09 July,2023 07:34 AM IST | Mumbai | Sunil Gavaskar
England skipper Ben Stokes during his 155 against Australia at Lord’s last Sunday; (right) Jonny Bairstow looks in disbelief after being run out by wicketkeeper Alex Carey at Lord’s. Pics/Getty Images
Typically, while the cricketing world is busy discussing the rights and wrongs of the Jonny Bairstow stumping in the second Test match at Lord's, the really important cricketing aspect of Ben Stokes's marvellous innings has receded into the background. It's a great example of how little things so often overshadow the more important happenings. The England captain's flamboyant innings almost took his team to an improbable victory, but that receded into the background as the Brit media unsurprisingly focussed on the Bairstow dismissal. This has been the usual diversionary tactic used by the overseas media for years where a small insignificant incident is made to cover up for a bigger failure of the team.
While the Australian attack was certainly taken by surprise at the approach of the England batters in the first Test match, they quickly regathered themselves and realised that this Bazball approach couldn't succeed against their attack consistently. They also learnt that bowling short to the English batters was going to get them wickets rather than the pitched-up deliveries which the batters were prepared for.
Suddenly, with having to play the ball around their ribcage and helmets, the English batsmen found they couldn't quite cope with it and so Australia went two up without too much trouble. The counter attack by the English skipper in the second Test match certainly took them by surprise and but for Stokes getting a tad overambitious with the pull shot, the game would have been closer than it was.
The Third Test is evenly poised at the end of the second day when this is being written and here again it was the England captain's belligerent innings that took them to within 26 runs of the Australian total.
The All England Tennis Championships at Wimbledon have also started and as always, the TV coverage as well as the media reports are mainly about the English players. This is totally understandable as the tournament is in England. The crowd too applauding raucously every winner by the English player is also perfectly understood. What bugs is the condescending way overseas commentators, when they come to India, keep saying how quiet the Indian crowd at the ground is when an Indian batter gets out or when an Indian bowler is hit for a boundary. This is not an Indian phenomena, but happens in every country where home crowds keep silent when a boundary is hit against their bowlers or their batters get out. Nowhere has it been more apparent than at the current Ashes series as also at Wimbledon where every point won by a Brit is cheered wildly while a point won by another gets a perfunctory applause from a few of his/her countrymen at the court. It's only natural that the crowds will support their own team and won't cheer the opponents, but to suggest that it happens only in India is ridiculous.
As for Bazball, forget it. It happened against lesser quality bowling, but against a top-class Australian attack it's back to good old grinding batting and not T20 shots.
Test cricket is after all, Test cricket.
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