As i type this post, much to my frustration at India's pathetic negative display at the Kotla, India are 4 down and find themselves in a position whereby losing 2 more quick wickets after lunch will put us in danger of losing the test match !!! Or thats what the general feeling is among the experts and majority of the viewers.
Now why is this so surprising ??? After all we scored 613, in the first innings and were favorites to snatch back the Border-Gavaskar trophy, with the same anger that was displayed at the end of the Sydney test earlier this year. I'm sure India will get the draw, they are so desperately seeking to carry the 1-0 scoreline to Nagpur. At the end of the day's play Kumble and co will be satisfied at having protected their lead. But is it actually a good result for India ???
A vast majority would say, 'YES'. The pitch was flat, the turn was slow, we dropped too many catches, else the test match was ours. Oh REALLY !! Wasn't this pitch a parting gift to kumble to get another ten wickets atleast ? Well so much for all the hype.
What India have done in this test match, is made no progress in their cricket. After a wonderful Mohali test , full off positivity, India are back to the drawing board, trying to save the test on the last day, as they have been doing for ages now. I would say it's got to do with the return of a defensive leader at the helm. Now is it justified to point a finger at Jumbo. After all he has been India's greatest match winner and he has given everything for the country. Yes he has, but i'm criticizing his captaincy alone here. Isn't it time to be practical ??
Why did we win the Mohali test early on the 5th day ? Why did the ball reverse swing dramatically, why did the ball spin more, why were the batsmen more positive. Well, i would say the only obvious difference in Mohali and Delhi is the attitude. Whose attitude ?? Why would the players attitude change over one test match. Well, it's the attitude of the leader or rather the change in the leader. Wait a minute, am i saying Dhoni is a better captain than Kumble and thats the only reason we won in Mohali. Why should i judge Kumble's captaincy over one test match? I should judge Kumble's captaincy over an extended period. Extended period ??? I might as well, stop watching cricket, if Kumble is going to captain for an extended period in future, with Dhoni in the same side. Am i being too harsh ?? Hmmm.. maybe.. but i want to see progress, not stagnation. It's a rarity that i'm not watching the live telecast when i'm home and typing away on my laptop instead. I've been patient. Patiently waiting for Indian cricket to progress for the last 12 yrs. We were quite pathetic in the early and late 1990's justifiably called "Tigers at home, lambs abroad". 2001 was when i saw some hope, when a fiery Bengal tiger, raised hopes of taking Indian cricket to the next level. I'm a big fan of Dada. He had a new team, and very tough task in hand. Slowly but surely he made progress with the new young team inherited after the match fixing scandal. Sure there were times with Dada at the helm, when we were trying to save test matches on the last day. Nothing different happening here, one can say. But why am i so frustrated. Well let me explain.
Dada's team was a learning one, not a winning one. With hiccups along the way, he built a team that was considered "strong" to compete around the globe. So what's next ?? Taking it to the next level. What is the next level. Winning test matches consistently. Yeah, that's the ultimate goal isn't it. Winning test series on a regular basis. So once dada was out of the team in 05, in came the "WALL", India's best test batsmen during Dada's reign. Could he push the team to the next level ?? Unfortunately no, not surprising considering Dravid is not a natural leader. So who the hell can ?? There is no one left. Hmm.. there's Anil. Poor guy hasn't been given the chance in his prime. So he rightfully gets the job. He surely had earned it. It's been a year now right. Stats please... Won 3, Lost 5, Drawn 5... hmm.. i think 3 series have been at home and one in SL. Hmm.. 5 draws already.. heading for another. Do i see a problem in this leader. YES YES YES. Please Anil.. quit as captain...i know you are giving your best, but it's just not working.. please do it on your own. Dhoni's ready.
Why do i have so much confidence in Dhoni. After all he has just captained 2 tests and won both. Is it enough to convince me.. You bet. Why do i think Dhoni can improve India's test record in the future. Isnt it obvious ?? He's shown that he's a strong leader and a smart one. "How can you say that da ??" , some friends would ask me. "Dont get carried away". "Kumble hasn't been lucky and dhoni is just plain lucky". Some intelligent people have said, "Fortune favors the brave", "You make your own luck". Kumble is brave too. Yes, he is a brave bowler, but a brave captain ?? I'm sorry.
Mohali
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Dhoni wins the toss. Aah.. plain lucky again. Unlucky Kumble coudnt win it in Bangalore, else the test was ours. Gambhir and Veeru play with purpose as they usually do irrespective of who the captain is. India get a good total. Get bowled out for 500 odd with all batsmen playing aggressively bar one sedate knock from Dada holding the innings together. That was fine, considering we were 170-4. India had the chance to bowl enough overs at Aus on day 2, whether by design or chance doesn't matter. The pitch was flat wasn't it. But the bowlers were aggressive and got their rewards. Aus, lost a few wickets and were on the mat. India start day 3 on top and suddenly the team is buzzing. The team is fired up at the chance to take a lead in the series and there is positivity all round. India get a sizable lead and now they have to bat again. Dhoni comes at number 3. Was it neccessary ? We have a good lead and there is enough time to bat normally and bundle them out on the 5th day. Is it? Thats not how positive captains think. Dhoni strides in with his swagger and there are men patrolling the boundary everywhere. It would look foolish to hole out to one of them. Instead he steals the ones and twos and makes 60 odd in quick time with just 4 boundaries. India have a good enough lead in quick time and Australia have just a matter of 4 1/2 sessions to get 500 odd. I'm sure thats how Aus were thinking. Thats exactly what Dhoni wanted. Not give them 600 to chase in 3 sessions and make them bat for a draw. Did it work ?? Oh yes it did. The Aussie pride was hurt with the opposition playing the way they used to. Sure enough the test match was wrapped up early next morning and India had one of their best thought out test victories.
A week of celebration and news channels go berserk. Cut to the kotla.
Delhi
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Kumble is fit and pumped. 'Delhi is my favorite ground' he announces. Poor mishra might have to sit out. Oops .. bhajji's not fit. Mishra gets his chance and so does Kumble, to do an MSD. I wished he did so. Wins the toss. Perfect start. The gods are with him. Right, lets bury Australia and add salt to Ponting's wounds. Day 2, mid way through the second session. I'm in office, thinking 'What is Kumble thinking'. I'm sure he is going to tell the batsmen to push and declare around 530-550, at tea and bowl 35 overs at Aus before close. India crawl to 513 at tea, with VVS playing VVS'ly .. very very slowly i mean. Ok.. another 30 runs maybe.. we can still get 30 plus overs in. Oh no no .. this surely cant be happening. VVS taking singles giving kumble and zaheer the strike. Surely the captain has told him, "No hurry Lax, take your time and get the double. Lets put 600 plus on the board". What a shocker. They declare at 613, and lax has reached 200. WoW.. applause applause. So much for all the talk about, 'We have a good chance to wrap the series in Delhi'. We have 16 overs to bowl at the aussies. Can the bowlers get 2 wickets to save kumble's face. Oh no they cant, as it often happens when one doesnt think positively. I mean, the only justifiable reason to get 600 plus, would be "Atleast i cant lose". If thats what the thinking was, then i'm shouting at the top of my voice. "Anil, have you thought of life after cricket ??? " Well the victory had actually slipped that evening and i was disgusted. But well, im a positive person, so i hoped our bowlers could get back the initiative their captain had thrown away. Sadly it didn't happen. Fine... these things happen in cricket. If we had declared at 550, around tea, maybe Aus would still have got 570 odd. Fine lets forget that, so we have finally dismissed Aus for 570 on day 4 , after a series of dollies dropped and we have to bat 15 overs with a lead of 36. Do we have an outside chance of victory? Am i crazy ? Just shut shop and bat out a draw, would be the general opinion. Oh how sad !! Would Dhoni have thought of a draw.. don't think so. There still was an outside chance. How ?? Bat normally and reach a lead around 120, within the first hour of day 5. So there are still 75 overs left. Bat positively for 25 overs, with hopefully 7-8 wickets left. Get another 100-120. Surely they can throw their bat and get 100 atleast. Set 230 in 48 overs, on a last day wicket with 3 decent spinners turning it a mile from the rough. Sounds too scary ?? What if the aussies get it ? If thats what your thinking, then welcome to the 'Kumble-Dravid leadership course'. If your thinking, "Lets get them guys", welcome to the MSD Fan club. There's a quote in John Wright's book- Indian Summers which mentions an observation on great champions, "They play in the F*** You mode and stay there". West Indies of the 70's-80's played with that attitude, while the Aussie team of the last 15 years played(under Taylor) and mouthed it (under waugh and punter). It's time we did the same (mouthing reserved for aussies alone) and scale up. Dhoni is the man to take us there and i'm waiting.
Oh yeah .. cricinfo tells me the score at the moment is 154/5 and Tendulkar has just got out to White. C'mon warnie.. err whiteee. There's another boring draw. Bravo Jumbo. No offense, but hope you don't recover in time for Nagpur.
7 comments:
i would analyze this blog in 2 ways..if it has to be me judging u as akshay writing.."waaah mere sher..am proud of u ;)"
but thats not how it should be done..
i like the content in here..u have a viewpt and u back it up with sufficient data.. i know u used this forum to clear all the anger that was in the system. good on u..i feel u climb on kumble too much though..for what he has done to indian cricket probably he deserves a lil more respect.
MSD is bloody good agreed..but surely the honeymoon period wil come to an end sometime and we wil see the other,maybe vulnerable side of the positive captain.
sometimes age can be a decisive force..kumble was 38 and he led like 38 and thats not his fault..he was part of the "lambs" generation so maybe the scars dint go away..the fear of losing was a threat..cos he hasnt won much.. MSD on the other hand doesnt know what a loss is.. jumbo did his job cos he protected MSD from being thrown to the deep sea. and now i feel the right time the kingdom has been handed back to the ranchi man.
all in all, a wonderful start to ur blogging career..
u should write...surely u should..
Thanks Junior! ... tears rolling
dude, well written. same here. I can analyze it in 2 parts. first part, very true. I wasnt following the match on day 2. but with what I heard, yeah it was foolish of them to allow vvs to get to 200 in his own sweet time. Bad strategy. agreed. so no food for thought here. :)
The second part. You are talking bullshit. :) Even though I dont like kumble's approach to the game and also me being a huge MSD fan, I totally agree with their decision to bat out time on the 5th day. With a slender lead of 36, and around 110 overs left in the match, you really cannot expect india to set a target especially when they had lost sehwag on the 4th day. That is not positive cricket. that would have been foolish cricket. you are so confident in MSD's positive cricket because you havent seen him fail. All the things he has done has clicked in his way but this will not happen everytime. And I didnt want his first failure to be losing a test match because of being too positive and give up a crucial 1-0 lead. The pitch was a flat as a dodo even on the 5th day and you gamble on the aussies crumbling to a defeat in 50 odd overs on the last day chasing 250? nonsense. There is a limit for being positive. after that, its foolishness. I am sure MSD would have also done the same thing. If we were 0-1, then ya. We could have taken the chance because that would have been our only opportunity to win the series with a test to go. But in this circumstances, NO. :) You just vented out all your anger on kumble when he only partly deserved it.
Thanks snellika :-)
For the second part, im not convinced. It is very much possible to get the aussies out in 50 overs, if they were given the carrot, since they would surely have gone for it. Once they lose 3-4 wickets they might have given up, but atleast we would be in the hunt. There was enough rough for both the right and left handers, 230-240 in 48 overs was almost impossible for them, considering kumble was fit enough to bowl. If we dont have the confidence that we wont give 240 in 48 overs, it better we lose the test match, rather than meekly playing for a draw.
One will never win, if you think you cant
Right from day one, the indian team and the press has been talking about the pitch cracking up. Statements like "the pitch is hissing up. Its getting vicious turn. There is a puff of air coming out. we have kumble(duh!) and mishra". and we couldnt even get them below 500 in the first innings. and you expect the same old kumble to destroy the aussies in just under 50 overs? dude, we know its kumble's hunting ground, but wolves hunt in pairs(read it as Jayaprakash missing :P) and kumble was alone. ok. jokes apart. be practical? Its better to lose than to play out a draw? dude, you must be kidding me. As I said, if we were 0-1 down, then yes. we should have fought and not worried about the result because that would have been the only chance for india to win the series. but look at the circumstances. We are 1-0 up. Why give up the lead gambling on a half chance? Kumble is half fit. Wag cannot pick up a 5 for every innings. There was nothing in it for the fast bowlers. Aussies had sorted mishra out. Which bowler was capable of taking a 5-for? If the pitch had truly crumbled, then yes. I would have surely agreed with you. but the pitch was as dead as a dodo.
Im not saying, we would surely have won the match. But, im sure the aussies couldnt have chased in that pitch, since there was a lot of rough. So instead of a tame draw, we could have shown them we are here to win the series. The end result might have been the same, maybe aus would be 150-5, but we would have finished the test match on a better note and reputation. By batting defensively we still lost 5 wickets. Brett Lee has got back his rhythm, we could have buried him instead. Test cricket is more of a mind game over skills. I woudnt be surprised if the aussies put up a much much better show in Nagpur. If we had maintained our dominance over them in Delhi, there was less chance that they would.
hmmm an insightful post. a long one but a great first one nevertheless. :)
kumble handled the racism row in austrialia very diligently though. i dont see any other indin captain doing it. dada would have gone overboard and spoilt our case further. however, it is very hard to command respect from a side that knows that one is going to retire really soon. dhoni commands more fear and hence more respect
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