The agony and the ecstasy

Watching India wallop New Zealand at Hyderabad on Monday one felt two distinct emotions. Ecstasy at the batting of Tendulkar and Dravid and agony at the way New Zealand hurtled towards a big defeat. Disappointment in sport may come about in many ways and in my book, a lop sided result ranks very high. The essence of any sporting encounter is the keeness of the contest, the fluctuating fortunes, the great individual performances and the thrilling denouement. If these essentials are missing, then it ceases to be a contest, ceases to be sport in its highest art form.

Cricket is no different from other sports in this regard. There is nothing quite like the match that goes right down to the wire. There has been no better recent example of this than the two World Cup encounters between South Africa and Australia. And the same is true of the really interesting entertaining closely fought Test match. In my book the Test match between India and Pakistan at Chepauk in January this year will always have a special place. It had everything a connoisseur could ask for, all the vital ingredients I mentioned earlier before Pakistan emerged triumphant by 12 runs.

On the other hand there is the woefully one sided encounter in which one team is a punching bag and the other team does all the punching. Frequently it is said in unequal cricket matches, still halfway through the ordeal that if the match was a contest between two boxers, the referee could call a halt to the massacre early in the fight and declare the stronger fighter the winner. There is no such provision in cricket. The umpires (or the match referee) cannot call off the match when one team, replying to a total of 600 for four, is 80 for six and declare the first team the winner. Though frequently one wishes that such a rule did exist. For while the boxing referee by his action may even prevent a death in the ring, the cricket officials would at least be preventing the death of the very essence of a sporting contest.

Of course sometimes it helps that in cricket the umpire can't step in to declare a side the winner of a match midway through. One memorable occasion concerning India comes immediately to mind. At the end of the second day of the first Test at Leeds in 1967 the scores were: England 550 for four declared, India 86 for six. In boxing parlance, this signifies a terrible mismatch and the referee would have stopped the massacre then and there. But it was good that the umpires did not have any such powers. For, over the next 2-1/2 days, India despite injuries to a couple of key players, produced the kind of fightback that was a throwback to the Golden Age of cricket. They got 164 in the first innings and, following on made 510 the second time around and made a by now highly embarrassed England fight for victory before going down by six wickets. And a match that looked likely to end within three days did not get over till midway through the afternoon on the fifth day. A newspaper editorial back in India, summing up the team's gallant fightback, proclaimed that ``some defeats are more glorious than victories'' and indeed Leeds 1967 will always have a special place in Indian cricket.

There have also been a couple of examples in Test cricket when a team after following on, has staged a magnificent turnabout to win the match. In 1894-95, England finished 261 runs behind on the first innings, were made to follow by Australia and came back to win by ten runs. And who can forget the more recent Botham's Test at Leeds in 1981 when England, powered by their great all rounder's unbeaten 149 turned a first innings deficit of 227 runs into a memorable 18 run victory.

Unfortunately such feats are the exception rather than the rule. More often than not, the result of matches can be predicted even before they start or at best midway through and then the game also goes along sickeningly predictable lines. Such is the disparity between the sides sometimes. Is there any joy in watching lop sided contests? When West Indies were triumphant in eleven successive Tests in the 80s or when Australia won eight successive Tests in the 20s, these were awesome records no doubt. But the Tests were so onesided and the teams so depressingly ill matched that there was little interest in the proceedings. Similiarly where is the joy in seeing teams suffer eight successive defeats like it happened to England in 1920-21? Is there any joy in watching teams like India suffer seven successive defeats in 1967-68. What is the point in following contests wherein teams like India, West Indies and England lose all five Tests in a series?

Where is also the point in seeing one team defeat another by an innings and 579 runs - the margin with which England routed Australia at the Oval in 1938. Or by an innings and 336 runs, the margin with which West Indies thrahsed India at Calcutta in 1958-59. But surely the worst manner in which a team can be outplayed in both batting and bowling (and apparently fielding too) is to lose by an innings and plenty and take only two wickets in the process.

Perhaps we should be thankful that this kind of mismatch has occurred only thrice in around 1500 Test matches spread over 122 years, England inflicting such defeats on South Africa in 1924, New Zealand in 1958 and India in 1974. And lest the diehard one day cricket fan is convinced that such lop sided results are confined to Test cricket, let me point out that there have been several ten wicket victories in the limited overs game, now numbering over 1500 matches in almost 29 years. So by the same yardstick where is the joy in watching an encounter where a team is victorious by 232 runs - and interestingly enough losing only two wickets in the process. It happened in the 1984-85 WSC competition when Australia made 323 for two in 50 overs and routed Sri Lanka who were all out for 91 in 35.5 overs. Perhaps the Hyderabad game was not so one sided but it came pretty close. Don't forget that India too lost only two wickets in piling up their record total.