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Loading ...As would many of the fans (from either sides) for nothing can be boring to keep watching pointless batting for 5 days.
And atleast in Twenty20 someone, for sure, wins the game at the end.
C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre
By Scott 4 years ago, mid-January Add your comment below
That was a French General reacting to the Charge of the Light Brigade in 1854. It is also my reaction to the First Test, where India, as I write, are 0 for 403, and they’ve just gone off for bad light. Sehwag is 247, and Dravid is 128. This is in response to Pakistan’s 679 for 7 declared, a total that could have been far larger had Pakistan put their minds to it.
So by my creaky mathematics, we’ve had 1,083 runs and 7 wickets.
Great. But to me, this is almost as much nonsense as that Twenty-20 rubbish. Sorry to be an incurable snob, but to me, cricket is a contest between bat and ball, not a batathon. If there is any justice in this world the curator should be impaled with a pristine cricket stump, and I am sure Shoaib, Danish Kaneria, and indeed Harbhajan Singh and Irfan Pathan would endorse my sentiments.
Tags: bat-and-ball, Danish-Kaneria, French-generals, Harbhajan-Singh, india, irfan-pathan, pakistan, rahul-dravid, rubbish, scott, shoaib-akhtar, shoiab-aktah, snob, virenda-sehwag |
11 Responses to “C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre”
January 16th, 2006 at 1.21 pm
January 16th, 2006 at 2.57 pm
Maybe they should give Man-of-the-Match honors to Ajit Agarkar for his bowling figures of 2 wickets for 122 runs. 
Personally, this doesn’t bother me much (especially since I have no way of watching the match here in France). The pitch is always a factor in test cricket. In this case someone clearly didn’t get it right, but it’s an organic element that makes test cricket a sport full of weird surprises.
January 16th, 2006 at 4.18 pm
Or to Saurav Ganguly…for being the most economical bowler in the match. (OMG..what have I done..mentioned the SG word!)
January 16th, 2006 at 8.04 pm
Let me come to the defense of Haji Bashir, the chief Gaddafi curator. He’s an experienced man, been doing this for 40 years. It is not like he made such a pitch on purpose, sure he likes batting pitches more then bowling pitches, but of the last five games here have all produced results, despite the fact that they were all fairly good batting surfaces (at least for the better half of the match). This man isn’t anti result producing test wickets (like the groundsman at Antigua), its just that the weather in the lead up to this test was not very conducive to producing a decent test match wicket, I doubt many groundsmen in the world could have done a better job in similar conditions. I seriously doubt.
January 17th, 2006 at 5.04 am
There’s an interesting post about this at Cricket 24×7: http://cricket24×7.blogspot.com/2006/01/pakistan-afraid-of-losing.html
I have to give some credit to India’s openers. If they’d gotten out early we might not be talking about how lifeless the pitch is. Personally, I don’t think I’d last very long at the crease against Shoaib Akhtar even in beach cricket or on a soft, muddy pitch.
January 17th, 2006 at 12.48 pm
Sehwag has played so well in this match, that the pak bowlers looked like club/net bowlers.
Sad to see the weather playing spoil sport! 
January 17th, 2006 at 4.04 pm
The match is just going to be a statistical high point in the end, with quite a few records broken.. boring is an understatement to describe the proceedings as evident by empty stands (inspite of free tickets). Not discounting the great (flawless.. if you can call it that) batting performances, I would have still loved to see a better fight between bat and ball… like the Ashes last year.. (OMG.. blasphemy.. in the subcontinent.. !!) And if what Zainub says about the pitch is true, we could probably expect the same from Faislabad test too with only Karachi providing a warmer climate and probably a better pitch…:-))
January 17th, 2006 at 4.14 pm
Couldn’t agree more, this Test was rubbish.
Forget the bowlers, spare a thought for me as I am in the middle of churning out numbers on excel spreadsheets trying to justify why “Test cricket needs boring draws”, along comes the mother of all draws.
Thank God for the rain…
January 17th, 2006 at 4.23 pm
Zainub, Even the worst weather in Lahore could not compete with a “nice” summer’s day in England. Sorry, don’t agree with your arguments about the weather.
At the end of the day, where there is a Will, there is a …
well blog!
This pitch has made me lose my humour…
January 17th, 2006 at 9.09 pm
I expect Sehwag, Dravid and co are quaking at the prospect of Udal and the King of Spain.
June 4th, 2007 at 10.27 pm
Hi Jim. Photos i received. Thanks
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