India won yet another game vs England in India. They now lead the series 3-0 and if everything goes the way it has for past 3 Odis, the story would soon be 5-0 and yet another whitewash for England in India. England have been hammered top, right, left and center in India over last 5 years. The scorelines of 1-5, 0-5 and probably 0-5 now read a very sorry figure. They have been competitive in their own conditions, but they have been very poor abroad. They showed up better performance in World Cup with some enthralling finishes and tight contests. But this tour, they simply have come abject with nothing good to show on the paper, no positives, no gains, no player gaining that extra mile in his career or benefitting from playing in this conditions.
The openers haven’t been able to give them good starts, the middle order has got starts, but rarely they have converted to big 100s or 90s except one or 2 out of the blue scoring occasional 90s. The late middle order has flourished but only sporadically. The bowling attack has been sorted out with ease, the same bowlers who were menacing in rainy conditions in England are looking ordinary. Only Steven Finn looks a bit better, but the rest of the pack are just ordinary. None of Bresnan, Dernbach or Patel do have skills to take wickets and stop the 2nd string Indian batting from scoring runs. There is no Sehwag, Yuvraj, Tendulkar in this batting lineup and the openers are part timers in Patel and Rahane, who any given day would sit out of any Indian team if they have full strength team available to play.
Simply said, England don’t have skills to win in conditions which don’t seam or swing. And even in seaming or swinging conditions in England, where they won 3-0, they had to rely on rain rules to win. Take this series win out and you’d find for most part of this decade, India have had a strong over England in ODIs and Tests too (barring 4-0 loss). England haven’t won a ODI series in India for 27 years and that stretch would just get longer after today’s defeat.
For India today there was a new batting star born in Ajinkya Rahane, the Mumbai batsman who has been pitched in as an opener in absence of regular ones. Very lucky to have been playing ODIs still as the seniors are out injured and selectors impressed to pip regular opener down to # 3, the batsman has picked up his chances good enough to have a suggestion drawn from Harsha Bhogle that he should be opening in all forms of cricket he plays in. That to me, is a far fetched suggestion. What happens when normal openers return to the team in ODIs – Sachin and Sehwag? Even if Sachin gives up ODIs soon, then we have Viru – Gauti pair to fall back upon, would still Rahane open? And this was just one inning of substance from him. At the max, it’s a stepping stone to the bigger things. That doesn’t indicate by any means that he should open in all forms in international cricket. Should the seniors continue to be injured, there are lot of other players who are good openers and natural openers – likes of Uthappa waiting to play.
Parthiv Patel shouldn’t even be in the 15, let alone playing 11. Dropping Gambhir to 3 to accommodate Patel is insane. Drop Patel and get in Manoj Tiwary for next 2 games. Let Rahane and Gambhir open, Kohli at 3 and so forth.
India’s bowling continues to be pedestal and the likes of Vinay Kumar, R Ashvin don’t inspire any form of confidence. Ashvin isn’t getting bucketful of wickets, the way he used to get in IPL (for same captain), he is happy stopping runs, who wants this kind of spinners who are happy containing? Basically that’s the main reason why Harbhajan was dropped and if Ashvin does the same thing, then let him go back and play for Tamil Nadu team. Play Rahul Sharma for next 2 games, at least give him few games before he is handed out the treatment similar to Ojha and Mishra.
The core group who’s won India the 3 games is the same – Kohli, Gambhir, Raina and of course well MS Dhoni. Raina flopped today, but Kohli and Dhoni batted sensibly in the stretch when England threatened to come back with 4 quick wickets. MS Dhoni is back among the runs and back in the job he does the best – finish the game. He has been not out 28 times in India’s victories and when he has been not out, India hasn’t lost a single game chasing. Remarkable statistic.
Its time for some experimentation over the next 2 games in terms of opening in batting and few pacers. Varun Aaron can be played in place of Umesh Yadav and probably Sreenath Aravind in the 5th game in place of Vinay Kumar. Rahul Sharma in place of R Ashvin. But would team management tinker the winning combination, that remains to be seen.
And yes Duncan Fletcher still is the coach of Indian team, if people forgot that.
