Bradmanesque

There is a word in the cricket “Bradmanesque”. I consider India’s performance as that. It surely is an exaggeration if I compare any of the batters from today’s Indian test side to Bradman. But bear with me, as the Australian batsman is considered an “Epitome of Excellence”, today’s performance by the Indian team was somewhat resembling it. Yes, England’s BazBall also contributed to today’s result. But that performance was somewhat magical.

There is a boy Yashaswi, coming to Mumbai alone at the age of 12, living in a tent on Maidaan, his whole life surrendered to cricket. He scored consecutive double hundreds and went back as not out. Sheer audacity to hit three back-to-back maximums to the 41 years young Jimmy Anderson was something else. Only for the second time I saw fear in the eyes of Jimmy since a similar Rishabh Pant episode at Chepauk I guess.

There is another boy Sarfaraz, having nearly 4000 first-class runs waiting for a call from the senior team nearly for 4 years. Who himself is a lifelong project of his father—a no-nonsense explosive Mumbai batter.

And what to say about other debutant Dhruv, who was simply phenomenal behind the wickets for these four days. His reflexes running out Duckett opened the floodgates for English batting and they never recovered in the fourth inning.

Since this BazBall came into the picture, it was always the case that they would ask questions and others would answer them. It was probably the first time that these Mumbaikars asked solid questions to them which they eventually failed to answer and recorded the biggest defeat in the post-war era!

There are many more facets of the game to discuss like Hitman’s century, Gill’s near century, Jaddu’s century along with Fifer, Kuldeep’s bowling in the first inning, and last but not least the dedication to the cricket by Ashwin Anna! There is so much to talk about. A test to remember! A Bradmanesque Performance!