Relaxing with a cold one after 291

     

Ramnaresh Sarwan: the innings of his life has left England with nowhere to turn

        http://www.espncricinfo.com/inline/content/image/392956.jpg?alt=2     

Mike Atherton in the Times .  <blockquote>In his first 200 runs, there was one leg-side boundary: the rest, all 22 of them, came through the off side, an indication that England had bowled to his strengths for long periods. For the most part, England’s line should be straight to him, their length full.
Sarwan is a beautiful player through the off side and England seemed happy to encourage the sight of him cutting and driving them to distraction.
His technique is such that, by keeping his back foot on leg stump and moving his front foot across his crease, he positions himself to hit through cover, point and backward of point.
He thrives on width, being as brutal on the cut as anyone.</blockquote>

Viv Richards moves his front foot across and flicks the ball to the right of square leg.

By the time fine leg runs around to cut it off, Richards is already turning for his third run,

which will take him to 51.

"Richards again in really cracking form here at The Oval, his fifty coming in just

87 minutes, five boundaries included." 

Richards will bat another 385 minutes, score a further 240 runs, and hit a further 33 fours.

Sarwan's masterclass, which began late on the second day after the dismissal of

Chris Gayle, spanned 699 minutes and 452 balls, and came to an end in the closing

overs of the afternoon session, when Ryan Sidebottom, armed with the third new ball,

uprooted his off stump as he aimed a tired waft into the leg side. .

The ball I got out to, I can remember, I went to drive and maybe a little tiredness

would have maybe set in, and I wasn't quite to the pitch.

Got a little inside edge and got bowled.

Tony Greig behaved like he had got me out for nought, you know?"  :-[

If Atherton, the rest of the ex-players, the media and us the fans can see that was the case, then why couldn't those who were sat in the pavilion calling the shots see what was going on as well? I understand that sometimes bowlers don't get their line and length right and they will be punished, but with Sarwan the bowlers made his knock look easy.

I'm not saying it wasn't a fine innings by Sarwan, but I just think that the bowlers made it looked better than it was due to their poor performance, and just to keep bowling the same balls over after over simply isn't good enough at this level of the game.

I am not saying it was not a fine innings by Viv !

England players refused to have him stop whistling and chewing gum loudly.

Ump should have been asked  :-[