Test Series in Southern Hemisphere Winter

One had nearly missed this contest..Bangladesh-Zimbabwe Test series beginning next week is a sobering reminder of what Test cricket once was.Low intensity professional sport with some amateurs thrown in.Though most countries have t20 leagues and it would be hard to find a batsman of the calibre of William Porterfield of Ireland, who made a remarkable season opening century, albeit in Abu Dhabi, this series will be more of a contest than Australia- India series that concluded recently.. It is an indication of the times that the customary Champions County vs MCC match is played not at Lord's but at Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi.

Those of us who were cribbing about the IPL not being quite cricket, this series should come as a balm.The competition between not the bottom teams but actually between teams ranked nine and ten and with several teams from Dublin to Kabul wishing to be where they are.It is therefore a full fledged Test series and the fact that in this global consumer age 150 million Bangladeshis matter with their 300 million eye balls, this series is a mainstream event surely with more people seriously interested in it than in the fortunes of the Pune Warriors.Tigers are the team to follow in April before Newzealand arrives in England.

Another World

Craig Ervine has reportedly refused a Zimbabwe contract as he would be getting only US$ 100 per week against nearly twice he can earn playing club cricket in the UK.The wages a professional cricketer playing internationally across so many formats in Zimbabwe are so different when compared not only with the developed or BRICS countries but also compared to Bangladesh.India can absorb only limited numbers in IPL, but an international cricketer ready to go to England for US$200 per week should be lapped up by our private school system as Coaches and DPEs .Surely, Schools can afford Rs.30,000 per month which works out to more than 120 Dollars a week for 52 weeks.Besides an English speaking Test Match cricketer can obviously get other coaching and speaking deals.Time, perhaps for an agent to step in.

And that also brings us to the happy state prevailing in India for years altogether where a national player even in a minor sport gets a regular job in the Railways or the Services earning decent wages and housing.If they are good and go on to become PT Usha, they grow out of their jobs or rise within the organisation like the 1982 Asian Games Hockey Captain Prem Maya and the more famous Mohammed Shahid. Indian cricketers, of course,  have it quite good from very old times. even in the seventies, they were making close to US$300 per test and had a full time job as well.Even Gundappa Vishwanath who did not go past high school,  found comfortable bank jobs moving up the Security hierarchy.

Beyond the IPL

A few hours after the close IPL match at Bangalore, another match went to the wire, almost as the T&T team defeated Jamaica at Sabina Park with two balls to spare in the Carribean One Day Competition.The match was close even without the likes of Gayle and Narine. The IPL has now become the major cricket league and scouts go everywhere to find talented cricketers everywhere.However, it is really good to remind ourselves that good cricket can be played without superstars and exciting cricket is being played in the world outside the IPL as well.
On a day that Chris Gayle was the most prominent Jamaican, spare a thought for young Jermaine Blackwood , who scored an impressive eightyfive and with Andre McCarthy helped Jamaica put up a challenging total. The more well known Lendl Simmons guided T&T to a nail biting win. 

The Long season draws to a close.

The First Class cricket season in India has come to a close.It has been a very long season with the first match being the Test Match between India and New Zealand in August 2012.Fittingly the last was the Test at Kotla. In between there has been a series loss to England followed by a first time 4-0 win which hopefully augur a new phase of cricket for India.

 Cheteshwar Pujara scored over a thousand runs this season and Rahane looks to follow Amol Mazumdar as very heavy First class scorer who could not play tests. Rahane of course played a test toward the end of the season.He however has not given any indication that he will have a long first class career. Pujara is on course to become the first batsman to have the best list A average before playing his first ODI.

As IPL takes over the off season in India, we have a few Regional 4days matches from the Carribean and the soon to commence English cricket. The English season will probably begin amidst sleet and snow but there is the series against NewZealand  too look forward to.By the time IPL draws to a close at least some of the Indian eye balls will shift to the test series in England. So while IPl tries to dissuade us from agreeing with Eliot that April is the crullest month what with zillions of exams all over the country cricket will accompany cricket in Chaucer's land with its "shoures soote". 

that brings me to the General prologue of The Canterbury tales and even while wading through Chaucer, often with Neville Coghills wonderful Penguin Classics translation in verse, I would be transported to england in april where cricketers from all over the world from Richards to Border and Barry Richards to Imran Khan would come to England as if on a pilgrimage in April at the start of the English season, something as regenerative than the pilgrimage Chaucer talks about.The beginning of the Prologue to bring all the non Eng Lit types up to date.

Whan that Aprill with his shoures sote° The droghte° of Marche hath perced to the rote,° And bathed every veyne° in swich licour,° Of which vertu° engendred is the flour; Whan Zephirus° eek with his swete breeth Inspired° hath in every holt° and heeth° The tendre croppes,° and the yonge sonne Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne; And smale fowles° maken melodye, That slepen al the night with open yë°— So priketh hem Nature in hir corages— Than longen° folk to goon° on pilgrimages, And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes, To ferne halwes,° couthe° in sondry londes; And specially, from every shires ende Of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende, The holy blisful martir for to seke,° That hem hath holpen,° whan that they were seke.° So, while everybody who is anybody in cricket have come to India this April, let us rejoice with a Zimbabwean by the name of Craig Ervine who will come half way around the world to england to play club cricket at about 200 US Dollars a week.The pilgrimage still continues.

sweet showers dryness / root vein / such moisture By power of which the west wind Breathed into / wood / heath sprouts . birds eye(s) . Then long / go . far-off shires /known .