Let’s save our expert verdict at least till the end of this CB series and not try to criticize the young batsmen after one match. No one other than Sachin and Sehwag among the batsmen have played cricket in Australia including captain Dhoni. And most of them arrived only before a week. Everyone will take some time to put their feet firmly on the Aussie soil.
There are a couple of things from which the young guys must learn from this outing. Rohit Sharma showed ample talent during his brief innings here as he had in the crucial T20 game against South Africa in a must win game. So, talent is not a problem, but how that transforms into on field success now on will shape these guys future in India colors. For this particular match, I hold Rohit responsible for the batting collapse India faced. Let me analyze the situation. India just lost the wicket of Gambhir and Lee is back for just a short spell. He was facing the last ball of what could have been Lee’s end of second spell. Experienced guys would have just let that ball go or defend with a straight bat to see off Lee. Here some can argue that you should not look at the bowler and play on the merit of the ball. That accepted; let’s accept the fact that Lee is the best bowler in all forms of the game in the current season. Even the great Sachin Tendulkar, who was in great touch during the test series tried to see off Lee’s spells all the time and scored off the lesser bowlers. This is where experience comes in to play. Because of that wicket, Ponting extended Lee’s spell to get rid of Tiwary. By no means, I’m trying to undermine Tiwary’s potential, but being the settled guy Rohit should have seen off that spell from Lee and it would have eased Tiwary into the game.
But this is a mistake which will hopefully help these guys learn a lot and will result in better application from them in future. Anyone remembers Vijay Bharadwaj. The guy started with a man of the series award on his ODI debut, but slipped into oblivion within no time. I distinctly remember, he got lots of opportunities and rather than applying himself tried to become an instant hero and paid the price.
Another decision which baffles me is how Tiwary got a chance ahead of Raina and Karthik. Raina and Karthik are the original choices and logically should have got the first chance. Plus Raina came to Australia with a better domestic season than Tiwary and has some international experience. But Dhoni clarified that he went for his instinct and let’s hope his instinct has taken the correct decision. Yuvraj Singh would do well to let all his on field performance do the talking rather than giving statements like this is the best ODI team possible for India. Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly are still irreplaceable batsmen for India, but everybody understands that we need to build a young team for the future. So, no need to brag about the team even before showing any result on the score sheet. Like I had mentioned earlier, let’s hope that we don’t go back to recalling Rahul or Sourav full time into this team again.
