In the past one month or thereabouts : India beat SL 3-0, England beat WI 2-1 , Aus tied with Bangladesh 1-1 and SA beat Bangladesh 2-0 in Tests. The England -WI series and the Aus-Bangladesh series had some moments of interest. WI actually got to the last test of the series with some chance (outside chance) of winning the series. Bangladesh entered the final test leading the series! But finally sanity was restored. Back to the same old boring test results!
But hey, just when things were bad, enter Pakistan! The Pak-SL series in UAE (Pakistan's home ground) was expected to be uninteresting. Pak playing at home (where they hadn't lost a series in a long time) and SL playing away from home, after having being white washed in their home test series! Pak winning 1-0 or 2-0 seemed possible!
But hey - thank Rangana Herath and Pak for doing the impossible. With 136 needed to win the test (after SL collapsed spectacularly in the third innings), Pak got all out on 114 (http://www.espncricinfo.com/series/18037/report/1120284/day/5/). OK - this was Pakistan. OK - SL had also collapsed to a very low score and OK - this was Rangana Herath (master of the 4th innings) bowling. So what is SL went 1-0 up in the test series? Oak would bounce back in the second test.
The second test had a script that went awry - SL hit 482 in their first innings. Pak got all out for 262. But then came the fightback! Pak got SL all out for 96 runs leaving them 319 get to win.
This is where the fun began - Pak lost their first 5 wickets for 52 runs and their last 5 for 23! In between, they put up a 173 run stand! Yet, Pak lost by 68 runs finally. This was a test match that , at 225/5 (92 more runs needed, 5 wickets in hand), Pak should have won. Even Rangana Herath was not troubling them so much. Yet, Pak lost.
I am not happy (or unhappy either) that Pak lost. I am just happy about how unpredictable this match was. Each day , it looked like there would be a different winner! This is exactly what the beauty of test cricket is. Unlike most ODIs or T20s, where the winner is usually clear sometime into the game; in a test match, fortunes can fluctuate each day. But yes, that can happen only if there are evenly matched teams (India, England, Australia and SA; preferably not playing anywhere in the subcontinent). Or, it can happen if one of the opponents is Pak :)
get them to play and you never know who is gonna win.
But hey, just when things were bad, enter Pakistan! The Pak-SL series in UAE (Pakistan's home ground) was expected to be uninteresting. Pak playing at home (where they hadn't lost a series in a long time) and SL playing away from home, after having being white washed in their home test series! Pak winning 1-0 or 2-0 seemed possible!
But hey - thank Rangana Herath and Pak for doing the impossible. With 136 needed to win the test (after SL collapsed spectacularly in the third innings), Pak got all out on 114 (http://www.espncricinfo.com/series/18037/report/1120284/day/5/). OK - this was Pakistan. OK - SL had also collapsed to a very low score and OK - this was Rangana Herath (master of the 4th innings) bowling. So what is SL went 1-0 up in the test series? Oak would bounce back in the second test.
The second test had a script that went awry - SL hit 482 in their first innings. Pak got all out for 262. But then came the fightback! Pak got SL all out for 96 runs leaving them 319 get to win.
This is where the fun began - Pak lost their first 5 wickets for 52 runs and their last 5 for 23! In between, they put up a 173 run stand! Yet, Pak lost by 68 runs finally. This was a test match that , at 225/5 (92 more runs needed, 5 wickets in hand), Pak should have won. Even Rangana Herath was not troubling them so much. Yet, Pak lost.
I am not happy (or unhappy either) that Pak lost. I am just happy about how unpredictable this match was. Each day , it looked like there would be a different winner! This is exactly what the beauty of test cricket is. Unlike most ODIs or T20s, where the winner is usually clear sometime into the game; in a test match, fortunes can fluctuate each day. But yes, that can happen only if there are evenly matched teams (India, England, Australia and SA; preferably not playing anywhere in the subcontinent). Or, it can happen if one of the opponents is Pak :)
get them to play and you never know who is gonna win.
