Cricket146;s Bull Run

This cricket team has removed the limits that conditioned minds can sometimes place on the path to achievement. It started with VVS Laxman and Harbhajan Singh at Kolkata in 2001. That Test match must rank as a landmark in our history and was followed by Headingley in 2002, Adelaide in 2003 and Multan in 2004. These defining moments have instilled a belief in this team that I have never seen in Indian cricket.

Sehwag is a manifestation of that belief. He is a creature of our times. Ten years ago, he would have been stifled and would have gone back to his flour mill. Indeed, 10 years ago there must have been a Sehwag whose innate sense of ambition and achievement might not have found the right atmosphere.

He is a man who does not know fear. He is unburdened and therefore his cricket, like his mind, is free. If you are not worried about what you will lose, the insecurity that accompanies such a feeling vanishes. It is a great phase and Sehwag must enjoy it while it lasts. There is a feeling that people who build innings slowly score more runs than those that march into battle and use their sword immediately. That theory is now being tested in the modern world and by the manner in which India8217;s two most successful innings have been played. Sehwag is blasting a few other theories as well. For a long time people played one-day cricket a certain way and Test cricket completely differently. There was a papal orthodoxy that was demanded in Test cricket. Now a new generation is looking at it differently. By adopting a completely new attitude towards risk, they are in fact showing that was considered risky in the first place probably didn8217;t need to be; that maybe there is enough percentage in playing the slice over point or the slog sweep over mid-wicket.

Adam Gilchrist was the pioneer and Sehwag is now proving the point. This game has far greater nuances to it than any one person can comprehend.

Look how it brings together a hardened man of 33 and an effervescent young man of 19. Anil Kumble might have nothing in common with Irfan Pathan and yet between them they have shown the great power of desire. I find both equally fascinating. One has shown the broadest shoulders in Indian cricket in the last fifteen years, solid as a rock, as uncomplaining as the sea. The other is like a kid in a party, wide-eyed, waiting for the next show to begin and only just becoming aware that he is in fact that show.

Kumble has now got 32 wickets in his last four tests overseas. In each of those the batsmen gave him runs to bowl with. For 10 years before that, it hardly ever happened. So maybe it is time to bunk the theory that Kumble cannot play overseas and accept the fact that for spinners to perform batsmen need to put runs on the board, otherwise bowlers are forced to bowl, defensive, negative lines.

And if India are scoring runs it is because the openers, not the middle order, are playing the new ball. In the last five tests, India8217;s openers have produced first innings starts of 61, 66, 141, 123 and 160. Strong sides have always been built around opening batsmen and if you want to find only one reason why India are doing well, this would be it. There are others, as we know, but none more important than this unlikely pairing of a sword and a shield.

Pakistan desperately need to pick themselves up. In all the years I have watched Pakistan play, I have never seen them look so flat. They have lost matches before but they have never taken the field without a hint of passion.

I think playing at home, being subjected to allegations and irrational thoughts is putting a lot of pressure on them. It wasn8217;t unexpected, their home record is poorest among the top nations. Pakistan play cricket in Brownian Motion with one action rarely being connected, or relevant to, another. But they are a far far better side than this. Maybe they need to focus on being an achieving society as well.