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Because test cricket has been around for so long, some things are just impossible to find out. Somewhere in there, as a quirky detail, is the significance of a hitter hitting the first two balls he faces for six. Insofar as it can, history indicates that four people have accomplished this.
Even though it happened so long ago (1948), fast bowler Foffie Williams is well-known for it since it was completely out of character. Since the remaining marauders are more recent in age, information about them is considerably easier to come by. In 2013, Sachin Tendulkar developed a fondness for Nathan Lyon, while in 2019, Umesh Yadav found it impossible to resist George Linde.
On Monday, Rohit Sharma deliberately swung on his back foot to smash the next ball over square leg after sashaying down the pitch to launch Khaled Ahmed straight down the ground.
India needs five victories to guarantee their spot in the World Test Championship championship game the following year. At home, they have five tests. It would be a great relief to wrap them up before leaving for Australia. However, the Kanpur weather and Green Park’s drainage haven’t exactly been kind to those suggestions. India needed to take a big step if they were going to travel to Australia and play the Border-Gavaskar series with all the freedom they wanted.
Indeed, they did. even prior to their starting to bat. Rohit was the catalyst again.
Without taking any chances, Litton Das was playing some amazing punches either side of the wicket. The captain of India then removed two of his slips and placed them directly in front of the batter. One at silly mid-off, the other at short midwicket. Litton was now unable to score runs while playing cheque drives, in which his hands stayed in close proximity to his torso. He needed to act differently now. He had to allow himself to be vulnerable.
He attempted to clear mid-off with the one he took. Rohit was also present. He gave a flying leap. lifted one hand into the air and descended with the ball and a smile that took up far more room than he had.
Bangladesh could hardly have predicted the violence that would soon befall them. Yashasvi Jaiswal, who appeared destined to become India’s fastest Test centurion, scored the most of it with his bat. He had six times as many boundary riders (6) as catching fielders (1) at different points in time. Even so, he continued to beat them, making enough accurate shots to pass well over their heads, albeit the ones that landed closer to the ground were more striking.
Despite the ball thudding into the stands behind him, he managed to locate a gap each time, with the sweep going finer of deep square leg and the cover drive scuttling away to the sweeper’s left.
Jaiswal boosted himself to 72 runs off 51 balls as Bangladesh scrambled. Virat Kohli produced an innings where his control percentage was down in the mid-60s but his strike rate was up in the high 130s because to a willingness to try shots as exotic as the standing reverse dab to deep third. KL Rahul achieved a fifty off 33 balls without seeming to be having an existential crisis like he does in this style. In less than three hours, India took the lead.
In 18 balls, 100 in 61 balls, 200 in 148 balls, and 250 in 183 balls, India reached their target. Every one of them was a record of a Test match and the culmination of a plan. The vastness of our game (so much of it being unknown) and the weirdness of this one (so much of it lost to the wayside) collided when Rohit took strike.