Thursday, March 09, 2006

A Tale Of Two 21-Year Olds

Alastair Cook took the cricketing world by storm and proved to be a real thorn in India's side in Nagpur. However, for some reason, he never gave me the impression of being invincible and that it was only a matter of time before some weakness could be found in him. That was found today by Irfan with relative ease and plenty of aplomb and that is a very good sign, that this team is picking out weaknesses in opposition quickly.

Also a thought that had struck me earlier and one which was reconfirmed by the Sky Sports team yesterday was that Cook looks a lot like Nick Knight when batting.

Now coming to Irfan, I must say he has done really well in this series so far. Harshly ridiculed for his poor performance in Pakistan (which btw included a first over hat-trick and a 5-fer in Karachi) and his general lack of pace, he has consistently provided the early breakthroughs this series as he did in the Sri Lanka series earlier. Who cares about lack of pace if you are picking up the wickets anyway ?? I am confident Irfan will turn out to be a sterling performer for India over the next 10 years and will not go the Nehra or Zaheer way.

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