11th January 2021, a day to remember for not only Indian cricket fans but for the worldwide fans of test cricket. In the current generation, barring a few, usually, an attacking Indian batting lineup plays for definitive results and not for draws. But due to some unwanted scenario, Indian batting wasn't at its full strength. And little did the world know that this undesirable situation for them would be a blessing for test cricket.
In modern times, cricket has become more of a glamorous sport unlike a gentleman's game (which, it is still called). The audience wants big hits rather than the boring defensive strokeplay, and thus most of the cricketers today have molded themselves according to the audience's demands. Defensive batting today is not the most popular style of batting and we are not the ones to suffer the blame. We've been spoilt by the stalwarts of the previous generation (I'll blame Virender Sehwag and Adam Gilchrist for their exceptional attacking batting which made me fall in love with their game). Traditionally, a test opener was sent in to defend against the new ball and make it playable for the upcoming batsmen until a certain Virender Sehwag from a small Indian town changed the concept forever. So, today we want everybody to play such cricket where bowlers are hammered, and there's the unmatched beauty of test cricket, it will never become a batsman's game.
Today, we don't appreciate the likes of Cheteshwar Pujara, Dean Elgar, Ian Bell, and even Kraigg Brathwaite, just to name a few because of their boring style of ducking the ball forever. Yes, they do eat up a lot of deliveries, for the audience they lack intent (a new phrase used by pseudo test fans to describe conventional batting), but they make batting easier for others. It's their job. They frustrate the bowler and wait for the opportunity to score, and well when their shots go past the boundary, it's beautiful to watch. For us fans, criticizing such batsmen for scoring 30 odd from 100 deliveries is really easy but we don't realize the amount of pressure they handle in that situation. Defending a delivery at 95 MPH in such a way that the player does not gets out, in my opinion, s more difficult than scoring a few runs here and there, and this might be the reason many players can't play that role.
Unfortunately, for the past few years, (post the retirement of Dravids and Pontings), we stopped appreciating this style of play and started pointing them out as the reason teams don't win rather than drawing a game. And, when finally India with all the problems, was able to draw the match against Australia, we applauded Hanuma Vihari and Ravichandran Ashwin for scoring 62 of 281 deliveries combined. An attacking approach to batting might look attractive to watch but amalgamate it with a couple of boring defensive approach players and it'd make test cricket what it really should be.
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