Overreaction Monday ft. the Ollie Pope hype, Yuvraj’s ridiculous claims and Akhtar going bonkers

Overreaction Monday ft. the Ollie Pope hype, Yuvraj’s ridiculous claims and Akhtar going bonkers

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Overreaction Monday - July 27 edition

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SportsCafe

There you go! IPL will soon be back and we are back as well with our weekly dose of slamming each and everyone who goes beyond their premises to make ridiculous statements. In this segment of the weekly article, we have all bases covered, pretty much like a Page 3 of any Indian newspaper.

Ollie Pope being overhyped by English media

After his supremely-beautiful 91 in the first innings, English media, and India’s very own Sachin Tendulkar, compared Pope with Ian Bell for the duo’s uncanny similarity, especially with the way he plays the late cuts. Some of the claims, however, was beyond comprehension given that Pope has less than 1000 runs in his Test career.

SC Take: Every once in a while, a prodigious cricketer comes and secures the throne for a long haul. But going over the top hardly makes sense. Let’s understand the Bell comparison first. Bell, with over 8,000 Test runs and an Ashes man of the series trophy to his name, is one of the modern-day English greats and also there is no reason to believe that Pope can’t. But after we move beyond the aesthetics, there is a clear sense of difference and that is not hard to see. 

Despite having a first-class average of 57.14 in 39 matches, ahead of this Test, Pope had only 473 runs to his name from 9 Test matches, averaging 16.16 in home Tests. Certainly a cricketer full of potential, we can be optimistic of his career being in the same direction as it is in domestic cricket but putting him at such a pedestal would not do any good to his career. We must not forget the path traversed by Haseeb Hameed and treat the cricketer by keeping him grounded. After all, he is just playing his 10th Test match and the sordid history of English cricket can only be a teacher of the pragmatic present.

Was handled unprofessionally towards the end of my career, feels Yuvraj

Yuvraj Singh recently claimed that many Indian greats, including Gambhir, Zaheer Khan, et al, were treated in a very unprofessional manner. 

SC Take: Yuvraj has a point that he along with the names he used had a lot of contribution to Indian cricket and deserved to have a final blow with all celebrations. But was it an unprofessional treatment? Well, that is an overreaction. Despite not being close to his best, Yuvraj dragged along, as did Gambhir, Zaheer and Sehwag and Laxman. All of them had gone past their best days when they became redundant in the set-up and lest Yuvi forgot, Gambhir had to drop himself from the Delhi Daredevils team after regular underperformance and hand over the leadership to Shreyas Iyer. 

Post-2011, Gambhir was a sorry entity in international cricket while Sehwag’s dwindling eye-sight never helped him spot the ball better. Was that unprofessional treatment? Certainly, it would have been better had they decided to call it a day at their prime and not waited for Thor's hammer to hit them right on the spot. Cribbing about the treatment dished out to them doesn’t do any good to their reputation, especially when they need to realise they were given a longer rope than they actually deserved. Your performances in the past couldn’t and shouldn't be the indicator of the present.

Have said this repeatedly BCCI won’t let T20 World Cup happen, alleges Shoaib Akhtar

Shoaib Akhtar has claimed that the cancellation of the T20 World Cup was the product of the BCCI wanting to host the Indian Premier League on a priority basis.

SC Take: How can a week go by without a former Pakistani player doing what they do best? Yes, the honours for this week fell on Shoaib Akhtar this week, who in an interview with Geo Cricket, said, “Ultimately a powerful man, or a powerful cricket board they run the policy and they make sure that you suffer. T20 WC and Asia Cup could have been played this year, this was a chance for India and Pakistan to play against each other but they let it go. There are a lot of reasons behind this I don’t want to go into details.” And that doesn’t make any sense.

The pandemic has surely resulted in throwing a spanner in lots of plans and the T20 World Cup is definitely one of them. The second wave in Melbourne means the largest cricketing city of Australia has been under lockdown once again and in such a scenario, Cricket Australia said it is virtually impossible for them to arrange the logistics for a 16-team event. A World Cup without fans is a terrible proposition - something Akhtar needs to realise in the current climate before making statements to satiate his own agenda. 

Stuart Broad is an all-rounder now

After Stuart Broad’s 45-ball 62-run innings in the first innings of the third Test, few English publications and many former English cricketers were quick to label him as an all-rounder. 

SC Take: Well, when one reminds the 169 that Broad scored against Pakistan at Lord's in 2010, there was every reason to believe that his career could have gone in a sharp direction of becoming a proper all-rounder but the next decade was nothing but sheer frustration. Broad has massively fallen from the expectations, averaging a tad over 18 in his Test career. So calling him an all-rounder just after one bloody good innings is nothing but an overreaction. 

Since Broad was hit by Varun Aaron in the 2014 Test, his form has gone down the gutters and from being a promising No.7 batsman in red-ball cricket, he is no more a valid entity as a batsman. Even the likes of Chris Wokaes and Jofra Archer have had better batting understanding than the Notts lad who has grown to be a legendary bowler of our time but has floundered with the bat. So don’t undermine time; refrain from making any real absurd statements as such.  

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