Who says J&K is playing badly? They are doing a great service to umpires, scorers and everyone included in pulling off these matches. They ensure these hard-working people get the much-deserved rest.
When Karnataka won the toss against J&K earlier today in the first match of the Vijay Hazare Trophy, they must have been elated. However, J&K has a tremendous bowling attack– the fastest bowler in India and two pacers who have played in IPL. But the pitch was flat and Karnataka couldn’t have hoped for a better start to the tournament.
They thrashed J&K bowlers all around the park as if grown-up men were being feasted with their favourite food. The pitch was very flat but the bowling was even worse. Left-arm spinner Abid Mushtaq showed his fellow bowlers that there was a way to bowl on this wicket. When everyone was going for fours and sixes, Abid finished with 10-0-46-0.
Karnataka made mammoth 402-2 with Mayank Agarwal firing 157 and R Samarath 123. Devdutt Padikkal also struck 71 off 35.
When J&K walked out to chase the target, Karnataka thought since this pitch was like a road, J&K would at least give some fight. But J&K said “Cool down, fellows, we were here to give you batting practice! We won’t let your bowlers stay in this hot weather for the whole day!”
The batters came, took a few balls to check if their bats weighed fine enough and departed soon to ensure their bats didn’t get any blows.
However, there was one man who stood between Karnataka and their early win. He came to bat at number 9 when the team was 109-8. He wanted to give the opponents a bit of their own taste and also teach J&K batters how to bat on a flat wicket.
Yudhvir Singh, whose primary job is bowling, scored a fiery knock of 64 runs in 39 balls. But despite his effort, J&K was bundled out on 180 runs, handing over a huge win of 222 runs.
Not players alone can be blamed for J&K’s continues bad performances. JKCA administration keeps saying “J&K cricket is on the rise” every time the team wins; now since they are losing and losing badly, will they write “J&K cricket is on fall”?