Time to take stock of future batting depth

The selectors must be complemented this time for having a plan and believing in it despite the heroics of the old horses at Perth and using the correct words like “dropped” and “not considered” rather than “rested”. The thinking is changing in Indian cricket and we need bold decisions like this to move forward and attain a dominant position in the field that our fans always dream about.

Along with the joy of Perth win in my mind, it was always coming back to me that what will happen after these four. Who will we run to for cover? Our main hope Yuvraj has been exposed badly in Australia. This is the right time to take stock of our batting future. Suresh Raina and Rohit Sharma are touted as the big hopes for the next decade. So, it’s necessary that they are thrown into the battle field early to gauge their potential at the highest level. Their exposure to Australian conditions early in their career will test their mettle and help them develop their game. Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid will always be rated as champion one-day players for India. Hopefully, they understand the process and focus all their energy in test matches. I just wish they will be given another chance to exit gracefully out of the ODIs at home.

One can always argue that the top order will be void of experience. I think Sehwag and Yuvraj have played enough cricket to guide the inexperienced ones. The youngsters need to grab this opportunity with both hands, so that we don’t go back to recalling Sourav and Rahul full time again. I think they can be rotated with Sachin for sometime to lengthen their test careers. But the selectors need to show maturity here and should give the young guys a fair run after choosing to follow this path. I can’t wait to see the energy levels and our fielding once the VB series starts.

Now, the selectors need to show one more mature decision and give Wasim Jaffer some more chances before dumping him. Remember, Rahul Dravid’s batting fell into pieces when he toured Australia for the first time. Jaffer has shown enough spark at the highest level to earn a few more chances. Before the VB series, we have a test match to win and a series to square. Let the Adelaide test begin.

As good as it gets

The Aussie juggernaut finally halts! Hats off to Team India for the sensational victory. Anil Kumble showed great leadership skills to pull the team through this. To win a test match at Perth, Australia’s strongest forte to date is just beyond expectation.

After the Sydney trauma, no one would have thought India could come back in such a way. As a cricket fan I was so depressed that 4-0 was the only result I could imagine. The reasoning behind the thinking was not being able to draw the Sydney test would have crushed the morale of the team and the strains attached with the loss would have sapped all the energy out of the guys. Then coming to Perth, where no sub-continent team had won a test match till date, with the ambition to get the first win is wishful thinking. Winning a match against Australia when the series is already gone is different, but to win when the series still hinges in the balance has to be bravery. After getting the 16^th win at Sydney, the Aussies might have thought that Perth is going to be a piece of cake looking at the history. But surprise, surprise, here come India again to spoil the party and Aussie record of 17^th straight win.

Man of the match Irfan Pathan needs to be handled pretty carefully from now onwards. India can’t afford to loose a gold pot like him again. He just adds so much value to the team. And the unpredictable man, Virender Sehwag, should never be dropped from the test team. Only the selectors can answer why he was dropped from the test team in the first place given the number of wins he has setup in tests both within and outside India. No praise is enough for the spell Ishant Shrama produced in the first session. He should go on from here to play for a long time for India and bring more laurels for it. India’s pace stock is rising by the day and that just means that our future is bright. Once you have bowlers to take 20 wickets in a test match, you can only win more matches than loose.

Well coming back to the win, Kumble has already rated it as his best. Sunil Gavaskar said it’s the greatest in the last 40 years. I’m not sure about that. The Kolkota test was won under more difficult circumstances, especially India following on. The Adelaide win in 2003-04 was equally great. India was 85/4 in reply to the first innings score of 556. Rahul Dravid’s teary eyes at the end of the chase told the story. This test under the circumstances when nobody in the world gave them even 10% of chance is definitely special. Had India went down in the match after showing a lot of fight, still no one would have blamed them. Through out the match India had the upper hand and the Aussies could not win even one session. I could not agree more with Rahul Dravid when he said “this win sounds more special because it is at present and fresh in our mind”. Greatest or not, this definitely is as good as it gets.

The very very secret Video

Folks,

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Hail the Master

There was a time, so to say my very impressionable age, when Sachin was everything as far as cricket was concerned. He was also hardly disappointing those days and routinely destroyed world’s best attacks to score scintillating centuries or match winning scores. This was the story of Indian cricket from early to the mid-nineties. Post 1996 World Cup two more of the famous “fab-four” of Indian middle order announced their arrival with breath-taking batting display at the Mecca of cricket. But talented cricketers a plenty have promised a lot to fade away into oblivion eventually. For the first time since I started following cricket seriously, two guys other than Sachin made match winning contributions in a test match played on foreign soil, yes that’s right, in the 3^rd test against South Africa at Johannesburg in the 1996-97 series. And these two had just made their debuts in the previous Indian tour to England. Why I rate their performance better in the Johannesburg test is simply because it created an opportunity for an Indian win only to be denied by weather. One of these two, Rahul Dravid went on to score a half century in each test in the following Caribbean trip just to confirm that another great has arrived. In 1996-1997 still Ambrose and Walsh were guarding the West-Indian shores, so getting a half century in each of the tests is no mean achievement for an Indian tourist in his first opportunity. It’s a pity that Indian could not chase a target of 120 in the Barbados test and lost the series 1-0. Had India won that test match Sachin might also have conquered the captaincy front.

India’s familiar story of lions at home and lambs in alien conditions continued as the new comers were still learning their trade. Especially Dravid was acquiring the art of converting the 50s into triple figures and hold an innings together. But his batting fell into pieces in his first tour of Australia and the series was whitewashed by Aussies despite some scintillating knocks by Sachin and Laxman. Yeah, this is where the last one of the “fab-four” Very Very Special Laxman signaled his arrival with a top notch 167 albeit in a losing cause. That knock made sure that Laxman will not be thrown to the domestic grind so soon and would get a fair run at the box office. Sachin could not take it anymore and gave up captaincy for good after that humiliating loss against Aussies.

So, India got their best captain by accident rather than by planning as has always been the case with BCCI. He took on the Aussies head on and was able to stop their juggernaut at Eden Garden, Kolkota after 16 straight wins. As they say, India created history and moreover Rahul Dravid reinvented his belief against the Australia with an anchoring 180 to the sublime 281 of Laxman. Sachin although did not do that well with the bat at Kolkota, scripted a magnificent 126 at Chennai to seal the series in India’s favor. Dravid soon became so deft at his own art that India went on to draw a test series in England in a long time and rightfully earned the nickname “The Wall” for himself”. Slowly these guys took pressure off Sachin and certainly Indian batting was no more about Sachin anymore.

As the new millennium progressed, Sachin’s body started to break down and he started to slide from the position of number one batsman in the world. Soon, allegations became louder and louder that Sachin has not produced match winning knocks like his peer Brian Lara at the test level. If you go through the record book, there is also some truth to that argument. From the biggest fan of Sachin, I started to become a critic of Sachin. India scored series win in Pakistan for the first time in the history without major contribution from Sachin when it mattered. Yeah he scored a big century there, but he was outdone by Sehwag and Dravid. To everyone’s pleasure India started winning outside India. Dravid went on to win a test series in West Indies without Sachin and Sourav in the team. Although the West-Indian team was nothing compared to their mighty predecessors, the fact that India won after more than 30 years was an achievement.

I started to wonder whether Sachin will ever be able to do something substantial in an Indian win on foreign soil. Sachin has adapted a new avatar of playing according to the needs of the team. My heart was filled with joy to watch him grind out the England bowlers and turn the series in India’s favor. Sure, he did not score big centuries, but he had a substantial contribution in all probability his last tour to England. Slowly, it was evident that Sachin still has it in him to deliver at the highest level. But I doubted, whether he could attack again when the need arises. Taking blows on the body is not the Sachin we grew up admiring.

At Eden Gardens in the second test against Pakistan, Sachin smashed a quick fire 82 according to the team need. In the Melbourne test, he tried to take the attack to the opposition from the word go. Unfortunately he could not score a century there. When his turn came to bat at Sydney, he displayed one of the perfect test innings and stole the applause of the Aussie crowd. It’s pity that India could not even save the test for some umpiring blunders and insensible batting in the second innings. But my doubt for sure is erased that Sachin can play according to the team need and can attack when necessary. Another century at Perth would remind everyone, how fortunate we have been to watch a Master hold a bat in our time. Touch wood!

Blame the Aussie way if you may

“We play our game hard but fair” seems to be the tag-line of CA. Their administrators, national captain, players, ex-players all seem to repeat the same line in their defense after the Sydney disaster. Australia is the world champion cricket team of the past decade. Many of my friends and I are in awe of the amazing consistency they are able to maintain for more than 10 years. They have almost changed the definition of cricket that it is a game of uncertainties at least when Australia team is involved in it.

Right from our childhood we are taught to look at successful people and follow them to bring success in our careers. In school, we look up to the successful seniors and try to mimic them for our own accomplishments. Other than the national figures, who are like universal heroes every region has local heroes who people look up to for inspiration. After the television revolution, as a kid when you follow sports you try to mimic your heroes’ styles, their body language and their actions when you hit the ground in your backyard. Cricket is no different. Kids try to match the bowling styles of Murali, Kumble and Warne when they try to bowl spin or try to follow Sachin, Lara when they bat. Although India has many cricketing icons, which school kids try to follow, the national team has not been as successful as we want them to be. So, you can’t fault anybody if they look to the champion side Australia and try to do what they do to win games.

Here comes Australia’s responsibility as the champion side. So, other than their work ethic, what kids do try to learn is their “hard and fair way” of play which includes sledging. There is no doubt that guys like Sreesanth and Harbhajan would have tried to learn this hard way to gain the competitive edge in their age groups. Kids try to match them so much that a teen-ager like Parthiv Patel sledged a legend like Steve Waugh in his farewell test. And remember English is not our first language and especially now when players are coming from all corners of India they might be refining their English skills only after joining Team India. So, being provoked in the heat of a battle by players from the English speaking countries, the non-English speaking guys can utter the first word which comes into their mind irrespective of racial or non-racial relevance of the word. Remember, how Pakistani captain Shoaib Malik apologized to all the Muslims of the world after loosing the T20 world cup, when the winning team had a Muslim as their Man of the Match. Most of us believe that Malik had a slip of tongue especially talking in English which he is definitely uncomfortable with. Austarlia’s hard and fair way of play is responsible in creating sledgers like Sreesanth, Harbhajan and co. in the Indian team as this new generation of cricketers wants to match everything they get from opposition.

By all means you want to unsettle the opposition players in the field. But sledging is not the way. The champion team has great batsmen in its rank who can hit the bowlers out of park and bowlers who can easily take opposition wickets. Having said all that, I still believe that racism is not acceptable in any realm of society, forget about sports. Harbhajan deserves the harshest punishment if he has crossed the line. But for that to happen the match referee or the judge whoever it is has to have concrete proof before declaring the verdict. Because, racist is a very cruel tag to carry with for the rest of your life. But if the evidence does not come from the umpires or any audio or video recording of the match, then I’m sorry the Australian players’ words can’t be taken as evidence after we saw what happened on the field. Ricky Ponting definitely exploited the loophole in the verbal agreement he had with Anil Kumble before the series started regarding taking players’ word for disputed catches. What is shocking is that Ponting tried to scare an Indian journalist that he is honest even when there is clear video evidence of the ball touching the turf (unsuccessful appeal for Dhoni’s wicket). Same with MJ Clarke’s catch of Ganguly. Ponting is referring to his denial of Dravid’s catch in the first innings to justify his honesty. Do us a favor Mr. Ponting, please do not force your honesty on us. If the umpires would have referred your first innings claim to third umpire, that incident would anyway have been awarded as not out. You might be the captain of a champion side, but your side has no morale. You don’t need to look beyond Clarke’s dismissal in the second innings to understand their hard and fair game. Knowing Bucknor’s bad form in the match Mr. Clarke tried to take him for a ride even after edging to the first slip.

Sledging, mental disintegration or a crack at the opposition or whatever you want to call it, you are setting a wrong precedent as a champion side to follow. ICC must have a zero tolerance policy for sledging now onwards; otherwise storms like this will become regular occurrence. I won’t be surprised if it is not stopped here, teams will go on to have secret coaches for sledging as the game progresses.

The Power of Positive Play

You might have already seen all sports page headlines or in India front page headlines about the superb innings of Very Very Special Laxman. It is a sensational innings under pressure, there are absolutely no two ways about it. This is the kind of positive play we had been waiting for to take the message to Australia that we mean business, not by Harbhajan Singh’s press conference that “we are here to win the test series”. This innings can change the fortune of India in the ongoing test series if they can hang on to the advantage for two more sessions.

Let me come back to Laxman’s innings again. The best thing about this innings is the pace of the innings. Mind you; had the strike rate been 50, still the innings would have been top class. But what a strike rate of 77 at the top of the innings has done is that it has bought time for India. More importantly, it could let Rahul Dravid do all kind of mental experiments out there. He got time to reinvent himself a little bit in the middle. That is why I have been shouting for Sehwag. Dravid’s half century is equally important in the context of the test match, even if it was tortuous to watch a batsman of his caliber scrape so much for each run. Hopefully, he has re-gathered his thinking process and ready to shine from the next innings onwards.

Dravid’s batting is the first benefit India got from Laxman’s positive play. Second thing is India has a healthy run rate and time on its side to dominate the test match provided Sachin and Sourav make this opportunity count. Both are looking positive and we need a little bit of luck. If they can put another hundred runs on the board without loosing any more wicket, it will be fun to watch Australian body language. If India can at least match Australia’s first innings score, there is every chance of anyone winning the test match weather permitting 5 days play. The reason behind my prediction is that Australia will try to score quickly so that they can have enough time to bundle out India for the second time. And that is where India has a chance of wrapping up the Aussie innings quickly. Indian bowling has proved twice in two test matches that they can take ten wickets.

Ricky Ponting, the world’s best batsman at the moment has a fine battle going on with Harbhajan. By taking Ponting’s wicket twice in two tests, Harbhajan has created just enough doubt in Ponting’s mind to add spice to the battle. Knowing Aussie nature Ponting will try to dominate Harbhajan and if we can get Ponting out early the match will be wide open. But these are mere speculations unless India can match Australia’s first innings total. Let’s keep our fingers crossed and hope for that eluding century from Sachin’s bat in this innings.

Sehwag must open in the Sydney test

So, we have got the first taste of Australia’s strength. India arrived in Australia with heavy ammunition in their batting. Out of five batsmen to play 100 tests for India, the fact that three are in this team speaks volumes of the batting strength. The question was whether India can take 20 Australian wickets. The first occurrence of Adam Gilchrist batting for the first time on the first day of a test match in about a year justifies the question. Indian bowlers did exceptionally well to bundle out Australia under 350 in the first innings. All genuine cricket lovers hailed the situation, so much so that even Australian crowd thought that finally they will see some contest.

But then came the reality check situation for India. Although India was not well acquainted to the Australian conditions because BCCI does not care about it, one hoped that the three century-makers regarding the number of tests played would use all their experience to take advantage of the situation created by bowlers. India’s greatest bowler ever had already made a mistake by not including Sehwag in the playing eleven. Sehwag is not in the best of form, agreed, but once he is in the team he should play at the first instance to take the fight to the opposition like Australia. You can not use Sehwag after the initiative is lost in the first couple of tests. Once you have a wrecker in the form of Sehwag use it, if it is a false one then we can go back to the traditional way. I don’t think after you loose first couple of tests, you can reinvent yourself by bringing Sehwag. If he will not play, why he is in the team is hard to understand. What will he learn form the dressing room? Someone like Badrinath would have learned so much from this trip.

The reason behind shuffling the batting order is Yuvraj. He has to wait for his turn, how much frustrating the wait may be. If he has to play then he should open or if he is so good then replace one of the middle order batsmen with him. If Yuvraj is the player who can win us the series and the management is clear about that then they should have replaced Dravid or Laxman whoever it is. But playing with everyone’s position just to accommodate one guy is not a mistake but a blunder. Dravid agreed to open the innings because of the eternal team player he is. But he himself told that opening is not about the technique but about the thinking. He is our best batsman for the last five years and the team decided to disturb his mindset when he is clearly going through a barren phase. Just after the Pkaistan series Sourav has owed his less number of centuries to batting lower down the order. Here was an opportunity to bat higher up, why did not the management ask him or he himself put his hand up to open the innings.

Sachin’s approach in the first test looked like a breath of fresh air and if he continues in the same frame of mind he can make an impact in the series. For that to happen we need a good attacking opening partnership. Jaffer usually takes time to adjust and hopefully he will get used to the Aussie soil by the second test. Hopefully, good sense will prevail and Kumble will rope in Sehwag for the Sydney test. I expected Kumble to be a tougher captain and take smart decisions like the one to include Sehwag in the team to Australia. But that bravery will not prove anything if Sehwag does not get a chance in Sydney and the series might as well slip out of our hand.

PS: Folks I had written the blog before the start of the second test, but could not post it because of my laziness.