Mumbai, April 13 -- Cricket, like old marriages, is often decided not by who shouts the loudest at the end, but by who commits the earliest act of recklessness. On Sunday night at the Wankhede Stadium, that act belonged to Philip Salt, a man who treated the new ball not as a challenge but as an insult requiring immediate correction.
Salt's 78 off 36 balls was not just a normal innings-it was a statement that playing carefully is overrated and that bowlers were simply there to be attacked, not respected. He didn't build his innings slowly or cautiously; he tore down the very idea that one needs time to settle.
Every ball he faced seemed to end up in the wrong place, as if the bowlers had already made a mistake even before releasing it. Eve...