So the away woes continue. 5th straight loss. 5th straight batting failure in a test match. None would have expected a team at 3/214 chasing 333 in first innings on day 2 close to lose the test match day and half later. But India always exceeds expectations. They lose when none expects them to and they win when none expects them to. This has been a close knit team for almost a decade. The batting names have remained same more or less same. The spots 1, 3, 4, 5 have been fixed for 10 years now barring injuries and other reasons, but they were undone by some quality pace bowling by inexperienced Australian fast bowlers. The attitude of the Indian players on day 4 throughout was questionable. The players seem resigned, the shoulders were dropped, the field was open and spread out to a no 9 and 11. Cmon, you don’t expect to give easy singles to tail enders. No sign of attack, no sign of keeping up pressure on the tailenders was visible from the world cup winning, IPL winning captain MS Dhoni.
He has to own up this defeat. His captaincy on 4th morning was the worst, worse than Shahid Afridi or even a Dilshan (who won a test in SA).
He didn’t attack the jack and 10, he allowed easy singles and allowed the target to cross 250 when it was no business chasing more than 240 at the max. Perhaps the time has come now to see that the ageing legends quit and allow the fresh blood to sneak in. And the culling must start through VVS Laxman. He is supposed to be 4th innings champion, but yesterday he was abject. Scores of 2 and 1 are too bad for a player like him when he is taking on his favorite team. Hell with the history and ground stats for him. Why did not he take up the responsibility to guide the chase.
And same questions need to be asked to Virender Sehwag, why did he cut the ball when the trap was laid out for him through some imaginative captaincy from Clark. He just gifted his wicket away to the Aussies and that moment, the victory for them was sealed. Losing to an under rated team is frustrating, if this loss came in 2003 or 2007 then we would have been able to digest this, but hell the Australian team in transition with no big name firing has defeated a stalwart studded team. The lineup where top 5 has plateful of runs, but cannot stitch partnerships together to win a damn test match, they had no business losing.
Gambhir has been successful in almost all conditions, but he has failed in England and now that’s carrying in Australia too. He has been a dogged character, not the one easily to give up. He has seen the frustration of being dropped and had even thought of giving up the game at one point, then why is he not so considerate enough to play a dirty innings to get some runs. Don’t poke outside off stump, this is a test match, not a T20 and you are not captaining KKR, but opening for India in a country where they are yet to win a test series in 64 years. Scorelines of 2 and 13 don’t do justice to this man and his temperament.
Ditto 68 and 7 don’t work well for Sehwag. He has been successful in MCG before and very famously. 195 on day 1 of that test match in 2003 was a glorious innings and now both the men from Delhi would go in 2012 with no Test centuries to their name. They are not able to provide the fiery starts they are famous to provide. They have to own up and start producing runs freely. And that’s very critical for Indian batting to click. That gives the likes of Dravid and Laxman – the slow workhorses time to play their own game.
Kohli has been a failure here, but again early days for him. First major away tour for him and he should be given another chance in the Sydney Test.
MS Dhoni has to look up to his Test batting, he has been falling too frequently to soft dismissals and low scores. Yesterday he scored just 23, but he leaked far too many runs in the morning session. It would have been nice if he would have shown the captaincy skills he has been famed for past 4 years. If you leak runs through unimaginative captaincy to the tail enders, then at least exceed that amount by scoring runs, when you are a batsman of capability and over 8500 international runs, then some responsibility has to lie on your shoulders too.
IPL Ashvin, who has replaced Harbhajan Singh should first learn how to bowl in a test match and moreso to a tailender in a situation when its do or die. He came on pretty late in the attack yesterday, but he just bowled ordinarily with no attempt to grab the wicket. Happy containing? Not that either. He leaked 9 runs in one of his overs with short dolleys and poor bowling. Even when he batted in first innings, he continued giving strike to no 11 on 2nd or 3rd bowl of the over of firing Hilfenhaus or Pattinson. What was the motive ? The aim was to cut short the lead as much as possible, good that Yadav did not fall and showed decent character to block out the balls. But this is something IPL Ashvin will have to learn. May be a quick word or 2 with Anil Kumble would be good on how to bowl Yorkers to tail enders. He is the attacking spinner in Tests after having replaced out of form Bhajji, but if continues to play the same role as Bhajji did, then let Pragyan Ojha come in.
Throw this lad out of the team if he continues to make elementary mistakes.
All is still not lost. Before its too late work on the mindset first. Come out all attacking, take 20 wickets as soon as you can. Australian batting is fragile and prone to collapse any time. 4/27 to 240 was an unforgivable crime. And it shouldn’t be repeated.
Don’t leak too many runs to the tailenders and block runs. Play SL brand of cricket if possible to dry out the runs. Set 7-2 field like you did in Nagpur 2008. Who has stopped you? And have batsmen take up some responsibility.
New year, new test match, hopefully new mindset. All is not lost yet. But if they don’t improve in Sydney, then all would be lost and the legends would not like to sign off with a defeat in the test series, but with a series win. How much hungry the legends are, that remains to be seen.
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