[Zeeshan]

Which innings is the best and more importantly: why? Vote and voice out your reasons. Here's my viewpoint.

Assassin's Lenscope: Two of the finest displays of match innings producing the highest scores in one day international. One, which made Saeed Anwar a household name with children devoid of technical cricketing knowledge parroting out his score as if from some multiplication table for his umatched mamoth score of 194 (almost as if boasting a superhuman cricket IQ!) and the other a prodigal score from Charles Coventry who threatened the world record from 156 runs with 7 sixes and 16 fours which showed a glimpse of his inner, abysmal talent. So which one of the two masterpieces ranks highest but most importantly under what random arbitration does one actually discuss the superiority of one over another? Banglacircket's most pious munshi takes a fresh look viewing the highlights of both innings for the first time.

It would be naive for one to straightway declare Anwar's innings as the best simply because of the brand value which Pakistan carries because of the flambuoyancy and the whole enchila...err biryani. Yes, Anwar seems to have it all: class, sweet timing and ability to play tasty shots from cookbook with a dint of deftness when required. But on the other side of the ring, clad in bloody crimson jersey, Coventry is not any young curmudgel who just cudgels a ball riding on luck to get to his destination in aggressive manner. Young Coventry is as much intelligent timer of the ball as Anwar, one of ultimate authortiy on cricket. Both had the pressure from the beginning and seemed to have everything go against them. Chappie's mut have gulped his heart when his team was one man down for 27, while Anwar had to face about a billion hussars in hostile enemey territory. Although both are artworks of two different generation, Anwar's being compared to a Renaissance match bathed in sfumatto of day and night, whilst Coventry's match being blazed in shimmering Pointillistic light of his homeland and although both are from different era, there are however some commonalities.

Anwar's one would probably most likely to get "hands down" from most people as the "obvious" better innings to the amateur but what they fail to realize despite the "quality opposition" that Pakistan faced, both team played a team that is or was on par with it. In international arena, despite the clownish gags of some players, Bangladesh's present cannot be ruled out as a joke rather a sinister vaudevillan bearer of freakshow who can often times pull out snakes from their mouth. Let's not forget the skeletal scaffolding of Shakib-al-Hassan's statisical system as the number one all rounder and one of the best top spinners who basically got ripped apart by Coventry. If there can be any comparison to this than one can silently shake his head affirmatively at his counterpart Anil Kumble who got similar treatment of two consecutive maximum boundaries. Not only this was counterfeited by Coventry but also he was playing the tired card except in Anwar's case the fact that he was compelled to use a runner showed the severity of his injury. For those of who are keeping scores, Anwar gets a +1 point for carrying out his innings even due to this shortcoming.

Coventry, with men falling one after another, single-handedly fought like a soldier with revolving mortar which seemed to shoot forth balls all around the park. However, despite his one man Horatio at the bridge like behavior it failed to invigorate a somehow subdued, crowd bare in numbers. Had this been any other country, if not Bangladesh itself, with so much passionate supporters that it leads it would have erupted like a dormant volcano, which was highly missed in a shabby gathering of a country torn in internal conflicts of cricket players. Coventry might have played the innings of his life, but his not out asterisk will only be a vain medallion that failed to propel his team to a victory. So as much as Anwar's innings can sway Libra's side, it's not because of 'quality of opposition' that he encountered but rather the electric atmoshphere in which he was submerged which allowed him to momentarily transcend this earth with last plunge for six to bring about his double hundred that only failed to result his harakiri. Thus as far as the verdict is concerned in my book Anwar's innings will outmatch Coventry's one anyday and just like a real masterpiece it's being bound to watch over and over again.

Cricket is not a stoic game of numbers. It's about the fans; it's about emotions. That is where lies the beauty of cricket: in the fans. No one's match could be deemded as flawless masterpiece yet they are unqiue, flawed and avante garde in their own way. Saeed Anwar playing beautiful ground strokes, deft touches in a hostile enemy territory with his injury in the "spiritual home of cricket " Chennai easily gets a notch high up because at the end of the day he brought a mass population of arch-nemesis India to their feet for standing ovation demanding respect who obligingly gave him the ultimate honor of his life. Saeed Anwar doesn't get the nods up simply because he had more "class" in him or because his shots were most "technically sound". But, it's because of historical significance that it imprinted forever in the crowd's mind who first hand witnessed an embodiment of deity performing miracles right in the theater of sports. Cricket is not judged with some boring stastisticcal litmus paper or the some club of internet purist toolfest analzying the most technically perfect shot, but it's because of the emotions that triggers in a crowd, the tears of joy that brings and bridges the gap creating the perfect bond if not utmost respect from the fellow neighbor who is different than you and me in almost every manner. Cricket is about life itself.