The Full Circle...

As a very young cricket fan I was scared to see the likes of Malcolm Marshal and Patrick Patterson running up to bowl at great speeds. After that there were others like Courtney Walsh, Curtly Ambrose and Ian Bishop.

Our batsmen looked so fragile and timid playing the fast rising deliveries and the Yorkers dished in between. There were helmets and other protection equipments of course but they could do little to overcome the fear in the hearts of the batsmen.

However after these players retired the next generation of West Indian fast bowlers was very ordinary and by then we had players like Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and a few others who could play the fast bowlers with ease. They were technically correct and also were aided by the fact that most of the Pitches in the Caribbean had become slow paced which had made life easy for the touring batsmen. Even the West Indian team came to be known for its Batsmen like Lara, Chanderpaul and not the bowlers.

And this continued for a long - long time till 2009..............................................................................

In 2009 India was the world champion going into the T-20 world cup in England. Indians were confident and boasted of a very strong batting line up. They were young, strong and confident. They had beaten the world once under the captaincy of a new leader from a remote part of the country who led the team like a true, brave general. The team did not have the experienced campaigners who for some reasons best known to them and the Cricket Board had made up their mind not to play this new variety of cricket. But the captain was confident of his troops’ ability to repeat the magic again. His team had been doing well in all parts of the world and had been touted as the favourites for the Cup.

The team could be compared to the Titanic. ..Strong, big, Confident and Proud. It could cross any ocean, take on the winds and still stand tall.

Alas! Just like the Titanic met its nemesis, Indians too met the short ball. It had come back to haunt them.. And it came from the team who had used it earlier to devastating effect: The West Indies. Suddenly the Indian team looked young like a Tiger’s cub pretending to be a tiger. They were timid, scared and routed just like the old days when there was no Tendulkar, Dravid and no helpful pitches.