Cricket All Stars: Big Apple takes a bite of cricket
SO the cricket revolution was born in the USA on Saturday with Warne’s Warriors beating Sachin’s Blasters by a six-wicket margin in the opening game of the Cricket All-Stars at New Yorks’ Citi Field. Bharat Sundaresan looks at the some of the aspects and cricketing superstars that stood out and those that didn’t.
Anthem singer surprises Warne
Shane Warne might have hogged the highlight reel of the first innings by befuddling three of his greatest nemeses—Sachin Tendulkar, Brian Lara and VVS Laxman—with a vintage spell of mesmerising genius. But it all paled in comparison to the bemused look on his face when he saw an Indian aunty dish out her rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner—the USA national anthem—before the match began.
Moin sounds like he had fun
While everyone was looking forward to see Tendulkar play the straight-drive and Brian Lara unleash a rasping pull-shot with that extravagant back-lift—both of which never happened—it was equally nostalgia-inducing to hear Moin Khan scream, “Yoursellfffff…” from behind the stumps every time a Warriors batsman stroked a ball back towards the spinners.
SA fast men have a go
The IPL has seen a number of long-standing teammates try to outwit each other from opposition camps. But it was quite a sight to see two stars from different generations of South African cricket in battle. Though Shaun Pollock took initial honours by smashing Allan Donald over the mid-wicket fence, it was White Lightning who struck the “I got your number” pose a ball later, after he had Pollock caught in the deep with a wily off-cutter.
Lankan greats side by side
Oh and what can you say about Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara. The two might have finally stopped appearing one after the other on the Sri Lankan score-board. So they made up for it by appearing alongside each other. KC Sangakkara c Jayawardene b Akhtar!
Placards from the 90s
High-profile cricket might finally have landed in America, but the messages on the placards in the stands still seemed to be stuck in the 1990s. There was a plethora of those reading “Sachin for President”. But it seemed pretty obvious that the majority of the thousands who turned up at Citi Field had turned up for one sole reason—a sighting of Tendulkar in cricket gear. And no placard summed it up better than, “God Blessed America”.
Calypso kings humbled
The only real disconcerting aspect of the match was to see two of the world’s greatest fast bowlers, Courtney Walsh and Curtly Ambrose, who are well into their 50s, being taken apart when they ambled in and rolled their arms over. Especially, since we in India were only used to seeing the duo terrorize batsmen, at that time of the night—well past the midnight hour as we cozied up in front of the television.
Still got the moves
It did seem a tad unfair too, considering the two batsmen smashing them over the ropes were Virender Sehwag and Sangakkara, both of whom are still playing competitive cricket. But it wasn’t surprising to see those who are part of the coaching staff with various T20 outfits around the world look in prime form, be it Jacques Kallis taking breath-taking catches, Wasim Akram bowling like he never left and Daniel Vettori being as crafty and stingy as ever.
Words exchanged
If you didn’t believe that competitive egos never die, you simply had to see the exchange between Shoaib Akhtar and Matthew Hayden as both bullies went after each other in a brief war of the worlds. But it was the Pakistani who got his own before showing off that he could still bounce out the best in the world with his pace, like he did with Sangakkara.
A batsman’s nightmare
It was also fun to hear the former stars being miked up in the middle. You couldn’t help but sense the actual distress in Tendulkar’s voice when he said, “Look at this. I have Jonty Rhodes at backward point and Ricky Ponting at point to deal with”.
Different strokes
For years, cricket and baseball have had to endure painful comparisons while trying to retain their identities on either side of the Atlantic. And the brown dirt infield did look odd and out of place in a cricketing sense, especially when you could spot it behind the wicket-keeper. But you couldn’t deny the fact that there was a similarity in the way they white ball kept flying into the crowd—even if it didn’t matter on which side of the foul-line it ended up on Saturday.
