test match

Laxman and Bhajji hold the fort: First Test against Kiwis peters to a draw

The first Test match between the Black Caps and India petered out to a tame draw.The great escape was engineered by two intrepid saviours,VVS Laxman and Harbhajan Singh.

The New Zealanders would surely have hoped to end the Indian innings early this morning but much as Vettori and Martin tried, the experienced duo of Laxman and Harbhajan would not let anything get past them.

The Black Caps, however, let a couple of half-chances go a-begging.

Once the first session was seen through without further loss of wickets, it was a matter for conjecture if Dhoni’s men would choose to continue batting or declare early to try and force a win.The Indian think-tank decided against an early declaration; discretion is the better part of valour.

Laxman and Harbhajan rode into the 90’s in contrasting styles; Laxman —calm and self-assured— radiating confidence and Harbhajan treating his time in the middle as a lark in the park ,with mighty swipes at the spinners.

Both batters looked good for tons but Laxman was undone by a terrible decision by umpire Davis given out leg before off an inside edge. Zaheer followed him back to the pavilion — out off the next ball — and the Kiwi captain was on a hat-trick that was not to be.

Yuvraj Singh: What a boy!

Yuvraj Singh now has a brand new sobriquet ‘ Water Boy’. No, it’s not a reference to the movie of the same name starring Adam Sandler.

A few inebriated fans at the 3rd Test Match between India and Sri Lanka decided that they were not quite ‘having a ball’ imbibing various liquors,the cricket was not entertaining enough and hence decided to vent their spleen on the players and cricketing officials.

Yuvraj Singh was the target of their ire; ‘water boy’ was the insult they came up with when he was performing 12th man duties for the Indian team.

Yuvraj Singh, however, was not one to take it lying down and decided to retaliate in kind.

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Adios, Murali: The Final Musketeer

Suddenly there were none!

The Galle test this week brought down the curtain on the career of the last of the three spinning maestros of this generation.

Much has already been written about Muttiah Muralitharan’s exit from the cricketing stage, and many more reams of paper will be consumed describing his exploits in his swan song test at Galle. Murali ended his Test career on a high against his Indian opponents claiming the requisite eight wickets to perch himself atop the summit of 800 wickets – master of all he surveys – in the process ensuring victory for his Sri Lankan teammates.

Murali , Shane Warne and Anil Kumble were the foremost exponents of spin bowling of this generation. Each alike the other but yet very dissimilar. Will there be any more  like them?

They were the three Musketeers of spin bowling; their sovereign – the Art Of Spin Bowling. Come flat tracks, come bouncy ones, come true ones, come lousy ones, come under-prepared ones, come turners,come rain, come shine, they were forever on call to serve their master, to do him proud. All-weather heroes, I term them!