Slow and Steady

My first exposure of cricket was cricket in whites , first generation cricket where West Indies dominated through their pace bowling,  the subcontinent had quality spinners,  England and Australia were regarded as superpowers and wielded considerable clout in the framing of cricketing rules .  The Packer era was just in its initial phase and people in colored clothing were regarded as rebels of the establishment.

I watched cricket as a game where the batsmen were supposed to grind out the runs without hitting out , the bowlers would entice him to go over the top as much as possible with flight and the pacers would bowl bouncers to unsettle the rhythm . The game was leisurely with rest days in the middle of a test match and games would start and end in earthly hours.  Any semblance of a fading of light would be regarded as light bad enough to stop play since the red ball would hardly be visible even more when Marshall would be bowling with it.

In this generation, we saw more grafters , people who could play the waiting game .  The black and white era of cricket had  Hanif Mohammad of Pakistan who scored 300 + runs over two days of the game blunting the West Indian pace attack. I never watched Hanif Mohammad play but probably his son Shoaib came close to the slow plucky customer who could never be dislodged. Mudassar Nazar was also in that league, but I can remember Anshuman Gaekwad in Jalandhar playing almost two days to get a 200 against Pakistan and he was strokeless in many portions just blocking what Pakistani pacers bowled at him.  This I remember was the match where Kapil Dev had got an inswinger to curve in to Mohsin  the first ball of the match. Whatever happened to Jalandhar as a venue ,  I dont know of,  but it produced one of the most benign pitches very close to Faislabad where patience , concentration, application were the foremost of cricketing traits.  That match also had batsmen like Shoaib, Zaheer, Miandad, Mudassar on the Pakistan side and Gaekwad, Gavaskar , Mohinder, Yashpal who had limitless energy to play on accumulator surfaces like these.  

Many people would not have heard of Rizwan uz Zaman , but few people would know the innings which he played on the red clay of Motera .  It was extreme concentration to play out around 200 balls to get 50 odd  where Rameez Raja was sprightly in getting to 21 off 75 balls. I distinctly can recollect the deliveries which he blocked off using his pad and bat and not giving away even an inch to the bowler.  No wafts, no stepping down the wicket against the spinner , no ramp shots ( they didnt need to play it !! ) just plain dead batting each delivery.  This was an innings where you could switch off the TV at times , have a nap and then come back to see the same batsman offering the same shot to the bowler without a hint of discomfort.

Cricket today still has some batsmen who can do a Rizwan or a Gaekwad , Chanders would be the first one to come to mind , who bats in two gears the lowest in test matches and the highest in one dayers ,who has all the shots in the book but plays out a maiden over without the ball crossing the square on either side.  Faf played a similar innings for South Africa against Australia at Adelaide when SA had to play out a whole day and saved the test.  This was an innings from the generation gone by and he didnt give Australia a sniff and played probably session by session or in more minute terms over by over without letting his concentration lapse. 

Probably in the modern era, all these innings would be called slow and dreary and like a steam engine passenger train of the bygone era stop, take stock of the situation and move ahead to the next stop probably the next drinks break or the end of the bowling spell but what comes to the mind is the dedication to preserve one's wicket and not give it away cheaply and make the bowler earn it. 

Tendulkar was coached by placing the Re 1 coin on stumps to inculcate concentration and the value of his own wicket. Many first class players seem to have lost the art of patience to the science of hitting the ' ball out of the park if it is in the arc'.  Cricket has changed , definitely for the worse in terms of patience where many a batsman admonishes himself after playing a rash shot and pressure is felt even after playing a single dot ball.   Patience and concentration are traits long forgotten now in this era where bowling machines are used for who hit the most distance contests. Test matches get over in three days not because the batsmen have played loose shots but have gifted away their wickets to not so great bowling.  Watch videos of  Rizwan Uz Zaman or Faf  and you would know what to learn and unlearn.