Flames down under

India has been plundered down under. It is all done and dusted, the downfall that started in England got worse in Australia where India have been outplayed by the mitty aussies that could well result in the another humiliating 4-0 whitewash . After losing in Melbourne many felt that India would surely bounce back in Sydney where Indian batsmen boosted a very good record but the manner in which Australia uprooted India was heartening to see. Neither the Indian bowlers held their line nor the batsmen showed any sort of resilience against the relatively inexperienced bowling attack. At the beginning of the tour many cricket pundits believed that India had a strong chance of beating Australia in Australia. India had the best batting line up in the world that included record over 140 test centuries among themselves. But it was soon proved that records are history and one need to play competitive cricket throughout than to rely on the past records.

Another reason for this mishap is the weak bench strength which is a result of the poor planning by the selectors. They never realized that the senior pro’s of the team are over the hill and cant except them to fire every time with the same intensity. One needs to realize that their era of greatness has ended and they must now hang up their boots and pass the torch to the youngsters. Here one feels that a senior official of the working committee must step in to ask them about their retirement plans. Player like Dravid is not in best of the form his defence has been breached many times on the tour. The magic of wrist and flicks is also missing from Laxman , Shewag looks out of sort and gambhir has been doggy outside the off stump. Tendulkar is under all sorts of pressure as he is nearing the landmark. The bowling looks totally out of sort and that zeal of passion and execution of planning is missing. Apart from zaheer all bowlers have looked below par. Be it ishant , umesh ,ashwin or now vinay kumar all of them had been plunderd for plenty by the mighty aussies and their performance was more sought of a club level not international standard where you consistently need to hunt for the wickets or stop the flow of runs. Captaincy is another important issue. The midas touch that Dhoni had is now missing. He has looked totally out of sorts throughout .Dhoni now needs to shed the image of captain cool and need to show some aggression on and off the field rather discussing about his retirement plans before the eve of the crucial test match. The best thing that India could do now is to go out on the park all guns blazing and play fearless cricket and show some positive intent .Fans need to realize that it is just a game that they had lost and its not a matter of life and death. So they must be calm and must not term their heroes of the worldcup2011 to zeros.    

sahil

14/11/2012