Ireland: From Minnows to Miraculous!

Whenever a big tournament like world cup kicks off, the people start guessing the victor. Even though it’s very difficult to guess who will be the ultimate winner of the cup, it is possible to guess roughly the last four or last eight teams. When it comes to guessing the last eight teams, people guess that the top eight test playing nations, barring Zimbabwe and Bangladesh will be the quarterfinalists. But these are the days when they can no longer bet so safely about the last eight teams. The so called ‘minnows’ like Bangladesh and Ireland have changed the trend very effectively over the last decade.

Major upsets were not uncommon in world cup, starting from the then non-test playing Sri Lanka’s upset victory against India in 1979 edition of world cup. It was followed by Zimbabwe’s victory against Australia in the next edition of world cup. But until 2003, such upsets were limited to occasional victories by non-test playing nations. In 2003, Kenya stunned the cricket world when it entered into the semifinals of that edition. After that, the 2007 edition had two of the biggest shocks in the history of world cup. Minnows Bangladesh and Ireland kicked out two sub continental giants India and Pakistan respectively in the very first round of the tournament. Not even the strongest supporter of these teams would have expected such a result. Even though Bangladesh had produced a few upset results before that in international cricket, Ireland was a totally new team to the world of cricket. But that didn’t deter them from teaching a lesson to Inzamam Ul Haq’s team that they wouldn’t forget for the rest of their lives. But even before that, they had produced a superb performance against Zimbabwe by holding them for a tie. After that, what happened is history now.

Ireland’s wonderful performance didn’t stop there. In the next edition of the tournament also, Even though they didn’t qualify for the quarterfinals, they played superbly in every game they played. Chasing down a mammoth total of 328 against England was really a gem performance by a non-test playing nation. Despite ending their battle in the very first round itself, the Ireland made the cricket world look more seriously towards them. Now their yet another solid performance against another former champion team, no matter whatever the current plight of that team is, undoubtedly a warning signal to the top teams of the world. I wouldn’t be surprised if this charismatic bunch of players wins the cup in 8-12 years to come.

What makes Ireland so special among the minnows? Their never-say die attitude makes the biggest difference. Whoever may be their opponent, whether it is Australia or South Africa or Bangladesh, their attitude doesn’t change. As their captain William Porterfield rightly said after their famous victory against West Indies, they always play to win. They have already beaten four test playing sides in world cup, a feat that no other non-test playing side has done before. That itself is the indication of how good a side Ireland is.

When it comes to talking about Ireland, the discussion isn’t complete without mentioning the O’Brien brothers, Kevin and Neil. Kevin is the man who holds the record for the fastest century in world cup, which he established when he pulverized the English attack in 2011 world cup to help his side chase down a massive target of 328. His brother Neil starred in his team’s yet again successful chase of 300+ score against West Indies in this edition of world cup.

So how far can Ireland go in this world cup? if everything goes according to the plan, there is no reason why we can’t see them in the quarterfinals, because Zimbabwe and UAE are the two teams in the group against whom Ireland will start as firm favorites and provided the talent and enthusiasm of Irish players, even the top teams need to be wary of them. Otherwise what happened to Pakistan in 2007 world cup is bound to happen again.

After all, cricket is a game of uncertainties. To be frank, all the games in the world are ruled by uncertainties to some extent. But what is the limit of uncertainties? No one can guess that correctly, because what is happening in the cricket world today is something no one would have expected a 30-40 years ago. In the 1970s and 80s, everyone knows how the then West Indies team was. They were staring as firm favorites in any tournament they played. Their record of not losing even a single test series, either at home or away between 1980 and 1995 is still a world record and I don’t think any team can beat that record in near future. Even Australia, however dominant it may be in the cricket world, can’t do that in near future, because South Africa, India and England are still tough nuts to crack for the Australians, at least at their own backyards. But what has happened to such a wonderful West Indies team these days? They are losing even to non-test playing teams these days. Who would have expected that a team which has won back to back world cups would one day lose, despite scoring 300+ runs in a one day match, to a non-test playing team? Today the plight of West Indians is so miserable that they can’t even promise to win a single game against the teams like Bangladesh and Zimbabwe also. But Sri Lanka was a non-test playing team those days, but what is its position now? It has won the world cup once and reached the finals of the last two editions. Every time world kicks off, it will start as one of the favorites for the title. That’s how the cricket world has changed in four decades.

So what are the odds of Ireland winning the world cup? Even though it is true that their performance is outstanding, we can’t expect them to win the cup this year, but in the years to come, Ireland is surely a team to look for. Who knew that India would beat West Indies in the 1983 world cup final and win the cup? Who knew that Sri Lanka will win the 1996 world cup? So, let us neither expect too much from this side in near future, nor ignore them as worthless minnows. Let them play their natural game without pressure and with full pleasure, and then wait for the marvelous results that are bound to come sooner or later!

Are there unbreakable records in cricket?

Are there unbreakable records in cricket?

Is there any record in the cricket world that is unbeatable? That is the question that might have crept into the minds of the people who saw A B De Villiers exploding against West Indies in Johannesburg, sinking one of the records in less than a year, which was believed to remain at least for a few years to come. Of course, these days the records are becoming more and more short lived, especially in batting. In bowling, it’s not easy to set new landmarks, partly because of the amount of  cricket that is played all over the world today and partly because of the batting friendly rules and grounds. Its true that the amount of cricket played these days is more both for bowlers as well as batsmen, but the demands of bowling, especially pace bowling, are much more compared to batting. That could be one of the reasons for the batting bonanza that is seen all over the world these days.

Let us come back to the topic again. The proverb that records are there to break seems quite appropriate these days. Nineteen years ago, when Sanath Jayasuriya scored a century of just 48 balls, everyone was stunned. It was a feat that no one had dreamt about those days, because those were the days when cricket was still a fair game in terms of batting and bowling. Scoring a hundred with a speed of more than two runs a ball was as impossible as touching the sun those days. But that marvelous record, which seemed to be immortal, lasted hardly for six months. This time also the same teams were involved in the record braking match, the only difference being their roles reversed. This time Srilankans were at the receiving end, against the same Pakistan team against which their explosive opener Jayasuriya had set the world record. Young Shahid Afridi smashed that record by a whopping 11 balls. That record also seemed to be unbreakable those days, and compared to the rapidity with which the records are tumbling these days, this was a really long lived record, because it withstood onslaughts from explosive batsmen from all over the world for more than 17 years. Then once again came another unbelievable stuff from another newcomer. On the first day of 2014, New Zealand’s Kory Anderson bettered Afridi’s record by just one ball, though that match was virtually an unofficial 20-20 game because of the interruptions from the weather gods. But that doesn’t take anything away from Anderson’s marvelous feat.

Once again false beliefs emerged among the minds of cricket lovers that this record would be unbreakable, at least for another few years to come. But hardly a year had passed when another big hitter of modern cricket decided that a year’s life is more than enough for this record. But is this record unbreakable? Even though it seems so as of today, I don’t have the guts to bet that this will stand longer, because the cricket world has changed completely over the last few years. Any milestone seems unreachable until one person reaches it. Once someone reaches it, everyone starts to think that if he can reach it, then why can’t I. there are several examples to strengthen this statement. An individual double hundred in one day cricket and a team score of 400 are tow best examples I can quote in support of this argument. So a 31 –ball hundred, even though it seems unbreakable as of now, can’t be accepted as immortal, especially when the cricket world is teeming with batsmen like Brendon Mccullum, Chris Gayle, Kory Anderson and of course, A B De Villiers himself.

Hitting sixes has also become a child’s play for batsmen these days. There are several players around the world these days who hit sixes more frequently today than some of the plays were hitting boundaries in the 70s and 80s! However exaggerating this statement may seem to be, but it is not totally baseless. When Jayasuriya hit 11 sixes in a match, it seemed to be unbreakable, but that was equaled by Afridi in his record breaking century. These two people together held the record for most number of sixes in a match for more than one and a half decade, until Australia’s Shane Watson smashed 15 sixes against a hapless bowling attack of Bangladesh in a match in which he scored eighty percent of his team’s total and also bettered India’s M S Dhoni’s record of highest runs scored by an individual during a run chase. That time also it seemed unbreakable, but in less than three years, it was broken by India’s Rohit Sharma and now it is equaled by A B De Villiers. So no one can claim these days that his record is unbreakable.

Of course, in the hindsight of these record breaking efforts, one can get questions like this. Are the records set by Australia’s Sir Donald Bradman and India’s Sachin Tendulkar are also breakable? Quite a few days ago, the answer to both these questions was a definite no, but these days it seems even the records of Sachin Tendulkar are not safe, thanks to the rapid manner in which the Delhite Virat Kohli is scoring hundreds. May be it is too early to predict that Kohli will break Tendulkar’s record, but provided the talent of this young batsman, there is no reason why he shouldn’t break Sachin’s records in the days to come.

But what about Bradman’s records? His average of 99.94 is almost untouchable by any bastman in modern cricket. As of now, that record not only seems to be unreachable, but also unapproachable. He holds an average of 95.14 in first class cricket also, which is also by far the highest in the world. There is only one way in which you can beat Bradman’s record. Play just one game, score a hundred and then retire! Then your average will be in excess of hundred!! Apart from that, there seems to be no way as of now, but who knows? One day or the other, one more miraculous batsman may emerge from some corner of the world to surpass that record also. Can you bet it is absolutely impossible? You may bet safely, because you can be quite sure that it will not happen during your lifetime, but if your life expectancy is increased to a thousand years by some magic and there is someone to monitor you all these years and collect the amount from you in case you lose the bet? Probably you won’t dare to bet, because cricket is changing so rapidly these days that you can’t deny such a possibility.

A couple of years ago, we had seen west Indian Chris Gayle scoring a breathtaking hundred in IPL in just 30 balls, one ball less than what A B De Villiers faced for his hundred against West Indies. Of course you can’t compare a 20-20 innings with a one day innings, but Chris Gayle is certainly a player who is capable of slamming a quick fire hundred in one dayer as well.

It is said that test cricket is the ultimate cricket and a player needs to prove himself in test cricket if he wants to become a great cricketer. There are a number of players all over the world who have shown tremendous talent in one day cricket and have become great finishers in shorter format of the game, but they repeatedly failed in proving themselves in longer version of the game. Hence whenever a list of the greatest cricketers of the world is made, their names are nowhere included in the list. Some examples for such players are India’s Yuvaraj Singh, Ajay Jadeja, and Australia’s Michael Bevan are a few among them. Among the current bunch of players, India’s Suresh Raina is still struggling to come out of the label ‘one day specialist’. Yet another youngster Virat Kohli was also having the same label until recently, but his outstanding performance Border-Gavaskar trophy series despite team’s miserable performance in the entire series has helped him to come out of that tab effectively. Now, with ten test centuries under his belt, half of them having come in the Australian soil, Kohli can confidently claim that he is on the right track to become a complete player. Of course, in tests, it is too much to expect him to break Tendulkar’s records. But in one day matches he can certainly do that, provided that he maintains the hunger for runs and his fitness.

In tests, the records are relatively long lived it seems, partially because of the lack of interest of current cricketers in longer version of the game and partially because of the lack of stamina among the players to play for longer durations. There are very few test specialists these days in cricket world. Some of the veterans who are playing as if they never age like Sri Lanka’s Kumara Sangakkara seem to be the last of this magnificent generation of cricketers. Among the newcomers, promising names are very few and their consistency is a big question. Moreover, the mentality and attitude of the players has changed tremendously in the post IPL era. Players are more interested in grabbing crores for playing in the shortest format of the game rather than sweating it out for five days in scorching sun for getting a few lakhs.

Finally, have we found answer to our question? Probably yes, probably not. Because these are the questions to which no one can answer accurately and everyone knows that it is an unanswerable question. As of now, there are certain records in cricket that seem to be immortal and some records are under imminent threat. Some other records are difficult to say whether they are unbreakable or not, but whatever it is, until it is broken by someone, any record will stand as the evidence of the magnificent effort of one of the finest players the game has ever seen.