In modern-day test-cricket, is it all about stroke play? As per the stats, which carry a lot of weight and lend credence to a cricketer’s stature, last year most top scorers in Test cricket were hard playing, aggressive batsmen. These guys aren’t known within the circuit for playing their shots patiently. Quite the contrary, these are flamboyant sports-stars who express themselves freely with the bat.
From Sri Lanka’s Kumar Sangakkara to Angelo Mathews, Brendon McCullum to Australian Test captain Steven Smith, and even an Aussie opener David Warner… all of them have an aggressive brand of cricket in common. They have scored over 1000 runs in 2014. Just two batsmen in the list – Pakistan’s Younis Khan and Lanka’s Mahela Jayawardene – are not reputed for their aggressiveness despite being in this over 1000 run club.
Once upon a time practical cricket was more bookish. With time new trends have changed the way cricket is played, with great deviations from text-book cricket. And only time will tell if this change is good for the longest version of the game. In a fast changing world, where T20 is the way to go, these kind of statistics only go to show that Test cricket is all about stroke-makers. Even the 10,000 plus test-runs’ chart shows a mix between classical batsmen and the ones who are aggressive. Former Indian captain Sunil Gavaskar was the first to reach the 10,000 mark. He was followed by Australia’s Allan Border. And these two batsmen were not exactly stroke-makers like the modern day greats. They played Test cricket as if they were never in a hurry to score runs.
Then came a generation of stalwarts like Sachin Tendulkar and Brian Lara. This lot played Test cricket with a great degree of domination. They could dare any opposition. Gradually, the era of Rahul Dravid also began and Test cricket was all about scoring runs at which ever pace suited the batsmen. West Indies saw the birth of a very unconventional batsman called Shivnarine Chanderpaul, who isn’t a great stroke-maker but is still playing Test cricket with his uncomplicated approach.
An all-rounder like Jacques Kallis too accumulated more than 13,000 runs with a different style, which was completely the opposite of his ODI approach. The likes of former Australian captain Steve Waugh was someone who could bat like there was no tomorrow but never played Test cricket like an ODI game.
In the new millennium Test cricket witnessed the fashion of 400 runs in 90 overs. When India picked former Aussie great Greg Chappell as its coach, his told the Indian players to score runs at a faster pace in Test cricket. That was the time when world cricket got a new kid on the block – India’s premier opener Virender Sehwag, who was always ready to counter the Australian Mathew Hayden. So, next time when you see someone trying to bat like MS Dhoni, or Virat Kohli, for that matter, in Test cricket, don’t be surprised, because this is the new style of world Test cricket – go out there and hit the ball out of the park!
