Cricket: Where limits lie beyond boundaries

Sultans of Swing

Music, art and food are the essence of life. They have no borders, no religion and no politics. They are the universal expressions of humanity and empathy. For that matter, AR Rahman having his concert in New York or The Swedish House Mafia performing in Bangalore gets the same amount of love and respect from their fans .On the similar lines, exquisite Italian pizzas are loved at par with the masala Indian curries over the globe.

The same holds true for this beautiful game of cricket. A true fan follows The Ashes with equal enthusiasm as he would follow an Indo-Pak encounter. I mean you cannot define any boundaries. If you ask me, the best captain would be Ricky Ponting, an Australian not Sourav Ganguly or a Jayawardene.Talent speaks, not the nationality.

Well what’s the most romantic sight for an ardent cricket fan?For some it is their favourite batsman playing a textbook cover drive. A few of us might find our favourite spinner deceiving the batsman and getting him stumped off a doosra astonishing or a “Biggie” over the bowler’s head for a six wonderful. Biggie is the term coined by Tony Greig when Sachin Tendulkar charged down the ground and hit Shane Warne for mammoth sixes that eventually gave him some sleepless nights in the year 1998.

Let me retrospect my ecstatic moment. What do I adore?

Well, I love it when two pacers work in tandem, intimidate the batsmen, put pressure and completely out power them with their bowling. After all, cricket no more is just a batsman’s forte. And when the applied pressure becomes proportional to the frequency of the wickets crumbling and flying off the ground with a boom sound from the microphones it becomes a divine sight.

Adding to my utopia, if I ever had to pick up the best bowling side it would be Pakistan. West Indies would eventually drift down to the number 2 slot as I haven’t seen Marshall and Holding bowl. I do not see people on the other side of The Sindh as evil or hateful souls. I believe that one should extract the positives out of everything and that is exactly what the Indian cricket must do. Create a pool of youngsters who can bowl fast. Batting has always been India’s core strength and if we can learn the technique of good fast bowling from them, we can become invincible.

The heroes of my script here are also the Pakistanis,who share their land with the artists of the Coke Studio Pakistan and even Malala Yousafzai. In case you like Sufi folk music, tune to Coke Studio Pak. and cherish the golden melodies. Arif Lohar, Meesha Shafi and Rahat Fateh Ali Khan will definitely mesmerize you with their charisma; the way Imran Khan did it in the 1992 World Cup.I know it’s a cricket write up still I can’t restrain myself without mentioning about the FOOD. Their Mughlai cuisine for that matter is poise. I always relish my taste buds at Karim’s (Karim’s is an authentic Mughlai Restaurant Chain in Delhi, started in early 1900s near the Jama Masjid) whenever I visit New Delhi.

Not drifting too much, coming back to the crux the world has witnessed some famous duos like Xavi and Iniesta in football, The Woodies in tennis, Laurel-Hardy in Comedy and Calvin-Hobbes in comic strips. In its cricket analogy the heroes of my script definitely feature amongst the prominent names. I am talking about The Sultans of Swing- Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis.

Wasim-Waqar combo was an amalgamation of precision, pace and deadly swing bowling that agonized the batsman fraternity in the early 90s. Akram with his impeccable line-length and Waqar with his tormenting in swinging toe crushing yorkers were unplayable. Wasim bhai I think is the best left arm fast bowler ever produced in the history of the game. He could even bowl a ball that swung both ways. He just had a short and a balanced run up whereas Waqar’s to the contrary was a scintillating sight. Waqar like a hawk always aimed at the stumps and it worked for him. The sound of the woods that his deliveries used to produce after the dismissing the batsman was magical.

Donald-Pollock, McGrath- Lee, Walsh-Ambrose also hunted in pairs for their respective teams, but I always found Wasim-Waqar more fascinating. The Sultans have captured 15 or more wickets in a match on ten occasions in tests. They even shared all 10 wickets in the innings twice. I remember one of those occasions. It was in early 90s when they bowled unchanged on the first day of a test match and took the ten Sri Lankan wickets for 66 runs. The duo has around 500 scalps under their belt, averaging around 21 with a strike rate under 45.I always had mixed emotions while they played against India. Obviously I wanted India to win, but back in my mind I used to feel a little bad when they were belted. That is natural I guess.

I wish to see some genuine Indian pacers being nurtured at the root level in the coming years. If the youngsters can seek some motivation from these two legends, it will be really beneficial for the Indian cricket. I think BCCI needs to pitch in some good bowling coaches and should prepare substantial wickets. If Irfan Pathan -The Bowler wasn’t ruined and Bhuvaneshwar Kumar could generate some extra pace, this combo might have worked well.