My Bloglogue - March 28th 2005

We lost the dam game to Pakistan. We also lost the ICC ranking in this process. What a way to start the one day series?

The after match presentation, Sehwag – “Not a difficult wicket to Bat, I was determined to chase and win the game for India”. I wish rest of team had the same determination. But no, Gangully displayed his stupidity with a florescent highlighter.

The Indian captain made a stupid statement when asked about game plan. It seems their game plan was to keep playing; they were not worried about winning or losing. I would put this as the most ridicules theory I have ever heard from an Indian captain in the past 30 years. Assume we go to an exam in this fashion; I just want to keep writing regardless of the question paper. Will any sane guy do that?

This innings was a clear examination for the gloated Indian lineup that has a batsman who has better average in the second innings than the great Don, while another one just became the top run getting machine for India and a player with lots of potential but cannot bat. Frankly for the so called batting potential the Indians have on paper, I was really not ready for this loss, I believed that Indians would knock the runs and come out with a historic win.

But like dot com bubble burst, Sehwag was run out, Indians went into a dooms day scenario, I really do not know why the team lost hopes, we have more players with humongous statistics tagged to them. Who called for the hara-kiri? The Captain and the Coach failed to give proper instructions to the players? Sachin started off smoothly while Dravid was too cautious. But after Dravid’s Departure, Sachin walked into his shell and started to play tentative cricket. knowing about the great form of Gangully and VVS What else he can do?, VVS was not able take the pressure.

Ganguly’s batting form - any other player with that kind of performance would face the brutal AXE from the selectors. He had no reason to play poor and thoughtless strokes, in the first innings if he had scored some runs India would not be in this position. He played a reckless stroke and was stumped. This innings he lost his off stump to Afridi. He stood their not ready walk; he assumed the ball had rebounded from the wicket keeper. Gangully also messed the batting order, he pushed VVS ahead of him.

Elites in the biased commentary box were busy commenting on Gangully, it seems Gangully numerology consultant had told him do this. What ever is the crap; my take is our captain was worried about his batting form more than the game plan.The entire game plan seemed to be revolving around his [Gangully] batting problems rather than the team goal. People would have one more round to say Sachin did not save India again, I would say so did Dravid, VVS, Gangully, Dinesh Kartik and the residue.

They just had to play their natural game, and they failed because of their misguided captain, who did not have a game plan. This loss is clearly attributed to Gangully. Seriously If I was the selector I would say “Gangully you are fired”.

Inzi was animated all through and was seen arguing with the umpire for anything. IrFan had a bad decision; I hope Pakistani’s are penalized for their excessive appealing and sledging [Afridi and co in particular]

BCCI's part, Why don’t they use some thought process to help the home team. Being the home team we do have the liberty to pick grounds that favors the home side. Who the hell opted for Banglore, that too for the final test match? Indians have never won in this dam ground, the Banglore pitch has always been a POS, even the wall - Dravid, the home town boy has a poor batting average in this ground.

Why can’t BCCI schedule a better place like Chennai or Mumbai where Indians often have an upper hand than the visiting teams? I wish the curators in Banglore get this message - Please! Create a pitch that helps the home team. Period.
Frankly this ground would be another reason why I hate Banglore.

I am yet to recover from this, I hope we do better in the one dayers.