10/11/07

Duck De India

Being the cricket world champ is one part of the achievement but maintaining the status is much bigger a deal, this demands a lot of will and commitment. Australians are super powers of cricket and damn! “they know to maintain the status.”

Yesterday, Australians codified how to win the game while hopeless (Duck De) India meticulously engraved - How to lose the game hands, legs and other body parts down.

It was quite a pathetic start. What worse can happen? No I am not talking about L.Siva or Arul lals commentary. The 2 of the top 3 security net was back in the pavilion for Zero. Work Experience for the top three sums to about 1000 games but in first over India lost 60% of the experience. 10/3 in the first few coupled with fantastic bowling - Indians gave up then and there. Tendulkar was the only player from India who negotiated the pinpoint Australian attack. He played quite remarkably. His drives were classics and quite a delight to watch. Only persons without any kind of cricketing knowledge would raise their voice against Tendulkar. Irfan chipped in few runs while the last wicket partnership tried to restore some pride. The ball that got Tendulkar was a real beauty from Brett Lee.

Yesterday’s game also exposed who plays better swing bowling. The spell of Lee and Johnson proved that much celebrated Yuvraj, Dhoni and Uthappa do not have the technique and temperament to play quality fast bowling. Siddharth of Cricinfo.org mentions Uttappa was out for poor LBW decision, IMO, it was plumb - Uttappa was moving like a crab sideways right across the line and was caught like a deer at the headlight. I really doubt his technical ability to deal fast bowling under swinging conditions.

What was the reason for the loss? Poor planning Or Poor batting or Poor bowling or poor selection committee members or people like Nirjan Shah running the show? I am wondering with such a pathetic inexperienced team how in the world Vengsarkar can make stupid statements about dropping senior players. His warning to the senior players was quite stupid and arrogant. One does not become a senior player over night, a long tenure of effort and commitment gets you the title. That needs to be respected not insulted.

At least now stop the yell and scream over youth, put the T20 world cup on EBAY and start focusing on the Australian tour, if not we are in for more shocks and think about this - next month Team India will be floating on the Australian blue lagoon – result could be brutal than yesterdays.

Ps: Please check this excellent article by Anand Vasu on CricInfo ; Very well written.

4 comments:

SANHelp said...

awesome writeup. i agree with you now. i take back the "senior player" syndrome for tendulkar. but I disagree about Rahul and Saurav. they should be dropped.

SANHelp said...

nice writeup. i agree with you now on the "senior player" syndrome. Sachin showed why he is still da man. but Rahul and Saurav can/should br dropped.

Unknown said...

Srikanth,
Vengsarkar said NOBODY can take their place for granted. What is wrong in this? You cannot keep senior players just because they made 50 centuries ten years ago. I think, a player should rated by their performance in last 10 matches or in last one year.

Sriks said...

1. Vengsarkar cannot make such statements in middle of a hard fought series, it adds more pressure, and mind it his job is to select and not judge everyone everyday.

2. He is also notorious for pushing his acedemhy students.

3. by your method for 10 games, dhoni should be dropped but he got captaincy instead. India plays lots of games 10 games is too slow. few series would be my selection criteria.

4. Tell me the last time harbajan took match winning wickets.

5. it the seniors who scored in this series, and in the series that concluded in Eng.

6. WE saw how the team played swing bowling. other than tendul no one had a clue.

I can go on, F50 is not t20.