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?

ನಿಮ್ಮ ಸ್ವಂತ ಕೆಲವು ಆಲೋಚನೆಗಳು ಗಾಟ್? ಕಾಮೆಂಟ್ ಕೆಳಗೆ ನಿಮ್ಮನ್ನು ಪಾಲ್ಗೊಳ್ಳುತ್ತಾರೆ! ನೀವು ಚಂದಾದಾರರಾಗಬಹುದು ಬಯಸಿದರೆ ಬಲ ಮೇಲ್ಭಾಗದಲ್ಲಿ ದಯವಿಟ್ಟು ಮೆನುವಿನಲ್ಲಿ ಚಂದಾದಾರರಾಗಬಹುದು ಲಿಂಕ್ ಬಳಸಿ. ನೀವು ಕೆಳಗೆ ಸಾಮಾಜಿಕ ಕೊಂಡಿಗಳು ಬಳಸಿಕೊಂಡು ನಿಮ್ಮ ಸ್ನೇಹಿತರೊಂದಿಗೆ ಹಂಚಿಕೊಳ್ಳಲು ಮಾಡಬಹುದು. ಚೀರ್ಸ್.