2ಎಲ್ಲರೂ ದಯವಿಟ್ಟು ಒಂದು ಬದಿಯ - ಜನಸಾಮಾನ್ಯರಿಗೆ ಮನರಂಜನೆ, ಬಹುಶಃ?

Many say test match crick­et is lan­guish­ing in the doldrums at this moment in time. ಇಲ್ಲ ಯೋಜನೆಗಳನ್ನು ಎಲ್ಲಾ ರೀತಿಯ ಪ್ರಯತ್ನಿಸಿ ಮತ್ತು ಅದರ ಕೋಟ್ ಬಾಲ ಮೂಲಕ ಅದನ್ನು ಎತ್ತುವುದು ಸುಮಾರು chucked ಮಾಡಲಾಗುತ್ತಿದೆ. Such one sided demoli­tions as the Eng­land Sri Lanka series only add weight to the naysay­ers cause and the half empty (ಅಥವಾ ಪೂರ್ಣ ಇರಬೇಕು?!) stands at Chester Le Street don’t exactly help mat­ters.
As always the answer to turn things around isn’t straight for­ward. We’re all search­ing for that sil­ver bul­let or mir­acle cure to guar­an­tee packed sta­dia but the only thing that is clear is that there is no simple answer.

One thing is for cer­tain – crick­et is in the enter­tain­ment busi­ness and so needs to, ಚೆನ್ನಾಗಿ, enter­tain. Two tests in and Eng­land Sri Lanka has not enter­tained. There’s sup­posed to be sport in sport – shoot­ing fish in a bar­rel doesn’t draw the punters in. I can’t see people rush­ing to snap up tick­ets for the third and final test at Lords.
ಸಹಜವಾಗಿ ಇದು ಸ್ಥಾನಗಳನ್ನು ಮೇಲೆ ಬಲಾತ್ಕಾರದಿಂದ ಪಡೆಯುತ್ತಾರೆ ಕೇವಲ ತಂಡಗಳು ಇಲ್ಲಿದೆ. Indi­vidu­al play­ers have the abil­ity to light up an entire sta­di­um and even, ಒಂದೊಂದು ಸಲ, ಇಡೀ ರಾಷ್ಟ್ರದ. I once turned up at Head­ingly to see Eng­land against the West Indies but was there five minutes late (thanks to the Great Brit­ish trains) only to hear as we ambled past secur­ity that a wick­et had fallen already. Sure enough it was the man I really wanted to see – none oth­er than Kev­in Pietersen – and although Eng­land still scored a hat­ful of runs, ulti­mately I was left dis­ap­poin­ted.
Alistair Cook’s recent achieve­ment of being the young­est ever play­er to hit 10,000 test runs and the first Eng­lish­man to achieve the feat is right up there (ಮತ್ತು ಮಾಡಲಾಗುತ್ತದೆ) but per­son­ally speak­ing I wouldn’t shell out money just to see him sol­dier on and anchor an innings togeth­er. He’s the bread to allow the tasty pre­serves to be spread on top. Without the bread the pre­serves just taste weird but without the pre­serves the bread just tastes a little dry and bor­ing.
So I was think­ing recently what would be the most excit­ing XI ever? A side of elev­en stout yeo­man who would grace any slice of Hov­is (enough bread meta­phors already!!) and have them dan­cing in the aisles. ಈ ಅತ್ಯುತ್ತಮ ಪಟ್ಟಿ ಅದೇ ಅಲ್ಲ. Best ever lists are almost impossible to put togeth­er any­way – dif­fer­ent eras and dif­fer­ent pitches make com­par­is­ons sketchy at best. In put­ting togeth­er this list I’ve tried to reach out across the crick­et­ing divide and include dif­fer­ent nation­al­it­ies where pos­sible. Per­son­al­ity also comes into the cal­cu­la­tions and it must be remembered I’ve only been watch­ing crick­et since the mid to late 80s. ಕ್ಷಮಿಸಿ W.G. Grace but you’re back in the pavil­ion. This will be a band of reneg­ades to tour the world and show­case the best crick­et has to offer – even if many of them are rather long in the tooth.
ಆದ್ದರಿಂದ ನೀವು ಕೆಳಗೆ ಏನು ನೋಡಿ. I’ve gone with the mod­ern day for­mula of five front line bats­men, an all-round­er, stump­er and then four front line bowl­ers – one of whom is a spin­ner. I must admit to cheat­ing just a little – I’ve selec­ted a group of five bats­men rather than two open­ers, a num­ber three and so on so forth.
My five hit­ters:
ಶ್ರೀ IVA ರಿಚರ್ಡ್ಸ್ (ಸರ್ ವಿವ್) ಯಾವುದೇ ಪಟ್ಟಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಎಂದು ಹೊಂದಿದೆ. The man moun­tain was simply immense and could rip a bowl­ing attack to shreds with his aggres­sion and style. ಯಾವಾಗ ಹೆಸರಾದರು (ಹೆಚ್ಚಿನ ಸಮಯ) ಅವನು ಅಥವಾ ಬೌಲಿಂಗ್ ಅಸಾಧ್ಯ ಒಂದು ಕ್ಷೇತ್ರದಲ್ಲಿ ಸೆಟ್. When faced with dif­fi­cult pitches his response was simply: "ನೀವು ಒಂದು ಬ್ಯಾಟ್ ಮನುಷ್ಯ ದೊರೆತಿದೆ, defend your­self.” If he was play­ing today he would aver­age well into the 60s
Sachin Ten­dulkar. ಸರಿ, so this isn’t really about records but the Little Mas­ter is the best part of 2,500 runs ahead of the next best in terms of runs accu­mu­lated over a test career (Ricky Pont­ing). He is also feted as almost God like by 1.2billion Indi­ans – that should shift a few seats in the sta­di­um. On top of it all though he was simply immense even if he did suf­fer from being part of an Indi­an side who hated tour­ing – Eng­lish eyes rarely saw the best of him.
Kev­in Pietersen. ಸರಿ, so the guy car­ries with him a suit­case full of bag­gage but boy, ವ್ಯಕ್ತಿ (ಮತ್ತು ಇನ್ನೂ) ಬ್ಯಾಟ್. ಇಲ್ಲ ಶೀಘ್ರವೇ ಯಾರು ಗೇರ್ ಮೂಲಕ ಬದಲಾಗಬಹುದು ಕೆಲವೇ ಇಲ್ಲಿದೆ. Great enter­tain­ment value. I did con­sider Chris Gayle and he came close to nick­ing the spot. ಆದರೆ ಕೆ.ಪಿ. ಕೇವಲ ಅವನ ಮುಂದೆ ರಲ್ಲಿ sneaks.
ಸ್ಟೀವ್ ವಾ. If there is one crick­eter I would want on my side to help out when the chips are down then that man is Steve Waugh. The man is as sol­id as they come and would be my cap­tain. His broth­er Mark was the more flashy of the twins but flashy doesn’t always mean enter­tain­ing. He would be the glue that binds this unit of reneg­ades togeth­er. Use­ful back up bowl­er too (he was only a few short of the magic­al 100 wick­ets to com­ple­ment the many thou­sands of runs).
ಬ್ರಿಯಾನ್ ಲಾರಾ. What a bril­liant play­er. ಅವರು ಸುಮಾರು ಬಂದಾಗ, ದಾಖಲೆಗಳನ್ನು ಆಡುವುದು. ಅವರು ಹೆಚ್ಚು ರನ್ ಎರಡು ಬಾರಿ ಟೆಸ್ಟ್ ಇನ್ನಿಂಗ್ಸ್ ಬಾರಿಸಿದ ವಿಶ್ವ ದಾಖಲೆಯನ್ನು ಮುರಿದರು. He even hit 500 in one innings. Every time he walked to the wick­et you felt some­thing moment­ous might hap­pen. Quite incred­ible.
Wick­et keep­er
ಬದಲಿಗೆ ಆಯ್ಕೆಗಾಗಿ ಮೇಲೆಯೇ ಇಲ್ಲಿ ಆದರೆ ಇದು Adam Gil­christ who inven­ted the mod­ern day knack of wick­et keep­ers being able to flay the wil­low. His keep­ing could have been bet­ter but as part of a great Aus­sie side of which he was the beat­ing heart, ಇದು ವಿರಳವಾಗಿ ತೆರೆದುಕೊಂಡಿತು. His bat­ting on the oth­er hand was simply awe­some, ಫ್ರೆಡ್ಡಿ ಫ್ಲಿಂಟಾಫ್ ತನ್ನ ವೃತ್ತಿಯ ಅಂತ್ಯದ ಕಡೆಗೆ ತನ್ನ ಗುರುತು ದೊರೆತಿದೆ ಸಹ. He was a big game play­er too and would be a depend­able option should my oth­er stars fail.
All round­er
ಮತ್ತೆ, ಸಾಕಷ್ಟು ಇಲ್ಲಿ ಆಯ್ಕೆಯ. The all round­er is so often the beat­ing heart of a great team so it’s vital to get this one right. The win­ning man needs to be able to bat and bowl (obvi­ously) but also carry the team for­ward. ನಾನು ಹೋಗಿದ್ದೀರಿ ಏಕೆ ಆ ಇಯಾನ್ ಬಾಥಮ್. Bril­liant bowl­er and very good bats­man, ‘Both’ would also be in charge of choos­ing the wine list. Both’s drink­ing exploits are as legendary as his on-field achieve­ments and he will make sure the team has some ‘rosy cheeks’ before and after a match.
Spin­ner
There are only two pos­sible options from the mod­ern day era – or argu­ably any era. ಶೇನ್ ವಾರ್ನೆ ಮತ್ತು Mut­ti­ah Mur­a­lither­an ಈ ಒಂದು ಔಟ್ ಸ್ಲಗ್. ಇದು ಬಹಳ ಹತ್ತಿರದ ಕರೆ - ಶ್ರೀಲಂಕಾ ನಿವೃತ್ತಿ 800 wick­ets to his name and Warne wasn’t far behind him – but I want an umbrella of nations to be rep­res­en­ted in this side to attract view­ers from across the globe and Mur­ali is the only Sri Lankan to get close. ವಾರ್ನ್, who has the big­ger the per­son­al­ity of the two, ಪಾನೀಯಗಳು ಎಂದು ಸಾಗಿಸುವ 12^ನೇ man and be a second spin­ner should the pitch suit.
ಬೌಲಿಂಗ್ ದಾಳಿಯ
Den­nis Lillee – bril­liant bowl­er and fear­some / fear­less Aus­sie pat­ter. 'ಒಂಟಿಯಾಗಿ tache ನನಗೆ ಹೆದರಿಸುವ ಎಂದು.
Allan Don­ald – If Lillee doesn’t get the heart rate skip­ping a beat then this man will. Bril­liant bowl­er who scared many of his vic­tims to sur­render their wick­et. ಮುಖದ ಮೇಲೆ ಬಿಳಿ ಯುದ್ಧದ ಬಣ್ಣದ ಮಾತ್ರ ಆಸೆ ಸೇರಿಸಲಾಗಿದೆ. My one South Afric­an rep­res­ent­at­ive.
Mal­colm Mar­shall – ವೇಳೆ ಮೆಸರ್ಸ್ ಬಾಥಮ್ ಒಂದು ವೇಗದಲ್ಲಿ ತ್ರಿಕೋನ, Don­ald and Lillee doesn’t get you then surely the late, great Mar­shall will fin­ish you off. Out of a ter­ri­fy­ing pace attack in the 70s and 80s Mar­shall is widely regarded as the best of the lot although old ‘Whis­per­ing Death’ Michael Hold­ing comes close.
ಆದ್ದರಿಂದ ಅಲ್ಲಿ ನೀವು ಹೊಂದಿಲ್ಲ. A com­pletely un-sci­entif­ic stab at a test side worth the admis­sion price. The top sev­en have over 66,000 runs between them and the bowl­ers a com­bined 2,200 wick­ets. ಒಂದು ಗಡಿಯಾರ ವರ್ತ್?

ಈ ಉಪಯುಕ್ತ ಕಂಡುಬಂದಿಲ್ಲ? ದಯವಿಟ್ಟು ಕೆಳಗೆ ಕಾಮೆಂಟ್ ಬೀಳಿಸಿ ನಮಗೆ ತಿಳಿಸಿ. ನೀವು ಚಂದಾದಾರರಾಗಬಹುದು ಬಯಸಿದರೆ ಬಲ ಮೇಲ್ಭಾಗದಲ್ಲಿ ದಯವಿಟ್ಟು ಮೆನುವಿನಲ್ಲಿ ಚಂದಾದಾರರಾಗಬಹುದು ಲಿಂಕ್ ಬಳಸಿ. ನೀವು ಕೆಳಗೆ ಸಾಮಾಜಿಕ ಕೊಂಡಿಗಳು ಬಳಸಿಕೊಂಡು ನಿಮ್ಮ ಸ್ನೇಹಿತರೊಂದಿಗೆ ಹಂಚಿಕೊಳ್ಳಲು ಮಾಡಬಹುದು. ಚೀರ್ಸ್.