Friday, November 23, 2007

The Guess Who - An Auld Game

this player reminds me of the marvelous marvan atapattu. like marvan, once this player gets his eye in, he's hard to dislodge. like marvan, it's very rare that this player will not make a start count. and, finally, a bit more like marvan, if you scan this player's stats, you'll find that he either makes very little or quite a lot. so much so, even their career batting averages are more or less the same. and yet, he has a long, long way to go before he can be considered as sound and as determined as marvan. he has time. because, unlike marvan - who has called it a day - this young man promises his fans many more days of elegant cricket. apart from marvan, who else might this player remind us of. well, he's a bit like vinod kambli. that said, when it comes to his methods against fast bowling, he's a cut above vinod kambli. he's also a bit like sachin tendulkar. then again, when it comes to his methods against fast bowling, he's a few notches below the little master. speaking of which, if he tightens up his defense and works on his concentration (sooner rather than later), this man has it in him to be the next rahul dravid. interestingly enough, he shares at least two things in common with mr. navjot singh siddhuism - neither of which has anything to do with the genial sikh's penchant for mouthing off. it's pettily unfair to say this, but it might be useful to point out that he nearly lost us the first test match of this series against pakistan at the ferozshah kotla. fortunately when he got his chance to make amends, he didn't disappoint. were it not for him, india would find it impossible to win - if not any, certainly many test matches - abroad. shoaib akhtar, malcolm marshall, dennis lilee, kapil dev, curtly ambrose, brett lee and mashrafe mortaza are not just the names of some very fine and fearsome cricketers, they also happen to be our final set of clues. any clue who this smoggy word-picture of ours is, quite clearly, alluding to? answer in comments.

No comments: