Cricket

Disaster Down Under

Kalyan Ashok

The knives are out for the blood of the seniors Sachin, Rahul and Laxman. But they are, indeed, senior enough to understand the nature of the compulsive bloodhounds and the fickle fans.

How the mighty have fallen! India was at the top of world rankings as No.1 team, both in Tests and in One Day Internationals. And, in a matter of seven months, the team has fallen from that pedestal with a resounding crash, losing seven Tests abroad in a row by massive margins. Of the seven Test defeats, India lost four of them by an innings, two in England and two in Australia. In 14 innings, India touched the 300 mark only twice. The only batsman to score a century was Rahul Dravid, who scored three 100s against England. But even Rahul Dravid was a failure in Australia. The chairman of the selection committee, K.Srikkanth, before the tour Down Under began, had claimed,it is the best Indian team ever but they produced the worst possible results in recent memory. India failed in every department of the game, bowling, batting and fielding, and they were simply no match against a young Aussie team, ably led by Michael Clarke, who led by example, with an awesome triple hundred at Sydney. In contrast, M.S. Dhoni, the Indian skipper, was a picture of despair. He failed as a batsman and as a skipper; he was a disaster and he himself admitted in the post match press meet at Perth I am the culprit for this debacle. In bowling, the pace spearhead, Zaheer Khan, met with limited success while Ishant Sharma was luckless. Only the debutant, UmeshYadav, the fastest of them all, was impressive at Melbourne and Perth. In the spin department, Ashwin, was a disappointment and he was hit all over the park in Sydney and rightly dropped for the Perth Test. And fielding has never been the forte of the Indian team. But the biggest failing of the Indian team was its batting. Sehwag and Gambhir never put on a decent opening score together. Dravid, the wall, crumbled against the swing and pace of the Aussies while Sachin

Tendulkar, chasing that elusive 100th 100, simply was not at his usual best. V.V.S. Laxman, who holds the best batting average against Australia among Indians, was utterly disoriented and played substandard knocks, mostly from his memory and this could well be his last series ever. The question now is what lies ahead for India. Should all the seniors be dropped? Well, they are an easy target to fix the blame on. Tendulkar, Dravid and Laxman, are fast approaching their 40s and there is nothing wrong in them deciding to hang in their boots or the selectors omitting them from the team for the next series. In any case, they did not select themselves for this series as well. But they should not be hounded out and publicly lynched in this manner. O Kay, they failed in this series and, except for Dravid, in the earlier away series against England as well. But what about the remaining band of youngsters being touted as the great white hope of the Indian cricket? How many runs have Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Ajinkya Rahane scored? Or Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehwag or Suresh Raina, for that matter? In the next few fixtures, all of which are scheduled for being played at home venues, they will all score big tons and become our heroes once again all of them, young and old alike. The truth is that we have never been comfortable against pace bowling on hard, bouncy wickets just because we do not have them at home and we have no practice in playing in such conditions. When the ball, being hurled at 150 kms/hr is bouncing off a hard surface at different trajectories, your first instinct is to duck and get out of the harms way. But does that logic not apply to the Australians or the South Africans or the English batsmen? It does but, then, how many balls can India hurl at 150 kms/hr? And, are those teams not uncomfortable in Indian conditions and against spin? How many series or matches do they win while touring India? The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars or our skills but in the ICC. If the ICC wants to seriously maintain the international character of the game of cricket, it must standardize the playing conditions so that it does not really matter where the game is being played and at which time of the year. This nonsense about each country being allowed to prepare the pitches to capitalize on the home advantage is bull sh It does not happen in football; it does not happen in hockey or in any other sport. What is so special about cricket except that it is a game played only in England and its former colonies? Surely, it should be possible to evolve standard specifications for the 22-yard strip which makes so much difference to the outcomes of so many international fixtures.

How is the Selection Committee supposed to react to this disaster in Australia and the earlier one in England? ZeiTGeiST ASIAs advice to K Srikant and his colleagues would be to ignore the current clamour and remain focused on their job of identifying the best cricketing talent across the country and inducting it into the team as per the requirements of each series. They should be watching the players perform to see if their technique is right. As Ashwin moaned in Australia, he did not throw a single ball wrong and never erred in line and length. If the wickets did not come his way or Ishant Sharmas or Zaheer Khans for that matter, it is just too bad. You just have to grin and bear it even if you get hit all over the ground or outside it. As they say, if the process is right, the outcomes are bound to follow. Now is the time for Dhoni and his boys to grit their teeth and keep tugging at it. They are a fine bunch. The blood hounds will soon get bored and turn away.