“The way England is going about professionally, i wont be surprised even if we get beaten 7-0 in ODI series”.
That was a quote by yours truly, when i witnessed India putting up a dismal batting show at Kotla in first ODI.Well at times i dont mind being made to eat my words and looking a total fool, and this is one of those occassions.
India is really on a roll in ODI’s and its not certainly a fluke sort of win. I have been watching cricket since 1984, and i have seen India come up with some great wins, but they were often offset by equally horrendous losses. I dont recall a time, when India was doing so well in ODI’s.
And i certainly dont recall any team snatching victory from jaws of defeat as regularly as this team. And that is a major step forward. I still remember in the good old days when we would lose matches which we were supposed to be winning. A couple of wickets down and we would see a procession to the pavilion. A couple of bad overs and the chasing team under pressure, would easily go on to win match. We used to watch in despair, as batsman with limited ability, would smash our bowling around in the death to win matches, whereas our own batsmen seemed unable to do it. We held our heads, as the tail enders would just come and go.
Currently i think the Indian team is very balanced. We have good batsmen in Dravid, Yuvraj, Dhoni, Raina, Kaif and seniors like Tendulkar, Sehwag to restore balance.And whats more we have a tail that can wag with Bhajji, Agarkar,Kumble, Powar, all able to do some hitting. And Pathan is slowly developing to a good all rounder. Our bowling atack is also balanced, unlike the spin heavy attack of earlier days. We have good pace bowling options in Pathan, Sreesanth, Munaf, R.P.Singh and spin options in Bhajji, Powar and Piyush Chawla. If u need a surprise bowler take a pick from Yuvraj, Sachin, Sehwag all of whom r effective in slower conditions. And most importantly we have a team that is willing to scrap and not give up.
I wouldnt say that we r now the world’s best team, we have a very long way to go before we can come up to Australia’s level, but its certainly a well balanced team, and has got a lot of talent. And more importantly, each match has seen one or other member of the team contributing.
Take this series
Delhi ODI- Bhajji with bat and ball, Dhoni, Raina, Pathan,Dravid all played useful knocks
Yuvi picked up crucial wickets.
Faridabad ODI- Dhoni & Raina with bat, Powar, Sreesanth, Bhajji, Yuvraj all bowled well again.
Goa ODI- Dravid & Pathan built a useful partnership, Yuvi & Raina took the game totally away from England, Pathan broke the back of England’s top order and Bhajji, Powar, Yuvi strangulating in middle overs, while Agarkar ensured that tail doesnt wag too much.
Kochi ODI- Again Dravid & Pathan built a useful partnership, Yuvi & Raina took India to victory. Good bowling from Pathan, Yuvi, Sehwag, Bhajji & Powar.
Kaif not contributing with bat, but good fielding all the same.
Well it was a good series win, but again lets not be too carried away. For starters England is never a good ODI side,and even at full strength i doubt if they would have been a challenge to us.And we have the tough challenges of WI and S.Africa tour comming up.
The tour to S.Africa would be a real challenge, because they are one of the best ODI sides after Australia and they have a good bowling attack. India has won the battles but the bigger challenges lie ahead. They need to focus on some of their problem areas. The bowling is good, but the top order still collapses against quality bowling on bouncy wickets. And we must learn the art of hanging in to save a Test match also. So its up to Team India to stand up to those challenges and perform. All the best.

March 31,2006 saw India saunter to yet another win while chasing a modest total of 227 at Faridabad. Yet the match would be more remembered for the emergence of a new hero, Suresh Raina. At first glance, this teenager from Ghaziabad,more famous for it’s factories, shopping malls and companies than any cricket hero, seems like an ordinary next door guy and the type who looks as if he couldnt even hurt a fly. Yet as he had shown, this lad, has not only talent, but temparement and oodles of it. The innings he played at Ghaziabad, was not a fluke, hit and bang kind, it was an innings played with such maturity, that the video of this innings should be shown to every one.
This was not the first time either, during the Sri Lanka series, he played a similiar superb knock along with Dhoni to clinch the series at Pune. But then he went unnoticed in the Dhoni wave, that swept the nation, as well as the hapless Lankans.
In Pune, Dhoni was the hero, and Raina was the sidekick. And in the later ODI’s never really got much of a chance, because by then Yuvaraj Singh, had taken on the responsibility of finishing the innings. Today the roles were reversed, with Raina the hero, and Dhoni, believe it or not, playing the support act. Its as if Sanjay Suri was playing the hero, and Shahrukh Khan was doing the support act. The match also showed that Dhoni is not just a hit and miss biffer, he can switch gears and bat according to the situation, something which Gautam Gambhir needs to learn. Every time he keeps on flattering to deceive, and so with Yuvaraj Singh. I thought Yuvi matured a lot after the Pakistan tour, but he seems back to his good old ways again. Well much as i am happy after India’s win, the top order has now again failed , and this is not a happy pattern. They need to learn from Dhoni and Raina, how to stick around at crease, and play according to merits of situation. And finally Dravid, nice to be the Wall and play out the bowling, but that doesnt mean u leave the bad balls too, and dont take the singles. Sirjee, i admire u as one of the greatest batsman, but please, dont get too carried away. U came in with score at 60/1, run rate of around 5, all u needed to do was rotate the strike, give it to Gambhir, and keep the scoreboard ticking. Unfortunately u got bogged down, and got out, and an unnecessary pressure was built up. Quite disappointing Sir.

Something is wrong, something very seriously wrong with our top order batting. Look at this at end of 10 overs we were comfortably placed at 54/1, with both Gambhir and Dravid fully comfortable. All we needed to do was bat sensibly and get India to a good total, but what happens we get bowled out for 203 runs within 50 overs. And if not for those two partnerships between Pathan & Raina, and later Dhoni & Harbhajan, we would have been in a greater mess.
The highest score is 37 runs by of all Harbhajan Singh, who can at best be described as effective.
Sehwag gets out to a short pitch ball for umpteenth time, and its time for him to go. I mean u kick out Ganguly on grounds of fitness and other charges, then why the hell are we persisting with Sehwag. Lets get real we wont have any Sehwag specials at least in this series, England have fully worked him out, and he has fallen into trap, hook, line and sinker.
As also they seemed to have worked out Yuvraj, who keeps either getting caught or chops the ball on to his stumps. Kaif run out for a needless single.
And that brings us to Gautam Gambhir, he seems to think that every ball is there to be hit for 4 or 6, why cant he cool down. He got out same way against Pakistan, and today also after scoring 6,4 he gets out next ball. That guy has a major attitude problem, lack of technique can be forgiven, lack of temperament can never be forgiven.
The English bowling was just effective, sticking to basics, but its a basic fact, that every Indian batsman seemed to be in a Santa Claus mood, gifting their wicket for free. Raina, Pathan both got out to loose shots. In fact that seemed to be India’s batting story for today, every one flattered to deceive.No batsman could really stick around to make a decent score.
England showed its professional attitude fully today. Even when they got hit for 6 runs per over, they didnt panic, and kept right line and length. It seems they have worked out every Indian batsman, and trapped them totally.
Well even if we contrive a great escape in the match, unless we look into our top order batsman’s failure seriously, it would be really tough for us to win this series. The way England is going about, i wont be surprised even if we get beaten 7-0.

Another series drawn, another match lost. And I guess time for us to take stock of what happened. So here is my report card for the India England TVS Cup Test concluded recently.

England Team

They were without Vaughn, Trescothick, Giles and Jones, four of their Ashes heroes. But they combated well throughout the series and lost the Mohali Test only due to their wooden batting and some great bowling by Munaf Patel and Anil Kumble. Bowling was excellent, and at no stage did their intensity diminish. The drawn series is in fact a victory for them. Many "so called cricket fans" wrote them off, but if you are writing off a team that has Flintoff, Pietersen, Hoggard, Harmison in it, please don't call yourself a cricket fan. Unless you belong to that breed of cricket fans whose knowledge of cricket begins and ends with Sachin Tendulkar/ Saurav Ganguly. Many were thinking that having lost 2-0 to Pakistan, we would make mincemeat of them. But for heaven's sake you don't win the Ashes just like that, and in Pakistan they lost because of their batting. Even in India, their batting was a let down, and in Mumbai also, they could not capitalize on a great start of 270/3. Need to brush up on their batting and also get rid of their ultra defensive techniques. Not every team would lose 7 wickets for 25 runs.

Score 8/10.

Indian Team

I really don't know what to make out of this team. For 3 days in Mumbai they often fought back hard, and I thought fine even if we lose we are not surrendering. But the team which scrapped hard for 3 days, suddenly decided they couldn't scrap longer and just surrendered in a manner which even the English team wouldn't have expected. But still one defeat doesn't make this a bad team. I still maintain this is one of the better teams, but at times, for reasons they only know, they play some rank bad cricket. Maybe we need to keep guys like Kumble, Patel, Dravid who are willing to scrap, and chuck out all the "you slap one cheek I will show you another kinds". We had enough of them. Too much is being made of Dravid's decision to bat first, but you discuss about decisions and strategies when you lose a match closely. When you capitulate like the way you do on the final day of Mumbai Test, no strategy can help. Positives are we finally have a good bowling attack, ground fielding is better and we are willing to scrap, if you take out the final day in Mumbai. Now will the batsman start to bat please, after all Dravid cant bat every time right.

Score 6/10.

Indian Top Order Batting

In one word awful. Right from the Sri Lanka series the top order has been consistently failing, and even on a dead wicket in Faislabad, it needed Pathan and Dhoni to get us out of jail. If Kumble and Harbhajan can defy the England bowling attack in Mohali, if Shreeshanth can hook Flintoff for a boundary after getting hit on the helmet, then what prevents our top order batsman from doing so. No use boasting about highest no of this and that, unless you bat. High time they did so, or else give the place to youngsters who can bat. Or even better maybe its better we pack our side with 10 bowlers. After all it's better to have 10 bowlers who can bat. Kidding, well Anil Kumble has the third highest run aggregate now in this series. Something our batting stars would do well to ponder about.

Score 1/10.

Indian Bowling

The most positive thing that has come out of the series. Munaf Patel is really one of the best bowlers, and after having had the mortification of watching semi pop gun bowlers like Zaheer Khan and Ashish Nehra, its great to watch an Indian fast bowler making batsman look like fools. Sreeshanth is another great find, and I guess we have a good pace attack now. Kumble was as usual brilliant, but we need some good spinners coming up. Cant comment much on Piyush Chawla. I guess we could use Munaf and Shreeshanth as frontline bowlers and Pathan as the third option now. We do have a good bowling attack, now if only the fielders start taking the catches. And yes one more thing, all of them have showed that they can bat too.

Score 8/10.

Indian Fielding

Ground fielding has improved vastly, gone are the days when batsman would convert one's into two's or balls would go past bowler's legs. Cant say the same about the catching though. And you cant win matches by dropping catches. We dropped 6 catches in Mumbai and allowed England to score 400. Dhoni needs to improve on his wicket keeping skills too. Either we are not putting the right persons in the right places, or something wrong, but we need to improve our catching.

Score 5/10.

Indian Cricket Fans

Wouldn't call them cricket fans. They reminded me of the bloodthirsty mobs during the Roman days, who shouted "kill, kill". India has not only lost the Test at Mumbai, it has also lost a cricketing culture. We have a bunch of goons and morons, masquerading as cricket fans. They only think of winning and losing. If the team wins, all are heroes, if team loses, all are zeroes. Players can be booed off, heroes become villains and villains become heroes. We have become a bunch of blood thirsty mob who needs a scapegoat. We were baying for Ganguly's blood, now that he is gone, we want Dravid out and Ganguly back. So what happen's if Ganguly fails, again throw out Ganguly and get Dravid back in. We have lost the right to be called as cricket fans, we are no better than a bunch of hooligans and morons, who are unwilling to treat a game as game. I want to ask all these guys who are going on a head banging spree, just one question "Ok we lost, but was any one killed,it was not a national calamity". Why cant we take a game as a game?

Look even when England lost the Mohali Test, no one asked for Flintoff's head. Neither have I seen the Australian public asking for Ponting's head after the Ashes loss. If after 50 years of independence, we still depend on the result of a cricket match to feel proud of, well then we are a big bunch of losers.

Score 0/10.

Bangalore,1987- India bowls out Pakistan for a low score around 171. Pakistan hits back and India manages a slender lead of 40 runs. Pakistan wipes out deficit and manages to set India a victory target of 200+. Inspite of Gavaskar’s lone wolf stand of 93, India lose.
Bangalore,2005-India chasing a score of 300 plus to win the match. Sehwag gives a good start to India, but is out.India goes into a strangely defensive mode and Pakistan romp home victors.

Karachi,2006- Same story again. India restricts Pakistan to 245, Pakistan strikes back and restricts India to 238. Lead of 7 runs, but every run is important here. Is it going to be repeat of Bangalore 1987 and 2005 all over again?

Ur guess is as good as mine. Well there might be a mistake in the statistics of the above 2 matches. But what is unmistakable is the fact, India for the umpteenth time snatching victory from jaws of defeat.
For heavens sake, why cant we guys be ruthless?
I mean you have a team down at 37/6, a start which any captain can only dream of, and its the time when you should go for the kill and decimate the opponent. But we are very generous, we let the Pakistanis off hook again, allow Kamran Akmal and Razzaq to score a century stand against us. And then even Shoaib Akhtar manages to score 45 plus runs against us.

Yawn this is just getting tiresome. Come on Team India, please, we are getting fed up of this tendency to throw away matches from winning positions. We thought we had seen some spunk during Sri Lanka series, but then i guess its a familiar tale of what we have seen of Indian cricket
ONE STEP FORWARD TWO STEPS BACKWARD.
Tango is a nice dance, but for heavens sake, dont do it in cricket. Its getting boring to watch..Keeping my fingers crossed and hoping for best.
When Pathan and Zaheer are able to put up a 50 run partnership on this wicket, what is wrong with our champion top order batsmen.
Why are they doing a cat on hot tin roof act, which we keep on witnessing again and again.