Tuesday, 18 February 2014
Brendon McCullum's triple century highlights selfish attitude
It was a good innings of 302 by Brendon McCullum against India in second innings of Wellington Test match on February 18, 2014. But it was clearly selfish as it was meant to achieve personal goal rather then winning a test match. On a road like cricket pitch captain Brendon McCullum batted and batted, painfully slowly, and made sure that he become the first triple century maker in New Zealand's cricket history. Not for once it looked as if he wanted to win a cricket match. It was a black day for test cricket and such selfish play only harms test cricket.
Indian cricket team, although young in both experience and age, played the game in right spirit. Their bowlers tried their heart out on a dead wicket to get their team into winning position. In their cricketing history, New Zealand hasn't won that many test matches, as reflected by their ICC rank of 7, and therefore it was even more embarrassing to see them not playing for winning one more test match. Very rarely triple hundreds ends up on winning sides. Mostly the matches have been drawn in which a batsmen has scored 300 and more runs. Only Virender Sehwag's triple tons, and Mathew Hayden's triple century once, ended up in a win.
New Zealand set India the target of 435 runs in 67 overs, which was never achievable, and test cricket took one of his last breaths once this was done. The scorecard on stumps 5th day looked like this:
There have been talks of reviving test cricket. One Day Cricket (ODI) and T-20 cricket are giving test cricket run for its money. But what we saw today highlights that test players have become selfish and they don't care much about making a match out of a game. Brendon McCullum might be seen as a hero after today's knock, but test cricket has become even more weaker today and it will be interesting to see for how long it can survive.
What made the matter worst, and making play bowing to watch, was a flat dead track. There was nothing for the spinners even on 5th day of test match. Virat Kohli showed that by making a century easily. Normally it is not that easy for a batsmen to score a hundred on last day of test match on a wearing pitch. This also makes you wonder about the claims of sporting wickets the cricketers of western world talk about. Recently we saw at Johannesburg, South Africa came close to chase down a target of 458 on last day on another flat wicket. The wickets in India are result wicket, and that's what is needed for test cricket. Help for fast bowlers is OK, but spinning the ball is also an art and there must be assistance in pitches for spinners to show off their art and for batsmen to show us, especially the batsmen from south africa, australia, new zealand, and england; that they can play spin bowling.
All in all it was a disappointing day for test match cricket and the one that a game of cricket, especially the longest form of cricket, can ill afford to have. Hopefully we won't see more such selfish knocks which highlights personal achievements rather than team goals.
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| Brendon McCullum, after Scoring First Triple Ton For New Zealand vs India |
Indian cricket team, although young in both experience and age, played the game in right spirit. Their bowlers tried their heart out on a dead wicket to get their team into winning position. In their cricketing history, New Zealand hasn't won that many test matches, as reflected by their ICC rank of 7, and therefore it was even more embarrassing to see them not playing for winning one more test match. Very rarely triple hundreds ends up on winning sides. Mostly the matches have been drawn in which a batsmen has scored 300 and more runs. Only Virender Sehwag's triple tons, and Mathew Hayden's triple century once, ended up in a win.
New Zealand set India the target of 435 runs in 67 overs, which was never achievable, and test cricket took one of his last breaths once this was done. The scorecard on stumps 5th day looked like this:
 |
| Ind vs NZ scorecard, stumps 5th day, Welllington 2nd Test Match |
There have been talks of reviving test cricket. One Day Cricket (ODI) and T-20 cricket are giving test cricket run for its money. But what we saw today highlights that test players have become selfish and they don't care much about making a match out of a game. Brendon McCullum might be seen as a hero after today's knock, but test cricket has become even more weaker today and it will be interesting to see for how long it can survive.
What made the matter worst, and making play bowing to watch, was a flat dead track. There was nothing for the spinners even on 5th day of test match. Virat Kohli showed that by making a century easily. Normally it is not that easy for a batsmen to score a hundred on last day of test match on a wearing pitch. This also makes you wonder about the claims of sporting wickets the cricketers of western world talk about. Recently we saw at Johannesburg, South Africa came close to chase down a target of 458 on last day on another flat wicket. The wickets in India are result wicket, and that's what is needed for test cricket. Help for fast bowlers is OK, but spinning the ball is also an art and there must be assistance in pitches for spinners to show off their art and for batsmen to show us, especially the batsmen from south africa, australia, new zealand, and england; that they can play spin bowling.
All in all it was a disappointing day for test match cricket and the one that a game of cricket, especially the longest form of cricket, can ill afford to have. Hopefully we won't see more such selfish knocks which highlights personal achievements rather than team goals.
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