The Phase Of Extraterrestrial Batsmen

Every phase is marked by extraordinary performances in some fields. Some personalities in every period shine bright & jewelly. Likewise this is the decade of extraordinary batsmen whom I call extraterrestrial batsmen because they seem to have landed from some other universe & move in a zone of their own. The "Fab 4" are only a few percent of the total, they are many. Every team has at least 10 outstanding T20 batsmen at present & some really fast bowlers. These batsmen have devised the technique of playing 3-4 shots for every ball & practised them. The WI team announced recently for the SA tour of WI is proof how good batting has become in this period & how batsmen have mastered the art of blitzkrieg batting & blazing strokeplay. My first feeling when I felt this that we are in for a dynamitic display of willow hunting was when Virat had amassed 1,100 runs & 5 hundreds in a span of 5 months in 2012 & there was an article in Times of India suggesting is he the no. 1 ODI batsman in world at present. I was energised by that article & felt if no. 1 position in the world can be attained with extraordinary performance in such a short period, we may have more such players motivated with this recognition & making effort to achieve that. The next bell rang in my mind when India chased 3 scores of 350 against Australia in 2013. That convinced me this team is capable of accomplishing higher things. The 3rd belief of such success developed in the 2015 WC when India wasn't expected to fare that well but built a momentum with a few wins in the beginning. The 4th stepup in that sequence was the T20 season of 2016 in which Virat turned around a match on its head in the WC Q/F & amassed 900 runs in the season of IPL. This man then had started generating belief of his being like another Bradman & averaged 100+ in the T20s in 2016. The big feat came in 2018 when he piled up 1,000 runs in 11 innings & became the fastest to 10,000 runs. There was nothing left to achieve for him then & he had started seeming like a God on the Cricket pitch. The second last move in this series came in the 2019 WC when India became the table toppers unexpectedly & lost only in the S/Fs building again a momentous streak from a sequence of initial wins. & The ultimate conquest happened in the Test series against Australia & England this winter where Team India won so hard that it seemed this team can do any thing now & is going attain the unprecedented in this game. All this has come from a bunch of extraterrestrial batsmen who have taken this game to unmatched heights & entertained the races like never before. My salutes to this bunch of "Extraterrestrial" batsmen.

Test Cricket in the last 2 years has been terrific despite the pandemic interruptions & constrictions

There are 3 reasons of it - The game (Test Cricket) itself is so beautiful, it's so interesting & colossal, it is bound to generate enormous fun always, 2nd - The managers of the game manage it so well - The ICC, the BCCI & all the associated Cricket boards & associations plan the fixtures so well & beautifully, scheduling interesting series, hosting it at interesting places & presenting it in such qualitative manner, & the 3rd - The players these days are so outstanding - They work hard day night, switch to other formats so swiftly, are adaptive in their participation approach & dedicate so much to the work, due to all this the game had to be superfabulous. There was pandemic interruption in between, one of the nations (Pakistan) had been banned from hosting matches in its country in between, Zimbabwe was going through a turmoil, the constrictions of the pandemic were hard & testing, despite this, there was a heartmongering Ashes, a leisuring Bangladesh series, an imagination tickling Test series between Pakistan & Australia, one & a half superflambuoyant IPLs, some blood infusing innings like Blackwood's one against England & an unprecedented Indian winter, all this & the yet to climax WTC final & awaited Indian summer in July. What more can one ask for? Cricket has evolved into too priceless a commodity eternally. & It's dimensions are also plural. I salute this institution of sporting genius with a proud head & outpouring heart & wish it flies like this only uninterrupted by external disturbances like weather, politics & commercialisation.

The future of Cricket as is visible from the current situation

Cricket has always been a wonder, a thundering experience for both players & viewers. Over the course, it has only escalated in all departments. Some players have been superphenomenal, rising above the game & time. The current generation, which spans around some 8-10 years from now, has been Marsite & supernatural. Players like De Villiers, Kohli & McGrath are once in a millennium stars who have thrilled the masses beyond evaluability. The batting has rocketed 1 mile ahead of bowling & the public also enjoys the sport as much & supports it. New technologies like social media & endorsement businesses of players have only motivated them to fly higher. In this scenario & probability, the likeliness for the future is that it will rock the world at similar or higher rate for at least another decade with the current crop of players stretching much into it & the next generation learning a lot from it. In all, the Cricket world of 2020s is most chancey to reign over the national discourses of its countries & scintillate the folks like nothing terrestrial. My concluding prediction for the future of Cricket is that it will bang the entire globe with swashbuckling batting & hostile fierce bowling forming the core of it.