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Fearless Cricket

19 Tuesday Jan 2021

Posted by niralihathi in Uncategorized

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Australia, BCCI, Cricket, ICC, India, INDvAUS, IPL, Lords, Match, MCC, test, Test Cricket, Test series

I hear this phrase “fearless cricket” thrown around a lot these days. It’s been associated quite frequently with England’s brand of one day cricket these past few years… but this series and in particular these past five days, the Indian Cricket Team have given the phrase a whole new meaning.

Winning a Test match at the Australian fortress of Brisbane (the first team to beat Australia at the Gabba since 1988) with what was basically a 2nd XI team showed something few thought India were capable of. WinViz had India’s chances of winning at 1% before the first over of Day 5 had even been bowled with 0 wickets down. So what was the deciding factor in the game?

How was it that after losing the first test, being 36 a/o, losing their captain, having been plagued with injury after injury, losing the toss and fielding a team with 2 debutants and a grand total of four Test matches worth of experience in their bowling attack (if you discount Rohit Sharma’s ball), India pulled off one of the greatest wins in Test match history to secure the Border-Gavaskar Trophy for the second time in a row?

As Sachin Tendulkar so eloquantly put it: “Every session we discovered a new hero. Everytime we got hit, we stayed put & stood taller. We pushed boundaries of belief to play fearless but not careless cricket.”

They weren’t overconfident but neither were they afraid. They played with clarity, grit, purpose and most importantly courage. At no point did India look resigned to whatever ‘fate’ was in store for them. They played a brand of cricket that was unbridled by expectation and uninhibited by fear and by doing so pulled off an incredible feat.

Each and every one of those those players who took to the field for the 4th Test gave their all.

Each and every bowler shouldered their responsibility including an injured Navdeep Saini (who was fielding very gingerly) came on to bowl in the 3rd innings to support his teammates. And through their combined four Test experience managed to extract 20 Australian wickets.

Each and every one of those batters showcased why they had made it into the international side. From Shardul Thakur and Washington Sundar’s valiant assault in the second innings that rescued India from 6-186 to 7-309 to Cheteshwar Pujara’s impregnable defence and Shubman Gill’s elegant drives that set the platform up perfectly for Rishabh Pant & Co. to storm the castle in the fourth innings.

It was in the final hour of play we saw this new brand of cricket come to fruition, after a series of partnerships had taken India to within 63 runs of victory, they lost Mayank Agarwal. The burden of either pushing for a win or closing off fell on Pant and debutant Washington Sundar.

The two left-handers chose to be fearless and go for the win.. but in all honesty was it really a choice? Had they even considered it a dare to take on the challenge and risk the loss? Did it even cross their mind? Nothing we saw in that final hour was out of character for Pant and we had seen that same drive in Sundar during the second innings.

So how do you beat a man that just plays the way he plays?

How do you beat a team unburdened by consequence and fear?

It seemed Australia just couldn’t find an answer as India won by 3 wickets and recorded the highest ever run chase at the Gabba to take the series 2-1. A testament to this new brand of cricket. The beginning of a new era.

A game of chicken?

27 Sunday Sep 2020

Posted by niralihathi in Uncategorized

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Tags

Cricket, India, IndianPremierLeague, IPL, KingsXIPunjab, RajasthanRoyals, T20

There’s a game theory called ‘the chicken game’ which describes two players heading towards each other on a path of collision. If the players continue on the same path, they crash into each other; if one swerves out of the way and other doesn’t, the swerver “loses” and is labeled the chicken, while the second, implicitly braver player, wins.

Rahul Tewatia had every reason to swerve after being 8 runs of 19 balls chasing a monstrous 226. Had he continued the way he was going, Rajasthan Royals would have crashed and burned well short of the King’s XI total. He could have retired hurt or run down the wicket blindly in hopes of a boundary or being stumped but he kept on going, head first into the King’s XI attack.

Most players would have tapped out at this point whether out of choice or from cracking under pressure. Either taking the hit and said “It’s not my day – let someone else try” or simply from reaching a breaking point. It takes a whole lot of self belief and confidence in your own game to come back from being turned down for a single by your partner at the other end to do what he did.

Tewatia had faced 11 dot balls. Almost 2 overs of dots. A 10th of the Royal’s innings. Completely missing sweeps and reverse sweeps and putting the set batsman, Sanju Samson, under serious pressure. Samson had every right at that point to turn him down for a single as he smoked Glenn Maxwell for a six over midwicket taking 21 off the over and not letting Tewatia face a single ball.

At the end of the 15th over it was still in the balance as long as Samson was at the crease but then the game changed. Samson toe edged the ball to KL Rahul behind the stumps and everything seemed lost. A couple of boundaries from Uthappa at the end of the 16th left the required rate at 17.

51 required off 18 balls.

Cotrell to Tewatia, SIX runs… The tide began to turn… and again, SIX over square… and again, SIX over mid off… it was like watching a phoenix being reborn from the ashes. Clean hitting. Tewatia smashed 5 sixes.. the biggest over of the IPL cricket since 2016 when Virat Kohli hit 30 off Shivil Kaushik (Gujarat Lions).

He single handedly brought the required rate down from 17 to 10.10. 21 required off 12. With some assistance from Jofra Archer and Tom Curran the Royals polished off the game with 3 balls and 4 wickets to spare.

Had Tewatia taken the easy way out and given up it’s quite likely the Royal’s would have lost. Everyone had written him off including the commentators but he kept his faith in his ability to win the game. He battled through what was most likely the toughest period he’d faced in a game. He didn’t back away, he knew he had the capacity to win the game. He fought through and did just that.

Lesson? Maybe sometimes you feel it isn’t your day. Maybe sometimes a certain bowler is getting the better of you. Don’t give up. Don’t write yourself off. Don’t let yourself get away with tapping out..

Don’t swerve.

Back yourself. You know what you’re capable of.

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  • Burn out
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  • A game of chicken?
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