Thursday, January 31, 2008

About Cricket and the action Down Under

I havent been posting anything new on this space for quite a while now. I had been in India for the past 2 months and so was a bit busy with things there. As a cricket loving person I was looking forward to that time, because of the India Pakistan series and then the India Australia series.

I should honestly admit that no other series could upstage the last Indo-Pak series as THE boring series ever. There was nothing exciting in those matches. The old fighting spirit was lacking from the players and the Pakistani players seemed to be enjoying the dinners and parties hosted in their honor more than winning any matches against their traditional rivals. The real party began when the Indian team landed Down Under. The Border-Gavaskar series were a great one to follow. The end score line of 2-1 depicted the tough fight the visitors gave to the Aussies in their own backyard. The series started with Australia showing their cricketing prowess and the Indian team meekly went down in Melbourne. But as a giant was awoken from sleep, they put up a good fight in Sydney. Who knows if the umpiring was not such erroneous then the series might have ended on a different score line. The Aussie winning march met its waterloo in Perth, where the same Men in Blue became their nemesis, as it had similarly happened in 2001, where a winning streak of 16 consecutive matches was halted by the Indian team. Much of newsprint has already been dedicated to discussing the aftermath of that test and the racism controversy between Harbhajan and Symonds. The truth of that matter seems to have lost behind the shady curtains of BCCI and the ICC. Cricket again took center stage in the remaining tests, with the Indians coming together to give a brilliant display of talent and team work to win in Perth. Had the pitch not been so batsmen-friendly we could have surely expected a result in Adelaide and probably the series would have ended in a draw. Adelaide also bid farewell to one of the best players in the game. Adam Gilchrist finally hung up his boots after a glorious career in cricket. He gave enough reasons to cheer for any cricket fan no matter where his loyalties would lay. We will miss those attacking innings, those chirpy moments behind the stumps and that elegant walking which had become a Gilchrist trademark.

The IPL took centerstage with announcing its corporate sponsors. The entry of big names from the corporate world and entertainment industry into the cricketing arena promise a new revolution. The manner in which revenue will be generated and the manner in which the game will be marketed is bound to change soon. Lets wait untill April when the IPL would get underway to see how things unfurl from there onwards.