Raising the bar
Hey..am i dreaminggg...is this true?..is this possible? am left shaking my head for the last many hours after watching what turned out to be one of the greatest matches ever in world cricket. First, it was the turn of the Australians under the marauding Ricky Ponting to surprise me. They became the first team to cross 400 and piled up 434 runs in 50 overs. And, this was too much for me, since I was waiting to see the Aussies being defeated. So i went out to watch a cultural fest. There, my friends were constantly giving me updates on the match using their mobiles. When the South Africans scored heavily in the initial overs, we thought it will all die out soon and they won't cross 350.

But that was just the start of a long line of surprises. Then I heard that the score is 200 in just 24 overs. hmmm...cool..are they gonna reach 400. and after sometime 282 in 30 overs...well, this was enough 4 me...I just couldn't keep myself from watching this monumental match. And the program coming up at the cultural fest was the Fashion show. But the lure of cricket proved more powerful than watching a few pretty gals. A friend was asking..''hey, where are u going..U came here just 2 watch those gals''...I said..''let them go to hell..i just cannot miss this''....So I rushed to my bike and my adrenaline was pumping...enough 4 me to blaze through the night traffic. Now the speedometer is reading 105kmph..Hey thats a record..my previous best was 100...well, today is day of records...so i thought of craeting a personal record as well...and atlast, its homeee...

Now its 30 required of 18 balls with 3 wickets remaining...oh my goodness...Proteas is rockingg... then the 9th wicket fell in the last over with 2 runs required..But today the usually unlucky proteas were not gonna losee...this was thei day..Boucher made sure that there wouldn't be any more hiccups with a straight clean hit for 4. And the Wanderers stadium erupted with scenes of joy, of victory..tears were rolling down some of the people in the crowd...

The match saw the record of most number of sixes...something close to 25, i think. A special mention should be made of Ricky Ponting and Herschelle Gibbs for 2 of the best displays of attacking batsmanship ever. They were jointly awarded the man of the match. But, Ponting sportingly declined to receive it and said that Gibbs deserved it more. So, a fitting finale to the most exciting one day match ever.

So, now 438 is the benchmark score in one day cricket. During the early 90s, a score of 300 was a rarity. At the end of the 90s, 300 was not anymore a safe score for a team batting first. Now, its all changed. The influence of 20-20 cricket is there to see in the way one days and test matches(to an extent), are played nowadays....So its now time for the Indian batting powerhouses Sachin, Sehwag and Dhoni to have a go at this new target...maybe, one day 500 will become a gettable score....Until the, its Proteas all the way...
with love and disbelief, your crusader Praveen