|
Scott Styris - The Ardent Adventist |
A special feature by
Karthik Narayan
New Zealand have always managed
to scramble down town for some bowlers who bowl
as straight as an arrow from one set of stumps
to another with the precision of a bullet. When
Scott Styris broke into the team in the most
traditional way after so many years of working
out in the domestic team, it was thought that he
was the perfect replacement for Gavin Larsen.
That he resembles that great Kiwi is just the
beginning of it all. Scott Styris started off in
the very same mould, sticking to the basics and
shuttling the ball with minimum fuss and maximum
accuracy percentage operating stump to stump!
But soon everyone realized that he was middling
the ball, unlike his peer, who was not known for
his heroics with the bat. Rather than being
ham-fisted as he was thought by many to be he
turned out to be a hammer head with his hammer
and tongs version of batting in cricket.
Scott Styris shot to fame in his very debut test
match though it was delayed by a bomb scare in
Karachi in 2002 to later in the same year
against the West Indies. He made a century and a
half century in the same test a feat matched
by few! He has 4 centuries in 19 tests and a
highest score of 170 coming against the South
Africans at Auckland.
Even though Styris is great in both versions of
the game, in between he missed a lot of tests
that did not still deter him from breaking into
the team again.
In the string of ODIs that he has played 96
ODIs, he has 2 good centuries and he is on the
verge of a double of 1000 plus ODI runs with the
bat and 100 wickets with the ball. Presently he
has 1902 runs and 95 wickets. He has played many
a cameo and brave innings down the order for the
Kiwis. More recently, following his good scores
and great strikes, the Kiwi camp have tried to
push him more towards the top half of the
batting line up. But he fills the void of fast
runs best with his attacking strokes at the end
of the innings to the max.
His batting is so easy going and cool headed and
one wonders if hes rather lying lazily around
in his hammock even as he handles vicious
deliveries bowled by many a fast bowler (and
dodging the good ones), while slamming the bad
ones for runs galore! The best thing about his
cricket is that he knows his limitations and
plays to his strengths. For example, he knows
that he is not so good against the moving ball
and so prefers to stay put against the good
bowlers while slashing the bad ones for
boundaries. Not to mention his attack of the
spinners has become typical as well!
There are no brakes for Styris in cricket he
bowls with a small hop and jump that puts him in
line with the stumps and that helps him negate
any extra swing when he delivers the ball. And
when he bats, he is as sweet as honey to watch
with his thudding strokes streaking across the
field and over it, easily!
Incidentally, this cricketer was born in
Queensland, Australia and has the tenacity and
the typical arrogance of an Australian. And he
commands things in the middle most of the time.
He holds the New Zealand record for the best
bowling in ODIs in fact that match was such a
grand success for Styris. That match was against
the West Indies in his debut tour to the
Caribbean in 2002. He scored runs at a fast clip
and also picked up vital wickets, thus having an
awesome series to boot and take home. In that
particular match at Trinidad, coming in at No.7,
he scored at nearly a run a ball, a 63* off 72
balls. And when he came on to bowl, it seemed
that the West Indies would pull off a win. But
he turned the match around with a fabulous
bowling performance with wickets of Lara,
Hooper, Sarwan and Gayle at very important
stages of the match. Later he came to clean off
two more wickets Wavell and Ryan Hinds to finish
with amazing figures of 7-0-25-6! The best ever
all round performance that has been seen in the
last few years by all means!
He has shown the match winning abilities with
astounding performances, making the opposition
sit up and take notice of him. He worries many
opposition captains with his astute cricket and
attacking batting, more recently, which has
taken wild shapes to give hallucinations and
sleepless nights to many an opposition bowler!
We at cricketfundas.com wish this super
cricketer good luck for the season ahead and may
he win many a match for his team and win the
happiness and the pride of being a Kiwi the
typical way which is to be a world beater!
Top of the Page
|
