It's 4am, do you know where your Test cricket is?
, March 9, 2017, http://www.espncricinfo.com/ma...t/story/1086033.html
Tuning in to a cracker of a Test in a time zone more than five hours ahead of yours is quite the tonic
The Karnataka State Cricket Association Stadium, as it once was known, is no easier on the tongue than the place it became, the M Chinnaswamy Stadium, which was named after the fellow who served the KSCA for four decades and who reigned as president of the BCCI from 1977 to 1980. The world is a very different place today but one doubts the noise in the ground would have been much different then from the splendid cacophony that rang out upon the fall of each Australian wicket on Tuesday afternoon. I wasn't there but I could hear it, and sort of smell it too. Bengaluru might be the "Garden city" but alongside the jasmine and frangipani, cordite, cow-dung, smoke and curry linger in the air, much as they do in each of India's vastly different but equalling humbling major cities. With it comes the taste of a new India, a nation that will not lie down.
In exaggeration of this point, Virat Kohli took to whipping the locals into a feeding frenzy and by the time R Ashwin held on to the return catch that sealed the Australians' fate, their stomachs were full. This was a truly riveting Test match and from its wild turns of fortune came a magnificent victory. Kohli answered the question about his - and his team's - desire by assuming a totalitarian style of leadership. Without scoring any significant runs himself, he drove his players to fever pitch. Steve Smith's tourists, having won so thoroughly in Pune, might have wondered what all the fuss was about: India in India - pah! They won't be wondering now. New India has an edge so sharp, it will slit your throat.
I have been to the Chinnaswamy a couple of times, the first for a barnstorming World Cup quarter-final in 1996 when India got the better of Pakistan's finest ever front six - from Aamer Sohail and Saeed Anwar down to Javed Miandad - with Ijaz, Inzy and Saleem Malik along the way - only to cock up the semi against Sri Lanka in Kolkata. They were two firecracker nights. The past week at the Chinnaswamy has been no less combustible. It must have been fun to have been a part of it.
The lunch break seemed to take an age so I burnt some toast, before looking longingly at the peanut butter and licking it from a spoon. Eventually the players emerged into the bright Bengaluru afternoon. By the time I got to muesli and yoghurt, India were all but cookedThis time, I was in London. It occurred to me that I had not watched a Test match on television from start to finish since the day such a pastime became a job. I resolved to do something about this and set the alarm for ten minutes to four on Saturday morning. The ringtone fizzed through my system like an electric shock. I reached out to turn it off. The first ball I saw was two hours later and turned out to be the last before lunch, when Cheteshwar Pujara was ripped out by Nathan Lyon. "Blimey," I thought, "this looks an interesting pitch", and I made a cup of tea. The lunch break seemed to take an age so I burnt some toast, before looking longingly at the peanut butter and licking it from a spoon. Eventually the players emerged into the bright Bengaluru afternoon. By the time I got to muesli and yoghurt, India were all but cooked.
On commentary, Matthew Hayden said the pitch was pretty good, which suggested he had formed an opinion before play and was reluctant to let it go. Five thousand miles away, I saw balls spit and bounce, squirt and stay low. The pictures were superb, enhanced by the quality of the technology that brings us consistent light, contrast and clarity. The director chose tight shots of the players' faces to illustrate their intensity and concentration. The importance of the game was written across each forehead and reiterated by emotional responses to the ebb and flow. Replays were analysed with glee, as if a pitch that made the ball talk was something mystical and magical. A good commentator should manage to waffle through a day of 350 for 2 but give him 180 all out on a minefield and he must have you hanging on every word.
There was nice blend on the Star Sports feed: four Indians and three Australians. No Harsha Bhogle sadly but Ravi Shastri's unbridled passion and Sunny Gavaskar's wisdom combined nicely with Sanjay Manjrekar's thoughtful appraisals and Laxman Sivaramakrishnan's charm. Hayden provided random ideas, both whacky and wondrous, and stayed kind to the players; Michael Clarke went about his work in an earnest, opinionated and fearless manner, while Brett Lee gave us "underglove" - a good new word for the glove on the batsman's bottom hand, or was it for the part of the glove nearest to the ground on either hand? Maybe this was cleared up while I was having trouble with the Nespresso machine. Both meanings work, and though the word began as a subject of commentary-box amusement, it was soon adopted and shared.
Lyon bowled his offbreaks exceptionally well. There had been doubt about his place in the team for a while, along with a suspicion that the present captain was less empathetic to his humdrum days than the previous one. Up close and with Super slo-mo, we saw the ball ideally positioned as it left his fingers, to fly in an arc on the line wide of off stump that right-hand batsmen most fear. It swerved away a little before it dipped, pitched and then spun like a top, sometimes bouncing high and other times skidding low - "natural variation", the Aussies kept reminding us; bloody good offspin bowling, implied Shastri.
