England – worthy champions

ENGLAND’S cricket sup-porters would tell you that they are back where they belong! And who can deny them that boast, after beating the Pakistanis in the 2022 T20 World Cup final, played at Melbourne Cricket Ground on November 12? They are also the holders of the 50-over World Cup, which they won in 2019.

Pakistan was no walkover – far from it. The injury to left-arm quickie Shaheen Shah Afridi was the turning point to a tense game that England won by five wickets, with one over to spare.

With groundsmen affected by the stormy weather in Melbourne recently, the wicket did not receive the proper preparation it should have, and played slowly, unlike the way a limited-overs pitch ought to play.

Being restricted from driving through the ball, batsmen found the going tough. It wasn’t easy.

Ideal for the slow-medium pace of Sam Curran and the slightly quicker stuff of Chris Jordan. The leg-spin and googlies of Adil Rashid showed that England had a bowler for every situation.

Then there was Ben Stokes, a cricketer who never ceases to amaze me. Just think that in the 2016 final in Calcutta, this is the same bowler whom Carlos Brathwaite of the West Indies plundered for four consecutive sixes in the final over to achieve the 19 runs to win the final.

Stokes fought back, and is one of the best cricketers in the world now, while Brathwaite has faded from the scene. Does this say something about the state of WI cricket?

“Fireworks” would have been an apt word to describe the powerful batting of the two English opening batsmen, skipper Jos Butler (80) and the resurrected Alex Hales (86), in the semi-final fixture between England and India, played in Adelaide last Thursday.

What made it even more entertaining was the equivalent strength of both teams. It was a matter of which team had more confident players with the better attitude, the more self-assured of the two on show, espousing the belief in the need to be the better team on the day.

It was impossible to predict the outcome of this clash, which left over 40,000 Indian supporters drifting punch-drunk out of the Adelaide Oval in South Australia.

It was unbelievable to witness two international teams challenging each other in a game of 20 overs per team, with the team batting first, India, accumulating a par score of 168/6, only for that score to be overtaken by the opening batsmen without the loss of a wicket.

The India total was swiftly outstripped in 16 overs. England, as if in a hurry to get somewhere, won this game handsomely by ten wickets. I wondered what the coach of the India team would say, as it is always difficult to work out just what could have caused such a complete wipe-out. The coach, Rahul Dravid, shaken and confused, couldn’t tell which side of the window to direct his gaze. The openers completely mesmerised him. It was so unexpected, not only by Dravid, but by the entire world of cricket fans and supporters.

It must be remembered that India is not only a powerhouse but the leading financial cricket dynamo in the game.

And this is what Dravid had to say after that blistering defeat: “I know a lot of people talk about it (no Indians in overseas T20 leagues) but we have to be very careful when we…we have to understand the challenges that Indian cricket faces or the BCCI would face in a situation like this.

“You’d see all our boys…like a lot of boys being asked to play leagues right bang in the middle of our season. We’ve seen what that’s done to West Indian cricket, and I would definitely not want Indian cricket to go that way.

“It would certainly affect our Ranji Trophy; it would affect Test cricket. Indian boys playing Test cricket is pretty important for the Test game as well, I would think.”.

And this is how they look at WI. However, the WI was introduced to international cricket fourthly, together with New Zealand, followed closely by India.

What matters is that WI cricket developed rapidly in the mid-twentieth century, eventually becoming a strong force to be reckoned with, when they gradually adjusted to having clout in the world of cricket.

Subsequently, their administrators ended up like square pegs in round holes. And, although they should be given an A for effort, when combined, they are inefficient, hence ineffective.