It is highly instructive that the widely reported verbal response by Virat Kohli to David Warner during the recently concluded Australia/India Test match at Perth occurred...during the Australia/India Test match at Perth. The series was certainly still alive during the third Test but the fact that the response should be one of claiming that Australia would get sorted out when they toured India next shows us something quite remarkable about the extent of the defeatist attitude that has percolated down to even the newest members of India's Test squad - it shows us that, even with all to play for and the series in the balance, the conclusion that Australia could not be sorted out in Australia was forcefully, inevitably final.
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Three cricketing clichés that are so not true:
3. "That's a great decision by the umpire."
No, it's not. Maybe the umpire just guessed and dropped lucky about that ball that brushed the thigh pad at warp speed or that LBW that was clipping half a bail on the leg stump. Maybe he didn't give it out because it didn't "look" out. Isn't it shocking that, whenever humanly possible, umpires refer decisions to technology because they're just thankful that they don't have to make that decision? I'm astonished in the extreme that umpires aren't lobbying harder for DRS to be made mandatory and, if possible, for significant expansion in the scope of decisions that can be referred to technology.
2. "He knew exactly where the fielder was."
No, he didn't. Much like its football cousin "he picked his spot", I find it incredibly hard to believe that batsmen always know exactly where the fielders are - if they did, they'd get out caught much less. With the advent of Ultra Motion cameras, which demonstrate exactly how much the bat turns in the batsman's hand, it has become increasingly hard to accept that the batsman knew exactly where the fielder was and therefore placed the ball with any great skill because clearly, the batsman intended the ball to go wherever he did before the bat turned in his hand. I haven't yet seen a batsman say that he regularly accounts for the bat turning in his hand when deciding where to hit the ball.
1. "The reason he played so well is because he looked to play in the 'V'."
No, the reason he played so well is because he scored so many runs, the majority of which were most certainly not in your stupid 'V'. I am yet to see much credible evidence to support the hypothesis that players who play straight score more runs. In fact, to the contrary, players who play straight tend to get caught behind the wicket a lot more because they are actively looking to drive and therefore end up edging a lot more, whereas, especially in Tests, players who look to play behind the wicket ("if you flash, flash hard"; "through the slip cordon...there's no third man...another boundary"; "you cannot afford to bowl on leg stump, he'll keep picking you off to fine leg all day") tend to score a lot more because most teams tend not to heavily protect that area. I am also completely at a loss to explain why commentators gush over square cuts and pulls and backfoot drives and sweeps and leg glances without ever looking to reconcile it with the preposterous "playing in the 'V'" theory.
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http://twitter.com/uhohitsthebigo - What a guy.
1 comment:
Yo, fella.
The cricket team has always been the ultimate melting pot. A multitude of opinions, ideas and theories regarding each and every facet of the game, propounded by every 'expert' imaginable, it's a wonder the cricket team doesn't just call it quits and get away from it all. Seriously, opinion seems to vacillate from one extreme to the other with alarming rapidity, and defeatist ranting doesn't seem to be that much of a stretch.
The 'great decision by the umpire' thing just seems to be the usual empty words inflating the actual worth and ability of an umpire. Each wrong decision gets excused, each right one gets lauded. Always has. Knowing 'exactly where the fielder' seems somewhat more sensible, but doesn't do the batsmen all that good if his instincts don't allow him to react appropriately to every ball. And the 'V' stuff? Bloody ridiculous.
Big O? Man, that dude's like a better version of 'The Freak', Rob Terry. And a broski, too. Too bad I won't be able to attend Wrestlemania for the next few years. >_>
Well, that's the comment, and I'm outta here.
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