The death of cricket and what not !!

Test cricket is dying, test cricket is dead.
Test cricket is boring, test cricket is dud.

For all those Test cricket bashers, open your eyes and and see why test cricket will survive. The reason of hope is none other than Virender Sehwag. 6th test double hundred and the appetite just grows and grows. Time and time again cricket has evolved and the reasons have been some dramatic characters that have swayed the way people perceive the sport. Every sport has such characters, some of them get bigger than the game (at least for some time) like Maj. Dhyanchand, Don Bradman, Tiger woods, Michael Jordan, Michael Schumacher, Roger Federer or Even Sachin Tendulkar, Shane Warne and Brian Lara for cricket, these are the people who pull the crowds by their deeds on the field and catapult the sport itself to a higher level in general public consciousness. But in between these greats there are those who by their unique abilities change the way the game is played. In cricket these would include WG, Ranji, Hobbs, Richards, Lillee, and more recently Ponting, Afridi, Jaysuriya, Murali and Sehwag. Although some of them might not be right at the top but the way they play the game has changed the game itself. These are the characters that define the unique evolution of cricket.

Now coming back to Sehwag, man this guys is a hurricane, an unstoppable force once he gains the momentum. Like a hurricane he starts as a blip and ends up engulfing every bowler that comes in his path. And to top it all, he does all this in test cricket, not T-20 , not - ODI's but Test cricket, where rules are comparatively more balanced for Bowlers and Batsmen. Lara had an appetite for big hundreds and he made many but the manner in which Sehwag scores in test cricket is just amazing. Add the couple of 150+ scores to his doubles and triples and we realize why this man has single handedly saved test cricket. The testimony to the fact that some people do catapult the game itself to a higher level.

Just when the talks were getting stronger that test cricket is all but gone that WI captain himself feels that dying test cricket is not a cause of worry and all over people were making all sorts of comments about survival of test cricket, we get this beautiful day of test cricket. A day when Sehwag proved that application and patience can get you runs, a day when bat dominated the ball on a decent track. I agree that last few tests in India have been on placid tracks but this one in Mumbai had something for everyone and Sehwag just had to get his eye in, once the first hour was done, Sehwag was back to business. No more leaving the ball outside off, he just went nuts, hitting everything almost everywhere. 360 degrees of devastation. And he made me realize that this is what test cricket is all about. Patience, endurance, focus and Sehwag. The beauty of the game lies in the fact that test cricket actually is a 9 session game and one bad session can devastate any team. It requires the highest level of consistency and patience and that’s why it’s a true test of character for any cricket and the reason why different forms of cricket might come and go, but test cricket will be here till the end. Long live the game :)