Heartbreaking and crushing for some. Joyous and invigorating for some. A hero can become zero in the span of one ball, six balls.
Cricket can be cruel and is not always a great leveller. For every Garry Sobers, there is a Malcolm Nash, being hit for six sixes in an over in 1968; similarly a Ravi Shastri for a Tilak Raj (1985), Herschelle Gibbs for Daan van Bunge (2007) and Yuvraj Singh for Stuart Broad (2007). Fascinating statistics but heart-wrenching for the bowler who stood savaged and humiliated!
A bowler, when tossed the ball for the last over, has no right of refusal. He has to bowl. That’s it. He has the faith of the captain and the wishes of the team.
But essentially he is alone on the field, fighting his instincts to bowl a particular ball because “don’t over-pitch, no wides, keep it tight, don’t experiment,” counselling comes from all quarters. He is the man under scrutiny, a sacrificial lamb. The world is tense. But he alone is mortified if he errs. Hardik Pandya got away the other night, despite conceding nine runs off the first three balls and bowling full tosses off the next two.
Hussey’s brillianceSaeed Ajmal, a parsimonious practitioner of the slow ball, was not spared in a critical last over. The Pakistan off-spinner was shattered as Michael Hussey tormented him with 6, 6, 4, 6 to finish the game as Australia plundered 18 off the last over in the 2010 T20 World Cup semifinal at St. Lucia.
“I am haunted by that over,” Ajmal had remarked some time back. The memories would never leave him.
Just as they don’t leave Chetan Sharma, whacked for a last-ball six at Sharjah in 1986 by Javed Miandad. “I would still bowl the same ball,” Chetan insists. But Mushfiqur Rahim must have pledged last night never to take a full toss casually.
What an over!Last-over excitement brings to mind the Mohammad Amir over against Australia in the 2010 World T20 group match at St. Lucia. He began with Australia 191 for five and ended with Australia 191 all out — Brad Haddin, Mitchell Johnson and Shaun Tait falling to him in addition to run out dismissals of Hussey and Steve Smith.
Amir is a brave bowler who loves it when the captain gives him the ball for the 20th or 50th over. Similar to Ashish Nehra, who would gladly accept the responsibility even as the captain extended a protective arm to some from Powerplay savagery.
Pandya’s youthful exuberance carried him through in a throwback to the final at Johannesburg in 2007 when Joginder Sharma stopped Pakistan in its track, inducing a false shot from Misbah-ul-Haq, who scooped his way to doom.
“My heart sank even though I had released the ball a trifle slow,” was Joginder’s lasting memory of the moment when he bowled India to a sensational victory.
And Sachin Tendulkar’s final over to the South African batsmen in the Hero Cup semifinal in 1993 is now part of Indian cricketing folklore.
A classicChris Pringle is perhaps the most unsung of the last-over heroes in one-day cricket. The right-arm Kiwi seamer bowled six dot balls to the lanky Australian pacer Bruce Reid with just two runs to defend. And Reid was run-out off the final delivery! The finish at Hobart in 1990 is lost in pages of history but can be revisited on Youtube to celebrate an era when even the most sensational and unbelievable climaxes evoked a measured response from the winners unlike the frenzied acts of today.
If only Rahim had remembered Ravi Shastri’s tactical move in the tied Test when Greg Mathews had four runs to defend. Shastri took two and a single, passing off the strike to Maninder Singh. “I ensured we won’t lose,” was Shastri’s defence.
Well, Test matches don’t have Super Overs. Some results are best justified when there is no winner!
