Hanuma Vihari’s bat at the Sydney Cricket Ground had the word TON on it. It’s an interesting word, that. Across different fields, ton has d...
Hanuma Vihari’s bat at the Sydney Cricket Ground had the word TON on it. It’s an interesting word, that. Across different fields, ton has different usage. In cricket, it refers to a century. In measurement terms, it refers to a unit of massive weight. The Indian batsman might not have achieved the former in Sydney, but in terms of importance to his team, the latter was true for his 23 off 161 balls as the third Test between Australia and India ended in a gripping draw on Monday.
And in a video that showed us the scenes at the end of day’s play, there were hand-shakes, fist-bumps, hugs... about 90 seconds of pleasantries before a final moment that hits you hard: that of Hanuma Vihari climbing the steps to enter the dressing room with a pronounced limp, using his SS-TON bat as a support to lean on.
It was, as his partner-in-heist Ashwin Ravichandran put it, an innings worthy of being counted as a Test century... one that was played through pain.
Also read: The making of Hanuma Vihari
Down but not out
On the final day at SCG, Rishabh Pant had walked out to bat ahead of Vihari and it proved to be something of a masterstroke by India. The move...
