'Patience bear fruit' is often tossed up to impatient and hopeless people to indicate a fact of life; that things don't come easy even if you deserve it. The word hardwork is then added for people who want to achieve greatness in time and time to come. In sports the proverb becomes something like ; patience and hardwork, togather, renders history. World is studded with stories of those who have obeyed this proverb.
James Anderson is an exciting narrative from those stories. He is probably among those who came, played and excelled to excellence solely based on their will-power. He was void of any great natural talent that could guarantee fanciful achievements. With that absent, he was left only with one path that could lead to greatness: consistent hardword. And he did. Laced with astonishing hardwork and exceeding will-power Anderson travelled, learned, practiced, imagined, desired and accomplished .He became someone who personifies 'test of times and conditions'. He will test you with all that he has got. What he has got is seriously hard to pass as a test.
Anderson is now at peak in terms of wisdom, skill, reputation and to say this all in one word : Art. Art in itself is Art when it passes tests of time and conditions. Andersons' tests have never been simple ones. He had to get wickets outside England. Had to prove his worth with old ball. Had to get good batsmen out in their homelands than in England. Over the year he slowly and gradually managed these too. Getting Satchin out in india with a beauty, a ball that Satchin would latter call 'reverse reverse swing' which means a simple ball with opposite wrest position. He managed to get Sangakkara out in Srilanka cheaply. Got six wickets in West indies and then in srilanka earlier this year which was followed by havoc causing spell of reverse swing in India where he got Gill and Rahany bowled to identical revere swinging deliveries. But all these just didn't make him a bolwer to write about. Many in world can do it, all it needs is a bit of form and, may be, some luck. What makes anderson so great is his cold battles with great batsmen. He has always been a hunter of Big fishes. His net they hardly escape, the only way to escape is to remain in your zone and don't wander out. If you do, you will be caught. These battles of him unfolded with many greats. But all these remained cold. It hardly ever boiled. But there is one, that boiled. A battle that has caught the attention of viewers for 7 years now. His battle with the infallible Kohli.
Anderson is a firm believer of Kohli not being too great a bastman; an idea that is debatable. At the same time he can licence himself for fostering such thoughts, because it is only him that has got the better of Kohli without paying too much in return for his wicket. Currently, India is playing in England and we often see them facing each other. The sense of battle between the two is now obvious from the way they speak to eacother or the way Anderson wrote about him in his last column for 'The Telegraph'
A contextual analysis of his views gives us sense of an Anderson that feels himself above kholi. We can see the pride inside him through what he wrote :" you come across all sorts of characters in cricket and there are many, many more I have come across who are more competitive than him [kohli] and I have managed to deal with them... ". Such pride is called achived desire, a state of spirit that require years of ceaseless toil, unquinching desires and focus. Jimmy did it all for 19 years and has now let his spirits lose to reap the pride of hardwork. His dismissal of Kohli* marked his hubris that denied the greatness of kohli and planted his own might as a bowlers. He feels like a force whose wind can rupture the great Oak of contemporary cricket constantly. What had started in 2014 is unfolding itself in same manner, punctuated by Kholi's resilience and patience. For sure Anderson has morally won the battle against Kohli. Even kohli's fans would admit it privately to their selves.
Jolting of Oaks like Kohli can only make bolwers like him great, and it is the wicket of Virat Kohli that makes Jimmy so jubilant. Bolwer like Anderson at the greater end of his career can only get bemused by surmounting batsman like Kholi. Feasting on wickets, like that of Kohli appears to the reason behind his prolific and tireless career. Kohli is king and it requires an out-witting knight to dethrone him. Jimmy is that: the only bowler who can create that diabolic fear inside an indifferent kholi; a batsman whose determination and commitment is measureless and fuels his sweeping journey to timelessness in batsmanship.
Is it the end? Anderson leaving the ring with a great smiling pride on his face? Or the King is preparing his great counter punch. A punch that he had never had to make, there has never been an instance where we saw Kohli finishing second, he is always first, always knocking the oppositions down. It is Anderson, the master of time, who has given kohli a test of time. A test that Kholi is failing to withstand. But its not the end. We have four innings before reaching any conclusion. There is still time left in Series. Enough time for Kohli to rewrite his chapter in this great battle. For now, Kohli is down and under while Anderson is singing his song in the most fanciful melody ever. But who knows? What if we would have to write an article at the end of series saying "Kohli is king and he knows how to keep his kingdom going". For that to happen we must see a frustrating James anderson kicking the pitch in despair while Kohli raising his bat to the crowd acknowledging his Anderson defying hundred. This fancy is constantly haunting the minds and spirits of Kohli fans, but, they know that, on ground there exists a reality that must be ignored before fostering such thoughts. That reality is called Anderson: who has caught India in the middle of his great spell, whose incantation is a red ball pitched on 5th stump.
Comments
Post a Comment