The Whitewash so far.. England - India Test Matches
England thoroughly deserved to win--
Strauss and his men outplayed a hapless Indian team to go up 3- 0 in the four match test series and get to the No :1 status ranking for Test playing nations in Cricket. Dhoni seems to have lost his"magic"suddenly and Strauss seems to have gained all the "Magic" that Dhoni had. Dhoni could go no wrong but going by the results of the three test matches , Dhoni can do all wrong as well !!
Some obervations ---
When the English team batted , the sun shone , there was no movement of the seam and swing and the Indian bowlers looked clueless as they were carted all over the park and when England bowled , the sun went behind the clouds and there was plenty of swing and movement that the batters found it difficult to deal with . The partial implementation of the Decision Review system ( DRS ) also went the English way. LBW could not be referred and there were several that went against India . How could one explain the fact Harbhajan nicked the ball to his pads in the second test but was given out and then Broad went on to get his hat trick ? .Else Harbhajan would have made plenty of runs ( he has two centuries in test cricket to talk about ) !!
England referred correctly each time they had issues on the bat nicking the ball and the "hot spot" helped them every time . Rahul Dravid did not nick one in the second innings of the third test , but he did not use the DRS.. So conclusion -- India played well , dame luck deserted it …
No
Some of my thoughts that leaves the Indian test team where it is today :
India did very well in the first two tests . They were let down by their bowlers and batters in both tests. In fact , we led in the first innings of the second test and then England fought back .
1. Both the first and second test could have been draws if the batsmen applied themselves to the task on hand. Instead , we had them hobbling at the crease unsure of their foot work ,not sure about which way the ball will move, poor judgement in" leaving" the ball and seeking early warmth and comfort of the dressing room. Except for Rahul Dravid , none of the batsmen were prepared to stay and battle it out , resulting in the Indian team not scoring a total of even 300runs run in total in any of the six test innings that they have played in England in tests so far. That tells you a tale of woes ..
The worrying factor is the fitness and the age of the middle order. Tendulkar , Dravid and Laxman are not getting younger by the day and it is a matter of time that they will call it quits. Do we have their replacements ? No . We need to rebuild the middle order and give more exposure to the likes of Kohli ,Raina , Pujara to name a few
2. The bowlers stood exposed as well in not being able to finish the England batting order that was batting deep till no :10. The dependence on Zaheer clearly stood exposed . Harbhajan needs to be dropped and told to bowl well and we do not need his batting . He is not in the team for his batting ability.We need him as a bowler rather than as a batsmen. Ishant needs to be more consistent and Sreesanth cannot be a bowler who can bowl one good ball in each over and get whacked around for the balance of the five balls he bowls. I do not see any good replacements for these.. We have a problem on hand.
3. Andy Flower, the England Coach did his home work very well . and sos did their batting coach and bowling coach. We have Duncan Fletcher who is the Ex England Coach as the Indian Coach but he was outwitted in strategy , planning and execution of the plan. Is Duncan Fletcher the right choice for the Indian team. His record as coach for the English team is not great and his own country does not want him as its Cricket coach. Did the BCCI miss out a trick here ?
4. As the team moves from one form to another form ( one day to 20 -20 to test cricket ), the team needs more time to get itself used to that form of the game and that was missing on this tour as well. Local conditions matter a lot and the Indian team did not have good settling in time. More practice matches needed .
5. Did the Indian team have a overdose of cricket ? This needs good introspection by BCCI.
6. Overall it was a rugged effort by India - each form of the game failing -- batting , bowling and fielding . England was the far superior side that did everything well and does fortune not favour the brave ?
Honestly, I expected the team to loose -- by a 1-0 margin not a potential 4-0 that is very much in the reckoning.. It is going to take sometime for us to regain the glory of being the No1 team in test rankings. We should be happy that we were perched at the top for the past twenty months or so.
Snippets
The media and hype can be overpowering . Sometimes the expectations and comparisons are ridiculous.
1. Sehwag coming back to the team for the Third test was a big hypo factor. Sehwag was expected to turn the batting around. He did. He got out 'First ball" in both innings. I was aghast at the way he was out in the second innings.
2. Matt Prior is being compared with Dhoni and the statistics tell that Prior is better than Dhoni in recent matches. I could not believe that Prior and Dhoni are being put in the same bracket. More than one Magazine made these comparisons. Prior is just Prior - Dhoni has much more in his armoury to be proud off. Let us do "Apples to Apples" type comparision
3. Talk of England dominating the cricket as did Australia sometime back is emerging. Yes , the current English side is very good but I doubt if they have it in them to hold on to this ranking for long . May be , they will loose it sooner than India held on to it. The ball does not swing as it does in England in any other part of the world and the English will struggle against quality bowling -- whether pace or spin in other parts of the world. One man who is a world class bowler in their ranks in Swann but he is not young … and rest of their bowlers will do well only in English conditions.
talk of Managing expectations ...
Strauss and his men outplayed a hapless Indian team to go up 3- 0 in the four match test series and get to the No :1 status ranking for Test playing nations in Cricket. Dhoni seems to have lost his"magic"suddenly and Strauss seems to have gained all the "Magic" that Dhoni had. Dhoni could go no wrong but going by the results of the three test matches , Dhoni can do all wrong as well !!
Some obervations ---
When the English team batted , the sun shone , there was no movement of the seam and swing and the Indian bowlers looked clueless as they were carted all over the park and when England bowled , the sun went behind the clouds and there was plenty of swing and movement that the batters found it difficult to deal with . The partial implementation of the Decision Review system ( DRS ) also went the English way. LBW could not be referred and there were several that went against India . How could one explain the fact Harbhajan nicked the ball to his pads in the second test but was given out and then Broad went on to get his hat trick ? .Else Harbhajan would have made plenty of runs ( he has two centuries in test cricket to talk about ) !!
England referred correctly each time they had issues on the bat nicking the ball and the "hot spot" helped them every time . Rahul Dravid did not nick one in the second innings of the third test , but he did not use the DRS.. So conclusion -- India played well , dame luck deserted it …
No
Some of my thoughts that leaves the Indian test team where it is today :
India did very well in the first two tests . They were let down by their bowlers and batters in both tests. In fact , we led in the first innings of the second test and then England fought back .
1. Both the first and second test could have been draws if the batsmen applied themselves to the task on hand. Instead , we had them hobbling at the crease unsure of their foot work ,not sure about which way the ball will move, poor judgement in" leaving" the ball and seeking early warmth and comfort of the dressing room. Except for Rahul Dravid , none of the batsmen were prepared to stay and battle it out , resulting in the Indian team not scoring a total of even 300runs run in total in any of the six test innings that they have played in England in tests so far. That tells you a tale of woes ..
The worrying factor is the fitness and the age of the middle order. Tendulkar , Dravid and Laxman are not getting younger by the day and it is a matter of time that they will call it quits. Do we have their replacements ? No . We need to rebuild the middle order and give more exposure to the likes of Kohli ,Raina , Pujara to name a few
2. The bowlers stood exposed as well in not being able to finish the England batting order that was batting deep till no :10. The dependence on Zaheer clearly stood exposed . Harbhajan needs to be dropped and told to bowl well and we do not need his batting . He is not in the team for his batting ability.We need him as a bowler rather than as a batsmen. Ishant needs to be more consistent and Sreesanth cannot be a bowler who can bowl one good ball in each over and get whacked around for the balance of the five balls he bowls. I do not see any good replacements for these.. We have a problem on hand.
3. Andy Flower, the England Coach did his home work very well . and sos did their batting coach and bowling coach. We have Duncan Fletcher who is the Ex England Coach as the Indian Coach but he was outwitted in strategy , planning and execution of the plan. Is Duncan Fletcher the right choice for the Indian team. His record as coach for the English team is not great and his own country does not want him as its Cricket coach. Did the BCCI miss out a trick here ?
4. As the team moves from one form to another form ( one day to 20 -20 to test cricket ), the team needs more time to get itself used to that form of the game and that was missing on this tour as well. Local conditions matter a lot and the Indian team did not have good settling in time. More practice matches needed .
5. Did the Indian team have a overdose of cricket ? This needs good introspection by BCCI.
6. Overall it was a rugged effort by India - each form of the game failing -- batting , bowling and fielding . England was the far superior side that did everything well and does fortune not favour the brave ?
Honestly, I expected the team to loose -- by a 1-0 margin not a potential 4-0 that is very much in the reckoning.. It is going to take sometime for us to regain the glory of being the No1 team in test rankings. We should be happy that we were perched at the top for the past twenty months or so.
Snippets
The media and hype can be overpowering . Sometimes the expectations and comparisons are ridiculous.
1. Sehwag coming back to the team for the Third test was a big hypo factor. Sehwag was expected to turn the batting around. He did. He got out 'First ball" in both innings. I was aghast at the way he was out in the second innings.
2. Matt Prior is being compared with Dhoni and the statistics tell that Prior is better than Dhoni in recent matches. I could not believe that Prior and Dhoni are being put in the same bracket. More than one Magazine made these comparisons. Prior is just Prior - Dhoni has much more in his armoury to be proud off. Let us do "Apples to Apples" type comparision
3. Talk of England dominating the cricket as did Australia sometime back is emerging. Yes , the current English side is very good but I doubt if they have it in them to hold on to this ranking for long . May be , they will loose it sooner than India held on to it. The ball does not swing as it does in England in any other part of the world and the English will struggle against quality bowling -- whether pace or spin in other parts of the world. One man who is a world class bowler in their ranks in Swann but he is not young … and rest of their bowlers will do well only in English conditions.
talk of Managing expectations ...
Comments
great research..no more words to appreciate