Apocryphal Stories !!!

It’s said that first impression is a lasting impression. Shaun Marsh, would disagree with the saying. He made a good impression on both his ODI debut and Test debut, but finds himself out of reckoning in both the formats. Making his ODI debut after a successful IPL season, he acquitted himself well. He scored a polished 81 in that match. That the debut came 5 years after Steve Waugh picked him to be a special player is a surprise. After that match, he went through a normal run in the Sheffield Shield and didn’t come into the collective notice of the selectors till the breakthrough IPL performance Looking at his career, one thing is prominent. He finds it difficult to maintain good form over a period of time. In fact, every good innings of his is a microcosm of his career. His knock of 85 (against Melbourne Renegades), spread over 52 balls showed us the reluctant starter, the team man, the excellent reader of the match situation and also, at times, a man who can’t will ...

Who averages 1022 in Test cricket this year, every time he crosses 100? Who is the player having a conversion rate of close to 80% in scoring centuries? Who is it that has broken the record of Bradman and Ponting today by scoring an unprecedented 4 th double ton in the calendar year? The answer to all of the above is Michael Clarke, the captain of the Australian Test team. From the time he has been made the captain, he has been contributing with the bat. The century in the final test in Sri Lanka, where Australia conceded a 163 run lead remains fresh in the mind. His batting in that innings was of such top quality that not a single run came off the edge (outside/inside) of the bat. Then came the century at Cape Town. People remember it as much for the stroke play as for the examination of his technique against shorter ball by Steyn. Today too, in the initial phase of his innings, he was subjected to the same treatment by the same bowler. Steyn came back with the same q...

The first movie of Ravi Teja that I was impressed by was Avunnu Vallu iddaru Ishtapadaru. This was one of the first movies that I saw in my graduation days at Vizag. Strolling close to Jyothi theatre, in pursuit of Indra’s tickets, my eye chanced upon a poster of the movie ‘Idiot’. My brain registered it as a movie that would be adulterous. The poster was such that it created intrigue in many minds. It had the protagonist digging his head into the bosom of the heroine. I decided that I wouldn’t watch the movie, not that I was decent or anything, but I didn’t have enough money to splurge. I was also of the opinion that bar that scene, there wouldn’t be anything to look forward to in the movie. When I returned home for vacations, my father said that Idiot had the protagonist in a ‘different’ role. Still sceptical, I bought home a CD and admired the acting of the protagonist. I saw a few weeks ago in a diametrically opposite role and admired the acting potential. Little did I i...

Have you ever imagined this setting? You can actually stuff an entire country’s population in a match at Eden Gardens, Kolkatta. To top it all the country has a cricket team. Well, come out of the imagination and you can see the reality. Guernsey is one such country Their cricketers are the best ambassadors for small country cricket. Watching them from close quarters in WCL 5, I felt that they were the best personifications for the much abused ‘It’s just a sport’. While they give it their all on the field, they are gregarious and fun-loving characters off it In a match that was affected by rain, all of them volunteered to be the groundsmen for the day. This gesture was not lost on the opposition, Argentina, as they too ventured in getting the match started. It was the second match of Guernsey that I watched. What actually caught the eye and knowing that little more about the team was a little gesture at the break of the innings. All of their players stood up to applause in welcomi...

At 67/2 in 10.2 overs, with the required run-rate climbing to nearly 10 an over, Melbourne Renegades finished the match off in the next 44 balls. At that exact moment, the captain McDonald was on 11 runs of 19 balls. Of the next 18 balls he faced, he creamed an astounding 49 runs. The partnership with Hodge was the game breaker In the years to come, this innings might be shown as a model for ‘Pacing the innings’. McDonald did what five batsmen before him, couldn’t. He converted the start he got into a big innings. Henriques was close to doing it. He was stopped in his tracks by the accurate bowling. McDonald, on the other hand took time in settling in and once in, he didn’t allow the momentum to shift He might not be able to repeat the feat on a regular basis but the innings today showed what a finisher means to the team. On April 2 nd this year, India lifted the World cup and Yuvraj Singh was awarded the Most Valuable Player award. Nobody grudged the honour on him. It is the finish...

Imran Khan once said that if cricketers were to base their self-esteem on the comments made by public, it would be stupidity. He said that people tended to lift you, when you performed well and hurl abuses when you failed Michael Clarke has just gotten himself into that place where he can say that he has seen both the sides of the coin. He was one of the failures in the Ashes and was rightly castigated. His place in the team was under scrutiny, both from the public and selectors alike After the 168 that he scored in New Zealand, he endured a rough patch till the second innings century in the final Test of the Sri Lanka series. It was in Sri Lanka that a lot about Michael Clarke was unravelled. For starters he was the Man of the Series in the ODI series and found that responsibility bought to surface the bubbliness that made him an exciting player to watch before Ashes 2005 The sixty runs that he scored at Galle in the second innings were crucial to the team’s cause as he stood stro...