the International school of Sehwag ........ and the welcome bouncer in Test

Wondering what this school has to do here ?.........

The media covered it as never before – nothing new to the game – it  had to come ~ and it did -  the first ball of the fourth over -  Indian paceman Varun Aaron sent a bouncer flying down the pitch at Australian opener David Warner this morning. Warner, who just two weeks ago had sat beside his critically injured mate Phillip Hughes as he was medi-cabbed off the Sydney Cricket Ground, was already off to a flyer in the first Test at the Adelaide Oval, whacking the ball to the boundary off his very first ball. He ducked and avoided, and the crowd reportedly welcomed that bouncer.

Adelaide  is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide is a coastal city situated on the eastern shores of Gulf St Vincent.  The city was founded in 1836 and was planned as the capital for British province in Australia; named  after Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen.  Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen was the queen consort of the United Kingdom and of Hanover as spouse of William IV of the United Kingdom. 

The Aussie tour got off with some delay at Adelaide. Warner made merry. After Praveen Kumar and Bhuvneshwar Kumar, legspinner Karn Sharma became the third cricketer to hit the headlines from the small western Uttar Pradesh town of Meerut – from a good deal in IPL to his debut today, the leggie has come a long way.  David Warner swatted and hit all that was bowled at him.  Warner hit seven of his first 15 deliveries for four on the way to his fifth century in seven Tests in 2014. The day belonged to Warner, as he shredded India's attack for 145 off 163 deliveries before mis-hitting the debutant legspinner Karn Sharma to deep midwicket.

MS Dhoni is not playing, Virat Kohli is the new Captain and  Wriddhiman Prasanta Saha also is in.  He has played in 2 tests the last being the infamous Adelaide test in 2012 which concluded the  0-8 drubbing from which the Indian fan is yet to come out – and appears forgotten by the players though.  In that match in Jan 2012, Australia won by a huge margin of 298 runs.  At Perth India had surrendered so meekly and Clarke said the words "dead rubber" had been struck from his vocabulary, so there was no discernible change to Australia's approach other than to leave out the junior member of the pace quartet, Mitchell Starc, to accommodate Lyon, the developing spinner.

India did have a different captain - Sehwag deputised for Dhoni, suspended because of a slow over-rate at Perth - but after an adventurous first half-hour he allowed the match to fall into a familiar pattern. Australia's batting wobbled, to 84 for three, before Ponting and Clarke comfortably surpassed even their epic Sydney union, where they had added 288.  Saha played in that match made 35 & 3 and now gets another chance again.

The photo at the start is that of a school in Jhajjar, 65km from Delhi – it is an International school. Krishan Sehwag died in 2007. Less than five months later, his son plundered a strong South African attack for 319 in Chennai. It was his second triple-century in Test cricket. Only three men in the history of the game have made as many. A couple of days after that innings, Sehwag got a call from the then Chief Minister of Haryana Bhupinder Singh Hooda. On offer was a piece of land to build a cricket academy in Jhajjar. In 2011, Sehwag's mother finally inaugurated the school. His father's dream had come true. Sehwag captained at Adelaide in 2012 – now is no longer in the scheme of things.

With regards – S. Sampathkumar

9^th Dec 2014.