England are officially the No.1 International cricket side in the world and i for one am absolutely delighted by this fact. After years of misery watching the likes of the West Indies knock our players' blocks off in the 80s and suffering more Ashes defeats than i've had hot dinners, it is a pleasure to finally feel proud of the cricketers that represent our nation, even though half of them were not born in England.
Yet deep down i have this peculiar feeling of being robbed. Yours truly like many people around the world has to earn a crust during the working week, so cannot watch live cricket on a daily basis. At the weekend though, you kind of hope to sit down to some quality, competitive cricket, where the result remains in doubt until the last hour of the fifth day of the test. Unfortunately, so far with England's test series with India, i've had to turn my attention to mind numbingly boring tasks such weekly shopping by tea time of the fourth day of matches.
So whose fault is it for robbing me of my sporting pleasures? Are England simply far too dominant and ruthless in all disciplines of test match cricket? There is certainly no denying that England's position as the number 1 test side in the world is truly deserved. They have been the most consistent international team for the past twelve months without question. England have had the odd hiccup here and there during recent matches, but when in trouble players have stood up and been counted, Stuart Broad the prime example at Nottingham. Are they a ruthless team? They are well on the way. You got the impression with previous England teams they have been scared to stick the knife in and go for the jugular. Yesterday, England had India by the short and curlies and frankly did not let go the entire test match.
Is ruthlessness and dominance boring then? It is according to an old England adversary in Shane Warne. In fact Sky TV commentators in general seemed a bit perplexed as to what to say about Alastair Cook's wonder 294 knock yesterday. Apparently all batsmen need to be flamboyant to be enjoyable to watch. I personally have a great deal of respect for any cricketer who displays the endurance and concentration that was demonstrated by Cook during his outstanding innings. Test cricket is a marathon not a sprint. and that's the point, it's a TEST of not only your skill with bat, ball or in the field, but your physical or mental strength over the course of potentially five days.
Which brings us very nicely to England's opponents India, the World Champions of the 50 Over One Day format and now ex no. 1 team in the Test arena. What can one say? I'm beginning to think someone evil has produced second rate clones of the Indian team, and locked the real Indian team in a cupboard in Mumbai. Tendulkar looks like he's got a sack of spuds on his shoulders weighted down by reaching this 100th ton. Dravid, who is test cricket's highest catch taker, looks like he couldn't catch a cold. Sehwag looks like he's never batted in his life. As for Dhoni, doesn't look like he has a clue what is going on. They also have had three players (possibly second rate clones) who have dropped like flies in Harbajan Singh, Yuvraj Singh and Zaheer Khan and have flown home. As a consequence India have been on the wrong end of an absolute mauling from England which for the most part has been totally embarrassing to watch and ladies and gentlemen i am frankly angry they have denied me of some enjoyable competitive cricket viewing this month, especially as they were meant to be the no.1 side in test cricket. I mean seriously were they the no.1 side in a parallel universe! I wouldn't have minded if they had competed with England this past month and lost by the odd wicket or ten runs in 3 test matches, but they've lost by a gazillion runs. Frankly they probably would have been better playing in parallel universe. As a result of their failure to turn up for this test series, i have been bored and haven't been able to find an excuse not to do the weekly shopping. Thanks India!
So what's the explanation for India's dreadful performance? Maybe, just maybe, playing so many one day international sprints and Twenty20 mini sprints in the IPL, the players have forgotten the art of performing in a marathon.
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