By going down to Sri Lanka by an innings, Bangladesh has fulfilled its destiny. Such blips as its 2-0 whitewash of Pakistan in Pakistan are over, because this time it faced Dhananjaya DaSilva as captain, not Shan Masood. He, of course, has something of a specialty in unlikely defeats. Not only did he give Bangladesh that whitewash, but he also led Pakistan down to an innings defeat after scoring 500 (including a century by himself).
Indian keeper Rishabh Pant pulled off a similar trick at Headingley in the First Test, which India lost. Pant scored a century in both innings. Pant also took five catches, though he let through 20 byes. Here’s an idea for Shan. Apart from scoring well, maybe he can spoil a couple of chances. But that is the future. At the moment he must be filled with envy, smashing one fist into the other, saying, “Curses!”
He must be beside himself that Pakistan is out of the Test action. Well, you’ve certainly got a lot more Test action these days. There was a time when, in June, the only cricket was played in England. Nowadays, apart from the series against India, Sri Lanka just hosted Bangladesh, Australia is in the West Indies, and South Africa has just popped over to Zimbabwe.
The only traditional countries out of it are Pakistan and New Zealand. Of the new countries, you have Afghanistan and Ireland. Someone should tell the last two to play Pakistan as soon as they can so that they can get their victories over Pakistan. Shan Masood, it seems, will not leave office until Mohsin Naqvi gives up the chairmanship of the PCB, and that will not happen until the government changes. Nobody wants to displease the Interior Minister. Bad things happen to people who do.
Of course, cricket has changed a lot. Apart from June Tests all over the place and Shan Masood, we’ve got this burgeoning of women’s cricket. I’m still not over the incident in an international recently, where the bowler ran out the nonstriker for going out of the crease while backing up. The nonstriker’s reaction was novel, one not recognized by the laws of cricket: she began to cry.
I know running out a nonstriker is not good form, unless he is doing so habitually. This is known as ‘Mankading,’ after the great Indian spinner of the 1950s, who would probably prefer being remembered for something else. But Mankad provided the first example of its being done in a Test. Earlier, though, in county cricket, it was done by Dr WG Grace, who was a formidable all-rounder, though his stock ball, the underarm lob, would not get many wickets today. The term ‘gracing’ was not invented.
Neither of these two luminaries reduced their victim to tears. I’m sure those luminaries would kept a stiff upper lip, and fixed their tormentor with a glare, saying something like, “What a cad!” or “What rot!”
I suppose we should be thankful that we have not been subjected to women cricketers pulling each other’s hair or scratching each other’s hair. Well, men don’t fight. The greatest violence is when a batsman ‘toes’ a fast bowler (points the toe of his outer foot at the bowler), and if the fast bowler succeeds in the inevitable yorker. Or if a fast bowler bounces one into the body. In some American ice hockey, fighting is allowed, though penalised by bans for a few minutes or the rest of the game, not the lifetime that would be earned by a bowler punching a batsman for surviving an LBW appeal. There is also women’s ice hockey, where there is some fighting, but less. I don’t know whether women cricketers merely restrain themselves because of the men’s example.
Moving away from cricket, there’s been a revelation by Iran, that its top military commanders were approached by Mossad and had their lives, and the lives of their families, threatened. This has led to rumors arising that our ISI operatives reached out to IAF commanders and are now themselves hiding because they can’t deliver on the farmhouses in Gurgan that they promised.
