It is the last day of 2007 and as the Indian team reflects on its poor performance in the Boxing day test, I too am reflecting on the year that was; and unfortunately on the most recent defeat at Melbourne which was Australia’s 15th test match win in a row. Let’s make no mistake about it, this has been an amazingly successful year for Indian cricket. The World Cup demise was a sad one and the inexplicable loss to England in the one day series a bit difficult to understand or explain, however the test series win in England, the T20 triumph and the home series win in both test and one dayers against Pakistan are land mark events that we should not forget in a hurry. Sadly the Boxing day test match was lost on an India friendly track in under four days by a margin of 337 runs and that has rubbed off some of the euphoria of the year’s achievements. But let us look ahead to the rest of the tour although sadly we cannot look at the future without looking back at what went wrong and learn from that.
A good opening
For as long as I can remember, after Sunil Gavaskar and Chetan Chauhan, India have worried about the opening positions and have usually got it wrong. Anil Kumble has got many things right in his brief tenure as captain but he has really done harm to his long term colleague and friend Rahul Dravid in making him open. Dravid seems to be different from the dominant batsman of last year and the last Australian tour. Many of his current problems seem to be in his mind and he has taken backward steps as a batsman after resigning from the captaincy. This is a new Dravid that we are seeing and he is not giving us the same pride that he so regularly gave us. I wish he would be more assertive about his batting and more importantly about his batting slot. Why should he be made to open just to accommodate Yuvraj, however good his form in other forms of the game be? Yuvraj too seemed nervous and ill at ease though he was done in by poor umpiring in the first innings. As for Jaffer, he made Dravid’s job more difficult with his two failures. Let us get Sehwag in, who knows what can happen? Certainly Sehwag himself will have no clue as to what is going to happen. In any case it cannot get worse and at least we will give Rahul Dravid, our most successful batsman overseas for several years now, a proper run in his normal batting slot. Surely he deserves that. Sachin, Saurav and Lakshman all showed glimpses of what they can do. Sadly they did not do what Mathew Hayden did. But I am sure they will all come good soon, hopefully together at Sydney. Yet I think we need to remember one thing. We need to score at more than 3 runs an over if we are to win. At the run rate we maintained in the test just gone by we will have to face the second new ball at 200 and usually we lose wickets with the second new ball as well.
We cannot change drastically
There has been a lot of talk about our poor fielding, our poor running between the wickets and our inability to rotate the strike. I believe the last is a big issue that we handle adequately in the one day version of the game and must do it here as well. After all, many of the players are common to both versions of the game. I do not think anyone has the courage to tell Saurav Ganguly to ground his bat while he is trying to make his ground, after all we do not have a coach. It is amazing how true is the dictum that people do not change and at best they change for the worse, but if he continues running in the same haphazard manner between wickets Saurav could beat Inzy at his own game and become the worst runner between wickets of all time! I wish Saurav would watch the footage of his running between the wickets in the last game. But to come back to our fielding, while we are hardly agile I think we should get in more substitutes in like England did in 2005 and Yuvraj can come in to field at Sydney with Karthik and we can rest our big three provided they make runs! But we do need to look at the positions of our fielders who are unlikely to become the fleetest of foot in two days. Maybe they should stand closer or walk in faster as singles are being taken so easily, there is no pressure on Australia who consistently scored at four runs an over. I think the Indians [particularly the younger ones] need to watch Brad Hogg’s hand better instead of shooting off their mouths about how he is no Warne or McGill. Something tells me that the Indians play classic leg spin better than unorthodox chinamen bowlers like him and he may be more successful than the bigger reputations of Warne et al. Lets just hope I am wrong and we will take him to the cleaners at Sydney.
So what do we do?
Lets just forget what happened at Melbourne and move on to 2008 and try to prevent the Aussies from equaling their own record of 16 straight test match wins. Let us get in Sehwag for Yuvraj. Let Dravid bat at three. Let us play Irfan Pathan, it will strengthen our batting, bowling and even our fielding. Let us hope that Ponting continues to be Bhajji’s bunny as the sobering thought is that Australia won by 337 runs even though he made only 7 in both innings put together. I am sure Kumble will win the toss this time, let us bat and put runs on the board, it is the only way to put pressure on Australia. Let us not be intimidated by Australia, Kumble showed us the way on the first day, the others just need to follow their leader. And finally let us hope and pray that the beginning of 2008 is better than the end of 2007 for Indian cricket.
A good opening
For as long as I can remember, after Sunil Gavaskar and Chetan Chauhan, India have worried about the opening positions and have usually got it wrong. Anil Kumble has got many things right in his brief tenure as captain but he has really done harm to his long term colleague and friend Rahul Dravid in making him open. Dravid seems to be different from the dominant batsman of last year and the last Australian tour. Many of his current problems seem to be in his mind and he has taken backward steps as a batsman after resigning from the captaincy. This is a new Dravid that we are seeing and he is not giving us the same pride that he so regularly gave us. I wish he would be more assertive about his batting and more importantly about his batting slot. Why should he be made to open just to accommodate Yuvraj, however good his form in other forms of the game be? Yuvraj too seemed nervous and ill at ease though he was done in by poor umpiring in the first innings. As for Jaffer, he made Dravid’s job more difficult with his two failures. Let us get Sehwag in, who knows what can happen? Certainly Sehwag himself will have no clue as to what is going to happen. In any case it cannot get worse and at least we will give Rahul Dravid, our most successful batsman overseas for several years now, a proper run in his normal batting slot. Surely he deserves that. Sachin, Saurav and Lakshman all showed glimpses of what they can do. Sadly they did not do what Mathew Hayden did. But I am sure they will all come good soon, hopefully together at Sydney. Yet I think we need to remember one thing. We need to score at more than 3 runs an over if we are to win. At the run rate we maintained in the test just gone by we will have to face the second new ball at 200 and usually we lose wickets with the second new ball as well.
We cannot change drastically
There has been a lot of talk about our poor fielding, our poor running between the wickets and our inability to rotate the strike. I believe the last is a big issue that we handle adequately in the one day version of the game and must do it here as well. After all, many of the players are common to both versions of the game. I do not think anyone has the courage to tell Saurav Ganguly to ground his bat while he is trying to make his ground, after all we do not have a coach. It is amazing how true is the dictum that people do not change and at best they change for the worse, but if he continues running in the same haphazard manner between wickets Saurav could beat Inzy at his own game and become the worst runner between wickets of all time! I wish Saurav would watch the footage of his running between the wickets in the last game. But to come back to our fielding, while we are hardly agile I think we should get in more substitutes in like England did in 2005 and Yuvraj can come in to field at Sydney with Karthik and we can rest our big three provided they make runs! But we do need to look at the positions of our fielders who are unlikely to become the fleetest of foot in two days. Maybe they should stand closer or walk in faster as singles are being taken so easily, there is no pressure on Australia who consistently scored at four runs an over. I think the Indians [particularly the younger ones] need to watch Brad Hogg’s hand better instead of shooting off their mouths about how he is no Warne or McGill. Something tells me that the Indians play classic leg spin better than unorthodox chinamen bowlers like him and he may be more successful than the bigger reputations of Warne et al. Lets just hope I am wrong and we will take him to the cleaners at Sydney.
So what do we do?
Lets just forget what happened at Melbourne and move on to 2008 and try to prevent the Aussies from equaling their own record of 16 straight test match wins. Let us get in Sehwag for Yuvraj. Let Dravid bat at three. Let us play Irfan Pathan, it will strengthen our batting, bowling and even our fielding. Let us hope that Ponting continues to be Bhajji’s bunny as the sobering thought is that Australia won by 337 runs even though he made only 7 in both innings put together. I am sure Kumble will win the toss this time, let us bat and put runs on the board, it is the only way to put pressure on Australia. Let us not be intimidated by Australia, Kumble showed us the way on the first day, the others just need to follow their leader. And finally let us hope and pray that the beginning of 2008 is better than the end of 2007 for Indian cricket.
(Ramanujam Sridhar is the CEO of brand-comm and the author of One Land, One Billion Minds).
4 comments:
It indeed was a bad ending to the year. And unfortunately they haven’t begun 2008 too well either. The first daysplay of the second test is just over. I think the series is as good as over only the scoreline needs to be finalized. I think it was ridiculos not to have picked sehwag instead of dravid. As ian chappel said it is a combination of two Ss on kumbles part, Stupidity and Stubborness. I thought dravid did a greater injustice to jaffer by playing the way he did. And he was the principle reason for handing over the initiative to Australia. If sehwag who holds a test average of over 50 and also has a carrer best of 309 (the highest score by an Indian) can be made to warm the benches there is no harm in giving dravid some breather. But the banglore cartel is at it again. Any other captain would have made dravid sit out. I hope he takes these things in the right spirit instead of wearing a now almost permenant frown on his face for all what has happened to him in the last 6 months. He should remember he is no Bradman or Richards and players like him take longer to come back to form. And now is not the time to have (defensive) players out of form in the team. Anyways it is all over bar the shouting for India down under. But on the flip side as the saying goes it really ain’t over till the fat lady sings. After all cricket is a game of glorious uncertainities. And each of those uncertainities have to come into play very quickly for the Indian team to come back with their chin up. Looks improbable. Anyways. Clever Kirsten. Kumble not so clever.
Yes Kirsten was really smart.I agree with you that fortunes can change quite dramatically as we have seen today .I still think we took our foot off the pedal towards the end and let the poor umpiring get to us.Lets hope we have a better day tomorrow.
It would be nice if you write a daily column in your blog at the end of each days play during the aussie series. Even as i am keying this in in my laptop, laxman( and gilchrist if i might add) have brought us back in the series.They can now look to atleast look to draw this one.
Yes some unexpected things have happened today but what a game of cricket.
See my blog at the end of the day"s play.
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