The Miracle at Chinnaswamy

Imagine you were picked up for USD 3000000 in a new cricketing tournament auction. And your team is playing the first ever match of the tournament at ground which is completely alien to you and to top that you will be opening along side a certain man known as “Bengal Tiger”. How will you feel? Tensed? Nervous? Doubtful? Well, Brendon Mccullum or fondly known as Baz might have been going through the same emotions. But what happened next is something that has etched in cricket history!        

IPL was destined to be a blockbuster tournament, after-all it is being played in a country where the sport has a status no less than a religion and to be cheering to your cities with players from different countries playing for your cities created an excitement which cant be described in words!

Then walked in a 26 year old Mccullum from New Zealand, he never played any match in Chinnaswamy. So, you expect him to be cautious, and he himself might have thought of taking it slow. And, if you match the highlights in the first over he was playing on the back foot and was beaten by Praveen Kumar. Then, the miracle unraveled, after that first over if you observe he hardly played on the back foot, he was on the front foot and was not waiting for the ball but, was attacking the ball. It was like as if somebody has whispered to him “Baz, you are immune mate go for it!”. It was not your typical innings where you got to see classical shots or fluent drives. But, an innings which had beliverent and merciless hitting, it was equivalent of watching a mozart's symphony on steroids! It's not a small thing to over shadow greats like Dravid, Ganguly, Kallis and outperform them. But, Baz did it with an utmost ease!

Rahul Dravid who captained RCB mentioned in an interview that “they were caught like rabbits in the headlights!” You can clearly see that the home team has been carried away completely, out of the 158 runs in that innings 72.1% runs came on the off side, and the opponent team failed in placing the fielders in required positions.

You might say Chris Gayle's innings at Chinnaswamy is the most destructive innings. We agree! But, this innings by Baz has set the tone for something special that left everybody in this country with a smile on their face ( well if exclude yourselves if you are a fan of RCB!)This innings was once in a lifetime show where you just cant thank enough for the timing of it! And as they say rest is history!

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About the Author

The post is written by Himanth. He is an alum of IIMV ,a potter head, considers cricket his religion and sachin his god.