WHAT TO MAKE OF INDIA’s WHITE WASH AGAINST AUSTRALIA

The recently concluded Ind-Aus test series has created a lot of excitement amongst the Indian and British Cricket fraternities and “Furor” amongst the Aussie Fans, Media and Cricket Pundits alike.  While it is a commendable achievement on the part of a reasonably inexperienced Indian Cricket team to beat Australia 4-0, one cannot but help worry about the future of our test cricket team. 

This victory, however emphatic has been camaflogued by poor pitches and equally poor display of batsmanship by the Aussies. It says a lot about the Team’s mentality when the Captain keeps shouting for spinner friendly wickets time and again. The message he seems to be sending is that since we will keep struggling outside on bouncy/swinging wickets, hence it is okay to use our strengths to keep the visitors at bay in home conditions and that’s it!!

The result of this attitude is that we will continue to struggle Abroad while the Captain and the Management feel that winning in India is the best we can do.  But the recently concluded series against England in India proved otherwise!!!  The sad thing is that the loss to England has been completely forgotten, which in my opinion should be hurting the team, the captain and the Coach, the Most!!! It certainly has hurt millions of True Cricket Fans but the BCCI and the Team and its Management have not yet felt it and they will continue to thump their chests for the 4-0 win over Australia.

Come the South African tour, if the results work out as expected (a comfortable win for the South Africans is what most experts are predicting), then a familiar reaction will be expected from all quarters, the wickets are bouncy and we do not have the technique to adapt to such conditions!!  And a few heads will roll and they will be the familiar faces who generally do not perform well in overseas conditions and things will get back to normal i.e. the captain will shout from the roof-top for turning wickets and we will continue our winning ways in India (and that too is not a guarantee given that we will continue to struggle against quality spin attacks even at home!!)

It is indeed remarkable that we had the fortune of witnessing some of the all-time great batsmen like Gavaskar, Dravid, Tendulkar, Sehwag, Laxman and a brilliant all-rounder by name Kapil Dev, who have performed remarkably well abroad despite the mind-set of BCCI and our Team Management over the past few decades.

It will be a miracle if we can get another such crop of wonderfully talented cricketers ever again unless we change our archaic mindset and start to believe that we need not always depend on turning tracks to win at any cost!!!  But this I am sure is a ‘Miracle’ waiting to happen.  But if it does, then Indian Cricket will surely be turning a new leaf in its history which shall result in new highs especially in the Test Cricket Arena. 

Here’s hoping and praying that better sense will prevail amongst the Indian Cricket Administration as well the Selectors, Coaches and Players.

Cheers

All the Ruckus about Australian Cricket Team

A lot has been said about the recent performance of the Australian Cricket Team in India. I think this is pure over-reaction considering how young and in-experienced this present Aussie team is!!

It is not easy for a Team to recover from the recent retirement of "Once in a Generation" players such as Ricky Ponting and Michael Hussey.  Also, let's not forget that this same Australian team had decimated W.Indies and Sri Lanka in Australia just a few weeks/months ago!!  Granted, both W.Indies and Sri Lanka do not travel well but a White Wash is a White Wash and that too 2 in a row within a few weeks of each other is not easy to achieve even in friendly conditions!!

A Team cannot become Sub-standard or Fantastic in just a few weeks or months.  It takes years and years of hard work for a Good and World Class Team to be formed. Just ask the S.Africans and they will confirm this!!

Despite being down 0-3 against India, the performance of this Australian Team is much better than our Indian team which had toured them last year.  While not once could our Famed Batting Line-up (which included Stalwarts such as Sachin, Dravid and Laxman) cross the 300 run mark in any one single innings, this most in-experienced Australian Batting line-up has done the same twice (once in
Chennai and once in Mohali).

Also, their bowlers have performed remarkably well on spinner friendly wickets compared to our bowlers who were taken to cleaners in almost every innings in Australia. Granted that our Bowling attack was the youngest and most in-experienced to have toured Australia. But then so is this current Australian Batting and Bowling line-up.

It is amazing how the media and ex-players (who had themselves played a great deal of cricket for their respective countires) could really thrash a team this much. They should know better as they have been in such tours and such situations a lot of times.

While it is true that India is nor was the worst team ever to tour England & Australia, neither it is or will become a Great Team just because it got the better of this Australian team in India. Winning on spinner friendly wickets is not a solution to becoming a World Beating Team!!  Also, the loss to England in our own Den should really hurt us 'Bad'.

Losing to them in their conditions is one thing but being beaten in our conditions should be a bitter pill to swallow. And this both BCCI And the Indian team would do well to acknowledge/recognise despite defeating this weak Australian Team.

Similarly, Australia has to learn how to play on turning tracks much like our Indian team needs to learn to play on fast bouncing tracks both in and out of India. Only then, can it re-claim its Numero Uno position in Test Cricket.

Both the Media and Fans would do well not to write-off any team based on one or two series' performances.  It would be prudent to judge a Team purely on consistency of its long-term performance rather than its one-off/short-term performances.  Otherwise, we run the risk of analysing this 'Great Game' just like we tend to do analyse the Stock Markets i.e. on a daily basis rather than on a long-term basis.

Cheers