As the sun was setting down, Imam laborioulsy charged his way towards a 100. Soon he celebrated with a finger raising gesture to his lips, ready to silence his critics. He had scored a 100 in South Africa, a difficult place, with bounce troubling the best of Asian batsmen at times.
But it had come at a cost. A SR which struggled to go beyond 50 to 60 for most part of the innings and finally ended at 87. In old times, such a SR added to the final Pakistan score of 317-6 should have been hailed as a century for the watch keepers. However, in the cut throat cricket competition today, not many were pleased. Sure, he scored a century, but the pace of it, was NOT QUITE what the fans wanted.
Go back to a few days and find the South African Amla in a similar position. Again, similar circumstances and Amla refused to accelerate and refused to find the other gear, or even throw his wicket away trying. The end resut was a strange scoreline of 266-2 which Pakistan managed to overhaul with ease.
But then I've seen other knocks like these, the most famous Tendulkar knock against Bangladesh, a Dhawan knock if I remember correctly and many other knocks.
Cricket is being played at an alarming increase in pace nowadays. What was a winning score 1.5 decades ago, is now quite an average score. Batsmen are now improvising and finding new ways to hit the fence. The game is all about how much can you score off those 300 balls and is less about personal milestones and getting to that 100.
However, when innings like Imam and Amla come to mind, fans are quite less forgiving nowadays, especially when it comes at a price of a loss. I have nothing against Tendulkar, Imam or Amla or any other batsmen for that matter. Tendulkar has played his fair share of amazing innings and so has Amla. Even Imam will mature and grow to play faster innings provided that he gets other chances.
But innings like these are becoming less and less the norm because 300 balls is all you have to score a good score.
I remember [MENTION=135134]CricketAnalyst[/MENTION] once telling me scores of 10 (8) hit by Afridi are better than 30 off 50 balls and I used to think that it was laughable. But now cricket is being scored at such a fast pace, I tend to agree that its better to get out score 20 off 10 balls rather than hitting 100 off 120 balls because you have failed to give adequate chance to your team-mates to further boost the score.
I have a strong opinion that even scores like 324/4 scored today are worthless as is 266/2 or 317/6. Teams should be looking to score 350 all out, 310 all out or 334 all out.
What is the point of those 6 wickets, 4 wickets or 8 wickets you have in store when the 50 overs end?
Until the entire approach towards cricket is changed, ODI scores will continue to be of a certain mystery, with teams thinking that 300 is a good score. Only a few decades ago, 250 used to be a winning total and now 300 to 350 is considered a normal winning score.
But a winning score is one, that utilizes all your batsmen to the maximum ability and the full use of 300 balls to get the biggest target possible. It is not a score which one batsmen bats forever to score his 100 in hope of getting personal acclaim.
- Bassim.
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