Amidst all the glory

Well ! A 6-1 thrashing of SL looked good. At the risk of being a cry baby and not savoring the final score line, let me reiterate a few weak links in India's arsenal.

1. The 2nd spinner spot is up for grab. Karthik seems to be in a strange bind. What was he doing, bowling that last over at Baroda? In a tight match, the 11 runs he gave could have proved crucial. The slog is going to be there but why no ball and wide? The penultimate ball was a shame. Viru bowled the 49th over in one of these ODIs (I forget but the 4th I think) and just gave 3.
2. Kaif continues to play with 50% strike rate and he dropping that skier did not look good.
3. I will go the extent of saying - play Gambhir instead of Kaif against SA, We need all help from every position player. Kaif has had a good last 10 matches before this domestic season but if you carefully look through it all, he has not really dominated in any of them. No outstanding knock like a cracker of an inning. We have Dravid to anchor the inning and there is no need for another anchor , however senior he is .
4. Viru seems to have specialized in a band of scores from 19-49. He can neither get more nor less. A trigger goes off in his head as soon as he reaches these figures and he gets out to a new act of indiscretion. His failures are glossed over because India is winning but otherwise, he would have lost his place. Viru backs himself to knock 4s and 6s at will, independent of game situation. This by itself is not a bad trait but there has to be a line drawn. Did the Aussies not read the riot act to even Hayden?
   
5. Indian running between the wickets, although much better than the SG ability of converting a 3 to a single, is still not up to Aus standards. They have to rotate strike and not depend so much on boundary balls. Such gifts are not going to come from the 4 strong pace quarter of SA.
6. The old malady of 30 extras was back in the 7th ODI. The moment there is some life in the wicket, Indian bowlers beat each other in the art of spraying. All those leg side wides were unwanted and other than testing Dhoni, did little else. The discipline of few extras in the 6th ODI was soon forgotten, when they saw the tennins ball like bounce at Baroda.