Shoaib Akhtar stood out in the game, with one memorable ball.
By Sujeet Rajan
NEW YORK: At a press conference in Manhattan on Thursday for the Cricket All-Stars game at Citi Field on Saturday, Shane Warne responding to a question by this reporter, retorted with a challenge: “Mate, you want to come to the nets to take on the quicks.  C’mon mate.â€
Warne’s almost heated response was to my question if the three matches of the Cricket All-Stars games would turn out to be a batting extravaganza, with a number of recently retired batsmen, and bowlers well past their prime, in the two squads.
I didn’t pick up Warne’s challenge, or generous offer, if you would. I didn’t want to lose my middle stump, and worse. I’d rather stand on the tracks of a train, and move out of the way as the train comes at me, than face the daunting prospect of the likes of Wasim Akram, Shoaib Akhtar, Curtly Ambrose, Courtney Walsh, Glenn McGrath and Allan Donald come charging in to hurl a ball at me with deadly intent, to perhaps crush my toe, or break, god knows, what other parts of my body. Getting out 6 times in 6 balls would have been good odds to bet money on.
At the match on Saturday, between Sachin’s Blasters vs. Warne’s Warriors, that question I hurled at Warne, which he adroitly deflected, was unfortunately proved correct. And Warne’s answer, or the purported meaning attached to his challenge, was correct too, to an extent, though with a bit of a twist.
The match at Citi Field, won by Warne’s Warriors, did indeed see the recently retired stalwarts of the game like Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Ricky Ponting and Kumar Sangakkara show their hitting prowess.
But when it came to the bowling, apart from Akhtar, who looked in deadly form, running from outside of what would have been the 30-yard circle, steaming in like old and bowling with pace and bite – including a stunning angled bouncer, the ball of the match, which almost took Jacques Kallis’ head, had him pulling away just in time, and drew gasps from the around 25,000 crowd – the other quicks looked like trundlers in the Mohinder Amarnath stable of bowling: military medium.
That term was used in the good old days to suggest a bowler who ambled in with a bit of a run-up, swings his arm around and pitches a ball which every time looks like a ‘Hail Mary’ prayer attached to it, as in, hope this doesn’t get smashed out of the ground but is hit straight to a fielder. I never would have thought before the game I would see the likes of Akram, Donald, Ambrose and Walsh in that mold, like 14-year-old school boys who are trying out at nets spanked hard by established batsmen.
But hey, I had a distinct advantage in that I was watching the game from the Honda Clubhouse, and just turned around to chat with others standing at the bar periodically, instead of watching some of the most fearsome bowlers in history relegated to the Amarnath variety, wince in disappointment. The Consul General of India in New York ambassador Dnyaneshwar Mulay and top Indian American art collectors Kent Charugundla and Sundaram Tagore were some of those who enjoyed the cricket from the clubhouse.
I wish I could erase some of the memories of what I saw at Citi Field on Saturday. I want to remember the great bowlers the way they were. I now have to watch some YouTube videos of those great bowlers in their prime, to get rid of memories of their jogging up gently, bowling lackadaisical half-trackers. Â Â
But what Warne didn’t offer also as a challenge to me, was to take on the spinners. On a cool, cloudy day at Citi Field, it was the spinners: Warne, Daniel Vettori and Muttiah Muralitharan, who bowled as if retirement was just a matter of choice for them, and if they wanted to could walk into the national squad of any country even now. They bowled with precision, accuracy, and all managed to get some turn on the drop-in pitches.
But the spinners also exposed the biggest loophole for the Cricket All-Stars games, which as it progresses into next year’s season, would be a hard proposition to fix, unless teams have more recently retired batsmen to provide entertainment.
It was not really odd to see Brian Lara and V V S Laxman not scoring off successive balls with a defensive block to well-pitched deliveries, as that is what they did in their prime days, walking in to bat. Settle down, and then show some master class with sheer timing. But in a T20 game, it looked a horrible ploy, an insult to the game itself. If not for the fact that they are the greats of the game, the crowd would have booed them for that effort. Thankfully, Ravi Shastri was not in the house.
The crowd had come to see Tendulkar bat, cheer for him. And once Tendulkar got out to Warne, and Sehwag lost his wicket to Vettori, the rest of the batting of the Blasters was like Diwali crackers turning out to be a damp squib. It was tedious and boring to watch. Their score of 140 was chased down by the Warriors with plenty to spare, spearheaded by Ponting and Sangakkara. Tendulkar himself came in to bowl, with the Warriors 6 runs from victory. Jonty Rhodes dutifully dumped a slow full toss from Tendulkar into the crowd, of what was officially the third base at the stadium, to end proceedings.
But just like the match began, with a roaring, passionate crescendo, of ‘Sa-chin, Sa-chin, Sa-Chin’, right from outside the stadium and throughout the match, which Mets officials and security watched with amazement, the match ended the same way. Even as he got hit for a six, the crowd clapped and cheered for Tendulkar, shouted their approval at every word he said at the post-game presentation.
No doubt, win or lose, it’s going to be the same in the next two games of the Cricket All-Stars games, in Houston and Los Angeles. It’s a Sachin Tendulkar show, really.
(Sujeet Rajan is Editor-in-Chief, The American Bazaar).