The Dashing Opener

Posted by : Anand on 10:42 AM

It is none other than our own Virender Sehwag born on 20th October in Delhi,India. He is a right-handed opening batsmen and right arm off-break bowler who made his test debut against South Africa in 2001 and one-day debut against Pakistan in 1999.
The interesting part about Sehwag’s batting is that he is a kind of player who never takes the pressure onto his head. He plays his natural game and only that everytime he goes to the crease. Be it 20 to win from 100 balls or 100 to win off 10 overs, he is always the same Sehwag in both of these two situations.


Sehwag’s got various records under his belt including the highest score made by an Indian in Test cricket 319 which he scored against South Africa in Chennai, which was also the fastest triple century in the history of test cricket . Sehwag also holds the record for being in the elite list of just three people of being one of the only three batsmen in the world to have ever surpassed 300 twice in Test cricket, and the only one to score two triple centuries and take a five-wicket innings haul. In March 2009, Sehwag scored a blitzkrieg century off 60 deliveries which was the fastest century ever scored by an Indian in one-day cricket.


All these records don’t stop Sehwag from attaining higher peaks and is hunger for runs is growing day by day and the bowlers and captains are devoid of sleep thinking of how to get Sehwag out when they are up against him.

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Godfather of Indian Cricket

Posted by : Anand on 7:40 AM

He was one of the pivotal reasons for many present generation cricketers for holding up the cricket bat in their childhood, he is none other than the great Guru of Indian cricket Sunil Manohar Gavaskar. He was born on 10th July 1949 in Mumbai,India. He is considered to be the finest and best opening batsmen the cricket history has seen so far. His strong techniques have always left the cricket purists awestruck and the bowlers clueless. He could be called one of the mascots or pioneers of the game of Cricket in India.
He was a right-handed opening batsmen and made his test debut against the West Indies in the year 1971. He was famous for his high average against the fearsome foursome bowling attack of the West Indies. He maintained an average of over a 60 against the West Indies. He was just second to Allan Border for more than two decades as the highest run getters in test match cricket. He also held the record for the most number of centuries made in test cricket. It was later broken by Sachin Tendulkar. He was also a very good slip fielder and became the first Indian to take over a hundred catches in test cricket. He was less known as an aggressive player but he had the ability to carry his bat even for the full five days of a test match.


He was more towards playing every shot perfectly rather than just trying to go for runs. This made his task tougher to adjust and play accordingly to the shorter version of the game. He is mostly into controversies both as a commentator as well as a columnist. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan a few years ago and he is at present a busy pro-Indian cricket commentator. Though certain controversies and complaints creep in about him he is always considered as the ‘Godfather’ of Indian cricket.

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Steven Rodger Waugh

Posted by : Anand on 10:38 AM

Some of you might wonder who this ICE-MAN is. But it is none other than the former Australia captain Steven Rodger Waugh. Born on June 2, 1965 in Sydney , and he got into the Australian One-Day cricket team only as a “specialist” bowling all-rounder. He made his One-day debut against New Zealand at the MCG in the World Cup Series in 1985-1986 and his test debut in the same year against India in the same venue. Went on to become the first Australian to surpass Sir Donald Bradman’s 29 tons in tests.

He is known to be the best captain Australia has ever had and particularly his leadership skills came to the limelight during the ICC World Cup 1999.Initially, Australia were no favorites for the title. They had lost a couple of group matches and were performing in an average manner before that ‘innings of a lifetime’ from their captain came. That was the last super-six stage match. Australia and South Africa were playing each other for the first time in the tournament and South Africa was considered to have an edge over Australia. South Africa batted first and posted 270 odd runs with Gibbs scoring heavily. Australia lost early wickets and it required its captain to come to the party. The match was almost over when Steve came to the crease. But, the never-say-die skipper led from the front and batted along with the middle and lower-middle order batsmen to wrap up the match in style. He scored a breathtaking 120(his highest in ODIs) and remained unbeaten.

The thing that is inspiring about this man is that he grabbed on to the opportunity that was available though the situation demanded him to be cool and play intelligent cricket throughout. The next thing is, he led from the front as a captain and because of this victory they were adjudged the winners in the tied semi-final between the two sides. Truly that was really an inspiring inning and also he was a great sportsperson and moreover a wonderful human being as he started a charity foundation for leprosy patients in Kolkata named Udayan.

“We love you Steve but we MISS you the more.”

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The day of a cricket match:

Posted by : Anand on 10:36 AM

The sun rises to mark the beginning of a new day but on the day of a cricket encounter it is the fans that rise first well before the sun can even wake up. People flock into stadiums, on the streets, from terrace to the basement, anywhere and everywhere dressed like their idols, flaunting the photos of their favorites, shouting, screaming, singing, dancing, use whatever word that comes to your mind they will do just that. To these die hard fans cricket is a religion and all the cricketers are their gods. But the most important question here is: Have they ever wondered about the thinking of cricketers?

The basic for a batsman is to watch the ball right out of the bowler’s hand. Pick its line and length and play at it. You need to be a master to do even this simple thing and only a few have succeeded and they have gone to become the greatest cricketers the world has ever seen.
One of them is Sir Isacc Vivian Alexander Richards. Born on 7th March 1952 at Antigua Vivian Richards, popularly known as Viv, revolutionized the way cricket is to be played.

Batting Style : Right Handed
Bowling Style : Off Break(Part time)

Test debut India v West Indies at Bangalore, Nov 22-27, 1974
Last Test England v West Indies at The Oval, Aug 8-12, 1991


ODI debut Sri Lanka v West Indies at Manchester, Jun 7, 1975
Last ODI England v West Indies at Lord's, May 27, 1991


He started playing on the beaches of Antigua. Hitting balls to the tune of the waves. At that time few would have realized the ability of this 5 foot 10 seemingly gentle person. But when he once stepped into the cricketing arena it was not Viv that conquered game instead the game conquered him.

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SpinWizard

Posted by : Anand on 10:30 AM

As soon as the word spin is uttered the name that comes to our minds is that of Shane warne. Shane Keith Warne was born on 13th September 1969 in Victoria, Australia. He was right arm leg-break bowler and served as a very useful lower order batsmen for Australia when the situation demanded it. He made his test debut in the year 1992 against India and his one-day debut against New Zealand in the year 1993.


He was just the second player in history of international cricket to take a 1000 wickets. He became the highest wicket taker in tests in the year 2006 but only to be overtaken by Muralitharan in the year 2007. He had won many matches for the Aussies both with the ball and the bat. After the retirement of Warne the Aussies have struggled to win on sub-continental wickets and pitches that aid spin bowling. The delivery which he bowled to Mike Gatting was described as the ‘Ball of the 19th Century’. It almost turned viciously from outside the line of his leg stump to hit the top of his off stump.

Post his retirement from international cricket has not deterred the champion from linking with the game. He signed up for playing the Indian Premier League and captained as well as coached the young Rajasthan Royals team to win the inaugural IPL title by defeating the Chennai Super Kings led by the Indian captain M.S.Dhoni. Ian Chappel even described him as the ‘best captain Australia has never had’.He retired from test cricket in style by winning the Ashes 5-0 in 2006-2007.

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Sri Lanka’s Batting Lion

Posted by : Anand on 10:27 AM

The bowlers hesitate to bowl to him, the captains plead to their bowlers to open their accounts in the match by first taking his prize scalp. Who is he????? He is none other than Sanath Teran Jayasuriya born in Matara, Sri Lanka. He is a left-handed opening batsmen and slow left-arm orthodox bowler who is the only cricketer to have achieved the rare double of over 10000runs in batting and over 250 wickets in one-day internationals.

His stats are impressive enough but Jayasuriya is more significant even than these figures show. The year 1996 is to Sri Lanka what 1966 is to England, and while Arjuna Ranatunga may have lifted the World Cup that night in Lahore, it was Jayasuriya, officially named Man of the Series for the competition, who became their Geoff Hurst. During the 1996 World Cup, he revolutionised the game, tagging himself as a pinch-hitter by cutting, pulling, driving and lofting the ball over the in-field from the very start, when opposition captains were constrained by fielding restrictions, he and his partner Kaluwithrana took full advantage of the situation and Exploited the bowling.

Jayasuriya played under circumstances of greater expectations and pressure like Sachin . He cracked the fastest fifty in one-day cricket, from 17 balls against Pakistan The following year he was part of the Sri Lanka team that scored a Test-record 952 for 6, against India at Colombo and in that match he shared a record partnership stand with Roshan Mahanama and also went on to score a triple century and his highest individual score in test cricket of 340. He entered the final day 326 not out, 50 short of beating Brian Lara's then record individual score of 375 but managed only 14 more runs.

''I have not seen Don Bradman bat, but I have seen Sanath Jayasuriya.I have not
seen a better batsman or any one superior to Jayasuriya'' -Sachin Tendulkar after Sanath's 340

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The Little Maestro

Posted by : Anand on 10:34 AM

Little did Indian cricket and Indian cricket fans know that the great nation was going to win the World Cup in 1983 defeating the West Indian giants and even more little they did know that in the religion of cricket the god of cricket was born and his name is enough to provide to the world’s greatest bowlers and greatest captains assurance of sleepless nights and nightmares .He is none other than Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar born on April 24, 1973 in Mumbai ,India.
Tendulkar played his first Test match against Pakistan in 1989 under the leadership of Kris Srikanth . He made just 15 runs, being bowled by Waqar Younis, who also made his debut in that match . His one-day debut was on December 18th and it was very disappointing. He was dismissed without scoring a run, again by Waqar Younis. His maiden Test century came in the next tour to England in August 1990 at The Old Trafford. Tendulkar developed into a world-class batsmen during the tour of Australia in the early 90s that included an unbeaten 148 in Sydney.

The records tell little of the little master unless you have been a cricket fan and unless you have cheered for India you can never realize his priceless efforts. At once Sachin gets out, the stadium goes into a graveyard silence. There were times when a billion people hope against hope on one man in their team to bring victory for the nation and he too takes up the challenge and he will not give up instead he made the bowlers give up. Who could forget the way he played in the 1996 world cup. Who else could have got India on the ICC chart as one of the revered teams of international cricket .Each time he got a century and the team lost he did not blame the team for the loss but instead went on to show that he can win and made us believe we can win. Normal players after they get down with an injury don’t play some shots our little maestro too has had injuries but the brilliant man invented new shots like the paddle sweep and of recent times due to back injury his pull shot had to be avoided, but bravo he got one more effective over the head of slips . As a bowler you would ultimately wonder where to bowl to him????????? The great thing about Sachin is the way he makes his comeback when the critics have written him off. He makes the same critics write in awe of him. He just keeps proving he alone the master of the game and the evergreen one. The best thing to do is to watch him play I thank god for creating a normal human being like me in the same era as himself.

Today Tendulkar is the highest run scorer in both Test matches and ODIs, and also the batsman with the most centuries in either form of the game. The first player to score fifty centuries in all international cricket combined, he now has more than eighty international centuries. On October 17, 2008, when he surpassed Brian Lara’s record for the most runs scored in Test Cricket, he also became the first batsman to score 12,000 runs in that form of the game
Sachin has aggression, attitude, power, greatness and everything in his batting. He is a complete cricketer and sportsman more than everything he has the affection of billions of people which keeps him going on and on and he gets younger with people around him. We love you Sachin we know you will bring us the 2011 World Cup in style!!!!

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Punter Ricky Ponting

Posted by : Anand on 10:22 AM

Ricky Ponting, one of the greatest cricketer and captain of all time made his One Day International debut on 15th February 1995 against South Africa at the age of just 20.His growth in the world of cricket was never a smooth graph in his early days. He lost his place in the team several times due to lack of form and discipline issues, before rising to the One Day International captaincy in early 2002 and becoming Test captain in early 2004.But in recent years he has been consistently ranked in the top-ten batsmen by the ICC.


Ponting is now Australia's leading run scorer and century maker and stands right behind Tendulkar in the tally of most test centuries in the world. Ponting led his nation to a successful 2003 World Cup campaign from the front, amassing an unbeaten 140 in the final, and adorned himself with the Test crown when Steven Waugh finally stepped down early in 2004.


Ponting holds the record for most test centuries in a calendar year by an Australian that is 7 in 2006, most times gettting 100 runs in each innings of a test match, 3 times, is an equal record with Sunil Gavaskar, and also was the Wisden Leading Cricketer in the world in 2003.

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