The NFL superbowl is this weekend and most Indians in the US now will be turning off the TV and logging on to Willow cricket on their streaming devices. Here we try to compare NFL teams and their national cricket counterparts, and try to identify which teams are most similar in spirit.
Australia - This is a no-brainer. The New England Patriots. Both are teams with strong winning traditions. It would be a big surprise if either teams did not make a deep run into their respective tournaments. Very well coached and tactically much superior to their peers. While Tom Brady has been the mainstay of Patriots for years, Australia also have been steadily captained by strong personalities like Ponting, Clarke and Smith. Another very striking similarity is that they tend to produce their best cricket/football during high voltage clashes. Just like how the Aussie domestic system continues to churn out exceptional players regularly, the Patriots generate players both from drafts and free agency that are highly productive in their system.
India - India are definitely the 2016 Pittsburgh Steelers. You have to be afraid of the batting and offense of each team. The top heavy offense captained by Ben Roethlisberger along with Antonio Brown, LeVeon Bell and Martavis Bryant can drop 45 points on any defense on their day. Likewise, the batting juggernaut of India with Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Shikar Dhawan in current form can similarly devastate any bowling attack as we recently saw in Australia. The defense (and the bowling) clearly lacks bite, but somehow manages to do just enough to clean up after their offenses.
England - A team that has good balance of the young and the experienced, offense and defense, bowling and batting. Arizona Cardinals and England are perhaps sailing in the same ship. While exciting young players such as Tyrran Mathieu, Ben Stokes, David Johnson and Joe Root do offer a good foundation for each team in the future, it is imminent that both teams may soon be facing a fight against father time. It is perhaps in best interests of both teams to try to win a championship while Carson Palmer, James Anderson, Larry Fitzgerald and Alistair Cook are still on the field.
Pakistan - No team fluctuates so seamlessly between brilliant and rubbish as Pakistan does, perhaps except the New York Giants. On their best days both teams can defeat the top contenders. You can never write these two teams off no matter how mismatched they are. On the same hand we have also come to expect inexplicable defeats against weak opponents. Misbah-ul-Haq is a derp face like Eli Manning.
South Africa - It baffles me to hear that a team that has been this strong for all of the last decade has never found the gas to go all the way and win the top prize. They have forever now been trying to ward off the “choker” tag. While I am talking about South Africa, I might as well be talking about the Cincinati Bengals. All round team with good offense, good defense and no obvious weaknesses. Why they fail on the big stage is a mystery that confounds everyone.
New Zealand - No chest thumping, no drama, just a team that is quietly getting things done. The Kansas City Chiefs are a good comparison to the Kiwis. Clearly, bowling/defense is the strength of each team. The offense/batting relies on the underrated consistency of Jamaal Charles/Kane Williamson and sporadic bursts of brilliance by Maclin or Kelce/McCullum or Guptill. I think if the Chiefs find a quarterback who is not as vanilla as Alex Smith, and if New Zealand find a game-changing finisher to play lower down the order, they would be much harder teams to beat.
Sri Lanka - Baltimore Ravens. Your big stars and marquee players have retired and the vestiges of what once was a formidable team are struggling to keep up to the reputation. Your games are becoming increasingly boring and I would happily watch re-runs of my favorite sitcom instead of your games. Unless some of the younger talent start to create some buzz, I am not likely to tune in any time soon. Terrell Suggs may be Tamilian.
West Indies - This one was a tough pick but West Indies have to be the Dallas Cowboys. Your team used to be good. At one point your team was indomitable. But now those days are over, now your team is rubbish and has been run to the groundly purely by mismanagement. While the West Indies needed corrupt officials, internal politics and bureaucracy to get that done, Jerrah Jones managed to do that singlehandedly in Dallas. Chris Gayle and Dez Bryant are infected by the same strain of verbal diarrhea.
Bangladesh - They will be a good team in a few years, much like the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. They have had limited recent success and upset victories in the shoulders of new names such as Mustafizur Rahman, Soumya Sarkar, Jamies Winston and Mike Evans. But their success largely depends on whether these names can turn out to become match-winners on their own strengths.
Zimbabwe - There are two kinds of bad teams. Bad teams you like and want to succeed, and bad teams that just frustrate you with their ineptitude. Zimbabwe and the Cleveland Browns are clearly factories of sadness. A team can’t perpetually be stuck in rebuilding mode. The glory days of the Flower brothers are a fading memory now. Even when against the odds a talented prospect such as Branden Taylor or Josh Gordon stumbles to your team, he is brought down by the surrounding dysfunction and gets wasted.
No comments:
Post a Comment