Greatness prevails!
I will forever rue my decision not to watch the cricket match and australian open men's final. Why? Superstition. And what might it be? That - If I sit to watch the match, then my favorite players will not play well enough. Hah!
And what happened? Irfan creates a world record by scalping 3 top Pak wickets off the first 3 balls of the first over of the 3rd test at Karachi. No one has done this faster. The feared "Y" factor - the batting duo of Md Yousuf and Younis Khan - did not click. It is also possible that Pathan got immensely lucky. It was his day today. The pitch was obviously good and much different compared to the flat and dry "chapathi" pitches in Lahore and Faisalabad. It seems Pak did that to deal with their fear factor of losing against India at home. But the Karachi pitch had a little green top on it. And the result showed. Pak in 1st innings - 245 all out. India were not far behind. At close of day, there are already 4 wickets down. And the night watchmen are the 2 southpaws who are actually vying for the same slot in the team! :-)
Pathan claims the fastest hatrick in test cricket history!
In another great match of the day, the supremo reigned above all he surveyed. Rookie Baghdatis did have his share of greatness by taking Federer down in the first set for 7-5. After leading 2-0 in the second set, his lordship would have taken a moment and paused to think - "What the heck am I doing? Shouldn't I be playing tennis??". And then, it happened. Federer gave it back to Baghdatis 7-5. And a bagel set followed. I love it when he steamrolls his opponent with bagel sets! And then a 6-2... and history is made again. Federer is the first after Sampras since 1993-94 to win 3 consecutive grand slams in the same year. And if he wins the Roland Garros too (which I pray that he does!), then he would emulate the great Australian Rod Laver's feat of winning 4 grand slams in the same year! Rod Laver did that twice, first in 1962 as an amateur and second in 1969 as a pro.
Federer and Baghdatis with their respective trophies.
Roger Federer with Rodney Laver after winning the Aus Open 2006 Cup
So there, a great day for the sporting world!
Pics courtesy: cricinfo.com and australianopen.com for respective events!
posted by Rubic_Cube @ 1/29/2006 08:33:00 PM
3 Comments:
Was an absorbing day of cricket at Karachi y'day.
Melbourne saw Roger's class and also saw how he can cry like a kid!! I guess all those emotions that doesn't show up during the match just came out when he got his hands on the trophy.
Btw you mentioned about YS and SCG being night-watchmen which they are not. Technically speaking, night watchman is a player who usually bats low down the order and sent in during the close of play when there are few overs left just to stay at the crease and stay overnight rather than wasting a proper batsman who was scheduled to bat then. His primary job is to stay put at the wicket till the end of the day and carry on for however long he can the next day and whatever runs he scores are just considered as a bonus.
The Aus Open final...
I thought Roger was down and out when he was a set down and 0-2 down and facing another breakpoint which if converted would have made him go 2 serves down and virtually forget the 2nd set too. I do not think if RF would have come back from 2 sets down (Honestly, I haven't seen him come back like that because I haven't see him down 2 sets to nil at all in my life). And even when Baghdatis was serving 5-6 40-0, he had 3 points to make it for a tiebreaker. RF wasn't down by any means and won 5 straight points (the last one being a correct over rule by the chair ump) to win it 7-5. I guess Baghdatis just went down mentally from there and his game which was looking superlative became error prone. OTOH, RF just was back in his usual self gaining confidence and delivered another 'bagel' set. No stopping him from there !!
420, yep. those were great moments...
mav,
i saw the pics on australianopen.com and those showed him moved to tears, i saw some clips of him in tears later in the news channels. i hv not seen him in such an emotional moment. we may adore him for his tennis skills, but he is human afterall. this trophy has eluded him for a while. must be a sentimental moment to get his 3rd consecutive grand slam title in the same year.
also, thanks for the gyan on the night watchman funda. did not know it is applicable only for tailending batsmen.
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