Everyone wants to know how Ajantha Mendis performs against the daunting Indian batting line up. His Asia Cup final's performance was pretty impressive but bowling in a test match is a completely different scenario, when compared to bowling in a one-day international. The big four batting greats of Indian cricket Sachin Tendulkar, Saurav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman, are all known to play spin extremely well. I would want to quote here the greatest leg spinner(Shane Warne) of all times. He said, "Indians can play spin even in their dreams", and he even went on to the extent of saying that he had nightmares about Sachin hitting him all over the ground. The bottom line is a Mystery Spinner will have to face the toughest challenge of his life and unfortunately that challenge would present itself to him in his very first test match. The most fortunate thing, for him would be, bowling along with Muralitharan, that is bound to ease the pressure.
If he performs well,( I have a feeling that he will) then no one can predict what great heights he will achieve in his career. Even if he does not perform well, the experience which he will gain would really help him out in improving his game. He has a very natural action, and he uses his fingers more than his wrist. I personally want to wish him all the luck for a successful career.
Now lets look at the other side of the above coin. There is no denying that those four batsmen are under tremendous pressure to perform. I don't see how Dravid, Laxman or Ganguly are coming back into One-day squad. However, if they don't perform , then before its too long they will find themselves competing with players like Rohit Sharma and Suresh Raina for their place in the team. So in order to hold on to their places in the team they would not only be fighting for survival but also facing a spinner who is considered to be a mystery by one and all. This is going to be a great battle to witness. So now the batsmen are faced with a tough task of dealing with not only Muralitharan but also with Mystery Spinner.
The other awaited event is Sachin Tendulkar's come back after his injury. It would be interesting to see how he would perform. No one can question the greatness of Tendulkar so it is expected that he will do well. However, there is another fast approaching land mark for our beloved Tendulkar. He needs only 172 runs to become test crickets leading run scorer. What an achievement that would be. He is all set to overtake Brian Lara at the No.1 spot.
Let's hope that he achieves that milestone as soon as possible.
The other unprecedented event, which is much awaited is the umpire decision referral system. Each team would get 3 unsuccessful chances of asking for a review of the umpires decision. We all have discussed about this system in one of the forum topics earlier. Now we can see how successful this system will be. One thing is for sure, obvious edges would not go unnoticed. If the fielding side doesn't agree with umpires decision the captain can ask for a referral, that makes sense however, here is another scenario which probably needs a little more attention.
If an opening batsmen does not like the decision of the umpire and he asks for the referral and say the decision comes against him. So the batting side not only loses the batsmen(who is given out) but also one of the referral. What if by the time a No.5 batsmen walks out and all the referrals have been used up, and he ends up given out lbw when there happens to be a big inside edge. Not a good situation to be in.. Batsmen are not allowed to take instructions from outside for referrals, so they will have to make up their decision whether to challenge or not pretty quickly. Batsmen will have to be more careful before challenging the umpires decision, because their decision can hurt the teams cause.
What do you all think about the above discussed scenario of batsman challenging umpire's decision in particular and about the entire article in general.
Your views, comments and opinions are highly regarded and appreciated.
