If Ahmadabad was the worst advertisement for test cricket…..enter Dunedin. It produced the best test cricketing action for the year till now! Five days of high voltage drama…..the contest between bat and ball…..Swing and seam and pace….Stirring batting. …Wickets falling in a heap and then the batsmen fighting back. It just had everything.
The first day ended with honors shared; New Zealand pulled away on the second; Pakistan combusted in the first half of the third, and then a debutant stood up and stroked his way to a hundred. On day four, a 17-year-old left-armer and one coming back in from the cold, blew the New Zealanders away and day five began with all results possible.
Day 5 saw a wobble at the top followed by a fight-back involving, inevitably, the debutant, left the last session poised evenly. The final breakthrough was provided by a bowler who had worked up steam all match without a wicket. He bowled into the wind and swung it New Zealand's way after taking a blow to the finger so severe the physio had to pull the digit back into shape. That merely made it more poignant.
If it failed to move you, cricket will be never be your game!!!!
Overall it was a great week for test cricket……be it the return of the maverick Sreesanth at Kanpur….or the rise of the blitzkrieg Barrath at the Gabba! Even Sehwag and Gambhir’s batting displays showed there’s more to batting than just slam bam hitting in the T-20 mould!
Abandoning test cricket will not only be stupid but suicidal. The roots of the game lie in test matches and without it the core values of the game would wither away!
Cricket is a game that is blessed with a buffet of three formats…there’s enough space for all three to co-exist and only if the administrators keep the wits about them all three formats will flourish with great élan!
Test cricket needs a retaliator. It needs men with vision. It needs ownership and drive.
C’mmon Lalit…….just do it!
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