Well for those of you wondering if my new year resolution was never to blog again, here we go. It's been a while since my last post but that's mainly been due to the busy (very busy) holiday schedule followed by a hectic first week back in college. Oh and just in case you didn't catch the sarcasm, well, I was sarcastic. First of all, a happy new year to everyone. Let's hope that this year turns out to be better than the previous one, as we hope every year, and let's also hope that we can actually stick to our new year resolutions this time around.
When it comes to the holidays, calling it a 'sporting' holiday would be THE understatement of the year (however young it may still be). My daily routine was round about the same as that of many sports fans across the country - wake up early and catch the NBA match at around 7, follow that with some highly competitive Ashes cricket till lunch, then enjoy the battle for the No. 1 spot in Test cricket between India and South Africa till dinner and finish the day, rather uncharacteristically, with a movie post-dinner. An absolutely perfect holiday, some would say.
After many long years of following basketball matches online and reading recaps on the website, or at times even streaming live games if they were important enough, Ten Sports has finally, truly brought the NBA to India. With four games telecast every week, there is finally something to wake up for in the mornings (apart from coffee, of course). It's good to finally be able to see live basketball on TV.
The Ashes, this time around, turned out to be a one-sided show. England, after nearly 15 years of torture at the hands of the Australians, managed to do to Australia what was being done to them for a long, long time. And that was total, utter domination. England managed to outplay Australia in all but one of the matches. It was only fitting that in all three of their victories, the English batsmen never had to play a second innings. And for the first time in 24 years, an English team managed to win the Ashes in Australia. That is a really long wait and a job well done by the English team. However one-sided it was, it was still a pleasure to watch. The quality of the presentation was simply outstanding and the cricket was of a fiercely competitive nature.
The afternoon's were invariably spent watching the India-South Africa Test matches. Again, it was a wonderful series. We got thrashed in the first Test and everyone thought it was going to be the same as always - that the Indians are lions at home and mice abroad. The second Test at Durban proved just how far we've come as a team in recent years. A low-scoring game it was, but a pivotal one definitely. Our bowling suddenly looked that much more dangerous and actually capable of taking twenty wickets in a game (which we eventually did). There were three things that turned that game around for us.
The first was Zaheer Khan's bowling on the second day. After being bowled out for 205, India did well to dismiss the Proteas for a paltry 131. Zaheer helped turn around the bowling after the first Test and by picking up three wickets in each innings, was definitely the best bowler in the Test (yes, even ahead of Steyn and Morkel). The second was another Very, Very Special innings from our second-innings savior, Laxman. Cool as a cucumber in the tensest of times, he produced yet another match-winning effort. Having saved India three times in the year already, he came out to bat with India struggling. They were barely more than a hundred runs in front and wickets were falling around him like ninepins! Batting with the tail, he produced a scintillating 96, the kind of performance we are used to, and at times take for granted, to push the lead in excess of 300.
The third and final moment that changed the course of the series was the absolute snorter that Kallis received from Sreesanth. It was truly an unplayable delivery and set India well on course to victory. It was an amazing match and for the Indian spectator, was so much more special. It also showed that though Sachin's 50th century went in vain a week earlier, the series was not yet lost. If anything, it had just begun.
Well, as the new year starts, I guess we could all take something out of that Test match. Even when things don't go right for the first time, never give up. Come back, try harder, and definitely, things can change. I don't know if there's a limit on how long a blog article can be, but I'm sure if you are still reading this, you must be pretty bored. So I'd like to sign off by wishing you a happy new year and a quote that we can all try and incorporate in our lives this year. It's from Kung Fu Panda (a must-watch movie) and is one of my all-time favourite quotes.
"Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the 'present' ".
