India is a land of many religions and gods, but one of them that every citizen follows without fail is that of Cricket! Cricket is not just a game for India but it is a passion. And this passion has been seen in your T20s, in World Cups, in One Day Matches and even in Test Matches. And it is only normal that today, when India enters into the battlefield to play its 500th Test Match, against New Zealand, the country is going gaga.
Let’s look a bit of the back story. The first ever test match was played by the Indian team against the British in 1983. Eighty years back, we were just starting to become a formidable team in the game of cricket, and as the world saw the time go by, India saw its team grow from novices to pros, to champions and finally masters.
So, on 22nd September 2016, the men in blue donned their white armours and stepped onto the Green Park pitch at Kanpur facing off the Kiwis. With the contemplation of the spinner-advantageous field, Caption Virat Kohli has set the order with 4 bowlers, one keeper and 6 specialist batsmen at the crease. Here is the lineup:
India: Murali Vijay, KL Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli (capt), Ajinkya Rahane, Rohit Sharma, Ravichandran Ashwin, Wriddhiman Saha (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Umesh Yadav, Mohammed Shami
New Zealand on the other hand have gone in with a slightly higher number of spinners. Although it is debatable whether they are amply prepared as was seen in the warm-up match in Mumbai. Well, we just have to wait and see if they are back in form for this game. Not to speak about this being a home away match and hence they aren’t getting any advantage there.
New Zealand: Martin Guptill, Tom Latham, Kane Williamson (capt), Ross Taylor, Luke Ronchi, BJ Watling (wk), Mitchell Santner, Mark Craig, Neil Wagner, Ish Sodhi, Trent Boult.
This 500th Test match does bring in the element of nostalgia and even the country took to Twitter and various other platforms to talk about who will be in their dream team to play this match of epic proportion. Goes without saying Sachin Tendulkar, M.S. Dhoni, Rahul Dravid, Kapil Dev and many such legends found their way into almost every list. But it will be interesting to see how this particular Kohli-led team will do.
With Kohli winning the toss and electing to bat first, it may have been a wise decision but the score board reads 57/1 of 17 balls and there is the whole innings to go. All we can do is just soak into the cricket mania and hope for the best!
