ANY hope that the Super Test may salvage the Super Series from almost an absolute non-event crashed to ground by tea-time on the second day of the match, which, incidentally, was scheduled to last one extra day than the routine five.
It is a tragic fact of the Series that in the five innings played by the World XI, the pack of superstars could never once cross the 50-over mark; they touched it once — in the last innings of the Test — but only just. It failed to pose any challenge to the Australians at all even once during the whole tour. No one expected it to be so screamingly lopsided. At least I never did. But it turned out to be just that; a terribly one-sided affair. I wonder if Bangladesh could have done any worse!
Come to think of it, had the Ashes contest not preceded the Super Series, the result would not have surprised many. It would have shocked no one. That’s for sure. But with England exposing certain weaknesses in an aging Australian side, and turning the tables on them after almost two decades, there were hopes that the World XI would be able to cash in on English efforts. But they ran into an Australian side with bruised egos and hurt pride. It was like dealing with the fury of a wounded tiger.
I talked in one of my recent columns about the World XI of which I was part more than three decades ago under the captaincy of Sir Garfield Sobers. Having experienced the intensity of those contests, I could never imagine such a horrendous lack of commitment that was put on display by all the non-Australian players. Forget everyone else, for they keep interchanging between being in and out of form, just take India’s Rahul Dravid as a test case. He is called The Wall for his ability to stay on the crease for lengthy periods of time, and to sustain his concentration even when he is not scoring runs. In the two innings of the Sydney Test, he stayed there for a total of seventy-four balls, scoring twenty-three runs. Would you call it Dravid-like?
The World XI led by Sobers had done enough to give the idea a touch of folklore. The manner in which the recent series was played out, however, I don’t see a future for the concept, and the ICC has already started distancing itself from what was coming out of its hollowed corridors before the start of the Series. For all practical purposes, it is a dead affair, and it will take something bizarrely heroic on the part of the International Cricket Council to think of staging something similar in the next ten years.
Before signing off for the day, let’s have a look at the performance of the three Pakistanis who were part of the two squads. Inzamamul Haq and Shahid Afridi were as lackadaisical in their approach as was Brian Lara, but I guess the case of Shoaib Akhtar was a bit different. My observations being limited to what I saw on the television screen, I felt that he was exerting himself in full earnest, like he did during the Afro-Asian encounters that had preceded the Super Series. I feel like giving him full marks for commitment and dedication, but the lack of impact he had on Australian batsmen is something that worries me. The fact that he was dropped from the side after the first two matches, and was not considered for the longer version of the game is also something that, I am afraid, will affect the Pakistani camp which is getting ready to face the all-conquering English side.
ANY hope that the Super Test may salvage the Super Series from almost an absolute non-event crashed to ground by tea-time on the second day of the match, which, incidentally, was scheduled to last one extra day than the routine five.
Come to think of it, had the Ashes contest not preceded the Super Series, the result would not have surprised many. It would have shocked no one. That’s for sure. But with England exposing certain weaknesses in an aging Australian side, and turning the tables on them after almost two decades, there were hopes that the World XI would be able to cash in on English efforts. But they ran into an Australian side with bruised egos and hurt pride. It was like dealing with the fury of a wounded tiger.
