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Monday 31 December 2007

India in Australia 1 down !!!

The much hyped series has begun. And the result after the boxing day test is as expected. India thrashed by Australia in a batsmen friendly pitch. Indians must do something in order to survive in the series, otherwise aussies will never give a chance. India bowled out for less than 200 on two occasions with having strongest middle order in whole world. What went wrong with India?. After reaching Australia Indian captain Kumble had said “I don’t see any chances that India cannot beat aussies”. But after the finish of the first test, we can see lot many chances that aussies can beat India. At the end of first day with 9 wkts, many people across the world thought that they had found the team which can give real fight back to aussies, which can dominate the aussies in Australia from the very first day. Aussies would have had a bad sleep with the batting failure ( though it isn’t that bad total, with 330+ runs in 90 overs losing 9 wkts ) and the next day they went in to play a 100% professional cricket which made everyone in the world agree that they are the best team in the world. They bowled consistently, their fielding was as usual extra ordinary on the final day (4th day of the test) even though they are defending a massive total of 500. Imagine india defending the same total, they would give 4 runs instead of 2, 2 instead of 1, such is the Indian fielding. I think the problem with the Indian batting is, they are still in a feeling that if you get stick to the crease for an hour the runs will flow automatically. And that is quite true, it paid off nicely in England tour and in the recent Pakistan tour. But the same doesn’t happen in Australia, if you seem to be little over cautious and try to be defending every ball, aussies will tighten the bowling and fielding which will make the batsmen’s life even more miserable. The fact that everyone must agree is, if you want to succeed in Australia, you have to score runs at faster rate. If you look at the positive and negative aspects of India, you would agree that india is nowhere near to the standards of the Australian team in the first test.

Positives – Bowling (5/10) : yes, you read it right, the Indian bowling is a positive aspect in the recent test. Before this series, many had doubt that whether our bowlers can take 20wkts in a test. But our bowlers proved it wrong. Yes, we have the capacity to make the aussies batsmen all out in a five day game which is the key to winning the game. I agree, they have conceded over 700 runs with taking 13 wkts if I am not wrong. There was a situation with 135 for no loss that they can score 700 easily in the first innings without losing much wickets. Thanks to excellent bowling by our captain and some useful wickets by zaheer khan in the first innings. But I don’t agree that our bowling can be rated as excellent bowling attacks in the world. I can say this is still the range of average and good bowling attacks. The problem here is the fielding. Look at the aussies fielding, they were superb throughout the test which eventually gives confidence to bowlers and frustration to the batsmen as well. So if you add the kind of fielding attack that aussies have to the Indian side, then our bowling can be termed as very good to excellent bowling attacks. But that did not happen, our fielding was below average that aussies batsmen have taken singles at will. So if at all India wants to give any fight back to aussies in the next test, they must consider their fielding problem seriously. Apart from bowling I don’t see any positives in the Indian side.

Here comes the biggest negative, Indian batting (3/10), which was supposed to be the strength of the Indian side turned out to be their biggest weakness. With the likes of sachin, laxman, yuvraj, dhoni in the middle order and the classy batsmen jaffer and dravid at the top present in the batting lineup, they did not give any head ache for the aussies bowling. The reason is again their good bowlers who hardly bowl any loose deliveries and their fielding attack. I think they’ve found a way to restrict the Indian batsmen, that is if you don’t give runs and make their survival difficult then Indians will lose their wickets at quick intervals. Adding to this, ponting had setup some unusual fielding positions for our batsmen which led to frustration and caused our batting to collapse. So the only way to survive their attack is by being aggressive, not by means of physical behavior but by showing their aggression with the kind of play. The biggest mistake in this test as far as I think is, forcing dravid to open. Yes, because dravid is lack of runs in the recent pak series and we added some extra burden by asking him to open the innings, I agree there were some situations where dravid came early in the second over or so in some test matches which is the same case as this one. But openers have to be aggressive, at least while playing with Australia. I think, india should include sehwag in place of yuvraj the next test and let dravid to take his favourite no.3 position, and then sachin, laxman, ganguly and dhoni in the middle order. And india failed to build useful partnerships in the middle overs with consistent run rate. Sachin and sourav were looking good and build some 65 run stand by being aggressive especially in hogg’s bowling and once their stand is broken, no one succeeded in building partnerships. Here I want to mention one thing, ponting is superb as a captain because when sachin and ganguly were going after hogg in the very first over of his spell, he did not remove him from the attack. But he had confidence in him, and hogg took useful wickets in the end. This is very much necessary for a bowler who lacks confidence and captain should have trust in him. And one last point, I want to mention in this is the indian’s running between the wickets (2/10). If you see hayden and jaques pair they took singles at ease, without much effort. But on the other hand, india weren’t that good between the wickets. I saw, many batsmen especially ganguly who did not drag in the bat while reaching the other end, he just puts the bat in the crease. And he has survived few very close chances of getting run out. Every batsmen drags in the bat while running, which is the basic thing even a child knows this, how can international players do like that. Huh…I’ll stop here, because it will get even more larger if you write about Indian batting in the first test. Thanks for having patience reading this, hope india plays well in the next test at least and draws the series.

1 comment:

Shiva said...

pedanayana ..
i am proud of you..
You should have gone for the dream job contest..

 
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