English Summer

Rhodes show got Yeti Inzy againComing to Nottingham for the Pakistan-South Africa game felt like crashing a party. After the drubbing at ...

Rhodes show got Yeti Inzy again

Coming to Nottingham for the Pakistan-South Africa game felt like crashing a party. After the drubbing at the hands of Australia on Saturday, the light has gone out of not just the Indian side but also the Desi hackpack, sixty-strong and growing in the hopes of a march to the semi-final. As the biggest herd of the scribe tribe, Indian reporters have been stampeding around the cricket grounds throwing their collective weight around. But alas, comeuppance is now upon them. The dozen Proteas reporters and half-a-dozen Pakistani journalists naturally got priority, while Indian 8212; and British 8212; hacks will form the perimeter. A pity really, because there is no more a loud, prickly, know-all, fatuous sight than an Indian pundit in full flow8230;

Trent Bridge is home to some of the game8217;s finest all-rounders. Sir Garfield Sobers, Sir Richard Hadlee, and Clive Rice, all played for Nottinghamshire. So it was appropriate that two sides brimming with fiesty all-rounders clashedhere. What a match-up: Wasim Akram, the bowler-batsman versus Hansie Cronje, the batsman-bowler. The callow Jacques Kallis versus the minnow Abdul Razzaq. The carrot-haired Shaun Pollock versus the flap-eared Azhar Mahmood.

And how about the flatfooted Jonty Rhodes versus the fleetfooted Inzamam? The Coiled Spring finally dropped a catch in a game. Statisticians were immediately besieged with queries asking when Rhodes last dropped a catch. No one had a clue. Apparently, he once dropped a rattle when he was around three years old. Inzamam, on the other hand, can8217;t even catch a cold. Sure enough, there was the usual Rhodes show as he ran out Inzamam. It was the batting Yeti8217;s 30th run out of his career. Surprise, surprise.

Maybe because the game was touted as a pyjama rehearsal for the final, or maybe because this isn8217;t a knock-out game, there wasn8217;t the usual tension in the game despite the needle between the two sides. Relations are not exactly hunky-dory between the two teams after Pakistan8217;scontroversial tour of South Africa last year when there was a lot of bad blood starting with the allegation by Saqlain Mushtaq and Mohammed Akram that they had been mugged in downtown Johannesburg.

The South Africans have asked plenty of questions about the extraordinary reverse swing the Pakistanis are able to generate from an old ball.

That has not gone down well with the Pakistanis who believe the cricketing world is ranged against them and their talent. So what exactly is reverse swing? Simply put, it8217;s the act of producing an inswinger while holding the ball with a grip that usually produces an outswinger i.e . The Pakistanis do it with great felicity by shining just one side of the ball 8212; and if some observers and observations are to be believed, by roughing up the other side.

Story continues below this ad

But reverse swing is not a Pakistani discovery. The story goes that Imran Khan first observed Dennis Lillee and Max Walker doing it in a Test match in Australia in the 1970s. After taking none for 122 in the first innings,the great Khan simply did what they did and turned up with five for 122 in the second innings. Unkind wags say the Pakistanis seem to have come a long way since then8230;