Apocryphal Stories !!!

In the movie Ram Charan Tej draws an analogy between cricket and golf. After watching the movie, one thing that ran on my mind was the fact that Bhaskar's career as a director could be analogised with that of a cricketer. Without generalising, it would be easy to suggest that Bhaskar's life has oriented around Bommarillu and his every movie will be compared to it. There is no escaping the fact. The cricket comparisons come in here Like a talented cricketer who has waited for a chance in Test cricket and has played out the scene in his mind for every living day of a superb domestic career, it won't be surprising if he actually scores a century on debut. The problem starts from there on, he would not have in all probability dreamt of the second and third tests Bhaskar too faces the same predicament. He had a superb script in Bommarillu and he must have played out every scene of that movie tonnes of times in his mind. Am not very sure about the same things happening for Par...

Law 14 of the MCC rule book states the following about Declaration The captain of the side batting may declare an innings closed, when the ball is dead, at any time during the innings. Yesterday the Cricketing world was abuzz with Smith's declaration of the innings as AB de Villiers was stuck on 278 *. He crossed the record for the highest individual score for a South African and Smith called them in It can be argued in Smith's favour that this declaration happened soon after Tea and AB de Villiers would be well aware of the time of the declaration. I am pretty sure that he would have been asked if he wanted to chase the magical figure of 300 Well since that puts a lid on a lot of controversies, I would like to look back upon a few controversial declarations over the years 1) Mark Taylor (334*) V Pakistan, at Peshawar This would always be remembered as the ultimate of salutes to the world's greatest batsman, Don Bradman as Taylor declared the innings when he ha...

Matthew Hayden, talking about playing in India said  "There are periods of time when nothing happens and then suddenly a wicket falls, the crowd gets behind the players and then another wicket falls. Before you know it's all happening in front of your eyes" This seems to be even more true with India being the numero uno in Test cricket now. When the focus shifted to Rajiv Gandhi International stadium, the 101st stadium to host Test cricket, all the concerns were centred on the pitch. There was heavy rain in the southern parts of the country and as the pitch was covered for most of the time, it was expected that there would be some help for the pace bowlers Zaheer Khan these days does the job of taunting, terrifying and ultimately snaring the batsmen pretty well. He seemed to be on course to do the same to McIntosh all over again as he bowled immaculate line and length to him. McIntosh bagged a pair in the last game at Ahmedabad and looked vulnerable against Zaheer w...

Sachin Tendulkar is a gifted wicket in either forms of the game and when you have him in your first game, it means that there is something in the bowling to look forward to. In Tests, the bowlers who have taken him as their maiden scalp have not gone to kick on with bigger things in life. It's one thing to get his wicket and quite another to get his wicket by foxing him Clint McKay will forever bask in the glory of not only having him in his very first game but by having him foxed by a slower delivery in that  epic match at Hyderabad . He got him by bowling a back of the hand slower one. Till today his debut match remained his best day in his short career. He made a name for himself on the circuit for his back of the hand slower ball From today on people will remember him for sucking every bit of help that a pitch can provide. Bestowed with the opportunity of sharing new ball in a dead rubber he dismantled the top order in a jiffy! Dilshan was forced into flicking a fuller...

Ruthlessness is described in the dictionaries as being 'without pity or compassion'. This was the characteristic not shown by Sri Lanka in dispatching Australia to further doom. It was shown in abundance,by them on various teams between  13th April 1996 and 1st October 1996 Agreed that the series was won before they went into the third match but it was not a reason enough to take the foot off the accelerator. Having won the toss and electing to bat, they did not get off to an auspicious start as they lost their top-order in moments of madness to McKay who got the ball to move in appreciably  Dilshan was guilty of choosing a wrong ball to flick as he moved across and flicked one into the hands of Hussey at square-leg. Sangakkara after being beaten by a peach of a delivery chased one outside the off stump and went back without troubling the scorers. Same was the case with his old mate Jayawardene as he looked to drive a ball, short of a fuller length and found t...

Last night in the heat of the battle between Hafees and Steyn, Younis was at the other end watching and when he got the opportunity to bat, he got beaten repeatedly outside the off stump. Credit entirely to him, that he did not allow these balls to play on his mind and played a calm innings of 73 Partnership building has been his forte right from the  debut  Test. In that match he shared a partnership of 145 runs with Wasim Akram for the 9th wicket. Those partnership sharing characteristics were to fore today as he shared partnerships of 58,56,40,49 with Hafees, Asad, Afridi and Razzaq respectively. He himself underlined the value of the partnerships when he said "There were partnerships in the game and when you are chasing a big total, 3-4 partnerships always help" What was commendable in this innings of his was the self-control. He did not hit his first boundary till he reached the score of 55. He concentrated on supplying the strike  to the big hitters and wanted to ...

With the appearance of Smith at the toss ceremony, there seemed to be a sudden rush of comfortability in the Proteas camp not just with the captaincy stakes but also in having a settled and an experienced opener to partner the red-hot Amla. Immediately, as if to soothen the nerves he won the toss and chose to bat first Quotes at toss   Smith: Took a week's time to recover. Judging from the previous match it's better to bat first  Afridi: We have to win the game! There is no other option isn't it  Shoaib Akthar    took off from where he left, against Smith as he tested him with a short ball aimed at the rib cage first up. Smith fended it off uncomfortably and Amla got off the mark with a solid punch to cover. Smith was then beaten by Razzaq as he was early into a shot and the ball split the gap between bat and the pad. As if to cool the nerves, Smith then crunched a boundary past the gap between point and gully. He further tried to unsettle Razzaq by coming d...