|
Cricket Gimmicks & England Fantastics
- By Abdul Ruff Colachal
***
Even while sports are largely used as tools for economic and weapons trade plus profits, England has at long last won a test in at home against Australia which has already lost collective form, thanks mainly to their nasty joint cricket exercises with terror India. I have time and again pleaded not to trust any personal or team records in cricket as cricket matches smacks of controversies of match fixing, mutual adjustments and special considerations for a specific batsmen and bowlers. Especially that is the case with the long Test matches that lack reliability and respectability as a pure sport. Among all formats of cricket, it is Test that cannot be tested for its truthfulness.
Anti-Islamic fanaticism and "fixed" cricketism may not have common threads but with hidden agendas they do pose serious threat to human civilization. However, 2009 July 20 would be a remarkable day for the Englishmen who introduced this sport to the former British colonies, including "secular' India, relish cricket. Even before Swann threw the last ball to Johnson, out Bowled him, and end the match there, the English boys had won the match. In fact, on 19 July itself they could have won the match but they seem to have decided to play the fourth day as well since the victory was fancifully glancing at them. It has been a long time when asked about the 75 year jinx at Lord's. Eng win against Aus in a Test for the first time at Lord's since 1934! It was a tremendous achievement from a clinical English side as they ran riot on the final day with Freddie Flintoff bowling unchanged for 10 overs and picking up 3 wickets including the big one of Haddin.
Look at the way Pakistan team is "playing" with bat and ball in Sri Lanka soon after their glorious Twenty20 innings in London becoming world champions by outclassing all the best available teams, while the former champs India lost their way very early. Here, England dominated for the vast majority and was deserved winners with Strauss and Flintoff the stars. Australia, well, may not have lost a Lord's Test since 1934 but the good news for Australian fans is it looks that they went on to win that series. The loss of their sole centurion while still 165 runs in arrears of England appeared the death knell for Australia's aspirations of a world-record run chase. And when Nathan Hauritz was bowled shouldering arms to Flintoff the next over, an England victory was all but assured.
A 75-year-drought ends as Swann gets one through the advancing Johnson. Johnson's early exchanges inspired little confidence that he would be the man to steer Australia to an improbably victory. Johnson half-ducked, half-stabbed at his first delivery from Flintoff and, as with his bowling, looked a shadow of the figure who compiled unbeaten innings of 96 and 123 against the South Africans four months prior. But soon he also fell ending the English strive for a win at the Lords. Strauss gives special mention to Flintoff, who he says was "magnificent" on Monday the 20th July. He also admits to a bit of indecision about whether to enforce the follow-on. Flintoff grabs one of the stumps and acknowledges the crowd, gets hugs from all his team-mates after what can only be described as a match winning spell this morning, in his last Lord's Test. Fittingly, it's Flintoff who leads England off the field, clapping a stump and the ball together and he gets a standing ovation.
Pakistan has just set a new 20/20 world record, but the genocides of Muslims in Pakistan state terror forces seem to have troubled the cricketers and they are lost their form collectively now. Andrew Flintoff broke England's 75-year Lord's curse with his first five-wicket haul since the Ashes-clinching Oval Test of 2005. It was, unquestionably, a performance that will enhance his already mythical status within English cricket, but more pertinently for now, delivered England to a 1-0 series lead heading into Edgbaston. Flintoff claimed his third career five-wicket haul by bowling Peter Siddle, and Swann rounded off the innings, and the match, by scything through Johnson's defenses. Ricky Ponting said: We were outplayed right through the course of the game, England have been the better team. We've got to bounce back pretty quickly. We've been beaten by over 100 runs in a Test." Andrew Strauss steps up now with a gigantic grin on his face: "It's been a really special victory. To win an Ashes Test match at Lord's is something that plenty of guys have dreamed about over the last 50 or 60 years. We're not going to get carried away, there's plenty of time left in the series."
Match fixing is nothing new to England, the fatherland (or motherland?) of cricket. The matches are prolonged to complete the days allotted that way. Now, the recent match between Australia and England at the Lords offers full justification for my appeal and endorsement for allegations of "adjustments". The way the English boys prolonged the match to the fourth day testifies that fact beyond any iota of doubt that there just want to "play" with the pre-paid spectators. England could have easily won the match with a big lead one day earlier because they had big lead and secured the important wickets rather quickly. When the spectators - and not the commentators who are post paid- were expecting to get up as early as possible as the end point is already in sight and it was only a matter of minutes, and not even an hour, to close the Second test, the English bowlers just played mischief by prolonging the match extending it to the next day as well. If time had permitted they could have extended the match to some more days. That is indeed Fantastics!
But why the English boys could not win Test matches against Australia for 75 long years? None can expect a truthful reply now. Match-fixing has become a global truth now.
The way Pakistan team plays what is known as cricket in Sri Lanka once again reiterates the truth that if a team decides not to win or not to let the opponent lose, it can achieve that objective without much problems, provided the opponents also understand that- if there is no other usual prior understanding to the effect- make use of the opportunity offered to them. Pakistani regime is killing innocent Muslims as terrorists along with the occupying GSTs led by NATO inside Pakistan and on its borders and Pakistani players are badly affected by the murders of fellow Muslims by their own government by using Israeli drones supplied thought Pentagon and might be terribly worried if some of them also could be killed as terrorists and the blame is conveniently placed on the so-called terrorists" to defame the Islamic groups trying to reestablish Islamic society in some part of Pakistan committed to Shair'a to enable the regime to imbibe western criminal and corrupt democracy and make more wealth both at home and abroad. That means it time Pakistan winds up terror genocides of Muslims in Pakistan and kick the foreign terror partners to quit the Islamic state immediately. If, however, the leaders of Islamabad prefer Shari'a to US "democratic dollars" still eye on blood stained US dollars/Euros, any thing could happened to Pakistan.
-----------------
Dr. Abdul Ruff Colachal
Specialist on State Terrorism
India
abdulruff_jnu@yahoo.com
|