Sticky wicket | Tanmoy Mookherjee
It was a full strength Delhi team, the reigning Ranji Trophy champions that played host to Pakistan's Quaid-e-Azam Trophy winners, Sui Northern Gas Pipeline Limited on their home turf of the Feroz Shah Kotla. For a team of a couple of international cricketers and a largely inexperienced bunch of players, this must have been a daunting task by the look of it.
Add a rich vein of form to their names and it was a scary proposition: Virender Sehwag, Aakash Chopra, Virat Kohli, followed by some household names in domestic cricket. Captain Sehwag saved the SNGPL team from some more misery by leaving out Gautam Gambhir from the batting line-up. The bowling posed an equal threat: Ishant Sharma, Ashish Nehra and rising star Pradeep Sangwan. And yet, after three days of cricket and one day of pouring rain, the Pakistani team walked away with the Mohammad Nissar Trophy. Continue reading below
For starters, the visitors had indeed prepared well. The SNGPL team had definitely watched most of the Delhi players on TV going about their national duties. On the flipside, the hosts had only seen captain Mohammad Hafeez and Misbah-ul-Haq in action. The duo failed to make an impact for SNGPL with the bat; it was the other nine who did the trick for them, helping them take the trophy to Pakistan for the first time, after Uttar Pradesh and Mumbai had won in the two previous occasions.
Being the first game of the domestic season for Delhi, it was important for their players to get into the groove especially with a crucial Irani Trophy tie against Rest of India approaching. They did so in the second innings. But for that dreaded first day in the four-day affair, Delhi handed over the season's first trophy to their rivals.
As much as the game looked to drag on despite three days of cricket out of four, that too filled with rain interruptions, it was the day when cricket was not played that gave an insight into the players' commitment towards a game of obvious insignificance.
The Mohammad Nissar Trophy was ready to be distributed before the start of the final day's play even as players from both sides lazed around. The Delhi players were busy at a game of football-cum-volleyball (not quite sepak takraw though) while the Pakistanis preferred walking back and forth and chatting up with their opponents.
But as the umpires finally called off the day's play, the difference in the pages the respective teams were on was revealing. Dressed in training shorts and T-shirts, the SNGPL players rushed back into the pavilion to kit up in their pale whites and baggy blue caps. Whether it was the ever popular Misbah or a little known little brother of Kamran Akmal, Umar, they all wore the same kit.
Maybe because they were to collect the winner's trophy. Delhi's players, however, stayed put at the wet ground, remained in their sponsored shorts and chappals. Why it didn't matter was because even if they had kit up, the Sehwags and the Ishants would have stood out in the 'crowd'. They would have had their Team India T-shirts on, with the lame DDCA-badge version shoved somewhere in their kit bags. The cap, too, would have been bearing the BCCI logo, and not the one belonging to their domestic team.
Well, it would have been so easy for even Hafeez and Misbah to bring their honorable Pakistan T-shirts along with the customary green national cap. Why bother about a nondescript (not referring to the Sri Lankan domestic team) first-class outfit at all?
The Indian Premier League had apparently created some sort of city-based loyalty during the 44-day event, an event that brought the entire nation to an apparent standstill. Delhi's public was frantically hooting for Sehwag and AB de Villiers alike, almost expecting the fiery South African to mouth some hardcore Hindi expletives, which the fans in turn will sing in unison.
Understandably, the Mohammad Nissar Trophy, or even for that matter a Ranji game doesn't get to see that kind of frenzied following across the country. But when Delhi's own players don't seem to value their first-class badges after winning an India cap (you would still see Amit Bhandari sporting India jerseys which he probably wore five years ago), it also reflects on the level of commitment in a first-class game, which the Ranji champions lost despite putting up more than 500 runs in the second innings.
