Japanese test matches

My experience of solving a sudoku puzzle in the form of a cricketing metaphor. Hope some of you fellow cricket fans can relate to this.

Scrapping through a tough as nuts sudoku grid comes close to a Test Match experience on Aussie soil.The initial opening conjures up visions of a sheep-like Indian bowling attack of Venkatesh Prasad and Javagal Srinath trying hard for that opening breakthrough against a bullying Hayden and a resolute Langer on a cold Boxing day morning at the MCG. The sparsely populated sudoku grid seems to be jeering at your ineptitude like a thousand Aussies spitting curses at a boundary posted Indian fieldsman on his first trip Down Under. It is hell and you are living it.

And then, the joy of finally getting a number on the grid brings with it a calm reassertion of self-belief. Heh, we got started. One number on the grid leads to a few others, closely resembling an out-of-form Ponting leaving without troubling the scorers. A surge of confidence as the grid appears a little less menacing and the Indian fielders begin crowding around the bat thinking they'll run through the Aussie lineup in one session. Not to be, my friend, not to be.

A partnership follows as the sudoku grid unravels itself to hold mysteries unfathomable by your mentally challenged self. Self-doubts arrive in bigger numbers. Field changes, bowling changes - read that travelling to different parts of the grid in an attempt to see loose ends. Gritty thought soon turns into desperation. Time ticks on..the runs flow. Much head scratching, back itching and team discussions with the inner self. Images of an untiring Kumble toiling on an unresponsive first day pitch. And finally the breakthrough arrives. Hayden departs and few others follow in his wake. The grid starts populating fast.

And then come the tail-enders. These doughty digits represent the last stand of the grid. It is easy to mess up a grid you worked hard to fill in the smug overconfidence that underestimates these vanguard warriors. Insert more pictures of Mitchell Johnson and Stuart Clark pushing up an already behemoth Aussie total to even more imposing proportions. More itching before the grid's last shreds of resistance collapse.

1.5 Hours. On a sudoku grid. An Indian cricketer's Australian baptization. It's all the same.