Tendulkar and ineffective bowling drags India down !!

The more he scores, the more questions remain unanswered and that has been theme behind every innings of Sachin (not now but for several years now). His pathetic start (15 balls to open the account) and the maiden overs he gave in 24th over (and I think one more before that) are all an indication that fizz has long drained out of his efforts. Sachin was unable to break the shackles for long and his timing and placement was simply missing and in the end, his innings did more damage than good. He somehow carried on but his effort was painful and a scoring rate of 69 in this day and age is utter nonsense. The pitch was docile at best and the SA attack could be termed industrious and nothing more. There was the usual glare and stare from Nel and Ntini ran in fast but nothing earthshaking and nothing unfamiliar to Sachin but he simply choose to be an accumulator at a miserly pace until his innings ruined things once and for all. Dravid was ok (with a scoring rate of nearly 80) but he too should have pressed the pedal early but he was weighed down by the monotonous hogging of the strike by Sachin, who was simply unable to rotate the strike. I watched his run out amidst a small crowd of spectators and not one reacted with that 'robbed off a deserving 100' comment, when he got run out at 99 !! That said it all since there was a collective sigh of relief, when he got out.
The middle order/lower middle order of Rohit Sharma,Chawla and Powar showed their lack of class in batting by not applying themselves; India managed some 50 runs short of where there should have been, mainly due to Sachin's excruciatingly slow innings and clearly missed Dhoni's finishing touch.
When India bowled, they knew well that they have to get Kallis out but somehow they did everything except that. RP Singh, has somehow survived for so long without ever looking threatening. His wickets in Bangladesh were mainly some innocuous leg side glances going to keeper (except the odd good one) and here too he looked singularly unimpressive, even against Ireland. With Zaheer off color in the initial spell, it was left to Piyush for some magic. Chawla did not disappoint but SA was always under control and total was always gettable, as long as Kallis stayed and he did stay put. There was a breif period of hope, when Zaheer trapped Boucher and there was still some to get but Philander seems to be a good find and India drifted to another defeat. For some strange reason, Dravid refused to bring on Sachin and the common place stuff dished out by Yuvaraj is not going to win you games. Powar too is not going to be effective even against a lame duck side like SA, who can not handle spin. I was imagining how Srilanka would have played a similar match (1st of all, they don't have to be content with the non-performers, who chase records alone in the top end of the batting); they would have simply strangled SA with Murali's breath taking wickets and Jaya bottling one end up. Somehow, I got the feeling that India was afraid to win even; they never looked like running away with it, even though it was well within their grasp. So, another day and another loss- yikes, it gets tiring to repeat it over and over.