English Willow Bats

India vs England: Thank you England for the joy of swing, pace and "Chin Music"

The English bowlers have set a standard attack bolwing the age of the bat, which must continue and will not disappear

In the recently concluded Test series between India and England over the batting prowess with a Dravid or a Kevin Pietersen or Bell was the domination of the ball on the bat which had impressed me more. It seems that the era of swing bowling rhythm and relive again.

After the end of the Akram, Waqar, Ambrose, and Donald Walsh era cricket had lost its fun. The thrill is more focused with the likes of Gilchrist or a Sehwag. It’s not that there were no fast men during their time but sadly not in the mould of an Akram or Ambrose. Mcgrath dominated but just had been too mechanic and was not enough to script any rush of adrenalin in my thirsty soul which just carved to watch the excitement generated by pace and swing.

My eyes were bored to watch bulk of runs being scored and at times it had been a one sided show most of the times in the last decade as the bowlers went too defensive and the batsmen cashed on that. There had been occasional blitz from Shoaib Akhtar, occasional wolf dance from Harmison or Flintoff but they just were soap bubbles as the power of the willow made the last decade almost boring me. The last decade had been the dead age for the fast men.

While people in the last decade rejoiced in the splendour of stroke play bowling seemed to have become less ambitious and more stereotyped. Bowling rhetoric’s in the last decade was accented to nagging and negating- “the corridor”, “the channel” and “getting it in the right areas”- rather than beating and bewildering.

The over dose of limited overs cricket had an adverse impact and then T20 just let the bowlers forced to cut down swing and pace. Bowling in Test and limited over cricket is far different than those of Test and ODI batting: you actually spend a lot of time to prevent the ball from behaving as you’d like it in a Test match, like swinging, turning or generating pace and for which in the last decade the batsmen enjoyed more and even an average player’s batting aggregate touched 50.

Willow

Bats, mysterious flyers of the night

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