Follow On

Some mornings you wake up and you know that you are going to score big. You get and a clear and sure vision of how the game is going to unfold.

Am I sounding like a cricketer?

Well! I can’t help it. It’s peak season in cricket and it’s rubbing off me. I am using cricket analogies in daily routine just the same way I use analogies from daily life in the cricket talk shows.

Today morning was the fifth day of the second test between India and New Zealand. For once the producer had been kind to me and gave the early morning show to another anchor. But I had to wake up early anyway to keep up with the developments and the talk shows. I had to do the match wrap-up show. While listening to the show I was itching to be on the hot seat. The expert was presenting some crisp and strong perspectives and I just knew how to dig into those and anchor a loaded conversation around them.

That was when I knew what kind of an inning I am going to play in my show.

It was a strange kind of a test match. Just when the average Indian cricket fan starts taking for granted that the team will win every match they play, a defeat or a near defeat (if its a test) happens. Kiwi’s transitioned from 29/3 to 619/9, to giving us follow on, to letting the match slip out of their hands and into the huge pile of drawn test matches.

Jesse Ryder shone and amazed me, not because international players don’t often shine but because of the way that he has turned his life around. Beat cold turkey – snatched his life away from the clutches of addictions; beat the Indian bowlers – snatched away a double century. Everyone at AIR and most of India thinks that I am a confirmed Jesse fan. But, here is the secret for my apparent affection … he reminds me of a friend, a sort of a younger brother – who has a similar physique, more or less a similar life at an equally young age; and is cricket crazy. Most of my talk shows overflow into emphatic conversations with him.

Daniel Vettori impressed me yet again. Perhaps John Wright did tell Vettori the secret about our stand-in captain – Virendra Sehwag’s approach towards spinners, especially the junior ones. In both the innings the spinners managed to lure him to hand-in his wicket. Talk of playing one’s natural game!

But I am glad that the task that the captain himself didn’t fulfill was well executed by others – especially Gautam Gambhir and the match was slowly and surely and for the meager audience – boringly pushed into a draw. Thankfully Gambhir could finally adapt his natural game to the need of the hour. So far Gambhir hadn’t impressed much this year. After his performance in the previous year he is expected to be the next Mr. Dependable. And why not? After all who else is there who can take that place? As the one whose natural game is to adapt to the task at hand was axed long ago for obvious unknown reasons.

Now that my thoughts are trespassing into politically incorrect territories, I guess its time to wind up this post. But not before I tell you that I am extremely curious about the back-injury that kept the Midas-touch captain Dhoni out of this game.

Is he going to play in the third test? And, are we going to win a test series in New Zealand after a gap of 41 years?

We’ll know soon.