Great Cricketers hunt in pairs :

If you take cricket from adam some of the finest cricketers have arrived in pairs. Be it India , Australia, Pakistan, Windies or England.
In India we had Amar Singh and Mohamaed Nissar in the 50’s
Gavaskar and Vishwanath in the 1970’s
Bedi and Prasana in the 70’s
In Australia it was Lillee and Thomson , Simpson and Bill Lawry
Lindwall and Miller. Ian Chappell and Doug Walters
In Windies we had Rohan Kanahi and Garry Sobers, Griffith and Hall,
Greenidge and Haynes, Holding and Roberts, Garner and Croft
In Pakistan we had Majid Khan and Zaheer Abaas, Hanif and Mustaq Mohamed.
Imaran and Sarfraz , Waaqar and Akram.
In South Africa it was Grahame Pollock and Barry Richards, Mike Procter and Peter Pollock.
All the above men were great pairs and match winners for their country.

I have not touched all the players but the listed ones are some of them who come to my memory. I am sure there will be more. What is interesting about these pairs were they jelled very well as partners and were the trump card for their team and their captain.
These great pairs were different in their own way. For eg if Jeff Thomson was very aggressive with his devastating pace Dennis Lillee was a menace with this sheer accuracy , swing and cutters. Lillee was great with both the new and old ball.

Even our own Gavaskar and Vishwanath were made of different metal. While Sunny was solid in defence with aggression at times Gundappa was purely know for his stroke play and elegance. It was a delight watching both together. They were a terror against best bowling attack on any given day.

Same holds with Kanahi and Sobers. While Sobers was a lefthander with all round skills Rohan Kanhai was the finest player of spin. Even Gordon Greenidge and Haynes were a fantastic combination with the blend of caution and aggression. Greenidge had both but Haynes was very attacking in his approach. Simpson and Lawry was another great pair. Lawry was slow and with limited strokes his partner Simpson was always there to accelerate the runs. Infact the Lawry and Stackpole combination was also great.

Cricket has not seen a great pair for quite sometime. Today Shoaib Aktkar is the fastest bowler but he does not have somebody to support him as a great pair. Most of the cricketers have too much of selfish motive and as a result that lethal pair is not happening either in batting or the bowling.

Cricket is a great game of team spirit. Unless this is practiced with keenness you will not find the birth of great pairs like in the 60’s, 70’s , 80’s.

World cup sorrows forgotten

In the month of April this year when the Indian cricket team returned to India after the world cup fiasco there were hardly any crowd and fans to receive them. Some of the cricketers took different routes to reach home. The board ensured that tight security was provided to the team to prevent any untoward incidence. There was lot of brick bats that happened after India's dismal performance in Caribbean world cup. The first thing that happened was to sack the coach Greg chappell. We went to Bangladesh with some make shift arrangement and thanks to Ravi Shastri 's gesture we could overcome all pressures and came victorious.

With the English victory our cricketers are all walking tall with their head up. Most fans wished India should have won the series 2-0. It is easy to make such statement sitting in the stand and living room. Remember Rahul and his team has beaten England's most successful captain who has maintained consistent record of not losing any series in England.

Cricket is such a game that the public memory is very short. We are now in cloud 11 having climbed to the 3rd spot in the test playing nations ranking. The morale is very high and we hope this carried forward to the one day series and the T20 matches.

Some of the sponsors and the channels will also be smiling as the demand for brand endorsements will go up both in terms of number of brands and also a likely increase in the endorsement fees. Channels will be able to command premium for their spots as TRP numbers may look now better and more brighter.

I would like to conclude by saying that there is no SUBSTITUTE FOR CRICKET when it comes to entertainment . Just like Bollywood where you land up seeing flops the same is true with cricket.
Just enjoy the game and leave your emotions aside.