The art of grabbing defeat from the jaws of victory
Indian cricket teams, over the years have perfected this technique of sliding to a defeat from seeemingly winning positions, without ever batting an eyelid and this team was no different; I have been shouting from roof tops about a common sense approach, as soon as they gave away those vital runs and decreased their lead in the 1st innings to a meaningless number but alas, the same old familiar story of mindless batting repeated itself.
I will put the blame squarely on Sachin. Here is a batsmen with such credentials (although . I am never ever convinced) in paper and he batted as if he had seen demons while facing Pual Harris. This is not the 1st time that he is dismantled by unknown lefties and the whole drag was so horrible that it proved be an embarassng display.
It all started with Shewag's promotion failing for the umpeenth time and when Jaffer failed to keep the glove out of the way, a high voltage drama followed with the possibility of a time out in test cricket for the 1st time. SG walked out eventually and played a decent innings but both he and Dravid got out at the wrong time and against the run of play. I have seen many a caught and bowled dismissal of Dravid and he repeated that here too to an innocous delivery. His failure to hit a single 50 in this series is another destabilizing factor for the anemic looking Indian batting.
I remember Steve Waugh's saying that most collapses begin with a run out and here too it was evident; what in the world was VVS thinking, behaving like an eighty year old grandpa. His run out followed by another Pak umpire victim, finished it all. Karthik put up a lone fight but the tail deserted him in quick succession.
The wickets of De Villiers and Amla might perhaps give the optimist Indian some hope but mark my words - India will loose this match. i have seen too much Indian cricket to fall for such optimistic tricks. They neither have the right bowler for this pitch (Bhajji) nor have the will to win. If not anything, the SA lower order is capable of dismantling the odd threat. It will be another pathetic ending to an otherwise engrossing test.
I will put the blame squarely on Sachin. Here is a batsmen with such credentials (although . I am never ever convinced) in paper and he batted as if he had seen demons while facing Pual Harris. This is not the 1st time that he is dismantled by unknown lefties and the whole drag was so horrible that it proved be an embarassng display.
It all started with Shewag's promotion failing for the umpeenth time and when Jaffer failed to keep the glove out of the way, a high voltage drama followed with the possibility of a time out in test cricket for the 1st time. SG walked out eventually and played a decent innings but both he and Dravid got out at the wrong time and against the run of play. I have seen many a caught and bowled dismissal of Dravid and he repeated that here too to an innocous delivery. His failure to hit a single 50 in this series is another destabilizing factor for the anemic looking Indian batting.
I remember Steve Waugh's saying that most collapses begin with a run out and here too it was evident; what in the world was VVS thinking, behaving like an eighty year old grandpa. His run out followed by another Pak umpire victim, finished it all. Karthik put up a lone fight but the tail deserted him in quick succession.
The wickets of De Villiers and Amla might perhaps give the optimist Indian some hope but mark my words - India will loose this match. i have seen too much Indian cricket to fall for such optimistic tricks. They neither have the right bowler for this pitch (Bhajji) nor have the will to win. If not anything, the SA lower order is capable of dismantling the odd threat. It will be another pathetic ending to an otherwise engrossing test.
posted by Crick_Love at 7:13 PM
2 Comments:
your prediction came spot on. Is there a solution to this psyche. I often hear mention of India's successful WC campaign when they lost the final. Australia would have taken that as a deep insult. I do however think this is the last vestiges of a generation that thinks they are inferior. The new batsman coming out may not have the technique but have the guts to go for their shots and stand toe to toe with the opposition a la Kartik and Sreesanth. So I think there is hope in the future.
Ram..I do believe that there is definitely hope but an odd bright spot alone is not going to solve decades of 'no belief'. We need some fundemental change and the most important factor is 'in game strategy'. Drawing a parallel from baseball, the 'ingame strategy' will give you course corrections as things move. This test match was lost because of Dravid and Sachin's crawl in the 2nd innings and their inability to read the wicket. The other fundemental change I want is the ability to do small things right all the time. (not one time alone). These are
- never missing a single run out
- never ever slacking in ground fielding
- never convert a two to a one and a three to a 2 while batting.
These 3 mistakes coupled with failure to face bounce (historical weakness) ruined India
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