Welcome back

Finally got to watch some cricket over the week-end. Some traditional seam bowling from Chris Broad vs some swashbuckling batting from the calypso-est of them all - Ramnaresh Sarwan on a now-cloudy-then-bright good ol' english summers day.

Picture this. Ramnaresh Sarwan batting ( and how!!) on 96. With a short leg and a couple of fielders on the boundary line on the leg side, Chris Broad fires one bouncer after another at him in what was ultimately the day's most fascinating over. The first one, Sarwan ducks . On the second, he unleashes an almighty pull, actually a part-hook part-pull, which bisects with almost surgical precision, the two people on the boundary line and takes him to his much deserved 100. The third gets him on the helmet. The fourth and fifth, he just about manages to play it down under his feet. Predictable he may have been, but Broad bowls a sixth one on the trot, but this time a flat-out unplayable one and Sarwan, far more concerned about saving his neck, baloons it straight to the first slip.

And the whole while, one had Michael Holding talking one through the minutiae of good old seam bowling. He then goes on to tell you that one of the most fascinating aspects of the game is the the slowly but steadily developing contest between a batsman and a bowler who knows his bunny, when he sees one. Both of them are acutely aware of each other's rapidly ticking cricket brain and what follows is a fantastic cat-and-mouse game where each tries to out-think the other. The intensity is maintained for only about 4-5 overs, and may not even feature a single boundary or an appeal.

But what suspense! What drama!

Cricket is dead! Long live cricket!