikipedia

2). Guardian

Shamelessness: A Pyrrhic Victory or A Modern Virtue?

In an unscrupulous world, where the shameful are castigated and the shameless are exalted, shame is the last thing that a person can feel proud of. More often than not, failure is a prelude to success, but the Shameless is so daunted by the fear of failure that he is willing to resort to any means to ward off the possibility of a failure. In his deceitful efforts to actuate a situation of success, he can easily stoop lower than the most wretched of the creatures and in the process become the most heinous species of the despicable lot. The Shameless is a random anomaly that cripples a system with his malice and endless opportunism, thereby completely rendering it order less. The Shameless has a soul that’s tainted by his own sins, which he commits at a rate faster than his heartbeat. A victory that’s earned at the cost of scrupulous virtues is nothing more than a Pyrrhic Victory – A victory won at too great a cost to have been worthwhile for the victor. Success earned at the expense of others is ain’t no victory and is worse than a defeat most shameful, but that’s what the Shameless find impossible to decipher. There’s always a thin line that separates virtue from vice and when one crosses it on several occasions it ceases to exist. That’s precisely what the Shameless excels in! Adorning a heinous clad of shamelessness he walks down the boulevard of others’ broken dreams, which he shatters mercilessly on his way to earning the PSEUDO-GLORY. The Shameless is a paragon of desperation and often wears a mask of virtue behind which his fiendish personality proliferates. They say that it is the end that defines the means, but the Shameless toys with the means to tie his loose ends so frequently that no one can tell the means from the end, for it all becomes a part of a complex mismash that only he and his likes can fathom. With a sense of ridiculous ease, he wipes out his hapless victims who often find it difficult to identify the perpetrator. Amidst the pervasive darkness what goes through the mind of the Shameful is too loud to be ignored. He is forced to ask himself the following:

To be or not to be that is the question:

Whether it is nobler to go down with pride,

Or to settle for a pitiful existence

Is it bravery to keep on fighting a lost battle?

Or is it desperation to eke out a pittance

What of the efforts that go in vain?

Where the opportunistic trouble-makers are ever victorious

And those worthy are robbed of the glory

Where the undeserving bask in the sun,

And the righteous are treated with contempt

If the end result is always a painful failure,

Then ain't it futile to keep on trying

When dealing with the unworthy and the ungrateful:

Whether one should quietly suffer the torments of ill fate,

Or one should fight for when the outcome is a certain destruction

To fail to try or try to fail that is the question?