reargard action .. slow and steady does it again ...

Just had the honour of watching part of Inzi's and complete Hussy's innings played during the last two days. They were very different from each other in terms of strategies.

Hussy, on one hand, definitely believed in the tailender at the other end to somhow survive the short balls (and did Flintoff batter Lee with hailstorm of them!! nad Lee not for the first time in his career, hung on with his nails, first winced and then smiled at the blows, jumped on anything with width, what a charactor, what a charactor). Hussy at the other end, scratched and fidgeted, nudged singles around, ran like hell to make some of them twos, shelved all the risky shots and looked like he somehow will drag the dead australian horse across the winning line if he is lucky. But actually he was just patiently waiting for his time to come. He first blunted the English attack, tamed them and then ruled them. Then came out the gorgeous cover drives. If there ever will be an book called "Idiot's guide to tame the ballers and win a lost one day game", Bevan-Hussy will write it. I seriously think such a book is in private circulation: Yuvraj and Kaif seemed to have read a chaptor of it on that astounding day at Lord's ages ago. But they promptly forgot the lesson.


Inzy on the other hand was not so gifted in his friends. Paki tail did wag a lot in the first test but history, even if it repeats itself, does not do so so frequently. He lorded over five balls per over. Finding boundaries and denying himself any singles. This is the alternative way to the Idiot's guide, it took out the weak point, i.e. the tail-ender out of the equation and hence the position was strengthened.

Coming back to our Lord's(and Maharaja's?) of dead pitches, Our confidence is suddenly buoyed by the media jumboree. I am not saying we will lose badly. We may still beat the hell out of the Windies. Our Master Blasters,Maharajas and Dhonis may still butcher the ballers, take them to the washers. But I would like our boys to fight in minimum one readgard, dig deep, prowl in trenches and slowly push back the marauders, dethrone the pretenders. Ek baar yaar, sirf ek baar Lords ho jaaye aur ek baar ...