You go to a foreign country. In the first test you face a difficult bouncy pitch and overcast conditions. And you guys fail. Collective batting failure in both the innings and you lose by a huge margin.
I will accept that. I will take that loss. Obviously it's difficult to go to new country and play your best immediately. 'Fine' I will tell myself, "This guys will play better in the next test."
But what you did today? I mean seriously. You guys were in control. very much in control. Still you let it go. Yeah, I am not upset with Ponting and Hussey's partnership yesterday. Those are great players and they would fight till their last innings, but James Pattinson! How come?? This kid with 3 test matches in his bag scored 37!! How??? Low intensity? Just waiting for things to happen? Taking things easy??
You made me upset. Gautam gambhir, VVS Laxman, Virat Kohli, I love you guys. I am so proud of you. Gautam, my 'T-20 Don', VVS who made me write 'Why fight for Ram when we have Laxman' as my Facebook status message after last year's Mohali test and Virat, the best of his generation, or is he?
333 and 240 are not big scores. At least the pitch was not so bad that, I would expect Australia to score less than that. Yes, still we could be more attacking. Some more close-in fielders to Aussie 9-10-11 was required. But that's part of the strategy. Overall bowling looked good. Zak looked awesome, Umesh looked threatening, Ashwin looked working on a plan in the first innings.
But batting? Still problem continues. SRT and RD looked solid till they bat and then suddenly got out to good balls. Sehwag, I will not make any comment, he is like that only.
I am not watching the match any more so don't know how MSD is batting.
The most disturbing part is, what can we change in the next match? Yes we can bring Rohit Sharma in place of Virat. What else? Any other change in the team? I can't see any.
Strategy wise, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, please be attacking. Please talk to Sourav Ganguly. Please use couple of players in both side for bat-pad catches while Ashwin is bowling. put more pressure. Trust me, this Aussie team is vulnerable. There are lots of self-doubt in their batting line up, exploit that. Attack that.
I know I should not do this, I should not write this piece till the 10th wicket is down. I should have faith on MSD, Zak, Isshannt (that's the new spelling of his name which he changed after consulting a numerologist) and Umesh to fight hard, keep grinding and bat as long as they can.
But this is not a match report. Even if India win or draw this match with any divine invention (they call Melbourne, the city of four-seasons a day, how much I would like Melbourne to have a monsoon, starting in next half an hour and continuing for next forty-eight hours) that would not change the fact that you guys have missed a chance. A great chance to stamp your authority and run away with this series.
All the best for remaining matches. Just remember, cricket is just like life. Life rarely gives us a second chance, I hope cricket will give you another chance in the new year test.
BELIEVE
I will accept that. I will take that loss. Obviously it's difficult to go to new country and play your best immediately. 'Fine' I will tell myself, "This guys will play better in the next test."
But what you did today? I mean seriously. You guys were in control. very much in control. Still you let it go. Yeah, I am not upset with Ponting and Hussey's partnership yesterday. Those are great players and they would fight till their last innings, but James Pattinson! How come?? This kid with 3 test matches in his bag scored 37!! How??? Low intensity? Just waiting for things to happen? Taking things easy??
You made me upset. Gautam gambhir, VVS Laxman, Virat Kohli, I love you guys. I am so proud of you. Gautam, my 'T-20 Don', VVS who made me write 'Why fight for Ram when we have Laxman' as my Facebook status message after last year's Mohali test and Virat, the best of his generation, or is he?
333 and 240 are not big scores. At least the pitch was not so bad that, I would expect Australia to score less than that. Yes, still we could be more attacking. Some more close-in fielders to Aussie 9-10-11 was required. But that's part of the strategy. Overall bowling looked good. Zak looked awesome, Umesh looked threatening, Ashwin looked working on a plan in the first innings.
But batting? Still problem continues. SRT and RD looked solid till they bat and then suddenly got out to good balls. Sehwag, I will not make any comment, he is like that only.
I am not watching the match any more so don't know how MSD is batting.
The most disturbing part is, what can we change in the next match? Yes we can bring Rohit Sharma in place of Virat. What else? Any other change in the team? I can't see any.
Strategy wise, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, please be attacking. Please talk to Sourav Ganguly. Please use couple of players in both side for bat-pad catches while Ashwin is bowling. put more pressure. Trust me, this Aussie team is vulnerable. There are lots of self-doubt in their batting line up, exploit that. Attack that.
I know I should not do this, I should not write this piece till the 10th wicket is down. I should have faith on MSD, Zak, Isshannt (that's the new spelling of his name which he changed after consulting a numerologist) and Umesh to fight hard, keep grinding and bat as long as they can.
But this is not a match report. Even if India win or draw this match with any divine invention (they call Melbourne, the city of four-seasons a day, how much I would like Melbourne to have a monsoon, starting in next half an hour and continuing for next forty-eight hours) that would not change the fact that you guys have missed a chance. A great chance to stamp your authority and run away with this series.
All the best for remaining matches. Just remember, cricket is just like life. Life rarely gives us a second chance, I hope cricket will give you another chance in the new year test.
BELIEVE
Seldom have I been so upset over a (looming) defeat. Why, oh why are our collapses this predictable when in need?
ReplyDeleteI know Abhishekda, and we have such a great chance at 214/3 or 27/4 or even at 179/8. I am so upset, I just don't to talk to anyone except me, right now. And hence I wrote this one.
ReplyDeleteSo upset after long long time.
As you have said, tapo...i dont really think swapping VK with RS will make awhole load of difference. This is yet another time we lost purely because of not able to wipe of the tail. It happenned in Nottingham , it happenned here again.
ReplyDeleteAbout viru...i really dont know what to say...yes, thats the way he bats... and that is the way he scores 300..but does it help?
yeah Arpanda, as we very often said, Veeru is a legend. Some of his innings were like which only he could play. But then those innings come with these important failures and kept us wondering what if he could play a little sensibly for first 60 deliveries of his innings.
ReplyDeleteTo be very frank, I am not amused. Just routine start of the tour for me. I am hopefull that we will come back, but less then what I was when we lost to England in first test at lords
ReplyDeleteafter d 1st inning of MSD, I wud ve surprised if u wud ve shown any faith on him :|
ReplyDeleteokay..umm..fine...few things to say...just like, you know, a bad disease...Number 1)since the last WI away series, India has been failing several times to destroy the last 5 wkts....wkt keepers with tail is causing a huge problem to Indian bowling attack...
ReplyDeleteNumber 2)the batting avg of Dhoni,Laxman,Gambhir is not at all good for last 6-8 months.Number 3)6th batsman of the team is not yet confirmed after Ganguly's retirement and none of the young players has shown such a thing at this batting spot which can say that they deserve India test cap.
Number 4)Sachin,Rahul,Laxman are all those kind of people for which you can say class personified.But all are in late thirties and it is logically a very hard thing to have the same hunger, mental strength,fitness, stamina, will,reflex to continue a long inning which they used to do years back several times in a series specially against good fielding and bowling side in a challenging condition......all these are reality and we have to watch this series remembering these realities.
I agree to all your points. Now in between a foreign tour we can do nothing. Either we can sulk and with bad results give a 'I Told you so' reaction or hope for the best and in that case a bad result will indicate the final adieu for those three Indian batting greats.
ReplyDeleteAlso, as you have mentioned that, after 3 years of Ganguly's retirement we still do not have permanent replacement in the number 6 spot, despite trying some of the consistent performers in ODIs or domestic cricket. So getting 3 more ready replacement will be difficult. So we may prepare ourselves to face a situation like 90s where after the retirement of Gavaskar, Vengsarkar & Kapil Dev we were a mediocre team till the point when SG and RD came to their own and started performing consistently.
But again, the entire cricket world is going through this and specially with IPL, BBL and all most of the teams are lacking good test quality batsman. hence you will find more and more teams giving very different performance in home compared to away series.