One of the reasons why I like English summers is due to the fact that you never know when it is going to rain. And you don’t need to go to England to get to know. Plug in your T.V. and you can witness anything from a drizzle to a downpour during any Wimbledon tour or a cricket tour in that place. But it’s never irritating to watch it. Rainy days are always punctuated by periods of warm sunshine. You can almost feel the joy of getting drenched and feel the warmth of the glorious sunny weather.

If you still don’t get what I am trying to say, just imagine yourself in an English county. Let’s take a cricket match for an instance and you are playing in it. You are standing in a lush green outfield and the air is pleasant. You look heavenwards and its cloudy, with the lances of the sun interspersed by the grey clouds. There is a light breeze around that lifts you, that awakens you to the very joy of playing cricket in these glorious conditions. You never want it to end. You want to remain in the () atmosphere and keep playing until fatigue overwhelms you. That is English county cricket, in a nutshell, in a quite different way. There is lots more to it than what you see. War veterans and promising youngsters rule the roost. Flipping through the scoreboards, you shouldn’t be surprised to see Hick scoring yet another century or a certain Mike making waves with his debut performance. English county cricket, though, flatters to deceive. England is yet to produce a bunch of cricketers that can pose a threat to any top team. Though it blanked West Indies in the recent test series, it still has a long way to go if it wants to reproduce the kind of spirits and guts it showed in that historic Ashes in 2005. And its one-day cricket seems to be going from bad to worse. It has become a two-man show for the side and to add to its woes, both are world-class batsmen and not very effective bowlers. Pietersen can turn his arm over sometimes but he presents as much as a threat as Panesar with a bat in his hand. Collingwood is a good enough all-rounder but he can’t bat, bowl and field exceptionally and still lead his side, all at the same time, something that Flintoff tried. Flintoff tried and couldn’t - one reason why he is still agonizing over the Ashes whitewash.
The series ahead against India looks to promise much. Both the teams have had some memorable encounters over the years and one gets the feeling it is going to be no different this time. For India, it is going to be the last tour of England for the likes of Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dravid and Laxman. All of them would be pretty eager to mark their presence in their own fashion and bid farewell in style. One has already made sure that he is not going without pleasing the cricket crowds and delighting pundits with his batting. Sachin has fond memories of England for this was where he made his first ever international ton and the Wonder Kid is as hungry as ever. He is a writer’s delight, you know, plays amazing cricket with such grace and style which is so typical of him that any cricket-lover can’t wait to watch him for one last time in cricket’s homeland. Ganguly, Dravid and Laxman fill the spaces of the best middle-order this team has and will probably ever have and they will raring to sign off on a good note. On the whole, the series looks to promise much and it will be worthwhile to watch the clash between the teams.
On a general note, cricket seems to be losing its sheen. The quality of the game has declined sharply and it has become more of a tussle between the commercial giants to rule the game rather than the ball and the willow. The World Cup in West Indies was a big let-down and it wouldn’t be inappropriate to term it a fiasco. Australia needs no more to prove that it is the champion but it is quite disheartening to see that teams haven’t risen to their level. The gap is widening more and more and something quick has to be done to bring back competitiveness in the game. To add to the woes of the genuine cricket-lover, the ICC is doing nothing more than corrupting the game for power and money. It conveniently missed the cold truth by a mile when it blamed the WICB for the World Cup fiasco. As cricket’s governing body, it has to take a lot of responsibility for the mistakes it committed and it was a shame to see it turning over the tables on a cricket board that was already in shambles, ripped apart by constant allegations and player disputes.

To really know how cricket is going downhill, just take a look at the things that have happened in the cricket world. As already mentioned, the WICB is in tatters and the disputes that have followed about the contract allegations have weakened the belief in players. The spirited fight back in the one-day series against England notwithstanding, the form that the Windies have showed in the recent past is enough to make the former greats lament for the rest of their lives and make Malcolm Marshall toss over in his grave. Clearly, the ICC can have a say in this matter and bring back things to normal but it has wrongly found the time to remain aloof and weaken the game. Some of the great legends of the game came from that enchanting place and it is dreadful to see the Caribbean spirit missing in the team. Ever since Lara left the side to hang up his boots and cool off his heels to take care of his family rather than save his team single-handedly, the side has been devoid of the colour and the very flavour of cricket that the southpaw brought into the game. What Lara brought into the game was magic, an irreplaceable something that reminded of a magician without a wand but wielding a bat. The bat speed that he generated as he brought down the willow from the high back lift, the sweet timing with which he essayed his strokes as the ball hit the meat of the bat and, oh the shots! A rasping cover-drive, a gentle caress down to fine-leg, a scorching straight drive, a neat turn of the wrists to guide the ball to square-leg. It was all done in one fluid motion as if he had descended from above to play this wonderful game. He was the wizard, the enchanter, the Prince Charming all at the same time when he was on song. Any innings of his was found to be as colourful as his life. His power, his timing, his strokes, his sheer display of skill and the flawed genius inside-oh, it was a treat to watch Lara! The team will miss him a lot, there is no doubt about that but only God knows how much the Indian team is going to miss Sachin when he decides to call it a day. And now back to the crises that are threatening the cricket world. Chaos is reigning in Zimbabwe and the ICC is still struggling to cope with the situation out there. It is powerless, no doubt, thanks largely to Mugabe whose acts are growing more repulsive by the day. There is the issue of the long and drawn-out international calendar that the players have to keep up with, not to mention growing resentment about Bangladesh being granted Test status too early. And yes, there is also the Twenty20 World Cup on the back of one of the worst World Cups ever staged- well, the ’99 WC was a tad better than this one and that, in itself, should speak a lot. The disappointments seem to be mounting on top of one another, much like Sachin waltzing past records, adding to the never-ending pile.

All said and done, the Twenty20 WC might offer something and bring back the lost glory and infuse life into the game just like what one-day cricket did few years ago. And this is mainly due to the fact that Twenty20 is powered ahead on the concept of Power Cricket, a new brand of the game that has been endorsed by players like Pietersen and one that has been embraced by his fans. The game has become more inclined towards the batsman’s occupation at the crease for a longer time. You know, just make him bat as long as he can, let him make the most of the PowerPlay overs, smash the bowlers around and strut as if he has made the top score of the match on a devilish pitch. Bowlers trudge back to the pavilion, demoralized and grumbling about the level of cricket that is being played. The new rules aren’t helping them either. One of them that stands out is one about the old ball that has to be replaced after 35 overs in the ODIs. It has made the bowlers more vulnerable, leaving them no room for opening up the batsmen with reverse swing. It is pitiful to even think that we can never see that wonderful art again- the ball swinging and curving in, taunting the batsman and deceiving him at the last moment- it has always been a bowler’s delight to rattle the timber. It is a symbol of the bowler’s might, the one sign that he has breached the defences of the one wielding the bat.

Alas, pitches have become flatter and the bats have heavier not to mention shortening boundaries, one reason why we see more batsmen in the Pietersen mould than the classical Dravid or Cullinan type. If you ever see a low-scoring match , you can see the captains wearing a ‘Gawd-help-us’ expression on their faces, blaming the pitch and stopping short of accusing the curator. Of course, there is always the snide comment which no one can miss- ‘Yeah, it helped the bowlers a lot, bit surprising to see.’ What do they expect then? A run-feast that the crowd can gorge upon? Gentlemen, you are supposed to be playing cricket, not golf where you can just whack the ball around. Of course, there are that breed of bowlers like Murali who never get bogged down, bamboozling the batsmen with their guile, totally indifferent to these anti-bowler developments. Just go and ask them about how they cope with the style of cricket that is being played. It’s the same stereotyped reply that one will find, ‘Oh, just bowl it in the right areas and the rest will take care of itself.’ You have to give credit to them, bowlers have been so badly treated like knights being stripped of their armour and still they find a way to square the batsmen up. If there are more of them, cricket will be back as the game that is supposed to promise much, the duel between the bat and the ball resplendent with its many twists and turns.














P.S: This was written in July-Aug '07, which is why you might find some pieces of information a bit outdated. Never mind them…