The heart is heavy and there’s a lump in the throat. And now reality sinks in - Team India has lost a test series for the first time in 3 years and that too to the old enemy.
There will be a lot of emotion, and the blame game will begin - blame the coach, blame the captain, blame the team, and of course blame the selection committee.
In the cold hard light of day we should all realise that no one person is at fault - the truth is they all are. But the blame game gets us no where and does not solve the glaring deficiencies of our team. The team fought brilliantly for all but 2 days of this series - but they failed miserably in the 2 days that counted.
Let’s face the facts - we don’t have a bowling attack. Pathan is a shadow of what he was, Zaheer and Agarkar have never performed, Balaji and Nehra are constantly injured. Bhajji is weak without a Duke ball in his hand and Kumble despite his near 500 wickets, cannot even restrict runs on a pitch without bounce. Wait, that’s every single bowler we have! Runs count in a test match, but cricket has this strange but wonderful rule - you can’t win a game unless you take 20 wickets (or the opposition gifts you the game by declaring).
Where your brain directs your arm to land the ball, has nothing to do with the pitch! And it seems like the Indian attack misses this piece of brain cognition - in almost every over bowled by an Indian in this series, there was one hit-me ball, one gift wrapped sensation that tasted so good, it was smacked to the boundary, or over it. It was just shocking. This has not been a problem developed in this series. It has been a problem since I started watching Team India in 1985. Time to solve it or stop playing the game.
Get a bowling coach period! Since the coach, captain or (heaven forbid) the bowler themselves can’t figure this out, let’s pay a specialist to do it. And for the current crop (Zaks, Agarkar and Nehra) - you had your chance, you have repeatedly failed. Time to breed new blood. Keep RP Singh, get Sreesanth, VRV and Gagandeep. Start afresh - something is better than nothing.
And then we come to the batsmen. Look at yourselves in the mirror guys - the wrinkles of age are beginning to show. You can mask them with makeup, or even surgery, but what’s below the skin does not change. Ganguly has shown enough determination and flair to be retained (but he had to be dropped for it to happen) and Dravid is still our best player. What comes next is blasphemy in most gallis in India - put Tendulkar on notice, followed by Laxman. We have to be ruthless, and it is increasingly clear that their reflexes and even determination are on the wane. We have to get new blood in and we have to start it now.
Chappell - fix the bowling - if you can’t do it, get someone who can. You have been given a long rope, but you failed your first test. Don’t let the rope become your noose.
Dravid - revert back to specialist players. Openers, middle order players. If that means Gangs or Yuvi need to get dropped, so be it. The team must come first. And finally let’s thrash the Poms. They could not hit a spinning football if they tried, let alone a cricket ball. And let’s learn from this sad day.
Re: Signs of Age
What about the home series loss against Australia in 2004/2005.
http://usa.cricinfo.com/db/ARCHIVE/2004-05/AUS_IN_IND/
P.S. Article source tu btaa dya kar yar
Re: Signs of Age
www.cricinfo.com
next time i will