Capturing the Tension

With access to satellite TV and unlimited time it's been possible to watch a lot of cricket in the UK over the past week or two - India v Sri Lanka, Australia v West Indies, South Africa v England.

The New Zealand-Pakistan series is the odd one out. While there's probably a way of seeing it here I don't know how, and, well, I haven't lost any sleep about that as I have a life which I occasionally wish to lead. But the first Test in Dunedin was one of those games where it was possible to see from the scores just what a good contest it was. While the Kiwis ended up as worthy winners, the most significant aspect of the game in the long run was the brilliant debut of Umar Akmal, a player who, according to Osman Samiuddin, we're going to hear a lot more of.

This, from Iain O'Brien, captures the vibrancy and tension of the last day superbly from the viewpoint of a member of the victorious attack.

Blogs

I've slipped a couple of additional blogs into my roll over the last week or so. The first, Stumped, is the work of Venkat Ramnarayan, a former Indian first-class player of the 1970s, and contains some rich and enjoyable descriptions of games and players from India's past. Well I, as someone with a bit of a fetish for the Indian game since 1979, like it, and look forward to seeing more of Ram's writing.

The other is the new blog by Iain O'Brien, the Wellington seamer who's become an unexpectedly important member of the Kiwi attack over the past year. O'Brien's been known to me for a while because of his range of wry and amusing contributions to a message board about club cricket in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire (where he spends every summer), and his blog has opened in the same vein. It remains to be seen how long NZ cricket's media managers allow him to get away with publishing such an unsanitized account, but as a revelation of what actually goes through a Test player's head during a game, it is brilliant.

Enjoy it while you can.

Throwback

A day's Test cricket yesterday, in two very different parts of the world, which was, in many ways, a throwback to earlier times. On the one hand you had a previously unconsidered Kiwi seamer (no offence, Mr.O'Brien) making life difficult for England (with obvious assistance from his captain) after England's own insipid efforts in the field had matched the slackness of the Kiwis' running. England were also pasted all over the field by a young batsman of unmistakeable promise and class; it's hard to believe now that only a few months ago good New Zealand judges were wondering whether Ross Taylor was going to be any more than a one-day player.

On the other, in Kingston, you had everything going off: Shiv Chanderpaul gets knocked unconscious by a Brett Lee bouncer but gets up to record yet another century and then watches from the field as Edwards and Powell leave Australia rocking at a close score of 17 for 4.

So, just like old times. England struggling, West Indies fast bowlers creating mayhem and reverse swing the king. For all the brilliance of Taylor and Chanderpaul's heroics (how many batsmen have ever sold their wicket more dearly?), the highlight of the day for me was the delivery from Brett Lee which shattered Daren Powell's stumps as the West Indian innings declined.

At about 90 miles an hour it started to reverse in the last third of its flight before torpedoing Powell's middle and leg stumps. Far better players than Powell would have stood no chance at all, and for an instant I felt as though I was right back in the 1990s, with Waqar Younis persecuting a range of helpless England batsmen (Graeme Hick at Lord's, 1996, came to mind immediately).

Bloody magnificent.