The Game is ON!

We witnessed a thriller of a match when Australia took on England in the first Ashes test match at Cardiff, England. The battle of the urn continues and there is a lot more than pride to play for. Well, this match might have silenced all the critics who said that The Ashes has lost its charm. It hasn’t. It is still the most celebrated rivalry. There was always an element of doubt whether these blokes could keep up the legacy of The Ashes in the ‘Post-Warne Era’. Yeah, that’s the term. It is now ‘Post- Warne era’. Gone are those days when we used to refer to the ‘Post-Bradman Era’. Warney may now well be busy playing poker but he was the man who revolutionized cricket. From his very famous ‘Ball of the Century’ to him finding super talents like Kevin Pietersen, he has been a CHAMPION!

Every single person in that 16000-passionate crowd at Cardiff had their emotions running high on the final day of the match. The match was on till the last 30 minutes. Now that’s what I call a real TEST match. Australia needed just one wicket to clinch a 1-0 lead in the series and England at the other end had James Anderson and a not-so-good batter in Monty Panesar. Ricky Ponting is a true Fighter. He kept on bowling Hauritz and to everyone’s surprise Monty played everything straight. That’s not something that we associate with Monty Panesar. The whole stadium was up and applauding the heroics of Jimmy Anderson, Monty, Collingwood who faced the most number of deliveries and not to forget the contribution of Graeme Swann. He just proved to everyone that he is a quality cricketer. Swanny wasn’t dismissed since last December. Now how about that for a statistic!

England managed to draw the first match in which Australia clearly were ahead of the game in most occasions. This was just the perfect start that the series needed. There was everything in it. Mind games were played when TIME mattered to save a test match and not OVERS. England team had their 12^th man and the team physio in the middle in the tensest situation which is now being called “dirty tactics”. Ponting says it wasn’t played in the spirit of the game while Strauss defends by saying there was total confusion and communication gap between the centre and the dressing room. It’s all in the game until played fair.

There were questions raised about the quality of test cricket being played and there were talks about shortening the purest form of the game. This was a classic example as to why test cricket should remain untouched. It hurts a test cricket admirer when they say test cricket is no more entertaining. Hope both the teams prove them wrong when they meet at the ‘Mecca of cricket – Lord’s’

Play on Chaps!