India’s approach to this match has been fantastic: grind down the buggers until they plead for a swift coup de grace.The best thing about their innings, the mighty Anil Kumble’s unlucky 87 aside, was the fact that they sent their tail-enders to defend. Brilliant!
Almost every other tail-ender in the world has his ears so clogged up with testosterone that they ignore the batman-at-the-other-end’s supplications for sensible shot selection. “Look,” says Recognised Batsman, “I’m on 94; can you just defend this next over for a bit, mate?”
What the tail-ender hears:
“Lash ‘em around the park. You the man! You the man! HONK! HOOONK!”
This is why these players are bowlers instead of batsman. The most you can hope for the world’s lower orders are an entertaining 14. Take Darren Gough, for instance. Will any English fan forget his stand of 90-odd-crazy-runs with Phil DeFreitas? Tail-end batting in its purest form.
But, India’s brilliant, and wholly novel, move in this match was to ask the bowlers to bat, as if they knew what they were doing.
So, they played to percentage game. Knocked a single here, and maybe risked a two there. Even Harbhajan Singh batted as if he wasn’t a psychopathic lumberjack.
Now I’ve reiterated endlessly that boring cricket is my cup of tea. I was disheartened when Rahul Dravid lost his wicket. But the match definitely improved when the tail-enders started prodding and poking away.
I suppose that would make the world’s tail-ends into a roster of Matthew Hoggards. This is not a bad thing. We should all strive to be more like the Hoggler. Perhaps this is what Kumble is trying to tell us?
Yes. Yes that must be it.
Oh Anil, you ol’ genius you.
